June 11, 2019 — City Council Study Session

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] [Music] welcome everybody to the Boulder City Council study session of June 11th 2019 we have one topic and we have a joint session with open space board of trustees which is a treat and what that will hand it over to who am i handing it to I will say a few a minute or two of opening remarks and I'll turn it over to Darren and team to move us into the depths of tonight's study session but I just thought I would start off by just recognizing the fact that for over 100 years the city of Boulder has been on

[1:02] the cutting edge of community land preservation efforts it's got a reputation that not only spans this the Front Range in the state but kind of nationwide I of course was keeping tabs on this for many years in the hinterlands of Northeast Wisconsin for many years so and together we have built an iconic world-class open space system that truly rivals and and scenic significance and ecological integrity many of our national parks and has actually visited and enjoyed by more people than many of these same parks this beloved land system has been built and sustained and cared for over the decades through a robust partnership over the years of City Councilmembers open space board of trustees Department staff our agency partners our nonprofit community as well as of course many many community members and and that the deep

[2:00] engagement we've had with the community is sort of the hallmark of our open space system in many ways if other than the land itself and over the past 18 months or so OSP has brought this same level of partnership in the same level of collaborative spirit to bear in the development of our departments first master plan and so we are gathered here tonight actually to discuss how well we have incorporated the engagement we receive we have received to date as you recall it was just about a year ago or so that we all sat in the same room with board and council and Department staff in which we incorporated the engagement that we received in the first phase of our master planning process in the development of our five major management themes or what we have now called our focus areas that will help the department zero in what we ought to focus on over the next ten years so tonight what we're charged to do is to we would like a staff to get your

[3:01] feedback on how well we haven't incorporated community engagement that we receive since last summer in identifying the specific strategies we need to execute in order to carry out and fulfill those five focus areas as well we would like your feedback and how well we have sorted out what our high priorities are to be in the near term so we really look forward from a staff perspective having this discussion tonight to getting your constructive feedback and we'll go back and do some refinancing and come back to you with a an even better plan the next time we do meet up so as we head into the homestretch with the hopes that the council will be considering a final draft plan and early does an early September I almost said December that would be a mistake I just want to acknowledge the amount of effort that has gone into this robust public engagement process it is

[4:01] it is truly one of the most engaged in impressive efforts that I have personally been involved in in my 28 year land and water conservation career so I just want to congratulate all of us for the amount of community engagement that we've done so far and we look forward to a few more months of that so with that I'm going to turn it over to osm Pease master plan project manager and senior planner Garen Wigner to take us from here thanks Dan so definitely want to thank everybody again for being here tonight and I know that it'll be a few hours of really productive conversations so it really is a treat as Dan said to have us all together so really do appreciate that I also just wanted to reiterate some of what the end talked about and just remind us a little about the community engagement process that we've undertaken for the last 18 months and if you think all the way back to when the project management plan was accepted by City Council I think we were all envisioning at that time when we were working with the process committee on designing the engagement process I think we were envisioning tonight

[5:01] because I think this is the opportunity to let that community engagement process play out and speak for itself and to test whether or not that that worked and whether we've incorporated the engagement well enough and while we had more than 10,000 public comments we also held seven events which attracted 900 people we engaged with 1,400 more than 1,400 people in underserved communities which in our cases meant often youth the Latino community those experiencing disabilities it's more than numbers and it really has been a meaningful process where we've asked complex difficult questions of our community members we've engaged our staff the entire process before during and after every one of our engagement windows to leverage their expertise and really brought to bear as much information as we could in the process so that we could inform discussion and bring us to the point we

[6:00] are today and I think what the results are hopefully you're speaking for themselves but I know I can speak for staff and saying that it has felt like a profound process because it felt like there were opportunities and moments where the community was really coming together and we were identifying shared values that we all have as it relates to responsible recreation nature preservation working landscapes I think we all were able to see a common language emerge and we're just thrilled to have been able to start the process that way and hopefully continue it as we close out the process so I'm gonna give it just a brief introduction here and just remind us zooming back out what those engagement windows have looked like because what base they start to indicate as the general outline for the draft plan and I want to point out that there are copies I know some of you requested hard copies and so those are if you did there sitting in front of you otherwise there are copies sitting in between some of you if you want to refer to that throughout the night but again we started with this process around values

[7:01] and asked questions about our hopes and concerns for the future of open space and led into the approval of the focus areas and that was something that came through board and council last summer and moved throughout the development of outcomes which in our case is a set of aspirations those things that we hope to achieve to help us advance each of these focus areas as well as then the strategies that would help us achieve those outcomes our most recent engagement window was the prioritization of those strategies and then were tomorrow closing out our fifth engagement window which has been an opportunity to release the draft plan to the community and start to ask those same questions we'll explore tonight in other words how well did we incorporate engagement how well did we do in developing the draft plan and what I'd like to do is bring some of the findings to light and highlight a couple of these engagement windows by way of getting us accommodated or acqua mated to what's in the draft plan I know it's a lot to get through and some of us have been

[8:00] spending more time with it than others so by way of highlighting our second engagement window just to remind us where the focus areas are our first focus area that council approved was ecosystem health and resilience and as we think about the the what that is what what that really means to us and we can highlight a couple of one one community quote in particular that emerged and I are in the engagement window which this community member said it's a very unique ecosystem with some of the greatest diversity on our continent I can go a thousand miles east or west and not find that diversity of plant and animal life and so I we heard so many comments like that through the process and that led as well with data and information to the development of this focus area and then the value statement in and of itself really speaks to what it's about when we think about using the best available science we protect healthy ecosystems and mend those we have impaired and so in a lot of ways that just that sums up

[9:00] so much of what we are and who we are as a community and who we are as staff we also know that when we asked most recently our community in terms of how important this focus area was 94% of our respondents said that this focus area was either absolutely essential or very important to the future of OS NP and so again that felt like real confirmation of the engagement process that we had done the next that we'll talk about tonight is agriculture today and tomorrow and the value statement for this is our legacy and our future are based on working landscapes that are in harmony with nature sometimes that's kind of all you need to say because you kind of feel it you hear it and there's a lot to that statement in the case of asking our community members how important that particular focus area is for the future of OS NP 49% said it was either absolutely essential or very important responsible recreation stewardship and enjoyment as a third the value statement there is also really

[10:00] compelling we are united by our connection to and our enjoyment of nature and our obligation to protect it so again that pulls together a lot of conversations around what nature means to us and what it means to steward it together and in the case of our community members how important this one is to the future of osm P 90% so it was either absolutely essential or very important to the future of osm P community connection education and inclusion this was one where we also got a lot of great help from City Council and board a year ago when we were looking at the approval of this where we wanted to make sure that education for example was central in the development of this focus area and the value statement for this is together we build an inclusive community of stewards and seek to find our place in open space so we're really trying to pull these community voices through as we continue and start to wrap up our process and 62%

[11:00] of respondents to our recent survey said that this focus area was either absolutely essential or very important to the future of OMB so there are a lot of interrelationships between the focus areas we set up arguably a set of silos so that we could have individual conversations that were very important to have all the while knowing that there are a lot of interrelationships between and among of them and really at the center of some of this is our fifth focus area which is financial sustainability because in a lot of ways that that focus area talks about the how how we will implement and go about supporting implementation of the other four focus areas how we'll achieve those outcomes and strategies and this is where we talk about things like acquisition planning for and in certain future as it relates to our budget situation updating our planning framework and our acquisitions approach all of those things are are elements that again help us achieve the other focus areas and 71% of our respondents

[12:00] to the recent survey said that this was either absolutely essential or very important to our future and so by way of highlighting it another most-read are the current engagement window is is the one that we're in again that wraps up tomorrow night and what we've heard so far is quite honestly gratitude we've gotten open comments that have said thank you for this process we have appreciated the opportunity to participate in it and certainly we've also gotten suggestions that in a lot of ways aligned with the feedback that we've gotten today some of those are an effort or suggestion to integrate strategies across focus areas and to think about the ways that we when we get into implementation there are synergies or relationships between those others talk about advancing certain strategies further and we'll talk about some of that tonight and hopefully get guidance from board and council about where we need to do that and and where some of those might sit better and implementation level planning and programs and projects we also got comments around either narrowing or

[13:00] refining priorities so we got some comments for example that we have too many priorities we will talk later tonight about that we have 17 out of 46 of our strategies initially prioritized with input from the staff community and the board and some said you know narrow that even further and think about the things that you can really achieve in the near term while others were saying that we should explore potential refinements to those so for example placing more emphasis on tribal relations or more emphasis on soil health or rapport supporting farmers and ranchers so there were comments there sort of to tweak the content of the play but really all of the comments we felt like in total were supportive of where we've come and where we are to date and as we think about going forward we have set out at the beginning of this process with the intention of hopefully having counsel support our final plan in September so starting and finishing the plan within one council term and so with tonight's study session we'll kick off a

[14:01] really important conversation with both board and council and then we do have a hold for tomorrow night for our board to continue any of the conversations that we can't wrap up tonight similar to what we did last summer but we'll need a head nod of support from Council to make sure that we're comfortable with the topics that the board would explore tomorrow night we then have a meeting on June 26 with our process committee and I do I want to take a moment as I often do to just thank Erin Mary Tom and Curt because that's a real a lot of extra time that you've spent trying to guide this process and it's really been so fruitful and we so appreciate the guidance that we've gotten today and we've set up that meeting as an opportunity to use it as a checkpoint on our schedule we recognize that tonight and tomorrow night something may emerge where there might be potential impacts to our schedule that would affect our ability to come to Council with the final plan in September so in order to meet some of those if that comes up

[15:01] we'll connect with the process committee in a couple of weeks and decide what our options are and what the best approaches to to meeting those those needs and then our goal from there is to pull out is to release our the next draft of the plan for review by OSB T and the Planning Board and that would come out in mid-july and then again moving towards the hopeful support by council on September 3rd and it's after that once we have final approval from Council that we would make the plan pretty that we would lay it out in a graphic format with more more charts more graphs more graphics to help tell the story and bring it alive and and we've used that approach with we've designed that approach with guidance from the process committee because there was interested in getting feedback on the content similar to have the Bolar valley comprehends has rolled their process out before we worked on laying out the graphic document and then that's also when we start working through the implementation aspects of this when we start putting

[16:01] together the real work plans of the plans programs and projects that need to come out of this for staff to start implementing and then in next year's part of our normal process with consultation with the board and then council around our budget approval that those are opportunities then to further engage again with board and council around the implementation plan and to further flesh out any of the the details around that that bear conversation so thank you doing if we have additional comments after tonight can we send them to you and you could just send them as they are to the trustees because I didn't envision tonight going deep into weeds but to have kind of a higher-level discussion but I do have some specifics and I didn't want to go into them tonight so our hope is tonight that we that we have a conversation about the

[17:00] content mm-hmm the things that we need dialogue around with board and council that we addressed those tonight if there are things around particular phrasing or tweaks or editorial or those sort of things then we would welcome comments if you could submit them by June 16th and lots of time thanks and we'll make sure you have the email address because I've gotten you something tomorrow [Music] we really are tonight looking for things that are that high-level as you mentioned that need discussion and then things that are the word changes or some minor things that can be later yeah and there's just I could give you a call there's just some things that I think could use a little editing or proof you know okay okay but otherwise it's great so again just to reiterate the focus of

[18:00] tonight I know there are a lot of elements to the plan we've talked about them but the focus tonight is we're hoping to hear your feedback on the strategies themselves and how we've prioritized those strategies and again those the the detailed plans programs and projects that would help us implement those strategies that is for the 2020 process that I just described in terms of budget approval and implementation planning as we consult with the board and then Council on that and Anna is gonna help us keep on track before we get into that I just want to give you some highlight to just give you an understanding get you more grounded and what we really mean so by way of example we have two strategies that we've just pulled out so the first is our very first strategy under ecosystem health and resilience conserve and restore boulders natural heritage so you will see a short phrase like this in the front of every strategy and you have handouts in front of you that replicate those phrases there's also a poster up here that will be referring to as well as some slides so you'll see these short phrases and and

[19:01] that's a way of summarizing the strategy but behind each of those strategies is also a more descriptive sentence about what it's all about so this is the purview these are the places where we're hoping for dialogue tonight how we describe those short phrases what those sentences you know what the content behind them is if we have substantive changes let's talk about those tonight knowing again that afterwards we get more details as we put together the implementation plan so by way of example for this particular strategy this would guide work around Creek restoration for example so work around Boulder Creek where we're looking at restoring gravel pits and looking at restoring the natural flow of the Creek to support better habitat and water quality another example is under agriculture today and tomorrow so you'll start to see these little handles that are ATT is our acronym we're bureaucrats so we speak in in acronyms forgive us this one is around

[20:02] enhanced soil health and resilience and the longer sentence around this is talking about managing agricultural activities in tilled lands native grasslands to prevent soil erosion maintain and improve soil health sequester carbon and protect ecosystem function so again this is sort of the purview for conversation knowing that an implementation we would get more detailed and talk about what that really is so in this particular example that would involve programs around cover cropping and crop rotation and continue our soil health monitoring program so that we understand what the future looks like as it relates to potential for carbon sequestration and other other work ok as Darren mentioned my name is Anna Leybourne i'm with design workshop the consultants behind this work and i was mentioning to darren that this when it was brought up that you know this isn't as many comments on a draft plan as what we expected we had so many comments earlier on i said that's

[21:01] exactly what you want that's the goal you want this sort of arc of building interest in the plan from folks people really engaged providing input showing up to learn more about the plan and then as a draft is released people saying i feel heard i support what's going on and so you receive hear comments that's ideal so that's kind of what we're looking at tonight with having ended that period of having public comments on the draft plan and now tonight getting to engage in a discussion with you around have we really heard it right and are there any tweaks and adjustments that will make it a plan that you are supporting going forward so tonight's staff is seeking guidance from City Council and OSB T on affirming and refining the strategies says Darren just explained what those are in here and the priorities for the draft master plan we've had limited touchpoints at this point at this time with council so tonight i might call on council a little bit more to speak to the items in this

[22:00] plan but we want that discussion and that engagement tonight this is really your chance to have it all together in one room I'm gonna orientate you to a couple of things that you have with you to work with and this discussion one is some of you asked for maps to be provided so you can refer to the lands and if you look at between all of you there's a system overview document that you're sharing it looks big with a pink tab in it the pink tab is indicating where the map is so that might help you in in finding your way secondly I have some other helpers here Juliet is going to be taking detailed notes the whole time so she's in the back doing that know that we're getting all your comments and noting those for the meeting tomorrow night as well as for the future and in addition Darrin is going to be shifting over to help take some notes over on these pads over here the reason for that is she wants to make note of any agreements about substantive changes that she hears and make note of those up here so you can refer to them

[23:00] and secondly if there are any further resolution notes that she needs to track for future conversations she'll make it up there and also kind of indicating where we're at in the agenda so that's the help I'll have with some of these things to move through it tonight so overall we have until 9 o'clock tonight to go over these items and we're going to be discussing these which strategies are on target in the draft master plan that's the the key one for this evening and which need refinement well I'll speed it looking at priorities and what support you might need going forward for this plan and in limit reviewing some of the items so with that I'll give a little bit overview of how we're going to spend our time because we were fortunate that nearly all of you 11 out of 13 of you responded to a question about how do you want to spend your time this evening so that's really helpful for us we know know from that that you particularly want to spend your time talking about ecosystem health and

[24:00] resilience as well as responsible recreation stewardship and enjoyment we're kind of ones that had the most interest in discussion so that's how we're allocating our time and why we've thought this type of timing for each of those topics might be appropriate will kind of move through it and see how it goes but with that we want to make sure there's as much conversation tonight around these topics as a group rather than having to have you later provide emails that you wish you had discussed it together so that's that's the goal of this night and I'll do a time check part way through to see how we're doing on reaching that goal okay so with that our path forward process question oh yes go ahead you're not on mic then I noticed on our timeline there that we said at the process committee and I realized that we didn't include any time

[25:02] for just like overarching comments that's at the end oh it's okay so I didn't put time to it but we're gonna see where how much time we have at the end and how we're doing but we thought we'd have some final thoughts kind of be able to collect after we talk about priorities we can do it then good good point there we didn't put time to it you're correct I'm sorry my question was just about prioritizing the priorities is that the last thing we're doing yes we have 45 minutes for that part of it so we'll go through each of the strategies that you wanted to discuss first and then we'll come back and talk about prioritization so this financial sustainability which is one of the five is going to be disgusting and I don't know when is the right time but I just I asked Erin and I do have a question about how its presented the goals and then the

[26:01] strategies to achieve the goals and they don't just match up one for one but it takes some time to work that out and so I was wondering if staff or if you guys had thought about how its laid out because you see all of these outcomes or goals that you want and it's like okay and some of the comments we've gotten have been ok these lack specificity and and I just wonder if on the layout if it might be more helpful for people to have kind of strategies next to them it's it's more layout thing and so that's what I so along those lines in reading through the draft what I realized was that as you look at these and I had like arrows going from one to

[27:00] the other how they relate to each other and perhaps in the next version it could be helpful to have Venn diagrams like you had for at the beginning of your presentation and to have Venn diagrams of all of those that are directly they touch each other somehow as well as those that are not quite in harmony that compete with each other and that wouldn't be a Venn diagram I don't know what that would be but but something along those lines that gives you an idea of where things are competing with each other and that could help with the prioritization Darren reminds me of the infinity sight circle that we did before I think it was a staff exercise in a community exercise in which we did place the strategies on how interrelated they

[28:01] were and we could bring that to life and in a future drive mm-hmm absolutely and just to briefly answer your question Lisa we had worked on the structure of the document and when we were looking at the relationship between outcomes and strategies we were doing exactly what Mary did which was to say this strategy achieves three of these outcomes this outcome relates to four of these strategies and so there were so many lines this way in that that they don't there are multiple relationships between them which is why there's not one-to-one okay so I get to reveal which ones you all came to different points about understanding where you'd like to discuss so highlighted here is in different colors and forms anything in black you didn't need to discuss is what we heard from 11 out of 13 of you so I'll just ask as we move through each of these would you confirm these are not once you wanted you need to discuss because in

[29:01] fact you support them moving for the final plan and that that's something you want to see in the final plan so we can do that now and you can take a look at these two that are in the screen in future focus areas there are more that you didn't need to discuss the other things that are indicated here is if it is bold white that means at least that means one person indicated that they would like to discuss this item it if it is underlined also bold and white underlined indicates that more than one person wanted to discuss this so we will begin with the one that had the most interest that is underlined the very first one but before we do that I want to just want to ask number five and eight that were not ones that people indicated they they need to discuss tonight is that is that true that you feel that this is one that you'd like to see in the neck and the adoption steps just supported to move forward and if so sorry you have a question first okay so

[30:02] when in going through this number eight developing a learning laboratory approach I wasn't really clear how you would do that so in the National Park System which you come from there are permits that you apply to the department and then those permits are evaluated by a group of staff and maybe some outside scientists and then you know somebody comes in with a proposal and then that proposal is reviewed it usually doesn't entail any exchange of money but how are you going to do this laboratory approach and are you going to have permits and how how would that be done so that you make sure that the people out there are doing what we need to have done in terms of getting this information so this is a perfect example

[31:00] of something that would gather more detail in the implementation planning but I can tell you that we do have a funded research program and so it's very similar to what you just described we're also looking at making sure that we describe our science in a way that's applied search so that we're applying that in a piloted way to land management practices and making sure that we use that data and in an adaptive management framework and so that's the really that's the intent and import behind that question and certainly so why don't what I'm wondering is would you like to discuss that strategy more you know I know wondering and and if we'll get to financial sustainability but that does take time it does take staff it does require resources and so and I'm concerned about putting on a new thing without those resources but I think we need to look at these in holistic approach as well as having some research is always good so I don't we want to

[32:03] make sure that if there's something you need clarification on in order to support it moving forward if this phrase moving forward into the final plan we need to hear that but typically if I hear a lot of words about how is this going to happen that's gonna be my indication that that may be about implementation and so then we'll say let's come back to the strategies and talk about is a strategy working so with that our five and eight do those items look like ones you need to anyone else need to discuss or a raise of hands if you are comfortable with this one did these two being supported in the plan or the plan moving forward for adoption okay great and then we'll start with number one which we had more than one person indicating that they wanted to discuss this one conserve and restore boulders natural heritage so that was in one of our examples does anyone want to start with discussion of that one since it was one that had a little bit more interest we want to give it some time go

[33:05] ahead so and this is on page 32 of the underneath the well first of all under the first big one ecosystem health and resilience this goes to some of the comments that we've received from the public about wanting more detail but it says we using the best available science we protect healthy and men those how we have impaired and the question is in protecting healthy ecosystems how and that goes more to details I think in terms of for example under strategies conserve and restore boulders natural heritage we strive to maintain and enhance a network of healthy resilient habitats to native for native plants and animals large connected and unfragmented habitat areas rather than smaller fragmented ones etc

[34:01] where is the data for this I would like to see data and the plans so that we can actually see where these are the large unfragmented habitat areas how many there are what size are they and how do we get to one of the persons who wrote to us talked about no net loss and in terms of if something happens to one of these so that a chunk gets fragmented off someone else referred to open space being lost not by a large act but by a thousand acts but by a thousand cuts and so this would be the kind of thing that I at any rate and I think many members of the public would find useful data and so that we can follow trends over time and it becomes apparent rather than abstract what what it is that we're looking at so that raises a question for me which is to what extent was the fact

[35:00] that the draft plan was released as a Word document mean that some of this type of information was left for a later time well one element and that is being a master plan we're gonna have it for a long time it's gonna it's the planning horizon is over 10 years and so sometimes with that the data will be ever-changing and needs to be updated so we need to refer to other elements so my question in that is are you looking for the strategy statement itself to be changed in some way are you looking for it to be amended with data points amended with data points so that the data points are in there again trends over time we're starting with a baseline so what are we starting with where do we go how does it how does it look for example on the page 35 there's permits issued for off trail use and habitat conservation areas 2007 2 to

[36:01] 2019 2019 and at the very end it says of the blocks it says average number a number of people per year from 20 2007 to 2012 and it's for the uses and all of the numbers are given but it doesn't break it out for example how many were there in 2007 and how many were there in 2019 so that we can see what's happening over time which goes to one of our writers wrote and talked about the the numbers growing 25 percent from 2005 4.7 million visitors to 6 point 2 5 million in 2017 an increase of 25% so that we can see where we are now and then moving forward how well we're actually managing what it is we're striving to manage

[37:01] we're not thank you for this Cindy you know I think the the master plan system overview you know is full of data about you know where we are now and where we've been and and it seems like it would be really helpful to get some of that in to the the master plan I mean you can't get all I mean this is its own 200 page thing right but like some representative as you're as you're preparing a final plan pulling in representative data from the system overview and maybe other places seems like it would be really helpful but then maybe also referencing it say like hey and there's a whole bunch more right here and and then just to thought just your point about tracking things I don't know if you all have thought about having something you know we have dashboards that the the city maintains I don't know how many of them are OS MP data points right now that's a great way to put in data that we track overtime I'll just answer that briefly and just say that we're in coordination with the the city on that

[38:01] as they develop the citywide approach to developing those metrics and so we've had initial conversations and the master plan sets us up for developing that further so we're having this conversation so I wanted to underscore what you just said which is because this is going to come up again and again again under every one of these strategies is this is general and how do we link it so so yes we need to tie it and maybe there's the citations from which sections are relevant in this document I also think that you mentioned somewhere in the plan it talks about 80 metrics or yeah 80 data indicators are currently measured by open space staff and it could be that those relevant to various areas could be highlighted inside bars or something or anyhow what we'll want to crosslink these so this it feels more but there's more comment

[39:01] because we know there's content backing this up but it's not all in here it's not a good way to cross-reference but and where it is referenced isn't on this the graph that I pointed to that it's really clear so that we can see what it is that's happening not just that so many permits have happened between the space of time but how they've grown or how they've decreased or whatever well I think trends I think that what I'm hearing is trends in the uses so I know when we started this permit system we weren't gonna try to stop people but you know in reading this master plan it's very clear we want to try to limit off-trail uses and we want to repair fragmentation of our eco eco system so when I look at this particular table that Cindy pulled out it's like none of these are for research it doesn't seem

[40:01] like and so I guess I would like to know like national park permits you have to write something up every year when you get a permit to go in the backcountry or off trail so there's a report that's expected and so maybe this is too much in the weeds and this will come in with the implementation but that data needs so back to number one conserve and restore boulders natural heritage any refinements for the strategy I haven't heard any at this point for the actual language of the strategy or but more of how its treated in the text is there anything else on that one that you wanted to discuss well I'm gonna this will be another theme which is yeah of course duh yes that's very important so when and how right and

[41:02] I know we're gonna just say up that keps that's implementation that's next year but know that that's a very unsatisfying answer okay so I guess and I think that'll come up again is uh come on we need to prioritize it we need to know which plans are likely or in the mix or you know I'm sure the Board of Trustees have thought about you know what we know these are the high-ticket ones and these are the ones who are probably gonna recommend it counsel and baby yeah I think you'll meet a lot less resistance if we know that some of these high priority ones are likely to end up on the work plan next year and how we're gonna bite some of this off that we know are top priorities so so we've been going through sort of as at a staff level of a lumping phase in a splitting phase of when to bring things together and when you bring things together they tend to get a little bit diluted as opposed to plated and this is one where we have had that discussion of whether or not we ought to split these these two

[42:01] up into two different strategies because conserving boulders natural resources is a sort of a different type of strategy than restoring so the conserving side is good there are some lands that are in very good condition and our strategies around that should be to sustain and to keep that integra be going where the restoring element is recognizing that there's work to be done and and they're high quality but there's work to be done there and perhaps there's enough interest in what we're hearing tonight is instead of the lumping that we ended up is is maybe we should split those out provide a little bit more meat to both of both both sides of that equation which will then kind of help us understand a little bit better about what that strategy is actually yeah I think that would be really helpful and I think having maps would be really helpful so I found myself in reading some of this well I'm not on the open space board of trustees but where are the areas that need to be restored

[43:01] what's their proximity what kind of environment are they in what kind of restoration are we talking about and and I goes all the way through the plan so I think maps would be helpful and like maps where the different species are I just want to check and see there was a mention of potentially splitting restore and conserve there any support for that idea of splitting them up if so raise your hand I wanted to see if there's some indication that it's splitting them in the strategy to different strategies rather than having them combined I saw maybe one as the as long as they don't get lost and and I was gonna say a stronger instead of conserve and I'm just throwing this out there this is we D it could be protect protect just seems stronger to me then conserve and surge am i splitting them and allows us a

[44:02] little bit more narrative room to do some further description of it and that would be the benefit we're not gonna come up with that tonight but it will allow us to go back and provide some more descriptive narrative to both of them by doing the splitting okay I see Dave over there yeah yeah I think this strategy is a good example of a number of them that we're going to have to deal with and and that's a concern I have about the draft now it doesn't seem to have substance to deal with the really hard questions or issues that we're going to have to confront and this is a good one because there is a lot there are a lot of data out there so it's not like the numbers are there in it this is a question we keep asking the community we've asked them this question probably for 30 years and it keeps coming back

[45:00] you know the highest ranking you know community response and so from my perspective is like let's quit asking them the question we already we know let's get after it and and do what needs to be done so that is what I'm concerned about on this one and throughout you know the strategies is there's got to be a context for people to understand what it is that we or the city or the open space in mountain parks department is proposing and it doesn't have to be so specific that it's you know it becomes trivial but there have to there has to be some things in there that says for example you know here's here's you know what we've been doing will continue or here are some things that we're going to consider and then in addition to that there has to be a budgetary number attached to it people have to understand okay this is what it's going to take

[46:01] this is the priority and this is the estimate of how much it's going to cost and in order for them to understand you know the importance of these strategies and I think this is clearly the community's number one recommendation and we do it a disservice by not having you know the sufficient substance to acknowledge the importance of this particular strategy I was just gonna maybe add some perspective on this and this is certainly a lot of the work that the staff and my division is working on this all the time and it really is very prescribed through the grassland plan and the forest ecosystem management and the agricultural resource management plan which has a lot of the detail that you and you know we could I think this is we never had a master plan and we did all this great planning at the scale that you're looking for in the past now

[47:01] some of that needs to be relooked at and updated and I think this master plan will now call for that to happen and it gives us a good opportunity to move forward and and come back to you with a revised grassland plan at the right time that gets into a lot of the maybe some of the you know how have we done on these best implementation areas have we succeeded and you know that's something that you know it's kind of kind of the bigger perspective that is one way to look at this master plan it's setting the the framework we have all these very detailed plans and operations that go on constantly that address a lot of this issues that are a thing sir so John before I move on can I ask with that that was brought up should we split these this idea conserve and restore did you have a feeling on that so we can then come back to folks and I didn't get a really good hand signals from people I wasn't really clear and if you felt strongly about that but if you do want to note that before we move on it is generally combined in other plans but I

[48:01] think either way okay okay can I just note that some of these are not they're not all equal like under restore you have reduce on designated trails control invasive weeds I mean some of them more subsets right so they kind of nest better because H EHR one is kind of like the thing and then the right most of them nest in some ways so anyhow that's part of the and then maybe we can test that idea of what refinement we need to this particular strategy so I'm gonna find separating them that's perfectly all right but just to make a little bit of a larger point I mean John I think you raised an excellent point and and I think we have some understanding of that but just in looking through the the first few sections of the master plan that's not really clearly articulated so that might be something really really good to do is to have some section where we say hey you know we've done audit detailed work already and it's in

[49:01] all these things and they could be hyperlink so people can look at them all and so that's where you look for the details of implementation that we've already planned for and here are some that are staler and needs some updating and here are some new ones that we think we will be doing but look to those those detailed plans for for how we're implementing things which is a little different from what the master plan itself is about okay so the suggestion of refining by splitting conserve and restore anyone really needing to see that I want to see the show of hands and then we can come back to comments this question that Dan suggested a little while ago which is I think the reason why you're not getting a clear hand raising on that question is is it adding substance to the conserved part or is it splitting and for me I don't care whether they're combined or split I just want to make sure that there's more than

[50:00] five lines more conserve okay so that would be helpful for us to understand tonight and recognizing that this was the only one in this focus area that was underlined meaning a lot of people wanted to talk about this so we've we've spent more time on this one and we'll have to prioritize our time on the others accordingly but but just to make sure we understand if there are any content changes whether we split it or keep them together that would satisfy council and board it that would be helpful for us to understand is there anything of substance that's missing here more yeah yep so here the more emphasis on conservative more attention to that well it's also to link it to the specifics and I think what people are dying to know is with the what next part and so again on the extend on I mean like two and three are pretty clear there's a process to deal with on designated trails that's even referenced

[51:00] the same with on trail requirements but all a lot of the other ones are way less clear about what happens certainly which which ecosystems we're going to prior prioritize restoring and how we're going to aside and what the heck does that mean Sonia again if it means implement the grasslands plan them for God's sakes link to it and say so you know that kind of stuff would be really helpful with you and and the emphasis I think is on the protection because the restoration comes after what we're trying to protect gets gets trashed so if we emphasize protection rather than coming in afterwards and cleaning up after things have been degraded or exploited or whatever it's kind of a backwards way of going about it okay so I think it's just it's a lot of that is emphasis and I have a question about so you have reduced human disturbance and then at some other point I think it's under recreation its

[52:02] connect trails and it's like I need to know a lot more about that because it seems to be contradictory and so there's different things in in these five areas that in and of themselves being in there are somewhat contradictory to other parts so yep so we you know we recognize that we said from the beginning we weren't going to be able to make site-specific decisions in the plan so we're not saying where to connect the trails or which undesignated trails to restore but we are setting ourselves up for the policy conversations and the the framework for making those decisions after this so that's why we want to make sure tonight that we're we're setting ourselves up strongly for that so so we will have those discussions because I'm sure we all have different opinions about not during our time out Council yeah we're not getting to that right so those are site-specific decisions will come in subsequent planning and engagement processes but one of the

[53:01] things that Lisa's talking about with the trails is that if they are linked one trail over here is linked to one over here then it's increasing fragmentation of the area so one of the ways to protect it is not to fragment it so it's that kind of which is a broader policy issue than which trails where it's right and the whole issue of do we want to continue to build new trails for Kurt I see you wanting to say something there well you said something that sounds like a policy statement I think it's on thanks Cindy you said something that sound like a policy statement regarding these large habitat blocks you said no net loss now yes is that the sort of thing that should be put into the master plan it it's not a location specific statement it's a global strategy or objective from my perspective absolutely it should be put in to the master plan otherwise the master plan is it just sounds nice if we

[54:01] don't give some policy direction so yeah that's what we do when you're asking for substance what we're suggesting is include substance in the description so if you want substantive comments that's when it needs more substance and and I think you know that's a context type of example and we I think provided a number of examples that you could incorporate okay so I just want to make sure we've summarized things before we move on just so we can address the other conversations we need to so what I've got is that for this first strategy we need to make it more clear we need to link to more detailed and related plans where we have more information available as well as a system overview report

[55:00] place more emphasis on protection and I heard the aspiration for no net loss so I just want to get head nods that that's a concept that we'd like to see incorporated into the description before we move on the additional maps data I like data in maps I don't know what no net loss means that seems like a very big vague thing to say so I would need a much deeper dive on that and a very clear definition before I saw something like that written into a master plan okay so we'll take that back and explore that so and looking at our time I want to move kind of quickly through the next few because they are ones that we heard only from one person that they need to talk about too three four six seven and nine before we move on to the end and we've already exhausted the time we've set aside for this particular focus area so I want to kind of move quickly if we can through discussion of what refinement or clarification folks might need about the ones that are white on this page so reduce under the name that is the needed

[56:00] trails someone need to discuss that one for a refinement or clarification I'm gonna assume you're doing that you're looking at that in the master plan yeah it's up there yeah yes yeah I mean I didn't I just keep the general areas I didn't go through and say oh I want you to do it I gave him okay okay so here's one way we can also do this just to prioritize our limited time so if there are comments or thoughts that counsel for example would like to put out there if we don't have time to talk about those tonight then we can start to assemble the list that board might need to explore more tomorrow so as it relates to these others with that in mind are there any concepts that council members would like to put out there for board members to further consider well I just want to respond to Erin's concern about the no net loss and ask that maybe that would be something that we would ask for the open space board of

[57:02] trustees to give us a summation of that not necessarily tonight but they could send that to us I mean I've got an image in my own mind but whether or not given the time constraints now is the time to discuss it I don't I don't know you don't even have an ounce no net loss of habitat cotton contiguity I mean you could have lots of nouns in there so right well I was thinking of large unfragmented places for example that get whittled away until they're not large unfragmented places but they're whittled away places just for a specific okay now so it sounds like future discussion of that item so we need to know are these strategies on target that we just discussed or are there any other refinements before we move on to the next one any other refinements to

[58:00] those strategies this may be my only comment but on reducing undesignated trails I think it's absolutely correct to say especially in sensitive habitat areas and to take ecological considerations into account but I think we also need to say and considering other factors such as the destination served by the undesignated trail we've sort of you know in the example as well something that just goes out somebody's backyard and sure there are lots of social trails that serve almost no redeeming purpose and are easy calls but it's also true that you know more than half of all the climbing formations on open space aren't served by a designated trail and it would be an enormous change in policy to say well wait a minute you need to have a designated trail to go to those destinations and most of them the only reason the trail isn't designated was there was no need to designate it it was sort of working reasonably well and getting people to where they wanted to go and some of those have probably been in existence for 50 years so just

[59:01] without you know proposing anything in terms of any specific one just say we we also ought to consider you know what is the function that the trail performs in evaluating whether to designate it close it etc Tom you're saying yes there are a lot of destinations that are served by multiple trails and closing off a social trail wouldn't preclude getting to that destination but a lot of the climbing trails are the only way to get to a particular destination right a lot of the major climbing formations and the Flatirons are only served by one trail and it's an undesignated trail and that's why typically when we make calls on undesignated trails it's usually done through a public process a trail study areas when we'll make a call make calls on designated on designated trails because of of that topic is one of them so it's it's not a unilateral one staff person behind closed doors making that

[60:01] College usually through a public process in which we make some of these calls okay so here a clarification there any other strategies before we move on I need refinement on this page yes I have a question for counsel on nighttime use it's not specifically addressed anywhere but it hasn't been called out by previous councils and when I look at EHR 4 it talks about light pollution and noise pollution it doesn't talk about nighttime use per se and I'd like to hear from counsel about whether it should conceptually include nighttime use of course all this is don't know what of our like parks closed at sunset so we actually I believe we have an open

[61:01] night policy but there are some parking lots that do close but our system is open and I would just offer briefly as it relates to the data component of this and why it's you're not seeing it in the plan right now is if you remember back to the system overview report we put the data there where we've looked at our visitor surveys and the trends over time and in the last decade actually nighttime use has reduced by half so we're really seeing less than 1% of our 00 p.m. 00 a.m. and so that's why staff didn't feel like the trainer sort of in the reverse direction it didn't call for a particular action at this time I'm I just remember when it came up in 2005 it was a hornet's nest not pretty there are certain areas in the system where nighttime use is more prevalent than others flexed where Flagstaff is an example where it's more prevalent and so we could explore it in certain areas where we do see more nighttime use than in other areas I think one reason to

[62:02] close the loop is that the system overview report calls out the overarching issues that came from the 2005 but we never go through a process in this plan to say we don't need to worry about that one anymore this one's already been addressed and I I just put it out there for Council again that was quite a while ago but it is sort of in councils documents that that was a charge to open space you go ahead zoom I was just gonna say this is I'm assuming it's an issue but I guess before we tackle something especially that we know is gonna be controversial we should know that we have a problem to solve and I guess I would ask that question of a button I use because we know we have other problems to solve that our top priorities and so if not use is declining it's not a we haven't known we don't have specific species were worried

[63:00] about I say interesting question put it on the parking lot for future things to consider if there's ever a loan you know you don't want it to go away but if it ain't a problem now we got so many others I guess that's what I would I would say well and I would also add to that we're just beginning to enforce our dark skies ordinance on July 31st that goes into effect and it'll be interesting to see what that does having dark skies in the city of Boulder and you know it'll take a while to enforce but that should have a phenomenal impact on just our nighttime wildlife and their light pollution and things like that so I would like to see how that movie I'm I'm agreeing with Ann and I think that should be put in the parking lot but it should be monitored in lieu in coupled with the dark skies ordinance and how that is being enforced as we

[64:02] start enforcing and improving so what I'm hearing is reduce and monitor human disturbance I mean just by doing that would staff will be thinking of ways where we could not only implement but do things of keeping track of certain things that just to see I mean she has a bunch of overlapping ordinances but the other the other thing is if we're starting off with the preserve protect conserve then this is another area where someone wrote in to us and said this is the time when the species get to rest so in terms I wouldn't use this to try and bring more people into open space particularly if they're if they have their canine companions talk about harness net Hornets nests but to just give the everything a rest out there and if it's declining I think that's again for those species that we're trying to preserve and protect it's a good thing just I'll agree with with the saying if I was a good analysis I'll just note we

[65:01] also did not do public outreach around this question all right so let's move on then to the rest because I believe we've have enough on this one from your notes as well as we've heard what refinements you're looking for as well as if they're on target so agriculture today and tomorrow on this one you can see many more that you didn't have a need to discuss and so I'll ask again for a show of hands everything that is in black number one three four six and eight if these are elements in which you would support moving forward in the plan so show of hands if if those are you're on board with those they're on target I see on target we note that Sam talked about quantification of the water resource I gave even as remarks so I don't know where that goes but it looks like it Michael under one of the blacks so I'm just noting okay so I think I saw everyone but it was there anyone who there's a are there any of the ones that

[66:00] are in black that you'd would like to discuss I would just like some clarification on this diversification of agricultural operations what does that mean for example there's what you could start by pointing the page so in the agricultural resource management plan which we just passed two years ago now or year-and-a-half ago we called for developing areas for sort of diversified vegetable farming pastured livestock micro dairies kind of that not the traditional ranching and we in that plan we identified I think nine different locations where we would start to try to do that in those opportunities have the infrastructure and the water and the soils that were conducive to those and make them available and I think we've now done three or four of them we've been kind of doing one a year it takes a

[67:01] lot of work to do them but that's the sort of diversification that we're looking for there is some demand for it we know that there are farmers interested in and taking up these opportunities and we will continue to implement the AG resource management plan to do that it's very helpful thank you I guess I do have one comment kind of on three and four which is I think I think we're doing fantastic work and by we I mean you guys I think there in the past we have not been as good as we intended on reaching out to lessees and including them in conversations at the right time that would be much more efficient and collaborative and actually build community rather than give them things so I guess for both supporting the success of future agriculture whatever that looks like and how does it evolve to meet to deal with climate and

[68:01] also our changing diets or what however we want to if we ever want to look at going beef on you know the issue that came up before about beef versus diversified AG I mean that's a public conversation and you can imagine it may evolve over time and I guess I just want to say I think we really need to up our game or continue the trend which I've seen recently a better including and integrating those conversations and we will have much more success of if we do that and then I'll note that the county does seems like they're doing parallel things and I know there's some integration but anyhow the less we can recreate the wheel and avoid some of those stumbles that we make or they make and then we repeat on the other side I'll just I think that that would really I'm sorry I'm being long-winded making sure we incorporate that better going forward I think will serve us all however that yes and agreed and and we

[69:00] do collaborate closely with the county staff their system is much different than ours in terms of right but the techniques that work right yeah I've got a comment over here yeah so I think with three and four I dislike to really see the consideration of what agriculture is going to look like in the next 50 to 100 years and realize that the same thing we've been doing over and over again it's not going to continue to work with the changing of our culture the changing of the environment the global warming that we say we're experiencing and that we realized that we have to find new innovative ways to have agriculture and then it might look different like with hemp or bee farming or carbon sequestration with key lining or biochar and that it might not actually be ranching that we continue to do that produces so much carbon footprints and it's well documented so I just would like to know have it be clear that what it looks like now it's most likely and

[70:00] hopefully not what it's going to look like in 50 to 100 years yeah and I just want to add on to that when you have people like Jane Goodall saying we need to change what we're doing and how we're eating like yesterday I think we do at some point need to have a much longer discussion about agriculture and how it is and are we going to stay the course and I know everybody and it's in this document if there's this romantic view of these ranches but I'm sorry we have to also recognize that things are going to change and that how ranches or farms are going to look have to change and we can't as meerabai said keep doing the same thing it's insanity so which i think is what four is about okay yeah but there's to me there's a little bit of conflict between support the success

[71:02] of ranchers and farmers and diversify I think there's a huge conflict there or a contradiction so I agree with zan we should be on stuff a little earlier and we're I think we're going to be but I think also we can't be continuing to be cattle ranchers and the cattle have been here for a hundred hundred and fifty years and other species have been here for hundreds of thousands of years okay so getting back on target with our goals for this evening of talking about the strategies and if they're on target the ones that you noted that you want to potentially discuss refinement or clarification or in white here let's go to the ones that are underlined because I know that was at more than one person that wanted to discuss the underlined ones so number seven reduce agricultural impacts from Prairie docks let's get

[72:01] into that one there are a couple of people who want to discuss it go go ahead and get started well I'll just start off as say well that's not an objective comment and I still want to see the science that prairie dogs are doing all the damage which is not has not been given to us and to think that it's just one species when in fact it's just it's a perfect storm of non management of over grazing of whatever so I think that needs to be discussed but not in those terms other feelings on that do we have others in agreement about the statements they just made I'll second what Lisa said and that it comes from drought it comes from over grazing from other animals other than prairie dogs and there's just there's no science behind it for the prairie dogs so I'd like to see that happen so I just need

[73:01] to add that there is quite a bit of science and it is there and it has been sent to us so just it's there I'm happy to forward it right there they'd have to you have to read it right like any other science it's controversial so there's not one there's not one answer and I can give you as many papers that say the contrary of the paper set we have gotten so anyway we this isn't the point of this discussion tonight it's not a just it's not at this we I shouldn't talked about this and staff does have recent direction from you all to go look at this in detail and we'll be coming back to you on this issue it's helpful you know I just know that this this does align with the prairie dog working groups recommendations that part of their their recommendations were to reduce conflicts between agriculture and prairie dogs and that seems to be what this is calling out so feels like something that we've that that bat group

[74:00] has agreed that we should look into good point and I would just say exactly what you said reduce conflicts between agriculture and prairie dogs instead of saying it's all from prairie dogs that might be a better way to maybe amend a what we call these we call these our handles they Bri v8 so work on the handle here to reduce conflict I would I think that yeah okay number nine and he has soil health and resilience there are a few people who want to discuss this one make sense I think it's good I think we're learning a lot about carbon sequestration about biochar about better soil health about cover crops so I don't know what you want us to say but was there any refinement for this particular one number nine but we needed to happen to the strategy I guess I might add and

[75:00] well soil health resilience and its role in carbon sequestration and I guess we want it to be healthy and resilient we also wanted to help us address climate change so in some ways that means to enhance its natural role so I guess I might tinker with that or mention and its role in carbon sequestration since it's something that we might seeing if other head nods around that that change to it okay all right any other items under 9 okay then we'll go into item to integrate native ecosystems and agriculture there was one person who wanted this to be brought up for discussion maybe we've already talked about it enough okay and number five enhance enjoyment and protection of working landscapes discussion is this getting that slight farm-to-table and that kind of stuff enjoyment or just just that people understand what's going

[76:01] on or what so this one is trying to capture a couple of things we look at the scenic quality of the working landscapes that's important to the fabric of the Boulder Valley as well as the recreational components for example at a teller farm where where we have the opportunity to support multiple charter purposes but does it also address things like allowing hoop houses or you know ways it does it get at it says protect working landscape so just curious the working part of the landscape looking at our regs is that embodied in another one or not at all I think that that would be I'm sorry in terms of yes okay yes so hoop houses would be something that we look at under diversifying agricultural operations because our infrastructure needs that that need to be addressed in order to do that okay yeah and I think

[77:03] that goes back to the general point at the beginning was there's a good example where the master plan could reference the act plan and quote even the page number and then people after backing up with the evidence I actually think that in that's a great suggestion you can imagine sidebars for each one of these it talks about current trends relevant existing plans or sites to go for more information or whatever possible future action items that kind of seed some things but just so that it's really accessible to people for I think actually all of the strategies might be helpful Karen and when John mentioned previously that number five four had to do with nine specific sites I think distinguishing which of these has to do with which acreages on the land would really clarify what each one was talking about

[78:01] yeah and again maps would help yeah maps and and designating the amount of acreage and where it's located for each of these items well and also what what's surrounding it is that they're open space or is it urban some kind of urban interface I don't think we have that but what we do is Shanahan that's a great point I just might offer that maybe that it was with the caveat like currently we're looking at because he we might be updating plans and my shift a little bit just to make sure that's not set in stone and you're pointing out some items that in the very introduction about the draft the note to the readers that this is an unformatted version you're giving us a lot of notes about what would be helpful when we are formatting it and bringing it together so we can display it in that way I could says you know that this is a Word document knowing that there would be refinements and edits to it and that later phase we can display things differently and connect ideas together in a different way so it's helpful for thinking through those

[79:00] refinements of maps and other elements be added okay so I think we've moved through every item on this list for agriculture today and tomorrow for strategies and refinements anymore before I move on I I have a question I may have come in that I don't think so because I gave just very general but reduce or eliminate pesticide use so [Music] again I mean this is a good goal so it's just the goal and how we're going to do it I mean I thought we were pretty much free of pesticides but I guess we're not or herbicides yeah we are pretty free in fact we've now phased out glyphosate at the operational level Lisa I am very happy since it was about a year ago and I had a heart attack and thought that happening so and and we will continue to do that it is a balance with invasive

[80:00] species and you know how do we manage that situation right and to that point and maybe we just have offline conversation but MZ's they're away so I was walking on four-mile Canyon Creek the Greenway and there's weeds coming in there and so I started picking some but it's like is there a way to get volunteers to come out and do this and we need an invasive weed app well we need what we need is and you talk about all these volunteers you have but it would be very cool if you had like and maybe you have but a hotline or something like that where you say hey there's a bunch of weed to your right now I've been going around and picking these goats sounds like an idea for the implementation future steps and we do we do get a number of emails every year and I found some myrtle spurts the other day

[81:00] this is really I think you should say further reduce because you've done so much and it I think it's clear for the public that it's not like we don't already do that and and really you should be reassured on the agricultural side we're we're I mean we have not had any applications in the past to crop year so it's really low I just want to make sure we get Sam's point in here about our agricultural water rights and maybe we could get a memo on that what is the value of those water rights as an asset and how do we assess the use of those rights by those who benefit from them and we'll just offer that you know our current estimate which is recognizably outdated to sixty to seventy million dollars but that's a process that we recognize we need to go to to understand the current value and the county for example is undergoing that process and it's a very slow

[82:01] methodical process to go through that it's it's similar to the real estate market where think chef but yeah thank you okay I think we're ready to move on to responsible recreation stewardship so with this one there are a number of items there that are black that were ones that you didn't bring up that you need to discuss that you would support moving forward into the plan the final plan so I want to show of hands if all the ones in black numbers one two four six and nine if they are on target so I can get a show of hands if all of those you believe are on target I do but I had one one comment one comment okay I'll come back can we come back okay anyone else on our one two four six and nine are these all on target I have a few people there so there's okay so I know who to call on who needs a tough discuss woman's in black okay so that's quite a few of you all right so those that are in black

[83:02] there were a couple of you that didn't raise your hands Erin you might have wanted a clarification on one of them well I just want to make a comment on on number six which was the improving the trail connections just I don't I don't think it called out specifically the opportunity for regional prioritizing regional connections it mentions regional partnership in the initial language I don't think it says to really search out opportunities for regional connections and I'll make the point that doesn't always necessarily involve fragmentation I think about for example the Union Pacific Trail now the RTD trail that we have an opportunity to do which is an existing right-of-way used to have a railroad on it still has tracks what would make a great regional trail it's in the plans so I just love to see a little bit of language about searching for those those bigger regional connections right and and so I was going to bring that up as well and we have the Rocky Mountain Greenway and I don't know what kind of I'll have

[84:00] to get with the you and and see where we are with the Rocky Mountain Greenway and going north but I am have some concerns when you say improve trail connections I'm on board on regional but I'm also concerned about fragmentation so I would like to know what that means improve trail connections because it could mean a lot of things some of which I'm fine with and some I'm not well he's calling on him Steve yeah I have a question on the number one on support a range of recreational opportunities actually in the draft it says a diverse range and I guess I would like to know exactly what that means because I think the Charter spells out very clearly what the recreational opportunities are and I think we open up

[85:00] a can of worms if we start using nomenclature like a range of diverse recreational opportunities just like that's exactly what I was going to say Dave about yeah supporting a range of recreational opportunities there spelled out in the Charter and so I'm also very uncomfortable with this range and I don't know why it's even there okay I have no idea okay I think what we mean is a range of recreational experiences I'm hang on I'm listening we are we know that it's maybe you should say support a range of passive recreational opportunities but I think that's everything from we have some trails that are accessible to wheelchairs we have some that are wide so you can take your old family and then dog on it and not you know when people can pass you have others that are rugged and go to Wilder places that few people use that's a range of experiences we're gonna have

[86:02] some places where kids can get close to the water and play and yeah I think that that's what this means and correct me if I'm wrong but we if need be we can say passive recreational experience but it's experiences they don't all have to be eight-foot-wide multi-use trails what what I wouldn't want to do I think is put the expectation out there whether it's an experience or a opportunity that it's open to beyond those that are spelled out as passive except for those that are noted in the Charter so that we don't build in an expectation that someone wants to play whatever well then add the word passive well and that just read of underscores I would add the word passive but I would also state as defined in the Charter under Section blah blah blah so just take it right to the Charter and that's

[87:01] something I kind of noticed in this the master plan is that it doesn't refer back to the Charter too much and I think they should be pretty much married the Charter sets out what we can do and the master plan comes from that Charter yep thank you Lisa you know we said from the very beginning that the master plan was not gonna change the Charter so I think we made that assumption but there's probably an opportunity to emphasize that and we can also emphasize what was approved in the VMP to explain what the parameters are what do we mean by arranged because that spells out what the passive recreation is great sidebars for this section yeah yeah can I just married you I would offer a note of caution in terms of saying uses in the Charter that just look at the Charter language it says land for passive recreational use such as hiking photography or nature studies and if specifically designated bicycling

[88:00] horseback riding or fishing so has a such as it doesn't have a limited to I mean it doesn't call it bird-watching it doesn't call out running it doesn't call it there's a whole kinds of things that people do on open space I think are perfectly fine that are not mentioned specifically in the Charter side having language you could only do what specifically call that would be I think too limiting in that context would be appropriate very just a general comment on all of these the word stewardship appears in the general title but there's I think might be like zero use within those strategies themselves and I think there are opportunities to inject that more into some of these strategies I realize that

[89:03] it is a lot in the educational section but since this one has in the heading stewardship it it should I think in my mind have more reference to that within the descriptions alright so going back to you've now had some clarifying items around the items that are black here that we didn't think we needed to discuss but we did so I want to see just a show of hands of are these items that after that clarification the notes that Darren's taken here would you feel comfortable and saying that these are support enough to move forward into the plan for that you'll see before adoption later can I see a show of hands if these are ones that you'd like to see okay so I see all hands and then question no I was not clear and all of my annotation from my master plan disappeared so I'm

[90:02] just doing it by memory but I did have a question about provide welcoming and inspiring visitor amenities what does that mean so just you know you want to do you want to get into that one first or do you want to I think I think then we are clear that you didn't have anything on the ones that are in black you're comfortable with those okay and then so we're gonna move into item three there is one person who wanted to discuss that one Lisa was that you okay so you both needed to talk about that one a little bit well I just wanted to know what was meant by that and I guess I just want to be very clear that our our parks and recreational facilities are very different than what our open space and mountain parks facilities are so when I see this it's like what are we

[91:01] talking about here so I think just by way of a little bit more context of the the actual strategy language behind the handle it talks about the fact for example that we own and a set of historic facilities in the mountain parks for example and so that's sort of at a policy level and intention to continue to provide those because they're part of our cultural history as well as well as looking at the accessibility of the facilities knowing that there might be some retrofits to increase the universal accessibility for example so looking at the ways that the our existing infrastructure can can continue to be welcoming and inspiring and this is you know I would offer Mary Ann Austin a strategy where we do talk about some that stewardship because it's a way to also the inspiring part is where we talk about the intention to elevate opportunities to learn about the surrounding landscape through that visitor infrastructure well getting

[92:01] myself in trouble I did I like this one but I guess it really gets to four and I just want to underscore the better we build trails and the more inspiring they are the better people stay on them so I guess and I think you call that out there and trail and I guess number four but I highlighted three just to underscore that I think that we're about quality experiences and I think that builds better stewards and better behavior so I guess I think they're self reinforcing and it's part of I think our we're getting better at it I'll just put it that way and in the in the text just beyond the handle that's a perfect place to insert the word that term stewardship I think for which one I'm sorry Mary number three that we're talking about okay and

[93:00] we could even say inspiring visitor amenities and stewardship opportunities I think yeah well you get at it under education I think everybody that records and enjoys open space lands should also come away feeling inspired to volunteered out to give back and I think that virtuous cycle is something we really want to hold up this plan so when I see the word amenities III don't think of cultural resources I think of actually bathrooms and so when we're saying inspiring visitor men amenities I'm wondering are we trying to build inspirational bathrooms [Music] I would suggest especially in this context if it's going to be cultural

[94:02] resources we we spell that out or include that in whatever additional information we provide and I would recommend especially in this context to replace amenities with services and delete inspiring so we just provide welcoming you know visitor services or something I'm not sure that we need to necessarily be inspired by these things and we're not putting out houses or restrooms at every one of our trailheads I think it means well placed benches we have good views that's what I was thinking inspiring amenities there's a there's a much larger paragraph underneath this handle that kind of hints to what we are talking about and again in terms of what amenities would be at a trailhead for instance again that those tend to be conversations we have through trail study plans we do get into the level of should there be an

[95:00] outhouse at this drill that or not and again that is on the ground planning that's always part of our public process for what should be on there but as far as what we mean by amenities there is we have a fairly large beefy paragraph underneath this handle that tends towards what we're talking about I just think using the word amenity basically means that then if if it's not then is where these services or places are not that it's not amenable and from my perspective it's similar where Lisa said it's basically a minimum minimization of a number of these things provides the experience actually and so it just seems prejudicial to use the term amenities and when you compare that with whether or not does that mean that it's not non amenable I think what I hear you saying David that would look to the rest of the group to see if you agree that it sounds like the concept that in response to

[96:01] link landscape character or the entire DEQ's perience that we're thoughtful about the surrounding natural resources that we incorporate that concept into here maybe more clearly in order to get to what you're talking about would that satisfy at the group yes okay great I think then we should move on to item five since there was a little bit of a hint of this one needing discussion of reducing the trail maintenance backlog there was one person that wanted to bring this one up for discussion or clarification did we hit on it already okay then the one that had a little more interest with seven manage increasing visitation crack so the whole thing yeah that's where like people are like duh so

[97:01] so and one I would include in this and I've spoken a little bit with Dan about this but I really like the fact that the N and Jefferson County manager and Boulder County and all of these other little Oh little S or Big O because land managers are all meeting together because I think this is a common problem and we're not going to get this problem solved by ourselves and so the more we can me as land managers to discuss this and we all each one of our programs have different things so some of them aren't things that are won it and others but we need to collaborate and discuss more how we can come to a common understanding

[98:00] and help manage some of this visitation a little more so maybe people aren't coming from such far distances and it's fine if they do come but it's it's a really a regional issue absolutely and just know based on the responses we just got together and kind of put together what we are actually currently already doing in terms of managing an increase in visitation and this is the list we kind of put together just coming up with programs and projects that are sort of fresh in our mind right now of things that we're doing currently and you'll see regional partnerships is number one I mean there's probably four different regional groups that are found now formed and up and running with visitation being sort of the central theme of it's one of those things as we're so glad that people are connecting to our open space systems it's good that they're loved the land that they realize the value of these habitats however you

[99:01] know how can we and you know maintain that love of limb without obviously just join what people are here to enjoy so doing things regionally is is going to be key and and that's that's really the thrust behind this number one and like I said there's four different partnerships that are already forming on the Front Range that deal with that regional partnership in that regard I just wanted to make a quick comment right and this isn't really master plan this is more tactic tactical the in coincidentally there's the Leave No Trace right of both at Chautauqua access management the shuttle and the parking the shuttle currently has these docent type of people riding on them and that seems like a perfect opportunity to impart Leave No Trace kind of information and currently it's all about what restaurants you

[100:00] so I will leave it there I want to point out we are running a bit over time at this point so I did want to mention that since this is one of you were kind of laughing at we needed to spend more time discussing and items but I want to give 45 and we 45 yes and so we want to spend 45 minutes just on the prioritization is where we thought we'd spend with a later part of this so just wanted to give a heads up to that part of it so any other items under this managing increasing visitation so I think it's great that we're working with other people and everything but I've wondered under this have you defined carrying capacity I mean is are those are there numbers that you're looking at even in in ballpark terms or do you just keep letting everyone come everyone come

[101:00] does the gates stay open so those are they're hard questions that's right Cindy and then we made a list of you know where what's what are some lifts that we can do in the near term right around this subject matter and we came you know some of these have been identified already we need to evaluate and update the visitor use management plan expanding presence on our system to encourage and regulatory sort of compliance continue addressing undos any trails the voice and site program is up for evaluation the commercial use permit needs to be freshly evaluated the temporal management of our system we have one pilot project that's called for at the North Trail study plan should we call for more of those type of looking into those uses so we have a number of things that we could envision doing early on in this master planning process that gets right to the heart of visitor use so one of the and one of the things that gets

[102:00] to the heart of visitor use particularly in those neighborhoods where it's great we're great the neighborhoods are greatly affected such as Chautauqua is also sanitized and parking is I mean reaching those same limits that chatauqua has done I mean it just goes it's crazy so that's another concern I think we're hearing from people who live within the community it's free parking but how do we manage parking at these places as well and I think in response to that just to emphasize what Dan said there is immediate actions we can take in certain locations and a specific policy guidance of God and then there's also like a system-wide look to look at things like thresholds etc so we're thinking wondering if it'd be a good idea so to lay out those steps what are the near terms actions we can take for this strategy and then what are the longer-term strategies we take so we're looking at the bigger picture while we're also taking care of some mediate immediate issues on page 53 one of the

[103:01] things you addresses you talked about there's another graph there it doesn't give the actual numbers it just gives percentages but also the last in terms of looking at places where you anticipate more visitation in the future that last sentence is just a little bit lame maybe these findings suggest the need to monitor conditions over time especially where congestion issues are emerging early detection can support early action well that's true it's really I'd like to see you jump on it a little more just with the with the with the words as well as with the actions you might seems like an easy place to strengthen to just say we need to monitor these conditions over time because you do right now do we yeah this is one of those kinds of places

[104:01] where I really want to see the data displayed on a graph in the first paragraph of our RFC seven the the data that's repeated a couple of times in the plan is that there was a 34% increase in the last is it 10 years 13 and and if you keep that rate up in another 10 years we'll have another 30-some percent increase in another 10 years we'll have another 30 percent some percent increase so we can't just develop a toolkit we've really got to come to grips with as Cindy said what are the numbers is there a limit or are we going to have a graph like like in the transportation master plan that projects this continuing line or are we going to try to bend the curve and that

[105:00] to me is the kind of policy issue that council needs to decide so that we can put that in the plan now so it I'll just add that I think these two things where you talked about your stuff we already have underway here's some additional stuff that this is like lucky place and you got to have it in there cuz I think a lot of people thought this was what the plan was gonna be about this issue was gonna be a major I meant just because it's such the big issue so I think getting to this level of clarity around stuff would be very helpful because it's on everybody's mind okay I'm not seeing I gotta call this one then I think thank you so there was one

[106:01] more that one person wanted to discuss before we move on to the last of the focus areas so that was thank you for pulling it up for you and improve fee-based recreation programs any discussion items around this one before we move on if you didn't underscored there was something you wanted to say I don't know if i underscore did it or if three of us ender scored it one person for the break but it was definitely one of my big ones because I because I found a bunch of things in the paper these are just recent ones like in the last week where people our meeting at places like wait a minute that's the amount to hike on the at mountain lions lair people are meeting at over it on 93 and the parking lot

[107:00] over there where go into Eldo so people are meeting there to carpool into here and so I was just concerned about I thought this is again goes to the this being an issue of the Front Range but also groups someone sent me a photograph of a van that was from one of our local large it was it's actually I think probably all of the west coast if not more firms that is in to the industrial recreation could be termed that and so how much about when did we start monetizing open space use how much do we permit and where's the data for that it's I think it's a it hasn't been done always and so I'm concerned about the growth of that that this is a publicly purchased system that is enjoyed by all

[108:00] of us but that it's not there for other people to be making money off of necessarily you know this whole thing was confusing to me because I wasn't sure whether a fee base recreation programs were sponsored by the open space mountain parks department or whether those were actually private programs that charged participants and then they used open space so I think there should be more clarity on this particular strategy okay it's a good point Dave thanks and I'm assuming that I know like High Plains that High Plains used to be called Doughty draw anyway we get a lot of people who come in with horses or with bikes to start off from there and they're not from Boulder and I know we've tried to do permitting of those and I just don't know how well

[109:00] we're doing I have no information on that and I assume we are keeping our fees up-to-date are we know so then somehow that there needs to be action to make sure that we're somewhat competitive and that you know that those uses are being fully paid for and aren't detracting from our system sir there is one number in here which says that the number of commercial use permits issued grew by over 60% from 2016 to 2018 whoa was over 60% and that the fees taken in were thirty four thousand six hundred dollars which of course in terms of staff time and all of that plus the usage on this base itself yeah and if my recollection is right we started those and maybe time you can remember like

[110:01] it's somewhere with the visitor master plan back in two thousand five something like that and my understand when standing was when those were brought in that we would keep kind of track of those uses and adjust those fees over time so that's like 14 years ago yeah so we did yeah we did implement it back in 2006 right after the visitor master plan and so and then we also came back to City Council back in 2013 because that was one of the first issues out of the overarching issues that we took a look at so we looked at both the parking fee and the commercial right and so we checked in on where are we with the fee amounts for those the application of them for the parking fee that's where we added the southern trail heads the park outer County parking fee and then with the commercial we made some adjustments there we kept the fees the same but continued to both implement and kind of

[111:01] refine but also track why did we keep the fees the same if inflation is happening too everybody that's at that point I think in 2013 we thought the fees were amenable for the types of activities were occurring and just to give some kind of a little more detail is of the 320 commercial use permits we had for last year mm-hmm 250 of those were photography so by far the most common type of permit is just the individual who's doing portrait photography etc in our system and so the kind of the others are it's down in the teens that we're talking about the climbing the the nature camps that are getting the permits we had five commercial biking applicants last year so that just gives a scale when you think about those 320 it's really small scale and the individual photographers that are critical are really important to just have in the data like this one is one

[112:10] that you're in support of reviewing and improving the fee-based recreation is to put a group we ought to put a group term in there as well so that it's a non fee program but group permitting so just the other day when I was out running there were a mass of bicyclists in North Boulder and about 50 of them broke off and I thought they were gonna ride on us 36 but they turned in the BVI and rode as a mass on the Eagle trail at you know 6:30 in the morning and I'm thinking well if I'm running on the Eagle trail and I confronted a group of 50 bicyclists you know what's going to

[113:01] happen yeah and so I think that we ought to be looking at group permits as well as fee based permits sighs you're taking that to move into the next set we allocated about 20 minutes for this one because we have a number of them that you already said you're you're you're cool with you don't need to discuss further so that is numbers one two three four six seven and nine so show of hands if these are all on targets the ones that are black on the screen all on target okay we can come back for comments but on target I think I saw is that's all hands I believe okay no you didn't put yours up okay and Aaron has clarification so one with clarification and another comment on one of these items in black Aaron do you wanna coming here just on the number six the welcoming diverse backgrounds and abilities which i think is just really important that we that we make a

[114:01] lot of efforts to reaching out to people who don't tend to get on open space as much which is one of the things that I know that other places have done with a lot of success is to make particular efforts to get underserved youth onto their open space systems in their natural areas and I didn't see that really called out specifically here so I wonder if we might mention that as one of our potential things that you list is things that we do is have focus on underserved youth and getting them into the outdoors yeah so and I would just ask on Aaron's thing how what's our outreach program for Rangers for our Junior Rangers I don't I don't know getting underserved youth to be part of the Lisa actually a new program coordinator who's been with us for a year starting to look into that and it's gonna be getting back to the board at the end of the year with how we might improve that it is time to consider its great so I had a question ideas on that

[115:02] one is I know we're working a lot on diversity hiring a diversity of Rangers from different backgrounds I think also facilitates that divert the welcoming piece because you see people of all backgrounds and that makes it more likely you'll see somebody that looks like you and then the other just the other notion of um you know like how the ski areas like if you're in the fifth grade every but he goes free to kind of introduce everybody to skiing in Colorado everybody knows I mean I just kind of wonder if we do that like for first fourth and eighth graders too you know the assumption is you're gonna get out on open space or go do a stewardship project kind of built into the expectations that if you live here there will be a time where you will go do something on open space and the concept of stewardship gets built in and I don't know if we have that expectation or even that practice but third grade would if

[116:02] the first question Jane implemented the citywide equity effort and we know that support and diversity and hiring staff and we'll hopefully get better at that yes we have for example the e movement where we collaborate with our partners on how we do environmental education and what are the gaps we notice is in certain age groups between three and six between twelve and fifteen so we're trying to recognize those gaps because then you lose the continuum of someone engaging at my you know understand all of nature then wanting to stewardship volunteer as well as enjoy it so we recognize we can do better at that but we have got some foundation work in place I just think this is a key opportunity well and and I would suggest you partner with Parks and Rec to do a bunch of that because the back to my comment this is open space and different from Parks and Rec and I think there's activities that are totally suitable that we could partner with Parks and Rec

[117:02] on my my last comment and we're on the CCE i-9 preserve and interpret what is boulders cultural heritage is that like since white guys got here or are we including Native Americans absolutely inclusive of all cultural resources on open space lands a lot of them are prehistoric and we do protect those importance with natural national heritage preservation act and and stay lost okay so I think it would be helpful if somehow that handle was written differently because it doesn't come across that way it comes across as since the Europeans got here and we didn't start maybe we started bad habits but we didn't we talked about that actually at

[118:00] the Native American consultation the idea of there were a lot of tribes presidents but the idea of interpret having many of the tribes be able to tell their story in various locations and how I do that given the diversity of tribes and you know it was a very the beginning of it I think of a very rich conversation about how we might do that and I would just add to that it's not just open spaces responsibility because there were native people all over the city of Boulder and so we have very old grounds really close to here that isn't that aren't on open space and I want to be very cautious of just because different people inhabited Boulder at one point we don't go to one department to make them pay for all of it and so it

[119:04] needs to be distributed amongst the city the cost for that I don't want to redirect this conversation I think it's a really good one and I appreciate the topic but I do want to note that we had hoped at this time I'd be transitioning into talking about prioritization and the funding piece of this so I one of the respect that there are two that we want to discuss there was an interest in number five enhanced signs and communication one person wanted to discuss that and then a couple more than one was interested in number eight so anything for five before we move into the prioritization okay eight consult and collaborate with federally recognized Native American nations and help support indigenous people kind of on that topic already but let's get into that a little bit more and then I think we've moved through all these and can get into the financial strategies yes Aaron so he can start

[120:02] that I was one of the people that called that out I mean I thought this is a critically important strategy and we've been doing some really good work over the last year with a consultation with the tribes it is one thing it felt like the language in the main paragraphs was more about honoring the historical connections the past connections and and I'd love to see something a little bit more about the current relationship and how making invitations to tribes to be here to revisit to spend time here and be with us and things like that and and possibly designating specific lens whatever you do do that that's kind of an implementation bit but I just would like to see some some language about the current you know how we're working on how it happens today with the people who are alive today that's another sidebar and I would argue we should say in concert with other city

[121:00] departments so that we don't feel like open space has to fund and host and do all this let's go okay one more yes there's a MoU between 13 indigenous tribes in the city of Boulder you know with the open space Department and I think that this that should be recognized as as providing some guidance in this particular section because there is a quote history of working with some of the indigenous peoples over the past probably almost 20 years and that's what's being updated through the consultation okay great or exactly back on time nice work everyone we're gonna move into the funding projects 45 minutes and I'll turn it over to Darren to lead that aspect I

[122:00] would just ask does anybody need to stand up yes just briefly raised us I love jackets that we can just grab alright you were welcome to keep standing I am just gonna keep us I'm gonna start talking to keep it moving please keep moving if you need to so we

[123:02] are with our fifth focus area and we talked about that this is the focus area where this is the how and the the again how we're gonna implement the strategies across the others and so as it relates to financial sustainability in and of itself we do have a set of strategies again around stabilizing funding budgeting for future uncertainty as well as some of the operational things that we need to talk about like understanding the the total cost of system management and some definition around what acquisitions will look like in the future as well as our workforce development and updating our planning framework so we will devote some time in here in a little bit for you to contemplate these strategies themselves but what we also want to talk about is how we have developed a set of priorities around our strategies themselves and so to do that in accordance with citywide master planning frameworks we have developed three scenarios where we look at the our

[124:01] current level of funding as it relates to the expected sales tax explorations and that does account to amount to about 19 million dollars a year where our budget is constricting we do we have been planning for that for years our second scenario is the restoration of some are all of the sales text funding to think about what that might look like and the third scenario is what more typically is called the Vision Plan where we look at additional and diversified funding above 2018 levels so that's sort of the general construct that we have established in our draft master plan and as it relates to how we align our strategies across the first four focus areas to those three funding scenarios the way we did that was to understand from our staff our community and our board what strategies we should prioritize and so that's what is reflected in the draft plan is are the priorities of those three groups

[125:00] primarily and tonight is an opportunity to refine any of those will revise those priorities as might come out tonight in the next draft of the plan and continue the conversation with board and Council as we ask for final approval and one of the key messages that we've heard both from our staff our community and from the Board of Trustees is focused on taking care of what we have and so what we have up here is just the one data piece from a recent survey for the master plan where we saw a strong percentage of our respondents supporting the improvement of ecosystem health of our existing lands as it relates to acquisition of new lands for conservation so this is to say that we you know we're still hearing from our community the acquisition is something that we should be in the business of doing but relative to conservation of our existing lands let's place emphasis on that and so that's helped sort of characterize the general prioritization process that we've gone through and what's resulting and so where we've

[126:02] ended up is with a set of strategies 17 out of our 46 that we're calling right now are high-priority strategies and what what we mean by that is those are the ones that especially in the near term out of the gate starting implementation after council approves this those are the ones that we would accelerate your emphasis emphasized first those are the ones that we would devote our most funding to our most staff time - we would also in the second and third financial scenarios scale those same efforts up if we got additional funding the other strategies are still important they wouldn't be in the draft master plan if they weren't we have gone through process with community and board of narrowing down concepts and so the concept is that if they're not considered a high priority strategy we still intend to work towards those but in a more gradual way and we only accelerate or emphasize those later if additional funding and capacity becomes

[127:00] available so that's kind of the general construct that we've worked with in terms of how do we take this broad set of aspirations and strategies for the next decade and one of those down into what we hope becomes a reasonable feasible number of things to emphasize first when we talk to you tonight about any refinements you might have keep in mind that we did hear some comments from the community that we might consider narrowing it down even further you know as we think about our staff work plans I think that's something that we could understand as well just to keep things feasible and reasonable and to give you an understanding of again how we might scale the work if additional funding might become available as it relates to some of our heart our high priority strategies we might look to get more of a good thing in other words for example we might be able to restore more miles of creeks we could further reduce the trail maintenance backlog we could further expand our soil health initiatives and we'd look to grow the

[128:00] Junior Ranger program all of these things are just examples of some of the program's projects that would stem from the high priority strategies as we've defined them now but they're there examples to just give an understanding of what it might look like where we scale our work to the available funding whether that's in our current fiscally constrained scenario or otherwise so that was a brief presentation just to kind of give you some context and I'm going to turn it back over to Anna to talk about the actual strategies first as it relates to the financial sustainability focus area and then we invite your comments on how you might want to adjust to refine the priorities themselves but I would also open up for any questions you might have before we get into the discussion so I appreciate the comments on we should take care of what we own and we should manage that very well and that should be

[129:00] a high priority but I would hope that our acquisitions when there's key acquisitions that come up that are maybe a small piece of land in the middle of all open space and you don't want to see that develop that that would be a priority it affects the other priorities on open space and then one thing we didn't talk about before we got into this but it came up through the discussion was more boots on the ground and that came up under several headings and so I I want to make sure that's in there somehow with this financial sustainability and increasing funding it's just one comment about the acquisitions is I think what what this master plan will allow us to do as we look at acquisitions does not say acquisitions off the table but prioritize those acquisitions that may help further enhancement and improvement

[130:01] of our management of our system so instead of growing out you know it does as acquisition help to achieve a management goal I could think of a few in Holdings that we've a that were able to achieve over the last couple of years that had severe invasive problems and we were unable to control the invasives in our own lands because we didn't have control of that particular processor so through acquisition we actually it was almost a management tool rather than a traditional acquisition so this will allow us to look at our acquisition program in light of managing the system and it's I'm good thank you items 1 & 2 or ones that wanted to be discussed by one person stabilizing funding and budget for future uncertainty or there was a clarification so when I wanted to bring those two up I did stabilize funding I just wanted to

[131:05] note that there's a good chance when I put this on the ballot and so anyhow I didn't know we're not talking about that tonight but yet it's the context of this and I don't know as you go out we're deciding that before this comment period no we'll decide to decide the ballot after the comment periods over but I do think it would be useful for people to know that we will be that you guys should tell people we're gonna be just get discussing that matter on July something 1616 so that the extent that the public cares about this issue we should let them know we'll be discussing it then and they should weigh in right and I didn't answer your question so I was supposed to I don't follow instructions well and so I didn't go through the 1 2 3 so you don't have I just said but I would have underlined

[132:02] that and I've written two emails hotlines about open space tax and I will also say that there probably would have been at least a third underline and I think we probably all underlined or did your answers differently so it's not ie everybody cares about funding right and so Sam also wrote in his hotmail to the hotline whatever it's called that he supports a tax as well consideration of the tax and probably something on the ballpark of a point 1 5 so any refinements to 1 or 2 pardon me are there any refinements to stabilize funding or a budget for future and certainly or those I'm just emphasizing that some of us didn't answer this right and so how your Widing them or underlining them or bolding them or blacking them is anyhow it was yeah and

[133:03] I just wonder if we might have a little amendment process because it seems like we're likely to move on something this year which may or may not get approved by voters and you nice to have the master plan reflect that outcome once we get there and I just wanted to say that Lisa mentioned a number and we haven't had that discussion yet so that's not necessarily known I hope and I just threw it out like for a bid okay so all the items in black were ones that we didn't have anyone raise the issue if I want to know are those all on target numbers five six seven eight nine and ten on target if so he'd raise your hand of moving that forward next steps I have a target I'm seeing did you okay for those of you that didn't raise your hand were

[134:00] there any items and numbers five through ten that you needed some clarification or wanted to discuss okay then I'm gonna assume that we're okay with those underlined ones were ones that more than one person wanted to discuss oh sorry did you have yeah I don't know what evaluate existing real estate assets on OS MP land means yeah so throughout a hundred years of acquisitions we acquire lands that sometimes in order to acquire the lands we acquire buildings that wasn't the primary motivator for why we wanted to do that acquisition so through time we've accumulated some buildings and structures that may or may not have a deeper level of open space charter purposes than others and what this is saying is that we it's time for us to go through a deep evaluation process of especially those residences that we own do they serve an open-space charter purpose do they have potential to serve an open-space charter purpose if they don't what are some options for us in

[135:00] that regards so that's the primary action that could be so that could help achieve that strategy there may be other ones down the road over the next 10 years we may want to look at land management portfolio that Boulder County Open Space has and that we have and perhaps there's a few lands that make sense to be under a different regime we have some very northern properties that are surrounded by Boulder County Open Space vice versa does management of these make sense in a different context so you guys doing that type of evaluation that somehow get that handle get a little more clear I when I first read that I thought are we selling off our open space yeah we'll work on the handle okay so number three understanding total costs of system management they're more the one person who wanted to discuss this one you

[136:00] change your minds okay it's just i underscore the things I think were the key issues and I don't think we have at least a public isn't well aware of all the costs that go into managing and when we let some of those taxes expire based on including advise of open space staff I think we underestimated what it would cost to manage the system especially in the face of climate change so I do think updating the narrative around that and what the true costs are and educating the whole community is going to be key both for this plan but also if we're going to consider a tax so it's important to get that clarify that sooner rather than later and and I would just add to that also not just climate change but it in the face of this increasing visitation right it's so hurt yeah yes agreed it's just seems things like flood recovery kind of things we will be

[137:01] having more frequent floods yeah we will be having more frequent fires and they'll all be more intense all right then number four I'm sorry it's it's truths are going towards extinction [Music] there before taking care of what we have some time gonna discuss this one or have a clarifying question on this I think it's just as Suzanne said these are yeah I think this is a version on variation on three and four very related what does it cost to manage a system in order to take care of what we have mm-hmm okay great Darren want to move into alright terrific so yes and while Darren

[138:13] shuffles the deck I had a kind of an overriding question about prioritization that I think is important in helping us develop that list which is what is the life cycle of a high priority status when would high priority status sunset under what conditions is it as simple as in the next revision of the master plan which happens in next year's then we evaluate if this is still high priority or not high priority do we meet certain metrics and then it is satisfied I feel like that's something I need to understand in order to understand what's a tractable number of priorities working

[139:11] yes so an excellent question so as we talked about earlier when you think about after we have the final plan adopted and we move into implementation planning we then are we have the ability to align the master plan with an annual budget cycle and so those conversations are part and parcel of what that looks like each year now I'm going forward and so we'll work with the word to put detail around what that consultation process initially looks like with the board but we envision it being an annual conversation if not more frequently in terms of here's the progress that we've made each year here's what we anticipate for the next two to three years are we still on track with these particular priorities or have we made substantial progress towards those have the sand shifted in which case you might need to revisit those priorities but right now the way we're looking at them as we're talking about them in the near term we're looking at

[140:00] being able to predict our CIP for example in our operating dollars over the next three to six years and so we want to give it some life in terms of again the next few years at least is how we've anticipated the near term does that help okay that was fast priorities may shift as changing conditions over the ten years shift so what we're envisioning for at least probably the next three years what we land on as a high-priority probably will remain a high priority for the first three years but through annual visits of our annual work plan we may shift those throughout the ten years data and through data of course yep okay so the ask right now as we talked about earlier is whether or not you would suggest any refinements to the way these have been prioritized to date and so to understand what you're looking at from afar

[141:01] understanding that you know it may be difficult to see you also have handouts in front of you that have the same information as up here so what you're looking at is those that have an asterisk and that are in bold are the ones that have been prioritized to date so again that amounts to 17 out of 46 strategies and so the ask now is does that look on target are there any refinements that you might make or any concerns that you have in relation to that Daren did mention at the beginning that there were some comments that 17 seemed like a large number for near-term priorities so maybe a decision there too do we want to think about reducing our the consider how many we really have here so Tom Isaacson at the beginning we were on reduce undesignated trails I get a point for mountain climbers and you

[142:02] don't really want those designated necessarily rock climbers so are we going to distinguish between undesignated and social trails I mean social trails we should and I then how do you define them but it seems to me the social trails out your back door should definitely be reduced and are you asking that Lisa because that might affect whether or not you prioritize it right okay yeah so I just don't know and I don't know how we if we're gonna change the language to the handle if it needs to be changed or what specifically and where we just it's reduce unwanted undesignated sure else right I in appropriate rooms oh we had to do is modify that for instance we have a number of undesignated trails through adopted and approved PSAs and what this would tell us to do is devote more

[143:01] resources in order to carrying out that was planning those planning guidance make it a priority spend more your time and resources in order to carry out those parts of those past plans oh that's different than closing trails that you don't want okay Erin so I get that 17 as a fair amount but I want to make a pitch for a couple more and before I before I have to give some up I know well before I do that though we might consider a couple of Tears you know where I mean there are really all 17 like super equally high priority or or do we have a top-10 tier and a second ten tier so I'll leave that for y'all time all over but regardless I'm gonna make it I'm gonna make a pitch for a couple so one of them is the the RSC to encouraging the multimodal access to trail heads and there's a couple reasons for this what one is that this is one of our responses to climate changes to allow people to get to Trails without using a vehicle

[144:02] that burns fossil fuels the others that in the main reasons that we have some momentum around this one because of the Chautauqua Area management plan which has been extremely successful and it seems like that's not something that we want to just put to the side and say that we're done with that let's now in ten years maybe we'll consider something else similar and then of course the parking impacts that people talk about Encinitas or Santa toss is a prime one to look at so so I'd love to see us continue to momentum in that area well not to mention Eldorado Canyon sort of hanging out thank you very much another key one another key one to do that so should I pause there Aaron I just wanted to say that someone was telling me just recently that the she talked the Chautauqua shuttle has not been as gotten the same ridership and that people have returned to parking in the neighborhoods and are just expecting to pay the parking fees so maybe so Cindy and I spoke about this yesterday it was

[145:01] me and the decline is very slight and and the Transportation Department is monitoring it and we will make adjustments after we learn more data through the rest of the summer but we were just noting that when it's a new thing people flocked to it and now they figured out maybe how to do things differently so we're monitoring it and it still is hugely successful so I didn't want my earlier comment in a conversation with Sydney to be read as it's not successful it's very very successful we're only two weeks into the season right that's right right and I just was that might to talk of a meeting last night and they were saying that it's still very very successful and it's eased things up at Chautauqua for the Cottagers and for other people who but maybe not the neighborhood's but I was gonna but this goes back to revising the

[146:01] [Music] revising the fees I think the word was improved the fees I don't know how you improve the fees but may revising them so for parking for example if the parking fees in the area need to go up so I what I have done Aaron and in the case of you're promoting this was I've added an asterisk so what we need to get to tonight hopefully is a level of consensus where we can live with what we end up with so I've put it there if we end up adding it great again the the ask is that we try and manage the number so I know that you had some other promotions to offer okay the other one was the the agriculture number for diversified agricultural operations and this is another one where we've had some momentum you know you had a plan recently an agricultural plan that designated nine possible areas for diversified agriculture operations we've done two or three seems like it would be good to continue moving on that so I

[147:00] mean if you can tell me that you're gonna keep developing the new ones without it being a high-priority strategy then that's fine but I just I don't want to see that momentum lost either okay do we get feedback from staff are you gonna do it regardless of whether it's yeah we'll continue to implement the Agri source management plan and the timing that is in there which is about one or two a year regardless of this but if you want to make that a high priority we certainly would object to that either so so I have one comment and I don't know about channeling Sam but I agree with them on this and it has to do with water and it is plan for the future of water and I don't know what's involved in that if that's in the egg plant or what but water is certainly in these next few

[148:02] decades going to be come even more a scarce resource and so we need to be ahead of the curve and understand what we're doing so did I hear Lisa you might promote that you note that I would promote that over other priorities that we have here okay so we've heard some promotions yep Mary so I I would over another one but I guess for me one of the things that I don't have a full picture to be able to say this end take this out because these don't exist by themselves they touch on a whole bunch of other ones so it seems to me before in order to be able to say which one is high as priority to me the highest priority would be the one that has the most Venn diagrams time for the most circles touching it and and so I can't without seeing that graphically I can't really say but but I do agree that

[149:01] and I was going to ask why planned for the future water wasn't one of the seventeen it it does touch on with other ones because of the way the use-it-or-lose-it Colorado water policy works so is can I ask why it's number one is maintained infrastructure for Ag and water okay which seems to me a subset of plan for the future isn't one about not losing it so there are some we set at the beginning some strategies go further than others in the case of water we don't have a true water resources plan we talked about it a little in Ag we talked about it a little in the grassland plan we talked about a little in the forest plan but we don't have one where we look at it holistically as a system in and of itself so this one is talking about the planning process and identifying that this is the more operational aspects around the the maintenance needs in relation to the

[150:00] agricultural infrastructure and the ditch ISM which is the one to make sure we don't lose our rights for that each other yeah I mean so it's it's don't they need to go hand-in-hand those yeah so we're just - just reminder those that aren't prioritized again we still intend to make progress towards it's just a more gradual effort so what might that look like is that if for example this weren't a high priority that we might not be able to start that planning process in the next three years because something around maybe updating the VMP or up you know addressing visitation from a planning perspective is is determined to be more of an immediate priority we would start the inventory process or continue the inventory process to be ready and then the actual planning process might not start until year four that's the kind of implication here one of the reasons I argued against making and for the future water a high priority is it can be

[151:01] really expensive because you're really talking about having an inventory of all your facilities understanding the water budget of all the farms and that's a time to think so I think just going into it a little more measured paces I think sensible right now yeah and and that that's really the process that we're in right now is inventory and understanding a lot of that information curt and so this planning step is not quite as high a priority until we have that information so so can somebody refresh my memory how these priorities were planned who came up with 17 sure so it was a process of initially asking staff we mean the the rhythm where we first engaged with our 700 experts then we took that out to the community at a community workshop for example and other venues where we asked for any refinements based on that then we we

[152:00] took that to the Board of Trustees in April and had a study session around that and did some additional refinements so it's a reflection of all three employees so now you're at Council yep and so we can put in some of our priority yes that's what they're asking us and I guess I I would like to know I thought Aaron's idea of having tears is actually a good one and I you know seventeen is a lot and there's some I would take off and maybe we could have a discussion of what we would take off I'd love to hear those thoughts if that's something that you want to and it's interesting I was telling you how we went through phases and fads of lumping and splitting and depending on the month we were lumpers or splitters yeah we also had phases of tearing and we've we had three tears to these hyper these to the highest high and and the other word we were tears to so if

[153:02] the desire is to come back with a little bit more of a tearing type of system we could do that because two months ago we were doing can I ask a question is it near okay so back then you say near-term priorities other and then you use the word high priority strategies is it the same thing is it just we're starting with these strategies so it's really near term strategies and longer term strategies or is it just a time component I think that's an important way to at least initially talk about it some of these might take a number of years so for example reducing the trail maintenance backlog well we're gonna be in that business for a long long time so we might on an annual basis say yep still a priority yep still a priority others might you know again we might evolve past them so it would only really be for the next few years but to start yes it's basically timing it's let's talk about it in terms it might be more helpful then - yep - put the timing in it um Karen what were your thoughts it

[154:02] seemed to me as we went through all these that - got an overwhelming chorus of support and those two in my mind are eh r1 + RR s e7 and if that's true I think we all want to mark that if it's not true let's set a kind of overarching priorities ok and am i hearing where you might be heading on this Karen if we develop a tier system let's just have a select few at the very top and then the high priority strategies and the other ones is that where I'm hearing you're going with that yeah it just seemed to me that they would be based on people's reactions so far that they would be easy to set aside as

[155:00] the big cojones that everybody thinks are really important okay but we are mixing importance and timeliness yeah and so I just be clear which we're talking about because I agree with you those two are overarching and the other one seems to have time components so I guess mm-hm yeah mixing things yep Aaron yeah I mean I can't I think absolutely we all agree that those are extremely important for sure I mean I don't know that I would put those two in a category on their own I'd you know there are other things I think are really important here like I mean reducing the trail maintenance backlog I think for example is something that I would want to make sure we're doing immediately and and placing a high priority on it but also some things that you like welcoming diverse backgrounds and abilities doesn't have to cost a whole lot but I think God we really need to work really hard on that in our community so you know wouldn't necessarily just put those two one of the disadvantages we have is that I feel

[156:02] like we don't have a cost on each one of these things and I appreciate what Kurt said about the cost of having a lot I bought understanding your water I can't emphasize to you strongly enough you better start soon and and that it needs to be maybe a ten year plan but we need to understand that we're going to go into that cost and we need to understand what that study entails because we can't really do a whole lot without water so kind of basic and so for me I look at it kind of as an infrastructure and overarching what are the things we absolutely have to do and and water for me Rises way up to the top whereas and I don't want to say it's not a priority but connecting youth them to nature or

[157:03] welcoming I mean that's important but to me that's a little icing on the cake or if we don't get the you can't do the dressing it's the way I look at it and so I would look at these priorities more as what do we have to do in terms of preserving the infrastructure and protecting what we own and then do the enhancements after that so one of the things that we've I'm sorry what did I miss oh no Tom were you wanting to say something I was just gonna clarify I think we're a lot of this is talking about timing and we want to clarify most if not all of those are things that we're currently doing and I don't think anyone is proposing that we stop doing the ones that are lower priorities but rather it's more especially in a world of financial constraint what are the relative

[158:02] prioritization of those things and so when we think about timing it's not like we're putting something on the backburner for five years if it's not bolded yeah oh and we had to move the screen but the things that are on this back part is what we're saying about high priority strategies they're ones to accelerate or emphasize first whereas the other strategies they're ones that are more gradual progress or accelerate or emphasize later which addition with additional funding so that's how we've kind of categorized what is high priority and what's other so one of the things that we've also tried to do in working with the board and others that we want to make sure that there is distribution across the focus areas because in and of themselves Council said at the very beginning we ought to be focusing on these things so as it relates to these for for example let's go through those what I heard is confirmation that reducing the trail maintenance backlog and increasing visitation I saw lots of head nods those have been previously prioritized I saw

[159:01] head nods yes for supporting those are there any others that you would promote as is very important or support the prioritization I was in the recreation focus area and we'll just move through each folks there are we are you looking for like a tier one of how many like what's your scale here we're just looking within this focus area right now do those feel like the most important ones those two those two but financially we can't let our fee slack either so well I know you're doing this you haven't done it since 2006 maybe where you know those fees need to be increased so again understanding we'll keep doing the work it's just a matter of emphasis yep do those feel like them too if we had to pick two or those the most important yes okay what about under community connection education and inclusion so what Spri what's prioritized right now is enhanced signs and communications welcome diverse

[160:00] backgrounds and abilities connect youth to nature and consult and collaborate with federally recognized Native American Nations and help support indigenous people so right now that's for if we had to pick two in this focus area I would just in terms of the most two if we're looking for that most I'd like to you my opinion would be consult with the federally recognized tribes and somehow I would take enhance signs and communication off and I would somehow combine the people one is everybody support demoting signs I guess I'm a little concerned about that because I remember our board demoting that and staff being like you know I wanted to give you guys an opportunity to speak to why that keeps bubbling up as a priority

[161:01] and it was out there thank you and yeah so we have done a number of micro engagements some of those have been for example around people experiencing disabilities the Latino community youth we've heard from all of those communities as well as others the opportunities to improve the the way we can convey simple graphic messages so we just met for example with the Latino members Latino community the other day and they said we sure hope you can act on that soon even if it's just simple graphics or Spanish translation so that's where this is coming from but that's like five and six combined it was also in relation to things like wayfinding etc so people obey the regulation or understand the regulations better and that improves obviously experience and potentially protecting the landscape so we create stewards there's a lot of bang for your buck in keeping this as a high priority but it is also a way to implement six I'm just going to keep saying that right if you have signs that

[162:00] speak to some of the people from diverse backgrounds that no I mean this with the parking with the towing and I I do think everywhere in the city it would behoove us to go to international signage yeah I'll agree with that it may we can roll a top priority of five into six and I think we're making a strong statement if we don't prioritize number six honestly so end consultation those are our top two well can I ask if we don't I hear what you're saying about the chives but that's not a timeline that's happening you know if we prioritize it is it gonna happen any faster do I mean we didn't we sign some contract yeah I mean I guess we were there we did it they're coming back I mean I guess so what does it mean if we prioritize it is it gonna happen sooner given more emphasis to it giving it more I think just makes us feel better so

[163:06] we'd like to take that off since we just did it okay I don't know I mean you're asking about priorities you can't have everything you want it's proceeding a pace that's what I mean is it is but I have to say I have to say when you say that certain things are high priorities it's it's going to send a message to the community and so even though we may know that hey there this is operating on so like the diversify of Agriculture I can let that one go it's operating in some time well that's fine but but but I think the community doesn't necessarily know that and we we certainly got some public outreach for people saying this is really important we have to make sure to pay attention to this one so I'm fine keeping three on here I agree with Andrea that the sons are super important I have that perspective alright so in the interest of time I'm not hearing any demotions from this right now I think we heard a level of priority enough so

[164:01] let's move on to the others and see how it continues to shape up so under EHR I heard a lot of support for each EHR one there are a number of others that are prioritized within this focus area so are there others that you might either elevate here as the most important or similarly we can demote if you here so to clarify five is updating grassland management plan right okay why don't we just say that because because because as it's written it's an approach and it's like you don't have to prioritize the approach you just do it but that's not what that means because I was gonna say hey we don't have to do that because we're already doing it and then I read what it really means it's code for updating the plan for the prairie-dog working group and right so it's time to say that that's exactly if maybe some of the handles need to be sure we just captured that thank you yep because I I guess given that I would not demote it but you would not promote it or demote

[165:02] it okay because that turns out that's what it's code for but it looks like code also I I don't know if it's just grasslands but we should be enforced and for having an approach a holistic approach for all our ecosystems yes so this is it you're absolutely right then that that's the core of it there's also this kind of policy approach to making sure that we manage our ecosystems from that precipitate we already prioritizing controlling invasive weeds or we're just gonna fund more of it I already thought it wasn't priority or do we need to highlight this one if it's if it's a high priority for you we can highlight it is something that we routinely do it's part of operations I don't know that what acceleration looks like yet until we figure out implementation but well if

[166:01] we're trying to I want to say is you said you wanted to reduce numbers we're looking at adding if we already do this it's already built in does it need to be asterisk that's my question if it's a high priority how it probably would be done if so during our budget process we all staff get together and they throw in what CIP projects do you want to do this year and we start with a list of a hundred and we Whittle those down and we Whittle them down and we Whittle them down this is going to provide us guidance that we're four on the fence so if we're deciding between two projects of who we're gonna scale up one versus the other this type of guidance will help us make that decision so if the guidance is is that invasive species is a high-priority strategy and we're debating between how much money to give to that versus another CIP project that isn't we probably would use this guidance to fund that one more priorities that's fine but that's that's

[167:01] how we would use it on an annual basis so add the question so I reduce human disturbance okay it seems to me that under reduce human disturbance you would have extended on trail I think we had this conversation already to extend on trail requirements reduce and designated trails and control invasive species so why don't we just take those out and leave reduce humans disturbance and you could still but it agreed under reducing human disturbance what you read about is light pollution and noise pollution so it has to do with the so we can handle it [Music] so so could you change the handle then to to reduce light and noise pollution yes we can be more clear so it has to do

[168:10] with adjacency to urban element basic grace yeah and and so then maybe that's a little bit less of a priority than controlling invasive species hang all right so this is helpful so we've heard a little of potential around controlling invasives and reducing human disturbance perhaps as a little less important than the others well I think I got shut down on invasive so I guess it's still like nipping it in the bud if you don't nip it in the bud you've got a hos squared you see out of control situation okay nip it in the bud it's pull it as a seedling okay so I think I think reduce human deserve it rename it and and demote men to be cute

[169:01] yeah less important high-priority okay okay all right and what about let's move on to agriculture what what what just as a reminder what will have the opportunity is to further the conversation with the board tomorrow night if council feels that's appropriate and then you'll see this again in the next iteration that a draft plan so under agriculture right now what's been prioritized is the maintaining infrastructure for Ag and water reducing agriculture impacts from prairie dogs and soil health and Rosalee resilience we're gonna reduce conflicts between agriculture products so we've got that improving the handle kneeling there yep I would go with four and nine you would prioritize four and nine okay and Aaron had promoted that one as well number four yeah and I would support that as well I think we need to start looking at that and that's part of one in maintaining infrastructure for agriculture maybe we and maybe maintain should not be the word but reconsider or

[170:05] something like that so that somehow I would like to see four included in one weight well will we yeah wait one is about making sure we maintain ditches and that kind of infrastructure and so infants okay which is different than diversifying right but I would like to add the diversified then to okay I'm hearing a relative importance of this this is an ongoing program ongoing operations but in terms of emphasis I'm hearing I mean it's a next step we can't keep having methane emitting the the but this is an ongoing thing the diversifying agricultural the invasive weeds are really I think very

[171:01] important so well of course they're so important but again this is about just increasing it's about timing and funding yep yep and it provides us additional clarity and especially in our fiscally constrained environment so again the goal of this is to hopefully we've arrived at a place of being able to live with what we have right now knowing that when we reproduce this in the next version of the draft plan it'll be the next opportunity for the board and Planning Board to look at it Council will have another opportunity but let's let's talk about what we've done so far just to reiterate so for recreation in terms of the two that are right now feeling like the most important we have reducing the trail maintenance backlog and managing increasing visitation we also had the suggestion to elevate encouraging multimodal access to trail heads and the others still felt

[172:00] important we didn't hear any suggestions to demote anything but we did develop sort of a tearing as it relates to the two most important oh I thought that meant we were demoting tearing just in terms of the most important most important okay how do you like that phrasing it doesn't and where does eight land sorry it's still an important one so Walter will come back with this tiered approach as we talked about okay so it helps us develop some sense of timing and emphasis so as it relates to CCC I can community connection education and inclusion we heard the the way to combine five and six as it relates to prayer that prioritizing is to look at enhancing signs and communications in light of welcoming diverse backgrounds and abilities that

[173:00] felt important and wanting to maintain the others as important for right now as well yep okay so under HR talked about number one being of primary importance which reflects our community input today as well the others still feel important with the congestion that human disturbance perhaps is a little less important question about controlling invasive species perhaps that's something that's in the second or third tier but still important these are still things that we would make gradual progress towards I think a second second yeah it stays so it's a high priority but not on the top top tier okay still nip it in the bud yep okay once they get but again once it gets hold it's under agriculture the two most primary ones we've identified are diversifying agriculture operations and enhancing soil health and resilience the others that are still remaining important in

[174:01] that second tier are maintaining infrastructure for Ag and water and reducing conflict between agriculture and prairie dogs and potentially planning for the future of water look I think we've made that too muddy I think we were just elevating diversifying agriculture agriculture rural options operations to black we're not making it the Torn that's the note I captured to do alright it's just whatever it means to be second tier the most resilient I mean the most important it is for me good night's can we live with that for now I thought we were picking two if there's another one that we can promote to be one of the most important let's do it so number one if we don't maintain the infrastructure for the water the ditches etc it would it won't be delivered where it needs to go it stays a second tier it's it stays black it's a second tier it's also it's

[175:01] also has a I mean it has an asterisk quiet yeah yeah we're leaving it okay mm-hm all we did was elevate soil health and resilience as one of the very important really really important as opposed to just really important okay and so and diversify agricultural practices yes yes all right so I know this has been a long night we've worked for three hours and it's going to help wrap us up but I just want to reiterate what this means for us tonight and what Anna's gonna help us summarize is what conversation might need to be tomorrow night with the board so just by way of wrapping up for right now we have we've developed at least some ideas that we can live with for now I with an understanding as it relates to priorities that staff needs to turn back through this what council like board to continue refining this tier system tomorrow night is that something that you would like what do you want to do

[176:06] okay all right I would just figure out a way to say it to the public that's a little more meaningful than long lists with some asterisks yep yep and that's reflected yeah responsive to what we've heard okay all right and so as it relates to other potential topics that the board might need to talk about we bear with me just one second where did it go so we talked about a note oh here we go so sorry looking at EHR one when we were talking about potentially separating the whether or not we need to clarify how we might clarify what that looks like as real in relation to habitat fragmentation is that something that the board needs to

[177:00] grapple with tomorrow night fragmentation that's a that's a huge anyone but I mean that's what it's about right is is restoring is protecting what we have that was the number one thing on the the survey for how many years that people care about so it seems that they have to look at or someone has to look at we have to look at well and I think I agree I mean it feels like this is a fairly narrow question of do you keep it as one or do you split it out in to protect and restore well he said the substance of conservationists I I think the division focusing on whatever you said preserve protect conserve and also restoring that

[178:00] they're both really important concept therefore it could be separated I think that's legit we talked a lot about that I think tackling fragmentation is the substance of it and I wouldn't go there now isn't that that's why it's a strategy is because you're going to have a planning process around what thank you okay okay great so we're at nine o'clock and we were hoping to be wrapped up by now but I do want to respect that this is our chance to hear from counsel so that tomorrow night you can have it so we want to extend 15 minutes if that would be alright to look at any other questions or reflections that you want to bring to this so if there's anything that you want to move to and one to hear supports for moving forward or any other reflections you've had at the overall there was a question at the beginning of when do we have our chance to talk about this big picture

[179:00] overall and then we'd like to take 15 minutes to go around and see that and Mary if you wouldn't mind you I know you had some thoughts big I had the main thought that one of the thoughts ahead that hasn't been shared yet is that the funding is pretty fundamental and it seems like it should be the first chapter instead of the last one because the funding kind of sets the stage for everything else and we have this conversation the same conversation about how we were getting T up the transportation master plan next week this week at CAC you were talking about all these strategies and then funding was at the end and it just seems like where you are with funding kind of sheds the light on how you prioritize and so I think that funding should move from the

[180:00] from the last thing that's presented in the master plan to the first thing that's presented that's a bold restructuring move but I'm seeing two heads nodding very hard over on this as their other consensus around that move of restructuring how its order of things and moving financial sustainability so I have devil's advocate by the time you get to the end you're like holy moly we need more money right but that's how you start it's when you look at all the priorities it leads to that conclusion that's how I read it is you're totally convinced by the by the end of all the things you want to spend money on so to me it builds that way that's how I guess the the way it would feel to me and maybe there's two different people will look at it differently and the way it would feel to me it's like oh my god we don't have as much money and we need to be a little more restrained instead of adding more

[181:03] stuff we may want to take away stuff I mean it's it's it's how people operate well I don't know but maybe most people don't operate this way on a personal basis but you know you only have so much of a budget when you go to the grocery store and sometimes you don't buy the Belgian chocolate so I think what I'm sorry go ahead funny well I was just gonna junk zan makes a good case but the funding could be introduced more toward the first paragraph in this executive summary on page 3 I think is a good one in terms of introducing what it is that is trying to be obtained here what it is we're trying to preserve and protect but the funding coming up early you know

[182:00] this is in this is in jeopardy to be able to accomplish these kinds of things which includes like these ecosystem services of clean air clean water local foods if we don't have funding to do it do something like that mix it up but without going into the whole thing of the funding well and the other kind I'll just interject this that the other conversation that we had it's AC on Monday that and that's happening here tonight where we're looking at this in a silo not in the picture the big picture of the whole city and all of the things that we have to do and I think it's an important consideration so couldn't we just do it like a study paper I mean remember back in high school you'd present your thesis you'd make your points to it and then you'd reiterate and make it ask for what you were trying to basically prove your thesis so if we eat basically made a statement about the

[183:01] monetary needs in the beginning proved our point and then at the end reiterated it at least you'd hit it on both sides depending on how you think about things maybe you did tack it from both ends i I think that would be a nice compromise to just frame it up early that the amount of money that we have limit or options for each of these and which is why we end with a big discussion about funding or whatever doesn't okay other part of the response because you've got to put in context then what the estimated costs of priorities are in order to understand what the relationship is between the amount of money that you have in what it's going to cost there was going to take to accomplish whatever it is and so I I do think that we still need numbers

[184:01] budget dollars estimated associated with with the strategies in order to be able to figure out okay what's the relationship between you know these budget scenarios and the costs of accomplishing whatever it is so I was gonna propose something similar to Mira pies but I would also say that in 2013 before the floods and due to hit the fan we decided to significantly reduce what was the open space funding and that wasn't the best of decisions and so I think somehow there needs to be I don't know how you do it but there needs to be an explanation that we've and we talked about it in terms of what we own and

[185:00] what it's going to cost to take care of it in terms of you know climate change visitor all of that you know and so we made I don't know if you want to say we made a mistake but we did severely underestimate the needs of this system adaptive management that's what we're doing I do think and maybe this is self-serving but since you all have to go silent if we put it on the ballot relatively soon thereafter I would suggest making that the case for what it costs as much as we can in here so that there can be a robust public consideration of that in context before you guys can't talk about it I like how the way you all show support to move forward is talking about the money side of it and but if there are other statements of support or consideration and how you're feeling about can you live with what's

[186:01] in this plan that we discussed tonight this is a last before we move on to others discussing it so just one thing I was going to say to the to the book ending the financial pieces of it is perhaps as part of the end book and Tamara buys point is that's where you introduce the the maintain the the middle and then the vision so tee it up that way and I keep looking for the determine the cost understanding oh there it is it's an under financial understand total cost of system management and that's one of the things that is not it's one of the the strategies are one of the things moving forward that we have to do so we're not gonna know what that cost is until you do the work you do the work so I would say Mary we're we're well

[187:00] underway of that and we're understanding some costs we did a big presentation last fall on trail maintenance backlog in which we've done in yeoman's work and we now do understand what the total cost of system a maintenance and of that program area is and we're going program by program and we're assembling all of that there's still work to be colleges they can progress how much is it well if you want to know of getting all of our system into routine maintenance to get into our trails into a routine maintenance standpoint I believe we're estimating that to be upwards of forty million dollars so that's a good starter again putting numbers on things like this and and letting people realize but this is also this is deferred maintenance right and it's also degradation that's happening more rapidly than one can keep up with it now so it has all of the elements that we've been discussing tonight and I would just

[188:00] like to thank everyone for their hard work in putting all of this together and bringing it to us in such completed form I think it's really talk about yeoman's work the more trustees damn it's pretty immediate some too big just a couple things the they didn't fit under anything else on page 20 I believe it is you have the Charter purposes and you summarized them I was just thinking might be nice to include the actual language you know the Charter purposes are like the constitution of the open space system and they're really not very long so it seemed worth you know spending another third of a page on putting the actual language in there and then my other one was just about how planning is going to work going forward my understanding from some of the talks I've had with you guys is that we're not looking at doing an East Trail study area plan that we're looking at a different approach to this sort of thing and you're doing these integrated site

[189:01] projects right now right in it and so it seems it looks like you're undertaking a different method of planning in it and it seems like that might be worth mentioning here in the master plan because I think for people who followed along with how everything has worked for the last 15 years or so they're probably thinking okay what's the next stage so it felt to me like it would be worth addressing in here how we were looking at it attacking those kinds of planning projects in the future we definitely couldn't make a really good reference to that the specifics of it what we have discussed with the board is the specifics of the exact changes that is something that we're going to have consultation with our board starting to follow more of the winter of of this year but we certainly could allude to what what we're thinking of to talk about how you're developing it it's not fully fleshed out but you can talk about your development and the start of that is under the financial sustainability strategy ten where it's called update the planning framework so the initial conversations around that are captured

[190:00] here just as a start but but you should reference it under the trail the recreation piece because those are people I guess my comments were to echo that it's clear that a lot of work has gone into this in the public process you know we worked long and hard trying to figure out the nine steps on the wheel and we often referred to some earlier open space processes as examples of maybe what not to do or landmines to avoid I'll put it that way and so I guess clearly you have done that and that is laudable the other thing I guess I would just under so thank you that wasn't quick but the other thing is I would start where I begin which is everybody's gonna want to know what's next so I when you present this I would have I would explain to people the things that are already underway for the next two years and then where the

[191:01] implementation discussions I think because generically saying we're gonna decide later what the you know what we're gonna do next just is not satisfying and you and me anyhow and we know more than that so I guess I would just encourage you to flesh that out a little people so a little more so people don't feel frustrated but inspired by where this goes next and just to respond to that code it made a good suggestion that the implementation piece was buried a little bit in Section four under the financial and Kurt suggested we might pull that out as its own chapter so it's easier for people to find great so I would like to just make a comment about the community engagement process and I just wanted to remind everyone that this was the pilot of the new community engagement process and it was unbelievably disciplined it really was and and thorough and I think a great job

[192:05] and I hope that we all learned something from this and and it's it'll be a tough act to follow I think so thank you guys and if I can add in also as a member of the process subcommittee Mary thank you for all of your work as well as Tom and Curt and but just how thorough that was there was very high quality engagement and it got out to many people in ways that were both quick but also deep and also the my crane engaged like the members of Latino community youth have hit people that I don't think we've really hit before in other public outreach efforts and I was very impressed and so I really do hope that this can be a model for other cities outreach efforts when we talk about taking these processes or the lessons learned and then handing them to other departments and so I guess I know we look to Jane but I guess cannon under

[193:00] store then you know we're doing the transformation Matt transportation master plan there's other plans coming up where we should build upon what was successful and not just say I was on that 18-month process of how to do better communication and I want to thank Jane for supporting that and there were I think 15 people in our group plus other people who put that together so I'm very happy to hear that it's worked so well and it will be a tough act to follow but at least now we have a map which I like of how to do it so and I want to just thank everybody for your work on this it's not been easy open space is never easy because everybody has ten opinions but I really appreciate it so I

[194:01] think with that we're adjourned that was great coverage of topics thank you everyone thank you so much for your time [Music]