The purpose of Title IX, as you say, is to prevent sex discrimination in all federally-funded educational programs. It is not to transform those programs into law enforcement agencies.

Ending sex discrimination and ending violence and assault are two vastly different things. One is an institutional problem that is addressed by Title IX, and must be corrected by the affected institutions. The other is a problem of aberrant behavior by individuals who don't know how to behave in a civilized society. That must be addressed by law enforcement and the courts.

The legal system has been designed and created to provide as fair and just a means of dealing with violations of law as we currently have. It's not perfect by any means, but it works better to serve that purpose than anything else we have. Putting other organizations, such as schools, into the role of enforcing law, is essentially vigilantism.

Schools should do their best to comply with Title IX by ending sex discrimination with respect to education and employment within their institutions. They should also do their best to provide a safe environment for everyone on campus. Dealing with assault and violence should be left to law enforcement.

The council has a habit of thinking they will get all the information they need from advocates of the thing they're thinking about doing. Bicycling advocates advised them on re-sizing, and green advocates advised them on muni. Instead of getting all the information they need, they get only the information the advocates think is relevant. That leaves out a great deal of important information, with predictable results.

Limiting what you know when you take on a project leaves you wide open to being blind-sided by what you don't know. The experienced project manager knows that what you don't know will actually hurt you. The council seems to not get this. They limit what they know not only repeatedly, but apparently purposely. Expecting a different result.

The city came up with a bad plan, pursued it foolishly and has been getting its butt kicked regularly by the PUC, Xcel, etc. Nice of the city to offer to be more flexible. That will fix everything.

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

A poll conducted by the Boulder Area Realtor Association to determine how people feel about trying to control growth is not much different from a poll conducted by the Boulder Area Coyote Association to determine whether people think the door to the henhouse should be left open.

> "Toor said the purpose of the poll was to understand which arguments best resonate with voters." Isn't that a poll to determine how best to run a push poll?

Once again, Boulder's leaders will get polling information from a group that shares their bias, so they can hear only what they want to hear.

David -- your letter is actually, point for point, a great description of why 300 and 301 are needed.

Your first paragraph alone summarizes why they should be implemented. There are quite a few people in Boulder who think that as "... difficult, frustrating, unpredictable, and expensive" building in Boulder is now, there is still entirely too much of it going on without regard for impact on the community, neighborhoods and the character of Boulder. Making it more difficult would be a good thing.

Putting something in the city charter may be the only way to have rules that can't be easily changed by the council. The council has made it repeatedly clear that it's not bound by any of the restrictions already in place. It regularly issues exemptions to anything it feels should be exempted for any given project. Landmarking, height restrictions, setback requirements, parking requirements, etc., have no meaning when there's enough money behind a project. There seems to be no way to rein the council in, and that's one of the main drivers behind 300 and 301.

It's already contentious and expensive to determine "... the costs versus the positive contributions of any development." The problem is that that evaluation doesn't happen beforehand in daylight, but rather after the fact, when it's too late for public input. Many people think that evaluation should happen before the council commits to a project, with input from the people who will be most affected by it. Hence the momentum behind 300 and 301.

301 may indeed overlook "... the total picture of all costs of developing in Boulder" but you're talking about only the financial costs. You cite the cost of getting approval for West Pearl Street as an example. There's actually another cost that is overlooked by the project itself. That's the cost to Boulder's character and beauty. There are an awful lot of people who questioned the wisdom of putting that monstrosity smack in the middle of the west end of town, and wish that the cost of approving it had been much, much higher.

Having a city council that acts responsibly with respect to development in Boulder would be great. Instead, we have a council that issues exemptions, at their whim, to every rule that has been put in place to control what happens to Boulder, its citizens, its neighborhoods and its character. 300 and 301 are the response to to the complete absence of that sense of responsibility within the council.

What Boulder needs is a City Council that understands its job. That job is to make things work better for the residents of its city. They need to understand what those residents want and need, and do their best to make it so.

Most of the members of the current council think their job is to transform Boulder into a city that fits their vision, regardless of how it affects the lives of the residents of their city, and regardless of what those residents want. Their attitude seems to be, "We know what's best for you; we will force it on you; and you will like it whether you like it or not." They have pursued policies that make Boulder more crowded, make it more difficult to get around, make it more difficult for businesses to operate, and destroy the character of Boulder. They almost always support new development. They recommend violation of a moratorium on height limit exemptions that they themselves put in place. They narrow thoroughfares without regard for the effect on businesses and transportation, or feedback from residents. They landmark unremarkable structures and plan to move the bandshell, which was landmarked by the city. They follow their own personal agendas, without regard for so much as consistency, let alone what's actually best for the residents and businesses of their city.

They have transformed the role of the city council from working for the benefit of the city into what they see as a benevolent dictatorship. What they're doing is far from benevolent, and we don't need a dictatorship. We need leaders who listen to their constituents.

The city council has a bias and GoBoulder has a bias. The council relies on GoBoulder to tell them what they want to hear, and GoBoulder obliges. Neither of them is interested in data or statistics that show something they don't want to know.

There have been numerous evaluations of the released public feedback that show public sentiment running against the Folsom Fiasco, including the Daily Camera piece. If anyone on the council is paying attention, they have to know that what Kathleen Bracke of GoBoulder told them was inaccurate to say the least. So far, they've made it pretty clear that they don't care what the public thinks about their social engineering projects. It would be refreshing if we had a city council that did.

The sidewalk is safer for bicyclists than the bike paths. They know it. Simple as that. "Right-sizing" has done nothing to make biking safer on Folsom. What it has done is make traffic worse, hurt businesses on Folsom and cause more pollution. There was no good reason to do it in the first place, and there's no good reason to keep it.

I have experienced this firsthand, and witnessed others experiencing it too. I live on Folsom between Canyon and Pearl, so I've had perhaps a better opportunity to experience and see what happens there. The frequently-cited 30 second average increase in travel time is misleading because it averages what takes place during daylight hours and doesn't reflect what's happening to people during the peak travel times. The actual delay during those times can be anywhere from 3 to 15 minutes, depending on which direction you're going, how badly the turn lanes are backed up, how often the crosswalk lights are triggered, etc. Granted, 5 minutes is more typical than 15, but 15 happens.

My credibility is not the issue. How the lane revision has negatively affected hundreds, maybe thousands of travelers, local businesses, pollution-generating idling cars, and the safety of bicyclists and pedestrians, is.