Letters and Comments

Planning Commission Public Comments, 10/13/2021, submitted by Cookie Schaus

By November 3, 2021 No Comments

As a former member of Planning I would like to take this opportunity to thank Town Council for
having appointed me to this position. I do have a few comments that I would like to express
regarding proposed ordinances that have been presented to City Council for their review:

These ordinances and table of uses were carefully constructed by, in some cases, groups of
Boulder citizens in several meetings with Planners, input from legal and professional people,
and public hearings. Something that we as a board always considered and was foremost in
our minds was the Vision Statement, which was created from a community-wide survey and is
a list of 13 items. These were sorted and arranged from the most wished-for at the top and so
on down the line. They were then entered into the town documents. It is shown on page 13 of
the General Plan listed as the towns goals (5.2).

Also thrown into the mix is the consideration of what Boulder’s infrastructure can
accommodate. This changes year by year as tourism increases. We rely on good hearted
volunteers for emergency medical and fire services. It seems that there is one law enforcement
officer in town periodically. This is not even addressing town septic, water and road issues.

To get to my point: What the Planning Board sends forward to the Town Council for review and
at some point approval has in most cases taken many hours of research and formulation. The
suggested ordinances regarding housing, RV parks, camping, commercial facilities, etc are not
arbitrary and have been researched, talked about, and constructed to be legal. Calling this a
“starting point” is misleading to the audience and diminishes the amount of research and
discussion that went into the creation of the ordinance. Town Council obviously has the last
say on these matters; I dearly hope that some research and documentation by Town Council
relating to proposed ordinance modifications makes its way to meetings.

Cookie Schaus,

October 13, 2021