To revitalize downtown, city must make it safe

Recently, I watched a City Council meeting in which a representative of downtown businesses asked, where have their customers gone?

I believe most of us residents know the answer. The locals have gone to safer areas of town, fewer visitors are coming because they have heard of the safety issues here or seen on a first visit last fall, true and reported to friends of mine as far away as CT. As someone who strongly supported the use of downtown myself until a few years ago, I cannot blame it all on COVID, which was certainly a part.

I do blame the lack of safety on policies derived from the misguided direction of many, including my formerly beloved ACLU whom I can no longer support. They have actually done the reverse of their tradition, they are protecting the behaviors of people who are attempting to kill themselves with their behaviors, blaming Boulder for not stopping this, yet not allowing us the tools. We are now faced with a situation I find hard to believe.

Parents have had to organize to try to get safety measures in place to protect school children, in transit to Boulder High, the most diverse, in the true definition, school in the city. It is inclusive of all demographics, not using diverse as a euphemism for “mostly minority” as is common for BVSD.

The Creek Path access is available to owned single-family homes and low-income rental housing areas. These students share the classrooms and grounds.

Some local businesses lost will never come back. We must see that the remaining local and semi-local do not give up and go away. The people making these decisions on the pathway for downtown simply need to look around them for the answer to “what is wrong.”

— Sara Mitton, Boulder