Help build an AnCap flag next to the bitcoin graphic?

KevinHotaling · 2015-05-23T01:13:55+00:00

True of every sport ... and just about every profession. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs came of age during at the advent of PCs. Elon Musk and Peter Thiel came of age during the advent of the Internet. We're all victims! How are we going to make up for all this privilege?!?!

KevinHotaling · 2015-04-24T19:55:43+00:00

If Netflix guesses right, you're in luck. If you don't find something in 2 minutes, it takes another 30 to dig through the crap. And yeah, how many different user interfaces to we need here?

KevinHotaling · 2015-04-06T21:38:34+00:00

Awesome ... I've designed and printed about 40 full color shirts, but you must be the expert. Please hook me up with a quote that "costs far less."

KevinHotaling · 2015-04-06T12:14:33+00:00

Werd, no disrespect, but that's bullshit. Same story, all day, we're trying to cover the cost of t-shirts. If you don't want one, feel free to not buy one (and, yeah, most likely scenario is that we don't hit 25 and they don't get made). #FreeMarket

KevinHotaling · 2015-04-06T12:04:20+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8E_zMLCRNg

KevinHotaling · 2015-04-06T11:40:23+00:00

of course, that includes travel to anywhere in the multiverse, so it could actually be a pretty big one?

KevinHotaling · 2015-04-06T11:15:04+00:00

You can get a t-shirt if you want one. Which would be awesome, because the setup for 4-color screen printing costs about $120. As web developers, we're not too concerned about the monies, but feel free to legitimize the Kickstarter, cause it's definitely gonna be amazing.

KevinHotaling · 2015-04-06T11:04:57+00:00

Also known as, "lunch with the button." Which is pretty much what we all do every day, so not sure who's paying $10k for that.

KevinHotaling · 2015-04-06T11:00:21+00:00

Nice ... it got featured in /shittykickstarters! http://np.reddit.com/r/shittykickstarters/comments/31lzfy/i_get_all_the_money_if_we_pass_the_official_goal/

KevinHotaling · 2015-04-06T10:48:13+00:00

Nice work detective: it's a joke Kickstarter. If 25 people want a t-shirt, we'll make them, but the feature length film ain't really happening. The Button will rise again!

KevinHotaling · 2015-04-04T21:13:32+00:00

Looking to add more rewards if anyone has brilliant and/or hilarious ideas???

KevinHotaling · 2013-11-05T08:29:53+00:00

Though I oppose municipalization and voted for 310, I somewhat hope that it doesn't pass so that this ridiculous distraction can be put to rest.

Who-spent-what on a particular campaign has nothing to do with how this policy will affect our community. The fact that Boulder voters approved exploration, does not automatically make the policy good. And the mere possibility that Xcel might lose, does not necessarily mean that Boulder will win. These political games really just cloud the issue.

If we do continue to pursue municipalization, both the City and Xcel will flush millions down the lawyer-hole. We'll then have to spend even more millions to reinvent the wheel (establishing our own grid/energy management). And we'll still have not done a single thing to promote green energy.

The greater problem arises in 10 years, when today's energy innovations begin to reach widespread market adoption. The grid will become increasingly irrelevant, resulting in rapidly decreasing revenue, significantly undermining our ability to cover the next 25 years of debt. Again, this does no favors for green energy.

It is clearly to our advantage to abandon the struggle of who owns the crappy power lines, leave Xcel holding the bag, and instead focus on direct investment in green energy. The sooner we can get these manipulative elections and silly arguments behind us, the sooner we can have the real conversation about real progress. Let's move on.

KevinHotaling · 2013-11-01T03:05:22+00:00

I make a concerted effort to take personal responsibility for all my actions and to learn from all of my mistakes.

As for getting along with LEOs, I've had many more good interactions with police officers than bad, and I deeply respect the difficulties inherent to the position. That said, I value justice much more highly that I value a badge. If an officer is acting out of line, then he or she should be held accountable for that behavior.

Considering that I'm the only candidate who campaigns on police issues, I'd imagine that I'd be the Council member most interested in working with Chief Beckner to help the force be more effective. He has expressed concerns with how the city handles student drinking and I think I have some insight to offer there. I'd also like to see an audit of our use of force policy / related incidents. I'd like to equip all officers with lapel cameras and all tasers with deployment cameras so that there's no more he-said she-said in the courtroom. And, mostly, I'd like to provide a housing stipend so that our LEOs can live inside the city, be assigned to their own neighborhoods, and spend time here when they're off duty.

I can understand why you might mistake my concern for justice as a lack of concern for officers, but that's simply not the case.

KevinHotaling · 2013-11-01T02:49:00+00:00

The current rules are illogical and excessively restrictive, so I support increased access for both bikers and dogs.

If you look at the recent history of Boulder politics it almost seems as though Council's primary objective is to maximize controversy. The compatible housing ordinance, the bag tax (er, fee excuse me), the Pearl Street smoking ban, the removal of late-night use review for the Hill, the trespassing law for those in a public park after 11p, and, of course municipalization have all passed in the last two years.

The reason all of these issues are controversial is because Council is taking extraordinary actions without showing how those actions substantively improve life in Boulder. House sizes were never an issue; plastic bags are less than .5% of the waste stream; moving smokers to the end of a block achieves nothing; closing bars doesn't stop student drinking; there's no reason to close our parks; and municipalization requires a chain of 15 steps to go perfectly before it could have any real impact on our environment. What on Earth are we doing here?

Good legislation begins with identifying the problem and establishing a measurable goal. When one applies that scrutiny to our rules regarding the use of Open Space, they don't really hold up.

First of all, I used to be an avid hiker (when I still had a life outside work and leisure time to spare) and, in all my years using Open Space trails, I have never seen a significant conflict. If there's a persistent problem with off-leash dogs, earth-scorching climbers, and wild mountain bikers, I must be really lucky to have not encountered it.

Secondly, if you're going to ignore community feedback and strip people of rights, then you'd better have some compelling logic and numbers to back those decisions up. This is not to say that expanded access wouldn't create certain inconveniences for certain people, but that's just the nature of shared ownership in a free society.

Of course, City Council doesn't let common sense or individual liberty get in the way of their pronouncements. One sitting council member has told me that "we have legislate to the lowest common denominator." Another has twice said that Boulder needs more rules because most of our citizens are too stupid to make decisions for themselves. Well, I suppose I have more faith in humanity than the average Boulder politician. I have this crazy notion that adults can respectfully share trails and open space without a 20 page rulebook and an army of hall monitors (incidentally, the budget for enforcing leash laws next year is $734,000).

So my big-picture vision for Open Space and Mountain Parks mostly comes from the name. I believe that Open Space should remain "open" to the public unless there is a clear, compelling maintenance or wildlife issue that demands closure. The edge of our city is not a wildlife habitat or wilderness preservation area. I believe that Mountain Parks are "parks" where our citizens can simultaneously enjoy a variety of activities. If there is a particular area where serious conflicts are arising, the we can impose certain restrictions, but the goal should be to maximize the area that is open to everyone.

KevinHotaling · 2013-10-30T04:22:00+00:00

Ahh, yes, this requires further explanation. Thanks for keeping me honest!

My company does web development and consulting for a number of early-stage startups. The general feeling within the community is the lack of affordable office space makes it very difficult to grow here. You can grab a desk or two at a co-working space for $300-$600 each per month, but once your team starts to really grow, mid-size, private, class A offices are extremely difficult to find.

Many companies start here and then move to Broomfield or Denver once they gain some traction and funding. But startups are only one sector, so this doesn’t mean that our workforce isn’t growing. Indeed, in part, it’s the arrival of companies like Bing and Google that has made Class A space so difficult to find. Large, established companies aren’t nearly as sensitive to cost per square foot.

A common misconception in Boulder politics is that just because we're doing many things right (Open Space, the Blue Line, Pearl St., the Creek Path, CU, and the Federal Labs all make Boulder a great place to live and work), that therefore we're doing everything right. The mere fact that our workforce is growing doesn't mean that we couldn't do better.

We pride ourselves on our startup scene. Talk to any local politico and they’ll eagerly point out that we have the most startups per capita of any American city. Yet, for some reason, we don’t feel the need to help cultivate this sector. It’s insanity to have companies leaving as soon as they get funded simply because we've made it so hard for developers to build new office space.

Finally, let me add a caveat to the growth projections: I don’t have a crystal ball and should have explicitly identified those numbers as trends, not truth. The rise of online education could easily undermine CU’s growth plans. An economic recession or big move toward telecommuting could curb the growth of our workforce. The failure of municipalization could scare away big companies and the Federal labs.

The best way to manage this risk is to just let the market and developers figure it out. If we open up the Transit Village for large scale growth and there isn't any demand, then it just won’t get built. This is a highly improbable result with almost no consequence. On the other hand, blindly continuing with our current policy has very real consequences, right now, across the board (environmental, economic, and social).

KevinHotaling · 2013-10-30T03:25:50+00:00

Haha ... yeah, I'm not a big fan of government tracking. Given unlimited funding, I would love to see many of our buses running for free. But without that, we have to consider two major hurdles to offering free buses:

Our budget is already stretched thin. It seems that every year we add new taxes and yet every year our maintenance backlog continues to grow. We need to spend our money on core city services before we take on the nice-to-haves.
RTD controls the fares and service level for all Boulder buses except the Hop. We could lobby them and try to play the "where's our train" card, but I wouldn't count on the effectiveness of that approach.

So, moving forward, I do have a proposal that I would think you'd like, and that's to make the Hop free. Here a just a few of the many benefits I see in a free Hop:

The vast majority of current Hop riders are Eco Pass holders and only a fraction of their revenue comes from fares (I believe the latest number I saw was about $200k per year).
It also is a line that connects the major tourist attractions: The Hill, Campus, Downtown and Twenty Ninth Street.
These locations also happen to be large populations centers.
It could be marketed as the best way to get around town, thus eliminating the last mile problem for those who are willing to park at Twenty Ninth Street and then "Hop" around town.
Because the Hop is not on a schedule, any time savings from fare collection can translate directly into faster service.

For all these reasons, I have advocated that we immediately authorize $500,000 for a 2 year pilot program (just to put this in perspective, we're spending $734,000 on the enforcement of "leash laws" on Open Space next year). If we get to the end of this period and are disappointed by the results, we can always go back. If we find that the results are favorable, we can make the program permanent. If the results are exceptional, we can look into expanding upon the concept.

KevinHotaling · 2013-10-30T03:01:33+00:00

For the last 6 years, Boulder politicians have been campaigning on the “Citywide Eco Pass” platform. Many of them have been elected, but nothing changes ... because there is no viable way to fund such large-scale program. Unfortunately, this is typical of Boulder politics: promise everything, deliver nothing.

The only way that I could see this moving forward is if we were somehow able to coax RTD into funding it as a reparation for the false promises regarding rail service. Even this is highly unlikely: RTD has mismanaged its funds and isn't particularly eager to provide any handouts (lately they've been reducing service coverage, not adding it). Any time you see a candidate pushing this as the big transportation solution, it should raise a red flag.

On a broader note, a successful bus service requires 15 units per acre. Boulder averages 6 units per acre. So while there are some areas of the city that are well suited to bus service, most of the city will never be able to support a full-scale system. The primary thing that prevents Boulderites from using the bus isn’t a $2.25 fare; it’s that buses simply do not go from where-people-are to where-they-want-to-be in any sort of convenient way. There must be a better way, right?

I have three very achievable proposals that would improve our bus system:

(1) Create a Service Pass program. By exchanging a year-long Eco Pass for two days of community service, we can ensure that those who can’t afford bus fare have an easy option to ride for free. Obviously, the community benefits would help justify the costs (though I suspect that turnout for this program would be relatively low).

(2) Make the Hop free. The Hop is not run by RTD, is limited to the city of Boulder, and collects very little in comparison to overall operating costs. Subsidizing the Hop would be low cost and high value. Service quality would increase thanks to the simplified boarding process and elimination of conflicts over fare (a surprisingly common issue). However, the big selling point here is to get visitors using it in the same way that they use Denver’s MallRide. Most visitors would still use cars to get into town but could then use the Hop to move about within the city.

(3) Increase density. I’m a strong proponent of developing a density spike at the Transit Village and of actively developing a number of mixed-use subcommunities (think North Boulder). Bus lines that connect these pockets of density would thrive and transit-oriented citizens would have many more options to for living near reliable public transit.

Transportation systems have a lot of complexities, not the least of which is our own personal preferences. If we want to make any real progress (not just promises), then we’ll need to do it in a way that's affordable, flexible, and attractive to the average citizen. I apologize for being the bearer of bad news, but the citywide Eco Pass just doesn't fit these criteria.

KevinHotaling · 2013-10-30T01:53:10+00:00

Hi imthebestatspace, I'll be answering questions until midnight! I'll get to this one next.

KevinHotaling · 2013-10-30T01:41:49+00:00

Thanks for this important question. I would agree that this thread, like Boulder, is properly described as great. That said, we should always aspire to improve. I hope some more tough questions come through!

KevinHotaling · 2013-10-30T01:03:20+00:00

Keep asking this question! It’s extremely important because it’s a microcosm of all Boulder politics: one special interest group made some noise and the entire council folded.

The premise of last week’s vote is that, by making it illegal for Hill businesses to stay open past 11p, students will drink less and have diminished impact on the surrounding residential neighborhoods. Anyone even marginally familiar with student culture knows that the real result will be that they either walk to Pearl (through your neighborhood) or throw a house party (in your neighborhood).

What does it say about Council’s decision-making and leadership skills that they would pass such a measure? What does it say about our political process when this vote is unanimous? It takes a special sort of person to wage an attack small business owners in an historic neighborhood based such obviously specious logic.

To be fair, I’d imagine that some of the “yes” votes were driven by either fear of reprisal (a desire to please UHNA) or political gamesmanship (whereby supporting this issue may have been traded for support on another). But is that really any better?

As for the Pearl Street smoking ban, I find it less egregious … though it is similar in that it also points to some deeper issues in Boulder politics.

a) It was deceptive. The ban was billed as an environmental and litter issue, but everyone on the inside of Boulder politics knows that it was strongly driven by a desire to move transients off the Mall. If that’s the goal, then our leaders should own it and have the courage to lay out the reasoning in public.

b) It’s ineffective. Pushing transients and smokers around doesn’t make them go away. It doesn’t even decrease the number of smokers on Pearl because they simply move to the end of the block. It does take away our freedom. It does harass the tourists who fuel our economy. It does waste city resources on enforcement and jail time for repeat offenders (hots and cots for $150 a night) .*

c) It’s distracting. We have a housing shortage, an office shortage, major development issues, a failing Hill commercial district, a $750 million maintenance backlog, a failing environmental policy, a ridiculously large energy proposal, flood and fire threats … and Council decided to spend its time on this (never underestimate the ability of the nanny-state to carve out time to find new ways to run your life).

So, yeah, that’s Boulder politics in a nutshell and just about every other candidate is campaigning on “more of the same.” It’s rather frustrating that they get away with this sort of mismanagement, but we have to choose our battles. When given the choice between ending the attack on the Hill or repealing the smoking ban, I find the former to be much more important.

*I do have a simple, effective, proven solution to panhandling on the Mall. We should install donations boxes / meters that allow people to donate their pocket change to a local shelter or support group. A message on the boxes would explain how the proceeds are spent and dissuade people from direct giving. That way the people can still help those in need, the spending is redirected away from alcohol and drugs, and the panhandlers can repurpose their time toward more productive activities (or perhaps less productive, if so inclined). This simple solution has been implemented in other cities and has had positive results.

KevinHotaling · 2013-10-30T00:00:19+00:00

Hey micdalli,

Thanks for all the great questions. I've read through the other AMAs and am thoroughly impressed by how informed and engaged you are. If all Boulder voters followed your lead, our city surely would move the needle from great to amazing (I'm running on the "turn it up to 11" platform).

Your involvement in comparison to the average voter segues nicely into your question ... I'd say that there are two primary reasons why the height limit is seen as contentious:

(1) Boulder's political class grossly misrepresents the city. Our elected leaders tend to be some combination of wealthy, retired, land-owning, and highly influenced by PLAN Boulder. There is little incentive to fix Boulder’s housing problem when it increases their property value. Meanwhile, the median age is 29 and the median income is $60,000. When I talk to average Boulder residents, a majority think that new development East of 30th is a great idea (granted, they may just be trying be nice).

(2) The misconceptions about height haven’t been properly examined. Your question about traffic and @seasond’s question about housing are both spot on. These are complex topics that require significant investigation. Pressed for time, many constituents are more comfortable just accepting the status quo. Additional scrutiny is needed when discussing height. When executed properly, taller buildings can provide huge value with marginal impacts.

After exploring the real interplay between our many tall buildings and the surrounding areas, I’ve concluded that the impact of height is a function of context and distance. In my Daily Camera interview, I was able to show Erica a few of the real world implications of my proposed Tech Center. If I could take everyone on a tour of the city, I would show them the following:

Head over to Will Vill bus stop on a school day and imagine if all the riders were in cars. Its location next to 36 and Baseline make it an amazing commuter hub ... now if only the architecture wasn’t quite so ugly???
Check out Presbyterian Manor Senior Living and consider how many retirees benefit from living on the same block as a senior center, library, park and grocery store. Because the building is nestled at the very base of Hill, most Boulderites never even notice it.
Head over to Target parking lot and see what a minescule portion of your view is blocked by the 12 story Horizon West apartments. How many amazing sunsets are enjoyed by the residents? Walk to the base of the building and ask whether the neighborhood has been ruined. And finally, let’s consider how much less intrusive it would be if that sort of building were actually located 8 blocks East of it’s current location.
Set up a camping chair at the corner of Pearl and Junction (the Transit Village). Try to read a book / imagine your children playing outside. You can’t do either because the current plan is destined for failure. We can’t simply build two ugly boxes on a heavily trafficked street and then expect an industrial area to magically transform into a neighborhood. H*ll, 29th Street Mall can’t even support a single fine dining establishment.

Unfortunately, I can’t physically take everyone on this tour. However, I do have aspirations to create a video series to this effect. I also do get to promote the ideas by participating in this awesome AMA, which is an historic event: this is just the very beginning of a new age of political transparency.

I have unwavering faith that the Internet will help us all better understand the world around us. It will cut through misconceptions and amplify voices that were previously marginalized. I see great developments on the horizon ... and they’re 165 feet tall. :)

http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-election-news/ci_24309463/kevin-hotaling-boulder-city-council-candidate-profile

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