Boulder City Councilmember Taishya Adams is leading the call for the city to revisit its investments in two companies accused of being complicit in Israel’s military actions in Gaza and the West Bank.
For weeks, Adams has renewed calls for her fellow council members to divest from Microsoft and the construction company Caterpillar, both of which the United Nations says are complicit with Israel’s military actions that have led to the deaths of more than 60,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Human rights organizations and some scholars now call Israel’s actions a genocide.
Now, the council is slated to dedicate 15 minutes to the topic toward the end of its Thursday meeting.
“Every dollar spent matters, and we should not spend any dollars that go against our interests,” Adams said. “Boulder says it’s the happiest place in the world. Let’s make sure that happiness is morally rooted and grounded, economically responsible and environmentally sustainable.”
The U.N. report says that Microsoft has been culpable in Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories through technological support of its military and settlements. Caterpillar bulldozers, meanwhile, have been used to destroy Palestinian homes in the West Bank.
The Microsoft investments were originally acquired in 2021, and the Caterpillar investments were acquired in 2023, according to the city. Caterpillar accounts for 2.31% of Boulder’s investment portfolio, and Microsoft accounts for 1.43%. At the time of purchase, the Caterpillar investments cost more than $10.4 million, and the Microsoft investments cost more than $6.5 million.
“Investments are selected in accordance with the investment policy guidelines outlined in the code and managed through a third-party investment adviser with specialized expertise,” city spokesperson Sarah Huntley wrote in an email to the Daily Camera.
The city utilizes the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) ratings from the company MSCI, a New York-based financial company. Those ratings score investments based on sustainability. The ratings are based on factors such as a company’s carbon emissions and pollution (environmental), labor practices and community relations (social), and transparency and ethics (governance). Companies are also scored on a scale of zero to 10 based on how well a company performs in those categories.
According to the city, the weighted average environmental score for all of its investments is 6.5, the weighted average social score is 5.6 and the weighted average score for governance is 6.
Adams is publicly on an ideological island. That’s not because her colleagues don’t share concern over what’s happening in Gaza but because they believe it’s far outside of the purview of the Boulder City Council or far from a priority for the city.
“If we were twiddling our thumbs and our budget was great, we solved every problem and we’re actually just looking for stuff to do, then yes, OK, let’s have a conversation,” Councilmember Matt Benjamin said. “That is absolutely not the state we’re in right now.”
Benjamin and fellow Councilmember Mark Wallach, both of whom are running for re-election, released a joint statement in July that, in part, criticized Adams for continuing to call for divestment. All of the council members, except for Adams, are plastered on makeshift wanted posters from community members protesting the city’s investments. Those posters accuse the other council members as being complicit with Israel’s actions.
Adams says that Microsoft and Caterpillar’s actions qualify the city’s investments in the country as unethical. The city already has policies on ethical corporate investing.
That code of ethics was born from a February 2017 meeting, the last time the city council formally guided the city’s investments. The council instructed staff and the city investment adviser to avoid investments in fossil fuels, including pipeline construction and extraction; firearms or weapons not used in national defense; tobacco companies; and firms related to mass incarceration, private prisons and/or detention centers.
According to the municipal code, the primary objectives of the city’s investments are: preservation of capital and protection of investment principal; maintenance of sufficient liquidity to meet anticipated cash flows; diversification to avoid market risks; compliance with a council directive on socially and environmentally responsible investing; maximization of funds available for investment; maximization of investment earnings that follow objectives outlined within the code; and conformance with all applicable laws.
Other corporations that the city invests in include The Home Depot, the tech company Cisco, John Deere, Colgate-Palmolive, PepsiCo, Toyota, and Johnson & Johnson.
“(W)e can say that restrictions on categories or industry of investments reduces the universe of eligible issuers, which could limit the city’s ability to maintain diversification and enhanced return on investment,” Huntley said in an email.
The council informally voted 6-3 in February to not revisit the city’s investment policies. Adams voted in favor, as did councilmember Ryan Schuchard and Mayor Pro Tem Lauren Folkerts.
At the time, council members who did not opt to pursue revisiting investments, such as Mark Wallach, recognized the merit of the topic.
“To me, it’s just that the continued purification of our portfolio is a never-ending process; you will never get to the bottom of it, if that’s the rabbit hole you want to go down,” Wallach said during the Feb. 6 meeting.
Benjamin questioned where the line would be drawn. If investments are pulled because of a corporation’s actions in Israel, he argued that other investments should be questioned based on actions in countries such as China and Russia.
“It solely squares its ire and its targeting on any country that touches the country of Israel,” Benjamin said. “Regardless of your position on what the government is or isn’t doing … they’re not the only country that one can reasonably argue they’re (committing) objectionable actions.”
Adams said she would welcome that conversation.
“I think we have a really beautiful opportunity to align our investments with our values,” Adams said.
A game of resources
Additionally, council members have expressed concern that revising code, revisiting investments and finding new ones would redirect city staffers from more pressing issues.
Issues top of mind for the council include economic stability, addressing homelessness, water and wildfire resilience. The city’s economy is especially in focus amidst financial uncertainty at the federal level.
“The federal government is not paving our streets, the federal government is not plowing our roads, the federal government is certainly not helping us with our homelessness situation,” Benjamin said. “They’re not helping us with our staffing levels or our recreation centers; they’re not helping us manage wildfires on the border of our city.”
Adams disagreed with that sentiment.
“I think it is as important as any other work we’re doing because it supports that work,” Adams said.
‘Misappropriation of energy’
Divestment has dominated open comments at City Council meetings for nearly two years and has led to increasingly animated confrontations at the meetings. Community members protesting the city’s investments have been regularly raucous at the meetings, prompting recesses and for the chambers to be cleared multiple times. At one point in the Aug. 7 meeting, those demonstrators surrounded an elderly person who disagreed with them.
Council members have said that the group is a vocal minority of the community. Adams said she certainly didn’t agree with some tactics and actions of the group of demonstrators. She criticized them for using antisemitic language to some Jewish members on the council. That said, Adams argued that the pro-Palestinian demonstrators have also been harassed. She also said that, sometimes, civil disobedience is necessary.
Adams said she firmly believes she wouldn’t be where she is today if not for the boycotts during the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. in the mid-20th Century. And she’s especially driven after seeing the life of the Palestinians when she visited the area in May.
But, as it stands, there appears to be no other support for prioritizing divesting from Israel.
“I think it’s a misappropriation of the energy and the focus and the passion. Point that passion to our federally elected officials because that’s who has the greatest opportunity to make change, not a town of 107,000 (people) in the middle of the country,” Benjamin said.