Letters to the editor: CU South; housing; Council candidates; go vegan

Daily Camera letters, Daily Camera, Boulder, Colo.
·5 min read

Aug. 27—Barrie Hartman: CU South: A newspaper's job

I hope those who are trying hard to resolve the much-too-old South Boulder Campus controversy will take a serious look again and again at the Daily Camera's editorial last Sunday ("CU can be the hero in this story").

Editorial Page Editor Julie Marshall provided a perspective with sensible steps that might be taken to bring peace in a war that, embarrassingly, has lasted even longer than the disaster in Afghanistan.

What was remarkable about the editorial was its calmness — no shouting, no fixing blame on one side or the other — just solid information and possible actions based on an impressive amount of research and reaching out to many different voices from the past and present.

Give the Daily Camera the credit it deserves for doing what a good community newspaper must do. And that is performing the hard job of taking on fiery, complicated issues like the South Campus rather than standing back for fear of the public's reaction.

Barrie Hartman

Former Daily Camera Editor and Editorial Page Editor

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Fiona Pigott: Housing: A story about sharing

For me, and for many young people in Boulder, my housing story is a story about sharing.

I arrived in 2010 to go to school and never left. In 2017, I moved into a townhome with a housemate I met on Craigslist. In January of 2020, she (a therapist working in low-income clinics) and I (an engineer) pooled money to buy our house, where we now live with two additional housemates. The income from renting rooms helps pay the mortgage, and all four of us have a place that's near busses, has bike storage, and is near work.

I often tell my story when discussing occupancy limits and I've been told that my situation — six bedrooms and three cars to four people and one poodle — isn't a problem. I've been told that the rule is only to "keep students under control" — callously admitting that the goal is to evict their least favorite neighbors. Control-hungry neighborhood groups have no issue with households of people they like or know personally bending the rules, but they agitate to narrow any expansion of housing to exclude students, impose income restrictions, and exempt certain neighborhoods.

My message is this: such exclusions stifle communities and reduce opportunities for people like me, my co-owner, and our housemates. Sharing (often with more than three people) has enabled us to stay in Boulder over the years that we've been here, to save money, and to build a community. Eventually, sharing led to an opportunity to buy a house in a friendly South Boulder neighborhood, where we water our neighbors' tomatoes and help chase down their escaped dogs. I hope that Bedrooms Are For People makes that kind of community, friendship, and cooperation possible for more of us.

Fiona Pigott

Longmont

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Nick Lenssen: Council candidates: Please do more research

On Wednesday, candidates for the Boulder City Council had their first public session at the Boulder JCC. They responded to a series of questions on issues that are of importance to the future of our community, including supporting local businesses, climate change, homelessness, and housing affordability — all tough issues to resolve.

In addition, all candidates were asked to spend one minute presenting their views on the proposed CU South Campus annexation agreement between the City of Boulder and the University of Colorado. I applaud the candidates' concern about downstream flooding from South Boulder Creek and the need to take action, but I worry that many of the candidates are not sufficiently informed on the issue and urge them to take a second look at their positions.

The proposed annexation agreement is planning for a 100-year flood. Although this level of protection might have been sufficient 10 to 20 years ago, the growing impacts of climate change — a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor, as demonstrated by recent floods in Tennessee and elsewhere — suggest that preparing only for a 100-year flood is inadequate.

Unfortunately, the current (and potentially future) City Council appears destined to spend tens of millions of dollars on a solution that, while providing peace of mind for downstream residents, will not prevent damage from the types of floods we should be preparing for. But once annexed, Boulder will have no recourse for additional measures — and as CU has demonstrated for the past 25 years, it does not concern itself with flooding in Boulder's neighborhoods.

I hope that the candidates for City Council will continue to do their research on this important issue. The winners of the fall election might end up having their legacy determined by their future vote on whether or how to annex CU's South Campus.

Nick Lenssen

Boulder

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Rebecca Libauskas: Food choice: Go vegan now

Go vegan now — it's an emergency. Climate change is accelerating due to greenhouse gases from human emissions, according to a momentous new report released by the United Nations. But there is hope. If everyone does their part in cutting greenhouse gas emissions, our descendants may still have a place to call home.

Start saving the planet by what you put in your grocery cart. Meat-eaters are responsible for two and a half times as many dietary greenhouse gas emissions per day as vegans. And the U.N. states that raising animals for slaughter is "one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global."

While driving less and installing solar panels can't hurt, experts agree that the most significant step we can take as individuals to stop climate change is not eating meat, eggs, and dairy.

If you are serious about saving the world — and saving animals — switch to healthy vegan eating today. See www.PETA.org for more information and a free vegan starter kit.

Rebecca Libauskas

The PETA Foundation