Members of our Community Editorial Board, a group of community residents who are engaged with and passionate about local issues, respond to the following question: A few potential Boulder ballot issues for this fall’s election are beginning to emerge, including measures on council member pay, executive sessions and the future of the airport. Your Take? The hottest and most likely ballot issues this election cycle are the fate of the Boulder Airport and City Council compensation. Turning the airport into houses is just another affordable housing canard to dupe voters into supporting the real cause: grounding noisy planes.
People living near airports hate them. I get that. I live near an airport (JeffCo’s RMMA) and I hate it too.
But, like with so many issues today, people do not want to be honest for fear that they won’t get general public support. It’s fashionable to tag your chosen issue as disproportionally affecting BIPOCs or increasing CO2 emissions, regardless of relevance. It immediately tags any dissenters as either racist or climate “deniers.
” In the case of the airport, leaded fuel is one of those tags, even though the lead levels around the airport are lower than the state average. Opponents of the airport aren’t concerned about leaded fuel (and they shouldn’t since it is a red herring) but reach for any straw to rope in the unsuspecting populace with “Don’t you care about the kids?” To paraphrase Rodney King, “Why can’t we just be honest w.
