Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[1:35] you

[4:03] [Music]

[6:44] okay good evening everybody we're going to convene the I guess I was gonna say a normal meeting but there's this meeting at the Boulder City Council on August 1st 2017 Lynette call the roll please sound so

[7:01] member Applebaum rocket here Burton here Jones here Marcel shoemaker Weaver yeah Yates young here we have a quorum excellent and we're starting a couple hours later tonight because we did something different which was actually really fun and it was called national night out which is my understanding of National Night Out is it was an invitation for neighborhoods throughout our city to convene and host basically have potlucks and parties and members of council and also our police department and Fire Department went around to the different gatherings to meet folks and have conversation and let kids play all over the fire trucks I'd like to say we were the highlight but we were not it was definitely the fire trucks but a lot of really good connections and I I think that was really worthwhile so because of that verse skip and open comment we're

[8:00] getting right to business tonight and we're gonna start with a special proclamation that councilman Weaver is going to do so I'm here tonight in honor of 40th anniversary of the Pearl Street Mall and I would like to invite up the people who are here to receive the proclamation in Chau carry shape and Susan Connelly and Lane Landreth I want to come up and all these so honoring the 40th anniversary of the Pearl Street Mall on August 6 1977 the Pearl Street Mall was dedicated to be used as a park special event space meeting place and commercial venue and

[9:01] has become the center of our community the city of Boulder and the downtown community partner din the creation of the original mall and continue to work in collaboration to ensure its success the Pearl Street Mall is recognized as one of the premier outdoor pedestrian gathering and retail spaces in the United States American Planning Association named the Pearl Street Mall one of the six great public spaces on the organization's annual great places in America list for 2015 on August 9th the community will come together once again to celebrate the Pearl Street malls 40th anniversary thereby continuing dedication of the Pearl Street Mall as the heart of our city gathering place for all to express commitment and affection to our hometown the community is invited to attend the events scheduled throughout the week including band on the bricks 40 years on Pearl Street social media odor sharing Pearl Street mile Community footrace and downtown Boulder sidewalk races the City Council of the city of Boulder Colorado

[10:01] declares August 9th 2017 as the 40th anniversary of the Pearl Street Mall and call upon the people of the city of Boulder to join their fellow residents in celebrating our community landmark [Music] [Applause] hi everybody my name is Bing Chu I've been lucky enough to I've joined the board of the downtown Boulder partnership a few years ago and now find myself standing on of all you folks to represent several decades a very hard work from quite a few different community members so thank you very much for the proclamation and the recognition it's an honor to be here I'm shaping's I'm on the Downtown Management Commission and we have a great collaborative relationship with all the downtown stakeholders and the city at large and it's just a light Bowl that we celebrate the win-win-win-win-win of the Pearl Street Mall thank you so

[11:02] much say we have a copy of a beautiful 40th anniversary of the mall poster for each of the council members I'll leave it with the city do you know a place we could frame that special thing we're doing tonight is a presentation by Professor Friedrich regarding our comprehensive annual financial report thank you I'm David and I'm presenting on behalf of the city of boulders Audit

[12:02] Committee we're bringing forth for your consideration motions to consider two resolutions to accept the city of Boulder annual financial report and the auditor's report thereon and the second resolution to a point clifton larson allen to be the external auditors for the 2017 audit broadly we have oversight responsibility for the financial reporting part of the city we also are the safe haven for the external auditors if an issue ever so arose in my time not past the current committee is made up of councilmembers Burton shoemaker Weaver and myself we

[13:03] may the city of alders audit committee be the least visible committee that the city has but in my time I have never seen a team member current or some of you who served in the past ever treated as such the first resolution also is kind of presented on behalf the city manager and the finance department as they are the ones that prepare the comprehensive annual financial report me being an outsider I also need to give shoutouts to Cheryl Vitelli chief financial officer and penny controller and Ron Gilbert assistant controller without them always being available to answer my questions to inform to give me

[14:01] a heads up I would be not in the position I am now with regard to knowledge city border prepares these comprehensive annual financial reports the finance department prepares them the external auditors only responsibility is to express an opinion on these financial reports as to whether they present fairly or the current year's financial reports in the opinion of the external auditors do present fairly they gave what is cloak lien owned a clean opinion that's the highest that any entity can be given that your financial statements present fairly in all material respects in addition the external auditors

[15:00] communicate with the audit committee regarding any findings that they have throughout the year they don't express an opinion on the internal controls the policies procedures that produce the financial reports but if they see something they communicate it to the Audit Committee in three buckets in one bucket is if they identify a material weakness those are deficiencies so severe that the annual report the financials are probably not presenting fairly the city of Boulder has zero material weaknesses the other and they present best practice recommendations or suggestions as they go throughout their work and this year they best practice suggestions or recommendations were centered around technology and I know

[16:00] the IT department I know been greatly appreciates considers these and with a cost-benefit analysis sees if they fit the city of Boulder lastly the middle bucket this year of the yacht there were two adjustments that needed to be made from the unaudited to the audited financial statements and these were centered around issues where legal counsel legal counsels guidance was needed external auditors always communicate both in-house City Attorney's office and with any external outside legal counsel that might be helping the city of Boulder through those communications they found that an interesting usually the auditors finance department are worried about lost contingencies is there something out there that might

[17:00] require an obligation on the city of Boulder spot looking for council's guidance the interesting one this year was an inflow of funds from a project where the city of Boulder had safely conservatively excess growth funds and through the guidance of in-house City Attorney's Office and external auditors it was determined that a settlement had been made wherein these funds didn't need to be s throat they were actually revenue to the city of Boulder the auditors recommendations were more enhanced communication between the finance department and those involved in these situations in addition the finance department believes performing more robust analytics might you know give them a heads up a little quicker so the

[18:01] communication process can start the second resolution is to adopt is to appoint Clifton Larsen Allen to perform the audit of the 217 financials from what the audit committee sees there appears to be evolving a solid professional work relationship between both the external auditors and the city staff and this should only enhance both sides ability to achieve their objectives in closing I'm one who honors the streak so I've got superstitions around this city Boulder is going forward there eight consecutive Award for achievement excellence in financial reporting 35th

[19:03] overall so one of these days when I choose to step away or I serve at your pleasure if you stepped me away I might go look to see where the city of Boulder is positioned with regard to total Awards won or who has the longest consecutive streak of excellence and reporting thank you I think we have some comments from the audit committee have an outside person with the kind of expertise that you've got to really ask some of the tough questions and to represent this so well so thank you very much this year

[20:01] and professor further talked about between the auditor and the city and I think it's a of course we want complete honesty and we want Clifton Larson else Ellen to always what they see but I felt like the city Cheryl and her team were very responsive to all the comments you know put action plans behind it as well as the department so I feel like the city was very very responsive to all the feedback they got from Clifton Larson Ellen and so it gives me a great deal of confidence that we have very we'll go around our finances so I'd like to congratulate the team obviously we have some things that we need to work on but I felt like there are action plans in place already things being done ticked off and so it gave me comfort I concur with what the committee for a

[21:02] little while so the first year is really something to see when you figure out what a clean report is and then what the different levels of imperfection look like but on the whole I feel very comfortable that this is in a great financial position that most of our systems are working well together there's always places that they can knit together a little bit better but my tea was involved as well as our financial department as well as this year some some more feedback to our legal team so on the whole I'm pretty pleased with where we are and and feel comfortable with the selection of the auditors from next year okay congratulations to Cheryl and her team thank you to the professor and thanks to the Audit Committee for serving it is a committee that I have so far managed to stay off of I intend to continue that streak and with that we'll turn to our consent agenda which includes adoption adopting these

[22:01] resolutions we just spoke to me did you want an ounce did I just it you're just started items A through F items A through F on our consent agenda we did just speak to the audit items and Sam did you want to speak to your sure resolution I just like to thank the citizens climate Lobby and our energy staff because one of the items on our consent agenda tonight is a resolution in support of comprehensive national climate policy in the form of a revenue neutral carbon fee and dividend so this is a policy that a lot of local groups have supported but the citizen climate Lobby as an organization has taken this concept national so that we can begin to edge okay federal representatives at all levels about how important it is to have a price signal on carbon because the market is one of the most powerful

[23:00] forces that unites humans and the way we behave and so on and you know physics and chemistry are some of the most powerful forces that are going to determine how our kids and grandkids and nieces and nephews live out their lives so I don't read all of this because there's a lot of detail behind it but in short it basically encourages the federal government to adopt a price on carbon and to refund most of that carbon to to the citizens of the country so the idea behind it is this is not a net outflow this just helps people who consume more realize the consumption through their pocketbook and people who realize who consume less be rewarded for for that and so at the end of the day I mean this is something that we should make sure gets forwarded to our federal representatives and thanks to this is in climate Lobby people for keeping on me because I was not the fastest at getting this across the finish line I got

[24:01] invited to participate in the National Renewable Energy Lab in Sierra Club's National Dialogue on a hundred percent we know the pathway to 100% renewable energy what's about thirty-five other cities from around the country and one of the speaker's was Senator Merkley from Oregon and he has a national bill but one of the takeaways was we need to put a price on carbon and that that is as a country the most important thing we could do and after that but there's all this other work that all these cities are doing and it's pretty inspiring but I think it's really important for us to send a signal to our national leaders that they need we're counting on them to eventually take some action here okay just know in terms of other things up there we have the first reading on the sales and use tax and that will be the subject at the public hearing at its second reading did you have anything you want to say

[25:00] to it you know that's the community and culture tax yeah I understand I'm not gonna speak about it tonight I think it's better to talk about one everyone's here I will be sending in a note to hotline because I do think there is a little bit more vetting that needs to happen particularly of the community projects we discussed this at the last meeting but I've gotten some feedback since then that you know they did did not have time to really bet a lot of the projects so I just think there needs to be a little bit more vetting of the community projects so I'll just write a brief hotline about that okay yeah mine is actually pretty straightforward and David this is mostly for you I could I could send this in unless we want to fix it up on first reading I got some wording questions on the item on the ordinance a 195 which is amending

[26:02] various sections of the Charter and and these are not substantive their wording okay so David you know just doing quickly and you can do with them what you want this is on the first one is on page 343 having to do with vacancies and and I have to say I read the clarifying language and I couldn't figure out what it was saying so it didn't clarify it for me this is a question for you David and maybe you look at it later can we just say if there's a vacancy in a calendar year before August first then the election is held in November of that calendar year otherwise it's held in November of the following calendar year wouldn't that be like a hundred times simpler then yeah we can look at that wording that's there yeah no I I read this three times and I could not figure out what yeah and November amend sure

[27:00] sure and I think that to some extent it was probably overly trying to reuse the language that's what I decided instead of starting it was trying to reuse the language that was there the other one also on page 343 number 29 withdrawal from domination it says it was if it withdrawal occurs on the 65th day preceding the election the votes cast for that person shall not be counted which is fine but I am sure it means if it occurs on the 65th day up until the election not just only on the 65th day because that would be kind of irrelevant and the last thing which maybe there was a reason for but I sure couldn't figure it out was on the ballot title which is there on page 347 it kind

[28:00] of lists the changes which is all perfectly fine but one of the changes that list says have signatures no older than 180 days prior to filing but that's not a change that's already in there and so I don't unless I was missing something which I might be I didn't see why that was in the title because it's already in the code okay I'll look at that you should look at that too and we can fix all of this up on the next reading but I they probably should be fixed up I think it's in our Charter after all as I said just anything else on the consent agenda just one item you do have a blue sheet under Dyess and that is the ordinance the first reading of the ordinance for the capital improvement projects and our finance

[29:00] department requested a minor change to delete the word bond and replace it with debt just as in an effort to be clear that we will probably use perhaps other approaches to borrowing money other than bonds for this short period of time so it's just a clarification okay thank you for this I move the consent agenda with the clarifying amendment on the pass we've done with the discussion okay we'll begin with councilmember Weaver hye-young Jones aye the motion passes unanimously okay well you have one call up check in this evening it's a form-based code

[30:00] review application for 3,200 Bluff Street and I am interested in calling it up for the reason that it is the first project that comes before us with the form based code ordinance in place or the form based code guidelines in place it's not really an ordinance and and given that that's the first project that goes through I'd like to it'll set the stage for projects to come and I want to make sure that council has an opportunity to review it okay so with that we will discuss this at the end of the meeting and vote on whether to call it up so we have staff members available right now it would be great if you could ask your questions of staff members so that they don't have to wait til the end of the meeting okay does anybody have

[31:00] questions about the project there were questions of staff well it's not so much a question but since you're here and I don't know I mean I barely got a chance I did look at the Planning Board minutes and the staff material just because I was curious and it might be helpful if somebody could very briefly unless everybody's read the stuff indicate why Planning Board called it up and what the key issues were because they were only really a couple of critical issues I guess I would say implanting Boyd didn't seem to look at them with a fair amount of depth and concern and in the end oted to approve it because of a variety of variety of things so I skim that myself and it might be helpful to understand slightly more what planning but was concerned

[32:00] about and why in the end they were okay with it sure Carl Guiler with planning so the project met the vast majority of the form-based code which is really the intent but the council will recall that there were some concerns about if the four maze code were to be too rigid that perhaps there should be an exception process so we did work in the ability to request exceptions to the requirements so in this case the particular project was actually started off as a site review project because it predated adoption of the form based code and required the applicant to then amend their plan after the forum based code was adopted to meet all the phone based code standards so when the application came in it had quite a few exceptions and we had to kind of work through those exceptions so there were basically six exceptions that were ultimately requested and approved two board members were concerned about the maximum

[33:00] building length so in the form based code there's a 150-foot maximum for building lengths in this case there were facades that one up to about 180 and almost 190 that required the exception there was also a requirement that the project cannot take access from a type a street so in this place the north/south Junction place is type A and because they didn't have an alley they had to request an access point off at Junction place and also because they're subdividing the property so those are the main reasons that it was called up one board member wasn't really convinced and obviously voted against the project largely based on the building length and the others understood the reasoning for the the requests I think they found that the massing of the building was appropriate and was pedestrian friendly and did have pedestrian penetrations into the site which is some of the main reasons why the maximum building length

[34:02] provision was required to the phone-based code so through their discussion it ended up being a 5-1 vote and just there's one more quick question most of us when we think of least when I think of form base code I mean yes I think of building length and then other stuff but I also think of design aspects as much as anything in general was was planning board and the design board reasonably happy with the design that mean it did it meet or exceed our goals with the form base code or did we have some difficulties with what eventually was approved I got the impression from the board that they were pleased with the results based on the quality of materials and the detailing that went up on the facades and that they felt that the massing and use of the building was

[35:00] appropriate for its location I don't know that they all felt as strongly but two board members obviously had you know some concerns but overall I felt relatively positive designed advisory board also felt that it was a well you know that there were well designed buildings they also brought up the concerns about the access off junction place not as much concern on dab with the maximum building length they did talk about the quality of the materials and things like that any other questions of staff ok well you don't have to hang around but we'll discuss this at the end ok thanks Carl thanks Carl yeah preciate it your first public hearing is a motion to approve the purchase of approximately six hundred and fifteen acres from Boulder Valley farm

[36:17] all right good evening mayor and councilmembers I'm Bethany Collins a property agent with open space in mountain parks and tonight this agenda item is a request for approval of the purchase of the Boulder Valley farm open space property and I'd like to take a few minutes tonight to present some of the details and unique values that this that make this proposed acquisition so special as a quick overview of the proposed acquisition Boulder Valley Farm property located on North 95th Street is a 650 nacre agricultural complex featuring among other exceptional attributes important soils 8 ponds and almost one and a half miles of Boulder

[37:01] Creek frontage the nine and a half million dollar purchase price will include the residences an agricultural infrastructure associated with the farm as well as significant water rights this project also offers the opportunity to acquire the remaining mineral and oil and gas royalty holdings of the Boulder Valley Farm corporation both on this property and the adjacent culver property previously acquired by the city this guarantees the best possible control of any future oil and gas development on a property that has active wells under existing leases this property is the remaining portion of the historic 950 acre cattle ranch owned by the Don and Rosalie call her family since 1961 the city acquired 250 acres west of 95th Street from the Culver in the 1990s as well as conservation easements over portions of the farm in 1992 and 2006 the farms adjacency to other city and county property interests make makes it attractive from a habitat

[38:00] connectivity and landscape scale perspective in the context of our open space in mountain parks charter purposes the farm is considered a high priority for acquisition by program staff and represents an important addition to the open space system because of its important excuse me features and valuable resources the proposed acquisition includes valuable water rights used to irrigate the farms expansive agricultural fields and also hosts open ditch corridors along the lega and lower boulder ditch and nearly one-and-a-half miles of Boulder Creek and its associated floodplain this is the longest remaining segment of the creek and private ownership in Boulder County and ownership would allow for extension of the Boulder Creek master plan restoration work that is occurring both up and downstream of this parcel this riparian corridor also boasts Cottonwood gallery forests that are important to canopy nesting riparian songbirds and is a movement corridor for

[39:00] deer and other mammals the properties gravel pankot gravel pond complex excuse me both healthy wetlands while also offering extensive wetland restoration opportunities adding to the farms valuable ecological resources the Boulder Valley comp plan shows the property as being contiguous two parcels with known populations approvals meadow jumping mouse and its riparian areas near open water and adjacent uplands could provide appropriate habitat for this for the federally threatened species also the extensive hay fields on the property provide habitat for grassland nesting birds which may include uncommon species like bobolinks a rare species in the Boulder Valley comp plan and a management indicator species in the open space and mountain parks grassland plan from a scenic perspective the farm is highly visible from surrounding private and open space properties and 95th Street and offers sweeping views of the Front Range and

[40:00] towards the eastern plains despite being an active agricultural operation the far most important Natural Area attributes as well it has historically supported one of the largest Heron rays in Colorado with numbers reaching over 200 nests in the 1990s Heron numbers have since decline in part because of the recent presence of the bald eagle pair that began nesting on the farm on the property in 20 2014 however herons do still frequent the properties ponds and riparian corridor and at least one active nest was seen in was found in 2017 nevertheless a pair of nesting bald eagles on the property is a sign of high-quality riparian and aquatic habitat the pair has fledged young successfully since 2015 the farm also includes an active osprey nest and outcroppings of Foxhill sandstone seen in the rare white rocks geologic formations on other osmq properties [Applause] moving on to its agricultural significance as the map shows a majority

[41:01] of the property's agricultural fields are designated as farmland of national state or local importance Boulder Valley Farm is a working cattle ranch that has historically supported up to a 150 head and produced 500 tons of room and orchard grass hay the farm includes a headquarters compound where a majority of the property's improvements are located including equipment barns horse stalls and cattle handling infrastructure aesthetically appealing for its pastoral character Boulder Valley farms historical agricultural operation and buildings also contributes to the agricultural history and quality of life in this area the property was homesteaded in 1885 by jeremiah augusta lega and the culverts later purchased the property from axel nielsen a locally renowned businessman and philanthropist who was reported to have hosted dwight teas president dwight d eisenhower in the property's iconic red brick home during the 1990s the Culver's had a historical and cultural surveys performed by Boulder County which found the property eligible for a local

[42:00] landmark and his National Register of Historic Places designation however the property never the excuse me the family never pursued listing those surveys indicate several structures on the farm including the brick farmhouse and barn are historically an architecturally significant for their association with the development of agriculture in the Boulder Valley the property's size location and water features make it appealing for public access and potential passive record opportunities including hiking biking and bird-watching also the ponds have historically been privately fished for black bass bluegill and crappie and a segment of the potential UPR TD Valmont ee reed regional trail bisects the farm which could provide future public access opportunities the growing town of Erie's comprehensive planning area boundary and Boulder Valley comprehensive planning area connect at the eastern boundary of the property both plans indicate Natural Area open space and agricultural type

[43:01] land uses in this area potentially potentially reflecting an intended spatial definition of the urban core of Erie buffer to the more intensive residential developments just east of 287 and priorities to preserve the area's agricultural heritage additionally because of its overall ownership stretch of Boulder Creek and partial location in area 3 of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan the farm is identified in the 2013 OS MP acquisition plans Boulder rally comp plan priority acquisition area moving on from chart purposes I'd like to touch briefly on the benefits of fee acquisition of the farm despite its concert current conserved status the terms of several conservation easement agreements encumbering the property vary with most of the protections being focused on the agricultural values and silent or vague on the other resource values and none of them require a management plan for any portion of the property it's quite conceivable that a future private owner of the farm would struggle with management of this unique agricultural block or convert some or

[44:00] all of the property from agricultural productivity fee acquisition the farm and water rights represents the opportunity for the city to control the management of the agricultural operations and other uses and ensure the availability of the water to irrigate the property it would also allow the city to manage public access and possibly integrate a wider application of other OS MP purposes in addition to traditional agriculture including expanded restoration of the riparian corridor managing for wildlife and habitat and preserving and interpreting the historical significance of the property pond acquisition the property will remain closed to the public until research resource assessment and management recommendations are developed during OS mp's property integration process during this time I was MP staff will more closely evaluate the resource management and infrastructure needs of the farm and careful considerations will be made to balance public use with the ongoing agricultural operations and protection of the sensitive environmental resources it is anticipating the interim and where

[45:00] possible the farm will be leased to existing residential tenants and the current ranch manager who is also an agricultural agricultural tenant on other OS MP lamps what you just said about its future use can you just clarify going forward assuming we approve this which I imagine we will it will immediately it will continue to be used for agricultural immediately we're not going to have a timeout where we correct this sighs we we needed kind of an immediate a-1 plan and that is in the short-term to keep it status quo to keep the current ranch manager lease it back to him for the agricultural operation there are tenants in in the residences and - and to keep those them in where

[46:01] possible and again a lot of that just depends on our pen is pending due diligence and being able to negotiate those leases with the city rather than with landowners but those are looking good so yeah okay good because I think that's really important that we don't definitely yeah properties and then not do anything with them while we plant and then it's really hard to get him back running again yes easements we have these we did so we there's there are several easements somewhere with the county somewhere with the city and and there are there's actually also a utilities easement that was it was not paid well I believe it was grant funded but there was a partnership project there is a to conservation easements that weren't paid for yes with city funds with funds the fee purchase price

[47:00] at this point does reflect the per acre value does reflect the diminished value on a per acre basis of that of what that okay already purchased basically that's what I wanted to understand and I assume at the terms of new copies mints are much better than in terms of old easements but I just wanna make sure we're learning and evolving and how we Jesse's but it's good that we're not paying twice corrupt yeah this is clearly a gem it's so exciting but this is finally happening just the sheer size and also the mile and a half above the creek that's just so important so congratulations on that does anybody have questions or comments I think that and I agree with Suzanne it's pretty exciting hearing I did have just some kind of minor questions mostly out of curiosity the memo mentioned that the farmland was of national importance so what constitutes national importance is

[48:00] one of my questions and the other question is it also talked about a headquarters compound and what constitutes a hitter's compound so if you could I believe that's pretty much just a lingo thing it's got barns it's got the equestrian over the horse stalls it's got an office you know for the ranch management the ranch managing area of the property barns the outbuildings so they're all pretty consolidated into you know those the buildings that are right off of 95th Street yes the dark brown building right off of 90s and then as far as what constitutes national state or local importance that's it's USDA and NRCS basically ranking of what is in this list so it's a soil ranking and the types of soils in and and their productivity for you know things like vegetables like hey you know hey and and how well you know it's a it's a new tree

[49:00] and and and basically again soil calculation done by the NRCS and mapped nationwide by the National Resource Conservation Service thank you natural questions so as part of the evaluation the putting together management plan will you be evaluating the potential for small-scale organic farms like we were just discussing in the agricultural master plan they will absolutely see how this property as as a whole as well as you know as segmented parts both from facility standpoint as well as the cattle operation as well as the soils and and things like that how those fit into the different purposes and the different characteristics of the new AG plan yes great absolutely nothing you're right this is a stunning piece of property I'm curious and I was the city

[50:08] as opposed to the county can you comment on that opportunity it has been on actually on and off the market and the the family is not in a place where they want to continue ranching and so it really is getting to a point where the the property will start the the actual operation will start being impacted they have oxygen doff all of the equipment on the property and so there really isn't you know they're getting to where they want out and so things the the actual management of the property could go downhill we have interacted with the county and looked at basically our individual and and joint priorities for acquisition and the county just has has opted to put their money towards other projects around the county and you know as as you've pointed out it's it's basically you know it's kind of wedged between

[51:00] both city and county land and so it it it could make sense from either of us in the city was just the one prepared to be able to move forward with it do you mention the boundary with Erie has there been discussions between the city and Erie about what Erie plans ultimately for the other side of 287 there there has not just the other side of 287 is also still at least in their comprehensive planning area considered agricultural for very as we point out a very short distance as as those residential subdivisions are in are coming up on 287 there I I have not entered into discussions other than getting information from them on the comprehensive planning area and just the county and city participation and discussions related to the U P and our T V trial certainly seems like it would be fertile ground to have that conversation just to preserve the rural character

[52:00] kind of on both sides so it's not subdivisions on one and open on the other just one more thing in terms of you mentioned that they had done some the pre decline owners and looked into national historic designations is that something that we might be doing as part of the management plan so our cultural cultural resource staff will look at the assessments that have been done very often one of their first steps would be a historic structure assessment which is kind of separate from the county process and outside of that but does take an account you know obviously the both the state historic preservation as well as national historic places kind of criteria and everything so they that will be part of that initial kind of property integration is doing those assessments and seeing what the benefits you know the the pros and cons would be of listing all or a portion of the property okay all right this is a listing for a public hearing has anyone

[53:01] signed up okay well then we will open and close the public hearing how about a motion I don't have the language in front of me here we go so I move to approve the purchase of approximately six hundred fifteen acres of land associate residences in agricultural outbuildings and appurtenances arming for nine point five million dollars for open space and mountain parks purposes second I had the opportunity to go out and tour the property yesterday Thank You Bethany for you and your staff taking down that tour and this is such a gorgeous piece of land and it checks so many the boxes in the agricultural plan that we just adopted as well as the other open space charter purposes it's an amazing opportunity so I'm really excited too that we're taking a of it right now so I know I think we generally all

[54:01] agree on that I did have one particular little point that I wanted to make while we're out under that will be doing management planning on a number of different areas including potential passive recreational use just that Union Pacific RTD trail seems to me like a huge opportunity because the white rocks property also is along that right-of-way so just put in a plug for maybe prioritizing the evaluation of making a connection between those two properties on an already existing right-of-way so I'll just throw that out there I mean second what Aaron said as far as being wonderful opportunity and I think you know it is a little ways out but with the right connector trails could be something that you could make into a long day to get there and back and I think that you know part of the mission of open space is preservation of you know the area around the city and this is affecting that and and so I'm glad

[55:00] we've got the opportunity and thank you for pursuing it yeah well I somebody agree with that I Jan and I were at the end of a couple of weeks ago and it's it's pretty spectacular particularly the the Boulder Creek the riparian corridor which clearly needs to be preserved and the water rights which is no small thing I mean then I you don't think about them visible but era you know a quarter of the price of of the property and the water rates are pretty significant I will say it's a little disappointing the county did not contribute significantly when we say it's a long way away that's a bit of an understatement it is due south of Longmont it is almost adjacent to Lafayette and it's almost adjacent to Erie and so it's by far our easternmost property which will also raise some mineral and oil and gas concerns as well over time there are some operations on the property which is fine we have oil

[56:01] operations on other open space there's nothing particularly unusual about that but it may put us more in the discussions over oil and gas in the future because there are some mineral rights that where we're not getting so that that part is disappointing I think Sam's comment is well taken though that given how far out this is even though it's surrounded by some open space as well as by you know on the perimeters there are houses there but I think it is gonna be really important too now for us more than we might otherwise have kind of engaged in what's going on in that part of the far eastern part of Boulder County because it will affect our open space holdings and potentially some trail Carter's as well now that we're that far east so I do think we probably need to keep an eye on some things that

[57:01] we maybe otherwise would not have because we're now in a in a location that's a little bit different than then we have been in the past but yeah it's it's a spectacular property and it it certainly needs to be preserved especially the critical portions of it so yeah kudos to the department for managing to being patient and managing to to pull it off can you just speak to that the part about the one guess who we are we do not there prior to the Culver's ownership there were some severance as we have we will acquire by the end of this acquisition of majority a huge majority of the the oil and gas rights the mineral rights and we also get the royalties from the the wells that are already operating on the property so this puts us by by owning the fee title of the property the surface of the property as well as a

[58:01] majority interest in the the oil and the mineral rights under the property it puts us in the best possible place to control what happens on the property that's not to say you know again Boulder County regulations state regulations will always you know those will be what what regulates oil and gas development on the property right now there are the restrictions are that they can drill from the current site so the current pads if they were to open it up for drilling in the future and it also you know just with just as with any property in that location we also you know there's also the risk of pooling so even if we owned all the mineral rights that doesn't mean they couldn't they couldn't pull us and so and still drill on this property and so you know oil and gas is is why would be curious I said a follow-up question to

[59:03] know about if I remember correctly and that's a big if that ROI only guess what time and current things apply to our open space acquisitions I would just be curious to know it's some future date from our legal office exactly how those things layer because darn-tootin this won't become an issue later and my question is it true that that by buying the mineral remaining mineral rights on the property that we would be preventing the possibility of drilling from anywhere other than the existing well site correct I would have to come forward to us to negotiate a new lease and/or new surface use agreements and and new well pad locations so when we could see you know make it yes yeah that's the key part of

[60:00] that question so far it is a substantial purchase and now but we do have that open space budget and and I think the citizens have supported this kind of thing so I'm very supportive evidence ending piece of property and I really do hope that we can quickly do that plan so that our residents can get out there and enjoy it and not just for recreational although I think it's an amazing piece for recreational but I think a few weeks ago that comes from brown cows I think there's some need to get people tied in with land and what you know about and I think preserving that agricultural use

[61:00] is important but I might also say you know raising of cattle is not the most planet friendly and so I'd really like to see us transition some of it but we at least look strategically at how we can make an example of a property like that that can transition from kind of pure cattle and feed grain to food for people and again not happening immediately but that's something that could be done in the planning process long term but I fully support the acquisition I think it's a stunning piece of property and it's great to see that I'm gonna be developed yeah I already got string questions just yeah this is a Jim for sure okay okay anything else needs to be said show of hands show of hands all those in favor it is unanimous thank you so much

[62:05] your next public hearing is regarding three electric utility ballot measures the utility occupation tax executive sessions and utility formation great Thank You Lynette my name is David Gere I'm the deputy city attorney and I'll be presenting tonight I'd also like to just take this opportunity to introduce Heather Bailey our energy utility director Cheryl patellae our chief financial officer and of course Bob I come our chief chief financial adviser they're here to help answer any questions that you may have but there's a good chance that I won't be able to answer so tonight you're going to consider second reading of these three ordinances if you amend any of them on third reading or on so if you amend any of them third reading will be on August

[63:00] 15th if you find any of the ordinances acceptable this evening we would ask that you would just continue them to the August 15th meeting as well the reason for this is it's really we're trying to set a deadline for when we would expect all of our city employees to begin to honor the requirements of the fair campaign practices Act yes sir and to make sure I heard that advice right you would ask that we continue to second reading anything that gets amended tonight was that no that is not amended so if you if you're if you're good with the staff recommendation and the ordinance that has presented this evening and as you passed on first reading we would just ask you to do the second reading on it just finish the second reading on August and thank you okay so why we're here as you all know our utility occupation tax at least a

[64:02] portion of it is expiring at the end of this year we also have a third limited authority related to matters associated with formation of the Municipal Utility for executive sessions that authority is expiring at the end of this year and then of course charter section 178 which is a section of our Charter that talks about the conditions preceding to forming the electric utility we've been in a great deal of litigation about that and we would like to you to consider putting on the ballots and changes to that to perhaps help us resolve some of that litigation so we have some questions for you regarding the utility occupation tax and I think that this is these questions on the screen right now I'm not going to go through them are gonna be the basis for your discussion later this evening the utility

[65:01] occupation tax just a little bit of background it was originally passed in 2010 it was passed to replace the franchise fee that we received from Xcel Energy as a result of being in Franek franchise in in franchise with Xcel at some point we did decided to extend it in 2015 and that revenue source is in place until 2022 in after we did some initial feasibility work on the creation of the municipal utility we decided that we needed to also fund a revenue source for creating the municipal utility and we have been collecting as part of the utility occupation tax about two million dollars and that money is primarily used to fund our municipal ization effort so you've seen this table

[66:05] many times it's really really conceptual it shows in a conceptual manner the path forward to get to the municipal electric utility operations the red bar in the center is the point of a go/no-go decision prior to that time the city will have completed the PUC transfer and separation case that we are presently litigating we will have completed the final design and cost estimates for what it's going to cost to separate from the separate from Xcel and then of course finally we hopefully will have a decision in the boulder District Court on the amount of what it will cost to purchase the assets that will form the backbone of the municipal utility

[67:02] after after that point in time it is thought that we will have a pretty good idea about what we're looking at in terms of what it's going to take to form a municipal utility this is going to form what we call the go/no-go decision type time and at this point in the process I think that the council will look at all of the data and they will decide whether or not assuming one of the charter amendments for that is being proposed tonight whether to put a matter on the ballot to determine if the city should in fact form the utility so that go/no-go decision is something that ultimately would be placed before the voters so here's the part why we have all the finance people here tonight the volar energy future staff did a very pretty good strong regulatory analysis

[68:03] as well as the budgetary needs but we'll need to get us to that no-go decision as you'll see in the third line up from the bottom the amount that they are estimating that it will take us to get to the no-go decision in terms of getting through all of the regulatory and judicial approvals necessary is approximately sixteen point five million just extending the existing utility tax forward you'll see in the second line from the bottom we estimate that that would raise only six point three million dollars in revenue so the revenue need that we're looking at in terms of going back to the voters for is an effort to raise that ten point two million dollars so I guess just before I go on to beat a dead horse the six point three million is an extension of existing revenues the

[69:00] ten point two million is an ask for additional revenue in the form of the utility occupation tax so then it goes to you know once you kind of get there how do you go about collecting it the information that's before you above is our estimates of what the annual amount that we'll have to collect each year based on a variety of options we have a three year four year five year and six year option above the ordinance is drafted and with a staff recommendation based on the six the six year tax collection and I believe the primary reason for us proposing the six year option is that it has the smallest impact to the rate base in terms of how the utility occupation tax is ultimately passed through from Excel to the customer the finance department has a

[70:01] plan in terms of how we would be able to use existing reserves to cover any additional revenue expenses that we would need to cover in the early years I believe also the energy future office has thought about perhaps some creative ways of contracting with that thought in mind of being cognizant of trying to mitigate any impacts that the general fund might have to have to take in the early years so this slide here is pretty simple it's it's really just a summary of the rate impact that we anticipate a customer will see if the utility occupation tax is increased as you see that her estimate is 70 cents a month for the six year option versus three dollars and 22

[71:03] cents a month if we were to go forward with the three year option so these are the again these are these I showed you - these are show these to you earlier but these will be some of the questions that you will consider in your discussion tonight in terms of whether the existing ordinance is acceptable or if the council would like to amend it the second item that's before you tonight it is related to executive sessions I think that it's pretty everything is in the ordinance is pretty straightforward I don't think I'll go through all of the list of things in terms of what is going to be part of the executive session the main debate that we that staff has heard from the council is really about the scope of what can be discussed in executive sessions and I

[72:02] think primarily there has been a concern about do you or is it advisable for the city to council to be able to discuss in an executive session negotiations or settlement strategies that would result in a settlement that did not result in a Municipal Utility so there's two ordinances that are in your packet for consideration I think that the first bullet describes the the main distinction that's in ordinance number 81 84 and that's basically to prohibit the discussion of any franchise in an executive session the rest of the items that are proposed for amending

[73:00] charter section 9 are the same involve ordinances so of course staff is recommending that you pass ordinance 81 90 which does not have the limitation on executive sessions I think the primary policy rationale is that it I think it aids in terms of keeping the council informed of what's going on and the breadth of options that are available to them all right so this slide here questions for council I think that these are some of the ideas that you guys will be just considering when you have your discussion later this evening now finally Carter section 178 I just talked a little bit about charter section 178 because I think as we were

[74:00] drafting the original charter provisions that was one section which I think as we were drafting everybody had another good idea to kind of layer on protections and I think that many of those great ideas that were layered on for protection provided little gaps that have been really great fodder for litigation we have been in the process of litigating that matter for about four years now I won't go into the gory details but as you can see we have been in litigation regarding whether we have been able to demonstrate to a third-party expert that we can meet several criteria that are in the Charter right now as we have worked our way from the district court through the Court of Appeals right now at the present point in time we filed a petition for review of with the Colorado Supreme Court and

[75:01] that petition is presently pending so with that said of course we would recommend that you pass ordinance 81 93 and and that ordinance contains two things and it that I think are very important important to form out it would ask the voters to specifically create the utility in the Charter and and take out all of the performance metrics and then in terms of the check and balance that is added in replacement of what we have been litigating about for a lo these many years is that we would simply require that we put information forward to the voters thereafter and that they would vote on the creation or the they would vote on whether or not they were willing to issue debt to actually

[76:00] acquire the distribution system so it's tied into the go/no-go decision and it really would require voter approval before we actually spent the big money for both the cost of actual physical separation as well as any judgment that we would incur in condemnation so again this slide is really related to the conversation that I assume that you will be having after the public and and I believe council member we've all Weaver has provided some language for the council's consideration as well so if that said that's the staff presentation if you have any questions I'm available and of course we have a number of staff members present as well who are available for questions thank you for that David and okay so if

[77:06] we have any questions refer to the public hearing this is the time for them Sam David you had a question up there for us about combining the two charter measures into one how does this single subject rule which I know applies to timber issues applied to in each other issues well I think that there's a little bit more flexibility and I think that the subject that this would be related to is the electrical that they would both be related to the electric utility okay and so we could combine the executive sessions and 178th whatever we did there no I think the the two would be the vote let's see here not those two it would be that the vote for the for the go no-go as well as establishing me too yes having that the voters approve

[78:03] the establishment of the utility and then what about the executive sessions portion we would do that we're proposing to do that as a a separate measure thank you yep okay does anybody have questions of staff Mary thanks David thanks David I just had a question about reserves and looking at Cheryl patellae hi hi Cheryl question on packet page 419 which would be the item or b1 page 7 looking at the the tables of the six year five year or your three year so it

[79:02] at the very top it talks about we start out with a reserve of twenty four point eight million and it would go down to sixteen point eight five million resulting in a reserve of twelve percent so the twenty four point eight million what level of reserve does that represent that represents 17% which is what we're at right now and what's a typical reserved for cities along the Front Range we we looked at reserves last year and they typically went anywhere from about where we are at to about twenty five percent the government finance officers best practice is that you start at sixteen percent as a minimum and then you take into account different factors like the risk of certain events and in those types of things Standard & Poor's also for a strong rating suggests is sixteen percent as

[80:04] well so I guess that raises another question just about so we would be going down to twelve percent for a short period of time what with the period of time B before we would be back up to sixteen percent it depends on what scenario you take but the recommended scenario were about five years that would take to get back to that sixteen percent okay thank you thanks we have yeah Erin and them Jim sure would there you mentioned that some standard report looks for sixteen percent their level with this endanger our bond rating at all I certainly can't give you a final answer on that but what we do know from experience as long as a this is a short period of time and B we actually have a payback plan in place to build reserves up so

[81:02] for instance when a government has a situation whether it be a revenue shortfall an emergency it is common occasionally for reserves to dip below the recommended level but as long as there's a plan in place on how you're going to replenish the reserve generally that's looked upon pretty positively thank you the example that you referred to was a type of a disaster which then takes the reserves from 16 down to something lower this is not a disaster it is a strategy so my question would be if we did have a disaster like another flood or something like that the reserves what how far could they go down if we had to then address that disaster and then what

[82:00] happens to our ability to you know issued do you because I know goal has been to increase it up to 20% or even higher right so this is definitely taking in the other direction particularly the six-year plan so how do you as the CFO see that in terms of you know financial management I'll start with your question about how low can reserves get certainly it depends on the disaster I would say if we had something that was pretty significant we would look to FEMA or other type of funding but we all know it takes a while to get that back so that's something that we would have to look at at the time we also would take into place our budgeting for for the next several years if it got to a level that was significantly low

[83:02] how much money did we have to pay for the flood before we got reimbursed by various agencies remember probably before we started getting reimbursement about 12 to 15 million the follow-up on that was that from the general fund or did it come from other various funds how can we talk about that break down a little bit real quick because I know that our water utility and our sewer utility were pretty impacted and it was an open space so as far as what we spent right away how much of that came from the general fund and how much came from the other funds the majority in the general fund was for public safety services which I believe again I haven't looked at these numbers in quite some time but it was maybe a half a million dollars from the general fund so it was pretty small we also had transportation

[84:00] immediately affected debris removal was another big one that came out of various funds we did some residential pickup that came out of the general fund and then other utilities did a lot of that as well so how much reserves right now so you're showing us general fund reserves is that correct correct and if we look across the utility funds as well do you know what the reserves like I don't have that number but utilities keep a pretty significant reserve of 25 percent that's the policy and in various funds are different but most funds that have operating costs ongoing that aren't capital keep anywhere from about 10 percent to 25 percent there's one last question my recollection of our target for the general fund posed the blue-ribbon committees that we had was 15 percent

[85:00] was our target and then we felt pretty good about going a little above that but what you're saying is either that's not best practices or other cities in the Front Range do higher reserves and their general funds I get that right yeah here we brought to council a plan to be at 20% by 2020 and we're working on the 2018 budget and we'll be will be bringing back a recommendation for fund balance to in September but that's kind of what we brought last year and what the plan that we were in process of okay why do we need that kind of reserve if you also have the reserves in the other funds that damaged there's several reasons first of all we can't depending on what the fund is its restricted we

[86:00] can't just use it for anything but it's not just for emergencies it's also for a revenue shortfall which as we're seeing right now with the sales tax is an issue but we were actually making some adjustments on the expense side to hopefully counteract that and and then also sometimes opportunities come up for cities for instance we just used some of our reserves on the bretton building the construction so when those types of things come up and you want to move quickly it's nice to have that reserve there okay so I'm so going back to Jan's question about some sort of disaster what kind of disaster could happen that would result in expenses not coming out of the reserves for like open space

[87:01] and utilities that would affect the general fund so you know our - clearly our two biggest would be flooding or fires and both of those most likely would affect the general fund is that your question yeah yeah well like I'm thinking of the 2013 flood and how the impact in terms of affecting the reserves was on the open space fund and the utilities funds so how are floods and fires different that that would affect the general fund how would how would those not be open space and utilities you think about that so certainly depending on the level of evacuations anything that that deals

[88:00] with Public Safety would be general fund related however with fires if it hits a certain threshold the state would kick in eventually so our exposure wouldn't be quite as high and then with the cleanup it's that that seemed to be our biggest general fund expense outside of public safety is just we decided to clean up and help clean up and pick up garbage in the neighborhoods that were affected by the flood so a fire for example would likely be in open space and therefore it would be the open space fund that would be affected is that true I mean it depends what our policy on that would be so we may not want the open space fund to bear the entire burden of that sort of event okay but at

[89:03] some point this like you said the state would the state funding would kick in that that would be more on actually fighting the fires depending on the the damage to the land and we ran into the same issue with FEMA and our trails and and how they view that in terms of reimbursement and in a lot of cases how they wanted us to put the trails back weren't the way that we felt was the best way to do it so we actually in some cases weren't able to get reimbursed for certain projects okay thank you Thanks that's just wonderful the five years and the four year plan are substantially different in terms of the amount of reserve that we well I know I

[90:05] was just talking to Heather and and I know she was working with CIO to look at ways to actually change the cash flow of the expenses but you know I can I can say you generally when you do a bond you do it over the life of what what the expense or expected life of that is so it probably for me given the short timeframe I don't think there's a huge difference between the four year and the five year certainly to get that expense from the fund balance perspective quicker was probably better from a financial perspective yes this is to get to the go/no-go decision and we're looking to finance that over a longer

[91:00] period of time than that correct right but I also think they're working on ways to not have so much of the expense upfront so it wouldn't have quite the effect on the fund balance in the early years okay thank you Thanks okay is that good for questions for now so why don't we thank you why don't we turn to the public hearing okay we have four people okay if anybody else wants to sign up please do so now and we're gonna hear on all three of these matters in one hearing I think we said that before but with that each person will have three minutes and we will start with Carrie and you have the order up there folks can just be ready hi my name is Kerri Chris Jana

[92:00] I'm the Boulder landlord and a Berthoud voter we've come all the way for a full circle it feels very much like deja vu in many ways and it's very hard to talk because I am so supportive of the city's goals but I've also taken another path as everybody knows and most people here I'm gonna focus on the creation of the utility measures I'm not really gonna comment on the other ones I have very strong feelings about this particular one especially due to you know my history of understanding where we've been and actually very strongly agree with staff that the option that was presented here by mr. Guerra that would include a vote on debt is the proper way to go I've been attending the QC trial have taken over 110 pages of notes and nowhere have I heard of a debt approval measure in 2017 mentioned and I also was there today and mr. icon who gave some

[93:01] very intelligent and you know good testimony testified under oath that a 2017 measure would in his words be half-baked and I'm very concerned that the alternate be which wasn't read aloud but that I read in the packet last night at like late at night because I've been so busy going into this that I agree that mr. with mr. item that the public is not educated yet on these issues which was roughly his words and that that I'll alternate be strips the Charter of the rate parity provision which I have found really like really like wow we're really going to do that I think that's totally wrong and the words that were added instead is that the city would not incur any debt for the separation cost etc unless quote counsel finds that the utility likely can operate for the ten years after startup with average annual cost lower than those of Excel during the same period I would point out that either it's poorly

[94:01] written or it is it just doesn't make any sense you know Muni is going to be one twentieth the size there is no knocking to be any apples-to-apples about operating costs it's like saying we could incur debt if we go outside and find out that the sky is still blue I mean I just think that it's really I was shocked you know to be honest with you in any case I also think the idea of creating the utility could be a problematic still even though I mean I understand why you're doing it but I think that Excel will still have some arguments I don't know and they haven't told me that I'm last thing is I think that you know I just wanted to say that I think that the joint ownership issue is a joint use issue is going to be a huge one and just having lived in Newlands raised children there and had people you know neighbors that I love write notes on my car saying please don't Park here I don't think that people are going to like having higher pole and more equipment on that that would take the users mostly just

[95:01] just my guess thanks thank you Kay Chris thank you Chris Hoffman 1280 Fairfield Drive in Boulder first I want to thank you all for your careful deliberation on this I really appreciate it I want to say I support councilman Weaver's proposed amendments for the increase the utility occupation tax with the six-year plan and also on ordinance 194 and 81 93 I think those make them stronger I think on the executive sessions and formation of utility I'm still considering that what would be best but I think councilman Weaver's amendments make them stronger what I'd like to focus on is the extension of the utility occupation tax the extension in addition adds only

[96:02] about two and a half cents per day and I'm more than happy to pay this particularly with the inaction of the federal level on climate this is the very least we can do it's up to communities to take the lead we have a long way to go to need our climate commitment and forming the municipal utility is in the most efficient way to get there so I strongly support the extension increase of the utility occupation tax thank you Chris Molly hello council Immersion thank you so much for your time my name is Molly Fitzpatrick and I'm the organizing director with New Era Colorado first off want to thank you so much for your dedication these last few weeks and tonight as you determine the appropriate method as to continue our path towards a cleaner and locally controlled power utility at every

[97:00] opportunity our community has chosen to advance and affirm the decision we made on the municipal zation effort because we know the importance of tackling climate change and we have no doubt that this fall will be another illustration of this sentiment there's a lot of low-hanging fruit out there when it comes to addressing climate change but we all know that that's not enough and that's why our community committed to such a serious path despite its complications meaningful action addressing climate change is hard and challenging and there are no shortcuts especially for our community which has never shied away from complex problems and consistent and consistently has been willing to go where no or few other communities have gone before and that's why we're here tonight so that's why we do support the extension of the utility occupation tax to continue this commitment to pursuing our climate goals Boulder has the most educated electorate in the entire country and we know that our voters do not make decisions lightly this is definitely a complex issue but we trust that the voters understand the commitment to our climate goals and the hard work because if a just transition requires the impact on Boulder boulders

[98:03] consumers will be small as we continue to pursue the only option we have to reach our communities chemicals thank you so much for your time Thank You Molly the sleek western i couldíve mean leslie western 44 92 poor place I got so enthralled with Molly I forgot I was up so thank you as always and briefly I support all three ballot measures with language that's very close to what you have on I think there's changes if you need to make them but think of section 178 changes are good and I strongly support a vote of the community before we make that final decision when they have as much information as we can get executive sessions I think it's important to to add the language about no executive sessions on discussions that would terminate the municipal electric utility if Xcel wants to have a relationship

[99:01] with this community they need to have a relationship with this community and that means going through the process that you all go through every week which is massive public input and all these different opinions and you have to sort of bring them all together and figure it out so Excel will need to learn how to function in that environment I know it's difficult for them but that's what it means to have a relationship with Boulder so and on YouTube the occupation tax I think there's a slide that will come up and not too long Diane I think got it and she was gonna do it but I will describe it to you if we look at the utility occupation tax under the six-year plan we can talk about the three-year plan and a few minutes too but under the six-year plan about 2.75 million used for muni in comparison a very conservative estimate of boulders profits that they take out of our community every year is in the neighborhood of 18 million I've used after tax numbers I've used a four

[100:00] percent we're four percent a bowl of excels sales we're probably about five percent of their revenue and I've kept there so the graph is very stunning because you see the little utility occupation tax numbers down at the bottom and you see the big red bars which are excels profits and I'm sorry that it's not here but I'll send it to you and and so you know we could do the three year plan or would take it up to about I think five or six million a year for the utility occupation tax and suite because you can see a graph is worth a lot of words the occupation tax the red bars are a very conservative estimate of excess profits one way to think about it is we need to invest the blue bars even if you bring them down to a fiver for even a three-year plan some of those red bars anyways because we'll be sending

[101:04] down to Utilities Commission with the last twenty trying to do to meet our climate commitment cuz there's no real clear way to do it and we'll just be spending a lot of money on attorneys down at the Commission and you know we've all been seen how slow that goes so I want to congratulate staff they've done a great job down at Commission and I we don't know how the decision will come out but they deserve a tremendous amount of credit so thank you thank you can you you know that - 305 38 degree I support the occupation tax six years it's not nice to pay and I do not support executive session for anything ever I don't believe in the secrets and when many transact and lawyers getting wind I especially don't believe in secrets

[102:03] thanks Thank You Lynn anyone else okay we'll close the public hearing okay and I suggest that we work through these one at a time does that work so when we start the utility occupation tax and you throw up the questions and this is just one way to structure the conversation I thought we've already answered these haven't we given clear direction on a through C yes not final decisions but okay I think it comes down to well also Sam has some proposed language but yeah for how long we want to look at the text then I mean somebody know let's change their mind we'll skip right to D and then Sam I guess you have

[103:03] language my language doesn't affect D so we can consider it separately okay so who would like to speak to the length of it attacks because we we definitely have a trade-off between hey I'm Dan and then Erin well I sense from the questions that we all have some concerns about the reserves clearly the longer period of time customers and businesses paid less but the hit to the financials for the city is fairly significant so I guess you know I guess I'm on the page of maybe five years to try to shell up some of those reserves a little bit more than the six year plan would okay good well I had asked for the analysis of the impact on the reserves because that was a very material part of my thinking on this

[104:01] question and and if the analysis had showed that the reserves would go down by you know a few percent you know we in the six year plan then I would have supported that but they show a really substantial reduction in the reserves my calculations from the numbers this snap provided showed that from our current reserves to the to the bottom point in each of the years number of years then in the six-year plan it would take the reserves down thirty seven and a half percent the five-year plan would drop them 33 percent the four-year plane 24% and the three-year plan 21% so there's a there's a pretty big difference in the percentage drop that you get with at different years but to me there's the the sweet spot in that is that the four-year level where you're reducing the reserves by 24% which is still a substantial chunk but you're getting them back in three years after they first take their drop wears it and if you cut it back to a three-year tax you

[105:00] only get a small benefit to the reduction in the dessert there's only a small amount less hit the reserves if that made any sense so based on the the numbers and the analysis on the reserves I think the four year would give us a chance to spread out the impact on the monthly rates for community members but have an impact on the reserves that I think would be more acceptable and less risky so that's that's the number of years that I would prefer so I want to bring up a structural issue just about timing before I get into where my thinking is I don't believe we need to finalize these decisions tonight if we are in what I will characterize is split here because there's a few people missing and I don't believe and David can correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe that there is a major train wreck if we don't complete anything tonight and we have to see it a couple more times is that right David that's correct it's just your meeting

[106:00] time so anyway that's context for my next statement which is if what we heard from Cheryl is correct that staff is taking a look at potentially adjusting expenses that would impact have this reserve analysis look I'd be interested in knowing about that before making a final commitment I mean I think Erin's analysis is right for what's here I would want to pick either the four or the five year not the six based on this and so I appreciate you asking the question and staff for providing the answer but in there you go I'm straddling the fence on 4 & 5 I would probably go more towards 5 if there was a way that we could adjust a spin plan that kept our reserve level a little higher did I ask so just one point on you know

[107:01] I think that adjusting how we spend the money is something that we really can't foresee right now because I think that what it's gonna we're gonna have to have a strategy about how we negotiate contracts and perhaps one approach would be and we did this and some of our product earlier contracting is that we set limits on the amount that could be collected in any given year on a contract but of course you know you have to have somebody who's willing to do that and of course also that's running a business that can cash flow with those kind of expected future payments so I really kind of think that you'd be my advice that you look at it more from the worst-case scenario at with the knowledge that we could probably as we get into the actual contracting back that offs at some point as I'm moving to the future so is that safe to say that we won't be getting any more information that would help influence this decision

[108:00] well I know we could give you some more information my fear is is that it would be highly speculative in terms of you know we're gonna be moving into using other consultants other consultants have payrolls to meet are they going to be willing to say I'll take my payment years 3 & 4 for the work I do in one so some of those kind of things we can certainly try to negotiate them and I think that as we move forward we will try to reduce the impact to the general fund but I think as you do your revenue planning you probably want to walk into it with some conservative assumptions okay so if we want to for instance I know we need to here for more people but let's say we're split on 4 & 5 would you recommend we just move two versions forward or just leave that been Inc I think you could you could move to forward it would be great if you could have consensus on one and read

[109:01] abate it when you have the full council okay if you just do it that way yeah okay Matt yeah I'm not that different from other people are although I guess I look at the numbers slightly differently it's Aaron I'd I don't think at least for me it's not very helpful to say it's 21% less reserves I mean what really matters is the Reserve balance percentage which is that bottom line on the on the chart we've got on page I don't know whatever it is for 39 and it's interesting because if you look at six five and four yeah the first three years at least you know four six for the six year plan the reserve percentage the balance is twelve eleven twelve and for a five-year tax it's twelve and a half twelve and thirteen not very much

[110:02] different and for the four year it's thirteen thirteen again that very much difference and then 15 and so really the difference is just how long the reserve is short and a percentage doesn't saying it's 20 percent difference doesn't tell you anything honestly it's more well how low does it get well all of these are about the same the first two or three years frankly not much difference there and and even if you could do some contractual stuff I don't think it would change those numbers by what 1/2 a percent so I mean I think those are gonna stay the same so really it's the comfort level of having an extra year or an extra two years with a reserve balance at least in theory is lower than you'd like it to be at least that's the way I look at it and you know is that a big deal yeah it's kind of a big deal I

[111:02] mean we don't you know the conversation earlier about disaster and so on was interesting but and some of that may come into play someday but I think the main reason we like to have the reserves as high as we do for operating in the general fund is really economic downturns and it's not that you can prevent an economic downturn or you can't in the end eventually in the end you have to eventually cut things but you can do so at least at your pace you can do it a little more slowly and intelligently and instead of oh my god tomorrow we have to you know people have had six million dollars out of the budget and lay people off you know we've been through some economic downturns I've been around long enough to be on councils that had to deal with them they're unavoidable but you can certainly smooth them out and reduce the community impacts by having some reserve

[112:02] dollars that's the big deal so I guess somewhere other people are four or five years I don't know I'd have to think about it some more yes four years means that the tax goes up some I mean it it doubles essentially it's not a huge number but it's you know everything matters you know in terms of which one is fair or that's I just have trouble figuring that out honestly you could say well it'd be fairer to you know make everybody pay for it immediately but in some sense this is like bonding because people are paying into something that has a much longer-term impact so the benefit accrues over many many many many many years and so in that sense I don't have any trouble have much trouble with the tax also continuing over a longer period of time just like we do with bonding the catch in this thing is that unlike a

[113:02] bond because this is general fund money and because a lot of the money needs to be up frontage you have that window will you have a reserve issue and that's the party I think we're struggling with understand the play I might add right so you know I I probably move the four and five year together for two reasons first of all we're missing three people but secondly even in the hopes that we could be unanimous on something which maybe we can be I think if we did both of them I think it would help the community focus in on here are the choices if you have some opinion about these two choices let us know it's not a million choices anymore right there's a couple of choices they have pros and cons fine so people can weigh in on that and we can all ponder it along with our three colleagues who aren't here for the next couple of weeks so that's that's

[114:00] where I go I you know they're both they're both reasonable approaches frankly we just need to be honest about what the differences are okay well I'm gonna make this short I agree with you Matt and I don't get to say that very often so I'm just gonna say that I think four or five is the sweet spot I mean the fact that the tax on the average person for four years is about twenty about 25 bucks a year again not nothing but is a I'm not you can get your head around so I'm fine with letting yeah I agree with you so we don't have everybody here let's let's call that our decision space and that could be tucked into either one depending on if you guys know yes if people have opinions I could be talking to four I think and I think just for what it's worth I'm probably

[115:00] gonna end up coming down at five I mean you look at the differences on those matt said where you get to on the low as far as the percentage reserve which is really I agreed the right way to look at that and then you look at the difference between four and five and you're roughly doubling the impact on people from going from five to four so that one year change has saved you a percent but it's doubled the rate impact and so when I think about lower members of the community that's where I started thinking about five I was just gonna ask one other quick question which doesn't really have to be answered tonight but it could be a couple of weeks I mean obviously we're gonna see the budget the 2018 budget somewhere along the line here and I don't know yet what that calls for in terms of perhaps putting some additional money into the reserves that's something we could choose to do not only because of this frankly but just generally good practice

[116:01] Farrell said we were at 17% would try to shoot for 20% and maybe we do want to try to put a little bit more into the reserves which would help out with this as well especially in those immediate years the first years and you know if it doesn't pass the next council can always do an adjustment to the budget and change all of that if that's what they choose to do and if it does pass that might give us a little more relief from some of the concerns we have obviously we haven't seen the budget yet so I I can't answer that question until we see it but maybe staff could give us a little bit of advice on that when they get there no I Mary and so I too don't often get to say I agree with that and and I think that I also am leaning in

[117:02] the five years because as I look at the bottom line there in the reserve balance in the fourth year at the five-year year practically at the minimum recommended reserve I did just a quick little research as to what is recommended and that's 16% so we're practically there in year four so I I would be leaning towards the the five year myself do you just clarify what's with 16% what are you no I just just quickly went online and I did a search for minimum Reserve balance for cities and found a government report that recommends 16% so and where are you seeing 16% I'm seeing in the in the table with the five years where you at the bottom line there you've got twelve point six twelve point one thirteen point two and then fifteen point six

[118:02] percent in year four percent so and then I think also in light of one of our consent agenda items which was the audit report and how well the city is managed and Cheryl's clarification about how our bond rating would likely not be hurt because we have a plan about how to get back up so I but I do think that six years starts to make me a little more uncomfortable four years it seems like it's just like Sam said it doubles the impact on on folks doubles so I'd be leaning in the five years okay so it looks like Jan did you give another four or five yeah I think talked pretty

[119:01] conservative from the fiscal standpoint and so getting down into the twelve percent range is pretty concerning to me so I really said five years I think four years is more comfortable companies gonna say we're taking this decision as a community not because we had to because we're voting on it it's a strategy to take these levels down and you know I don't know how they'll react when as Cheryl said also the SP guidance is sixteen percent and we were making a conscious decision to go four points below that in the five-year plan so I don't know I think it's good that we don't vote tonight having three extra members would be important so I really think we should take the four on the five forward that's let's do that you said you want us to choose one and forward that you don't

[120:00] have to okay so maybe we'll just and then yeah and I don't know if we have it up or not but the essential two points that I was bringing forward here was the purpose of why we're doing this right so it's to you know live up to our climate commitment the Paris agreement other reasons that we're doing this include improvements to system reliability and creating more energy related business opportunities so that's just a set of benefits that I thought we should have in front of the voters as to why we want this to go forward and then I also thought we might provide some reassurance that if we take a no-go decision that for some reason has to come earlier than we plan and there could be reasons for that that we would finish paying off our obligations but

[121:01] stop the tax at that point and I don't think we've explicitly said that so I just thought we would put that in there to make it easier for people to understand that we've got rules around what happens if there's a what if go ahead you had oh I did I had a question just David do we run into any Tabor issues with with language like this or are we fine this language I'm fine with great thanks well but this so you'd actually put this this is really my question into the ballot title which would now be one of our longer sentences on record if it's in the title some well I don't know where else it would be see that was really Mike well I don't have any trouble with the wording I just don't quite understand where it is because so my interpretation of it was

[122:02] on packet page 422 if you go to Hawaiian approximately five that's in the ballot in the ballot Tyler used to fund cost associated with the municipal electric utility and then you would add this right and and that's what I'm assuming too but it makes for one heck of a long ballot Idol remember these things are supposed to be one sentence with a question mark at the end of them and this probably doubles the length of the unreadable title so that gives me a little concern but because if you don't put it in the title people tend not to find it because you know where is it well I don't know it's nowhere essentially it's in some backup material so I don't know and so I did want to strike two words from here David and is my fault for not getting it to you I would pull and resilience out at this

[123:03] point just focus on one there's an attempt to bring some words out and if we want to remove the energy related business not the unities that's okay as well you know this was just a stab at putting the motivating language into someplace where people could find it when they were reading that I think it'd be good if we got rid of the energy-related and again it's not because I don't agree with any of this it's just it's really a more practical issue having a 100 word ballot title sentence that people are not going to be able to parse so we probably if we want to do that I'd just point out that we want to put an end between Paris climate agreement and improves to start reliability of the business pieces I mean cuz that's part of to me the it it is baby I'm fine with passing this now but I do think we should all if we're gonna do it we should go back and really think about what is critical to have in

[124:00] this this wording because I think when you see these words in the title you realize it's one heck of a long outfit title okay why don't we just take out and resilience and pass it as is and we know we're gonna we're setting ourselves up for third reading and that's fine I would like to have some time to talk with people about their thoughts on this is about because there was certainly no among the community members I talked to her there was no consensus and part of that was just a lack of time to talk it yeah well that's fine that's fine on both of these issues okay actually okay I think this is really helpful because one of the problems with Mela titles is not in language you can relate to this helps I think paint the picture what we're talking about so I think that's worth adding in length again I agree if only we had some control over how ballot titles were written didn't have to be written in this ayah lized single sentence nonsense all caps all in caps this is a table

[125:01] that nobody can parse so that's really what I'm concerned about it so no I totally get yeah I just I was moving on to say I would support this language as we just amended it yeah that's fine very cool okay we are dangerously close to being done with this one oops and I just wanted to just a language change request from the go no-go could we call it something like community approval vote or something like that instead of go no-go it just seems so divisive and it would be nice to just say voter approval or voter chicken something that is really more what we're really talking about are you talking about the third thing forget

[126:00] no no I'm jus I guess we're talking about they you put okay nevermind okay so since we're not I think we're not voting but we oh well yeah I think it would be yes it's good to move this language and just amend if there is a consensus on council and then we'll try to set up the policy discussion that you'll have on August 15th regarding whether we go with but it sounds like four years or five years okay in terms of length so the motion that is is we're coming up with is to pass two versions this amended by this language one for over the four-year time period and one over the five-year time period yep okay I'm making that a motion a second any more discussion on that hey just so that I can clarify which is and for the clerk we'll need another

[127:00] ordinance number and that the titles of both of those ordinances will reflect the duration of time and the amounts of money for the taxation amounts that are included on packet pages for 18 and for 19 okay all those in favor it is unanimous okay thank you for that let's go to the executive session one I think most of these we've answered - except for the wording yeah can we get the council questions sure yeah you may have to come back there yep okay

[128:06] yeah nothing's happening didn't miss much just you could just leave it as isn't go to the next slide that's all we need okay no I guess it's many slides okay okay yes so those are particularly okay so I think before we indicated we are interested in moving forward to executive session until it's more about the wording of it so good question um yes yes so David if we have the version that said that we couldn't discuss a franchise with Excel would would that be something that couldn't be brought up at all I like if someone in in you know in an executive session wanted to say well

[129:01] maybe at some point in a meeting we could talk about a franchise would they be allowed to do that kind of put the idea out or with the language prevent even that level of I would say it would probably I mean if you were being safe about it you would probably not mention that so to kind of it would strike that the ability to speak yeah I couldn't say the f-word in an executive session okay that was my question and and lead with a comment sure and yeah and then Sam it has some proposed language so we might as well get that and play too well I mean I can I can go either way honestly but I think it's important to have some more transparency around the executive sessions than we've had in the past I'd like to see more announcements of the rough topics that were attacking which i

[130:02] think is proposed here that we would give you know a subject in as much as it wouldn't compromise the function of the executive session side I like that but I would like to retain the flexibility for at least EPIK of an agreement to be able to be broached in in a session and and I'm I'm happy too I liked staffs suggestion of needing to notice it if you're going to have an active discussion of that topic so that we could be open with the community that if we were going to actually discuss that have a functional discussion on that that people would know about it so that's that's my preference I guess I do have one other question if I totally get the intent of this and I think I think Sam's language it actually is helpful if we decided hey it's just if we wanted to discuss whether we thought it was time to go into franchise and therefore go public

[131:01] we can't that discussion - we could not have an executive session yeah so just to be clear so ordinates 8 1 9 for its attachment B that's the more restrictive language and it provides that provided however such sessions may not include legal advice or negotiation strategy related to an elected to electric franchises so that's pretty specific in terms of what you can't talk about the other one ordinance number 81 90 the language is a little bit broader or I guess it perhaps allows a little bit more flexibility it allows it to be discussed but it requires it to be noticed sure I mean I think the concern in the community at least some parts of the community is

[132:01] that there are other ways to discuss settlements that could end the progress towards municipal utility that wouldn't mention the word franchise or franchises but you'd be talking about issues that you intend to address with Xcel that would be on the path to terminating the utility well I think that specifically is what some members of the public are asking that we have the be public and you heard something that testimony tonight you know I think I'm there with them in that are we to have a long-term relationship with Excel we all need to be practiced to talking about what the main issues are in public there's nothing about this that prevents individual council members from speaking with David Eve's or any other Excel personnel right as long as they're not reporting it back this way and as long as they're not breaking any

[133:01] other sunshine laws or open meeting those rules so as far as thinking through you know with somebody from Excel or our staff can talk with Excel I don't think this prevents that what it prevents us from doing is talking as a governing body about stuff that I think a lot of members of the community don't want to be behind closed doors and so that's why I'm going to support it I'm proposed it that way because there are other issues we would settle with Excel that could be on the way to a municipal electric utility right like joint use of poles well that's something that we could talk with them about and then come up to the settlement with and it would be moving us towards a municipal electric utility and I don't think that would cause unhappiness among people who are keeping the close watch on this so anyhow there you go that's how I got to this proposal and David I think you had it up there was like 1/3 of the words for Shawna's crossed that one I thought I added but

[134:02] yeah if you were gonna go back to that slide yeah okay so there's some amendments proposed I don't know for I don't know why what's on my screen right now is done some reason it's only allowing me doubt [Music] so I think that just in terms of you know we did a quick analysis of Sam's language for the most part I think we're fine with it there were a couple of components in it that we would we think adds a little bit of confusion with some

[135:00] of the confusion that we've been trying to take out of the Charter and so the the use of the term the formation of and form those questions are really going to be dealt with in our next discussion because we're asking them if you also put the Charter section 178 like step on the ballot we want to resolve the issue of formation once and for all with that charter measure so these changes are really just intended to make it concurrent with her consistent with that idea thank you for that so good I guess I have a question on this one because I I mean all along I think the voters expected us to talk about or they had authorized to us to talk about potential offerings and they're one of their original boats and remember what year

[136:01] that was and so in this language does because an off ramp doesn't necessarily mean franchise it's kind of pre discussions before getting to franchise discussion and one of the concerns that I have is you know I mean we have been voted in to try to do the best we can for the for the bolder entire population and all the voters in the city and I mean this is very difficult stuff and we have had to talk about in the past you know forming a utility all the nuts and bolts around it but also talk about potential offer amps and your negotiation capability completely goes away if you have to talk about off ramps with Excel sitting in the room we're listening right so in terms of intent and I think off ramp is different than a franchise agreement clearly a franchise agreement should and can be done after we've kind

[137:02] of agreed to take an off-ramp or consider an off-ramp and that I mean that's basically what we did when we gave the people a chance to vote in on if we should be considering the off-ramp right and we got an O so I guess that's that's what I struggle with here is if we if you can't talk about anything having to do with an off-ramp in executive session does that really tie our hands behind our back to come up with the best solution for boulderr2 so I would see David if you have any thoughts on what Jan was talking about because off ramps as I understand them their Charter requirements right well so I mean I guess that there's probably a couple of different ways of looking at an off-ramp the first way probably the most fatalistic way is to just say something along the lines of we're done we were

[138:01] just gonna abandon the efforts and it seems like if you were to be taking that approach to an off-ramp that's probably something under this language that you could do on the other hand if that objective is we want to try to get as much as we can while taking an off-ramp out of the deal that's not allowed by this language and I think that this language is intended to not allow that type of a discussion to happen in an executive session yes go follow up on that sure how does this language allow you to say we're done because it seems like that would terminate Bullers effort to operate in penny municipal because it says franchises or other settlement discussion so I have no idea how we could make a decision so you wouldn't disguise you couldn't make this way you

[139:01] would say how about we quit having executive sessions and go publicly savers right right and if you were in that realm the realm is being described here I think you and he would probably or we as staff would go into the same communication mode that we typically do with the council in terms of sensitive topics either communicating in writing with confidential memos or scheduling one one on one or one on two council member meetings so that you've we can discuss our concerns in that manner as well but the key thing is if even with this language which is I mean it's really the same as the what's in our packet but it's a little more explanatory which which I think I like because I think for most people just saying strategy laid into electric franchises is not abundantly clear and we talk in code we all know that and so I think explaining what that means is

[140:02] helpful but but Jana the reason I'm not worried about what you asked is based on what David said and also my reading of this is yeah if a council at some point for instance got some legal advice or some cost came up or our engineers said oh oh you could have that conversation an executive session council could say what do you mean but what is tell us more about this advice tell us how you got here you know what are the options and on and on and on and on and on all of that would be fine in an executive session because it is legal advice after all if Council at that point said hey we think this isn't gonna work you could have you could talk about you could at least say that in the executive session of course then you'd have to go to a public session but that's true now anyway because you can't make decisions in an executive session by definition so you'd of course have to pop back out so

[141:00] the only thing you can't do would be if the council got to that point and then somebody said gee what's the best deal we can make with Excel now know that you'd have to pop back out but I think you'd want to do that anyway because she'd you know if you're really gonna try to abandon the effort I think that's where you want to have the public conversation about abandoning it and then see where that leads you I again I don't I think our I said this last time and I'll stick to it I think even though it was definitely awkward I think the work the council did negotiating with Excel was important at the time we did it because I don't think those negotiations would have happened otherwise so it was critical and I think the outcomes of those negotiations were critical for the community and frankly the PUC to see but that was then and I don't think that's gonna repeat in the same way so I think I don't think this

[142:03] really ties the futures councils hands in terms of everything up to end including Jesus isn't working we need to come back out publicly and talk about why we think this isn't working and have a conversation about what the next steps might be and you know if that eventually led to some negotiations with Excel about what would a good deal look like yeah you might have to go back to the community to talk about how that would work but that's that's a little bit several steps down the line and I don't think it needs to be resolved in this ballot issue so just to confirm what you're saying youyou think the intent back a few years ago was to explore this or explore an off-ramp and you're saying now that we went down that path it didn't work that you don't think enough ramp will ever be a no no let's let's

[143:03] define an off-ramp there's different types okay the off ramps in the sense of we don't think this is going to work don't go away that is always something council can discuss both an executive session if it's a legal matter off ramp just in that case it just means we have to stop it but but what was different previously was yeah I think there was some understanding that the council might have a conversation with Excel about all native approaches I think since we're going back to the public to ask them do they want to continue with the muni knowing what they now know which is a lot more than they knew before yeah I think I think it would be inappropriate for council to all the sudden start with Excel or anybody about some other settlement discussions that would not include creating immunity that your

[144:01] voters just voted for quite explicitly so I just want to try and bring a little clarity to the hall fraps concept in 2011 Charter the tax was approved chartered language was put in and the Charter language said and I think these were added later right therefore off-ramps it said rates will be equal to or better on day one and those came two years later but the rates will be equal to or better and day one you have a plan for emissions reduction reliability will be the same and whatever the fourth so these were charter metrics that were required and debt coverage ratio right so those four things had to be met and approved by a third party reviewer if that happened then council could approve the formation of the utility and so those were kind of gates that utility

[145:02] formation happened in 2014 so even though that language is still in the Charter we did a test against those for off-ramps found that we thought we would be good and then council formed a utility so in a sense those off ramps are no longer available for us to need to take unless the district court started Supreme Court sends us back and supports the appeals court ruling that had come and said you didn't meet your off-ramps but right now what the next thing we're going to talk about 178 is going to be addressing exactly that issue of HOF ramps and so there are more tests of can you meet this as the third party looks at it rather than options for council to say we're gonna negotiate one of those off ramps with Excel so I just wanted to does anyone disagree with that interpretation of off ramp well slightly because again I think there are other

[146:02] things that would cause council to have some pause assuming this process continues again it could be some legal advice that says something very unexpected and really bad happened I mean let's say I'm just really making don't even give an example we know even know I will give one example because it popped in my mind I mean if we ever do get the condemnation because here we go and if we ever get the condemnation and you know there are some rulings about what you have to pay for what you don't have to pay for that a contrary to what we expect that would be legal advice and strategy that counsel would have to really seriously consider about well is that one step too far but nonetheless we still wouldn't make any decisions no session we we could hear about what the implication of the condemnation court ruling was as far as what the costs

[147:01] would be correct and then we would probably but the key thing is you could have that conversation and the legal advice about that in an executive session and then try to figure out what the next steps are sorry if you're not precluded from doing that so one thing in this thing that I still question is it says may not include legal advice or negotiation strategy I totally get people don't want us to negotiate a franchise or termination efforts an executive session and I'm fine with that when it says we may not include legal advice does that mean we can't give it or get it now because I think the idea for us to ask questions of our lawyers about things is this is a strange thing to but it's only relative to the franchise or anything that would terminate

[148:00] anything that would terminate it correct well I write so I to me that's just a strange thing to include because I presume asking questions of lawyers isn't something that's a problem it's us negotiating um that's the issue so I'll just throw that into the mix of it I always kind of think that's an interesting construct now you can go thank you well I'm just I'm guessing Mary that you support something similar like this can I ask you that question would you because I'm interested in hearing from you before I would support it and I mean I guess I'll just go ahead and see if you don't mind thanks Aaron I'd love that you'd love to hear from me so what I'm thinking is that the passage of this executive session whenever it

[149:00] passed in what 2014 was it 2013 you don't recall but the passage of it in any case was a really really really real departure from how we do things this was an exception that the community made that I don't think the community took lightly and we did not take lightly in putting it out there for the voters to vote on so if the community is feeling uncomfortable with how things have proceeded and proposing this language that that Sam has proposed and it can make the difference between it passing and not and I'm I want to support it and night I like the language I think I think it's a good addition and yeah so so we're you know

[150:01] yes so thank you very and and so I my guess is that there's a majority council support for taking an approach you know basically what would Sam outline and David can I just ask one more question on on this language so you know we wouldn't be able to obtain advice for a negotiation strategy under this language related to those matters right the settlement matters but would and not that I have any intention of doing this I'm just trying to preserve flexibility for future future councils would someone be able to say hey look guys I'm interested in having a public discussion of negotiating with Xcel just so that the topic could be broached by a council member not not advised about or negotiate the strategy but at least that someone could say that so that that could signal an intention for some future public meeting yeah I think that that would be okay

[151:01] because it doesn't sound like that type of a statement would one constitute legal advice or to really be a discussion of any type of negotiating strategy it's really pushing a price you know requesting that a process be started thank you and again having no personal intention of doing such a thing anytime remotely soon given that that to me gives enough flexibility for future councils that I could I can say look I would propose just moving forward with this given the majority support yeah and thanks Sam for wordsmithing so would you care to make a motion sure I move that we back in so I'd get it right to ask a question are we making a motion to vote on this are we making a motion to move this forward to the next meeting where the entire council could vote on that second second okay yeah and it would be an it would be amended and then it would

[152:03] be represented to the council at the next meeting right if you think this is a bad idea don't vote for it but if you think it should be in the mix you see all right so I move to pass as amended on second reading and with the further months that are on the screen ordinance 81 94 submitting to the electors of the city of Boulder at the regular mismo meeting to be held Tuesday November 7 2017 the question of whether to amend section 9 of the Boulder Home Rule Charter to extend this there were two told executive sessions until December 31st 2023 setting forth the ballot title specifying the form of the ballot and related details second we said what needs to be said mr. belman and I'm looking at even 94 and it said David

[153:01] didn't look at this before so anyone 94 in our packet which is the one that is basically like this that says you can't have advice on franchises if you look at the ballot question the ballot title it still says prohibit any discussions about negotiating a franchise unless there was public notice that such discussions would be included so that's not right that's not right so that needs to get maybe that was just copied from the other one yeah so that needs to be indexing the title yeah and it's in the title which is so great so that needs to be fixed and you could either I don't know you can fix it any way you want to you could include some of the words from this but it needs to be fixed one way or the other do we need to specify those words here okay we and I do think yeah some words

[154:02] that adequately convey the intentions of this is that enough David I think that really what else you would have to do is strike everything after unless to the semicolon and then insert the language from the last clause of this yeah that's probably right yep okay I'm not following but it was page so any discussions about negotiating a franchise or other settlement decision that would terminate boulders effort to operate an independent municipal electric utility it's on the top of page 433 authors for 30:41 oh well okay you'd also have to fix the title on top of page 431 you would that's actually our ordinance and so that would have to be

[155:02] changed when it comes back for the next reading but I assumed they would do that but really what really matters is what's in the valid title okay so yeah and just reading the ordinance title I think it's sufficiently broad to cover this okay so the ordinance title I did it you remember the ordinance title isn't going on the ballot right it's that's yes and it's addressed there to restrict the purpose of executive sessions okay so that's that's pretty broad language so good catch man okay with that so move second amended and then shall we vote yeah all those in favor unanimous begrudgingly a unanimous Jay the third one collaboratively collaboratively

[156:04] crazy can I just say I'm confused about this one is this a ballot measure or do we decide this it would be about me to develop that room it's a charter change okay okay you know what in the end it okay you know what we're gonna end up having you go back to Sam's language yet again okay why don't you just go ahead and picture ogwuche okay just for people who are watching this measure would prefer a charter amendment to the voters and it would establish the utility it passed by the voters and what had happened before

[157:02] was Council established the utilities that's what's been challenged in court so if the people voted to pass this I believe it would extinguish that court case effectively and it also promises the future vote right that's how I understand this measure is it promises the future vote before we can bond right so bonding authority is not given for separation unless there's the vote of the public and so that is said about right yeah the utilities formed but we can't go out for debt until it goes back to the voters and if I might just say one thing so the way the Charter section 178 a is now set up and this is my interpretation of it is that it's set up it's I think it's designed to be set up with a bunch of checks and balances to make sure that we don't move into this next step lightly I think that what this is being replaced with is kind of the ultimate check and

[158:00] balance when you actually ask the voters to approve that next step right and so what I would point out however is that when it does remove those Charter requirements those checks and balances which we have you know heard from a third party authority that we've already qualified for it removes what people perceive as the off ramps and the Tartar and so I guess the the reason that I proposed this language and actually have stronger language if we need to go there is that this guarantees that that check and balance that they've described to voters being able to vote is well informed so that we commit the city can you page yeah sure we commit the city effectively to providing information on all these subjects my ideas up there to David took all that out so David talked to me about

[159:01] why the data provision requirements of that idea well I think the primary reason is is that and this is probably abundant legal caution so I'll admit that but one of the things that we learned from the initial doc adoption of 178 a is is that when we added a lot of tasks we added a lot of opportunities for people to say that we didn't do it right and this the language that you have in here is another list of things that potentially somebody will argue that we didn't do it right and of course one said the original 178 a was drafted with great intentions the result has been you know four years of litigation

[160:00] and and we're looking at it so like I said is it fatal no would I advise it probably not either and and I probably wouldn't advise it just based on the fact that we're dealing with an opponent that understands the value of delay okay I get that I'll just ask one follow-up question are there not lawyer words that you can put into this that make things like best available data which I tried I tried lawyer words but clearly I'm not good at them but something that hedges us against now your top-line advice is probably right okay if you were going to try and make this better how would you do it and I'm not this is not a lay down on the track sister for me it was an attempt to show voters who are going to look at this that we will be trying to

[161:00] provide them the best information possible so they can make their decision and specifically on the four issues that they cared about so was not to have any requirements that we perform at any level relative to those issues it was just that they have information about them so they can vote well I guess we could come up with some ideas my primary concern would be to put it in the would be putting it in the Charter and really kind of create another vulnerability that we're trying to get rid of by this change in the first place there are probably other places that we could put something like this we could put it in the end codified portion of you ordinance as legislative intent we could consider what it might look like if we were actually to put it in the utility ordinance that's entitled leaven of our code right now so there's some other places where we could put it yeah it

[162:04] would be a little concerned about you know kind of the sanctity of when something is voter approved in the Charter so okay but the idea of putting it somewhere else as intent yeah that would be my preference so you know we could add you know we have you know add a new section five and read remember everything in this organism at this language where it actually says as a legislative matter of the council what we're going to do as opposed to a voter approved and so that reduces our risks I think it's always something then then if it is a problem the council would be able to amend it in the Charter you can't I can cur with that at my house no no you can say that and then Mary thank you wouldn't we want to present that information prior to

[163:01] vote anyway you know I mean voters aren't gonna make a decision in a vacuum so you would have to do it whether or not it's codified anywhere nobody's gonna vote for something if they don't have any information so you would have to do it no matter what I just have to have to this was an attempt to preserve the concept that those four off-ramp criteria and charter would be something that we would so I expect or want to show a lot more like what's a little you know dead in the cash flow over thirty years and all that so I think that intention to make darn clear hey and we're those metrics we talked about will show you how we measure to them make sense to include legislatively okay so if you guys are inclined to carry this forward tonight we could add a new section five remember the remaining accordingly at this language into the ordinance part of this okay so just so

[164:00] clear which packet page I'm on packet page 439 right after that I know this angel again you know that'll tie a little question it's very good I also have a question about wording this whole notion of incur indebtedness why can't we just say incur debt you cut your words can't we eat again the closer we can get to late people's language or English I think the better indebtedness you could just say incurred dad don't you guys think that would be a little clearer I'm always for okay and Cass good question yes later that just David

[165:02] just to clarify that I mean specifically what will be putting that on the ballot is that we can't incurred dad yep right but effectively what that means is that we couldn't operate a municipal electric utility right because it's unfeasible to operate one without incurring debt yep so just that it's just kind of worse worth getting out there the language we'll just to be about can we take on debt but the effect will be can we actually do it right because the enterprise can't incur debt yeah so David what that means well we're getting nervous about words and I and I agree with the moving the data stuff that worried me too the original wording and I don't know if this is a difference without a distinction but the original wording says incurred debt for construction to separate right and this doesn't and honestly I don't know if that matters or not and that's a question I mean is to

[166:02] separate from the existing utility system absolutely positively clear so that again somebody couldn't go after us and say well that's that's vague that's unclear that's got multiple meetings that's who knows what well I was concerned with the for construction because there will be other things we have to pay for out of that debt I think not just separation but you know services for people to design and so yeah I'm like you met I'm very unclear on how to phrase it in the most bulletproof way I am I mean it's a really my question isn't so much about the for construction it's it's those of the term to separate from the existing utility system have a sufficiently clear and unambiguous meaning that it can't be construed in some other weird way what about to say to separate from the

[167:00] existing utility system to operate a municipal utility system to provide electricity well that's to provide electricity to customers within the city well no but the part about we can't separate or operate right if indeed that's the rate do we want to communicate the concerns to our legal staff and have them you think about alternate methods that addressed those yes it was really just a question and why are you doing that by the way so it's a fair concern that just that they're just just as last time in the ballot title if we're gonna change this wording but ballot title language should sync up with the wording we have here however that ends up yeah they just need to say the same thing yeah well and I think that the language is intentional

[168:02] in terms of you know because that's the next big step I think that if it gets too broad as we there has been some talk with our financial advisers that there may be other opportunities to you know use debt to you know just to help us forward so and I don't I don't think that we've really we haven't really identified at those yet but I think that there is there is some attempt here to be clear about where what we're talking about and really that fat debt is you know the next big debt the construction to separate that's that's where you're really starting to spend money in a big way and there's nothing else whether it's condemnation or nothing else this

[169:02] is we're not being too narrow here well I think that the court can see the separation part of the process you know we've set up the dare I say no go go no go point in time [Music] approach to it and really that at that point that's when we're really certain to say okay once we have that approved then we're ready to really start to think about how this is gonna work you know in terms of borrowing money to spend for the separation of the sister could be an opponent who wanted to stop this could they use this narrow construction to stop us from paying a condemnation award well I well I think

[170:01] that it's intended to actually so I think in terms of how the process is laid out is that that last step is we're going to get a condemnation a decision in condemnation in terms of what the value of the assets are so then the next step is how are we going to pay for it and that's when we would take that number to the voters so I think it's intended to do just that really we're saying that before the city can provide electricity to customers within the city

[171:00] it has to go to a vote of the people to incur debt but the debt really could be for any number of things and and in some sense the numbers doesn't matter what the debts for because you can't create the utility system to quote provide electricity to customers within the city without incurring debt at some point along the line and the voters would have to weigh in which is the whole intent of this does the voters get the final say right so it seems to me because we're just doing a tax measure where we're gonna just so it's not confusing before we do the big expenditure to acquire or do construction we're going to the voters that's correct so maybe we should say for acquisition acquisition and startup costs I mean I would I personally would broaden this because this is the big isn't this the one where we're going for the final and so it would include

[172:02] hopefully our estimates of at least confirmation and separation so do you broaden it by listing things which if I were a lawyer I'd worry about because you forget something yeah where do you broaden it by saying it's that so that the utility system can provide electricity to covers within the city start and operate the utilities and whatever that that turns out to be for including things maybe we haven't thought about right at the moment so so Matt you're saying that to provide electricity to customers within the city yeah well that would be like his broadest yeah okay there's some feedback let's hear from you and then yep so actually I would like to ask Heather Bailey to come up and respond she's been much more involved in kind of the

[173:00] financial planning for getting this up and running and I'm guessing that she has some opinions on actually I think the way it was worded is actually the right way and I'll tell you why which we're about to incur debt for construction to separate from the existing system because that's actually the first thing we have to do and my concern is if we start broadening a vote for every time for issuing debt there are all sorts of things that we will be potentially financing but we won't finance probably anything until we separate and so to me the go no-go decision first of all if we have to issue debt for separation that can't be those won't be bonds of the utility until we form the utilities several years later so you and Bob you can come up and give me all the corrections on the Taylor stuff but

[174:00] because there will be general obligation bonds you'd have to have a vote anyhow and so what your gets to me you're putting belts and suspenders on something you would have to do no matter what because if the the council decided to move forward at the go/no-go point and again if the governor point we would have the condemnation and the separation decision the condemnation decision from the courts we don't how much the system costs and remember we have a provision on that that limits the acquisition to two hundred and fourteen million acquisition plus training costs we pay for it all at once to two hundred and fourteen million so you've already got the limit on that you also have the issue so we have that information council makes a go/no-go decision the next thing we would have to do would pay for the separation and that's the construction and that's a big decision and that's a lot of money and so what I

[175:01] see this saying is that in order to move forward it's a go/no-go point and issue debt for construction we need to get the voters which if we should you geo bonds we'd have to do that anyhow now where I start to get a little bit anxious is that to someone's point is we don't know what all we would need to borrow or not get funds for say organizational cost or startup costs so say 18 months from the day we do cut over we'll need to bring in maybe buy equipment buildings put in systems that sort of thing we don't know if we'll issue debt for that we don't know would have a conventional loan so there's a whole host of ways that could be done and then and so my concern is if we need to go to a vote for that first of all we don't know today and I don't even know if you'll note the go no-go decision how we're going to do that and

[176:01] it may be we have enough funds often we don't know my point is keep it now to compute keep it to that because then you get to the cut over day and the cut everyday is when we issue the debt of the utility which is the enterprise and that's where you issue the debt to pay the condemnation award that we got prior to the go/no-go decision and so it gets really complicated and to me the tightest control you can have at this point is the voters have to decide whether we want to spend the money at the go/no-go decision to do the construction of the separation plan because if the voters say yes they've agreed to spend the money and we're in if they say no then we don't go any further than that so I think you've convinced us it's everybody convinced we have a question we have a question thanks for explaining so does this

[177:03] impose an additional requirement beyond the table requirement that we go to the voters to issue debt I don't think so Bob well I think that there's it could be interpreted in two ways one if we were to do and and a lot of this goes to financial practicality but we this you could just say so you could just have a ballot measure that says shall the city be able to issue revenue bonds right and then we would go through our normal revenue bonding you know Authority and we would issue revenue bonds and it would based be based on what we think the revenues will be generated by the utility that's one approach the other approach is is that if you get into the area that Heather was explaining the general obligation debt if we were going into general obligation debt then you actually have to have taper Authority to take that kind of debt on so it could it could done a variety of ways all of which under this language requires at least

[178:01] one voter approval okay do you have another question no I just had a response to them and so I'm ready to move this forward but you have an extra two in there yeah right before the for Odette - for so how do you want to move this forward can I can i address this actually before you do that okay because actually that that causes an additional concern for me that it makes me fine with the language but it's sounding like that as its structured that we could have have an election about a bond issue that just said shall we issue bonds that would satisfy this clause and I was imagining this Clause as being more of a we would have at some point a ballot initiative said that said hey voters do you want to do the utility and this is as opposed to do you want to what we

[179:03] call the issue bonds to start a utility yeah there's there's kind of a fine distinction in here so the language in 178 about actually forming the utility we're asking the voters to form the utility at the next elections alone provided that it goes forward right this question here is really do you want us to operate a utility and it gets to that notion of taking it that taking the step from separate construction and separation to actual operation that's where the that's kind of the next step in the check and balance okay and I guess the the one thing that would provide something additional about is that if we found some way to issue bonds that were not paper required you know to have a voter approval then this would prevent us from doing that okay I guess I'm alright so I'm still I'm still

[180:02] concerned but we have time to think about it one of the things about moving it forward is we can go to over this language and how it interacts with other things because what I'm hearing or what I thought I heard Aaron maybe say is that if we end up yeah we could start separation this gets approved a community voter approval vote happens and we go ahead and so we issue bonds for separation okay we get partway through the separation process and then we have to go out for general obligation bonds you know it's another opportunity for us to have put a lot of money into something and then not go forward with it so it seems to me that this is giving voters the possibility of two more votes and I want to support one for sure but I think when we cross the Rubicon we're gonna have to be across the Rubicon so I just didn't want to let me finish my last thought I just didn't want to make

[181:00] this so narrow that if we cross the Rubicon that we could end up not being able to complete so okay so that's that's a fine point so the intent of this is to be the one big vote when we know the answers to say are you guys in or not so that's what we want this to be let's pass this as is and have the discussion with people about whether we've accomplished that with this right and I've got a and Heather you can come back to us with this and maybe maybe this is going too far it's kind of a little bit along the lines of Sam's but I mean this is in a charter so you go to the voters they approve debt for construction to separate from the existing utility system blah blah blah you discover that you need a little bit more money or we expand the system someday because we annex some more property and so we're separating some additional from the utility system and we're incurring debt to do that this would say you'd have to go back to the

[182:00] voters each time which is clearly not the intent so think about that I mean we're all thinking about this is a one-time and that's certainly the right way to think about it but remember it stays in the Charter it doesn't go away and you don't want it to come back and nail you again on something that you thought you dealt with so think about if that's a problem because it might be okay so let's test this thing with the caveat that we're not sure we've got it all so my understanding it's this plus taking the the strikeout language in red and adding it into the legislative section correct that's correct and then making sure the title reflects is in sync that's all okay so so that's can we just move on so moved all right second okay we done discussing

[183:03] we good so that's just one kind of housekeeping item for the legislative section if we could say prior to the election required by charter section 178 comma the city will provide okay yeah good okay all those in favor is unanimous alrighty thank you thank you last public hearing motion to adopt the ordinance eight one eight eight annexing 752 Kaptur Road okay and you can take mine and set it over to three four let's see how we saw two more after this

[184:07] okay go Chris go good evening I'm gonna make this fairly quick in terms of presentation I'm happy to elaborate if we need to but this is a public for the annexation of 752 Gap Tureaud this property is located on the eastern edge of the city just north of Baseline Road where it intersects on just west of cherryvale and land use for this property is very low-density residential and the property would annex consistent with the zoning of the surrounding properties of a residential - in the staff memorandum there are findings related to compliance and we find that it is consistent with state statutes the Builder valley comprehensive plan as well as initial zoning that is

[185:00] consistent with the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan land use designation so with that we recommend adoption of ordinance 81 88 annexing the property at 7:52 after Road great any questions of Chris yeah one simple one so Chris summer in the memo if I remember correctly it said this is the last property that will qualify for the special deal although I don't know that everybody is annexed at this point so is it literally the last property that qualifies for the special deal it is this is the last property that is being processed under the special incentive package that Council authorized is the part of the 2013 flood recovery efforts and part of why it's the last one is that and it's trailing behind is there were some others that were trying to decide whether they were going to annex or not and they chose not to so this is the last one okay so anybody after this who in that area that

[186:01] chooses to annex it's back to our regular rules I guess I put it that way correct and the biggest change of that is is obviously the application fee itself great okay and I will just note the the property owners are not here but obviously are excited about being able to connect to city utilities excellent okay we will close the public hearing Erin I've got I move we adopt ordinance 8 1 8 8 and X 10.8 acres of land generally located at 7:52 Kaptur road with an initial zoning classification of residential rural too good a roll call vote oh if you can speak to your most alright I think it's great great respond to the flood will start with councilmember

[187:04] young well that never happens I rocket hi Jones nice Weaver hi the motion passes unanimously today thank you yeah we have a matter oh I'm sorry alright I gotta find it consideration of a motion to appoint two council members to the open space and mountain parks master plan process committee who's oh that's you Tanya informations in your packet and their request is for council to appoint two members to the open space mountain parks master plan process committee it will be to members of council and to members of the OS MP board meetings at this point

[188:03] are planned from August of 2017 through 19 one hour a month is the approximant commitment time do we have appointees from the air SBT yet yes it was in our packet name mister yeah okay who are they Curt brown and Tom Volquez and out there right not Tom Volquez no he's not on time Isaacson Isaacson Isaacson okay and I think the the the one if I understand correctly we said this process is gonna go for two years at least and there was some discussion of maybe after the election we'd want to throw this back into the bundle of committee assignments just I don't think it's a given that we'd want to change

[189:01] things but that that we'd be open to changing things and I think for people to go new in the Hat hmm is that correct okay anybody want to speak before we speak about individuals anybody want to speak to the notion of this I know that does satisfy it yeah I do really briefly I just tell you I've had concerns about appointing council members to all sorts of committees and this one really doesn't concern me it's it's more where council members are appointed to committees that are made up of members of the public and it's mostly because council members get deferred to whether they want to or not and I think we're often not very clear about what the council members role should be whether the person should actually vote on things take an active role take a kind of backseat role and and frankly I think there are examples with it hasn't worked out very well these committees though which is kind of

[190:00] more of an internal committee well you've got a couple of council members and you've got some board members and you've got some staff those are I don't know if I always like them but those at least tend to take care of themselves a lot better you have a lot more kind of equal footing as it were the only two things I would say that I don't think we're very careful about off and on Council mm-hmm is I'd really like to see everybody get a shot at these we often have people who serve on one two three four five six of these and it would be really nice if we spread it around as we do all of our committees and secondly we should not be shy about talking about politics because it is important on some of these committees that if you're going to appoint two council members which you should do now that they actually have somewhat different views on stuff even if it's just a process committee it matters and

[191:01] and we try we tend not to do that because we you know we very much support each other but you know sometimes you need to talk about that so this committee because it's set up with frequent check-ins back with Council so that's great it's set up to be with board members from open space that's great you've set up with two council members that's great so I think what's left is can we get some council members on this who haven't served in the last couple of years on several committees and be in so far as you can tell have somewhat different perspectives on where open space might go in the future and those would be my concerns obviously I am NOT in the running so you know not my problem in that sense but I think they have a successful committee that's what you want whether the next council wants to reopen it you know that's that's up to the next council given how long-running this is and that's really unusual for a

[192:01] committee I can't think of one that has gone this long it might be wise at some point maybe after a year they do a swap out just cuz she could get some new ideas some new thoughts get somebody else especially a new council member involved in it that wouldn't be a bad idea but that's up to the next council so and you know we're missing three people tonight which is a little bit awkward including some people who thrown their hat in the ring let's punt but we could you know we could vote it but okay you asked me to vote that's my criteria that's helpful thank you does anybody want to speak to criteria just real quickly agree that with Matt about having two council members with varying opinions I think that makes complete sense well I just didn't get I didn't get to

[193:01] say it earlier so I agree with Matt okay so let's just figure this out okay so whoever the four people that threw their hat in the ring name in that and yeah happening this way yeah ring okay ring in the Hat um have not served on committees recently well my my my comp planned process committee ended so that was part of why I threw my hat in the ring isn't because that was something that was doing for a while with Sam I thought it went very well but I'm down to just three committees at this point so I thought you needed another one I don't need another one well I would just say I see these as a little different than the normal committees that we serve

[194:03] on kind of the standing committees that we serve and these are kind of ad hoc I will agree this one is a little odd just because it's so long-running usually these things are a few months so housing was one that was not determined at the beginning of the year it was set up later was a boulder belli complan decided at the beginning a year when we all divided up things or was that decided later - that was later we needed that was decided that we wanted a council members on the process okay so and I agree with Matt these are different these are like the process committee there's no substance well they shouldn't be I mean that's licensed in the sense of you know what I mean that's what that's how they build it was no substance in the ideas process so the way I was just kind of saying is I haven't been on when these process committees so I was gonna react I was I

[195:01] threw my name that had I'm not wedded to it I know that Lisa's was on the public participation process you guys were on the cloud plan process I don't know if I was in them I was in the housing and the middle-income strategy well no that was the strategy itself so it wasn't a process committee but I was in the housing process and so was Lisa that was the middle income strategy that was different it wasn't a process committee it was a substantive I it is kind of weird to be deciding this without three people here not wanting to punt you're waiting to schedule meetings for us to hurry up and decide this so in August it is August well why don't we decide and then they can schedule meetings and then we can make changes if we need you look I'm not

[196:03] sure I would Suzanne I put you and Aaron on it and and just based on what I said I think I mean normally the mayor having been there tends to stay out of this stuff guess you figure the mayor is enough other stuff to do and also but I don't think it's bad to do it once in a while and you haven't done any of this stuff and forever and it's also a process committee which is rather different than some of the other committees were on so I think you'd be a good choice on this and I think in terms of my perception of some views on open space and where it's going of the people who've applied I think Aaron would be a good counterpart because I think you have a different it's not so much you have a different view of our open spaces going you just have different relationships with people and I think

[197:02] for a process committee that's a good thing but I think other solutions are fine too but that would be the one I would shoot for for this one I also think Emma Darren's done one thing but otherwise hasn't that involved in the ongoing suite of committees of these kind of atoms and you know again ad-hoc stuff is different than the long-standing things I would support that recommendation so I would just like to put a plug in one of the things that I think it was Jean who made the presentation was a gene that made the presentation about this committee and she was taught no it was Darren Darren Wagner who made the presentation she talked about reaching out to folks that don't get reached out to and I try to do that and I have relationships with

[198:01] community members that oftentimes don't get reached out to so I think I bring that to the table and and I guess I would also add that I don't see when it comes to open space I don't see Suzanne and Aaron's views as so divergent so I mean I generally agree with Mary and that's not a value judgment on anyone I mean when it came to for example the north sky trail Suzanne and I voted for it Lisa and Mary voted against it so I reduce that as an example in which I think Mary and Lisa both sit a little further outside the median that that is the middle of Council so I would propose that we keep the names in the Hat and pots and make sure that we have a full council here take this decision that's

[199:00] my thought but I mean I guess I think everybody would do a good job it's just about balancing the right points of view so if it were me I would think of Mary and Lisa as being kind of in one spot and the the use of open space and I wouldn't say that you Aaron and Suzanne are exactly at the same spot either but you're also by votes not exactly where Maryanne lease are so that being said I'm uncomfortable with these kinds work world can awkward up here what is this this is the first our next stop so staff can go ahead and schedule the meetings and then our four of us can show up and it's going to be noticed anyway let's sorry let's plan to

[200:03] go ahead and schedule to me and yeah and I think there's plenty of good combinations of the people that have their name in the Hat so that's correct I think I just saw a deep point we can figure out I also think we'll just leave it there okay call up as I stated earlier this is the first project that's coming down the pike with the form based code and already we see what was it six exceptions of which the length of the building and the access point in my view have huge impacts on the pedestrian aspect of a project I can think of one

[201:04] one project that I was on planning board when it happened which is the the Jewish Community Center out on east arapahoe that has on a main road or on the street facing portion of the building has an access point and that just really kills the pedestrian the walkability aspect of a building so that's one thing and then the length too so [Music] if we start to give exceptions right away and don't challenge folks to look at to try and come up with solutions that are better we just right off the bat we're giving up in my view why we dead form-based code in the first place

[202:00] and I asked a question about that my understanding was that the the requested changes were based on the fact that it was well through the planning process before we passed form based code so my question would be how many of the special requests were due to the fact that it wasn't yet in place when they started the process do we know that answer we can ask Andy yeah I'll just answer any questions I'm trying to expand my you know my name is Andy Bush I have a 2 3 4 5 bluff Street Boulder Colorado and I'm the developer of 3200 bluff the the two exceptions that were requested one was the access of a type based Street it's the only place to actually get access for that as part of it and I don't think it was really conceived of as part of this district when we first

[203:00] thought about it the only other way to do it would have been to create an alley all the way by in the building because we're on a triangular site on an open on a ditch and we actually chose to preserve that as open space and create a really cool walkway and Paseo down it so it was one that staff supported and five out of the six planning board members supported the building lengths the overall intent was to create to break up buildings and facades and make them in pedestrian scale and even though the actual building length is 20 or 30 feet longer than that maximum we actually broke the building up into a series of pieces in a series of different facades and again both staff and five out of six Planning Board members felt that the solution was really the right solution and meant the intent of the exceptions the other thing is when we did the floor based code and we've been part of its creation evolution we created all the diagrams to actually judge it by the idea was that to try and create good design and good outcomes you should allow certain exceptions but filter those through

[204:02] staff and Planning Board which we did and began five out of six planning board members felt that we met all those in terms of the exceptions to be required so that's at least how we got there it wasn't that we were in place before from this code and therefore we asked for exceptions it was because of good design in trying to do the right thing in a triangular parcel that's actually kind of the exception instead of the rule this was the right way to do it so both staff supported it all the way through and so the Planning Board with the exception of one member okay two other people want to speak to this I don't feel the need to call this up I mean I think that with the form based code idea is that you get essentially what you've already anticipated in a project and then then you look at any exceptions that were asked for and say or the do those rise to the level where you feel like you're really not getting what you

[205:00] expected and you have to make wholesale changes and it is a constrained site with the triangular shape of it so and while I do hate to see the turns in right off of the Main Street I in order to preserve open space in the back you I hate even more to see long driveways leading into a garage that impedes your ability to have functional open space so I'm comfortable with the exceptions as granted by planning board exam so I'm more mario's on this I think actually what's what's really interesting about this triangular site and I think the buildings are kind of interesting the way they fit in so there was a lot of thought but in there I mean we could do out of this process really has something to do with the site but learn about how form based codes and exceptions interact you know using this as an example and the fact that it's a

[206:00] constrained site is a good example because it will have probably more calls for exception so I would do it just from the standpoint of well we haven't done this before one of the functions of counsel is to be able to review call ups and see if we think they're necessary I agreed with Mary's principle that it would be good to review this from a planning perspective based simply on the exceptions and he'll decide interacted with them so that's where I am there's no judgment on the project in there by the way that yeah more Aaron is yeah I think I think Council should review how well form based code is working and I think this project could be one of the examples but it doesn't have to be as part of a call up I mean you do a call up and you think there is some fundamental problem or some policy issue or something that really is exceptionally troubling and I don't see

[207:02] that in this project I'm not frankly a huge fan of form based code we'll see where it goes in the long run but I think if you want good design you're gonna have to have some exceptions frankly I think are the constraints we put on things often gives us not so great design I'd be a lot more troubled if well I did read the the planning packet to some extent and I think you know the form based code in this case kind of has some nice ideas but they're not meant to apply precisely to every single site and certainly the weird triangular site doesn't work very well for some of the form based code ideas but more importantly you know you read what the staff says about it and you look at the the strong majority vote on Planning Board and they certainly considered it and they had some concerns

[208:01] as they should have so good for them for doing their job but I think they did their job and clearly five of them five out of six because one person was recused felt that these two exceptions which is perfectly reasonable within the broader design scheme and even within the goals of the form-based code so it just doesn't rise to me to that level but I do agree that after a few buildings are built with form based code there absolutely needs to be a review as to what worked what didn't work what could work better how specific can you be or should you be with form based code if your goal is really to try to create good design don't you need to you know have some flexibility built into the system and frankly trust your design board in your and your planning board in

[209:02] this case I think they both did a good job so I wouldn't call it out but I would review it at some later point and and that is that we did since we are kind of a guinea pig for this we did tell planning board that we'd be glad to come back and do a planning board session just to review form based code and the process and the good and the bad things as part of it and that obviously would come back to Council and we're glad to do a presentation to Council that's a summary after we do feedback with planning board thank you yeah I would have to agree with that and and I trust well I I'm not gonna repeat the points they made I agree completely and I would add the other one which is I don't think we have extra time on the calendar we've got a lot of things we've not been able to get to like recommendations from the process committee and we're looking at a special

[210:00] meeting for that so I just think we've got as a councilman I think that's more reason to defer to the Planning Board and staff and the design advisory board but if it's if it's a tie it doesn't go forward if it's a tie it does not go forward it takes a maturity of a quorum to call an item up okay I have to say my instinct is results not gonna be different if we wait until next meeting well in the call up period runs the day before your next meeting for your opportunities tonight okay strongly on this other than I I do think we put a lot of thought into embracing form based code in order to solve what was a real outcry against the

[211:01] quality of buildings who are gonna get and I am very interested in seeing if it works I a session to call this up you're about like well say you're very easy to deal with and to me that would be a useful session we don't have the votes for it so it's not going to happen so here's what I would say is I think well I shouldn't speak for everybody but taking you up on your offer to do a review of how it went and stuff I think at a minimum we would be interested in you have to speak in the night we'd be glad to come back with staff and our design team and do a brief debrief at your convenience thank you to you thank you for that okay all right was that um Suzanne just before we conclude

[212:02] we do have a scheduling item we polled council tonight for the special meeting on the 28th for a PP WG and just so we can follow up with the working group wanted to understand if we're comfortable scheduling that meaning this time well except for that we are missing two people the sixteenth doesn't work for 3-4 people so that's out the 28 works for everybody here it was noted that we have a specialist we have a council meeting that week we also have an executive session that's on my calendar we do we have an executive session the week of that 20 not that I know of no I think we just I think we just have a council meeting so it would be two meetings back to back that is true but we don't have three so

[213:05] interpreting this and the fact that we can't afford not to hear from the folks and we don't have an empty enough meeting that we can guarantee you know bump äj-- so we thought we'd better just do a special meeting assuming Andrew and Bob it doesn't fit you subjects I think we should go to 28 we at least have seven of us so for clarification you're comfortable was scheduling it for the 28th I am does anybody disagree okay make it so thank you okay you need debrief of this meeting was messy municipal ization stuff that is complicated so I just want to say thanks to everybody for working through all that because the details are important and I think we're honing in on I agree

[214:00] I appreciate your language because I think that helped really clarify these so okay with that we're adjourned [Applause] [Music] [Music]