October 29, 2025 — Boulder Arts Commission Retreat

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] We are recording, everybody. Welcome to the World Arts Commission. Wednesday, October 29th Cheryl Carnosa? Are you cool? Here? Jeffrey Cash? Here. Burger, here? Here? Yes, yes. Present. I'll turn the meeting over to Chair Welcome to the October 29th Annual retreats. We'll start with the approval of the agenda, and we'll see the motion. I make my motion. I have a second to approve the agenda. Second, second. Got feedback on the email, so… The two items I wanted to add. There's an update for… Chrome. Lauren? on the relationship with CU Boulder.

[1:02] It can be brief. And the second is, I read in the We need to make a motion on the planning discussion. To… allow artist studios in R1 zoning, important, I'd like item to discuss. Okay, we have those both already incorporated? Oh, you do have those? I didn't see them on there. Great. I was not aware they were on there yet either, so you and me both. We are taken care of. Any other amendments to the agenda? Alright, so we have a motion to approve as is. All in favor? Then there's nobody online, correct, Ollie? Everybody's here. That's too fucking to do. Great. Our second item is approval of the September 25 meeting minutes. I need a motion for that, please. Hand up for a motion. I'll second. All in favor?

[2:01] And there's another one by the coffee, so that is unanimous. And I will turn it over to After I read the land acknowledgement, I will turn it over to Sarah for the grant program business. The City of Boulder acknowledges the city is on the ancestral homelands and unceded territory of Indigenous peoples who have traversed, lived in, and stewarded lands in the Boulder Valley since time immemorial. Those indigenous nations include the Apache, Arapahoe, Cheyenne? Comanche? honey? Shoshone? Sue? And mute. The City of Boulder recognizes that those now living and working on these ancestral lands have a responsibility to acknowledge and address the past, and must work to build a more just future. Sarah. Alright. program matters. There were 4 reports sent to you, although the Viva one, I do apologize, was sent this morning. Viva theater, Community Roots Art Festival, otherwise known as CRAFT.

[3:09] Graham Fuller and Kin Art Studio and Gallery. You may approve all reports, approve individual reports while submitting specific questions, postpone approval of individual reports pending answers to those specific questions, or not approve the reports and cancel the final 20%. that we approve the grant reports from Viva theater, Kraft, Graham Fuller, and Ken Studio. comment. All in favor? Well, no, we do discussion first, yeah. Community roots, it appeared that their budget was not… I think they had a… Kind of a yellowed section and a question mark, I don't know if anybody I don't think it's enough to disapprove him, but… is that that the festival for 2025 is happening in September, it may not have happened yet.

[4:03] That's, that's the way I took this. That was for, what I read was the, Yeah. That happens in October. Liquor license renewals happen in October. So, I guess… Would it make sense to have them update that after October and send that in? I don't… I wouldn't hold up the approval for that. I'll reach out to them. Any other comments? just really impressed with the impact numbers directly from Viva theater. For their new program. All in favor of approving those reports? That's unanimous. Here we go! Oh, let's see, so the final review, I added pre-application questions. Per Commissioner Caroline's suggestion, strengthen the definition of collaboration for the bedrock section.

[5:07] and, added some extra clarifications for the project grants as well, including, broadening the definition, versus just BIPOC, more underserved populations for the encouragement point. Were there any questions about these changes? I do have one question. The arts community? Our last meeting? Yes, I did, send out an additional survey to everyone who… Even started a draft of our application this year, and, There was some concerns about how this would actually play out, which I think we all share. We'll have to see how this grant program Next year, but… I think there's actually a surprising amount of positive feedback. I wouldn't call it positive, I would say from the last meeting. I've received nothing but positive feedback, and the trajectory from the 3 months where we started has been really impressive, so thank you for your diligence on this. Thank you. I think people are excited.

[6:12] We have a motion to approve the new grant program. I move to approve the 2026 Cultural Grants Program budget structure, and to endorse the staff proposal for process, schedule, application, and scoring system. I'll second. All in favor? That's unanimous. Yay! Sarah! Alright. The next would be the delegation of authority for administrative decisions, so these would be the first-come, first-served grants of giving staff the power to administratively approve these. Which has historically been the case these days as well. Right, exactly. I move that we delegate decisions for the following grant categories to staff.

[7:02] The Artist Hiring Grant, Cultural Field Trip Fund, Grant Writing Assistance Fund, Professional Development Scholarship, Fee Waivers, and Rental Assistance for Boulder Venues. I'll second. All in favor? Thank you so much for your trust, and I realize that you are missing out not getting to see a lot of these reports, so last year I created a little report for the Commission, a summary of the administratively approved grants, and I'll do that again this year so you can Alright, we currently have, Cheryl and Yale as our, commissioner members of the sponsorship committee, which also includes members of staff. Essentially, we have a portion of our budget every year that is coded to the grant program, but it's for things that aren't… don't fit a grant requirement well. For example, CBCA programming, things like that. So, we are looking for two volunteers to be on the sponsorship committee.

[8:00] I'll do it again? Yeah, that's my first question. I would also do it again. Unless anyone's like… I've done it before, and actually, I thought I was one of the people this year, but that must have been last year. Anyway, it's not a heavy lift, so I'm… And I like getting a little insight into what's happening. It's interesting, yeah. Thank you, and thank you for being so responsive as well. Alright. Great. We have Next Steps, a grant information session that'll be in English and Spanish on November 12th at noon. a Cultural Organization Summit, which we will present our funding opportunities for 2026, as well as currently we have 9 other funders signed up. And that will be Friday, December 5th, at E-Town Hall. And then we are going to have our cultural grant program training Thursday, January 15th at 5pm. I am looking to expand the grant panel by one or two people, so we can get some more diverse perspectives, so I am asking if you have recommendations to put them in touch with me.

[9:05] Tell me more about that. What, what these people doing? These are people in the arts community, so we have someone that previously worked for Colorado Creative Industries, we have an arts educator, someone that's a curator at the Denver Botanic Museum, so people who have experience either writing or reviewing grants, or both. And it's a pay? Yes. A $2,000 stipend. A what? A $2,000 stipend. And, and… Do you have a… I know there wasn't a focus the first time specifically to Boulder or Boulder County. Is there this round? No, I think, having an outside perspective, especially since, like, so many people are involved in the same things in Boulder was helpful, but, certainly if you're from Boulder, you can apply. If you're from outside Boulder, you can apply as well. What is the zip time commitment? So they will be reviewing about… what was it?

[10:02] 100 grants, I think, that they actually review that are competitive. So with general operating support, especially with the bedrock consideration this year, that will take some extra time. But in terms of meetings, there's the training, and then 5 in-person meetings. And do you have people dropping off the committee from last year, or is everyone reapplying? No. They technically signed on for a two-year term last time, and I recently reached out, and they are all willing to serve another term, and are enthusiastic to do so. For commission members who served on, or attended the grant meetings. They're very qualified and talented, we're just looking to expand the, lived experiences. Okay, great, thank you. I think that's it. Thank you. But yeah, put them in touch with me if you have… And we are back on time, even though we started late, so we'll turn it over to Brendan and Jake. Keep us wrong.

[11:08] Right. Public art program business. Today we need to delegate authority to our standing selection panel. So, per the public art policy, the standing selection panel is assembled to review and approve unique opportunities for public art, donations of public art, relocations of public art, and deaccessions of public art. So this group meets once a month. Tuesday of the month for an hour. take care of These sorts of issues for the program. Our current standing selection panel is Maria Cole. Arts Commission, we always have one commissioner on the standard selection panel. Stephen Frost is an artist and CU Boulder professor. Howard Rubin works in branding and design. Elways is an event producer, and Aaron Winston is the Executive Director of Brown. So these folks are continuing on the sending selection panel.

[12:02] One note, Maria, I think you're rolling off the commission in March, so we'll probably come back in March or April to see if there's any interest from the Commission on somebody taking Maria's spot. There's a couple other things we need to finish up for this year, for the semi-selection Panel, but next year… for another… to serve. So, think about it. If you have any questions, let me know. The motion… Nobody would like to… I move that we delegate authority for unique opportunities, donations, relocations, and deaccessions of public art to the standing selection panel. I'll second that. Any discussion? All in favor? Who's your nails. Thank you. Great. Alright, hi everyone. I'm gonna talk about our Experiments in Public Art program for 2026. So this is… we're bringing back a program that puts temporary public art in public spaces. It's an ongoing series of temporary public art interventions.

[13:08] As the name says, it's an experimental program, and the goal… one of the goals is to expand Beyond the notion of traditional public art. We have around $9,500 for each project. I'll go into the specifics of each proposal's budget later. These are some of the goals for the 2026 program. We want to advance cultural equity, showcase local and regional talent, engage the community, create a sense of place. There's some others up there, too. Some eligibility requirements, we wanted to make sure that this was a really locally connected program. So the lead applicant must reside in Colorado, and then if the lead applicant resides outside of Boulder, we need something that connects them to Boulder, whether that's an artist, artist team, local organization. that the non-Boulder artist will partner with.

[14:01] Some other requirements for the program, it's going to exist for at least one weekend, up to 3 months, has to be free and accessible. And it must include an artist talk or a similar event. And some other, you know, adhere to all city policies, that sort of thing. Here are some of the possible uses for the funding that we'll be giving out to artists. Our selection panel. And our technical review committee, So, for this program, looped in some C. Fellow city employees to help us review, kind of, the feasibility and technical issues of each of these proposals, because they are in public space. So we had Denise Dawson from Parks and Rec. Justin Greenstein from Special Events, Elisa Little from Risk, Ana Sylvia Avendano-Curiel from Belonging, and Vivian Castro-Muldridge from

[15:00] And of course, the sanding selection. Good grouping of people. What's that? Good grouping of people. Yeah, it's a good group. So these are the three projects that have been selected for this program. The first is called Strip Mall Movement by artist Rory Fitzgerald Ledsoe. Boulder Artist. The next is the Interactive Musical Arcade by Jiffer Harriman and Ryan Wither, Lafayette. And then, a ice core sculpture project. It was untitled, but it has to do with, these ice cores, that are taken from the Arctic, and you'll see more in a second, but it's pretty cool. So the first one's Strip Mall Movement. This will be a public dance series out way east Arapahoe, by the Space Space Gallery. Collaborating with local choreographers and dancers, it'll include a community piece, a participatory experience, and it's… we're excited about this one because it will activate this kind of underserved area of East Boulder. It'll be free and open to the public. It'll happen during Boulder Arts Week, so the artist already has a good plan for, you know, mobilizing existing publicity there.

[16:10] The budget's around $7,000. There's some feedback from our technical review committee up there about, permitting and risk feasibility. Some images of the artist's past work. These are dance performances. The second one, the Interactive Musical Arcade, so this is a interactive sound sculpture that will be placed in front of Paradise Found on, kind of, east, the east end of Pearl. It will, be in the spring and summer of 2026, free and open to the public, interactive, and then there'll also be a public talk by the artists at the end, and they want to install it permanently at the Museum of Boulder afterwards. The budget's around $8,950, And there's some feedback up there, again, from the technical review committee.

[17:04] Some images of the artist's past work here. So you can see one of the… one of their past kind of interactive sound sculptures up on the left there, and on the right, that's, one of those kind of keyboards that you stand on, it makes noises, that sort of thing. So they've got some cool interactive stuff. And then the third proposal is the ice core sculpture project, so this will be a temporary installation, and the artist has a connection with, this NSF ice core facility in, I think, Lakewood. So these are from the Arctic, they're, like, this big cores of ice, that scientists use to study I don't know, ice. But, and so the idea is that people… you will come and watch them melt, basically, and there's gonna be this kind of public time capsule element, too, where people who attend the installation can draw things, write things, reflect, and it'll all be put into this time capsule. Obviously, themes about climate change, that sort of thing.

[18:12] again, free open to the public. It'll occur over 3 days in the summer, and the events will just last as long as the ice melts, which is pretty cool. The budget's $9,500, and again, there's some feedback up there from our technical review committee. You can think of an ice core like a tree ring. And that, throughout historical time, you can see different CO2 levels. Right, exactly. They started out at Jurassic Park, though. Yeah, here's some images from the artist, some projections, that… that's a glass piece that they made, and that's them up on an expedition in the Arctic, which is pretty cool. And then, our recommended motion.

[19:02] Unless there are questions. I have a question. Thanks for the week. I'd like to find a way to get broader outreach to this, and better understand who this is reaching out to, or who we're connecting with on these programs. And one suggestion, since you asked me for suggestions. Is, you know, can these have QR codes at the site? People are posting, you know, I was here, and post images are really somehow encouraged a little bit more. momentum behind these public art pieces. I think they're all fantastic. But I think we just need to get the word out. And better understand how… How it's being received by the community. I mean, the QR code is great, we could probably include Each of the projects, and maybe it links back to, like, our… Website, or our social media feed, or at least to open, like, an email. Jake also has experience using Placer AI, so that's basically where you can kind of track

[20:02] Set, like, people who are walking by these? events or sculptures to see, like, how many people are actually, like, in the vicinity. It's not… It's not clear whether, you know, it's not going to show us who actually participated in the program, but it shows, like, the traffic. But yeah, we're always looking for ideas. If there's other ideas, too, for how we can, one, promote these projects, and then also get feedback. I like that one is in collaboration with Boulder Arts Week, and I think it's just a simple ask of the artists to have an expectation that they will co-promote this. Yeah, yep. Which artists are good at. I mean, also, these are all local artists, too. I think some of our lectures, we had out-of-state artists come. A one-time event, so we didn't get as much audience participation as we had hoped, but I think this is Yeah, and all three of them do have partnerships identified that I think will help with the publicity. The, the Paradise Found, the Boulder Arts Week, and also the Museum of Boulder.

[21:06] So I think that'll help. Thank you. Thank you. The Boulder Arts Week one, that's a… You said an underserved location? Yeah, it's, like, way far east, yeah. You're almost to Lafayette. Yeah, where is the parking situation, then? Like, if you're using the parking lot for the performance, where are people going to park? There's a size little parking there in the area, and actually, I think one of the things is we want bus, because there actually is a bus that goes all the way down around So that could be cool. Ride the bus, see the show, ride the bus home. And there is, there is a lot of parking in that area there, I've never seen it fall. It's really close to Masa, I wonder if there's a… Opportunity there. Like, they do. It is ridiculous. Friday night pizza nights and stuff like that. Even more? But it's April. Do they still have Friday night?

[22:04] Yeah, Dancing Divas and all the folks out at Avalon Ballroom, that's not far from there, either. I just think it's a funky… I mean, not funky… Yeah. It's just not served. It's nice to have one like that, because the other two are on Pearl Street, and so this one is like, hey, let's get people outside downtown. But that's true, it might be nice to have some sort of a tie-in with a restaurant, because there's nothing there, really, there's that barbecue place… Oh, what the hell, yeah. No, KT BBQ's museum company. KT, yeah. KT. That was their first. That was their first. So there's that. If there's some other opportunity for, like, a food truck, or, like, something there to, like, get people out there… That vintage horse place could actually just offer to, you know, drive us out there. Who needs a bus? Yeah, that's perfect. But I think if we can find a food truck, or, like, some way to…

[23:02] Draw people out there that Mainly. I'm always interested in… Also, part of it is that, is that it's… I think part of her intention is that… People who were driving by. What? What's going on out there? What's happening? So it just… It's a moment of whimsy, you know? Something weird happening. That's awesome. And the other thing, I think with the music, there might be an opportunity to… Do something with, We'd like some… like, a field trip, or I don't know, if there's something, like… you know, PBSD has all these music programs, but there's a way to get Schools out there… There's an elementary school nearby. Yeah, there's an elementary school nearby. Which one is it next to? No. It's on Pearl Street.

[24:00] Oh, you mean the interactive musical one? Oh, yeah, that's in front of the Paradise Bound. Yeah. Whittier. Whittier Elementary, yep. And then Boulder High, too. But that could be, like, just an opportunity for them to go out and have a field trip. That can be checked, too. I can reach out to both of those schools. Maybe can do a partnership with, like, Glacier, or an Icy Truck, or… Yeah, that's a good idea. What, what day is that? What do we have in time? That was spring-summer 2026. Do we have any rough idea of how long it takes the ice to melt? Oh, the ice? I'm not sure if that was… My understanding… actually, my understanding was that it was over the course of a day? But I'm now realizing that I don't know for sure. I mean, I know it depends on the temperature and the exact size, but, like, we were looking at an hour and a half for, like, three and a half months was really…

[25:01] No, because it's only 3 days. The project is proposed for 3 separate days, and… like, separate, non-constructive, so I think… Right. So the ice has to be done by the end. One core per day. We are still looking for a motion. Yep. We are now back on time with one minute to go, so… Any other discussion that we need to cover? Maria has made a motion. Let's make a motion. I move that we approve this process was properly conducted and recommended. proposals by artist Roy Fitzgerald, Bledsoe? Differ, Harrabin, and Ryer, Wither, and Madison. Senkowitz, advance to the City Manager for final approval. I second. All in favor? That's unanimous. Great, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Excellent. We are going to adjourn the regular portion of our meeting now. We have a 10-minute break, and we're gonna start back on time at 2.45 for our retreat portion, which is not

[26:04] Video? Not recorded? It is recorded. It is recorded. Great. You're on break. Breaking God. Take your scenes, everybody stand up, staff included. Get your chairs out of the way, we're gonna do our reintroductions. Stand up, guys. Just a moment. I closed my document. Yeah, everybody in the room is expected to participate, please. Nice. Matt included. So… This is just a few minutes out of our retreat to kind of… have a little adult playtime, and get to know a little bit about the perspectives in the room. We would normally do this in a big circle.

[27:06] we don't have space for a circle. So, what I'm gonna suggest is this is an activity, it's like a step-forward activity, so we can line up on this side, and on the inside, or… The chairs, just so that you can show some forward movement in how you're moving. We're gonna spend a few minutes on this, and then we're gonna do some… a really, really brief introduction to who is in the room. So… Yeah, it's not surprising. Alright, so… Step forward if you can play a musical instrument. That's cool. And then, after each question, we're gonna reset. We're just seeing who's answering what. Step forward if you've ever participated in something you consider performance arts.

[28:00] Lots more. Okay. Step forward if you agree that graffiti can be a legitimate art form. Cool. How about if you agree that digital or AI-generated art should be considered equal to traditional art? Step forward if you agree with that. Oh, not! emphatic with that. Step forward if you've ever been in a play. Stay forward if you've been in a play as an adult. Step forward if you agree that art should be made accessible, even if that means lowering professional standards. Big step for Matt. How about if you agree that public funding for the arts should focus more on equity than excellence?

[29:08] How about, step forward if you ever played or wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons? How about if you ever sang in a choir? Stay forward if you've played in a band. Not a marching band, but like a rock band, like a quartet, or a… Woo! Step forward if you've ever traveled to perform or present art. And… Couple more. Step forward if bad art is a real thing. You want an emphatic yes? Two more questions. If Sundance is… if you think Sundance is going to be great for the City of Boulder.

[30:12] That's almost all of us. And then, final question, step forward if you agree that a great piece of art can change someone's life. I think we all must have done that. Yay! Cool! So, yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome! it's nice to see all the different perspectives and viewpoints that represent our community and do all this great work for art. So we're gonna take a very quick lightning blitz round around the room to introduce yourself, and what I'd like to hear is your name, and what you're doing in the room, what your role is, and then one thing in the next year, either that you want to experience that's related to art, or perform. It could be like, I want to take ballet lessons, or I want to go to New York and see Hamilton, anything along those lines. Something that you want to create for yourself in the next year roundabouts.

[31:13] So I'll start. I'm Caroline Hertz, I'm the chair of the Arts Commission, and I would like to do one of those drink wine and make art events. You don't call that Tuesday? Jeffrey Cash, Vice Chair of the Arts Commission, and professional board member around town. And for the arts, my goal is to also, work on my next, one-person production show. I wanna hear more? Jill Katzenberger, Arts Commissioner. Yeah, I'm producing a show next year for a friend who is… has written a play about her cancer journey, and it's really powerful, and I would definitely tell you all when it's… when it's coming out, but it's putting a lot of energy into it right now.

[32:11] I'm Gaia Minet, Arts Commissioner, and my next year's goal is to just be more diligent about Not just buying tickets, but also attending shows in board. Especially things that my liaisons do. I'm Cheryl Cardozo, Arts Commissioner, and I have a goal to do at least one storytelling or standard performance a quarter. I'm Yal Wade, Boulder Arts Commissioner, illustrator, local style icon. And, I want to, start a Boulder Zine Club, and maybe also I would love to produce a Boulder Zine Fest next year, yeah. I'm Maria Cole, Arts Commissioner, and I would like to finish illustrating my book and write a novel.

[33:08] Hi everybody, I'm Mark Wolf, Assistant City Manager. Less ambitious, but, attended part of the Roots Music Festival, and realized I don't get to enough shows, and I love it every time I go, so my goal is to get to a few more Elliot Labonte, City of Boulder. Is this being recorded? So if my wife's watching, I guess I have to do this now, but I've always wanted to learn to fiddle. Yes, it's amazing. I'm Melissa Mazzani, to be a folder. I want to tap more into… I do aerial dance. We just had a performance, and I did a solo, and I also choreographed groups. And I really want to be more vulnerable in my dance, and also push the envelope more with my groups.

[34:02] I'm Jay Hudson Humphrey, I'm the Public Art Program Coordinator, and I'm working on a art bike for Bike Night. I'm Ellie Kennedy, and I'm an Operations Specialist, and I'm here recording the meeting. I really want to learn how to sew my own clothes and get more into cosplay. Brendan Picker Mahoney, Public Art Program Manager, Kind of a tradition I've started, but every year, trying to bring my kids to, like, a big art exhibition, New York, someplace cool. And just keep exposing them to… Art. Let's go to Matt in the back, I know he's trying to hide. Matt Kzanski, I'm with the Community Vitality Department, and It's been a while since I've, purchased, work of art from a local artist, and that used to be a thing I did regularly, so I'm trying to get back into it

[35:00] Exactly. I'm Matthew Bugler, I'm an arts and culture specialist, and I want to continue and have a dance. Yes! Is it me? Go ahead. Hi, I'm Cindy Sufuca. I am an arts program manager. Anytime. And yesterday was my birthday, and my husband got me a harmonica. Because… we play in a band together, and we need somebody to play the harmonica part for when the living rings. So I'm gonna learn that. I'm Sarah Harrison, Grants Program Manager, and I've been workshopping some, sketch comedy characters, so if you can extend that. Very good. You can go in the back. I'm Shelly Benford, I'm the CEO here at Chautauqua, and I will be helping my daughter run a screenplay. But my other endeavor is winterizing. Auditorium.

[36:02] I typed this next one. Hi everybody, my name's Brad Weber, I'm the Chief Brand and Development Officer here at Chautauqua. Welcome to our house, glad you're here. My goal is to perform in a play that my daughter is directing. Do you think you're apart? Matt, by the way, we have an auction ending today for our birdhouses, so… Okay. We have 35 you can choose from. I manage the Office of Arts and Culture, and I want to post even more on my, fashion-style accounts. And I'm gonna… I set the bar low so nobody had to be embarrassed, and you guys blew those all out. That's what I said! I'll have the Dungeons of Dragons question in there, because I'm a new Dungeon Master. Oh, so I want to take an improv class. Yes! Thank you, everybody!

[37:10] I'm willing to vice chair to say a few words about Schwart. Extraordinary year. Just let me take a minute to highlight. Last of over 250,000. We produce over 100 events, including 70 concerts, silent film series, Panel discussion. You know, I could go on and on. many experiences that you need.

[38:00] produced up here this year, and we've been really, really grateful that we have been able to support the community in the way that we have. We've, provided discounted or free vendor space to over 50 organizations and 5,000 free tickets to events here? So we're really proud of that. We're doing… The company invested over $3 million last year. In, capital improvements right here, I've included, renovating our award-winning articodian green room. If you haven't seen it, it really is something to see, so… You should rather give you a tour if you want. We also renovated one of those buildings, Colleges up here? very, you know, fairly beautiful. That's a vehicle. See that, you're welcome to, too. And we're also reminded by the student, when you came out today, we're underground all the power lines.

[39:01] So, that will reduce our flooding and So… billions of dollars to increase But it's really going to preserve this place, I see. Vibrant, inspiring place. Ultimately. That's it for, you know, January events to come. Awesome. Project, which shall imagine. auditorium. Which, has been a seasonal venue for the past, probably, 27 years. So this is a major, major undertaking, but we will be able 200 days of additional peer-E programming. To what we do in there. And also, welcome some Maximum Festival. So, anyway, I just want to thank you all for your support. almost for years now, I'm really, Appreciate it. I hope you have a wonderful retreat, and if you don't need anything, just let us know.

[40:00] Thank you. Thank you very much. Great, Lauren ran out to do a check on Josh, but Mark, are you okay to go on your own? We'll get you started, and he can hop in when he shows up? I have to be honest that, Quite exactly sure, what you all want me to cover today. But I'm happy to kind of wing it. I figured there's some, Some things that, would be helpful to, to cover. So, Mark Loaf, Assistant City Manager, been, following, Arts Commission at maybe more of a distance, so excited to be working with, with all of you. City is undergoing some changes that you all have seen, I think exciting changes, and certainly, connecting our cultural development to our economic development in a really intentional way. That means,

[41:05] some change for our organization that we are navigating and working through and impacting all the folks that you see in this room. just know that, it is a period of time of a little disruption for us. You know, I think we're, we'll be, well-positioned for the future once we get through the change, but, we are in that space right now where, We're working through all the different parts of moving people and functions around. So, I can speak a little bit more directly to that, but just acknowledging that we are in the middle Middle of some of that. I think a couple things are important as to just highlight some of the reasoning behind making the change that we did in creating a new Office of Cultural and Economic Development within the City Manager's Office. this city council established, economic development as one of their, priorities, for this term, which ends in a few days. And, they also established,

[42:11] healthy commercial areas, vibrancy in commercial areas as another one of those priorities. So they were really thinking about, commercial vacancy, they were thinking about vibrancy and activation in our commercial areas, and also how we can be a better partner as a city. with our business community. And so, one of the first things that we did in response to that, priority is, update our economic vitality strategy. Which is kind of similarly an internal document to help guide, some of our priorities and work to the, to the Arts Blueprint, which I know we'll talk a lot about today. And… That, strategy came to Council in April. I think mostly well-received, and we got some specific feedback on some areas.

[43:01] One of which was, you know, how to intentionally, align our economic, development efforts with our values, something that we, as staff, were thinking a lot about. One of those areas is in thinking about how we can really intentionally bring arts and culture into, our work with the business community and also in continuing to, cultivate vibrant, business districts, commercial spaces. The other thing that they said is go faster, and, which, always is. I appreciate the feeling, and it's stressful for us as staff, but one of the things that we knew and we talked about back in April with Council, and continued the conversation internally over the last several months. is that we just weren't structured to do that work. We've never been asked to do, traditional economic development work as a city organization. I started with the city, 7 years ago, which is crazy. Chris and I started about the same time.

[44:04] we were not saying economic development. It was just not a word, in community. for a variety of reasons, I think COVID probably being the big driver, that environment has changed. I think people really felt what it was like to not have those vibrant spaces that you were used to going, what downtowns were like without people and activation. I think it's changed the paradigm a bit. that's my perspective on kind of why it's bubbled up on the radar a little bit, in a different way. And so, we needed to be intentional about how we were to structure our work as an organization to best support that. So that, led us to, the, the reorganization. Where we'll have a few different elements of, of the work, and… What we're calling cultural and economic development. Our arts and culture, function.

[45:01] won't look any different from what it does today. I do think it's an incredible opportunity to continue to lift up the work of our staff, and think about new and different ways to really tap into arts and culture as an economic driver for community. And I think we've done that really well. That's not to say we haven't done that in the past, but it's an exciting opportunity, as I can talk a little bit about more specifically, in leveraging some of the tools That, that we think will be helpful to really spur That type of economic investment. In our business, districts. The other two areas is, business support, which will be a lot of our current folks that support economic vitality. That's currently within the city manager's office. That will be a little bit of a shift in… there will be continued, kind of, general business, retention, attraction efforts.

[46:00] But also, bolstering how we support business through processes, how we help with navigation through very complicated business, processes with the city. And that group continues to manage our relationship with our Small Business Development Center, and that really is another exciting opportunity to think about how the nexus between arts and culture and cultural organizations, individual artists, and how our Small Business Development Center can help help support those folks. And then the last kind of leg of the stool, if you will, is economic development. That's really the area that we haven't We are repurposing a few, positions within the current, Community Vitality Department to support that work. So, excited for the future of that, that team. That work will evolve, but will support efforts like our Downtown Development Authority Exploration, which is well underway, and also how we leverage some other,

[47:02] Public financing tools, urban renewal how we think about the use of general improvement districts, all of those different things. To shorten those different acronyms, it really is about how we leverage our resources, our assets, in ways to invest in these commercial areas. all of that will be in alignment with our city values, right? And I think an exciting opportunity to think about how we go about doing that. We're starting some of that work now. But certainly, continuing conversations with folks like you will be important to making sure that as we are trying to make sure that our business community is healthy, that we're continuing to grow and thrive economically as a city, that we're doing that in a way that meets our values, that promotes industries that we want to promote. Like arts and culture. Okay, so that's a general overview of, some of the changes ahead.

[48:03] Lauren, would it be helpful for me to cover some of the funding tools, perhaps, or, Or where would you like to go? Well, I think if the Commission has any questions, because you just touched on a whole bunch of… New ideas. ideas and concepts for where we might be going. I have some questions. Sorry. I have two. That's all I'll just tell them both. So, with your statement to promote industries we want to promote, Sorry, I said that redundantly, but… Yeah, I might have too. Do you anticipate helping with the permitting and review process for cultural and arts? And the second is, I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit, share, you and I chatted just a minute about the East Bookend project? If you could share that with the rest of the commissioners who may not be familiar with it, and also talk to that dovetails into some of these broader ideas that you're talking about. Yeah, happy to. So, first question on permitting. We do anticipate that there is some type of navigation support within this new office, which is great. There was a model back in probably 20…

[49:12] 15-ish, where there was a staff person at the city that literally helped businesses kind of, like, walk across the hallway to planning and development and kind of go through the process. Not… ultimately want to kind of operate, right? I mean, it created some conflict that was unnecessary. Our planning and development department is in a totally different place than it was in 2015. That doesn't mean it's less complicated. There's some examples of that, but there's a willingness to partner. And so, what I think we do need is that central point of contact so that businesses, entrepreneurs know where to go and know where they can get help. But it wouldn't be that kind of, like. person helping them necessarily through the process, per se, but making sure that we're continuously improving our processes so that it is easier to do business with the city.

[50:02] I'll mention one thing that we are doing actively right now, is that we're partnering with an organization called Cities Work. They're associated with, the Institute for Justice. They provide free technical assistance, to cities to, Analyze what is going well and not so well for small businesses in working with, your city. And so… That's a really, exciting opportunity for us to learn from some experts that have done that type of work. Across the country, and we'll be able to provide us with some recommendations on where there's real pinch points for our small businesses. And so, that work is just kicking off now, and we anticipate that we'll have some recommendations that we can move forward on in the… probably the first few months. 26. So that's one piece, and I did see the recommendation in the draft Arts Blueprint, which I think matches really well with that, that we're available to provide that type of support, and I would be interested in really understanding and

[51:07] what, you know, kind of what's behind that in the Arts Blueprint. Where are we hearing those pinch points for, either our really small businesses, organizations, or those individual entrepreneurs? That would be really interesting to learn and get them connected to that city's work project so that we can make sure we're addressing some of those barriers as we… So that's one. Second question, so we do have a redevelopment opportunity, on what's called the East Bookend. So the East Bookend is 13th to 14th, a rapid to Canyon, so it is just adjacent to the Civic area, Central Park. We are in the middle of phase two of our civic Area project. We are about to get to the point where we're identifying where the city dollars will go in that project. It's very likely to be that kind of east

[52:03] Side of the park around the… the bandshell, thinking about, how we're supporting the farmers market space, so putting some investment in there. What we're trying to do with the East Bookend is we have. 5, I think, city facilities in that area. In just under 2 years, most city staff will be moving from individual offices throughout the Civic area and the city, and move to our central western city campus at Alpine Balsam, just north of downtown. So we'll be vacating, much of that, space. So we're trying to think ahead and get ahead of the next, you know, 2 or 3 years. instead of having, kind of, vacant spaces where we know there will be impact in the civic area by just not having the people down there, how do we think ahead, spur some, investment within that area? And so what we're testing right now, we actually just had a call,

[53:05] We just had a webinar today with the development community, is that we are seeking a partnership in that whole block to think through how we might redevelop that block into the future. We could leverage our existing buildings to some extent. Several of them are historic. The T-House, storage and transfer building, the Bidloca building, and, the atrium. So those can't do… there's not a lot of change that can occur with those buildings. We wouldn't want to change much with those buildings. But we do have, vacant or lightly used kind of parking lots there. We'd have to figure out parking, that's an element of it. But there's an opportunity to kind of rethink that space. That is in the context of what feedback we've heard from community throughout the Civic Area Project, which is, We want to support food and beverage options, especially the farmer's market into the future. We want indoor space for the farmer's market on that site. So that's a piece of it. We have heard a lot about arts and culture, and that being already a key part of the civic area.

[54:13] And so, how do we continue that into the future? So, programming, the use itself, and then balancing that with the opportunity to get some housing, some mixed-use development, on part of that site. So, I don't, I don't know. It's early in the process. I don't know if it is something that will be attractive to the development community. I think the exciting thing about a public-private partnership is that we get to sit down and try to imagine what is possible, and and bring in some private investment that the city… we simply can't do alone. If we felt like we were in the financial position to just… do a development project that met those goals on our own, we would, but we're just not in that space. So, you know, in a partnership, there's kind of trade-offs in how we put something together, but just like I was framing kind of our broader economic development goals.

[55:08] we're not going to be able to move forward with a partner unless they are matching our values and addressing some of the key things that we want to see within the East Bookend. Sorry, those were two long answers, but good questions. I, I want to… pardon me, I'm gonna jump in here real quick. I want to acknowledge that Josh Blanchard has joined us. So, thank you. Mark gave us a great overview. We're doing some questions. We have about 15 minutes late left, so Josh, I invite you to jump in on answering the questions and working in any of the salient points that you wanted to make in your presentation. And I have some questions, but Jeffrey, why don't we go first? Okay, yeah, just a real quick one. I met with Nuria personally about 2 weeks ago. I'm gonna ask both of you the same question I asked her, which is… We've got basically 60 days leading up to the transition.

[56:01] How can we best support you as a commission during those 60 days, and then how can we best support you during the following 60 days when you are in place? And you're referring to the reorganization specifically? Correct. Yeah, I appreciate the question. I think, for now, it… we are heads down, moving the pieces around internally and making sure folks get settled. That, that is, our focus. We are in the process of, doing work planning for 2026 and really figuring out what, what the office will. will advance. I think having your feedback, I know that you have a discussion on a letter to Council, that will be, helpful, because the new council will establish one-year priorities for the next term. That's an opportunity. I think just generally continuing to communicate with staff, which I know you all do very well, about the things that you see, especially in opportunities, as you kind of compare, the arts blueprint and where that is, coming

[57:03] Together, and some of what is in the Economic Vitality Strategy, and if you haven't had a chance to review that, I'm happy to share it. I think there's a lot of synergies between the two documents. So I think hearing a little bit about your priorities, helping us, as a new office, focus on what is important. will not be able to boil the ocean. I think there will be a lot of excitement. But I think hearing, where you all are at will certainly, help us in figuring out what, how we prioritize our time. Anything to add very quickly on that question? I don't think so on that question. I'm excited to see the work of the Blueprint and how the state can support, your efforts moving forward. I have two quick questions, hopefully. The first is, I'm wondering how, the shift to a new office impacts a relationship with the Chamber of Commerce.

[58:02] If at all. And then secondly, is… Maybe a request and maybe some feedback. I know that when I have tried to find solid numbers for the city on return on investment for grant artists, grant dollars to revenue, it's hard to find. And so, I think there may be an opportunity to draw a clearer line so that when we go in front of City Council, we have those numbers, and whether that will be something that you can incorporate into. your structure. Yeah, two great questions. The short answer on the first one is that it doesn't really change our relationship with the Chamber. I think We've had a long history with Boulder Chamber. They have operated as our economic development arm in a lot of ways, and so that will continue. They can do things that the city can't and shouldn't do, and there are things that they've asked us to do over time that we haven't been.

[59:00] able or willing to do as an organization, so I think it'll help in that space a lot. Related to, second question, remind me again. Roi, or grants to revenue. It is a function we need at the City, is in doing that type of analysis. We do have… Council just approved a new economic incentive program, which allows us to be a little bit more active in business retention and attraction. Anything associated with that will have to have a return on investment analysis. There are other opportunities, like, looking at specific events or, or industries, that are really valuable for us. I know the state will recognize that. the work that Sundance did in the lead-up to the bid, and really demonstrating their economic impact in Park City and Utah was extremely helpful in demonstrating to policymakers that might have been skeptical of public support in attracting Sundance. So it is things like that that are really helpful to produce. What the city role is in that kind of depends on the event or the, industry, but something that we're definitely thinking about.

[60:09] Great. Thank you. If I can add to that, the economic analysis that was done around Sundance, basically identified a potential, $2 billion in economic impact for the state based on the frameworks that worked in Park City and in Utah. Early… conversations and sort of analysis here in a Boulder footprint, in a Northern Colorado footprint, anticipates that to be higher over a 10-year return. So, there's a lot of factors that they take into consideration from, you know, lodging revenue, as well as, you know, hospitality, shopping, trying to track that destination market that's gonna come here, not only for Sundance, but participate in the other activities. So those are the things that, you know, we look at from a state perspective. To your specific question around return on investment for grant revenue, we often track that, as we ask our grant recipients to provide feedback on jobs.

[61:06] ticket sales, attendance, those kinds of typical metrics when we turn, when we look at return on investment. But because we do so much more than, just grant investment, when we talk about our tax incentive programs, or we talk about our professional development, we look at other factors. So, job mobility. readiness within the workplace, skills building, those kinds of things as well. So that could be something that you could look at as you expand your programs beyond, grants, and really look at a broader, economic and arts ecosystem. Any other questions right now? Okay, I know that you have a presentation and some slides, and we've got about 10 minutes left, if you care to dive into those. Yeah, I thought maybe what might be most helpful is I can share a little bit of a high-level overview of, the creative industries at the state within the Office of Economic Development, and,

[62:03] I'll… maybe we'll go quickly through some of these slides, Lauren, and then we can, have a few minutes for Q&A. Thank you all for the opportunity to join me for your discussion today. Josh Blanchard, Executive Director of Colorado Creative Industries at the Office of Economic Development and International Trade. Next slide, please. We are the state arts agency, and Our mission at OED is empowering all to thrive in Colorado's economy, so when we look at the creative industries. arts and culture, we think about how arts and culture can support that mission. We had been in the, Office of Education and was named, the Colorado Council on the Arts, and in 2010, coming out of the recession, it was… sort of strategically thought to replace us within the Office of Economic Development because we were looking at metrics like return on investment. We also sit in the governor's office, so that allows us a little more flexibility with, how we, within statute, how we invest the resources that come not only from the,

[63:06] governor's office, but also from the state legislature, as well as from the National Endowment for the Arts. We're the recipient for those funds. Next slide, please. We basically work to promote, support, expand creative industries. Again, we look at the economic, ecosystem, or the arts ecosystem within the state's economy. Next slide. We recently went through a strategic planning process and identified, not only… you won't necessarily see economic development on this, because that is sort of, horizontally everything that we do. We look at, these values as pillars, and you'll see some of these terms and definitions really thinking about cultural, purpose within a community and across the state. Go ahead. Lauren, please. Here are our five pillars as we think about

[64:01] Creative industries within economic, development, so public investment in resources, programs and partnerships, public policy, education, marketing, and engagement and outreach. Next slide. We have about 18 programs that we administer through CCI. Some of these are in partnership with other Office of Economic Development divisions or offices. And we really look at our community and economic development as tools or strategies for community vitality, as well as community development. Some of our key programs are our Creative Districts program. Our community revitalization grant program, now a tax program, and then our space to create program. But we have grant programs, technical assistance, skills building, you know, initiatives, really across these different five pillars. Next slide. Creative industries really refer to all of those economic sectors that focus on the creation, production, and distribution of goods or services as it relates to artistic or intellectual value across the state.

[65:07] And we're really working towards harnessing that creativity to really meet Colorado's brand and elevate Colorado's brand as a state for creativity. Go ahead, Lauren. Thank you. Go ahead and skip this slide. How do we do this? We talked a little bit about some of our programs and initiatives. Of course, we do have grants and sponsorships for arts-related programs. We have our tax credit program, our community revitalization tax credit program. We offer technical support for communities, individual artists, small businesses, and entrepreneurs. We, collaborate and leverage resources with other state agencies, other divisions within OEDIT, and also private foundations, and, and, business as well. We often think about our work as being policy-adjacent, or advocacy-adjacent, because we're often promoting the work of the creative industries without necessarily, working within the policy realm. We work with Colorado Business Committee for the Arts to do a lot of that, policy work on our behalf.

[66:07] We understand the values of arts, that go beyond economic impacts, or economic, health of the state, and so we really look at it as part of a multi-pronged approach as we look at, the values of arts. So economic impact, artists supporting art workers, art businesses. We want to think about vibrant communities, so placemaking and civic pride really helps to establish, you know, community and community well-being. Public benefits are public health, public safety, really helping to support distinctive neighborhoods and neighborhood identity within communities. And also supporting opportunities for intergenerational networks. One of the reasons why this is so important is we often think about arts and arts business, to create, you know, vibrant communities, but we also think about programs and initiatives that can be preventative for communities, as well as responsive to community needs.

[67:03] And so thinking about investing in arts that, again, provide pathways for healthy and vibrant communities can really have economic value beyond just that return of that dollar, or that churn of that dollar. This is, Colorado by the numbers. You all know that Boulder is consistently ranked across the nation as a top artistic, medium-sized community. And we have, strong participation in the arts, as well across the state. This data is pulled from the Creative Vitality Suite and gives a snapshot. This is retroactive back to 2023, but it really shows, and I'm sure you've all seen this, of course, you are an older, but really taking a dive into the economic impact of, of the creative sector here in your community. Go ahead, Lauren. One of the things that's really remarkable is coming out of COVID, the creative industries at a national level has bounced back, pretty high among… in comparison to other industry across the country. In Colorado, we've seen that even higher. So we know that this is… what this tells us, or, is that there is a strong market share, and a demand on the… on the demand side.

[68:15] Of, of the sector. Go ahead and skip that slide. Coloradans participate in the arts. I mentioned before that we work closely with other agencies within within the Office of Economic Development and International Trade, we work with tourism, we work with the Office of Recreation, or Outdoor Recreation. Of course, film, television, and media is an example of how we collaborated with, the Office of Film, Television, and Media to, you know, put in the bid for, for Sundance. But that was really a statewide and a wedded-wide effort. We worked with our small business development centers and our rural opportunity office to really create those, economic hubs or, or, support those, that social, infrastructure across the state.

[69:02] And then our business funding and incentives we work with, as far as our tax credits and other initiatives across the state as well. One of the things that's really important is that we think about data collection and data sharing. So we look at regional, sort of a regional impact, where all of OEDIT, how all of OEdit puts different, resources or investments into a community, and then we can track, the return of investment across multiple sectors within a community. Because we really see it as an ecosystem. When we, you know, provide a grant or provide technical assistance into a community, we want to see how other businesses in other sectors are thriving. So we want to look at other social determinants of health, we want to look at jobs, we want to look at wages. There's other programs that we work with, whether that's Main Street or, other community initiatives. across the Strait. So it really is, I guess, from our perspective, how we can partner with other agencies when we think about the, arts as an economic driver within the community.

[70:00] I know that was a lot of information very quickly, but maybe that inspires some questions I'm glad to just try and answer. Can we go back to the slide where there was… they were in a art gallery, but it had the economic impact? Thank you, that one right there. Total added value, $19.7… billion dollars. Yes. I talked to the CBCA folks the last time I saw them, and… Encourage the gals to use a number that… is comparative to that. And the snow sports… Snow sports are the largest sector of the state's broader outdoor recreation economy, which contributed $17.2 billion to the state's GDP in 2023. The arch is higher than that. Yeah, and that's… thank you for making that point. It is such an important point, because I know, our tourism office, as well as Outdoor Rec, often quotes, these numbers, and we have similar… we've been on a similar track or similar trend within Colorado for many years.

[71:04] So as we think about the identity or the brand of Colorado, of course we think about outdoor recreation, we think about snow, you know, snow sports, arts and culture is right there. Excellent point, thank you. It's a little bit tangential, but, you know that we're all liaisons. And they're all grappling with how to address the NEA requirements and the… Can you share… you just went through a strategic plan. Can you share how you addressed… Those concerns when you're doing with, with, our NEA funding? Well, specifically, because there's criteria now Different criteria, I should say. Can you talk about evaluated that criteria, and… Rolled that in, or changed your strategic plan? Absolutely. So, the National Endowment for the Arts, about 40% of their total funds this past fiscal year was about $210 million, $207 million. 40% of that went to state arts agencies and regional arts agencies.

[72:08] We had separate types of agreements than the direct grants recipients receive from the National Endowment for the Arts. And the vast majority of those funds that come to the state of Colorado through our agency, which is just around a million dollars. are re-granted or sub-granted, through our Colorado Creates program. There have always been stipulations in place that the recipients of those grants or subgrants agree to federal terms and conditions. What changed was an executive order that really outlaid that, or defined that in a way that wanted to ensure that there was no… what was deemed as illegal DEI. Meaning exclusionary programs. That's how we've understood it and addressed that. So what that means is, the way it's been explained to us through representatives from the NEA, as well as, legal counsel, is as we look at, organizations' work, that their work

[73:05] doesn't exclude participation from any individual group. So, if an organization wants to focus on, serving a marginalized community or a traditionally underrepresented community, they can do that as long as they're not turning away other folks that may not be deemed as part of that community. So, we understand that that, for many, can be a slippery slope or can be confusing, and may add a layer of liability that they're not comfortable with. When we were looking at how we think about our strategic plan and our work, we didn't feel that that, interfered with the work that we do. Within our strategic plan, we have a strong statement of access and belonging. The state of Colorado also has an office of DEI, which sits in human resources, so it's out… it's in statute outside of the governor's office. So we have some protections That we felt, you know, allowed us to continue to do that work. And I'm proud that we still have that statement on our website, it's still a part of our strategic plan. So we're thoughtful about how we support programs to ensure that all Coloradans can thrive and have access to the arts.

[74:08] we at CCI didn't change our, didn't change our programming and didn't change our values. Thank you so much both for being here. We're out of time for your segment. May we reach out to you individually if we have follow-up questions? Yes, please do, and Lauren's got my information. My email's up on this slide deck as well. Thank you all. Oh, yeah, I just wanted to say thank you again, thank you so much for your time, and thank you, Dr. Fleming, and speaking to the Commission. I wanted everybody to get in the sort of headspace of where we're going in this new office, and all of the good work that you do at the state, and we will definitely be taking of all of your knowledge and programs. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you. Hi, everybody, We are now gonna move into Boulder Arts Blueprint Phase 2, I'm very excited to say. Thank you for taking time to join us, as we continue the development of our Boulder Arts Blueprint. This will be one of the most significant planning efforts for Boulder's cultural future.

[75:14] This is designed to do a few things. It will define a shared vision for Boulder's creative ecosystem. We will ensure alignment with city frameworks, like the, Sustainability, Equity, and Resilience Framework, and provide specific actions for our office in the upcoming years. This afternoon, we will talk through our progress to date, and we'll walk through principles and goals, frameworks. And then we will invite your feedback through a visioning exercise, and we need, all of the Commissioner's input for your visioning exercise. I'm also, joined online by one half of the cats, as I lovingly call them, Public Sphere Projects colleagues, if you would like to Turn your cameras on. I don't know if we can actually see it, but they're online, they'll be joining us for the visioning exercise in a minute. And we'll give the camera over to them when we get there.

[76:05] Hold on one second, please. Oh. Sorry, y'all, we can't see you just yet, but I see you, you look all the way. Hello. We ask, please know that we exist. near U.S. While we are getting camera going, I will share this presentation. I'm gonna walk us through a few things and a little refresher on where we have been. So our agenda… Oops, sorry, can we go back, please, to the presentation? Please and thank you. It's so good. I wouldn't want you to miss it. Hmm. I'm sharing. Can you just restart that share? Oh, sure, totally. There we go. So our agenda, I will be pre-

[77:03] What is the Arts Blueprint? Our timeline, our progress to date, principles and goals, and the exercise. As I mentioned, I, We are joined by our esteemed colleagues from Public Sphere Projects. They are a national planning and peacemaking consultancy. And they advise place managers on the visioning, strategy, and stewardship of shared urban spaces through an uncompromising commitment to the values of justice and joy. Isn't that fabulous? And, also a thank you to our staff, who've been working so hard with us on the Arts Blueprint. Thank you so much for your time. What is the Arts Blueprint? I'm not gonna read all of these slides, but I will read a little blurb while you check it out. I'm sure that you are seeped and perhaps have this all memorized, but this is a fresh reminder. The blueprint will ensure responsible use of the arts, culture, and heritage tax, and shape future programs, funding, and policy.

[78:01] Our work is funded through the tax, as well as 1% for Art Policy, which integrates art into city capital projects. We also sometimes get funding in partnership with other offices and through a new sponsorship program. What the plan is. It is a roadmap for our office. It is a tangible vision with details and steps. And it's a balance between what is possible and bold ideas. And what's the plan? What the plan is not is a list of everything that people desire. It is not specific to Sundance Film Festival. We are super excited. However, it is not specific to that. There was some concern from our community connectors and residents that this was made specifically for the arrival of Sundance Film Festival, so we want to be very clear. This is for everybody year-round. And, this is not a demand to community or residents or other city partners, but, perhaps a recommendation and an encouragement.

[79:05] Our timeline, we finished, Phase 1 in Q3 of 25, and this will run through Q1 of 26. Again, I will not read all of this, however… This plan built on a lot of listening and learning. We looked at what's happening in Boulder and across the country. We are learning from other creative cities and national best practices. We aligned everything with the city's big picture generational goals. And it's grounded in real data, like from the artist census, a venues study from our grantees, and from other research. And like you saw in Phase 1, it aligns with our circles, how our circles are supported by the arts, the city's circles, and how the arts community should be supported in turn by those goals. Our progress to date, we estimate we've reached nearly 2,000 community members with engagement. Nearly 1,200 people

[80:01] completed the community questionnaire. We focused on conversations, one-on-one interviews, and met people where they were, like at Boulder Arts Week, or Bike to Work Day, and rec centers. Thus far, we have refined our grant program direction for 26, since we obviously know that we have the program up and running as of today. Congratulations again. As you all well know, there was deep, continued work to get the program Ready for 2026. The inputs from Phase 1 help us build what I've been calling the trio of logic. This means that every goal and recommendation is triangulated with insights from three different sources. Community engagement. practices, and our community's broader generational goals. Our theory of change model is a step-by-step process. Very informally forgetting where we want to go, and it begins by identifying these bigger goals and working backwards and forwards to identify actions, as you'll see, and forwards to, with help from you to get to our big vision.

[81:11] Dan, do you mind to, the consultants have their cameras on? If you can also include the little… The little cutout overlay, if that's possible, just if they wanna… They would like to say anything, but if not, it's okay. Hi, y'all! Oh, wait. Hold on. Yay! There you are! Hi! Are we visible? and Philip. Oh, and Philip is unmuted. Can we, have a sound on. Thank you. Apparent reason? Are you an O'Hare? Can you tell? Can you tell them? They all look the same now. Here you are! Hi. Can you say that again? We have a very elaborate setup right now, which is wonderful, but we have to get ourselves set up. Okay.

[82:00] Well, whoa. We're here for it. We're here for it. Thank you. Do you want to talk briefly about the theory of change, model as shown? Please? Lauren, I feel like you're crushing. I feel like you're crushing it. And it's super echoing on my end. Okay. I think then whenever we hand it back over to you, we will, You will go through this again anyways, because we're going to talk through the vision, so I'll just continue, and then… Okay, great. Thank y'all. That sounds good, thank you. Thank you. It's important to note these principles in the same way that, Josh mentioned this sort of overlay that they have with the state. These principles have emerged so consistently across our research that they serve as an overlay rather than distinct goals. For every goal in this plan, we will intentionally consider these as guiding elements. For example, we apply the race equity tool in the city, as you might know about. The principles that we use, are a lens for decision making. So whenever a new program is developed, or one… an existing one is reviewed, we'll pause to reflect on how these principles interact, or are addressed.

[83:16] Maybe, obviously, but again, this is a plan for the whole community. The Blueprint invites us to see our roles within a larger frame. The office will lead where we have a direct scope. The city will be partners and integrate the arts into policy and planning and investments, and the community of creatives and artists and organizations and community members and businesses will carry forward ideas that fall out of government's reach. And you'll see that we have some of our, action items divided up, if you saw those in the packet, to… into these different sort of areas. Okay, after all that, this is me right now, I'm very excited about this. Next step in our blueprint. A few caveats. You'll notice the language is pretty advanced, so I encourage you to think more of ideas and content, and we'll be sure that the final language is very reader-friendly. These are now in order of the community connectors and residents, preference.

[84:14] Which doesn't necessarily imply that we would work only on the top ones, but we'll give… be very conscious of that. Does anybody know what the Community Connectors in Residence is? I realize I should. Okay, great. Thank you. And then the actions listed in each goal are some of the examples, but not all of them, of what we can do to work towards these goals. And part of our work, then, is also figure out what we can afford, and what we have capacity for, and what will be the most effective. Our goals for the ecosystem, there are 7 of these goals, so I will run through them, and of course, PSP, if you would like to add any to these as well. Accessibility and inclusion. to make arts and culture accessible to everybody in Boulder.

[85:01] We want to support and encourage arts year-round for all community members. The community connectors and residents brought forth potential, like, conflicts, or to encourage collaboration, especially with Sundance Film Festival, and to encourage, like, focus on the local arts community, and we want to ensure that our artists and our creatives are included and elevated. Also, there was a little bit of a concern, but a consciousness towards being sure that, members from diverse backgrounds are all included in our decision-making processes. And of course, jump in if you have any questions as we go through these. This goal is about supporting Boulder's artists and creative workforce and entrepreneurs. We want to make careers sustainable, and make it where artists and creatives can earn a living wage and be successful businesses. In relation to the comp plan, this was something that came up at our last meeting. The,

[86:05] One of the items coming up in the new comp plan is allowing commercial uses in residential neighborhoods and supporting live-work housing formats. So, it's proposed in the new version of the comprehensive plan to allow commercial uses in residential neighborhoods And for the land use definition, for residential areas would also support this. There's also a concierge services that was sort of like what Mark had mentioned that we had some time ago, and that came up quite a bit through the comprehensive planning feedback and through our own findings, so it's something that we would also consider, like how to help people go through all of these processes. Public art and public space. Expanding public art and creative expression across Boulder's public spaces. This could include streamlining processes so artists can create more easily and make more public artwork, partnering with developers to expand the Percent for Art program.

[87:06] And encouraging creative meanwhile uses, quote-unquote, like murals or temporary installations during construction. Nonprofits and institutions. We want to amplify their impact. By building stronger partnerships, promoting their work, helping attract more investment and resources. And that includes dedicating funding to our bedrock institutions, as Sarah mentioned, or as Sarah's been working on, which would help those organizations provide stability, collaboration, and leadership. Nope, pardon me Reputation and ident- excuse me, reputation and identity. Creativity is central to who we are, makers and writers and dreamers, and I think, as we all saw, everybody here is a maker and a writer and a creative, so… it is us. We want to keep that alive, and also share that through marketing campaigns and by broadening our partners.

[88:04] We heard from, also from the community connectors, that it is important to support art that centers healing and repairing relationships across time and history, and they would like to ensure that our projects, and I would as well, that they include authentic voices and histories created by diverse artists. Experimentation and innovation. This is about encouraging experimentation and cutting-edge work in Boulder. We want to support artists who are pushing boundaries. The proposed land use strategy and the comprehensive plan is designed to allow a broader mix of compatible uses within different areas of the city. This approach would make it easier for activities that support creative and entrepreneurial work, such as studios, workshops. And small production spaces to locate in more neighborhoods, and hopefully increase accessibility and affordability.

[89:00] Is that a clap? You can clap if you want to. And number 7, scenes… not number 7, but 7 on this list, scenes and affinities. This goal is about recognizing… it's not from Junkyard… this goal is about recognizing and nurturing Boulder's creative scenes, the organic communities that form around shared interests. We want to help these spaces and networks thrive by supporting a nighttime economy, reviewing policies like noise ordinance times, exploring temporary project-based space rentals, and more. And the comprehensive plan will include a new policy on the night economy overlapping with this work. Nightmare! Nightmare! And then just a couple more slides about, what we are sort of thinking of as internal goals. These three internal goals we are also working towards, We will continue to work across the city with our partners and continue to expand that work.

[90:02] For example, with the Experiments in Public Art program and the Comprehensive Plan. Continue to be a cross-sector convener and relationship builder within the city and beyond. And similarly, to continue to improve processes and transparency where it is possible. For example, we've already started working on a dashboard for the grants program. Public dashboard. So, our 7 internal… or, excuse me, whew, that would be a lot… 3 internal, 7 external goals, and then you saw within them those actions that are something our office would be working on, that we would hope the city would work on, we would work… encourage community members to work on, right? We will… I'll put this slide back now. And, ask PSP to come back. Can you hear us alright? We can hear you really well, so I think once I start, stop talking then. Does anybody have any questions before we,

[91:01] It was a lot, but thank you. And it was amazing. Are we echoing on your guys' ends, or just ourselves? I think just to yourselves. Okay. We can, we can deal with that. Great. Okay, so we see now Jenny, Abby, and Phillip from Public School Projects. Welcome! Hello! Hey, thanks for having us. Thanks very much. I'm mad. Okay, Lauren, thank you. For that, thorough presentation of the 7 plus 3 goals. It sounds like we can't quite see the room, but it sounds like, they've landed well, like, they make sense to this group. Dan, is it possible to, let me think. Could we… could we add our screen onto the Zoom screen so they could see it as well?

[92:00] There's writing. That's reads. Yeah. Oh, that's me. Hi! Man… I wish we were with you in person. Are you sharing your screen right now? Also, on screen, it looks like people have snacks. We do. Very good ones. We're experiencing real fallout. Very complex, technical system in this room. We're in a new space, sorry. I think we're in because you're talking. No. He has control over the camera angles. Oh. Yeah. We can move it to the seven commissioners, the important people. Well, I think as long as we can really hear each other, that's… That's the primary thing. By the way, have we… have we met everybody in this room so far? Is everybody, like… Have we shaken hands? Have we walked around venues? Everybody has seen and heard us before.

[93:02] We get to do a refresher, I think, yes. Alright. Alright. so that I won't bother with introductions, Every other one to say that, besides myself. My two colleagues from Public Sphere Projects are joining this meeting. Abby and Jenny, you'll hear a bunch from them. Throughout the following half hour or so. And you'll hear less from me because I'm at a very loud airport. So, I'm just naming that. We have a presentation to show you… to share with you, which is, really just a few prompt to get a discussion going, but the purpose of… of our time with you today… is… to start… Getting some language towards… A vision for… for what we imagine the arts and culture ecosystem to be like. In 10 years, give or take. I assume people in this room have drafted visions before?

[94:05] Yes. Show of hands, please. Oh, wow. Lots of vision raptors. We'll say, we'll say a few words about what we think a really successful vision statement is, and how it differs from, let's say, a mission, or the kind of specific action-oriented goals that Lauren just shared with you. And we'll show you a few vision statements from your peers across the country, just, You know, have a peer review and maybe a little bit of critique, and to also see how they're constructed. That sound okay? So we'll start with that once we… once we have the slide. Maybe the slide's already up, I can't see them. Oh. There are now. Oh, wow. Okay, so very blue.

[95:00] So, if everybody's… if everybody's alright with this, I'll press on, and just provide a little bit of introduction. We'll talk about the peer vision statements, and then Jenny and Abby are going to facilitate a kind of a fun, collaborative, literary arts session here. I'll draft some things up. Finally, again, just an operational thing, I can't see you especially well, so if you can't hear me, if you need clarification, if you have questions, please just shout, okay? Right now. Okay! Okay. Oof. Alright. Great modeling of behavior. Alright, next slide, please. Lauren's already talked about a theory of change model. I also have to assume that many of you know how it's constructed. Can I get yays, nays? Yay.

[96:00] Okay, yays, maybe a few, like, very mild nays. It's… it's pretty self-explanatory. It begins with a big overarching vision for which we're still searching. We're searching for the right Words for the right feelings. It cascades down into a set of goals. You heard the 10 goals that we've come up with in a really collaborative process. And then each goal… has specific, Tangible outcomes and actions, such as policy or funding or partnerships, that, that… We actually have to work on in order to achieve those goals. So, a lot of the work, kind of, down below the fold, so to speak, has been done throughout the past few months, but today. Given what you already know about these goals, given your understanding and your expertise in the arts and culture scheme, we want a kind of a broad ecosystemic vision on top.

[97:02] Next, please. Just a reminder of the 10 goals, we'll… we'll keep coming back to those. I won't voice them over, Lauren's already done that. Next, please. And… For those of you who've already done visioning, you know that it's meant to describe a future desired state. Not kind of step-by-step procedural, things. And so, we think that a strong vision statement is supposed to be aspirational and inspirational. That it ought to list some values and some differentiators. Again, we'll guide you through an exercise to get to that. Next slide, please. Yeah. Okay, actually, can I… will you indulge me in a super brief aside about visioning? Can I go to you? Yeah, yes! Okay, okay, brief aside. Brief, brief literary aside. So the other day, I was, of course, nerding out on, a,

[98:09] I think it was, like, a Fresh Air podcast, you know, Terry Gross, talking to Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker. Evidently, Ken Burns should have just released the… or is about to release, I suppose, a new series on the Revolutionary War. People have heard of this? Yes. Okay. Anyway, Ken Burns was… was talking about how the… She was really quite eloquent about it, and I won't do it justice, but he was talking about how the Declaration of Independence was a particularly visionary document, and that a lot of the language And it, implies not, like, a… not so much a complete state, but a forward motion. So, he was… he vamped for a while on the phrase, a more perfect union, which is really quite a beautiful turn of phrase.

[99:06] It's a little unusual to hear NPR wax so patriotic, but… It was really lovely to think about a more perfect union being a kind of a… A… an always incomplete, an always… moving objectives. almost like a state of flow, so I… I thought about that a lot going into today's conversation, about what a vision should be, and as much as it describes the future, it could… it doesn't have to sort of describe a final Stayed. Of arts and culture once and for all. So anyway, I just thought that might be a… Something of an inspiration, as we write an inspirational statement of our own. Fair enough. Yes. Yes. Yes. Alright, towards a more perfect union.

[100:01] So… you know, we've seen a lot of visions, we've written a lot of visions, many of them kind of get into what we sometimes quip as a live, laugh, love model, you know? You know what the sounds like. it should be vibrant, thriving, and inclusive, or whatever, where people live, work, and play, you know, that kind of a triad that AI is very good at emulating these days. We want to be a little bit more specific than that. Next, please. We wrote a couple of bad examples. Just out with you. Example one, multiple stakeholders will convene to design appropriate policy, programming, and funding interventions that incrementally elevate the quality of production for the nonprofit sector, creative entrepreneurs. This is super processy, in addition to being a little bit of a word salad. That's… That's not where we're headed towards.

[101:01] And then here's a perfect example of a kind of a live, love model. Boulder's arts and culture ecosystem will be, you know, inclusive, thriving, and creative. That doesn't say enough. So, let's just take a quick look, and please feel free to react, and to share your thoughts about what some of our peers are saying out there. Next, please. Boy, that's… I go, too close to home. Board Collins. Does anybody wanna… wanna do a dramatic reading in the room? No volunteers. Cheryl, excuse me. That cannot be true in a room. Who can this… This is one of my four. The Fort Collins creative sector is regarded as a comprehensive network, including interdependent artists, non-profit and for-profit organizations, and businesses, government.

[102:05] Educational institutions, philanthropic organizations, associations, and other creative industries. Through collaborations… I should have worn my glasses… through collaborations and partnership, the creative sector and industries are promoted and more visible, supporting an expanding creative economy. Okay, snaps and claps, please. Beautiful, dramatic reading. What do y'all make of it? Every buzzword imaginable. Two-thirds of it is defining what the creative sector is, I don't think we need that. Yeah. I mean, there were some things we liked about it, though. Right? Yeah, there's some things that might be useful.

[103:01] Well… Oh! I mean, I totally agree with what you're. They're including everything, they're leaving things out. Exactly. It might… it might have been more useful to just use the word, like, as our colleague just did, in a presentation ahead of us, like, just to say the creative ecosystem, I'll leave it at that, without listing out every constituent part of it. Which, you're right, necessarily misses something. you know, we think that… but they are telling us something about their particular vision. I mean, first of all, they are, between the lines, they're telling us that they're looking at a big network, at a creative ecosystem, not just You know, the municipal arts, not just the nonprofits, not just, you know, the… traditional arts and culture. So that's… that's nice, at least that they gesture towards that.

[104:00] And… They landed on… an expanding creative economy, which I also think is curious. I mean, they could have landed on anything else, right? They could have said, you know. we see, you know, we see our ecosystem becoming, I don't know, more welcoming and inclusive, or, you know. friendlier to people of all ages, but they didn't say that, right? They said, we want to expand the creative economy. So. That tells us a little bit of something about… a little bit about how they're thinking about their overall vision. Don't you think? Yep, Yeah. To be clear, we don't think that it's, like, great or particularly applicable to us, but they… but… It is calibrated. Alright, let's see another one, huh? And you know what's coming. Somebody's gonna have to do a dramatic reading, so… Boy, this…

[105:04] The next person's really lucking out with a much shorter one. Cindy, go for it. Alright. Arts and culture are essential to Tacoma. Enlivening its downtown core, contributing to the livability of its neighborhoods, and enhancing the quality of life of its neighbors… sorry, its residents and visitors. Boy, oh boy! So, okay, so what about this one? Very different, huh? What's… what strikes… what strikes you all about this? impact the process. Feels more like a current state than a future goal. Yeah, it sounds very much like this is what is now, not… What are we going towards?

[106:02] Okay, interesting. Nope. you take it as a… why is that? Is it because it's written in the present tense? Or you just don't think that it embodies a whole lot of aspiration? I think probably the latter. I just… We read it once, I had that thought, and I went back to find where is, is, and I see the R, but I felt like it said is, is, is, like, 8 times, so to me, I guess that means it didn't land on me with much forward motion. Yeah. I'll give them a little bit of grace, because a lot of vision statements are written in the present tense. It's like, you know, it's just if you were writing for the future. like, 10 years from now, Tacoma is a place where artists thrive, and where people you know, whatever. It's so… so the present tense is really… not unusual. But you're right, it doesn't really have a whole lot of, like.

[107:02] You know, more perfect union kind of, kind of feeling. But what's interesting about it, Abby, Jenny, tell us. I love it. Oh. Yes, happy to step in here. So, what we really loved about the Tacoma example was how, or is how, place-based it is. So, it's specifically calling out a downtown core, particularly calling out Neighborhoods, and then the way that it also named quality of life first for residents and then for visitors, we felt was very intentional. You'll also note, for those of you who have been paying attention to Phase 1, that both Tacoma and Fort Collins were part of the new, peer benchmark city, so we thought it would be fun to show you some examples of who we think you're benchmarked against. As the City of Boulder moving forward? I think we have one more, right, Philip? Yeah, I just want to say that I think this one is super interesting,

[108:02] I mean, it really is all plays, plays, plays. It doesn't talk about the economy, it doesn't talk about the livelihoods of artists, it doesn't… really say anything about the, you know, I don't know, the quality, the genres, like, it doesn't really talk about the arts. It just talks about place. Like, arts and culture is a tool for us to elevate the quality of downtown, neighborhoods, and quality of life elsewhere. It sounds like it was written as part of, like, a citywide comprehensive plan, which, by the way, this blueprint also is. She focuses so exclusively on place-based value of the arts. Curious, right? Very. Wow. I mean. I… I don't know how they came about, or what the backstory is, but it's… it's very particular.

[109:03] Okay. Let's do one more. Oh, wow. Not one of our… not one of our benchmarking cities. Who wants to… wants to do a recitation? With a Canadian accent. Come on, who said they were in theater as an adult? One of you guys? I lied. Sure. Alright. Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. The diverse cultural fabric of Yellowknife is evident in the richness of arts, culture, and Indigenous identities, which all contribute to the quality of life for everyone who calls Yellowknife home, attracts tourism, and supports economic growth.

[110:03] Okay, thank you very much. Well, this one's a little different. I mean, I get caught in a cultural fam. Alright. Nope. Wait, what did you say? I said I don't travel anywhere where they can't use the Oxford comma. Hilarious. What other thoughts do we have? Before we share ours. I just like this because it calls in so many different aspects of the community. And… Is talking about impacts in a bunch of different areas. Yeah. God. I think it's an interesting reframe. It's like that, like, our… the diversity of Yellowknife is evident in

[111:04] arts, culture, and Indigenous identity. it's a… they didn't have to write it that way, right? Again, they could've… Wow. They could have started with a completely different kind of a clause. but they started with diversity and cultural identity, and I think that's interesting. It says something about, what they're intending here. And then they land it on a kind of a, you know, basic impact on quality of life. Tourism and economic growth. But again, imagine, you know, imagine that they could have flipped this completely upside down, right? They could have said, the arts are essential to, to our residents' quality of life. Tourism attraction and economic growth, instead of starting it with… With this notion of…

[112:09] And being essential to their cultural identity. Nope. Any other thoughts here before we have One more example, I lied. Okay. Oh, we'll be quick. Just over 30 minutes. Okay. Okay. Well, why don't we just read the top? Abby or Jenny, would you mind taking just the top part, please? Absolutely. Wichita, Kansas. Our vision is that Wichita is recognized as a community where artistic expression is an integral part of the city's success, arts thrive, and cultural heritage is preserved and celebrated.

[113:00] Well, do we like it? I… I will mention that this is the first one that mentions, kind of, like, the necessity of art, rather than, isn't this nice? Being an integral part. Did I hear in the room that the, expression of it being an integral part of the city's success is what's appreciated about this one? Yes? Yes. Okay. And finally, with this one as well, we just want to highlight right next to each other. a vision statement and a mission. So, of course, we know the vision is looking to the future, the mission is supposed to be talking about what's happening now, but oftentimes it can be really hard to distinguish the two. So, I'll give everyone a moment to just

[114:11] Take this in. Man, everybody out there is also figuring it out. But I… I hope that… This quick game of vision statement karaoke has juiced you up for writing some of your own words. Y'all feeling inspired and inspired? We're just more confused. Cheers. Cheers. Ready. Oh! Okay. Well… Abby, do you… You wanna take us through just a few brief instructions for how we're gonna try to write some words on paper? Oh my gosh, I would love to. Hey y'all, I'm Abby Jamiel. I am a newer face to some of you, if you've been a part of us, or with PSP throughout this process. I'm an urban planner, obviously, here at PSP, and I have the privilege of moving y'all through the juicy part.

[115:12] So this is where we get to hear what y'all think and move closer to that idea of a more perfect, vision of Boulder's art and culture. And so, our session is going to be guided by these three questions. We'll have roughly about 10 minutes, probably a little bit less, to work through each question. So the way that this is gonna go, because we are unfortunately not in the room with you, is that everyone in the room will have about 2-3 minutes to think through the answer to each question. And then we'll have about 5 to 7 minutes to share out, and we, on the virtual side, will record. So we'll do the first question first, people will write, we'll all talk about it, and then we'll move on to the second question. So you don't have to answer all three questions in the first 2 to 3 minutes. You will have that much time for each question. And as Philip had noted before, we're taking a step forward, so we're not looking for anything that's completely perfect or elegant.

[116:12] So, while we do want you to be thoughtful and specific, it's okay to just go with your gut. And if you are someone who's like, I need it to be perfect, like, please don't let it paralyze you, we're just kind of sticking things down. And as I mentioned before, we are intending for this to be as collaborative as it can be. So, if there is anything that you'd like to plus one, if you want to talk about things out loud, if you want to respond to someone else in the room, particularly if you feel different from them, that's amazing. Jenny is going to be recording everything on the Moreau board, which we're going to transition to in just a few moments. But if we don't capture something, please feel free, those in the room who do have a computer, to write some things in the chat, and we will, do our best. So let us know if we're not capturing what y'all are thinking or saying.

[117:04] So, Jenny… Thank you so much for joining. Transitioning, this is… Yes. Oh, sorry, I see Cindy, thank you so much for being in here, too. So, if people type too quickly, I'm hoping that you and I can capture some things together. So, thank you, and I bet this Ella's Lauren, there we go! Love it. Thanks, guys. Awesome. Yes, thank you all so much for helping us out here. So… We're gonna take it away. We're gonna begin with this first very fun question. So, what are the top attributes assets, traditions, attitudes that make Boulder… Boulder's culture unlike anything else. And I'm gonna start my timer. Not ask for it. We have 2 minutes for everyone to write.

[119:00] Alright, we have about one more minute. Okay, we're in our last 25 seconds. So, of course, you can continue to write as we start to chat, but please finish up what you're thinking.

[120:07] Okay, now it is everyone's time to shine. Who would like to share? Open the floor, and begin our combo about the top attributes. People are weird ethos. Yeah, mine literally says, Boulder's weird and likes it that way. Okay, I'm gonna capture all this. But if you guys can yell at us, That would be great. They put it on there, too. Okay. That's not as weird as it is I love boulders weird and, like… Yeah, make boulder as weird as it used to be. I want that on a t-shirt. A high percentage of working artists.

[121:04] What you guys got? High concentration of arts organizations for a city of 100,000 people. Well, I had, I think because many of our arts organizations are off, off, off, off, off Broadway, there's no stigma of failure. And… I think it's also interesting that we have… so many, what, 300 days of sunshine? So… One of our unique assets is that we can have a lot more outdoor programming, daytime programming, we don't have to rely on indoor venues as much as maybe places in New York or Midwest rely on. Yeah. I wrote art with the backdrop of natural beauty. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think that we have, Boulder has a real love for live music and events. Yep, plus my ties in with our desire to be outdoors.

[122:08] And related to that, I put that, the community supports funding the arts. Correct. Yeah. I put… we have a lot of art enjoyers. Yeah, she's forgot. Yeah, I got last. Oh, the… Oh, look. That's really interesting. Is that the Cindy Bundy, yes? Keep older weird, I have, kind of, all seasons. referencing just the, yeah, the way that we experience the arts in Boulder is unique to our environment. I have all ages, or intergenerational in here because we both have the college, obviously, you know, school age, and then this… A very old population. Yes. Yeah, I think adding to that.

[123:02] We are a destination. Yep. Yeah. Highly educated. Yep. At least we think so. No, statistically engaged, and… opinionated. Put two Polarites in a room, you got three opinions? Hey, hey, that's my people's! That's my people's! That's us! We're all part of the tribe! I think, just… I think we are ahead of the game in comparison to some other communities in that we have the infrastructure to support the arts, the staff, and the… Grant programs, and… I wrote, community-based to world-class arts.

[124:06] Nope. I also had the word risky in mine, which I think comes back to what, you know, we were also saying about, The off, off, off Broadway, but just, like, the ability to take risks and experiment, and… It's okay to fail. We also have some unique history. We're talking about. Unlike anything else. We're home to the flagship university of the state. And I put them with highly educated. Great, man. What? for maybe about one or two more. I know I'm personally curious, when the note came up art with the backdrop of… I would love to know more about, like, do artists incorporate that natural beauty? Is it there to look at so it's inspiring, or do people interact with it?

[125:12] Thank you, Cindy. Curated? Say more about the word. What do you mean? Curated in a way. Things are, similar. Visually. I mean, not as curated as Telluride feels, but… Was there uniformity in the voice, is that what you're saying?

[126:01] Thank you, Lauren, for capturing that in the room. Got it. Love it. Abby, what do you think? Do you want to move on? Great sense of humor. Yes, I… sorry, my mute was taking a moment. Yes, I would love to move on. Also, Lauren, just a quick tech thing. I know that I'm in our, virtual version as two names. If you could also make my second name a co-host, that would be helpful, I think, with me breaking up a little bit. Thank you. But let's move on to number 2. So, if everything goes right. And the way that we put this was so that way, you know, people aren't… Worried about, well, if funding, and, well, if the political climate, it's just… If everything goes right, what is the best version of Boulder's art and culture ecosystem? And if you imagine that, what does it look and feel like?

[127:00] In 2020… in 2035. We have about 2 minutes.

[128:17] Nobody noticed.

[129:04] Alright, we have about 30 seconds. Anybody need more time? Let's flirt them out if you guys are ready.

[130:04] Yes, that's do it. What are y'all think? Increased traffic is a tourist destination. And a cultural tourist destination? Yes. Yes, cultural. I'll get it. I had… Don't, don't get mad at me. I said, some… Headline organizations, which are recognized nationally and are used as examples. Plus one on that, I have that. I've had consolidation of nonprofits, not more, but less, doing great. clean. Agreed. And then, and then lastly, more corporate involvement in the arts through funding, and getting their employees to attend events. I have, more artists moving to town than actually working there.

[131:05] I second that, I also said that, and affordability to do so. Yeah, plus one. Yeah. I put orientation of the town around the arts, whether that's businesses, communities, events, just in general. Yeah, I have something very similar. Every student in Boulder has an opportunity to both participate in and experience a variety of art forms. Is that higher education, lower education? I mean, I meant K-12, but we can throw in the university students, too. Just access… And opportunity for all to experience the arts. Yeah, I put, unplanned encounters with the art? Yes. I think just to continue that theme, I wrote, Engaging Art Everywhere for Everyone, yes. Yes. I wrote, there's too much funding for the arts that we don't know what to do with all of them.

[132:08] I love that. That really is, if everything goes right, that's great. I wrote a somewhat flowery statement, but it captures a lot of the practical words that have already been used, but a creative coven of cultural changemakers expanding our human experience through expression. I think mine's more brick and mortar and tactile, in a sense, but it kind of encompasses what everyone else is saying. More venues, better integrated into the community, whether that's through… permitting, or something, as an example, to use would be the fringe in Edinburgh, where a city triples in its size through the entire month of August, and… Triple's population, and

[133:00] And the entire city is given over to the arts, and every single venue, every little room in a pub, in a coffee shop becomes a venue. And the last thing I have is that we have a highly collaborative In the arts. Help with the consolidation. Yeah, these are… Well, no, I say social services, too, all the time. How about authentic cultural expression, recognized as art? Say that again? Authentic cultural expression recognized as art. Nice. We have roughly about time for one more. I do just want to plus one. I kind of… I love that idea of, like, art in every room, and spontaneous art. That really speaks to me to be of bolder. But any other closing thoughts before we move on to the final one?

[134:07] I also wrote the archival of Boulder's artistic story slash history. Nice. I also wrote, traditionally marginalized voices are being performed, heard, and witnessed. Great, alright everyone, let's move on. We have our last and final question, drum roll. So, what we absolute must-do, please? And this can either. would be. Artists, policymakers, Boulderites in general, to get this desired future state. And this is up to you. If you want to answer this question with your current hat on, so if you are an artist or a policymaker, great. If you want to put a different hat on and a different persona, maybe you're thinking from the perspective of a youth or a teen or someone who's born today, what it might mean for them in the future.

[135:10] All of that is good. Alright, 2 minutes, we'll start in that. Great, and I just want to give you guys a time check. We do have 10 minutes before we have to move on to the next agenda item. And can you read the question one more time, please, for people without glasses? Absolutely, yes. And I usually wear glasses, so I feel ya. So what are the absolute must-dos? For either artists, policy makers, general community members to get this desired future state.

[136:12] Jesus Yes, super realistic. Oh, thank you. Very tactile. Give or take. Yeah. It's just, like, 3 ball hunters, right? My grandma. No ballroom. Alright, we have about 30 seconds. And the fact that I can hear people laughing has got to be a good sign.

[137:24] Alright, if you can finish up your thoughts, please. All right, and let's open the floor. We'll be 5… 5 minutes this time. What did people write down? What do we think? Don't get mad at me. Artists must be more collaborative, positive, and grateful, while understanding that you made a choice by going into this career. Shit! It was supposed to be realistic!

[138:08] So, this is your chosen career. While doing that also, please understand that there are constraints that are beyond our control. You got that on that sticky? You chose this. But if no one chose it, then there'd be no art. That's true. I also had collaboration. Yes, I think collaboration, too, yes. I feel Gaia's mother was a little tough on her. I was gonna be invited. It's so wild, because that's what artists say they want, too. Right, exactly. Collaboration. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, they want, they went down. We eat! Must do. Teach? Learn how to? I think they want to hurt. Teachers don't accept the type of living.

[139:02] They could teach, but teachers didn't make any money. You know, things that we're already working on, housing, venues, and… Space. I wrote down $1 billion. I just wrote make money, so… Yeah, I said funding, yeah. Manage housing costs. Yeah. And engage, engage, engage, everyone. Find ways to use our commercial space. Except infrastructure is something that, like, a lot of people want to be doing things, they need a place to do it, and accessibility to the places to do it. Yeah. Go down to Pearl Street, look at the second floor of all those buildings. I say that over and over again. Yeah. Start now training the artists of the next generation.

[140:00] Being that we have some city folks in the room, not to put you on the spot, but what do we think about… Policy around must-dos For the arts to reach a future state. Not sure what this looks like in policy, but a recognition of the necessity of art. Not just a nice staff. For all of those groups. Yeah, I second that I wrote, aren't taken seriously. So maybe it can become a more lucrative career. When there's billions of dollars. As we don't. Great, we have about one moment. Mark, do you have it? A lot. I mean, permitting, zoning, land use flexibility to support creative industries,

[141:00] You mentioned the vacancy, So how do we make it easier to leverage, empty spaces? How can the city facilitate, that type of stuff? Special events, ease of access to special events, support in organizing special events, being a connector, leveraging the investment in Sundance, how that trickles down. I know there's a willing partner there, but how can the city help facilitate that in some way? How do we leverage city funding and make it multiply? So, that it's, you know, it's grants and, and how do we, Find additional private dollars out there to continue what we want to do. You got everything on the checklist there. All right, maybe that's the mic drop, I think, at the end of this one. So, thank you, thank you all so much. We're gonna take everything that you said, and that we've recorded, and translate it into working towards that vision statement, and I'm going to pitch it back to Jenny, who's gonna wrap things up for us.

[142:06] Holy moly, Lauren, you're so fast. I was like, let's do one, I'll do one, you write one, and Lauren's all over the place, so thank you, I super appreciate it. And Cindy and everyone else who's been in here, really, really appreciate it, and appreciate that all of you, after a long retreat day. We're still able to laugh and, be open with each other about what this could look like. You have access to this for, I'd say, through the end of the day, if you're like, gosh, I didn't get to say… the thing. It would be really cool if I could do that. Feel free to let Lauren or Cindy know, or you have the link to this. But what we want to do in right quick order is, to Abby's point and… and Philip, who's, still here with us, is take these three prompting probing questions and translate them into something that feels like a future state and feels relevant to what we've known, getting to be immersed.

[143:02] in Boulder for the last 2 years. So, we're really looking forward to that. You should hear from us in pretty short order with some… sort of drafty visions that we'll go through with Lauren and team. And we'll get a vibe check from you all again on what we feel, we should keep, what we should get rid of, and we're going to utilize our advisory committee that has been with us since the beginning of this process meet with them in early November, and show them some versions of what this group has started. So, I know we have some overlap there. I'm really grateful for the incredible participation across all groups here in Boulder around arts and culture. It's very clear to us and to, everyone we talk to that Boulder's arts and culture scene is an integral part of who you are and what you do. And, if not anything else, you guys are screaming it from the rooftops, and so let's make a vision that actually… amplifies that internally. So, we're gonna go ahead and do that. Lauren, I don't know where you are, I can't see you.

[144:05] Butts… there you are. Oh, there you are! Okay. So we'll do that November. Do we wanna… do we wanna preview that we will be… in market in November, I guess now I am previewing, that we will be in market in November, and the hope will be that at the end of November, we will have a vision, we will have these goals, we will start to flesh out these action items, outcomes, and start flirting them with the public. and get feedback from the public, and it will all be coming from the wonderful experts who are in this room and other rooms that we've spoken to over the last two years. I don't know how much time we have. If we have time for questions, I'll take them up until they kick us out. We have 2 minutes, anybody have any questions? Okay, okay. I don't see him. Huh?

[145:02] Alright. I think if any questions come up, we can direct them to you through Lauren. Yeah. Of course. Thank you, everyone, for your time, and have a great rest of your retreat. Thank you! Thanks! So we have another half an hour before our break. And you'll notice that the food is arriving, so please feel free to start helping yourself to that, and we can overload… overlap some food with the break and this next session, so… Make yourselves comfortable. Thanks, everybody. I think he said he was gonna go grab some… something, but there are pipes and stuff, so if you are hungry, please hop up. We just have our preliminary staff work plan to talk through with all of you. I'm very excited to invite all of my colleagues, to talk about what we'll be doing in the upcoming year.

[146:02] And of course, ask questions, let us know if you have thoughts, input, ideas on our work plan. Please. Okay, great. Are you using the one on the… The one that we shared? Yes. Good. That's not the answer, the answer is yes. Yes. 2025, yes! 2025, accomplishments first, and this is massive. I will say that having a full, fuller staff now has been absolutely remarkable, like, you are gonna see some incredible So much more than we have been able to do in the past. for our arts and for Boulder.

[147:01] So I'll talk about a couple of our 2025 accomplishments. There's a bunch up there, but I'll just highlight a few, and the photo on the left there is, Circle of Honor, which was installed last year at the new Fire Station 3 by artist Michael Clapper. And some other things I'll highlight here, we had a couple 1% for art projects get kicked off. In 2025, Fire Station 2, Gregory Canyon Creek, and a Central Eve Bridge Mosaic Project. We had a series of experiments in public art lectures that included a mural workshop with local youth. As well as an augmented reality lecture, in addition to some temporary sculptures. We had our public art tour program, which was extremely successful this summer, and expanded to include Spanish and tactile tours for the visually impaired. We had over 230 attendees this year. And then we had our 3 Western City Campus projects, continue along, and those total almost a million dollars, together. So those will be, with the construction of the new Western City Campus in around 2027.

[148:18] Yay, that's me! So I started just over a year ago, and there's, yeah, been a lot going on. I'm so lucky that we got to hire Matthew as our art specialist. Really helped me get those dollars out the door quickly, and as of now, our entire 2025 grant program is spent. So, yay! That's over 160 grants and fee waivers. Speaking of hiring people, we hired, 5 grants panelists who took care to review our competitive grants fairly. Matthew and I completed the 2023 and 2024 General Operating Support Data Reports, one focusing on the need to increase funding amounts to organizations, and the others on audience trends. The 2023 one is on the website. We are about to post the 2024 one. It just takes a little extra time, to do visual descriptions for the graphs to be accessible.

[149:10] And all of the work that went into getting feedback for the 2026 grant program. That's me. Sorry. This photo is a, a project from Streetwise, community project, which is awesome. So the second iteration of our artist census was completed in 2025. We did the first one around 2020. 2017, 2018. We are also working on a report 2.0, which is… which will come out in coming months, which will take the census data we collected and incorporate other data That we got from our partners at CU, at the Leeds Business Research Division, that's similar to that Creative Vitality Suite stuff that, Josh mentioned, which ended in 2023. They stopped doing that, so, we got our friends at CU to,

[150:13] do it for us, which is amazing. Anyway, so we have data for Boulder specifically for the last 3 years, 2022 to 2024. And we'll all incorporate that, as well as feedback gathered from the City's community survey report. We got 8 Creative Neighborhoods murals were completed this year. We also, reimagined that program, and had the application period, open, just ended, for projects to be completed in 2025… sorry, 2026-27. And I'll talk a little bit about what we… the changes we made in a bit. 11th Annual Boulder Arts Week happened in April!

[151:00] We launched the inaugural Boulder Arts Week Awards, which we're very excited to continue in 2026. We had 7 artist meetups, and I was trying to calculate the attendance, since I saw Sarah added hers, and I wasn't… That's why I was surprised. Anyway, lots of artists came to them. Our cultural venues research is in progress, Including a, Cultural Assets Map, which will be made public, in the next few weeks, which will… Publicly accessible map of… with different layers of all different kinds of really cool, Cultural assets, yeah. And… Oh yeah, I'm gonna start… But I've lost two or new ones. Oh, pardon. Oh, or do you want me to say it? That's okay, we are, we'll have one more Experiments of Public Art, series with the comp plan, but we have

[152:00] Had 4 successful, artists' projects engaged with a comprehensive plan. And we started the Boulder Arts Blueprint. Okay, so future work planning. Alright, looking forward, For 2026, we're hoping to revise the public art policy. Hopefully streamline it, make it a little more clear, You know, across city departments to initiate projects. initiating projects, so some of the upcoming ones would be Gregory Canyon Creek, Table Mesa, and Broadway, and then a handful of Parks and Rec projects. Also working with the Boulder Strong Memorial, Which is gonna memorialize. The victim of the King Soopers shooting. This year we opened the public art, or the Experiments in public art program, so it was not an invitational, it was an open call, and you all saw the three projects that were selected and approved, so we'll get that going and implemented for next year. We also want to expand on our outreach, and engagement, expand the tour program.

[153:04] Potentially plan some new artists, professional development opportunities and public art workshops. And then… Obviously, there's going to be some new work with the Arts Blueprint, so that might include things with, encouraging partnerships with developers, expansion of the 1% program to private development, not just public. Yeah, that's cool. This mural was created by local artist Chris Huang as a part of the Creative Neighborhoods program. This was one that was created this year. Creative Neighborhoods. If you don't know, is a program that supports community-led art projects with goals of building community and foster belonging. In residential neighborhoods. The goals also include creating opportunities for communities to connect with local creative professionals and providing paid employment for those artists.

[154:03] For the new iteration of the program, historically it's been mural projects in neighborhoods, initiated by residents of those neighborhoods. For the new iteration of the project, we looked at the map of where everything was, and they were… the projects were kind of concentrated in specific areas of Boulder, And most of those areas were more… we're more… we're not underserved neighborhoods, we're more well-served neighborhoods. So, we use the city's racial equity instrument, which is a really cool tool that we have, in the, in the city. Used, went through it with other staff members from this office. From our Neighborhood Services Office, a couple of people, One person in the… a couple of people in this room.

[155:00] one person in this room, and some other… and some other community members who, have been a part of that program in the past. And so we made some changes to make the program more accessible to the broader community, and to specifically target those underrepresented… underrepresented sub-communities that we haven't really reached before. We just closed the application for that, for the projects going forward. Six of the seven applications we received were for projects beginning next year. They come from the targeted sub-communities that we wanted to reach, so yay us! And, yeah, super excited about that, because they're in neighborhoods that we haven't done projects before, or… I mean, one of them… Hallow Park. We had one project there before, and the fence blew down, so… And then others where we haven't done any projects, so… and they're diverse types of projects, not just murals. Some are performing arts, some are, Other kinds of activations and stuff, so… Super excited for that.

[156:04] Oh yeah, and the cultural asset map that I just mentioned. It's gonna come out this year, we're really gonna push it next year. It's gonna be awesome. I am very much looking forward to stewarding the $2 million 2026 grants program. In addition to pretty much increasing award amounts across the board. We're also instituting a new pilot grant, Lifelong Learning, to encourage intergenerational programming and safe third spaces for young people. We have the new Bedrock tier. I think it's a good balance between innovative risks and expanding the tried and true programs that there's a lot of demand for. These new changes, though, of course, will come with a lot of technical assistance, and we have some plans for that that Matthew's gonna talk about more in just a moment. Meeting with applicants is already a huge part of my job. I like to talk to people, hear what their aspirations are, kind of do matchmaking, both with our grants and also different funding opportunities throughout the state. I would like to remind everyone that I work for a few state agencies, including Colorado Creative Industries, so, yeah, I see myself as a resource for connecting people there.

[157:11] I'm also hiring an artist to create a visualization for grant eligibility. I wrote a, Choose Your Own Adventure. It's like, you must pass through the scroll… You can make it a board game! Life-size board game. So I got to be creative, it's really fun. Awesome artist, yeah. I'm currently inviting people to apply for the grant panel, as I already mentioned, that can provide different perspectives. I'm looking to expand that by one to two members, and of course, we're looking for feedback on the 2026 program. I'm a big believer in constant re-evaluation and improvement, so I'm looking forward to doing that work going into 2027. Alright, much like Sarah, I'm new here, in the Office of Arts and Culture, having started in April of this year, and I'm so thankful to this whole team for showing me the ropes within the office, and for getting me acquainted with, Boulder's arts and culture scene more broadly.

[158:11] Beyond the extensive grant program that Sarah has worked so powerlessly on, our office hosts a variety of cultural summits and workshops. These events are designed to provide technical support, opportunities for knowledge sharing, and a sense of community among our local artists and cultural organizations. Some examples from 2025 include The Bias Inside Us, Active Hope and Resiliency, Expanding Your Reach Summit, our grant writing workshop. We'll be hosting Funding Opportunities Summit in December. These summits and workshops have proven to be a great way to support our creative community, and looking ahead, we hope to connect them more closely to the goals and values outlined in the Boulder Arts Blueprint, which is linked with the citywide strategic plan and SAR framework.

[159:01] I've also been working with our talented team of data analysts in the city to put together a community-facing, data dashboard that will highlight where and how our grant dollars are being utilized within the community. And this is drawing inspiration from the Department of Housing and Human Services Community Funding Dashboard. Outside of our dedicated cultural grant funds, we're also encouraging more robust funding mechanisms through the DDA and CCRS, to further support cultural and economic developments across the city. And we are also exploring ways to support our creative community outside of funding alone. Our incredibly creative and enthusiastic arts program manager, Cindy, is working on a venue study, which will help inform our office on how to make better use of underutilized spaces throughout the city. Sounds like she's working on script writing, too.

[160:02] I'm so surprised. This is the hostage video. But yeah, we are going to do some summits on accessibility and sustainability to provide resources for organizations. This really… Awesome photo comes from Frequent Flyers. As you saw in the presentation, this category, Entrepreneurship and workforce, has a lot of potential new programs, including partnering with local higher education institutes to provide a arts business certificate program. Organize a creative business cohort training and apprenticeship programs, and partnering with college and cultural and economic development staff

[161:01] partnering with our other colleagues in our new Office of Cultural and Economic Development to develop concierge services and accelerator programs specifically for creatives. Also looking at further and deeper research, how to gather… one of the things I am very interested in is how to gather data from creative professionals who are living on the margins of federal statistics, those who may be, like, juggling gigs, hustles. a non-linear career, no W-2s. Hard to collect data from those people, But, yeah, we're gonna figure it out. In New York, they did it by offering them money. Gaia? Gaia would say that they chose that. They did chose it. They did. I just want them to talk to me, so I can pull up their data. This really awesome photo comes from East Mendo Gallery. 12th Annual Boulder Arts Week is coming up in April. Woohoo! We are stepping up slash re-evaluating the promotion of this, this promotion of the celebration of local arts in our community,

[162:13] We're making use of partnerships with Visit Boulder and their expertise in this area, super excited about that. We will also be, doing the second annual Boulder Arts Week Awards, which will be promoted In conjunction with, like, the pre-promotion of Boulder Arts Week, and publicize along with, the launch of that. Emmy, our amazing comms partner, at the city, is constantly working on… Managing and growing our communications inventory. Yeah. Regional leadership, Preparing for Sundance Festival, new work emerging from the Artist Blueprint, which could include things like launching a storytelling media campaign centered on cultural attractions and individual artists.

[163:03] We're coordinating with our colleagues across tourism agencies, like I said, working with Visit Boulder and Downtown Boulder, Sundance Film Festival, and CU Boulder. Lots of collaboration in the fun. And these work plan areas overlap in some ways with our existing programs, such as our Excellent Experiments in Public Art series, and initiatives for artists and creatives. However, they also highlight where we want to see the… where we have the greatest opportunity for expansion. So, as shown in the presentation, this could include developing a nightmare position. Hi, mayor. To support Boulder's nighttime economy, investigating temporary or project-based rents for creative spaces, and easing permitting and noise ordinances to make it easier for creative businesses and temporary projects to thrive. Nightmare. Nightmare. Does he get to work, Kate? Do they get to work, Kate? Vampire cakes are… Excellent, I like it. Absolutely.

[164:03] In this area, we will continue the Experiments in Public Arts series, hopefully with other partners in, our engagement office, and expand to other departments, to continue building relationships citywide, improve transparency, and ease and streamline our processes. Finally, we, we include the Arts Commission responsibilities and all the ways that you help and support us. That is actually us, metaphorically, on the top, all of you. This is from Third Law. You obviously oversee the grants ordinance. Thank you again for your support through that big transition that we just had. Our other grants responsibilities, the sponsorship committee, supporting the public art projects, our standing selection panel, being an ambassador to the community, which is absolutely vital in our, very, very rich cultural community and being advisory to us. I appreciate each and every one of you so much for everything that you For all of your thoughts and your input and your support and your, like, weird late-night texts when I need some input on things, so thank you.

[165:05] And with that, I believe we are set for the moment, and the food is ready. Great. Any questions before we break for food? Would you rather do their prizes? Oh, you could do them right now. Yeah, let's just wait to do that. You want prizes? Yeah. No, look, I've got the surprise. Oh, it's still in transit. However, we do have, so every year, if you've been on the Arts Commission, you'll know that we like to get you a gift every year, a very small token of our appreciation. Cindy, would you like to describe the gift, please? Oh, sure. Since you were just, expressing gratitude, I thought this was a perfect time. So if you are familiar with Groundworks Art Lab, they do this really fun event every year called the Chili Bowl, where they have people, handcraft these little bowls, and you go get to taste… get a bowl and get to taste chili in it. we convinced them to sell us some of their chili bowls without chili in them. You're welcome to bring them home and put chili in them. But, we have… they're all different, and they're all over there, they're all handcrafted, so we are inviting you to pick two.

[166:15] And take a little car that talks about Groundworks and the Chili Bowl, And take it home. I love them. I have a whole bunch, a slew at home. I use them for mise en place. We keep dog treats in us. I'll do a plug for Groundworks. They always ask commissioners to put me at, like, I've done it before. great, you get to taste every chili, and there are a lot of other community leaders doing it, it's really fun. Yeah. Yeah. And they have a pottery smashing thing, and live music, and you can just go throw stuff, it's amazing. It's very 2025. Also, they're one of my community revitalization grantees, and, like, the sustainability efforts they put in, they have geothermal energy, a green roof, solar panels, like… It's beautiful. Super accessible to… Yeah.

[167:08] Lauren? Yes, thank you all. Well, if you can wait about 5 more minutes. So, because Matt Chesansky Is being from our office. I wanted to give us all a little bit of time, because I think you have absolutely changed how the arts and culture world is in the city of Colburn. I'm just gonna say a few words, and then I will, welcome Ethan Hecht from Mahlerfest to play a piece for you. We, not Mauler. The ninth. And afterwards, if you would all like to say a few words, too, of course. Matt, I think you have truly changed how Boulder feels over the last… over your time since you joined Boulder. Your work has been thoughtful and heartfelt and absolutely

[168:03] Thank you for teaching me to dream really big, and to think beyond what feels possible. On a personal note, I came from a job that was very anxiety-inducing, and working with you has been the opposite. I've learned so much from you about being a good And about the kind of calm, grounded leadership that you body. Thank you for helping heal my hair. Finally, you keep saying that you are done with the arts, but the arts are not done with you. I know the city will be better for having your leadership in a broader capacity, and we look forward to working with you as you integrate arts into everything that you do in the future. So, thank you so much, Ethan, for joining us.

[170:41] In case anybody's wondering, that's from Machinist There is Barracion's Concertatas. It's an orchestra piece, but there's a viola solo in the middle of it, and lauren, I thought that was more fitting for you than some of the other things that have come up. Thank you. Thank you. I want to open the floor to any other staff members or commission members who would like to share some remarks with Matt.

[171:07] Go ahead. Matt, I really appreciate how you make people feel seen and heard, and I really hope that one day I have an IOTA, the patience, and de-escalation skills thing to have. So yeah, really appreciated working with you. Oh, go ahead. Okay, I figured we'd just go down the line. Go down the line. For, I got to… experience Matt as an arts administrator from the outside, from the other side, and, got to serve as a panelist. And it was awesome, and seeing you and the way you work made me want to work for a municipal government, so here I am. And also, thank you for all of the weird intellectual conversations along the way. Yes, yes. It was so much fun. Yup. Our time has been brief, but… This seems like a great guy.

[172:11] Profile. This is a pretty open. Good job. Cindy, did you write that speech, too? Matt? Thank you so much for getting a 1% for art policy! So yeah, that's, like, we… the City of Boulder really is indebted to you for getting that done, so kudos. Yeah, thank you so much. It's been great working with you, Matt. I think the first meeting that I had with you, you were… you had us talk about a super long-term thing, and you were talking about how to adapt venues, outdoor venues, to climate change in, like, 40 years, and I thought that was…

[173:10] a very cool and inspiring thing for someone, you know, in leadership to be thinking that far ahead, and I thought that was really cool. I do have to say that Matt's not leaving, he is still with us. He looks so lifelike. I had an old boss that used to say, the way we thank you for doing great work is by giving you more work. I think that's, in a lot of ways, what we're doing, is tapping Matt, for all of the great work that he's done for the arts community to this point, for the organization, and using his big brain to help us with the big challenges that we have. One of the big things that Matt will be working on for us is the citywide strategic plan, and so we'll do a big update of our strategic plan, which was our first ever, this last time around.

[174:05] Once we have our comprehensive plan finished, and I know that he'll have arts and culture in the back of his mind, whether he likes it or not, in helping develop our citywide strategic plan. So, just super excited for the work that you've done, but also the work ahead. Matt, I've known you a long time, the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs, so you are the reason I, like, continue to volunteer for, like, 20 years in the arts, so… But you have the gift of being aspirational and visionary, and the ability to figure out the nuts and bolts to actually bring that vision to fruition. It's a pretty rare dish to happen. Both sides of your brain are running full throttle. The first time, you were, like, the sentinel into my entryway into the artboard, and you had, like, a stack this big of papers for me to read through, which is terrifying. And then I remember our first in-person meeting, you were playing the cramps before, and I was like, yes! This is so great!

[175:12] And, yeah, it's been great having you here to guide us all. It's gonna be weird to not have you, like, in the corner to just, like, jump in with the encyclopedic knowledge of things, but I'll still bother you about music and movies, for sure. Yeah. Matt, I remember our first meeting, too, because I went in there with, like, Mr. Board. I was like, hi, this is me, and this is my imposter syndrome. You talked me down, you talked me off the ledge, so I kind of get what Lauren was saying. I need a boss like that. And so I just appreciate that entry point to make me feel like. my Justin Arts Educator voice was still heard, so thank you. And lucky Boulder.

[176:01] Matt, I don't know you too well, but I've always enjoyed your vibe, because you have gravitas, and yet I feel like you like to indulge in some casual gossip. I very much value, and I wish you all the best. We are so lucky to have such strong relationships today. Come back with the gossip. Matt, I think you have some Santa Claus energy. It's not just the beard, it's, like, this warmth and, like, I don't know, welcoming spirit, the arms that want to hold space for you. I don't know where the gossiping is happening, but each time we have to get recused, and you're able to hold space for us while decisions are being made, and… I don't appreciate that. In my time before the Commission and during the Commission, in so many interactions. To arts leaders, individual artists throughout the city, and folks that are influential with the city. I don't know how many times when I've mentioned your name, those people in response, and I quote, responded.

[177:14] I fucking love that man. I love big brains that I can't… I have appreciated over the years just your steadfast knowledge of how the city operates, how all the puzzle pieces work together for our little corner of the city, and your guidance and support as I've walked through my commission experience. And also for the role you've had in mentoring Lauren to be such a great head of her department. So, thank you. Yeah. So, I think that's everybody? Thank you.

[178:11] If you guys head out, we're gonna start back into the agenda at, 5.35, but we… keep eating, don't feel like you have to be done by then. Thank you, 5.35. I can only do that again. Okay. You can't spell my name. Unless it's being recorded. Alright, great. We're back. Two, agenda topics have to do with writing letters to the city, so Lauren's gonna give us a little overview that's gonna apply to both topics, and then we'll dive into the topic.

[179:07] Good evening, everyone. So you have a letter to Council? Sorry? Not yet. We do need to do a group photo, maybe at the end? Sorry. Thank you. Yeah. So, you have two letters. One is a letter to Council, which Mark actually just mentioned. Since we will have a new… new members of Council, they'll do a new set of priorities, so you want to… Tonight, gather the general topics and some points of interest, and then you'll want to have two people or less, so one or two people, to work on the letter together. you'll draft it. Of course, I'm happy to, like, help how I can with that, or just be a conduit, or, you know, And then we'll want to bring it back at the November meeting for any final edits, and to… if you all want to sign off on it, you want to sign off on it at that meeting, it's the last time that you'll be together. They've asked for it early December, so the November meeting is your last time that you're all together to, like, vote on it. That's part one.

[180:14] Part 2 is the letter about zoning that Maria asked for, so, similarly, you wouldn't be able to work on it as a group, but maybe a point or two that you want to get across, and maybe I can work with Maria or Maria Plus to, to have it drafted. There's not as tight of a deadline, for that one. It would go to, the Comprehensive plan team, who's working on it now, who's already, as I mentioned, excited and moving in that direction, so hopefully they'll say cool, thank you. And then next, it would go to the zoning staff and to City Council. Those are the three bodies, so zoning would put it forward, and then Council would vote on zoning changes. So, there's not as tight of a, a deadline for it, but if you would like to also work on it for November, then it would be great.

[181:04] Cool. I'm good, thank you. Sorry, So, starting with the letter to City Council, I think what we should do first is find one or two people who are willing to write the draft to bring to our meeting to November, because then you can listen from that perspective. If you know you're gonna write it, that'll help with it. tune in any questions you have. So, I have done it for the last couple of years. I would love it if somebody else would volunteer. I can volunteer. Thank you. Anybody else want to join her? And they will have the template of last year's, too. Yes, I will absolutely send you what I have as templates. And, anybody else available? I can help you with that. Abu? Which one do you? Doesn't matter. Go ahead. I'm doing good, thank you. So I'll send you the templates. What it normally is, is we have one page, so we have to be precise,

[182:05] a discussion of our successes over the last year. We did not do one in 2025, so probably the last two years. And then… We only have room for one or two priority points. to… address City Council. Like, these are the priorities, this is where we want City Council to support our work. That's… that's the goal of the letter. So, what we want to do today, in this 20 minutes, is come up as we're with those two points of what we want to include as our priorities as Commissioner. We can draw from some of the discussion that I had about the vision. M I think… We can… we have time to… just, Brainstorm some ideas, and then there's a group who can narrow that back up.

[183:02] Anybody have something that they wanna… Suggest? I'll take notes. Oh, and Lauren will take notes. Well, I think from the last meeting. You know, we wrote this thing about 2A, how we voted. Some more transparency, or to remove some of the… The, overhead… the city, I think that was, like, a big thing that we wanted to have some discussion around. To keep alive. Yeah, to keep alive. I would say Dad. I think we should. thank them for raising the arts into the Economic… sorry, Office of Economic Development… Cultural and economic development first. Culture's first. Cultures first. And just, say we're excited that they've acknowledged cultural as an integral part of the city, and… And then, and then… This guy, everyone.

[184:01] Yeah, I was glad to see the Create Boulder folks also respond to Lori in a reply all, thanking her for that alignment, which is one of the reasons I met with her, too, to say thank you for this. I agree with the, you know, long-term goal of being able to see to fruition the… the verbiage of 2AM, the voters did vote for, and what it was intended to be. Also, keeping in mind that… Our tactics may change depending on what council we end up with, whether we're staying course with our current one, or if we're getting folks who You have pledged to be more, more friendly towards that implementation. Oh, maybe I could add to that. I did go to the, create folder with you, both of you. I found that the candidates were really split. Half were very engaged with the arts, were up-to-date on what was going on with this commission and the work, and the other half were not, so I think we do need to watch that. I agree with you, Jeffrey. Some of them may feel like

[185:09] This is a tertiary, or… requirement in the city. Is there a transcript of that? There's a video. I have no video. I took pretty extensive notes, like, 10. Ideally before, like, next Tuesday. Got it. I think one of the things for me that I'd like City Council to just continue pushing forward is however zoning and commercial space availability can be applied towards their incentives or, you know, whatever they can do to… Help… Help support artists through… all this empty space. I also like that we have someone who is a venue executive that's gonna be one of the people, you know, kind of cracking up. So… Good perspective.

[186:02] That new executive. Fancier. She's scripted me not to. So I think in what I'm hearing so far, in terms of asks of the City Council, we really cover two, A2, where the taxes and venues. What else? Anything else you want to be in the mix? Do you think we can invite City Council members to… some events for our liaisons, because I see some of them at things, but I don't see many of them at things. Maybe there's, like, a couple of tickets we can provide, or be, like. Here is, movie tickets at the dairy, or, like, here's some stuff. Are they also under the same sunset law as us?

[187:02] Are they under the same sunset law as us, where if there are so many of them in a room, they become a quorum? City Council. Yeah, yeah. You're actually under embarrassing some so far. Yeah, please. Does everyone want the candidates' form notes, or… I would like them. I already voted. I voted once. If they are interested in performance, to reach out to… Lauren, yeah. And she has a way to work with the gifting and make sure that that's copacetic. So, it feels like, in my mind, being able to talk about the success stories of 24, 25, and then as well as the voters passing 2A as kind of evidence of the integral…

[188:05] nature of arts in Boulder, and our, you know, what… even though we don't have a vision statement, but for… in order for it to… Grow, support the… livable viability of artists and the organizations that we represent. We need the cities. partnership, full partnership, in doing that through us. Yeah, yeah. to support cultural vibrancy. I think there's three points. There's, the money, you know, the 2A money, and making sure that goes into the cultural arts. I think it's how they develop for the city, you know, we've heard a little bit about this bookend, but as an example, you know, arts is integral to the future development and land use planning. And now I've got my third point. How they develop, which impacts… the people, the, like, the community, the artists, the organizations.

[189:07] affordability, you know, the development. Oh, and I think the third point was. ARC should be, flowed through all the agencies. Yeah. Seems like that feels complete. Yeah, and we have access to the slides that they all went through of all of the… Yeah. success stories, and… Oh, yeah. Cool. Oh, I'll send it. Maria, do you want to touch on the zoning? Yeah, so first, I want to just make sure you all agree with writing this letter, because, as I mentioned,

[190:00] in the… in the bowels of the older zoning code, R1, R2, RE, RL1, those zone districts do not allow art studios or workshops. And so, it's pretty broad, how they describe those things, and I think it's already going on, you know, people You know, if you do the, open… studio, corporate studios, you know, you're touring, people are working in their painting in their garages, and painting in their basements, and doing jewelry. So, I think let's just acknowledge what's happening, and encourage it to happen. And I think if they need to, with the, you know, this workshop and the venting you brought up, you know. If they need to, they can fine-tune it, you know, that you need. You know, they can separate that if they don't… if they're worried about people doing things dangerous. type of work in there. I wouldn't with that in the letter, because it's been… But I just think, let's just make… that's the most affordable workspace you're gonna have, is an extra room or a basement in your house. Do we know what led to those codes and when they were implemented? Or it was copy and paste from, you know, another municipality? I don't know, but I think there's… I think they're assuming,

[191:14] probably, you know, you have chemicals and venting weeds. They don't write that in there, but that's what my assumption is. Maybe noise, but you would still be, you know, you'd still fall under the noise ordinances. I did if I went back to, like, the blacksmithing days or something like that. I think we would even kind of… I don't think we'd get in the weeds. Just… Is that something you'd like to write a draft, and then we can approve it? Sure. I can write a draft. Maybe I can bounce it to someone if someone wants to approve on it during this. I'd be happy to read. No? Okay. Is that something where maybe we start with Mark Wolf? Hond? To bubble up, or…

[192:01] I don't know, what do you think? Lauren, do you think that's something we should start with Mark Wolf to bubble up the zoning request? So, I spoke to the comprehensive planning team that's working on the land use and zoning, and they were excited to say that it's already in discussion for the new policy. So, I think if we have a draft, or if you have a letter, I'm happy to send it to Mark as well, but getting it into the people that are working on it directly is gonna be super effective, and then he will help us help you. get it to, City Council when that's appropriate, too. So… But certainly, the comp plan team, the zoning team, when they start… so, the land use, remember, it's like 30,000, it's way up here? That's the comprehensive planning team, and then when it… The next under that is the zoning work. So, we'll send it to them now, and then maybe you can send it again in a little bit when it's closer to when they get into more details, because they're still, like, above in the land use map.

[193:01] But certainly we can also send it to… Yeah, I think if it's sanctioned by the… well, not sanctioned, but if it's endorsed or already, right, not green-lighted, but been reviewed by the city manager's office, I think that gives some great credibility to it. It might, come to think of it, too, whenever it gets to… they're gonna have first presentation of the new policies in December, I think, for the comprehensive plan. So, I'll send that data out, and it might be a good idea if you want to go speak at a city council meeting, or to put your support towards those, as well as individuals, right? To put your support towards any policy changes that would support this work. I'll make sure that you all have the dates. Great. Maria, I'm just curious how you came across that section, like, just casual reading the zoning code. Are you having trouble sleeping at night? I… there are, people that are artists in the community that are… have gotten a little bit of pushback, and so they kind of want to get their spaces,

[194:08] grandfathered in and saying that it's legal. And it could also be a parking issue, quite frankly. Employee, or if you have an event, then, you know, people in your neighbors are complaining about parking issues. But just, you know, stepping back from, you know, what might be a couple here or there, people that have some actual issues, I think it makes a lot of sense for the work that we're doing, is… encourage artists to be able to work in their houses. Awesome. You may even find some HOAs that have language in that, that's kind of very restrictive in that as well, but the city would supersede that in that. Yeah. That's great. Will you repeat our deadlines? So, we want to have… You want to bring a draft, have it ready in time so it can go out with the packet, and then you can, you know, wordsmith it, or… To learn? Yeah.

[195:08] Let's say by November 12th for a draft to get it into the packet so everybody can review it in advance. Thank you. Lauren, thanks for adding that, Lauren, and adding this to the agenda. Absolutely. Thanks for bringing it up. Thanks for doing the deep dive. Yeah. Alright, so we have a few more items, just sort of looking ahead, in terms of agendas and policies that we want to address at our upcoming 2026 meetings. Working groups… and the like. So, we'll just… I'm gonna mix up the order under number 12 a little bit, and start with the scene folder update, if you don't mind. Sure. Cindy, do you wanna kick it off? Are you ready? I can also talk about it.

[196:00] I'll go first. So, we've had a few different points that we are, trying to work more closely with CU Boulder. One is that we went to an event to kick off their arts internship program called Puffs. And, what is it called? It's called Art, Art Buffs? Art Buffs. Yes. So we are hoping to get an intern in the upcoming year, but we're also planning to meet with, Lori Call, she's the engagement engagement director, I think. At any rate, we're hoping to actually have those meetings happen back and forth for us to take turns and host those meetings, because it was excellent. It was meeting a bunch of different CU professors and artists and people working at CU and a bunch of… community members, so we're meeting with her in the next two weeks to, like, see if we can continue hosting those, like, our office and… between our office and CU. The other thing is that I'm working with the director of the Cinema and Moving Image Studies Department to potentially have a program at CWA, like I might be hosting,

[197:01] Since she's involved with the Senate's Film Festival, but… So, some more kind of minor connections, but continuing to build out those connections. Yeah, what she said. It was interesting, the meeting with CU, it was definitely, like, a launch for their art buffs thing, but Lauren and I both came away with, like, yeah, that was really great to have those people in the same room, let's see if we can share that. responsibility with CU, so it's not always a sales pitch for the art buffs, so we can, like. make it. meet, like, our goals as well, not just Sea Eagles. And it was really interesting because They were asking about… they were asking for feedback on how people or how the cultural arts community, like, problems they have with CU Boulder. And I stood up and I said, I have a lot of problems with you people. I didn't. But a lot of it was about, like, accessibility and that CU is such a great resource in our community, it's hard to access.

[198:14] And, the people who work for CU also agreed that it was hard for them to access their own resources on campus, so they're, like, trying to deal with this whole… Anyway, They're on board with getting more engaged with the community, you know. vice versa. What do you say it's difficult to… when it's difficult to access their resources, which resources are you referring to? Specifically space. Okay. But also, we were talking a lot about, I mean, for our purposes, for our office, like, getting… both getting the community to go to CU arts and cultural events to support that stuff, and getting CU students to come to leave campus to…

[199:03] I know a lot of boulders are old. But, you know, like, the cool things that they might want to do in the community. Can I? Can I see two things? Yep. I think number one is that I was, I just know this from speaking with various CU leadership people, is that they are really Always against the law. For funding, because they've had a lot of cutbacks in international students coming in, which is their big, big… revenue source, so, like, the MBA program, maybe last year they had 20, this year they had 4 international students, so, like, they've seen a significant… Drop in their revenue from the international student side, so… I don't know if we're looking for any… money or funding from them, it's going to be super hard for them to write within dollars. Yeah. And I think the second thing is that, the professor, the dean of the business school

[200:03] is great, and if we're ever looking for an intern at the Office of Arts and Culture or something like that, he would be interested in that, and he would be a good resource for that, because they're always looking for you know, opportunities for these students to help that. And that's one of the things that we… that's on our plan to talk with them about. And I can… am happy to make an introduction to you, to him. He's a fellow Brother Indians. Still, yes. He was, he's the one that arranged this. Oh, Vijay? Yeah. He's a Macy Smith. He's lovely. So kind of along those lines of, like, the town and gown thing, did talk about, Boulder Arts Week getting more, kind of, integrated with CU. and CU more integrated with Boulder Arts Week. We have two representatives on our steering committee for Boulder Arts Week that are from CU. One is a PhD student. And, yeah, and then also Lisa, who works with their…

[201:02] Outreach, whatever they call it, they have a very long name. Office, so, like, community engagement. Yep. I'll say one more comment. Yeah. Talking about engaging students is… Roots Music Festival did an awesome job engaging… Yeah. CU students, Friday night, especially, not so much Saturday, because it was John Summit, but they had these student tickets, which was, I think, really… such a great way to get the community engaged. Yeah, it was very clever, and you know, I feel like other nonprofits should like, sure, students don't embrace nonprofits, but do these nonprofits embrace them? Like, are they offering… Yeah. come hang out with me. I think that has to be… it has to be… the phone rings always. Totally. One of the things that we had talked about as, maybe 3 years ago was doing more outreach. as the commission spaces open up to the art… community at CU.

[202:03] Let me see that's… We also… there's also the CMDI School, Communication, Media, Design, and Information Graduate School, which we've partnered with, or chatted with, They used to be CMCI. I don't know if you… that's what I knew them as, and I… Referring to them as that. it's a really cool program they have that's located in downtown, so that's, like, another in with CU. Because, like, part of what their purpose is, is to be more integrated with the local community, specifically business community. So, they have, like, a… monthly series, Caffeinated Mornings, where they invite people to come speak, and they're really well attended by community members and students there alike, so being more of a presence there. It's on our radar.

[203:00] Great. You got, everything you need? I'm sorry, awesome, no problem. Attachment 3 on your… packet is the calendar for 2026 meetings, so I just want to go through that, and if there's any of those dates that we're not gonna be able to have a forum, let's figure that out right now. We've got… The last Wednesday of the month, again. So, it's January 28th. Sure, yeah, please do. I'm gonna share it on the screen. January 28th. February 25. Wait, do you want to know if we cannot make it? Yeah, I… if you cannot make it, and we've got a bunch of people who cannot come… I cannot make it on the 25th.

[204:09] Oh, February 18th and the 23rd. We are too fortunately. I think I'm out for February as well. Do you want to consider maybe not meeting? Number two. Does anybody else want? Because 5 is still lowering. We can still have a quorum if there's only two. No, there's no beaveraging that one. So that would be… February 18th? Does that work for everybody? Yes. I don't know about me. It's both Ash Wednesday and the first night I'm wrong. I don't know if that matters for a I think if we're gonna miss commissioners either way, then let's just keep it where it is. But, I mean, I don't know that that affects it, but… Oh, I thought you said for… Oh, no, no, not for me, I just… I was just throwing it out there.

[205:08] It would not for me, okay, so we're gonna move… February from… The 25th of a week. And then March, up a week, does that work? Yup. So that would be… March… 18th? March 18th doesn't work. Doesn't work for me either. Okay, so March will keep this… February will move up a week, March will stay the same. For those that are involved in it, spring break at CU is March 16th through 20th, earlier this year. Again. April 29 and May 27th.

[206:05] May 27th, do we really… have we historically not… we've done the week before, during Memorial Day? Trevor? I thought so. I can do the 27th, is anybody else planning to be out? Okay. May 27th. It's a little suited. Yeah. June 24th. If it ends up being an issue, we can try and… Change it up. June 24, July 29… Correct. And then we'll have new board members coming in at this point, so maybe we'll just… Oh, that's right. …review at that point. I can't think about it. I don't know. Okay. These are posted on the website, though, so… I would just say August 27th, it might be the next Roots Music Festival. Oh, really? Oh!

[207:12] Okay, just something to… Okay, great. Cool. That's cool. It's very cool. Alright, the next attachment in your… This packet is Attachment 4, and it's the questions for applicants, and for their questions. So we typically give some feedback on the questions that the City Council is going to ask applicants for the Commission. And this happens, applications are opening in December. So… Can we talk about this in November? Sure, yes, if you'd like to. If you guys want to put this off till November, make sure you look at it, and think about whether these questions are geared toward getting the right people on this commission.

[208:05] I think by then we'll know whether or not we've got a city council that takes our recommendations anyway. Yeah. Okay. And, work groups. We have got, What do you want to say about work groups? I know you have some thoughts? So I think this year we've had a couple super successful workgroups, and thank you all for working with us on your work groups. Continue to work. We wanted to, though, include a couple topics of interest, that have come up over time, that have come up in relation to our Bedrock grant program. that we think deserve, that merit some specific attention, and so we've actually brought some topics to you. There were, in your massive packet, I get it, but there were some descriptions in there about the three that we, have in mind. When I say we, it's actually… Sarah and I were… have been discussing this, in particular in relation to the grant program.

[209:02] So, sustainability, artificial intelligence, which, hopefully Elite will join us on that one. And accessibility, with capital A. So, if there are, a member or two that would like to work with those, work on those topics with us over this year, we would deeply appreciate it. Before we get volunteers for these, let's check in also on what commissions that we already have, like, what committees we already have that we want to carry forward. I think you and I are done what we had to do. Our deliverables delivered. Is anybody on their committees feeling like you want to continue your work into 2026? Youth. Youth? Yeah, the arts education. Okay. The page got updated. I think that's probably the continuation of adding GrantScript to it and being aware of what we can do. Yes. Did not motivate me, so I didn't… Do you feel that you have more work to do, or do you want to move on to other issues?

[210:01] Up to you guys. I think that it got the refresh that it needed, And yeah, if anything, it's just figuring out if it's being used any better, right? Do you mind if I… I think, our website is gonna get more, capabilities also, which is something we've been talking about with our arts education group. So, if it does, and it makes some more usability, then I might reach back out to get your input again. Does that sound good? Okay. Because I think that's where we're sort of stuck at this point, yeah. And then the land acknowledgement, I think we kind of stalled out a little bit, but, we had a little… Did some work when you went to that retreat, right? But I don't know if we need to do more work on that. I don't feel like we do, and we're gonna touch on that in our final topic. A little bit, and And if you guys disagree with that, then we can revisit that, but, anything else other than the arts ed, then?

[211:05] Great. Cool, so let's, Arts Ed, it sounds like you guys both want to continue on that specific topic, the two of you? Yes, the youth, yeah. Oh, youth, yeah. So then we have sustainability, AI, and accessibility. I would love to help with AI. As an arts attorney, I track that, the legal… the legal posturing of that all, so… I'd love to do that. The only thing I want to help with, just one of them that's valid, maybe it's related to AI, I feel like all of you do so much work, That's repetitive. And if we can have some sort of a hackathon, or something like that. Where we have people come and build some AI agents for you to use. based on your rubric and things like that, I think it'll be helpful to take some things off the table.

[212:01] I'm sorry. So, the city has some strict limitations around the use of artificial intelligence. And one of the things I was gonna start with in our little workgroup is bringing in somebody from our IT team to talk about our… how we use it, and our limitations, and, like, the city's constraints around it. So we can certainly ask when we're in there about if anybody's using automation, or if it's possible, or recommended, or how they would recommend that. We're sustainable. We're sustainable. Right. So maybe that's an agenda topic, rather than a committee. Exactly, okay. Yeah. Got it, talking about. Got it, yep, cool. I have interest in both sustainability and accessibility, I'd say. Maybe, like, when thinking of it… from this city lens, and I know that it's applicable to the Bedrock organizations, but… knowing… doing more research into what programs and incentives already exist through the city, that our role can also be to help, like, the Oscar program, and the climate initiatives, and…

[213:06] pace and stuff like that, and I… I know a handful of them, but I'm sure that there's a lot more there that then can be, tools. As organizations are trying to meet their sustainability goals. Are you volunteering for work? Yes, yes, sure, yes. Okay. Cool. I just have a question. I don't know if there's a precedent or a ban on this, but, I think especially for the accessibility and sustainability, and maybe the AI one, I don't know, it might be interesting to have, like, a staff liaison to kind of coordinate stuff that we're doing in our office versus things that we're offering to organizations, and like, I… if I was part of that, I wouldn't want to harsh on anyone's mellow, but maybe, like, every few meetings, a staff person could come in just to coordinate efforts there. Sounds great. And I am happy to serve on the sustainability portion of that as well. I have a lot of connections with Colorado Green Business Network, and a lot of other regional and statewide organizations, but also

[214:05] because I oversaw sustainability efforts at the credit union, also aligning that with the 16 or 17 pillars that are part of the United Nations. Goals for sustainability, which, which include everything from accessibility to… it's a lot of goals of what Boulder is. Where it's showing that sustainability is not just environmental, it is social. Cool. And anybody want to work on accessibility, would you? Anybody? Anybody? I don't want to commit to anything right now. If you need my assistance, I will be out there. I know an organization that's done really well with the accessibility, and that would be the dairy. Not only did they get a grant to do some fundraising and do some capital campaign to do that back portion with the

[215:03] With the elevator, they've also recently… in fact, I sent to Sarah and Lauren an email from Viva theater, where they were saying the dairy now has, earpieces there to allow for those that may be hard of hearing, to be able to use those in the theater for For hearing as well, so that might be a good way to kind of start the liaison-type… thing to… I'd love to see an accessibility library that organizations could borrow from. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's one of the churches downtown, I can't remember which one, when my mother-in-law came into town, we went down, and we borrowed a wheelchair for a week, and they've got this… they've got all these accessibility things where you can just go there, and you borrow them for as long as you need them. You can take them if you need them. Cool. Or how did, oh, sorry, my mouth's full. Brendan, how did you all do the, tactile tours?

[216:02] Yeah, we worked with a local person who's connected with some, like, visually impaired, blind groups, and she helped design the tour. I mean, we have, like, our tours have notes, so they kind of use the notes to just, like, describe the piece, and then they're encouraged to touch the piece, and… But, I mean, we have a content. Yeah, we definitely do. Yeah, community member representative. What is the end goal for this? For the Accessibility Committee? No, like, all committees. All committees, it's to, pull together some recommendations for the direction of either staff or the Commission without spending a lot of time in meeting, talking about it, gathering resources and ideas and And is there a deadline? No, that's… committees can work on their own and do as much as they'd like, or, you know, you're not… just working groups. Am I wrong in assuming this also has direct application to the bedrock evaluations and how we're…

[217:06] supporting venues and kind of meeting those goals. It can be. I will help you. Okay. Cool. Well, thank you guys. And, we'll continue just to have report outs at our meetings. Alright, our final topic before the group photo is topics to be on the agenda for future meetings, and what additional projects that we haven't already discussed do we want to take on as Commission. Jeffrey, you had some… Yeah, I thought it was a good idea. In fact, I was thinking immediately the land acknowledgement to kind of continue on that, and align it with what the city sees appropriate for the usage of that. I was glad we were able to use that today, and say that today, because we are in Chautauqua, which was a movement started in upstate New York. The word Chautauqua actually comes from the Iroquois Nation's language, so that seemed appropriate here, but making sure that we are using it in alignment with the city's usage.

[218:10] Our plan is we're going to have a little broader discussion about it at the November meeting, which is going to impact how we move forward in 2026. We didn't want to take a lot of time on this very full agenda, so we'll discuss it further in November. Did I have something else that you wanted me to say? I don't think so. I think I'm not, Oh, go ahead. So, we didn't do liaison updates, but I wanted to share that I followed Gaia's lead on inviting my organizations to come and gather, and that was great. It was only, like. That's really cool, though! But one of the things that came out of it was sort of this broader conversation of them being like, so what is your role as a liaison? I was like, what do you want it to be? And so much of what they liked was this opportunity to even just connect and talk to each other, which I wouldn't have done had you not done that. And it got me wondering if in 2026, if there's not a… wouldn't be of value to looking at the organizations

[219:16] And actually assigning them to people based on how their organizations are crossed, like. I don't know, their identities align, you know? So, like, if the group had all been theater and dance companies, the conversations that would happen between them, and then making a goal of, like, quarterly, that we just, like, we get them together, and then we, like, stop with all of the individual… I don't know, not that we stop with them, but, like, trying to get some, like. efficiencies, right? They can be efficient with the time, and see if that makes a richer experience. They do really love to hang out with each other. I mean, I think there's a lot of stuff, like, the next one I'm hosting is December 9th. And for this one, I'm hosting, hopefully, I'm trying to get, social venture partners to show up. What? Yay! To help, like, people think about these smaller nonprofits, thinking about their board, and how the structure of the board. And then there's also gonna be… they don't know this yet…

[220:13] But two of the more prominent families here, I'm gonna invite them to be like, come present about how you apply for a grant with your foundation. Cool. Because you get knocked like, everybody's like, give me money, give me money, but, like, how do you give money? Who do you give money to? Like, what is your process? outline this, so I'm, like, getting more clear on, you know, these things, and I think it's a good way to spend time with them. That's awesome. Cool. Everybody should do it. Yeah. I will hook you up. We'll hit Jill up for some space if you don't have it at your house. Cool. We could also just combine, like, we're all, like, they're doing the same work, you know, like, maybe Jill and I host tonight together. Yeah, yeah. Perhaps some people show up, and then it's more people, more than every? Yeah.

[221:02] Very cool. One other thing that we do have, planned for agenda topics in the future is, circling back to the issue that you had brought up, Gaia, is, eligibility of commissioners to obtain grants, so we want to give some space and time for that conversation. That's in November. What else? Like, you know, one of the things… I think a lot of nonprofits are going to go under, honestly, in the next year or two. It's just sort of what's gonna happen, given the funding, given any 8 months, like, everything is, like, going… So we just… I think it'll be nice to… for us, even, like, bring forward, like, we're seeing so-and-so at risk, or, like, they mention that they're at risk, like, just have… start having a little bit more of an open discussion, because if there's any way to help them. It's just started 6 months before, not… So maybe that's a reminder for our liaison relationships to be checking in about finances, yeah.

[222:13] Oh, right, yeah. Good reminder is, as you talk to your liaison groups, just get consent to talk about their situation in the meeting. Anything else we want to prioritize and… How was… Conversation points that we know right now. We've done a lot in the last year on all this planning, and maybe it feels right that we're just gonna take a breath for a couple months. I think it might be useful to have a summit, for the arts community on how to restructure their DEI, strategies, you know, how to do the work, but perhaps restructure their DEI a little bit so they can apply for federal grants still. Is that a Matthew?

[223:03] To the summit. No? Who is it? Oh, it's you. Oh, okay. Sorry, what? She was suggesting for the summit topic. on how to adjust for the DEI changes. Or just, you know, like, having some type of forum where people can talk about that. Yes, that's already in the works. Oh, great. We could also point them towards the Boulder Chambers event that they're doing, I think, on November 21st on that exact subject. Oh, I apologize, I was talking to her about this upcoming summit that she has. compared to funders. For people, that would be great. Yes, please invite your organizations to the December summit, where we'll have 10 funders talking about their opportunities. What date is that? December 5th. That's a Thursday? Friday. Do you send that… I don't know, do you send that out to all the organizations? Oh, okay.

[224:04] They also need to hear it more. Yeah, and it gets lost in the big email that goes out monthly, too. Just start putting things on people's calendars, like, I've seen people sending out a calendar invitation. Just invite, yeah, just invite everybody. I wasn't getting spam like that. Exactly, me too. I have maybe emailed the organization saying, thank you for RSVPing, yes, this is… We look forward to seeing you there. This is where you're going to park! We're holding space for you. Matt? I apologize, it's not… replaced it during this, but I did want to point out that maybe sometime next year, inviting SCMD to speak. Because the renewal will be in 2028, and I imagine they'll be talking about a restructuring a campaign. Do they have a new executive director in place? Yes, they do. Do we know who that is? Yes.

[225:05] We're gonna, she's coming to visit the Chamber in a couple of weeks. Oh, really? And we're gonna throw her in the bus with Visit Holder, one of the old VW buses, and drive her around to a few venues. Oh, cool! So she'll also be presenting at the December summit. Is she a local hire? A regional hire? She came from the airport, right? She doesn't necessarily have an arts background, but she's excellent. Anytime I've heard her speak, she's definitely… Well, good. They needed someone, as they go through the reaccreditation, they needed someone there to be able to navigate that. Yeah. Big time. Good, yang, I'm glad. Yeah. So we can add that. Oh, totally. Yeah, yeah. Totally. And then, obviously, we add to our agenda on a rolling basis as to what's going on, so… Cool. What… I think that is bringing us the end of our agenda, except for our photo.

[226:00] So thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Allie! Thank you, Dan! I will take it. I will take it. Yeah, over in front of the rocks there, it would be good. Look at this momentous tucked out.