"...when legal marijuana first exploded in 2009..."
"...mostly mom and pop businesses that are well rooted in the community...."
I hate it when marijuana explodes, but like it deeply rooted in the community.
Boulder adopted very stringent rules early on because when the feds go after state MJ businesses, they go after low hanging fruit first, the cases that have regulatory weaknesses that make them easier to win in court.
Homeowners can borrow against their equity and can reverse-mortgage their homes, so rising house valuations benefit homeowners in those positions. For low income homeowners who just want to occupy their hard-won primary residence, the ever-increasing property taxes can become prohibitive. Our current property tax system exerts a a steady, long term pressure toward economic cleansing.
I would say voting for representative gubmit is having "direct input." On the other hand, having to ride herd on what your self-appointed neighborhood activists may get up to is losing input, unless you are one of the ones who have a lot of time to devote to a new, unofficial layer of gubmit. You skip right to the happy results, passing right over the huge mare's nest and civic clusterflock that implementing the neighborhood power initiative will inevitably cause. The important question isn't "Is this a good idea?" but "Will this work?" Will all the machinery and apparatus created for implementation also become legally a part of the city charter? Lordy! I've voted invariably anti-development for 50 years here, but I have deep reservations about such hasty tinkering with the city charter.
BTW, I don't work for or know anyone in local gubmit; or any developers, spec builders, scrapers or house flippers; I don't belong to any local advocacy groups or organizations; I have no local bidness interests or investments, and am not involved in, or have any personal, real estate projects of any kind. I don't presently work on behalf of any political organizations or political campaigns. And I sure don't have any pals on the newspaper.
This has been going on for a long time, and developers have spent a lot of money before supporting and opposing different measures, in many cases with little avail, but their opposition does not automatically mean something is a good idea. The initiatives are not the sole and last chance to rein in development, despite the faux crisis atmosphere. If voters change the composition of council, they will change the discussion about development without buggering the city charter.
If you accept the idea that anything developers oppose must be a good idea, you are easily played.
I don't think the punishment model of firing everyone with any experience and starting over with a fresh batch is a good idea. It's expensive, for one thing. These aren't political appointments but personnel, so they can't be summarily fired. The City has a lot invested in its staff, and they should certainly be expected to learn and benefit from experience, including failures. They need to improve their tin ear where public opinion is concerned for one thing. A purge is the lazy answer, and a costly one.
Exactly. freddy makes some thoughtful observations, but promoting the idea of a single-issue litmus test for city council is not a useful approach. The right-sizing issue has been ridiculously overblown. It was always apparent to me that this experiment could be undone much more easily than transportation experiments cast in concrete, and probably would be undone. Mistakes happen. There is no reason to hit the panic button when they do.
I think you are right. Note that differing opinions are not well tolerated by the Camera claque though all this discussion and "debate" is supposedly a civic good.. If city gubmit is a monoculture, the Camera bubble is another, oppositional one. "Geographical representation" is a poor reason to vote for someone for council. West of Broadway has NOT been the focus of previous councils' attention or the primary beneficiary of infrastructure or other spending, so there is nothing to "reverse." This is a red herring. Anyone who has been able to vote for all candidates in all previous elections and then claim, As Cote does, that he has not been represented is signaling that he will be representing one part of town if elected.
There has always been a bitter and angry claque of complainers about local gubmit, regardless of changes to the city council, and I expect there always will be. The Camera has served to spotlight this contingent, but it is certainly nothing new.
Boehner's exit will provide greater opportunities for the political and religious fundies in the House to punish the rest of the country for daring to move on to the 21st century instead of following them back into the 19th.
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