Why this place sucks

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by Wayne Laugesen (letters@boulderweekly.com)

Politicians everywhere exploit Boulder when trying to win votes. By saying they're not of Boulder, or by outright insulting Boulder, politicians gain favor.

Former Longmont Mayor Leona Stoecker, who's running for Colorado's House District 11, will win hearts and minds with a GOP flyer that says: "Did we mention her opponent is from BOULDER. He doesn't speak for us..."

U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard picked on Boulder for fearing science, because the community obsesses over advances in crop engineering-developments that could end famine and feed the world with less environmental degradation than traditional agricultural practices. ("Pro-gressives" once thought electricity would kill us all, too.)

Boulder County Commission candidate James Murphy, a Republican, distributes bumper stickers that say "Forget Tibet, free Boulder."

Some take Boulder bashing as a compliment. To self-absorbed Boulder elitists, all those rubes who make up the portion of Colorado that lies outside the greenbelt simply aren't smart enough to value our progressive ideas.

"The whole thing is that Colorado's really a low self-esteem state," said Republican political consultant Katy Atkinson, trying to help the Daily Camera understand why so many candidates pick on Boulder. "You look up at Boulder, and it's affluent, well-educated, all those professors."

Unfortunately, it's not an accurate explanation as to why politicians make fun of us. The real reason is this: Boulder stands out as an abysmal public-policy failure on almost every count. We're everything progressive leaders would avoid: a mono-culture of congestion, exclusion, commercial decay (read: Crossroads Mall), environmental abuse (read: in-commute nightmare) and social injustice (read: most land deals by the Boulder County Commission).

As a long-time Boulder resident, I love this city. I love the scenery, high-altitude air and ever-changing climate. In Boston, New York, or Philadelphia, however, it's not the natural qualities of Boulder that people want to discuss. Instead, people in the real world laugh when you say you're from Boulder. Then they strike up conversations about unsolved murders, a lawsuit against the sun, and bird crap that threatens public health.

What sucks most about Boulder, I tell my East Coast and Midwestern friends, is the Boulder City Council and the Boulder County Commission. While each of these entities have consisted of a few enlightened and amazing people, as a whole they're possibly the silliest governing bodies in the free world. If local leaders think this community gets picked on because we're all well educated, they're delusional. To the world outside Boulder, we look impoverished-as in, morally bankrupt. Just to refresh the community's collective memory, as we're bashed relentlessly during another campaign season, here are some of the obvious reasons that Boulder gets picked on:

• The murder of a 6-year-old, with no answers six years later. The fact that this scandalized people everywhere but in Boulder, where politicians considered it little more than a low-brow tabloid newspaper concern to entertain workers in the Bible Belt. Not funny, not enlightened.
• A poor, old woman whose wheelchair gets stuck in the in the manure of non-native rodent birds the city has chosen to protect at a mobile home park it owns. Not funny, at least to the people who love this woman.
• The costly "show-'em-all-how-weird-and-enlightened-and-progressive-we-are-here-in-Boulder" lawsuit against international banks. The banks lend cash to businesses that are improving things for people who struggle to survive in under-developed countries. Comfortable liberals in Boulder, however, theorize that these businesses contribute to "Global Warming," so we're suing. Not very funny, when one realizes that city workers are losing their jobs because their employer is going broke. Even hippie-dippy Berkeley knew better than to join this lawsuit.
• The loss of neighborhood schools, caused by the mass exodus of families with kids as a result of exclusionary planning and zoning. Not the work one would expect of educated leaders who we're supposed to believe are secretly envied by critics outside the greenbelt.
• The plan to add a $250,000 liability to the city's dwindling budget in order to hire a "deputy city manager for economic development," after the city spent the past decade gleefully running businesses out of town like spoiled rich kids flaunting an inheritance. Not funny, not smart.
• The ruling of county commissioners to make a family near Longmont-already ill from sewer gas-live on top of raw sewage so that passers-by wouldn't have to look at a temporary mobile home while the sewage problem was resolved. (And dozens of county decisions similar to this). Not funny, and in fact the type of leadership one expects only from Third World dictators.
• The various regulatory practices-i.e. occupancy restrictions, low-density zoning-that cause obscene amounts of in-commuting. Not enlightened, and not consistent with the purported values of a city that blames other parts of the world for "Global Warming." You see, if new businesses in Zambia or Zaire are harming the planet with emissions, just what are we doing with regulations that directly result in more traffic on South Boulder Road, the Boulder Turnpike and the Diagonal? We're contributing to "Global Warming," if the city council's fears about exhaust are legitimate. (Please, somebody sue Boulder for causing "Global Warming.")

The list of reasons why we get teased could go on and on, and modern Boulder bashing is far from all-in-fun. Instead, it's politicians saying, "That community is tragic, and I won't make those mistakes."