March 25, 2026 — Boulder Arts Commission Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:28] That's great! Welcome to the March 25th, 2026 Arts Commission meeting, which is now at her. Yep. I mean, starting, Andrew. Tom? Well, then roll call, and then a call to order. Welcome to the Boulder Arts Commission meeting. It is March 25th, 2026, and I will call roll. Cheryl Cardoza? Resident. Maria Cole, here? Jeffrey Cash? Present.

[1:01] Joe Katzenberger? Present. Caroline Kurt. Gaia Vinay? present. valid YO. Present. I will now turn the meeting over to Chair Kurt for procedural items. We'd first like to approve the agenda that was in our packet. Come to approve. Need a second? Comment? Should it say approval of, February 2026 meeting minutes, not retreat? Absolutely, thank you. So, approved with those changes. All in favor? I see Jeff online raising his hand, and… okay, great. None of us. And… Quickly moving to public participation. I don't know why I'm confused by that, but is there anybody signed up online, or… We have two people online. If you would like to make public comment, if you could please use the raise hand function.

[2:12] And if you'll go over the guidelines, that would be great. I don't see any hands raised. Are anyone here with us present that would like to share public comment? But I would like to invite our observers to just quickly introduce yourself, if that's okay, because I think everybody will be interested to know who's here. I will be joining the Commission when I get this morning. And hi, I'm Kate Samino, and I will also be joining the Commission starting next month, so thank you. Everybody, Mark Wolf, Assistant City Manager. Thank you.

[3:00] All right, moving right into Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan. Would you like to introduce them? I would love to. That's so great. Thank you all. Thank you both tonight for coming. Our colleagues Jubian and Kalani from the Comprehensive Plan They've been doing a ton of work, and I think you're going to be so excited as an arts commission to see how arts and culture and creativity is built into this entire new comprehensive plan, so I will… Welcome. Hi, good evening, Arts Commission members. Thank you for the introduction, Lauren. We're here… we were here last week, with you last in September to share progress on our policy and land use direction, and we're excited to be here again this evening to share how we turned that direction into actual policies and guidance in the draft plan. So, for tonight's agenda, we're giving you a quick project update. We're going to share where we are in the process. We're going to walk through the draft comprehensive plan. What's changed, what's evolved, how it's structured.

[4:02] We're showing you how to review the draft document online, and finally, we're hoping for your final feedback on the draft before we clear the recommended plan for adoption. So, as a quick reminder for this topic, this is the final opportunity for the board as a body to provide feedback on the draft plan before we prepare the recommended plan for adoption. Keeping that in mind, we have 3 questions for you to think about during this presentation tonight. We'll pull back up on the screen at the end of the presentation. And then, does the Commission, one, have any feedback related to the draft policies, or recommended any revisions to the draft plan? Is there anything missing? And does the draft plan still align with the previous arts commission conversations we had in September? And as a quick reminder for the Arts Commission's rule related to the comp plan update.

[5:02] You serve as an advisory capacity, and we have already, and have already helped us identify areas of purpose for policy and land use updates. So, you'll help the staff determine where we should push the needle or dial back related policies. Help us identify any gaps. And where there is or isn't alignment with our arts and culture goals, which you've already helped with. So tonight, we're asking you to help shape any potential revisions to the draft, and during the adoption process, you'll have the opportunity to provide recommendations to the Planning Board of City Council if you choose to, which becomes part of the public record and helps inform their deliberations. And, As… just as a reminder, the four formal adopting bodies for the Comprehensive plan will be City Council, City Planning Board, the County Planning Commission, and the, the Board of County Commissioners.

[6:01] Alright, so I will give you a quick overview and reminder where we are in the update process. In October of 2024, we began with a boulder Today. That was phase one, where we focused on understanding what community members are experiencing, orienting them for the project, and grounding the work in data and understanding trends. And from there, we moved into a Boulder Tomorrow, where we worked with community members to define a shared vision. And identify priorities for what we want Boulder to become. Next came a bolder direction, where we translated the vision into policy options and a preferred direction, and this is the phase where key choices began to take shape. And now, we're excited we're in the Boulder Future phase, which started this January, and we've taken everything we learned from the previous phases and prepared the draft plan for community and policymaker review. And we're taking comments on the draft until April 6th, and then the team will prepare the recommended plan for adoption starting in June.

[7:09] So that's a quick run-through of the process. I'll touch on what the comprehensive plan is quickly, and where it sits in the grand scheme of things, so we're all on the same page. It documents the community's 20-year vision for the Boulder Valley, providing long-term direction for how we grow, change, and invest over time. It's intentionally brought because it guides decisions for many different city and county programs and actions across a variety of subject areas. And it sets the overall direction for the community and helps guide development planning decisions and department plans. So, in short, it's our roadmap for the long-term evolution of the Boulder Valley Guiding Decisions, future work, and community expectations. And as the team mentioned when they were here with you last September, we're focusing on several key goals for this 50-year update.

[8:04] We want the plan to be clearer and more straightforward, so we've limited redundancy and unnecessary complexity, we hope. We're also simplifying language to make the plan easier to read and understand for everyone, whether it's community members, developers, staff, or policy makers. And we're really working to balance aspiration and action, so the plan inspires the community, but also points to improvements we'd like to see. We're also ensuring the plan is focused at that 30,000 feet level, so setting direction and providing a policy and future land use foundation without stipulating exactly how all departments meet the plan vision. That comes later. And then the last point is that we're making the plan more adaptable and flexible, so it can respond to changing conditions over time, staying relevant as our needs, technologies, and priorities evolve. So before we share what's in the draft with you, I just want to mention that your feedback and arts and culture staff input and coordination with the Arts Blueprint process, which you'll be hearing about later tonight as well, has really been instrumental in helping us shape the direction of the plan.

[9:14] And some key themes you raised when we last discussed the update with you in September included promoting policies that recognize the role of arts in community identity, livability, and overall quality of life. Integrating arts and culture into land use planning by considering placement of civic and institutional cultural uses within the land use framework to enhance accessibility. Encouraging support for artists, organizations of all sizes, and creative growth as a positive driver for revenue and economic development. and expanding access to affordable cultural and creative experiences, especially in the evening-night economy. So we took that feedback along with community member input and policymaker direction to prepare the draft that's available now online.

[10:02] And we'll share some highlights with you shortly. And we hope you've had a chance to take a look, but if you haven't, no worries. We'll walk you through it. So with the draft plan, we're going to give you a high-level overview of what's next there, and then focus on some of the arts and culture-related updates. It's supposed to take that. Nope. Are you able to blow that up any bigger? I'm at full screen on mine, so… It won't actually get agonated. I don't know if there's a way to zoom in. There we go. Oh, it's not everything, though, but… but that's… in the policy section, we have some feature spreads. For, topics that we really want to highlight, and arts and culture is one of them, so the spreads like that.

[11:01] So yeah, you might notice that the plan looks different. It's been restructured a bit, and we've incorporated a lot of artwork and also photography collected from community members through, including through the Voicing Boulder collaboration that took this… took place this past year through experiments in public art. And also, hopefully you'll notice that the content is very reflective of the feedback we've received throughout the process. So, we've, held over 65 different engagement opportunities over the past year and a half to understand what was most important to community members and incorporate those interests into the plan. And that engagement included the four experiments in public art projects that have been completed, to help us engage more audiences and be more creative in the process. And we still have a mural project to come. So, community vision. It's chopped off the top… oh, there you go. Okay. The plan focuses on an updated community vision, and at its heart, it's about working together to ensure everyone not only feels welcome.

[12:03] But truly belongs, and creating opportunities for all who live, work, or visit here, and sustaining the health of our community and environment for generations to come. And this vision guides every aspect of the plan, from policies to actions, and keeps us focused on what matters most to community members. For the next couple slides, I'll share some of the foundations that remain, and then also some new ideas. So while we're reimagining the plan for the 50-year update, some foundations remain as strong as ever. I'll highlight a few. We continue to value a compact urban community surrounded by open space, protecting the lands, natural systems, and scenic vistas that make Boulder so unique. Strong neighborhoods and a sense of place remain central, giving residents a connection to their community. Climate leadership and environmental stewardship continue to guide our decisions, reinforcing our commitment to sustainability.

[13:02] And collaboration between the city and county remains key, ensuring that our planning is coordinated and serves the broader community effectively. And some new ideas. While we already have strong planning foundations throughout this update process, we heard a lot of new, exciting ideas from community members, and a yearning for more connection to each other, to nature, and to neighborhoods. We heard tons about 15-minute neighborhoods, or walkable neighborhoods. And desire for more housing options through the city, excitement about the night economy, and focusing on arts and culture and social connection. We also heard a lot about local ag and the local food system. And based on all these new ideas, the project team spent a lot of time focusing on how updating policies and land use strategy could provide a better, better framework for those new ideas to flourish. Now we'll talk a little bit about policy updates. So now that you have an idea of some of the core concepts of the plan, we'll move to the main sections of the plan, and there are two primary sections, the policies and the future land use framework.

[14:13] We'll start with the policy section. Our approach to policy updates was ensuring that they're clear, they're straightforward, and they're resilient. So we're focusing on the what and the why of when we do things, and leaving space for the city and county departments and community members to figure out the how we do things to respond to changing conditions. And finally, we're very proud of the fact that we were able to decrease the number of policies from 210 to 102 and still be affected. And for you this evening, of course, we're going to go… we're going to focus on the arts and culture updates. So we've incorporated your feedback from September, along with the community feedback and policymaker decision, or direction, to add 13 policies that directly or indirectly speak to arts and culture in the plan.

[15:03] We've also included a feature spread on arts, culture, and the economy that you saw earlier. And here are some examples of the policy and the plan, so you'll see here that we have Policy 64, Arts and Culture, Heritage Investment, and 65, social infrastructure. This slide and the next include a list of policies we highlighted in your memo. Many of the policies on this list focus on expanding options for arts and culture, whether it be through adaptive reuse of spaces, creating a more diverse and welcoming community. Or preserving cultural resources, and focusing on trying to create spaces for local businesses to thrive. So we will continue with policies to support the night and experiential economies, investment in arts and culture and heritage, social infrastructure, allowing commercial activity in residential areas, and supporting community resources related to education.

[16:05] After the presentation, we'll welcome discussion around these policies, and you can also provide individual feedback online on the project page, and we're going to walk through where that's at and how you can get there. Oh. So, okay, now we're going to talk about the second major section of the plan, the land use section. And then for the goals for changing our land use structure. They were to right-size, differentiate, and create adaptability. This strategy supports arts and creative uses across more land uses. From small studio spaces to medium or large-sized venues. The former land use map had 25 land use designations. This new draft has 4 classes and a total of 12 designations. We're hoping the new structure provides community members and decision makers More clarity around expectations for development throughout the city, and while also allowing space for adaptability to the unique needs of a variety of locations and changing dynamics.

[17:09] So, within each class, there are designations, for example, under hubs. There are community, regional, and innovation hubs, and innovation and production hubs. You'll see an example of the description of a community hub here. This spread explains what designation… what it is, why it matters, and what you can expect from primary uses to supporting uses. The urban design, the mobility standards, and, more description and character in there. And just to dig a little deeper to show you how the land use designations and policies work together, here we can see an example of the community hub on the right side of the screen. The hub is highlighted in pink, and these types of hubs include a mix of uses, including housing, grocery stores, coffee shops, retail, and commercial uses, along with community centers, like schools, rec centers, churches, and libraries.

[18:04] The hub is supported and surrounded by Neighborhood 2, in orange, which includes a higher mix of residential uses to support the activities within the Hub. And the surrounding that is Neighborhood 1, which includes a lower mix of housing types. Some examples of the policies that support this type of land use include those focusing on neighborhood character, retail, housing diversity, social infrastructure, and commercial activity. So this shows you how we're trying to update the plan so policies and land use are more integrated. So that's it for content, and… Now we just want to give you a quick update on what next steps are before we move on to discussion. So looking ahead, we have several key milestones to hit and meetings to be had on the road to adoption. The draft review period will close on April 6th. We have a series of meetings planned with the four approval bodies to review, discuss, and refine the plan based on their direction and board and community feedback.

[19:08] And staff will then prepare the recommended draft. And the adoption hearings will kick off in early June. So… Hopefully you've had a chance to look at it, and if not, there's still time. So, our main goal tonight is to, get your feedback. And it would be great if you can also share this information with your networks, that, that the review process is open until April 6th. And it'd be great if you can also submit comments online. We are… I don't know how many people have been onto the website. We are happy to navigate you through it if you want, but I don't know if that's a good use of time, but that's an option.

[20:00] It's a little bit… not complicated, but… We've done that in a few commission meetings. Okay, so as I mentioned at the beginning, this is the final opportunity for the board to weigh in on the draft. as a body. So we hope we can get your feedback this evening. And I just… we pulled up, again, the same questions we showed you at the beginning to help guide the discussion. You could also discuss if you would be ready to provide a statement tonight, that's an option, you don't have to. But we do hope that later you would consider sending a letter of support to City Council and Planning Board during the adoption process later this year. And if you feel there are items you need to discuss in the board beyond tonight. We ask that you arrange how best to do that with arts and culture staff, and share those comments with us by April 6th. With that, we're excited to hear what you think, and then we'll turn it back over to you, Chair. Thank you. Has anybody had an opportunity to dig into it? Where are we… you have?

[21:04] I have a little bit, but I wouldn't say in terms of, like, being ready as a collective to put ideas together, but let's talk about the feedback from people who have some. I see Gaia's hand is up as well. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, thank you, everybody. I'm so sorry I'm not there in person. I have, one sort of question, for the team there. You know, coming back to this night economy and the vibrant nightlife. In your discovery report, you flagged these noise ordinances that we have and permitting. Is there anything that's going to be coordinated with actual reform, or is it simply a goal and we don't have a mechanism in place for this? So, right now, it's a goal as part of the implementation. It would be flagged here for code changes later on, or, for further study on what that would take to get there.

[22:13] Okay, thank you, and I have… I mean, I have one more question, but I'll wait to ask in case somebody else does. I have a related question to what Gaia asked, and I was… I was wondering about the idea that's kind of woven between… through these documents about utilizing commercial space and, As you've talked to the permitting and the planning board? What has been the temperature towards those kinds of approaches. Could you be… Describe the, specifically. The… several places it was highlighted that there are opportunities to use commercial space for, like, pop-ups and things like that. And so, I know that you aren't suggesting specific mechanisms, but what's the general temperament toward that type of

[23:13] Direction from other commissions and boards. You know, I don't know the temperament from other commission. We're in the middle of going to all the boards right now, so… And I don't think we've come to that level of detail, but I think the future land use strategy provides more flexibility in general. Knowing that we can't predict the future always, a lot of vacant commercial space, and people will recognize that from… I can foresee that we'll want to try and interface with moving that along with some other commissions and boards, so I was just wondering if you had any feedback, but maybe early. Mark might want to add to that. Sure, and I can't speak to some of the other boards, but I think Council Planning Board have been very open to some of the way the land use map, the proposed land use map.

[24:06] outlines Some of the different allowable uses, certainly the commercial space in different areas. I get at some of that implementation devils in the details. But I think there's openness to be creative in how we approach some of those issues. Kind of our next step, and it gets at the last question a little bit, too, is we would turn towards Where we need to… take our kind of major, big moves in implementing this plan after adoption. So some of that would be code changes that we need to make and prioritize some of that. We will also kick off a Update of our citywide strategic plan, and that'll be kind of a main prioritization document for us to pull from all of the different priorities and Strategies and policies within the plan, and help guide Our next four years of work.

[25:00] And within that, I can definitely see other big things related to commercial space, so forth. Great, that's helpful. Anything else? Yeah, quite a bit. Sorry, guys. I thought the spread was beautiful. I thought that was well… I thought it was well written, and I thought it looked good. was wondering why it was buried back in the policy section. Felt like it should be on the front end of the document, because I was trying to understand… because it's in Chapter 3, it's under policies, and I was confused, is this a policy? But I… I think you were trying to break up, graphically break up the policies, but I think it should be in the front end of the document. So, I think that leads to my other comment, is I feel like arts and culture should be better represented in the front end of the document. So, first would be under economy and jobs. You know, I feel like I've heard throughout the city and community that we're leaning into culture as the economic driver. we have metrics on the economics, so it feels like on page… sorry, I'm looking at the…

[26:10] I know I'm on page 23, when you talk about economy and jobs. You said talk about an economy that's creative, but I think you need to specifically talk about arts and culture under a creative economy. Okay. Thank you. Should I keep going? Yeah. On the page 24, 25, preparing for the future, trends matter, wow, we have an aging population, but also, I think arts and culture, again, is another trend that I would like to see as a bullet point on this page. Feels like we… we dove in on the demographics an awful lot, but again, we're… we're seeing a shift with trying to have arts and culture be stronger in our local economy and in our community. I think that should be a trend.

[27:01] So, like I said, I'll get into policies, and you have a couple… there's a couple other folks, too, that have big spreads, I just wonder why all that's not on the front end. On the 15-minute neighborhoods, page, 23… 39th? You have the kind of bullet points of what's included in the 15… 15-minute neighborhoods, and you listed them, too. So, you know, you said hubs are social connection, for all these different things, but you didn't list museums or cultural facilities, so I feel like That is, I think, at the heart of at least the work that we're doing here and what we think's important, so I feel like that should be in those bullet points. Does that make sense? That makes sense. And the news. I met Arts at arts venues. I can give a little context to that, that there was a group of 48 people who talked about 15 neighborhoods for 7 days, and they came up with, like, a primary and secondary. Like, they had to prioritize things, and that's where that comes from.

[28:09] But I'm noting it. I think, you know, we sat through post-COVID, and we heard people in our community how early arts and culture really helps people through that part of the, you know, their lives, so I feel like that is an integral part of community planning. Page 465. Sorry. Thank you for reviewing. I'm curious about the historic, archaeological, and culturally… cultural resource preservation. I thought that was really interesting. Just curious what the planning mechanisms around that are. Are they going to be easily accessible, or are there going to be a long… drawn-out landmark process to develop those type of resources. So this is, your… Note 31. Sorry, your policy 31 Act, yeah.

[29:00] just curious about that, and… because there's some great resources in this community that I just see sitting vacant, and I don't know if it's because it's… They're stalemated in landmark processes, or how couldn't we get those back? Into the urban fabric. Thank you. Sorry, checking my answer. Obviously, I read the link. Sorry, guys. Be on page, Oh, I'm, wondering if you could talk about… Oh, that was… I think you talked about that, that's fine. Right, so on the spread, again, I thought the second paragraph on the future of arts, economy, and culture, starting with Boulder's creative sector, is defining strength. I thought that was a great paragraph. I felt like that should be up front in the movement, because it just feels very buried back here.

[30:05] And here, as well, this… Page 51 talks about the hubs and talks about cultural spaces, so I think that's not conflicted. In the other hub's description. So, that's on page 15. Thank you, Lauren, sorry. Oh, I'm curious, okay. Curious to learn more about Policy 102 imagination areas. Can you talk about that a little bit? I think this group would be really interested in that. Funny, we were just talking about that before, Oh, awesome. Currently, the way that some of our regulations are, that they don't always permit, say. a BMOCA up in North Boulder, or other things that might… the… engines for new and vibrant ideas, and so it'll be looking at those areas and coming up with some solutions to allowing those things to actually work.

[31:06] I think that there's going to be some time during the implementation that that really needs to be fleshed out, even though it might be another visit to boards and commissions to really get a sense of what needs to happen for those areas. I think, I don't know if everyone here knows that the BMOCA site is not zoned for a museum here. So, would that mean there's a fast track for a zoning overlay, or what is… what does that mean? Well, that's part of it. That's what I think through implementation, we'll find out, is, is that something that is handled with code change? Is that something that is a special ordinance, other solutions? But with the… with the comp plan right now, we know that something needs to happen, we just don't know what and exactly how that's going to happen. And through implementation, it may be that, as it's identified. You may be visiting boards again, or those of you may see other staff at your board coming forward with some questions or looking for feedback on those things.

[32:06] Yeah, the actual implementation details will come later, but it provides that policy foundation for some of these things to happen. Okay. Page 67, says, want to learn more? Feels like there should be a link here to the Arts and Culture website. We have housing, transportation, water resources. Where's the link? Where's that at? Page 67? Okay. I think those are live links. It says, want to learn more? Check out the following city websites to learn more about planning for… It would be great if it linked to the blueprint. There. Little checklist, I think so. And on the… sorry, I'm gonna nerd out on your zoning noise. On the Community Hub page, C. Oh, sorry, 85?

[33:01] you have… uses, and you put arts and culture under commercial, but I think Culture should also be under civic. Hopefully, you know, the city's encouraged to… some civic centers. Same for, regional hubs. Civic should also include cultural facility. All right, Carolyn, I'm almost done. No, you come by this honestly. I mean, you're… I love your perspective on all this stuff, so… She's saying what I was gonna say. And then on the regional map, 109, I appreciate how hard this must be to carve out this on an existing urban plan, but it looks like there's some gaps on the west side and the east side. Just wondering your thoughts on, you know, sort of,

[34:00] Like, the, you know, the peaks, the pink dots. So, you know, kind of… Iris, Westside Iris area, there's really no cultural hubs, and so just curious about… and also know Pink Dot at the Civic Center. For the community hubs? So… Generally, the community hubs are landing in areas that have been community areas previously, some of the shopping centers that we currently have, so if you're… the IRIS section, I don't actually have that map. But, So you're using the existing construction? We're having to kind of overlay some of that to the existing fabric. That's going on right now, but that said, Neighborhood 2 and Neighborhood 1 are not really looked at as a residential. So there's the ability to have small-scale mixed uses in those areas, too, so…

[35:05] And then you asked about Pacific Center? Maybe it's a regional hub. No, yeah, just the Civic Center or Central Park. So, you know, related to the East Bookend, and… Yeah, it should be… I can add on a little bit about the hubs, too. So, originally, there was fourth hub, which was called Local Hub, which was… would be in neighborhoods, but policymaker guidance was to not identify those now, like, let them see organically where those neighborhood-serving businesses are viable or pop up in neighborhoods. So they're not identified in the map, but like Kalani said, some commercial is allowed. So they're neighborhood 1 and 2 areas. And so, West Buckin, downtown. That is all regional, huh? Okay, so that's the red. Yeah, so that's the red, so it… it has all of those areas.

[36:05] It's not sure the east side is red, but the west side is. I'm reading. Bye. You shouldn't be used to this red, where you see the orange, Neighborhood 2 area? Yep. That is, further out. It's like most of it's ran down there. Okay, here. Thanks, and I guess just to reinforce, I thought the spread on culture was great. I'd like to see that language pulled forward. Thanks, Scott. You're welcome. I have another question, kind of very high level. When we're looking at the arts blueprint, it's all structured around this SER framework, and I'm… I don't… feel that in this document? Can you explain where they overlap and… how that… Framework is expressed in this?

[37:07] Should I go to the website? Yeah, when you go to the website, So the SARE framework goals are the values of the comp plan, and it's true, like, the previous plan had the policies organized more by topic area, and you don't see that in this draft plan. Except for the online review process, but once the plan is adopted, there'll be a really interactive, website for the plan, where you can toggle by SARE Framework goal, or clock time value, or by topic area, and so it'll be, like, very easy to navigate. So you'll see more of that in the… yeah, okay, so you can see here. But yeah, this is one way… you can read the whole plan, but if you want to just focus on like, one policy theme or area, these are by SARE goal framework, and you can just go in there. see the policies that fit under that, and then answer a couple of questions. Okay, so it's sorted there, so it's re-sorting the theme sorting. Okay, that's helpful, thank you. And you might see some duplication also, because they're… Yeah.

[38:15] My thought, at the risk of feeling redundant, I did not read it, it's the release of Maria, but I felt like… I felt like arts and culture was presented as an option, not an essential. And I would love to see it feel like an essential part of what defines healthy and socially thriving, community well-being, ensuring everyone belongs. Like, these were words and languages in the front of it that felt like part of those value statements, and I feel like arts and culture can be used to help define what that looks like. Thank you. I know someone else had a question, too.

[39:02] Can I have another one? Oh, sorry, she had to leave. Yes, we have a question. She can definitely put that in to the feedback. I'm gonna just scroll down and just show, like… Okay, so there's a little video here, too, but, We have the draft plan. You can look at the full accessible draft here. You can also download the whole plan. You can read it thoroughly, like Maria had read it, on the download. Review the policies, look at the strategy maps. And then, you can provide Overall feedback here, but you can also click in to each one of these and share feedback Based on these different topic areas for those. It's helpful if you have specific feedback on, say, number 45, just list number 45 would be good for us.

[40:07] And then you can also look at the future land use. The maps, you can share your feedback in each one of these, so this is an interactive page to read both the document. cover to cover, or to provide, feedback on sections. In the map, you can put… you can pin comments on a neighborhood or a property, you can see what other people are saying, there's public comments. Cool. When is the deadline… when is the… not the deadline, but when would be the opportunity to make comments to Council, Thomas? Did you say? Well, April 6th is one where… oh, that would be later, in… at the end of May, I think? But let me get back to you with this specific. Okay, so maybe we can have, additional time.

[41:01] to gather individual thoughts, we can come up with some collective bullet points on whether or not we want to present some opportunity to Council as commissioned at the April meeting. Have a committee drop that R? We'll have to figure out the timing on that. We can work backwards, yeah. And then, for the online movie, it's April 6th, right? This closes April 6th, so anybody does want to do online, outside of the commission work. But yeah, also, if you just have other ideas that you really want to make sure the team sees before they move to the findable recommended version. Please send them through… through Lauren, or directly to us, or online. The project website is also future at boulderColorado.gov, you can always email that as well. Yes, one more question. Oh, yeah, please. Can you tell us, and maybe you're not the right folks to answer this, how is, Burra, integrated into the comp plan? Is it…

[42:01] Polar Urban Renewal Authority. So it's just recently been formed, as I understand it. Do you know much about Burrows? Yeah, I'm sorry. I swear, I'll get in the bath. Giving some, orientation. What was the question? Can you tell us… about the recently formed borough. Yeah. And is it integrated? How does it relate to the comp plan, or does it relate to the comp plan, and especially how our arts Integrated into their mission. Yeah, it's a really good question. So, I think there is a policy that speaks directly to urban renewal in some format, and just kind of talks about some of the economic development tools that we should be using to promote vibrancy in general. For Bureau itself, so we just… did a round of many applications for that board to get it back up to compliance so that we could use it again. And we'll be seating that board the end of this month, and I'll have a couple meetings to get oriented.

[43:14] So what the tool is, is essentially to be able to use, public financing, which I can explain in detail, but, it's essentially a way to promote, or incentivize, development within a certain area that meets criteria that has typically been called blight. we like to say what the conditions are, but essentially, areas that need a shot in the arm in some way. And so, What that tool can do is… for lack of a better term, dictate the types of development and redevelopment you get within a certain area. And so, the nice thing about the urban renewal is that you have a separate board that is helping to evaluate that, making recommendations to City Council.

[44:03] But city staff. oversee that process, and so that work is conducted through our Office of Cultural and Economic Development, and we are certainly looking towards all of our, kind of, key goals within this document, and our others to make sure that any type of redevelopment is really done in the way that meets our values in Boulder, so… Something we're really thinking about is knowing that arts and culture in particular is one of our economic drivers. how do we leverage that tool in a really productive way? It is something I can share that we're thinking about already in Boulder Junction Phase 2. And we'll be thinking about it in other areas of the city as well. Great. I appreciate you saying that arts and culture are an economic driver, and I think that just reinforces that… that that should be in the front end of this. Conklin. Great, thank you. Thank you.

[45:00] Anything… Jess, online? Jeff, anything? How sad? No, Maria actually covered two of my points, so… That was efficient, actually. Great. Thank you. Thanks, you guys. Thank you. Thank you so much. We'll continue to discuss. And, get feedback online. Cool. Great. No, I shouldn't break down here. Okay. So, we'll move on to the Border Arts School Packs. Fair enough. I'm sorry. Hey, Andy. Thank you both so much. Yes. So, as you just saw with the comprehensive plan, giving us the big to what, and the big, so time is the big. Why? Now we get into the how. These are all the arts we've done.

[46:15] So, this blueprint is designed to do a few things, to share vision for the arts, for our creative ecosystem, ensure alignment with lots of city frameworks, the comp plan, the SARA framework, and provide us some specific actions for our office and with our partners in the upcoming 10 years. For our agenda this evening, I'm just going to run through what is the Builder Arts Blueprint. It's been a long process, so a little bit of a reminder, the foundations of the blueprint, the planning process, our goals, and our… some new programs that we'll be rolling out this year. I will open it up for some discussion with the Commission, and then a vote to adopt the Blueprint. Oh my god. First, thank you so, so much to our consultants, Public Sphere Projects, PUMA, to all of you, to the World Arts Commission, to our Advisory Committee, our staff, our city leadership, and all of our community members. This was a huge group effort.

[47:13] A few questions for the Commission, and Melissa, do you mind, like, let me zoom a little bit? For what's up there. Oh, great, thank you. So really these questions are about how U.S. commissioners and future commissioners are thinking about getting involved and supporting our work, right? So, what are projects that are of interest to you? How can we pull you in? Like, now we have our work groups, how are you interested… what are you interested in? Working with us on. Are there partners that are not? included and aren't captured, and are the organizations or networks or scenes that you think a presentation on this would be, well received, or the people that we should be sharing about this very specifically? What is this blueprint? This began in October of 2024. It establishes a clear direction for our long-term investment while providing concrete policy and funding interventions to support our thriving, creative city. It's a roadmap for our office and our community, which balances exhibition with action.

[48:17] And it connects the vision for the Arts to practical tools, including the policy, programs, partnerships, leadership. Put all of this into action. Some of our foundations, the SARE framework, which Caroline referenced before, those are our city generational long-term goals, like healthy and socially thriving, and livable and safe communities. Within this, you'll see that the goals are reworked in their connection to the arts specifically, so how the arts can support the city's generational goals, and how those goals can support our creative community. These are integrated into the grant program already, thanks to Sarah, and thanks to Phase 1 and the Arts Commission for working those in to our grant program, creating a direct line from our city's generational goals to the work of our arts grantees and back forth.

[49:11] And as you saw from the previous presentation, the comprehensive plan provides big guiding policies to help achieve those goals over a 20-year horizon. We also have the citywide strategic plan, which is being managed by the… none other than Matt Jasanski, so I think we're gonna… Get some good arts and culture work in there. And this is on record, so hopefully somebody will send it to him. The City of Boulder vision and values, our race equity plan, our climate adaptation, all of these plans, past and future and present, have been taken into account. Just a refresher on our planning process. This is informed by and aligned to a lot of listening and learning. We looked what's happening in Boulder and across the country, learning from other creative cities and national best practices. And that's all grounded in local data, like from the Artist Census, work done by Cindy, our venue study, also by Cindy, and reports from our grantees.

[50:07] Our general operating support grantees, and other research. We also heard from nearly 2,000 community members through this process, a questionnaire, focus groups with artists, venue operators, grantees. We held focused one-on-one meetings and met people where they are, like at Boulder Arts Week. Bike to Workday rec centers throughout the community. And through the comprehensive plan engagement process, we also attended a lot of those meetings. Or those events, pardon me. Our vision for the arts. I won't read that, but I think the first line, creative expression, is at the core of Boulder, is what you were just getting at, Jill, right? Like. It is at our center in the city of Boulder, and this is based on foundations, community conversation, all of this research. It summarizes our possibilities and our potential for arts, culture, and our creative endeavors. And the big ideas are themes that are being woven through this work. So…

[51:09] Creativity is core to holder. Culture is a public utility, also related to some of the, what you had talked about, Maria, the bigger comprehensive planning, and creative risk as renewal. And if anybody has questions, like, you can hop in here. Feel free. Our format, as you probably saw, so 7 broad goals to promote an ecosystem approach. Their actions align with each goal, and we'll talk through all of these. And it's part of our work to figure out how we can How to prioritize what we work on within each of these goals. Not overwhelming at all. It's great. I had it memorized. With any school, we have our background, our equity considerations, our outcomes, partners, actions, and then some very exciting highlights and big ideas and big wins. For example, our first big win is integrating ourselves into the Office of Cultural and Economic Development in the City Manager's Office, and we're already seeing

[52:15] arts and culture getting plugged into bigger projects throughout the city. Yeah, thank you. Correct use. You'll also see the actions are separated or, categorized by our SARE framework. We have measurements assigned to them, so we know whenever we're doing something, how we're holding ourselves accountable. Okay, let's get into our seven goals. I'm not going to read all of these. You have the pleasure of being able to read them all, but I do want to point out through them, some new programs that will be coming up in 2016, which is really exciting. 2016. Oh, no! could change things. We're going back in time.

[53:00] This goal is about making arts and culture accessible to everyone in Boulder. That means we'll continue Boulder Arts Week, continue to ease access to our grants program, continue to translate the grant program. We've already added a bedrock category to encourage collaboration, added lifelong learning grants, and successfully expanded the first-come, first-served grants. And I believe, Sarah, that you said last year we had 10% new applicants, and now we have 80% new awardees. Awardees. So, new artists and new applicants to those categories. our entrepreneurship and workforce. This goal is about supporting our artists, our creative workforce, entrepreneurs, as Maria mentioned also with the comp plan. We want to make our creative careers sustainable. where artists and makers can earn a living wage and build successful businesses. So we'll continue our professional development grants, our research, the support of Boulder County Arts Alliance's Business of the Arts program. This year, we are excited to be rolling out a partnership with our colleagues.

[54:01] At the SVDC, the Small Business Development Center, a creative cohort that will help train artists and creatives in becoming a business, and also we're partnering already with the Community Foundation on Back of House in collaboration with small nonprofits, among other projects to come. Reputation and identity. This goal is about celebrating arts and culture as part of our identity and reputation. Creativity is central to who we are as makers and writers and dreamers. We want to keep this alive with our current marketing campaigns and broadening our partners, and hopefully later this year kick off a Poet Laureate program. Also, I do want to bring up that we have been in discussion with the New Western City campus to work on a contemporary art exhibition space reflecting the land acknowledgement. So, working to bring in new curators to, Indigenous curators locally to have a rotating exhibition space there.

[55:04] Public art and public space, focusing on expanding our public art and creative expression in our public spaces. That means continuing, of course, our excellent 1% for art policy, and in the future, looking to partner with developers to expand that program, encouraging creative meanwhile uses like murals or temporary installations on the outside of construction when possible, and potentially encouraging partnerships with developers to expand our public art beyond just our city capital projects. Three more. Nonprofits and institutions. Focusing on nonprofit and cultural institutions. Amplify their extensive impact by building stronger pre… building stronger partnerships, promoting the work, attracting the work, supporting their work through our grant program, the $2 million grant program this year. Continuing our research, and gathering leaders, which has been an important part for our community.

[56:04] We look forward to be involved in encouraging other funding opportunities, like the potential Downtown Development Authority, CCRS, for development, encouraging and supporting venues in adaptive reuse venues, artist workspaces. And, we have started CU arts community gatherings to connect better… connect our arts communities better with. the arts communities at CU. And if you're watching, you can see our staff dancing on there that are excited for our new projects. Experimentation and innovation. Schools about encouraging experimentation, With our creative community. Continuing our excellent experiments in Public Arts series, lowering barriers to grants and sponsorships, and continue to support our emerging artists and arts community and creatives. For new programs, we hope to follow the train that you heard a little bit.

[57:04] All this, like, link that you heard out of the comprehensive plan, that when it moves into zoning, to encourage and ease zoning for individual artists, for people to set up businesses in other areas, and for temporary projects, and to continue to encourage mentorship and skill sharing between different ages and different creatives. Finally, the goal of scenes and affinities, recognizing and nurturing holders' creative scenes. I think this also overlaps with, the imaginary spaces that the comprehensive plan is talking about. We're not quite sure what it's called, but we know it's there, and we know we want to encourage it and support it, right? And this is where we… hope to develop a nightmare. A nightmare position, which would be, like, a citywide position to help encourage the nighttime economy. I'm not sure if that will be this year, but… Okay, so back to questions for the Commission. This is really about… and you don't have to answer these right now, too, but are there things that excite you? Are there things that you would like to be involved in?

[58:10] Are there partners that aren't captured that we should be? Oh, and I think when you came in, if you didn't. You can also see the partner listings and a lot of the projects in the executive summary. But you can also reach back out to us, too, or in other meetings, we can talk about if we need another work group to work through some of the details. Certainly, if something is coming up and it's of interest to you, we would love to have your partnership on it. I definitely have a list of things that I'm excited to work on. Yes. The planning permit issue, having had to deal with that, I'm looking at you two to join me in that. The venues and pop-ups. Bye. I'd love to see how we can… partner.

[59:01] getting improvement on that. I mean, I know there's a lot to that. There's a lot that I don't understand about it, and helping to move that forward. I think that one of the organizations, it's not a large organization, it's dominated in Boulder, but it's mighty. It's the Boulder Burner community through art and community, which is vital and security, which is access to volunteers. And a lot of, you know. ideas. They talked to the Phoenix Asylum, which is a lot of our learner friends, and I thought that Specifically, there was reference to creating public art stewards and training up some people like those. We've already talked for years in that community about connecting with the arts and culture and helping to upkeep and learn how to upkeep the public art in whatever way.

[60:03] Just… citizens can be trained on that. So, I'll stop talking, I have other questions. Yeah, no, I was very energized and excited, overwhelmed. Can't wait to figure out how we're gonna prioritize everything, and definitely… saw things that I wanted to be part of. helping… Yeah, I agree. I think the scenes in Affinity is interesting, just because there's, yeah, just so many… niche pockets, and, like, crossovers, but even, like, the Happy Thursday crew, and, like, you know, like, these… and then it comes back to the other goal of identity, yeah. Of… what… what it means to live in Boulder, and I know that there's also, like, that piece is still connected to economic vitality, because as

[61:02] startups or whoever are bringing in people to want to live here. We want Boulder to be a place that you want to live, because there's all this cool stuff happening. Yeah. Yeah, I'm very much on board. We got, like, pop-ups in weird spaces, unconventional spaces, gatherings, screenings, workshops, things like that. And then also, there's just, like, this is another one I mentioned, but accessibility… accessibility to get to spaces, like public transportation. There are some… like, the Spark, for instance, it's just so… there's not a bus that goes over there, you know? And there's, like, there's just, like, spaces where buses don't go, and that makes it a little difficult. Very interested in the nightlife aspect, because we just don't really have one, quite frankly. It's so weird to be a college town and not have a nice… Yeah, it is, it's… yeah, it's your liminal space. Have any of you ever…

[62:01] It's, like, a new venue. Yeah, they are doing all the stuff, so they're doing cool ice art events and, like, cool, cool things happening over there. But again, it's a little out of the way as well. And then the producing ongoing video and digital profiles and storytelling is really interesting, and I feel like that could kind of be combined with, like, more digital outreach to engage youth audiences, as well as, like, kind of, like. morphed into that. Yeah. Jeffrey, anything… is Jeffrey even still there? Of course I'm still here. You said nightmare. I'm never going anywhere now. I mean, I moved here 16 years ago, and this town's gotten really sleepy. Oh, yeah. So… Poor so have I. But, no, so much work has gone into this, and it's, it's… it's exciting to figure out where we can individually and collectively, put ourselves into this, and how we can… we can continue gathering support for this. But, congratulations on getting to this point.

[63:07] Feedback. Are we gonna have a… can we have some feedback on the report? Yeah, can I read… I want to read, Gaia's statement first. She said she started… she had to drop off early tonight. I'm fully supportive of the adoption of Boulder Arts Blueprint. This is a remarkable document built on nearly 2,000 community voices, grounded in serious research, and organized around a vision I genuinely believe in, that creativity is not a luxury, but essential civic infrastructure. The alignment with the comprehensive plan positions arts and culture at the center of how Boulder grows. This is exactly the kind of bold, long-term thinking our community deserves. With that enthusiasm, I want to treat a few things on the record as we move into implementation. Our Phase 1 Discovery Report is honest about the trust gap around the 2A tax funds. Adopting the blueprint is an opportunity to turn that page. I know that we will pair it with clear, proactive communication about how funds are allocated going forward.

[64:08] The report also flags that sustained pressure on the city for more funding may have created a chilling effect on private philanthropy. This is something I feel strongly about. We cannot build a resilient creative ecosystem on municipal funding alone, and I think it's time for us commissioners to take that responsibility personally. Each of us has relationships, networks, and standing in this community. Part of our job should be actively cultivating philanthropic interest in Boulder's arts ecosystem. The blueprint mentions a supporting nonprofit fundraising entity, and I'd like to see that become a near-term priority. But the work of building these relationships starts with us right now. And on emerging artists. Focus groups showed younger artists largely unaware of city opportunities and feeling unwelcome in established circles. If accessibility is a core goal, we need concrete outreach to reach people who don't yet see themselves as part of this system. This is a great day for Boulder's creative community. Congrats to Lauren on a job well done.

[65:08] Woohoo! Yes, I agree, it's an enormous amount of work, so, take my moments with a grain of salt. I think, I have five main things. I'm concerned about the image of the report. I think it's hard to read. Oh, sure. I think it doesn't, you know, I think we have generic graphics where we have such viracy in the arts, and I'd love to see those populated with Things that are actually going on throughout the whole report. With the icons? The icons. Okay. So I'm happy to say that we're also having a website built that will, like, have a lot more of these. It won't be in a… document like this, it'll have a lot more interactive and easier to read, and… and I think just showcase what's going on. I feel like that's been pushed to the back for the generic graphics. Sure, totally. I kind of flashback to the previous,

[66:12] blueprint, and there was kind of a nice fold-out, which really clearly defined all the goals, and I'm missing that. I would love to see that, and make that very clear. There were a lot of discussions, So yeah, that's part of not a simple overview. Some of the language is difficult, you know, talking about scenes, I didn't even know what a scene was, and… I think that directly ties to… we have a lot of discussion about venues, and I don't really see that coming to the forefront. I mean, we talk about venue all the time in this conversation. The community talks about lack of venues, and I just feel like that word and that need needs to be pushed forward, or it'll never happen. So, you know, these kind of this means, and I just…

[67:00] institution. Yeah, we have institutional venues for people to form. It can't all just happen on a pop-up on the screen. I feel like that was really missing. I feel like we've tried through the process to bring that to the forefront. I think it was missing. And then I think the last thing is, I have heard from the community, they feel like the review period was very short for them, so I'd like to suggest that we don't approve it tonight and give the community more time to review it and then provide feedback. I feel like there was more Time for them to review it on things one. Is there a mechanism in place to even do that? Oh, so the option would be for the Arts Commission, really. The challenge is that we have, frankly, finished our time with our consultants, so this is the final document we'll get from them. That being said, there's two options. We can make sort of small or, like, minor adjustments within the text on the website, because we'll have this cool, flexible hopefully cool. Interesting, I guess, as a government entity. Interesting website, engaging website.

[68:02] We can make some, like, tweaks within that. If the Arts Commission wants to make a statement, we can also write a letter that becomes an attachment to the longer the language, though, I worry that… You know, using this… strange language, I don't know how to say it. But we, you know, we should be talking to planners as a city, that we need venues, and that these things should be in the hubs. I mean, there should be a little bit more dialogue about those actual needs, and not so ambiguous, I think. I find it ambiguous. Yeah. And I think it's buried, you know, it's kind of buried in there. I agree that needs to happen. I may be wrong in how I was viewing it, but my… My perception of it was that this is highlighting the high-level areas where we can connect, and then how that is prioritized and moved forward, and this happens after this. Is that… And we did pull out… there is a full venues infrastructure

[69:16] highlight section. There are parts of this that you can pull out and talk specifically, and we have spoken specifically. with our colleagues. To reference that whenever you want to advocate, or if you want to talk about it. It doesn't look like that's landing, though. That's not really addressing what you're saying. I think so, thank you. just… I just think in those committees, that was an ongoing theme, that… that should be, at the forefront and be clear. You know, so if someone's coming in and they want to do development in this community, and they say, I'd love to do arts development, like. you know, how do I find their needs without kind of digging through all the other language. That's what I heard in those meetings, and that's what I feel reading this. Still buried in there.

[70:08] Is there an opportunity to pull out, like, a summary? There is one. Oh, yeah. Okay. So, actually, this might be… oh, no. It's, like, in one of the… The executive summary. Yeah, there is a very specific… That's right here, on page… on page 59, so noted, after the executive summary. But in the blueprint itself, there's a number of calls for different ways to support the new infrastructure and artist-led work housing, other types of infrastructure, right? Because gallery spaces. I think we're thinking, as part of this Office of Culture and Economic Development, to be looking at other types of Supporting all kinds of different artistic backgrounds, creative backgrounds, right? This is intended, too. be something that advocates can fill out and look at and reference specifically, and then throughout it are actually built within all of the different categories to support

[71:05] A new, like, infrastructure challenges. Look at. I have a clarifying question. On page 24, it's on this packet, but I don't know what it is in, like, the band guide. And it says, suggested ways to measure success. Arts organizations far more stable. What does that mean? Great question. So these are, like, summaries of… within the Blueprint. There are, like, more specific kind of measurements. But one for that would be maybe working capital. So if organizations have, like, a nice, seen those financial reports that we get from our general operating superant, he still has these very detailed working capital financial reports, right? Like, do organizations feel like they have a cushion if another COVID happens, right? Okay. Yeah. I have some questions and curiosities. Sure. There was reference to the Boulder Arts Foundation and reinstituting that. Can you explain what that is and how it works? Sure, I would be happy to. So, the Boulder Arts Foundation, which is now closed, I will say, it had opened in the 80s.

[72:16] It is, essentially what… a nonprofit that would support the work of our office, so… Open Space and Mountain Parks has the Play Foundation that was established in the 70s that does something similar. In the 70s? Yeah. Well, Open Space is Bosque, I can't remember which plays Parks and Rec, which are, like, I mean… So there's precedent at the city to have a non-profit fundraising firm. So this would be something that citizens or visitors would make contributions to? Sure. Okay. I know from our fundraising colleagues that it's not a very popular idea in the arts community to have yet another fundraising arm. However, there's some opportunities already through the city to accept funds and to use funds, for example, for public art, if you're working with a private developer, they can make a donation, they have a place to make a non-profit

[73:08] restricted donation to the city that they could get a tax write-off for, and we could use that. So it could be used not necessarily to focus on seeking external funds yet in that way, but to focus on like, using the sort of connections and collaborations and partnerships that we have. Okay, and then is that… that is also then guided by all of these? Oh, yeah. And it has its own board of trustees? Yes. It is TBD, but we do hope to, as Nisha and Gaia's letter, we do hope to send it very soon. Did you have anything you wanted to add to that, Markville? I mean, other than there's a lot of flexibility in how you set that up, I would say, especially initially, your board would be some combination of staff and folks at the table, so that it's… in close alignment to whatever the thing is that we really need. So I would just say that you all would have a foot on what that ultimately looks like. Okay.

[74:08] Cool? Thank you. I, was looking at the… The sort of rankings that… those pages that have all the rank… you know, like, what… which areas… address which of the goals of 1 through 7, I don't know what page it was on, but I was curious that general operating support only had 3 of the categories. And… What do you think that means towards what we do? And then I guess, also, like. A separate but related question is that there were some that were… some… initiatives that were highlighted as being quote-unquote less effective, including enhancing venues and engaging youth. So…

[75:02] Help me understand all that. I think that was a stab. Sorry, consultants, but I think it was a stab by the consultants to help get a bigger, very big overview of the entire creative ecosystem, and how all of these things fit into the SEER goals, fit into the creative ecosystem. That is something that I'm not even sure will make it onto our website pages. I think it was their attempt at And Maria saw some of this, too, in their attempt at looking at how all these pieces fit together. Yeah, the circles, with all… how all these little pieces fit together. If it does go onto our public website, I'm also happy to, like, do a, like, a refresh look at that. Yeah. Do you think that's accurate? Yeah. I guess it kind of struck me as, like, weighing the effective use of our money and our time, and, like… Right. But for clarification, were they saying that historically, it hasn't been effective, or within the plan moving forward, it doesn't seem like it's set up to be effective. Oh, yeah.

[76:06] I think it is intended to talk about how all of these different pieces overlap with these different goals, but it's not… necessarily saying much more than that. Okay, there's also, not necessarily within this, but our way to prioritizing, right? Like, you have funding background, you have staff capacity, you have other, like, policy input, zoning input, right? There's other pieces that we're taking into effect, that we're taking into account, that we have to take into account, right, when we're talking about prioritizing. And so I think this is their way of looking at how these systems fit together, but sort of an element. I guess, yeah. Sorry, consultants. my feedback would be that if it does make into a final, it means a lot, because to me, it looks like… I love Boulder Arts Week, it's fantastic! It got pens across the board, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, all the categories, and then GOS support, you know, 125. So, if you're just looking at this independently, you're like, oh, the most important thing we can do for arts in Boulder is Boulder Arts Week and screw general operating support. This is trying to say. Right, no, no.

[77:19] I would totally… be against that. I mean… Yeah, okay. And then my final question was… Oh, there was reference to human services scholarships in conjunction with what… when? We partner with the… you might have heard it more in the scope of Martin Jr. Day Indigenous Peoples. But is that funded by us? The Office of Arts and Culture. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay, okay. It's not part of our grants program. No, not the grant program. I was like, did I just miss this? For four years?

[78:05] You probably see that on the list of things that are supported more broadly by your office. Okay, great. Thank you for that. I'll include those in your packet going forward, though. Yeah. Okay, anybody else? Any other discussion about Things that you… we've heard. One. Let's hold off on approving this. Maybe some discussion on things to add or remove. Anything else to… Can I ask, are you taking public comments, or is it too late? Is this… would this be a second public comment? No, this would be relevant to the conversation. Okay, yeah. Give us a few minutes. Okay. Sure, thanks.

[79:03] Sure. I can go? Yes. Sorry. Anyway, I kind of want to double down on what Amalia was talking about, and I want to share with you… Can you introduce yourself? Oh, I'm sorry. Do I need to be on… am I on camera or something? You are on camera. I'm here on behalf of Create Boulder. And I want to, kind of double down on what Marie is talking about, about arts infrastructure. And, I made copies, actually, of the big ideas that are included in page 59, I think it's really… it's a great statement. I love it. Kudos to the team, and I want to say kudos to the team. This was an incredibly hard lift. I want to congratulate Lauren and her team for all of the work. That's been done. You do notes. Yes, fine. I miss that too.

[80:04] Excuse me. I… you guys give you a shared copy? Johan, is this a copy of what you've, recently emailed us? Yeah, so this is page 59 of the Arts Blueprint itself. Okay. And it, it says, Big Ideas, Arts and Culture Infrastructure. And I'm looking at the screen, I don't know if you can actually see me. I can always see you, Deb. Like, you know what this is. So, a few things about this. It's… it's… it is a framing concept. They are the blueprint, and I think it's really important that it be elevated. It's currently on page 59. It is actually, not in the executive summary. That's actually my biggest concern, because people are going to read the executive summary. How many people are actually going to go so far as to read all of those details, right? You may…

[81:06] those of us who have been following arts and culture in the community do. I can tell you I have a very dog-eared copy of the last cultural plan, and I roll it out regularly, but I think it's critically important that this concept of the need for additional arts infrastructure be the cornerstone of the plan, it is a cornerstone of the plan, and that it be part of the communication. So, when we have folks coming into town, as Maria pointed out, and are looking about at possibility of creating new infrastructure, they want to know what kind of priority that is for our community. And on page 59, I mean, it clearly talks about The need for targeted, sustained investment in cultural infrastructure, including physical spaces, funding systems, policy frameworks, which is essential to the long-term health of Boulder's arts community.

[82:00] kind of feel like that needs to be really upfront, really critical. It also says to address systematic space and affordability gaps, the city will need to leverage major redevelopment opportunities, public-private partnerships, and other economic development tools. This is not a minor point, right? It's actually the cornerstone of the vision. But that framing does not carry into the executive summary. And as I said, I'm not sure who's going to get down into the document. And this feels especially important right now, given the redevelopment of the civic area. You know that there was an RFI. RFI issued, and there's talk about the development of a Downtown Development Authority. Both have real implications for cultural space, affordability, and long-term investment. So, my request tonight is that the Commission ensure That the blueprint and the executive summary remain open for comment.

[83:00] And revisions before they're finalized. And, and that the big idea is clearly reflected at a very high level in any summary and in the city's public messaging. I think it will stand us well in the years ahead, and it will really help you to achieve what we all want, which is a thriving arts ecosystem in our community. So I thank you. Thank you, Deb, as always. Alright, feedback from the staff on that. Sure. How that could work logistically. I do think… well, can I actually make a comment first, Jess? Yes. I do think it's important to point out, in the big scheme of things, that we got a lot of input, and some of the input that we got from… was from our… this has a point… from our City Community Connectors and residents. It's a group of people that inform city staff that paid to inform us on,

[84:02] they go out and they get content, they talk to their community members, like, from underrepresented communities in Boulder. They helped us order the goals in this document, right? They… we met with them a couple times to help us think through The bigger setup of how we are looking at this. as a community, and so I do think that there is certainly a space for infrastructure and, like, this statement to go in affordability, right? Like, it absolutely ties into an affordability kind of framework. And I do think there is… like, I do think we can make some language changes. My only challenge might be just kind of behind the scenes, but that's not your problem. So, Well, one thing I heard, as… as requests maybe from Maria, definitely from Deb, was… was duplicating this language into the summary, or summary, into the summary. Is that an option? Oh, yeah, totally. Okay. I think we have some flexibility, and we have a website, so we do have a little flexibility.

[85:04] I was just thinking, or thanks, Mark, we were thinking about if we move it to adopt at the next meeting after some adjustments. I think my concern is about, frankly, with all of you, is about opening it back up for feedback to the full Community, or, like, how we open it up. to be totally frank, just because, this is a closed document, according to our consultants. So, I think I need… I need to think of… separately, and we can totally put this on the e-roll. If you're interested in, like, moving it, if not, it's great, but, how we think about what Questions we're asking and how open we can be to making adjustments in this big document, especially if it goes out for yet another community review. Because also, the arts… the advisory committee, of which Maria and Deb are both members, also had, like, time to review and give us input on this. I do have to point that out. There were a couple weeks where you did have this document sort of behind the scenes.

[86:05] I don't remember it being the executive summary. Okay, yes, totally. And we can totally… yes. So important, because that's what… that's what's gonna drive the perception around this plan. Right. Right? That's just to say. we have to be careful about opening up a huge document yet again to try to renovate it and put it on an agenda for next week, for next year. My goodness, for next month. Sorry. Because what I'm hearing is there's nobody to drive that review and to gather any warranty. Sure, it would be staff, and it would be okay, but I think we need to be very careful about how much we're opening up. And that's what I'm worried about. So maybe it's, like, meeting with But that feels a little untransparent to me, right? So… Where are our, kind of, frameworks around that? I think that's a good question. Can we approve the document and then approve the executive summary next time? Sure.

[87:00] Does that feel any better to anyone? That didn't sound like that's what you were getting at. No, I still find it… it feels like, you know, we call it architecture, bearing the lead. Like, you have all this front end… I mean, it feels like the whole document needs to be flipped. Everything about process, and the SCRs, and I think you even alluded to that, that should go as an appendix. And the front end should be, what are we trying to achieve? Because, I mean, I don't even want to read this, and I'm… was part of it. It's exhausting, yeah. So I feel like the whole document needs to be reorganized, there needs to be a new executive summary, and there needs to be a really simple graphic of what are the… the goals, like you had in the 2016, and I just don't think this is in a… in a… any type of… Position to share in with, you know, financial partners and public partners, just… it's not easy to read and understand what our priorities are, and to Deb's point, the venues is varied, and that was talked about a lot in our

[88:01] meetings. How about a… okay, so I will say that part of the reason our executive summary looks like this are new Colorado laws around accessibility. If we put a PDF document on our website, it has to be accessible, and it's very hard to make. I also loved that summary from the previous virtual plan with the, like, fold-out piece. So maybe we work with our… internal… I have to ask about that, too. Maybe we create something ourselves that is, like you're talking about, like a flipped… one-page, two-page something, that we just have to print, because… or that we can send by email. The challenge is going to be what we can post on a website for the public, but certainly adding the infrastructure focus, the big ideas focus, into here. How does… does that feel closer? Something I heard you say, though, Maria, is… I heard two different things from you now. I heard, reorder the main document, keep it open, and reorganize. And this is in addition to the summary, that's a separate thing that we might. And… and we need more public feedback.

[89:14] I have heard that from the community, that people just didn't have time to give any feedback on the route to. So that's… that's… I'm hearing that from the community, so I'm just sharing that, what I've heard. So that… that can be a… Yeah, that's what I hear from as a liaison, and people are saying, well, I didn't have time to review it, it came out so quickly. So that's one bucket of comments. So, that's not necessarily what I think, that's… that's not necessarily from my opinion, that's just what I'm hearing. Sure, sure. And then the reorganization, that's just me reading this and saying. This is not a helpful document in its current form. That's… that's my opinion. Sorry, the executive summary, or the full document? The full document. Oh, okay, okay. And also, the menus is very… Yeah. …so deeply.

[90:01] I don't think this is… and again, the final language still… we talked about this in most meetings, you know, the kind of clunky language, and… It doesn't really talk to city council or people that might want to fund these projects. Maybe it talks to artists, but I don't think it's talking to the audience that we want it to talk to. We're trying to get money and try to… I feel like wordsmithing it is a really big ask at this stage. And Deb's solution is a simple one, too. It's like, bring the big idea forward. Yeah, bring the… There are some other small things, like… You're trying to track milestones? How do you track… what are the measurements? So there are no measurements against arts infrastructure that I could find in the document. That seems to me to be something that might… you might want to tease out. And you are taking some comments from folks about who other partners might be, and I just wonder, maybe, Lauren, one way to do this would be to bring

[91:09] The plan… the planning committee back together one more time, because this wasn't run by the group. Before it went out to find this version. And maybe just have us come together, and I don't think it's… I don't think this is a… That heavy a lift. But I do think that another iteration would be helpful. Also, I mean, the contrast between this and the comp plan, which of course, that goes on forever, but still, it's just the contrast is so significant. In the amount of outreach and the amount of feedback, and I'm not suggesting we need to go that far, but I would encourage you to consider maybe one more iteration. But I know that there's… there are bandwidth issues. How long was the window for feedback of the last from the advisory committee?

[92:04] two and a half weeks, I think? Yeah. Or, like, for the public on the la- that last round. This is the last round. Yeah. For public? Public. Right. So they had, we did the town hall, where we ran out all of the gold, and then got that sort of high-level feedback. They weren't looking at, like, this specific intimate And actually got, like, some of the actions that they talked about, like, are mentioned in here, too. Yeah. I like the idea of the advisory committee getting to that, but I don't know, would I still be able to do that? Wonderful. Is that okay? I volunteer. How does that sound, right? Because then, Do you mind if I think about this, too? I apologize, I'm a little clutch. Let me check in with Jeffrey really quickly. Anything that… No, for a while, I was… I was trying to figure out whether we were talking about the comp plan or the,

[93:05] Or, or the blueprint plan, plan for… for where we were right now. I was, I was… I think there are a lot of things to bring forward on the comp plan, on the blueprint. I am worried about the lift for staff, where, you know, they're up against the wall on a deadline, so I'm curious to what… What deliverables are possible, which sounds like that's what everyone's discussing right now. Yeah, well, work us backwards from your… drop-dead deliverable, it's gotta be in front of City Council, with Commissioner Blessing dates. Sure. It's on the City Council meeting for April 9th, so…

[94:00] Yeah, but they are, not adopting it, so it's a study session. We're gonna talk through it, talk about implications, and Mark, if you have anything to add, too. It's a study session, so we'll talk through, sort of, broad ideas. Ask them some questions. And then we do have a launch party, and I guess we could… Party. …just have a party, which is fine. If you like a… behind-the-scenes review, something like that. That being said, if we want to bring it back, I do think it's very important that the Arts Commission, or adopts this, maybe. So, if we want to shift where infrastructure is, look at… take it back to the advisory committee. I really like that, because they are the most knowledgeable about it as well, right? And also, if the Arts Commission does have other things that you want to talk about, add members of the public, we can get them all together at an advisory committee meeting, and then bring back a version for the Arts Commission for your April 29th meeting. Are the advisory meetings open to the public?

[95:07] How would the public feedback be generated and gathered? I think we did… we frankly just would not want a group effort of renovating it at this point, but people could send us feedback and thoughts and questions, email it to us at culturalplan at bouldercolorado.gov, or talk to our advisory committee members or commissioners, right? We'd have to set a deadline date for that. trying to think of what else. We'll have to work backwards on a timeline, but if it is, like, shifting some things around, right? If it is having the advisory committee look at some language and things, and make some tweaks. I think we can do something like that ourselves, If everybody's comfortable with that. How's that sound? Are we getting there? Are we getting there? This may be… this is perhaps crazy, but is there… is there a provisional thumbs up that we could give the committee to just iron out what logistics and emphasis

[96:11] Or is that something that we want as a commission Back. and look at in a final poll. You could certainly do a thumbs up slash, maybe you could all go around and give some input for the committee that I can share with them in advance, something like that, that would be really helpful. And if you hear anything, I'll send you an email with some deadlines of, like. I just woke up at Tulane and thought of this idea that I want to be sure is in the final. How does that sound? Yeah, does that… It'd be helpful, for sure. Commissioners and… How do you feel about Just delegating that final go-through and… Reordering to the committee.

[97:00] That feels okay to me. I feel like, yeah, as long as it's not… I think as long as it's moving around what's already there instead of just change, like, changing or creating new things to be there, I think that is fine. And then, I know you were saying, like, all the SUR stuff is kind of up front. I will say that there are at least 3 of the SUR points that… involve infrastructure. So maybe that can be highlighted in some way, as well. Yeah. And then, Jeffrey, I saw your mute come off. Remind me how many of us are on the committee. One. One. Just me. Okay. Oh, one sec. Well, I trust… I trust Maria on behalf of us to get the points across, because she was the one that first brought it up, which was something kind of on my list anyway. Yeah. For the position of… of moving… moving those priorities forward.

[98:00] Right. Do we feel like we can take a vote on this? Take a motion and take a vote. Well, we want to have a motion to delegator our… for the provisional… Right. Done. And then… and then we wouldn't have to have it on the agenda for April. It could go through whatever process without coming back. Yeah, pretty comfortable, totally. Okay. So let me give a stab at emotion. Oh, yeah. Just to, like, be very specific, are we, like, talking about goals 5 and 7 being higher up in their number categorization? And perhaps, specifically, Gold 7. throwing in a venue into that one more specifically to define space, because it… in a way, Gold 5 has nonprofits in there, but not every venue is a non-profit. Right. And…

[99:08] So I don't… I'm just like… trying to think about it in more specifics. Is that kind of where… Right, yeah, right. I like the way that, you know, that put it this out. I think this needs to show up somewhere in the goals. Okay. And also in the executive summary. Okay, how about this? I move that the Commission approve The main document I talked about, the summary, is it? the main documents, substantially as written. that… Our commission members may make additional comments to Lauren? For Maria? on… Ideas that they have.

[100:00] to improve, and that the Commission Delegate authority to the committee. To finalize the layout and order of the main document. Is that the right motion? Anybody want to second that? Or change it? Strike it down and change it? Can you clarify what you mean by main document, so I'm trying to understand. I mean, not the executive summary. I mean the main… The whole thing. homepage… 30, it looks like, for maximum. from page 30… Page 58. Oh, in this packet. Page 58 in the packet.

[101:01] Did a note-taker get that all? From introduction, Section 1, Introduction. Yes. We'd approve that, and then we would… Leave the front end of this. The summary I'm gonna… summary I'll do as a second motion. Second… second idea. That sound okay? Anybody want to second that motion? I'll second it, as I have repeated. I'll have the secretary and do that. Definitely got the first, like, 3 fourths. Okay. My motion is that the Commission Approve. B. the substantial content. of the main document of the Arts Blueprint, starting on page 58 of our packet, through the end.

[102:06] with the opportunity for Commission members to make further comment to Lauren or Maria in the next week. And… That we delegate the… authority to move around the language and prioritize this document to the Blueprint Committee on which Maria sits. I second. Any further discussion? All in paper. Jeff's hand is up, that's unanimous. Okay, great. So then, on the summary, the edit that we had there… Let's talk through that. That's a little different, because we wanted to add something in, we wanted to add the big idea in, and…

[103:00] There was some… We've already addressed the pullout. Was there anything else about the summary, Maria? Hi, I would… I'd like to suggest that we rearrange it as well, is to… I'll put the process towards the end of that. let the goals pull forward. So we're adjusting the executive summary and refraining the order of it to the process at the goals forward. And there may be some adjustment to language in there. Gotcha. you know, the scenes, and I think, again, many of this needs to be pulled forward in this discussion about scenes, so it's not be so… Ambiguous. Great. Would you like to make a mushroom? Oh, well, I think isn't the… I think your language covered it, so I think the motion is to, adjust Give the… have… have a meeting with the,

[104:03] advisory committee to adjust the language on the front end of the Blueprint document. Or… And it's not coming back here, right? Or final to fit for a finder issues. Is that too ambiguous. I know, you're trying to keep up. Didn't we just vote on the blueprint one? We're talking about the executive summary now. Oh, okay. a little different. It kind of dovetailed the issues with that. But we could just say, I mean, the… if you feel it's a similar motion, then the motion can just be that we would like to approve the summary and undergo the same process for the main blueprint. Or the sun. I'm just… Okay, you can say that.

[105:03] And we can… I mean, it is a summary, so we can take traction. Okay, let's do that. Yes, okay. We got the meat of it. Work with the committee. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Amazing. What figuring. You may. In conclusion, that holds in conclusion, now we have to prioritize that that can wait until after the final exercise of the Council, right? We don't have to start making committees before we're choosing… No, and, just to note, City Council's not going to be voting on it, as this is, like, a how level… strategy document, so they're not doing, as far as I understand, they're not going to be voting on blueprints, right? But they will be hearing about it, hopefully they'll be excited about it, they're coming to a launch party. I'm still gonna call it a launch party. We're still going to celebrate it. Yes! Yes.

[106:15] A party! Stop there! Okay, moving on! Grants programs! There he is. And I'm noting that we're at 7.47, so we may go over a few minutes. I see a grimace from Cheryl. Okay. Sarah, do you mind if we move the agenda just very briefly so that we can address Cheryl? I'm sorry. Yeah, no problem. I'd like to do this now, then. Yes, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, what I'd like to do is move to 9B.

[107:05] And have our recognition. This is our last official meeting with Cheryl and Maria. And… I personally want to thank you both for all of the work that you've done over the years. I mean, you guys are… have been such a dream to work with. both engage and have great ideas, and have just been valuable on this commission for both myself as a chair and a commission member, and to the community as a whole. So, thank you, thank you. You're not up the hood. Do you want to say anything? Please. Please face something. It's very hard to think about. You didn't do it for both of us. I wrote it down, so I can't. Marie and Cheryl, thank you both so much for your time and your commitment to the Arts Commission. Your dedication to our arts community has made such a genuine impact, perhaps, as you just saw, in ways that are also very fully hard to capture.

[108:14] It's so clear how deeply you care about our community and the health of our creative ecosystem. Cheryl, thank you so much for your partnership, especially on the arts education work, and your insights on that. And Maria, thank you for your obvious, detailed attention to planning work, and how important that is, and your partnership with EMOCA. We really, really appreciate that. And more, but… We have a little thing. Oh, it's Can you say something, too? Yes, I mean, you all have obviously committed and involved with the arts. I think this is the most important thing of us as humans, is, our creative output, and so that's why I've given… I try to give time to it, because I think this is our legacy that we leave behind.

[109:00] And I'm sure you're in great hands with your new commissioner as well, so thank you for that, yeah. We'll be crying over you soon. I feel like fun, yes. Cheryl, you and I were part of the same cohort, and you've been such a delight to work with, and I'm so glad to call you a colleague and friend. I didn't know a 3-year term was an option. I'm kind of pissed about it. You can put me for saying that. And Maria, thank you for your attention to detail, but also for being our moral compass on more than one occasion. Yeah. Thank you for everything. 20 bucks. Thank you to my fellow commissioners, and… I don't want to say more, but, like, such heartfelt gratitude to that team in the office that goes so above and beyond. I mean, I know you got into government and the arts for the money, but… but still, your commitment and passion is so,

[110:04] is so evident, and I've learned from all of you, so thank you all for what you do for the arts and commissioners, and I look forward to seeing y'all entertain me for the rest of my life! Please tune in and listen to them. Yep. Awesome. What do you do? In a month, we're gonna have dinner together, and we'll definitely be watching. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, Sarah, for letting us do that. We still have 9 minutes until the, agenda is supposed to be on. Anybody who can stay, we won't be too much longer, and we'll go with Sarah. How do I follow that? I know! Alright, so we had two grant reports.

[111:03] And you can either approve the reports, approve individual reports while submitting specific questions, put upon approval of individual reports pending answer to those questions, and or not approve the reports and cancel the final payments. And then I did separate these, because I believe we'll have to have a Recusal. Great. Anybody would like to make… we have a recusal price to go out to the room. Get out. And then, would anybody like to make a motion? I move that we approve the report from Junkyard Social Club. A second. Any discussion? Okay, all in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Would anybody like to put any comments on the record about that project? Sure. That's a good one. It's okay, yeah. Sorry.

[112:05] I just think it's a super fun project, like, the mural is so cool, and seeing the kids… What a cool thing. Yeah, that was fun. Thank you, thank you, Commission, for helping to make that happen. Awesome. Moving on to the second one. Would anybody like to make a motion? I move that we approve the report from Yvonne Daniel Espinoza. Second. And discussion, and I would also invite any feedback from staff, if there is. I do have… I do have a comment on that. There was a staff recommendation on this one, and not only was it appreciated, we 100% agreed to it. However, the Commission wanted to find a solution that was… that both followed the recommendation. and funded the individual artists, so we did make a compromise. We found… and we hope that this solution both helped the artists see that there was further information necessary, and that it exonerates the staff recommendation as true.

[113:08] And, and Sarah was called out by name, and I'm so sorry that happened, and please know that The recommendation was fully heard and understood and appreciated, and… quite frankly, agreed to by the Commission. But a solution was found that also funded the last portion of this particular grant. Thank you so much for saying that, Jeffrey. That means more to me than you know, and I also thank you for helping to facilitate that, because ultimately, this is what we all wanted, so thank you. I would echo that. I was really pleased to see that there was something of great value that could be submitted. I think the financial report that was I guess, generated from the dairy system, gave a lot of insight that I was looking for, and the… I mean, the comments from the audience were…

[114:07] quite moving, and so I appreciated having them. And, and I… I think, Jeffrey, you just nailed it. Like, it exonerates the staff, and the position, and the request that that report be Submitted in this form. Just to add, you know, we ask for artists to take risks, and we also fund artists that have not had these opportunities before, so I just hope that we continue to find ways to bring artists on board and to give us the metrics that we're looking for. Because I think everyone really loved his work, and so… just kind of continuing to close that gap. And this is not looking at you, Sarah, but I think you did the right thing to flag it for us and have us try to work with the artist. Yeah, I would just like to note that there was a lot of background and a lot of staff work that went into this in advance of that, that wasn't

[115:03] apparent for the commission meeting, but yeah. I appreciate all that effort. I appreciate it. All right, ready for a vote and a comment? Okay. All in favor? Great, unanimous. Thank you. All right. Oh, hi Cheryl. Did you want to say anything about the meeting today, or do you want to save that for the next meeting? Zoom to… can I zoom to the next meeting? I'll find out where you're having dinner. Yeah, just kidding. I think it's just toss it. Great. So, we have preliminary scores, and I would just like to flag that these are preliminary only. But given the directive in planning for this grant program from the Commission to make the chance of receiving an award about the same across categories, and again, rely

[116:14] Relying on scores. This is the initial breakdown. This is not what we had anticipated. The reason being… This year, we had 17 extra-large organizations compared to 12 last year. So, the good news is our organizations are thriving and growing. I would like to make a recommendation to maybe consider eventually phasing Making some adjustments to the tiers as… organizations grow and with inflation. Just a thought. Additionally, and this is a kind of happy surprise, although it is what I hoped when I design the rubric.

[117:01] the organizations that currently are nominated, or whatever the term would be, for Bedrock. are not necessarily extra-large or large organizations. So… That was a very pleasant surprise. However, it does… I basically didn't give enough credit to the system when I, created my initial, estimates. Anyway, it then put more extra-large organizations into the normal general operating support opt. I'm happy to answer questions, and again, This is just preliminary. How many large applications were there? Do you have any members? Thanks. So that's… that's kind of what I'm talking about, where there's, like, this clearly… you know, different situations. No, yeah, there's only four.

[118:05] Happy. Do you also suggest that it might be a moving target where each year we kind of adjust it based on where the Majority of numbers are coming in, and kind of keep it as kind of a living… Living document type thing, where we're adjusting to meet the community needs? Yes, I would suggest looking at the, like, historic data, too, about, like, how things have been changing, and try and, again, try and make the process as competitive for each tier, and adjust the tiers to account for that, and then maybe just have, like, a formula that goes with inflation over time. without wanting to decrease anyone's tier right now, I'm suggesting, again, that this be, like, phased in over a long period of time. And do these recommendations, or this estimate of what's going to be recommended, does this take into account some of the considerations we had about, the concept of

[119:06] like. deserving a grant, or… Oh, the threshold? The threshold number. Yeah, these are all above a certain threshold. Okay. I did ask the reviewers, like, if there were limitless resources, if there were any applications they wouldn't feel comfortable recommending, given that it's taxpayer dollars, and there were. So… Is there… would there be a concern, if, let's say, a small organization was bedrock, and that grant award was, like, too large of a percentage of their operating budget? What the Commission approved is 50% or less, and that is not the case even with a small organization. Cool. Do you need anything from us? No, I guess I just wanted to give you an update so that you weren't taken aback before the final vote.

[120:07] Great. Thank you. And then, I do have, sorry. One last thing. I'm organizing a tour of the Loveland Feed and Grain. It's affordable and market rate artist housing, and I would love for you all to join. Please let me know if you'd like to come, and I can add you to the invitation. And then I am planning an accessibility summit at Grand Works Art Lab. There's a lot of moving pieces and a lot of people that want to be a part of that panel, so that's the most difficult one for me to schedule so far. But it will be at Groundworks, and then an AI Summit July 16th, location TBD, and then a sustainability summit at Junkyard Social, in September. So, whoo, looking forward to all of those. Did I miss, sorry, I was checking my calendar. Which is the next meetup? Is that the AI Summit? No, it would be accessibility. Okay. Oh, you mean artists meetup? That's… Yeah. Yeah, we don't have… we were working on one for Boulder Arts Week with SBDC, and then that fell through. Okay.

[121:11] But we're doing the Town and Gown thing. The Town and Gown Get Down is happening on April 8th. At Museum of Boulder, and it's a gathering of people who are doing programming across the city and the university, and we're gonna be discussing just, like. cross-pollination, and getting students to come to the community, community, come to see you, kind of stuff, and strategies, and stuff like that. So we have to wear gowns? Yes. Okay. And towns. Okay. Where is that advertised more broadly so that I can start, pumping that out? It's on our website, it was in our last, newsletter. West… this last week. Yeah, and we can send you a link to it. It's also on the Boulder Arts Week calendar.

[122:03] And then lastly. That would be very helpful to send it out for those of us that aren't going to the sites regularly. Or for those that aren't. Yeah, yeah, that one was, because we're working in partnership with CU, and we're two large organizations that have our specific ways of doing things, they really wanted to send, personalized emails to people, so we let them do that before we made it more public. Perfect. Yeah, no, please send that to me. And then last thing I'll say is that the, we had 32 organizations applying for Bedrock. That's basically half, so I just would like to note that there was some concern from the Commission about how accessible this application was, and I think that those numbers speak for themselves. And as staff, we are compiling data from especially the accessibility and sustainability responses, and we have, some graphs and analysis of unmet need, so once I get the approval, I'll share that with you all. Very interested, yes. Thank you.

[123:00] How many of those applications were qualified to have applied? Because we did have certain criteria in those. All of them, technically, although… There were a few that had, that didn't respond to one of the questions. Okay, cool, that's what I meant. That did come up if the Commission wants to require that all five questions be answered in order to be considered. Because we didn't have that specific language, we did request that the reviewers take even incomplete applications into account, of which there were two. Alright, cool. That's great. That means there's a lot of great work happening on a lot of those criteria we had in there. It's been really cool to see and read their responses. Yay. Anything else? Great. We've got matters from staff, and questions about managers now. Any questions about the manager's memo?

[124:02] No. Okay. And then I feel that we covered your topic already, or, public comment that was all covered in your previous statements. I wasn't planning on commenting about the statement about the RFI. Okay. It's related? If anyone has questions, I'm happy to answer them. Okay, so we've got the… the final thing that we wanted to talk about is the Create Bolder letter, that was part of the packet. And, the question is whether, we, as a commission, want to make joint statement to City Council in support of this. We can make individual. comments and support to the commission… to the council, but if we want to speak as a commission, we have to decide on what to say.

[125:03] And approve that. Yes. So… development mark. Create Boulder has submitted a statement about the RFI, the redevelopment. And you're right. Is there anything you'd like to say from a broader… further execution? Sure, we've received good interest. We eventually will publish some type of summary of the responses and how that has helped us move towards a request for proposals, which is the next step to actually kind of figure out what… what we're gonna get, maybe, on that site. More specifically, the RFIs will be super important for us to really know what the market can support. So we've still got some work to do in reviewing those, proposals. The reason why we're not kind of, like. releasing all of that information is, A, there's a lot of, kind of, financial information in some of those, and this will eventually lead to an RFP and competitive process, so we're protecting

[126:06] At this point. But I will say that just from reading the letter, that a lot of the goals in, terms of arts and culture as an anchor on the East Bookend are in alignment with how we've been looking at, the opportunity, and, I can share, or in alignment with a lot of the proposals that… or a lot of the responses to the RFI we're seeing so far. So, that's all good. I think our next steps are most likely to schedule a touchpoint with City Council. July, to get, kind of, final feedback before we release an RFP, and we anticipate another touchpoint with the Arts Commission to, talk some priorities at RFP before it's released. So, another Fighting the apple pie. Is that something that we could schedule? for the next meeting, maybe to just get a little bit more context and a little deeper dive, because I'm not sure I even understand. And I don't want to, you know.

[127:10] monopolize your time, but… Oh, good. I would recommend maybe June, depending on your schedule, just because at that point, we'll have a little bit more detail as to what will be in an RFP, and I think in a better place to get feedback from the Commission. Okay. Okay. Amy? Just add that, and I just sent this to you today, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art as well, it's expressing interest of having some presence as part of the East Bookend. So I think there's an alignment with, the Create Boulder letter, but more specificity for that institution. Yeah, and I'll add that we do plan to do some outreach beyond those that responded directly to the RFI. the MOCA1, Create Boulder another, and there will be some others. Response to the RFI was on a requirement to respond to the RFP, so we'll cast a little bit wider net, before we finalize the details.

[128:06] Okay, can I say one thing, please? So, one thing I'm very excited about is I understand Lauren has been invited to the table. That was one of our recommendations. I don't know if it would have happened anyway, but I'm very happy, very happy to have you at the table, but of course, I'm sure you had a role in that, so thank you. Great. So, to discuss in depth. Yes, it'd be really, it'd be interesting. Excellent. Thank you, sweetie. I'm gonna ask… add an… sorry, I should have asked… added a… add an agenda item. I'm sorry, I should have asked at the beginning. What is the agenda? It's just a touch of my own Sundays. Sure, Matt. I think we have to approve the agenda change, so all in favor of letting Maria talk about Sundance. Great. All right, go ahead. And just speaking of Lauren, you know, I would like to recommend that Lauren have a stronger liaison point between Sundance and the arts organizations, because I've been hearing from my liaison organizations, just, they want to be involved, they're not sure how to be involved, they're trying to

[129:14] on their schedules, and I just think we need a stronger advocate for the arts in the organizations. Especially in this first year. I think everyone's trying to find their way through. That's the… sorry. Keep in mind… The Boulder Chamber's done a really fantastic job of being a conduit and kind of creating a conduit for organizations to engage as well. I think they've done an excellent job on that. I think it's great. Thank you. And, before 8 o'clock, thank you, Sarah, for getting us out quicker. We'll adjourn the meeting. Lauren, I want to point out… This photo is taken from an event that I organized.