This article by Cliff Willmeng originally appeared on the Willmeng for Grassroots Power webpage, May 26th, 2018.

Since 2012 the Lafayette City Council has fought against any significant effort threatening to disrupt oil and gas drilling operations. This is demonstrated by the actions of politicians in Lafayette throughout the course of the ongoing campaign to expand local democratic rights and to protect the environment. These maneuvers have become standard for politicians and industry as community members across Colorado increasingly oppose drilling operations for a spectrum of reasons.

In 2013 Lafayette community members drafted the, “Community Bill of Rights”, to ban all fossil fuel extraction within city limits. The City Council opposed the measure from the start, refusing to adopt the language into local law and rejecting requests to place the CBOR to a vote of Lafayette community members. Local grassroots group East Boulder County United overcame this opposition by drafting a ballot initiative and gaining over twice the amount of signatures necessary to place the measure to Lafayette voters in November of 2013.

The City Council and the Colorado Oil and Gas Association opposed the Community Bill of Rights in no uncertain terms. The oil and gas industry spent tens of thousands of dollars to defeat the measure and the Lafayette City Council even passed a resolution fully condemning the campaign in October prior to the vote. Despite these efforts to defeat the Community Bill of Rights, the measure passed against Council and industry opposition, gaining over 60% of the popular vote. MORE…