The visualization shows how Golden’s commercial districts have changed in relative economic importance over time between 1994 and 2009. It’s pretty simplistic because of the data I had to work with, and because the city’s overall sales and use tax revenues track pretty closely to overall general fund revenues the bubbles all move in a very linear fashion over time. But even this very simple visualization shows some interesting things, like the change in importance of outside dollars, the rise of South Golden Road, the rise of Corporate Center, and the relative stability of Downtown Golden as an economic center over time.

I couldn’t figure out how to make the visualization itself accessible on the web, so I created a screencast showing each of the elements. The screencast first shows you the normal Gapminder display, which is very cool. Then it shows you the underlying line graph. Finally, it shows you two versions of the bar graph visualization. The entire video is about sixty seconds long.

You could do some really interesting things with these data and this display, like swapping out either the x- or y-axis with other data like the number of business licenses in each district in that year or the overall city population (which has grown steadily at times and unevenly at other times), treating sales tax and use tax independently from one another, or tons of other approaches that I haven’t thought of. You’d probably see some different and interesting relationships.

This little project underscores the value of making the city’s data as readily available to community members as possible. It’s trickier than you might think, since much of it isn’t digital and isn’t stored in the most accessible manner, but the city has a lot of data that might be of interest or of use to community members, and there are tons of people in Golden cleverer and more skilled than I at doing interesting things with data, so I’m hoping City Council and city staff will start looking for more ways to push these datasets out and see what folks come up with.

Congratulations and best of luck to Councilor Miller, Councilor Charis-Graves, and Mayor Sloan.

On the evening of January 12, at Golden City Hall, I participated in one of the most remarkable of ceremonies: the peaceful transfer of power from one group of democratically-elected community members to another. My deepest congratulations to the new mayor and the new city councilors, and my best wishes to the group in their work ahead. We are very fortunate to have a very strong City Council to help guide the city and the community.

I am focusing more on my day job and my tech startup, I plan to remain involved in the community, I’m publishing a book on nonprofits in about a month, and I’m hoping to have more time for running, travel, and play.

I’m giving some thought to how exactly I want to structure my blog, Facebook page, Twitter feed, and community newsletter … what I can say for sure is that I’ll continue to share information about what’s happening in Golden, I’ll continue encouraging community participation in community decisions, and I’ll continue advocating for issues I care deeply about, like open space protection and Golden’s schools. Until I figure out what changes I want to make, I’ll continue posting info here and all of the other usual places. And I welcome your thoughts about how I can be most effective at all of this: shoot me a note if you’ve got ideas or suggestions.

You’ll find my twitter feed at @jacobzsmith, shoot me a note if you’d like to receive my community newsletter (email), and feel free to visit my community Facebook page as another option for keeping tabs on what’s happening with City Council and in Golden. And yes, I need to change the name of that Facebook page, but it turns out it’s harder than you might think to do that. I’m working on it.

In the meantime, as I told a gathering of friends and neighbors on Friday night, I believe democracy is a verb, not a noun, and I look forward to continuing being part of making democracy work in Golden.

Jefferson County is distributing draft Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan maps, and you’ve got until January 31 to comment. The Denver Post ran an article about the draft maps, and you’ll find some additional information on the Bike Jeffco website.

Thanks to Justin Sagarsee of the Golden Transcript for letting us use the photo!

Another Justin Sagarsee/Golden Transcript image (thanks Justin!).

The mayor-elect and I visited yesterday with the Student Council at Shelton … they had great questions and Marjorie and I both had a terrific time. It’s extremely cool of these kids to be elected by their peers to serve on their council and to commit their time and energy to it. I look forward to listening to one of them, as mayor of their own town in twenty years, speak to a room full of kids. Thanks to Justin Sagarsee of the Golden Transcript for the photo.

Looking west over the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge area where the beltway proponents hope to build the Jefferson Parkway toll highway.

For two decades now, Golden has been fighting proposals to build a beltway through our community. We have been successful so far: there is no beltway plowing through Golden, and a couple of years ago CDOT set aside its own plan to push a six- or eight-lane high-speed superhighway through town. But the proponents – primarily Jefferson County, Arvada, and Broomfield – came up with an alternative plan to build a ten-mile toll highway north of Golden (not through Golden) using private investment dollars.

We’ve been fighting that proposal as well, but it’s much tougher for us to stop because it isn’t within our city limits and because it doesn’t directly rely on public funding. And, moreover, Golden has very real transportation challenges – congestion, air pollution, safety problems, highway noise – that we probably can’t solve while Golden is fighting with these other jurisdictions. In fact, Golden will experience substantial increases in traffic over the next couple of decades with or without the Jefferson Parkway. Golden’s own “Golden Plan” spells out our own vision for appropriate transportation improvements: four lanes limited to 45mph, strict noise limits, replacing traffic lights with grade separated interchanges (designed with pedestrians and bikes at the forefront). With improvements like these, even if the Jefferson Parkway is built, Golden will fare better than we are faring today, with less congestion, reduced noise and air pollution, dramatically improved safety for vehicles and everyone else, and improved connections between our western neighborhoods and the rest of town.

And because of the way transportation dollars are allocated, Golden almost certainly can’t get the improvements we need in town until we reach some sort of agreement with Jeffco, Arvada, and Broomfield. In other words, we can keep fighting the Jefferson Parkway, but it’s a tough fight to win and doing so basically precludes us from getting the improvements we actually want. This has been our basic dilemma as a community for a long time.

Last February, City Council unanimously adopted an updated position on the Jefferson Parkway based on an intensive three-month community input process. A majority of the community supported striving for an agreement to end the dispute but only if the protections for Golden were much stronger. That’s the position Golden took: the city would be willing to drop its opposition to the Jefferson Parkway (but not the beltway) if, in return, Golden gets the improvements we need and the protections we deserve.

After an intensive negotiation process spanning many months now, we came close to reaching an agreement that we felt would truly protect Golden from the impacts of growth and development north of town. But ultimately we were unable to agree on provisions we believed would protect Golden from tolling or lane widening being forced on us. An agreement that might result in tolling or lane-widening being forced through town has always been unacceptable.

We appreciate the Governor’s effort to help these neighboring communities resolve a multi-decade dispute, and we appreciate the effort everyone – Jeffco, Arvada, Broomfield, CDOT, and the facilitator – put in to try and get there. But in the end we were unable to reach terms that worked for everyone.

We will continue taking the steps we believe necessary to protect Golden, but we remain open to a continued discussion with our neighbors about a solution that truly meets the needs of all of the communities. I also believe that it’s time for a major update to the Golden Plan (which was first adopted as the Muller Plan in 2003), and I am encouraging the new City Council to kick off a community process for doing just that in 2012. This will be a chance for everyone to think through what improvements we want and how to prioritize them.

I would have been pleased to reach an agreement that ended two decades of war between neighboring jurisdictions before my term ended; the fight is expensive, it limits our ability to make the improvements we need, and it makes it very difficult for Jefferson County communities to collaborate on other important issues. I still believe a good agreement would be better for all of the communities involved. But I have no qualms rejecting something that doesn’t truly protect Golden.

This will remain a very challenging issue for our community. The proponents are not likely to give up their tollway ambitions, and growth and traffic increases in northern Jefferson County are going to impact Golden regardless of whether the Jefferson Parkway is built. I wish the new Council the very best of luck in navigating between less-than-ideal options, and I look forward to contributing as a member of the Golden community to the discussions we will no doubt continue to have in the years ahead.

All,

As you all know by now, the past number of months Golden, Jefferson County, Arvada, Broomfield and CDOT have attempted to negotiate the terms of an agreement to address future traffic impacts on state highways within the City of Golden, in the context of the Jefferson Tollway. The parties strived to reach agreement on specific terms but were unable to do so. While unsuccessful in the short term, the Parties have outlined a roadmap that may be useful in the future.

We have some very real time lines that we are bumping up against with the transfer of the right of way along Indiana looming in January. Council will need to decide how best to protect the city very quickly. As always, as soon as I can share any information I will get it out.

One idea that came out of the process the past 12 months is that we may need to update our vision for transportation in and through Golden. I believe we will explore updating the “Golden Plan” over the next year and set strong priorities for the traffic mitigations and how we want future improvements to look for the near and long term.

This process hasn’t been easy and we know that we alarmed many in the community with our announcement of a possible agreement. It is always our priority to get the information out as soon as possible and that will mean at times we may need to backtrack or have nothing to present. I would rather we have these occasional stumbles than withhold information at any time.

That is all for right now, more information will come out over the next week and months to come. I am proud of our mayor and city manager for they have fought and protected Golden in the most honorable manner and they never forgot our core principles as a community.

Enjoy your time with loved ones over the Holidays and I look forward to serving the community in 2012.

Bob

This agreement is much stronger than what we considered back in February and consistent with what we heard from a majority of Golden residents: an agreement would be a good move if it provides stronger funding assurances and stronger protections for Golden.

Is it perfect? Of course not. Does it have trade-offs and risks? Of course it does. All of our options have flaws and trade-offs. But based on the extensive community process earlier this year, the community and City Council clearly said that a stronger agreement was a better option than litigation (leaving our fate in the hands of a judge, as Councilor Sloan put it).

We expected that the attorneys would complete the writing of the final agreement yesterday, but that didn’t happen so we will not consider or decide on the agreement at the special City Council meeting on Thursday night (and, contrary to one of CINQ’s many colorful rumors, of course City Council won’t vote on an agreement that isn’t written yet). We will still have the Council meeting, however, and brief the community on the status of the negotiations, describe the agreement, and listen to public comment. Assuming the lawyers can work out final language that does what we expect it to do, we’ll probably have another Council meeting near the end of the year to review, listen to public comment, and make a decision. I will share with you the final agreement language and the timeframe as soon as I have them.

The deadline for the agreement is basically the end of the year (there may be a little wiggle room on the exact date). There is a separate open space protection deal taking place, which amounts to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service transfering the right-of-way on the east side of the Refuge to the highway authority in exchange for a key piece of open space and wildlife habitat on the southwest side. Golden isn’t a party to that other deal, but our agreement is contingent on it. Because a key appraisal tied to that open space acquisition increases by $1 million on January 1, if they don’t close that transaction by December 31 the entire agreement falls apart.

I’ve been an ardent, aggressive opponent of the beltway for a long time. We have worked extremely hard to keep the beltway out of Golden while also advancing our vision for appropriate transportation improvement – the Golden Plan – to protect Golden from the traffic increases that will occur with or without the Jefferson Parkway. If there were a reliable strategy for killing the beltway and securing the improvements we need in Golden, I’d support it. There isn’t. We can litigate, but that comes with huge and serious risks. We might win, and might delay or kill the Jefferson Parkway, but we wouldn’t be any closer to funding the projects in town that so many neighborhoods need, and losing a legal fight would have serious long-term consequences. Fighting the legal fight, win or lose, would have serious long-term consequences as well, for that matter.

There are real risks with an agreement, as well. An agreement removes a hurdle for construction of the Jefferson Parkway (although it adds one, as well, the $57 million required to build our first three projects). Even with the strongest possible enforcement mechanism (and this one has a strong mechanism), somewhere down the line the other parties might find a way to renege on the agreement.

In other words, our options all have very real trade-offs and risk. And the community spoke very clearly in the first part of the year: if we can’t reach a strong agreement, we should take the fight to court, but if we can that’s a better option than litigation. City Council took that seriously, and we negotiated an agreement that we believe meets the principles we adopted in February. If the final agreement – when the attorneys are finished – does what we expect, we’ll have an agreement that I believe is worth supporting. If not, then we won’t support it.

Golden is home. I will live with the outcome of this fight just like everyone else in town will. Contrary to another one of the colorful rumors that CINQ is circulating, I’ve not been offered a job by Governor Hickenlooper and I’m not interested in working for him or any other political figure of any kind. My exclusive focus is on what I believe best serves Golden’s interests, which is my responsibility and obligation as mayor. I also care a great deal about what happens because Golden is and will remain my home for a long time.

Councilor Fisher and Councilor Sloan wrote thoughtful comments about the agreement. I encourage you to read them.

We’ve posted a more detailed explanation of the agreement on the City’s GetTheFactsGolden web site. I encourage you to review it. I and the rest of the City Council welcome your feedback and your questions, and if you can join us on Thursday evening at this special City Council meeting (beginning at 7pm at City Hall), please do so, or send in your thoughts by email.

City Council will be considering and probably voting on the potential agreement at a special meeting on December 15. Please review the information on the site (and we’ll post more details as soon as we can) and share your thoughts in writing before or in person on the 15th.

This report is a central part of our commitment to setting the bar on transparency and accountability. If you find it valuable I encourage you let City Council know this so that they’ll commit to preparing one at least every other year. Community Accountability Report 2010, check it out, and let us know what you think.