AS THE MILLENNIUM TURNS by Evan Ravitz
(still 5 years ahead of its time)
Published by the Colorado Daily 1/?/95

Don’t believe the auto manufacturers’ PR campaign against higher fuel economy standards, locally called the “Colorado Coalition for Vehicle Choice”, masquerading as a “consumer advocacy group”.

Their letter to this paper in December said “CCVC believes usefulness, size, power and safety should not have to be compromised for increased fuel standards. Until the technology exists to allow both, stricter fuel standards would be a mistake.”

The technology has existed for years, and is explained and documented in an article in the current (Jan ’95) Atlantic Monthly magazine by Amory and Hunter Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute. (RMI is famous for getting electric companies around the country to stop building most new power plants and instead encourage energy conservation.) These “hypercars” far exceed the proposed new standards coming before congress, being, as they say, “safe, affordable and otherwise superior family cars getting several hundred miles per gallon and able to carry four adults”.

For decades, automakers and their mouthpieces like CCVC have fearmongered that lighter, more efficient cars would be dangerous, ignoring the words of Henry Ford that “You do not need weight for strength”, and fighting against the airbags that do make cars far safer. As the Lovins say, “Advanced composites, being amazingly strong and bouncy, can make ultralight composite cars much safer than today’s steel cars.” Our “Stealth” fighters and bombers are 100% composites, as are race car bodies.

I called CCVC’s Director, Pierre Dubois (595-8725) and he gave me the historically revisionist line that the car companies manfully agreed to meet the first federal fuel standards in the ’70s, and did. I remember well they said it was impossible and were forced to do it. They’ll spend millions to repeat the lie, while the Japanese again seize the initiative and do the job. Three-fourths of the U.S. trade deficit with Japan is due to cars and parts.

There are other reasons to use hypercars besides ecological and economic: As RMI writes, “We Americans recently put our kids in .56 MPG tanks and 17 feet-per-gallon aircraft carriers because we didn’t put them in 32 MPG cars- enough, even if we’d done nothing else, to eliminate the need for American oil imports from the Persian Gulf.”

To order the complete, unedited “Reinventing the Wheels” or other materials about energy, water, agriculture and economic renewal, write RMI, Snowmass CO 81654-9199. Include $10 for their fine newsletter. You can take a self-guided tour of their incredible energy-independent building and greenhouse Monday to Friday from 9 to 4. For a guided tour, Tuesday or Friday at 2PM, call (303)927-3851 first. They are located at 1739 Snowmass Creek Road, some 15 miles from Aspen.

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Here’s a tip on how to save your car’s battery and starting system, and, possibly, your life. If you insulate your battery, you may never have problems starting again. Here’s why: A cold battery doesn’t actually charge for about ten minutes until it warms internally. If you drive less than ten minutes, you’re wearing down the charge each time, until you need a jump. So keep your battery warm! Regular fiberglass or styrofoam insulation duct-taped around and if possible under your battery will keep it warm enough that it will start charging much faster each time you start your car. Don’t insulate the top or you’ll overheat and destroy your battery! You can leave the insulation on in the summer. Your car will start easier, with far less wear on the starter. Ask an Alaskan.

AS THE MILLENNIUM TURNS… by Evan Ravitz
Published by the Colorado Daily 10/?/94

This June, the City spent your money to find out how to sell this “big bus” plan to get your vote. The overwhelming “Reasons Why Respondent Would Vote for Transit Tax” were to reduce air pollution and traffic congestion. 2A will increase pollution and marginally affect congestion:

RTD’s own “Riding Checks” show an average of 5.5 passengers at any time on any local bus. But RTD and The American Public Transit Association both say it takes 7 passengers to save fuel (and pollution) compared to each person driving alone. Our looping, weaving, slow bus system is already increasing pollution– roughly 30,000 gallons extra fuel are consumed yearly because of largely empty local buses- except at rush hour and on Broadway. The Transit Plan doubles service, which will actually triple the added pollution: Transportation Division admits they expect only 40-50% more passengers with 100% more buses.

The situation is actually worse because not every passenger would otherwise drive alone- CU’s “RTD Bus Pass Survey” shows three-quarters of student bus riders would otherwise walk, bike, skate or carpool. Funding the promised service increase with the taxes raised won’t leave funds for the touted conversion of buses to propane or natural gas, so the wasted fuel will be mostly diesel, which produces plenty of particulate pollution, our worst problem here.

There are ways to construct a local bus system that will lessen pollution, including: 1. Straighten out the route spaghetti into a grid with many transfer points to make service much faster and encourage bikes on buses. 2. In places and at times with sparse ridership, substitute on-demand vans, which would also serve the handicapped and as delivery service. 3. Stop subsidizing the car problem: city parking fees don’t begin to pay for the land, construction and maintenance costs of parking lots. We all pay the difference in taxes, no matter how much we drive. Drivers should help subsidize the solutions: buses, cycling and walking.

Other reasons to reject 2A:

1. The greater need is for regional buses, funded regionally. City studies show the average bus ride here is 13.1 miles, impossible within city limits. Also, an average of 9.4 passengers ride each regional bus, which does save fuel and pollution. It’s only fair to tax the whole region for more of this, not just in Boulder.

2. 2A’s failure will produce another cover-up. RTD and the City trumpet their bus system, and don’t mention that 7 of 10 local bus routes increase pollution. When doubling the buses doesn’t magically change the situation, they’ll ask for more money.

3. The 2A sales pitch misrepresents the contents of 2A and City Council’s Transit Resolution 707. The ads says cyclists and walkers will be helped. But 707 says buses get first and second funding priority. The City “Modal Shift” study shows we cycle six times and walk nine times as much as we bus! Let’s build on success, not just failure!

4. 2A makes you subsidize growth! Latest City figures show almost all the 3% annual growth in driving miles comes from growth, not us each driving more. But the designers of 2A used discredited figures showing the opposite. So the taxes are designed to make us pay disproportionately for the problems of growth the City refuses to address. (The Slow Growth! initiative will- in 1995.) No wonder over half the pro-2A campaign contributions as reported as of 10/24 to the City Clerk come from developers- led by Boulder’s largest, McStain!

5. 2A promotes the “cult of personality” instead of transportation. The “driving” force is Councilman Tad Kline, who says he was elected to “get Boulder moving”, and wants to provide this moving experience before he has to run for re-election in November ’95. Mr Kline before his election was chair of the Transportation Advisory Board, which, in the City’s “top-down processed democracy” makes him now something like Transportation Czar. 2A is a good example of why the Russians gave up their Czars two revolutions and 77 years ago! If 2A passes, and becomes Boulder’s own DIA, Kline might still get to play Federico Pena, who gave us DIA and is now U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Pena showed he could cut the big deal and suck the big bucks from the taxpayers. 2A is the largest City tax increase since the Open Space tax of 1967, about a 10% increase in the city budget.

Watch the Great Transit Debate between Councilman Kline with Citizen Bellis (pro-2A) versus Councilwoman Feinberg with ex-Councilman Pomerance (anti-2A) Thursday November 3 at 7 PM in UMC room 158. Or see the latter two and Boulder Community Alliance spokesman Kevin Rooney on Channel 54/62 Sundays (October 30th and November 6) 10-11PM. The BCA is promoting a democratically-derived, rational, regional, balanced transportation solution for ’95. Call Kevin at 444-4613.

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Please vote for City issue 2B and County issue 1A, the recycling increases that do work together on a regional problem, like a good transportation system should.

Although Colorado Amendment 12 would make initiatives easier, which I support, it is so loaded with Doug Bruce’s personal baggage and arcana that I will vote no, as I did on his Amendment One for similar reasons, which does force government to ask before going into our pockets for turkeys like 2A.

Please vote for Green Party candidate Phillip Hufford for Governor. The polls say Romer is way ahead, so don’t worry that your vote for Hufford might get you Benson instead. It will send a message to Romer to stop selling us out by, for example, signing Senate Bill 139, the “polluter’s bill of rights”, which gives immunity to prosecution if a company turns itself in for polluting.

If Hufford gets 10% of the vote, then the Greens will qualify as a third party for future elections in Colorado. They will not have to waste their time again with Colorado’s ridiculous petition requirements (which violate the Helsinki Accords on ballot access) when they could be campaigning on an equal footing with the Donkeys and Elephants.

This is no ordinary third party with a set agenda. The Greens favor more true or “direct” democracy, which will get more alternatives on the ballot, not just those for which money talks. Voting by phone makes this practical on a large scale.

GUEST OPINION by Evan Ravitz
Published in the Boulder Sunday Camera 7/31/94

The Boulder chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union strongly objects to the ferocity and violence of the police toward Boulder’s youth and the visiting Rainbow Family, capping weeks of harassment with trumped-up charges, discriminatory enforcement, and illegal seizures of property as part of the so-called zero tolerance policy. Giving away doughnuts is hardly a justification for handcuffing a young man so his wrists bleed, or shoving a young women’s jaw into the bricks so she has trouble talking, as witnesses state.

Two Rainbow Family members and one homeless man addressed us eloquently about these apparent violations of the United States Constitution:

1. The First Amendment: free speech. Tickets were written for “affixing signs” by leaning them against light poles. Arrestee Samuel Mills showed the judge that the ordinance was about commercial signs, and the prosecutor had to back down. Tickets were also written for “erecting signs”, entirely lawful under the “advocacy area” ordinance the ACLU forced the City to enact last year under threat of lawsuit.

2. The Fourth Amendment: no illegal search and seizure. I was an eye-witness Monday to one of the ‘sweeps’ the victims said were conducted every half-hour. The police told them to get all their belongings off the ground, then threw anything the owners weren’t there to protect into a Parks Department truck, which took it away.

3. The Fourteenth Amendment: guaranteeing equal protection under the law. A group of young hackey-sack players was told to get off the mall bricks and onto the grass. They complied, but asked the police why the preppie types hacking on the bricks a few feet away were exempt. Their silence speaks volumes about the discriminatory intent of their actions.

Mr. Mills was shown on the front page of both Boulder newspapers Monday with a beautiful carved staff at the time of his arrest. He brought the broken remaining piece to our meeting along with the Police department receipt for it while he was in jail, with the words “stick is broken” appended. This is a hardwood staff that took deliberate action to vandalize. He is seeking $150 in small claims court.

The police also gave Samuel a ticket for obstructing traffic on 13th Street, when they in fact had closed it to traffic during the Sunday fracas.

Boulder resident Burl Cary and witnesses say a cop struck him in the foot with a nightstick and gave him a ticket for camping, at eight in the morning, because he had a backpack. The cop perjured himself by putting a much earlier time on the ticket.

Is our City Council allowing its appointed Downtown Management Commission to sic the police on visitors and residents alike, when the DMC’s only concern seems to be shopping? These people the Camera calls “undesireables” and “punks” are in fact a Mall attraction. During the entire summer of ’92 the Camera interviewed tourists asking what they liked about the Mall. Responses invariably included the weird dress styles, the ’60s atmosphere, the variety of entertainment, and the mix of ages. The ACLU has just received several calls from longtime residents (who shop) expressing the same sentiments.

The Camera’s “worried merchants” should leave the kids (etc.) alone and get the DMC and Council to reverse their zero tolerance policy. Are we going back to the days when long hair and non-business dress was probable cause for arrest? Every person has the right to enjoy the Mall without being singled out. Laws should be enforced legally.

The DMC should abandon its attempt to “Disneyfy” the Mall. At the April 30th Downtown Open House at the Boulder Theater the DMC proudly announced that we were following a process that came from the Disney organization. The smiley face is wearing thin. As a writer to the Camera stated recently, Boulder has become a theme park. Do we want the Mall theme to be hate and intolerance? Are we competing with Colorado Springs for Capital of the Hate State? We join the Rainbow Family in preferring peace and love. Boulder may be “special”, but it’s still in the United States, and must honor the Constitution. Show some hospitality!

We need to keep an eye on City Council. You can watch them the First and Third Tuesdays of each month, starting at 6 PM, on Boulder Cable channel 8.

AS THE MILLENNIUM TURNS by Evan Ravitz
Published by the Colorado Daily 7/20/94

You see it from the former USSR to South Africa to Mexico. You see it here, with the Albino/regents/faculty fiasco, the Board of Education/Superintendent Damon debacle, the police/Chief Koby coverup, etc.

You are seeing the breakdown of authoritarian, secretive, “professional” power elites. The millennium is about openness and democracy: government by the people.

Consultants are no substitute: The regents’ $15,000 consultants, in a report some regents call “shallow” and “bland”, say the regents should “get their act together”. Any 12-year-old could do as well, and some could tell them how, as well.

Knights on white horses, perhaps? Our first choices, the best and brightest candidates, like John Mosely for CU Chancellor last month, or Jim Miller for Boulder City Manager in ’90, have the wisdom to stay away.

PR people? CU spokesman David Grimm’s fairy tales are hardly covering up the embarrassment of CU politics. None of this virtual reality is working.

The City’s $50,000 Integrated Planning Project? While its polling made it clear that the great majority want to control growth and traffic, the vote on HOW to solve our transportation mess was predetermined. ALL FOUR “choices” made “transit” (i.e. busing) the solution! So (surprise) the 6/1/94 Camera states that “transit and congestion were listed as top concerns” in IPP polling. Noam Chomsky has a book and movie about such manipulation, both called Manufacturing Consent.

The result is the bogus Transit Plan up for your approval in November, with $12 million per year for more empty, polluting buses and lip service for on-demand vans, flex-time, cycling, walking and other solutions citizens want. Analysis of RTD Riding Checks shows that 7 of 10 in-city bus routes carry less than 7 passengers on average, which RTD and other sources say are necessary for a bus to break even on fuel, compared to all 7 driving alone. Roughly 50,000 extra gallons of fuel are wasted a year, increasing pollution.

The recent City Potential Ballot Issues Survey shows that residents want an increase in county bus routes (which are fuel-efficient) more than in-city. Yet the City’s plan calls for only a 30% increase on County routes, and a 127% increase on in-city routes!

A University survey of CU bus passholders show that 58% of users would otherwise walk, bike, blade or board. 17% would carpool, and only 25% would actually drive alone. So the 7 passengers buses need to break even on fuel should really be more like 20, at least for students. No RTD route averages 20 riders. Virtually all RTD buses are diesel, which means extra particulate pollution, one of the two major problems in the metro area.

In spite of 43% of the City population having passes giving free local service (24,000 CU passes, 14,000 Ecopasses, 2,150 High School passes and 100 Nyland Co-housing Community passes), only 1 trip in 47 is taken by bus! This is according to the City’s May ’93 Modal Shift Report. So the City’s transit plan philosophy seems to be: build on busing failure.

The Modal Shift Report also shows 1 in 8 trips taken by bicycle. There is nothing in the Transit Plan yet for cycling, except racks at a few selected stops. The Transportation Division is also trying to build medians and “neckdowns” (curbs that jut into the road) all over town, in spite of cyclists, Planning Board and City Council opinion that they endanger cyclists by forcing them into a narrowed traffic lane. The apparent philosophy: destroy cycling success.

The Transit Plan has no disincentives to drive. Under the plan we will actually continue to subsidize parking all over town, and to require plenty more parking for new development. National figures show there are already 16 parking spaces for each car here, accounting for over 10 of Boulder’s 27 square miles.

There are no legal initiatives to enable increases in gas taxes, to permit using them for alternative transportation, or to enable the use of photo radar as in Europe and Japan to slow traffic and raise funds. (It photographs the license plates of vehicles over a preset speed, and sends a ticket in the mail. It can ticket a speeder every half second, unlike a cop who needs 10 minutes each ticket.) Nothing to permit cyclists to treat stop lights like stop signs, and stop signs as yields, as Municipal Judge Hansen supports.

Why is the city not planning more bike paths, putting bike racks on buses, or building bike shelters with showers for white-collar workers at employment centers? Why not mandate flex-time for all 9-5 workers to spread out the rush hours? Why are there no creative transportation solutions, as the IPP results call for? Transportation division is now trying the big lie technique, including claiming that cycling is now getting more money than busing! Lying With Statistics is their bible. In reality, we’ve funded 42,250 “free” bus passes and some 22 free bikes through the Wheel Appeal program.

Other City anti-democratic actions have resulted in citizen lawsuits over the Academy project, the NIST-NOAA project, the Rio Grande liquor license, etc. With another Planning Department “managed process”, the North Boulder Safeway may be next.

With autocracy failing, the solution being called for worldwide is more democracy, not less. The City’s lying lost us ’93 voter approval to try the tool for frequent referenda: voting by telephone, which in Canadian primaries in ’92 and ’93 quadrupled turnout, which in National Science Foundation-funded trials in ’74 cost one tenth what traditional methods do, and which experts (and common sense, once you hear our plan) tell us will better protect voting integrity.

If you’d like a copy of the RTD fuel analysis, a compilation of transportation statistics, or would like to help reform the transit plan or advance citizen democracy, call me at 440-6838. Council will take written input about the Transit Plan for its July 19th meeting and a public hearing is scheduled for August 2. Everyone gets to give a three-minute speech.

AS THE MILLENNIUM TURNS by Evan Ravitz
Published 5/94 by the Colorado Daily

I spent 6 weeks in the southernmost state of Chiapas in January and February, including the first round of negotiations between the Zapatista revolutionaries and the government. Since the main violence lasted only 10 days in January, the U.S. media are mostly sleeping again. They have failed to report that in all 32 states of Mexico, there have been massive strikes, highway blockages, City Hall seizures, marches, bombings, etc.

So what’s going on with our nearest neighbor? There are several levels:

1. An Indian Revolt. Same as it’s been for half a millennium, it’s now largely ranchers that drive Indians off their ancestral land and fence it off to run cattle. The Indians can’t support themselves on what’s left, and have to work for the ranches for about $2/day. If they try to organize or strike, they are beaten or killed. The army helps. Read the book Government, by Bruno Traven for details.

2. A NAFTA Revolt. Now with “free trade” Indians with digging sticks and buckets of water or Mestizos with oxen will have to compete with U.S. agribusiness with huge tractors and center-pivot irrigation. This is hardly a level playing field. Indeed some Indians farm volcanic slopes of 45 degrees or steeper!

3. A Revolt against the corrupt single-party system. The PRI (the oxymoronic Institutional Revolutionary Party) is now the world’s longest-lived dominant party, since the demise of the Communist Party in the USSR. For 65 years they have been sucking the country dry. Most Mexicans believe they stole the 1988 election from Cuahtemoc Cardenas. He’s running again.

This is a harbinger of our future here, I believe. The “two-party” system (many believe that Demublicans and Republicrats are becoming more similar every day) works almost as well, though more subtly, to marginalize any creative ideas or people. As Bernie Sanders, the only Independent in the entire Congress told a Boulder audience last month, most Americans are boycotting elections.

Here in Boulder County, things are worse: The Democrats dominate. This almost absolute power corrupts almost absolutely. Many young people who tried to “work through the system” in ’92 won’t ever again after our experience at the Boulder County Democratic Convention. Who can forget how all attempts at putting reform planks on the platform were shut out: Hemp relegalization, Campaign Finance Reform and Voting by Phone.

These are people who want a real level playing field, an open market of ideas. Our main (Republican) opponent, Karl Anuta, opposed Voting by Phone largely because it leads to what he called “true democracy”–citizens voting on issues directly. So did the “Democrats”!

There will be a talk on “Chiapas, the People’s Revolution” this Friday May 20 at 7:30 at the Rocky Mountain Peace Center, 1521 Euclid with Monica Firl and Priscilla Falcon, Phd. Know your neighborhood!

AS THE MILLENNIUM TURNS by Evan Ravitz
Published by the Colorado Daily 12/93

The Air Force wants nearly one quarter of Colorado for treetop-level combat training. They are using our “neighbors”, the Colorado Air National Guard, as front men to claim most of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains (in direct violation of their new wilderness status), the Great Sand Dunes National Monument, the San Luis Valley, the Wet Mountain Valley and the Green Horn Mountains.

This year the Colorado Guard’s jet force has been reduced 40%. The Guard has been called to active duty only once in their 47-year history. They may be phased out completely by 1997. Yet they say they need these new MTRs (Military Training Routes) and MOAs (Military Operations Areas). It’s the Air Force which will inherit this earth, and they are not subject to the Guard’s local regulations. They can also invite foreign air forces.

The military has lied and cheated to try to steal this airspace, using our tax money. What they say at public meeting and in press releases contradicts their 77-page DOPAA (Description of proposed Action and Alternatives). For example:

They say they won’t fly under 500 feet altitude. The DOPAA says “Realistic training scenarios should allow virtually unrestricted flight throughout an altitude structure from cruising altitude to the lower altitude (surface) of the training routes” (page 23). A 100-foot altitude is mentioned at least twice.

They say the “chaff” (fiberglass and aluminum confetti used to confuse enemy radar) they want to drop “biodegrades into natural elements found in soil.” Yet an independent lab reports it “would not be degraded through biological action.” Glass and aluminum can’t be digested, and aluminum occurs in metallic form in no soils.

Charles Proctor, an anthropologist living near Westcliffe, just over the Sangres from the Dunes, characterizes the DOPAA as childish and full of jargon and confusing statistics. The Environmental Impact Statement which the locals forced the military to produce contains gems like “Noise does not damage the environment.” In that case, they should practice over Washington, DC.

Charles says the Guard has buzzed the school in nearby Gardner and dropped burning flares on private property. The flights have been conducted for decades; over 50% of U.S. airspace is already controlled by the Air Force and Guard. A friend of mine’s Dad had his glider’s landing wheel sliced off in mid-air by an F-16, and luckily survived. Pack trains in the Sangres have been stampeded (and horses in hobbles crippled).

About half of Westcliffe turned out for a Guard “Scoping hearing” (is this where they target their enemies?), and testified till 2AM: every single one against DOPAA. The people of Penrose, La Veta and Walsenburg are also up in arms. These are small rural towns who need our help. If you want to enjoy this spectacular land without being “practice bombed”, flared, chaffed, etc. every half-hour, 6 days a week, please:

Call Jim Peck, who Governor Romer has put in charge of fighting DOPAA at 866-2155. The Gov is commander-in-chief around here and needs courage. He says give the airspace back to the FAA, on the basis of wilderness and citizen concerns.

Call Congressfolk Pat Schroeder (866-1230) and David Skaggs (650-7886) and ask why they aren’t fighting for our wilderness and recreational areas. Only Congressman Scott McInnis (from that area) has come out against DOPAA. (202)226-0622

Contact the Custer County Action Association at (719)783-2061 or PO Box 552, Westcliffe CO 81252. They are assembling a petition to send to Clinton. For $5 you can get a complete information kit and have a letter sent to Clinton in your name.

Harass Brigadier General Mason C. Whitney at the Buckley Air National Guard Base (famous for sexual harassment) at 340-9555. Tell him to cool his jets, and send them to Pinon Canyon, already used for war games.

And if you’re in the area, have a gun, and are flown-over, you could always fire a warning shot. Fight fire with fire. As we learned by repeatedly torching the gate that two years ago blocked cyclists from using the dirt trail to avoid riding the highway in Boulder Canyon, direct action works better than going to meetings. Government needs to learn: The customer is always right.

GUEST OPINION by Evan Ravitz, Lorna Dee Cervantes & Vince Campbell
Published in the Boulder Daily Camera 11/19/93

The Camera pro-mail-, anti-phone-voting editorial 11/5 is misleading:

First, the Camera repeats City Councilman Matt Appelbaum and lawyer Karl Anuta’s cynical attempts to confuse voters that telephone voting was to be “mandatory” or “required”. The ballot title clearly “…REQUIRE(S) THAT VOTERS BE ALLOWED TO VOTE BY TELEPHONE…”. It is the City that would be required to give us the option. Required, because the City Council has refused to even consider offering it voluntarily since 1988, even though the City’s own Mission Statement says “We promote creative exploration of options and innovative approaches to providing services to the public, including alternatives that involve taking risks.”

Second, it is not the citizens as the Camera says, but the scant voters, many confused by the City’s negative propaganda, who rejected our proposal. The difference is enormous: 36% voted of the 85% who are registered here: 30.6% of those citizens over 18 voted. The 59% of the voters who voted no are thus 22% of the eligible citizens. With the current voting system, this minority rules.

This is one problem the Voting by Phone Foundation wants to solve, both by offering a modern, convenient voting technology, and by empowering citizens to vote more often on important issues, which the Camera calls a “questionable theory”, though they are happy with the outcome in this case! The theory is democracy, Greek for “government by the people“. Citizen democracy works well in Switzerland (they vote on initiatives and referenda 4 times a year), and in New England Town Meetings, and towns like Ward, Colorado. Most native peoples use democracy.

City Council counted on this minority rule to defeat us. They could have put us on last year’s ballot, but were afraid that when the majority voted (83% of those registered voted here last year) that we would win.

The Camera touts mail voting as being without phone voting’s “technical uncertainties”. But everyone knows the phone is a more certain way to communicate than the mail– you get immediate feedback that your message was received. Mail is sometimes lost or stolen (see the Camera front page story 11/6). With 20% of most mailing lists being obsolete, someone at an old address may get your vote if you move. The two Canadian primaries held by phone were described in the media as “flawless”, after the initial failure caused by incomplete testing. Many people also aren’t aware that their in-person or mailed ballots are already counted by an expensive, obsolete “mainframe” computer.

Finally, the Camera allows that early mail voters “can’t withdraw their selections in response to genuinely damaging information about a candidate in the latter days of a campaign.” This is possible with phone voting, and was implemented for the NSF-funded advisory phone voting new Boulder resident Vince Campbell directed for the San Jose, California schools in 1974. They determined phone voting would be some 20 times less expensive than the polls or pony express, administrative expenses included.

Phone voting is so much less expensive because it is ecological- like the telecommuting everyone talks about. It is open to the same problems absentee and mail voting is- coercion, vote-buying, etc., but the U.S. General Accounting Office report VOTING among others indicates these problems are nearly nonexistent. The Camera uses telephones and computers together everyday, and preys on people’s fear of technology to further their own political agenda.

If people want to read an unbiased, balanced article on the real issue here- whether citizens should have more power over their government- we refer you to the Economist of London’s September 11, 1993 story “A better way to vote”, available in the library or from us at 440-6838.

AS THE MILLENNIUM TURNS by Evan Ravitz
Published in the Colorado Daily 11/93

“This election is nothing less than a battle for the soul of Boulder.“- Macon Cowles, lead environmental attorney on the Exxon Valdez case, and 1993 Trial Lawyer of the Year.

The Image: The People’s Republic of Boulder. A progressive, participatory government run by the pro-choice Mayor Leslie Durgin.

What’s Under The Image: The Imperial City of Boulder. The City Council has recently denied the citizens a vote on three critical issues: limits on the NIST-NOAA federal expansion on South Broadway, a policy of no net loss of parking downtown, and Academy Development on University Hill. Many thousands signed petitions asking for these votes. Where are our choices, Madame Mayor?

Dr. Jekyll: The mayor a champion of free speech, suing the Bush administration to break the so called “gag rule” that prevented federally-funded family planning clinics from discussing abortion with clients. True enough. Bravo.

Ms. Hyde: The mayor a silencer of speech she doesn’t like. On 12/3/91 she stopped me from criticizing the City Attorney. On 3/6/93 she shut down Ruth Blackmore, who had asked shy persons who didn’t want to speak but supported the general building Moratorium to stand. “I’m running this meeting, not you!” she yelled. On 3/20/93 she called her fellow Council members “pigheaded” and walked out on the meeting. On 5/4/93 she stopped Duncan Campbell from mentioning information in the public record connected with the Academy development. There are other incidents.
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Only Mr. Campbell got an apology. At the last City Council meeting October 19th, when I reminded them of these incidents, the Mayor tried to weasel out of it by saying that she had only “interrupted” Campbell. But as the Daily Camera editorialized 5/7/93: “Surely the mayor and a few other members of the Boulder City Council don’t believe that their offices entitle them to censor public participation in council meetings. Do they?” All these incidents are on videotape, and you can see them yourself at the Library (which takes patience) or call us. The Boulder ACLU changed its meeting dates so we can also attend City Council meetings where this danger to liberty exists.

I could go on about the image of Boulder as a cycling town, and the reality that it’s three times as dangerous to ride here as is normal for similar-sized towns (Police statistics), about how so much of the alternate transportation money goes into advertising and promotion, paper and plastic, Go Boulder watches, desktop publishing classes, Bike Weeks, Pedestrian Conferences, subsidizing busses that are mostly empty and wasting diesel. etc., etc.

Richard Epstein, President of the Boulder Energy Conservation Center writes that Boulderites create 1 1/2 times as much garbage, own twice as many cars, and recycle less than average. The City spends enormous amounts on Public Relations to keep up the progressive image we deserved in the ’70s. With the Mayor being a professional public relations person, a “spin doctor”, truth in the whole town is twisted. Very ’80s.

It’s time we faced up to our failings and turned over a new leaf. As the widow of Dalton Trumbo said at the dedication of the CU fountain to her late husband and free speech: “The moral climate can be changed overnight.” For Boulder that night is election night. Vote November 2, 7AM-7PM! Call elections at 441-3516 for your precinct location.

Macon Cowles and I and about 75 others are the Save Boulder Coalition. Save Boulder endorses candidates who: Vote the way they talk, Support free speech as a fundamental right, Don’t do “done deals”, Ask neighborhoods first, Enforce strict limits on growth, Hold CU and the Feds to the same planning criteria as private developers, etc. These candidates are Anne Fenerty, Bernie Wieder and Allyn Feinberg. I voted for Robert Temple Frost too.

Save Boulder endorses YES votes on Open Space (County question “A”) and Voting by Phone (City question “D”), so dear to my heart. Phone voting is the tool for us to vote regularly on important issues, conveniently and inexpensively. Then the personalities of politicians won’t matter so much. They will be public servants, not masters. So, one last time, make the effort!

And remember, until our elections are reformed, vote only for the candidates you really want. If you vote for 6 candidates to fill the 6 open seats, you risk having your last choices beat out your favorites.

AS THE MILLENNIUM TURNS by Evan Ravitz
Published in the Colorado Daily 10/93

In the weeks before the November 2 vote on the Boulder Voting by Phone City Charter Amendment we must answer all the worries. I’ve named them after their main voices. Today, the most substantive concern:

The Elise Boulding/ Charlie Butcher/ Bob Seivers/ Scott Simon/ Matt Appelbaum argument: “The People can’t be trusted to do the right thing if we use phone voting for electronic town (state or national) meetings. Look at Colorado Amendments One and Two, passed by citizen initiative.”

Whoa. This year’s Charter Amendment that Boulder votes on Nov. 2 simply gives you the option to vote by phone. It doesn’t ease the initiative process. That’s our second goal. You can vote against it when and if it comes up. But you shouldn’t:

This is Boulder, which voted against One and Two. We are also, according to the U.S. Census, by far the most educated city in the country: 59% of adults have at least a bachelor’s degree; Raleigh NC comes in second with 40%! We should be the model for learning self-government. If not us, who?

Imagine too, how the vote on One and Two might have gone if many more people had voted, as happened with the first binding telephone voting in Nova Scotia last year with the Liberal Party leadership election: 96.4% participation! The ACLU reports that “the Christian Coalition has been quietly organizing…to seize control of school boards and other key posts most vulnerable during low-turnout local elections.”(emphasis ours) High turnout will mean the real majority rules. If not now, when?

Amendment One sent a bottom line message to government: We don’t like what we’re getting for our money, so no more money for you (without our permission). If the initiative process was accessible to average citizens (not just rich landlords like Doug Bruce or powerful groups like Colorado for Family Values), we could legislate instead to get what we want. Amendment One is a sledgehammer. Voting by Phone is pro-active, not just reactive to what government proposes, like One. As Alexander Hamilton said: “If there is a problem with democracy, the solution is more democracy.”

Amendment Two was confusingly worded, so that many voted the “wrong” way. [We’re hardly saying the present initiative process is perfect. But it can be refined by using the existing process.] Amendment Two has never gone into effect. If the preliminary ruling of the Colorado Supreme Court holds, the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution means that “fundamental rights…depend on the outcome of no election”. The majority cannot tyrannize the minority.

Buckminster Fuller, the apparent inventor of democracy by phone (in 1940), wrote: “The people will make mistakes. But they will be honest mistakes. And quickly correctable.” Two’s opponents stood ready to bring a better-worded Two back to the ballot to reverse it. If the initiative process was more accessible (fewer signatures required, more frequent votes), their process would be easier and faster.

Interestingly, Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Denver Police and Gay and Lesbian Center of Colorado statistics all show hate crimes against homosexuals down significantly April-June compared to January-March. The first 2 sources also show all hate crimes in the second quarter down by half compared to second quarter of last year (anti-gay statistics were not kept separately until this year}. These may be more serious crimes than ones reported only to the GLCC, which are up this year. Is it possible that Amendment 2 brought the hidden hate of Colorado out in the open (out of the closet) for discussion in a way that has reduced its violent expression? Ben Barber, in his book Strong Democracy, calls this a “democratic conversation”. The media and courts and citizens are discussing Two. We’re learning about gays and straights and our feelings about each other. This isn’t an academic discussion for the few: it includes everyone.

Scott Simon of NBC & NPR stated at the opening of the Walter Orr Roberts Institute that Colorado Springs (home of One and Two) is a good argument for representative (as opposed to participatory) government. We see them as complementary. Colorado Springs is largely a military town funded by our tax money to fight the Cold War, which UP syndicated writer Richard Reeves says “drained away our national treasury fighting shadows in the dark.” Our taxes, funneled into his unusual city by an exclusively “representative” government (there is no participation by initiative or referendum nationally), helped fund One and Two. Our government needs citizen participation by all, to check and balance its excesses. It’s still wildly out of balance.

Elise Boulding, a 1990 nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize -and a former supporter of Voting by Phone- changed her mind and wrote me that “…we need to put much more effort into education for democracy, and becoming familiar first-hand with community contexts.” That’s what we’re getting: it’s one of Barber’s “democratic conversations” we’re having these days! If you’re of a millennial cast of mind, you could call it God (the people) talking to itself (ourselves).

[I wrote in the May 16 Camera about this kind of education at Sudbury School in Framingham, Mass., where for 24 years the kids and staff have enjoyed true freedom and democracy. It works wonderfully, and for half the cost of the Massachusetts public schools. Call 443-3786 for a copy.]

The voices of this argument are thoughtful, caring people. I can feel their pain over One and Two. Opinion leaders of little faith, We invite you back into the democratic conversation. Debate us, or join us!

AS THE MILLENNIUM TURNS by Evan Ravitz
Published in the Colorado Daily 8/93

As the millennium starts to turn, miracles start to happen. A City Council member has lifted a finger to check out a citizen’s idea! They’re looking into Paul Danish’s idea of licensing good drivers to pick up paying passengers.

This is no ordinary idea. If every car carries 2 people instead of 1, it will temporarily halve our pollution and traffic problems while we work on long-range solutions. Latin American, for example, moves by such “collectivos”, which collect people like buses, but are everywhere and of all sizes. America is going to have to forego its “life”-style of 1 person per car if we want to breathe, get anywhere promptly or save some oil for our children.

Paul is no ordinary citizen. He is the most famous ex-City Council member, known for the growth-controlling Danish Plan (now the title of his Daily column.) And he writes often about how the present Council is not giving Boulder much value for their taxes.

Council/ Go Boulder’s busing is the epitome of waste: in spite of millions of dollars pumped into Eco-pass for the last several years, bus riding, according to City figures, accounts for only 2.1% of city trips. Even including the full buses to Denver, the median number of passengers on any Boulder bus at any time is 5. All day long you can see empty buses getting 3.83 miles per gallon (RTD average).

Just since last year cycling has increased from 10 to 13% of all trips, an increase greater than total trips by bus! This is in spite of the City spending most Bike funds on recreational trails, free breakfasts, bike polo, paper promotions, plastic bike pins, “stamp collections”, and studies ad nauseum instead of safer facilities and enough bike racks downtown. Municipal Judge Hanson is one who has finally given up cycling because of the danger.

Now Go Boulder is proposing to endanger cyclists by advocating for medians and ‘neckdowns’ on North 9th Street, which violate American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials standards for designated bike routes like 9th Street: lanes should be 14 feet wide, not narrowing to 10.5 feet as proposed.

This is instead of giving the neighbors what they want: stop signs or speed humps to slow traffic to the speed limit that 70% ignore. The fire department doesn’t want the humps. And City transportation officials say people will roll through a stop sign- though they rarely do at 9th and Maxwell. Even if they do, they’re slowing down. These officials admit that the medians and neckdowns don’t work, but still want to spend $175,000 on their 6-block plan instead of a few hundred dollars for a few stop signs.

This is prime pork barrel waste, a relic from the Idiot ’80s when hype was king and a professional PR person, Leslie Durgin, became mayor. Just by spending lots of our money, Boulder wins bike and pedestrian awards, though cyclists and pedestrians know their problems worsen every year.

This money could be paving and striping safe bike paths, a proven winner here unlike subsidizing the empty buses. We could even be doing our own development of electric cars, which the auto industry drags its feet on because they’ll lose most of the 40% of their business called “aftermarket”. Electrics have no gears or clutches, plugs or points. There are no “internal combustion” explosions necessitating regular overhauls- no rings, valves or heads. Instead of wearing out brakes electrics recharge their batteries with the inertia you’ve developed as you stop: ‘regenerative braking’. The power plants that will charge them are much less polluting, and no more will need to be built because most charging will be at night when the plants operate below peak capacity.

Last year I proposed, in this column, and to Council a package of 7 proposals to ameliorate our car problems. They have all been ignored, as well as those of others. The $50,000 Integrated Planning Process ignores cycling in all four of its scenarios, in favor of busing.

Indeed the only reason Council is looking into the simple, intelligent, ubiquitous (in the rest of the world) “collectivo” transportation solution, proposed by the famous ex-Councilman is because the Colorado Public Utilities Commission is allowing its use in Denver during the Pope’s visit. It now takes the next thing to an act of God to get these people to look into citizens ideas!

That’s why the November vote on the City Charter Amendment giving us the option to vote by phone is so important: this is the tool to make regular citizen voting on important issues practical. You and I want solutions to problems, not the hype and awards the City pursues. Call us at 440-6838 to help.