May Newsletter

Welcome back! We hope you’re excited about the longer and warmer (but not too warm!) days and for the progress to come in our community. We’re here to bring you the latest news and happenings around town. Let’s get to it!

A Help Request:

For most of us in Boulder, the events of May 14 at the Tops grocery store in Buffalo, NY brought us right back to King Soopers at Table Mesa on March 22, 2021. What makes Buffalo’s tragic incident so heinous is that it is clearly a continuation of the violent anti-Black racism that America has harbored for centuries. It must be stopped. Donate now to Black-led organizations in Buffalo here.

Locally, you can do something. Our own city council is preparing to pass municipal gun violence prevention measures and is in need of vocal community support. On June 7, a three-hour public hearing is scheduled, after which the council will take a vote. Please make plans to sign up to speak in support of stricter gun laws, which will “raise the age limit for purchase and possession of a firearm to 21; require gun stores to post a health warning about the dangers guns pose to their owners, children and others; add a 10-day waiting period for purchase and ban concealed carry near parks, playgrounds, churches and other public spaces.”

Please note: NRA-affiliated groups will likely oppose these measures.

Also note: meetings are still fully remote so no need to show up to Council Chambers. Keep tuned to our socials and we’ll send out a comment sign up link when it becomes available.

Awesome:

We’re super excited to be restarting our coffee MeetUps. You might remember when we launched this group we were hosting monthly coffees in the lead up to the 2019 election. The pandemic paused our social functions but we’re feeling good about getting going again (in an outdoor venue 🙂).

To kick this off, we’d love it if you’d join us in welcoming candidate for Boulder County Commissioner, Elaina Shively at 7:30a on June 2nd at Bona Coffee Roasters (inside Sanitas Brewing). Come find us on the back porch where we’ll have coffee waiting for you. We’ll go over a few current events, things we’re working on, and then turn it over to Elaina to tell us about her work in restorative justice, as well as what she wants to accomplish as a county commissioner, along with some Q&A at the finish, we can’t wait!
 

And as a heads up: primary ballots will be arriving in your mailboxes in a few weeks, we have two contested elections, Commissioner and Sheriff that we’ll be voting on. Election day is June 28th. Find a ballot dropbox location here.

Not Awesome:

During last week’s Council discussion about a proposed Even-Year Municipal Election ballot measure, we were frustrated (but not surprised) that Republican Bob Yates considered more people participating in elections “[would not] improve the quality of the election.” With voting rights being infringed across the country, this is hardly the position any Boulder Councilor should be taking, even a Republican one. We strongly support moving to even-year elections where we see a near 100% increase in ballots being returned and a 60% increase in local issue participation. These are good things that will strengthen democracy in our community.

Additionally, we were enraged at Jared Polis threatening to veto a very light rent control bill that was being considered to protect residents of mobile home parks. His threat killed the bill before it had a chance. What on earth could compel someone to threaten minor protections being considered for some of our state’s most vulnerable residents? Not cool, dude.

Up Next:

Did we tell you about our coffee meet-ups?!  Seriously, come join us :)

Interesting:

President Biden announced plans for increasing the housing supply in the country due to us being at least 1.5 million homes short of where we should be (the real figure is likely far more). Additionally, we’ve increasingly been looking into the concept of Social Housing, how it can be used to put a massive dent in our housing deficit, and allow us to provide more housing options for both Boulder’s oldest residents and its newest arrivals.

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As always, find us on our social channels for the latest news and views.

Till next time,

BP