BS Summary: This article contains 31 faulty reasoning types, including Confirmation Bias, Pessimism Bias, and Self-Serving Bias, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 37.7% saturation with 354 hits. Analysis detected 1,678 faulty-reasoning hits from 940 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 44.9% and a BS Rank of 53% (13,330 of 27,911 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 52.20% of the article peer group.
If you have been following the doings of the Boulder City Council, you are probably aware that I resigned my seat on the council last week in protest of the vote we took to change our current policy and accept federal grants for the airport, an act that requires us to commit to operating the airport in perpetuity under the jurisdiction of the FAA.
I did not plan it this way, but it turned out to be a fairly dramatic, mic-drop moment.
I read a few comments explaining my decision, acknowledged my respect and affection for my colleagues (real, not theatrics), and limped off the dais with my cane (I am recovering from a hip fracture) and out the door.
Some of my colleagues knew in advance that I might do this (although I did not decide to do it until the actual moment), but I think shock was the featured emotion of the evening.
Here one moment, gone the next.
OK, so there was a bit of drama, but this begs the question: Why take this step?
In stepping down, I lost my voice as an elected official and the ability to have an impact on a range of other issues that will affect Boulder in the future.
I also know that by leaving before I completed my term, I disappointed some of those who supported me in my three election campaigns.
All of this has been pointed out to me by a number of people, but I knew this before I stepped down.
All in all, this was as draconian an action as I could have taken.
Again, the question is: Why?
The answer is that I believe not only that we acted in error, but that the scope of our failure in going in this direction required a response beyond merely recording a vote in opposition to our new policy.
I was not merely saying that I object, but that the depth of my objection makes it impossible for me to continue to serve the city as a member of the council.
Every poll taken in this community — every one — lists housing affordability as one of the top two or three concerns.
Yet we continue to develop housing that is neither affordable to middle-income residents nor attractive to families.
Over 90% of the housing developed in Boulder in the past five years has been either market-rate rentals or student housing.
Is it any wonder that we are losing families and our schools are losing children?
The airport provided us with an opportunity to change the equation.
Because we own the land, if only we could get control over it, it could be developed as we want, not as out-of-town developers want.
The airport’s 179 acres could be home to 1,500 to 2,000 units, and that is without pushing density.
The impact on our overpriced housing market could be immense.
Now, I must be honest: Doing so would not be easy.
It would require us to let all existing covenants we have entered into expire, which would be in 2040, and then engage in litigation with an FAA that is desperate to keep us within the system.
Would it work?
I don’t know, but I thought it was a risk worth taking.
My brethren disagreed.
In addition, until 2040, we would have to find the money to properly maintain the airport with no support from federal funds.
And here is where my second set of problems arises.
I am convinced that we did not properly analyze how much money we actually needed without federal funds or how we could minimize that amount, and that we never really looked at other sources of money that could be used to fund the airport’s needs beyond federal grants.
I asked: How about a land loan against the property?
How about a certificate of participation (a fancy mortgage)?
How about issuing a very small bond?
How about using a very small portion of our infrastructure tax funds (also known as CCRS funds)?
I never got an answer.
The point is that we never went to any great lengths to analyze these possibilities.
It is simply easier to take federal funds and abandon any hope of ever recapturing the use of the airport land.
And we did precisely that.
I have no interest in trying to relitigate the decision made by my colleagues.
It is done, it is over, and the matter is now closed.
But I simply could not treat what we did as business as usual, just another vote that I lost during my almost seven years on the council.
And trust me, I have lost plenty of votes in those years.
But I believe that this one was qualitatively different in terms of what we have given up, and given up permanently.
In the last five years, we have barely constructed any units of standalone, middle-income starter homes: That product does not exist in Boulder.
Where is it going to come from now?
The Planning Reserve, which is largely privately owned and will require between $600 million and $1 billion of new infrastructure to bring online?
Who will build a 1,300-square-foot starter home to keep young families in Boulder?
I am afraid it will be no one, and the Aspenization of Boulder will continue unimpeded.
And that is why I resigned my seat on the council.
That is why I did what I did.
And I stand by my decision.
The post Mark Wallach: Why I resigned from Boulder City Council appeared first on The Boulder Reporting Lab .
Speakers
1speaker2.0%attributed speech921writer words
Selected voice
0%flagged-word coverageThe Boulder Reporting Lab
19 attributed words100% of attributed speech91% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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