Boulder City Council,

Having volunteered thousands of hours on Boulder campaigns in the past few years, I realize democracy is always hard. Making change is hard. Organizing is hard.

In a year where a pandemic threatens the health and safety of our community, we’re just asking for you to make democracy safe and possible.

I want to soundly reject the requests from PLAN Boulder County to not hold a public hearing on putting issues on the ballot.

“Please don’t burden us with this unnecessary distraction”—people facing high rents and unstable housing are not a distraction.

“None of these initiatives are dealing with an emergency”— likely evictions and their effects are an emergency.

“Let us postpone them until 2021 when we can have a full public discussion and voting by an informed public”—we’re asking for a public process and a public vote in 2020, when voter turnout will be nearing 90%.

A failure to take action to protect democracy is a failure to govern. We and many in Boulder are asking you to give democracy a chance when it is harder than usual this year.

Eric Budd
Bedrooms Are For People