Late yesterday we got  word of a debate between Livable Boulder and A Better Boulder in the Boulder Creek  room at the Boulder Public  Library. It was arranged by… well, we are not sure . Plan Boulder said they set up the debate. One boulder and Better boulder said they arranged it. And everyone said that Liveable Boulder was divisive except Livable Boulder who asked ” why is the other side being so mean”.
See 3 Videos here on Face Book 
We would have liked to heard the debate, but by start time there was a line out the door. Hundreds were being turned away including our news department who couldn’t get within 10′ of the room. They should have held the event in the Library theater. They are definitely going to have to redo it. The overflow crowd could not hear a thing.  Former city council woman Allyn Fienberg stood next to our reporter and pointed out everyone who was in the attendance. They included half the city council, environmentalists, activists and boomers. Mostly boomers.  There were hardly any millennials in the room.

The techies who made so much noise about how horrible Boulder is did not show up. Becky Boone who F Bombed her way to to notoriety at Ignite Boulder made a brief appearance. ( we thought the city fired her). She told  Millennials that they better vote in this next election if they want the Livable Boulder initiative to fail, showed up for all of 30 seconds and then disappeared. Her peeps were not there.

Allyn Fienberg told us ” they never show up and don’t vote either.  They represent 20 % of the population and they come and go every semester… so they are not real citizens and they don’t act like it. … They want to live in Boulder , they want to change Boulder. They want  their Big tech companies to take over the city, but they don’t respect Boulder…….People live in Boulder because of it’s beauty…its access to the national forests and parks…. but we don’t want to see Better Boulder destroy the downtown area with big tech companies ” Fienberg also said that tech companies  could easily move to Gunbarrel Industrial park and have plenty of housing there.

Absent were startup  gurus Andrew Hyde, his boss Brad Feld and their kids. Andy Shulties  former councilman  who runs Better Boulder was there, but left half way through.. that is not a good sign.

Feinberg said that Will Toor was on the wrong side of the issues.. namely” letting each neighborhood decide it’s own growth”… People standing around Fienberg chimed in “it will be a disaster”.

Will Toor former Mayor and founder of Better Boulder, said that Boulders best years were ahead of us and that Livabile boulder was standing in the way of progress and growth.

Several attendees said that Brad Feld ,  Tech Stars were pouring millions of dollars into A Better Boulder to stop Livable Boulders no growth initiative. Feinberg said “follow the money ”  Feld has flooded downtown Boulder with his startup companies taking over all of the office space. Now they want the rest of the city. Feinberg said that they are  relative newcomers to town like Feld completely miss the essence of Boulder… what happens here is Companies start here and then when the get big enough they move. They don’t get to take over the city or they move to an office park or build within our rules.

by Jann Scott

Boulder channel 1 news