The propane tanks in this public domain image are not from Boulder, but propane tanks are among the “prohibited items” that passing Ballot Question 302 would regulate.

City of Boulder Ballot Question 302 would, at its simplest, make specified activities, including putting up tents, and possession of specified types of items, including propane tanks, within specified proximity to schools, multi-use paths, or sidewalks, subject to prioritized removal from the areas in which they’re used. The ballot measure would amend the Boulder Revised Code, not the City Charter, and would pass with a simple majority.

Question 302 is a citizen initiative, and proponents with “Safe Zones 4 Kids” gathered enough valid petition signatures to put the measure on the 2023 ballot. In short, it was proposed in part in reaction to safety concerns about reported incidents near Boulder High School and elsewhere in the community, including a well-publicized propane tank explosion near the school, but also in part due to reports of incidents including harassment and drug activity near multiuse paths or sidewalks.

Legally, the initiative would add the section “(c)” that’s listed and bold-faced below to the existing sections (a) and (b) in Boulder Revised Code 8-3-21. It might seem boring, but I’ll recommend reading all three sections below to better understand what is already in city law and what 302 would add, before casting a vote.

8-3-21. – Prohibited Items.
(a) No person shall erect or use any tent, net, or other temporary structure for the purpose of
shelter or storage of property in a park or recreation area, on any open space land, or on
any other public property, unless done pursuant to a written permit or contract from the
city manager. The prohibitions of this section do not apply to temporary shade structures
in any park or recreation area within the corporate limits of the city. A temporary shade
structure is a structure such as an umbrella or awning that provides overhead covering or
weather protection, but not designed for overnight use or privacy and cannot be fully
enclosed. No temporary shade structure shall remain in a park between sundown and
sunrise.
(b) No person shall possess a propane tank on any public property except that persons with a
city-approved permit may possess one UL-listed residential, propane-fueled gas grill or
heater in a city park provided that the propane is a maximum twenty pound bottle
connected to the grill or heater. No permitted tank shall be located closer than ten feet
from the nearest combustible structure. No person shall leave any park without first
having completely extinguished any fire. The prohibitions of this sub-section do not
apply to the possession of multiple propane tanks for the purpose of transportation to or
from private property or in connection with an approved city special event permit.
(c) Prohibited items located on city property within a radius of five-hundred feet from any
point on a school property line or within fifty feet on both sides of any multi-use path or
sidewalk are subject to prioritized removal. Signage or other notification methods may be
used to identify these boundaries.

Those who are interested in the city’s current approach to managing encampments might wish to check out its Unsanctioned Camping webpage. In very brief, the city has a Safe and Managed Public Spaces (SAMPS) team, which includes personnel from several non-police groups plus uses police support. The SAMPS team was established in 2021, and an April 2023 city staff memo said SAMPS operations since then had yielded the following basic results:

  • 195,400 tons of trash and debris have been collected.
  • 81,000 needles have been collected by the operations team and over 500 pounds of needles were collected from May-December 2022 at one kiosk.
  • 836 campsite clean-ups have been completed

An organization called “Solutions Not Safe Zones” has formed to oppose the initiative. As the title suggests, the group espouses a belief that solutions to help people experiencing homelessness obtain stable housing or services they need are more effective in the long run than enforcement-based strategies.

Ballot Question 302 does not include language calling for additional city funding to address items including encampment cleanups, housing or shelter, or services to benefit persons experiencing homelessness. It would be logical to guess that there might be new budget requests in the future if 302 leads to the need for significant new amounts of enforcement beyond the significant amounts of enforcement the city already uses, but it isn’t mentioned in the ballot measure, and of course there could be new budget requests even if 302 doesn’t pass. On the other hand, there are existing organizations and sources of funding in Boulder, Boulder County, or even the State of Colorado to manage or provide cleanups, housing/shelter, and services.

Those who are interested in available services and programs might want to visit the City of Boulder’s Homelessness Services webpage for starters, or for a broader look at current programs and practices try the city’s Homelessness in Boulder webpage. Super-briefly, the State of Colorado also has a Homelessness Resources webpage, state voters passed Proposition 123 in 2022 which includes potential funding for rent assistance or vouchers for the unhoused, and this year’s Boulder County Issue 1B would provide funding that could be used for low-income or supportive housing if it passes.

302 PRO:

  • The measure would put into city code a section that directly specifies that presence of prohibited items and activities occurring in areas near schools, sidewalks, and paths are a priority for removal. Currently, removals can happen in these areas but it’s not in city code.
  • Boulder’s students deserve at least a codified buffer zone from unregulated encampments.
  • Boulder residents, whether students or post-students, deserve some sense of peace of mind while using sidewalks or multi-use paths – and a fair number of city residents don’t have that peace of mind right now.

302 CON:

  • Removing people from encampments might only be a temporary fix because they might just move to a different encampment, while finding unhoused people shelter and services would be a more effective longer-term solution.
  • The ballot measure might be redundant to some extent, because the city already prioritizes action on prohibited activities near schools and already has the SAMPS team working near paths and parks.

302 Proponent Website: https://www.safezones4kids.org/

302 Opponent Website: https://www.solutionsnotsafezones.org or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/SolutionsNotSZs

Richard’s Take

I’ll probably vote for 302, primarily because I believe school zones need to be as safe as reasonably possible for students, and secondarily that paths and sidewalks need to be as reasonably safe as possible for people with concerns about their safety. I’m under no illusion that 302 will cure Boulder’s current issues, though I have hopes for some improvements, and my thought process definitely went through a number of dimensions, conflicting and otherwise, while considering the ballot measure.

When it comes to homelessness, I often think “there but for the grace of (pick your deity, non-deity, or influential other) go I.” So many of us are possibly one negative life event away from becoming homeless ourselves. I have great sympathy for the unhoused, who at bare minimum have basic human needs to maintain health or even survival, including the need for shade when the sun is beating down, shelter even if it’s only a tent, sources of heat, or even just a place to rest.

But I can’t in good conscience say Boulder should have an overly forgiving approach to the issues actually at stake in 302 at the potential expense of safe environments for students. Anecdotally, I’ve also heard or read plenty of accounts from adults who just aren’t comfortable using a given path or underpass or sidewalk because they come across encampments with unknown groups of people, and have no reason to trust them with their physical safety.

I’ve heard it said often that we don’t need 302 because the city currently takes action to clean up encampments in the areas called out in the ballot measure. Key word, “currently.” But what if something changes – say, the Police Chief takes another job, or the composition of City Council changes significantly? Passing 302 would both send a message about a specific set of community values to city government, and codify them in city code into the future. If 302 passes, and after some period of time it becomes obvious it isn’t needed anymore, Boulderites of the future can hold community discussions and possibly propose another ballot measure to amend or repeal.

During this local election cycle, I’ve heard plenty about concern for underprivileged communities, and rightly so. I’m not about to try directly comparing another group – people who are defenseless or relatively defenseless – with any other group of people, because we’ve all got legitimate concerns or problems. But part of the reason for my interest in 302 is because of these very people – kids who haven’t fully physically matured, smaller adults, the elderly, or anyone with injuries or physical disabilities among them. I personally know people in most of these categories, people who might, say, like to do a short ride on the Creek Path on a weekend, but just don’t feel comfortable anymore.

Complete safety is never guaranteed to anybody, neither is pure comfort, but in my opinion all people in a city like Boulder deserve some expectation of being able to enjoy relative peace of mind in public spaces, and right now a fair number of people don’t feel that peace of mind.

I have considered some of the points made by the opposition group, Solutions Not Safe Zones, but they haven’t persuaded me to oppose 302. Here are a few reasons why:

We Can Work On Both: I don’t want to get hung up on wording, but the opposition campaign’s very title in my opinion is an unnecessary dichotomy. Simply put, it’s completely possible to pursue BOTH solutions and safe zones, and I do believe Boulder is in the process of seeking solutions – a day shelter (yes, this could take a while), more housing/shelter opportunities, and better services among them. A new local addiction facility was actually getting ready to open while I was writing this piece. And Boulder should do these types of things to the best of its abilities.

Meanwhile, “solutions” and “safe zones” would for the most part be managed under different departments or nonprofits or programs, not to mention that “solutions” in the City of Boulder might benefit from county or state funding and programs. There’s really no need for an either-or here.

In fact, a bunch of City Council candidates told me this year that lack of money was a primary factor in homelessness, and they’re right. Money is as big of a root cause here as roots get. 302 does not address mega-corporate investors who own tens or hundreds of thousands of apartments where they set rent pricing the way they damn well please, it does not try to talk politicians into supporting rent control, and it does not provide subsidies or income support so people in poverty or on its edges can pay their bills. But 302 also does not preclude anyone else from working on these solutions.

Now, forget the phrase “safe zones” for a second. There’s literally nothing new about the concept that people can’t legally do certain things in certain areas. It’s the primary subject of thousands and thousands of laws worldwide, and while it would probably be better to address root causes for various violations of almost any law when that’s possible, sometimes regulations and/or enforcement are necessary to address immediate concerns.

Envision 50 feet to the right edge of the sidewalk in this picture, and you’re in the middle of Lee Hill Drive. The strip of grass is a city right-of-way.

Statistics Can Be Misused: I’m a little troubled by what seems like an opposition talking point saying areas 50 feet from sidewalks and multi-use paths would cover a large percentage of the city, and I really hope nobody buys it without at least pondering about what this really means. I’ll just ask readers to walk down a few sidewalks, like I have many times lately, and take note of what you see 50 feet in either direction. In many cases, you’ll notice that it’s entirely a street and its right-of-way in one direction (see picture at right for an example), and it’s somebody’s yard or property in the other direction. I know some multi-use paths in Boulder are not that close to streets, but some run parallel to and close to streets as well.

Again, the entire ballot measure is about use of the specific aforementioned prohibited items, not mere personal presence. But if anyone still wants to claim 302 puts a high percentage of the city off limits to tent camping – be fair and at least remove streets from the equation.

Priorities Wouldn’t Be Set In Stone: There’s been an opponent contention that 302 would actually deprioritize schools, but I don’t read it that way. Go back up to section (c ) in the ordinance language, and note that it says prohibited items are “subject to prioritized removal.” I simply don’t read that as meaning “all encampments in 302 zones are subject to the highest possible priority at all times, no matter what else is happening.” But I imagine attorneys and wordsmiths and pundits might have some fun parsing those four words.

I’ve seen a copy of a city prioritization matrix that works on a point system – assigning points to given situations like encampment proximity to schools or waterways, the number of tents in an encampment, or incidences of crime or violence – then also assigning points based on levels of severity. In very short, I can easily imagine that a severe situation along a multi-use path could score pretty highly whether 302 passes or not, while one person in one tent with no weapons or explosives exactly 500 feet from a school would not score that highly. Yes, it could get trickier in between these two admittedly cherry-picked examples (more people should admit when they’re cherry-picking), but that tends to be a reality in a world with finite resources and where humans have to make judgment calls.

I’m not quoting from city code here, but the city’s Unsanctioned Camping webpage says SAMPS focuses in part on creek corridors, which tend to be near multiuse paths, and SAMPS already says items in encampments that pose health or safety hazards (not just propane tanks or tents either) are “subject to immediate removal,” which sounds like a pretty high existing priority. It also says “We have a formula for prioritizing which areas get cleaned up and we follow strict notification protocols and procedures.”

Yes, there might be times when enforcement teams face multiple situations of relatively comparable severity, but it won’t be every day, and if there are competing situations the teams would then need to address what they can based on prioritization in law and departmental standards, and based on available resources.

Redundancy Isn’t Always Harmful: The notion that 302 won’t really require law enforcement and cleanup teams to prioritize areas they’re not already prioritizing might actually have some merit, based partially on a city staff memo saying “Designating a safety zone around schools would not add to Boulder’s enforcement toolkit because camping is already banned near schools and in all city public spaces.” The city also already has the SAMPS team with its prioritization system.

But conversely, this to me suggests 302 won’t be harmful at the process level if it passes. I’ve heard the argument that it would be harmful because it would take focus and resources from “solutions,” but as I said in the “We Can Work On Both” section above, the city is working on solutions – with reasonably good amounts of services already available – and could get additional resources for said solutions from the county and/or state. I’ve also heard and respected an argument that encampment sweeps can be traumatizing to the people being moved, but defeating 302 wouldn’t end encampment sweeps if only because section 5-6-10 in the city code already includes “camping ban” language while sections (a) and (b) in 8-3-21 mentioned at the beginning of this post already deal with “prohibited items” – and again, these things are in existing code.

And if it really turns out that the city needs to re-adjust priorities after 302 passes (mind you, these are priorities that some opponents are to some extent saying are already in place), we can have a community conversation and potentially run another ballot measure.

Not Necessarily In Effect Forever: Saying the ordinance change enacted if 302 passes would be in effect “forever” seems to me a scare tactic. If it turns out over time that the ordinance is of little value, as I said above we can have a community conversation and run a ballot measure to repeal or amend. That’s not forever unless the community says it is.

I just hope everyone thinks the finer points of Question 302 over with a little detail. Pass or fail, the process around 302 has created community dialog around some serious issues, and I wish I was wrong but they seem to be issues that will be with us to some extent into the future regardless of the fate of this ballot measure. But as I said at the start of this section, I have some hope for improvement.