November 19, 2019 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

[1:03] [Music] foreign to the November 19th 2019 city council meeting and um

[2:00] so just a few items to start out the meeting open comment is closed closed four minutes ago so that's in accordance with our Council Rules tonight we have three public hearings our first public hearing is the mayor and mayor Pro tem election our second public hearing is the 2020 regional state and federal policy agenda and our third public hearing is the five-year update to the historic preservation plan um we're going to add to the agenda item 7A which is consideration of a motion to authorize the City attorney to file an amicus brief in the case of United States versus synonym Smith um do we have a motion to do that so moved thank you so um we've just amended the agenda so

[3:00] I'm happy to take role council member Brockett president friend Joseph president Nagel here sweatlick here Wallach present Weaver here Yates here young present we have a quorum oh a vote on the amended agenda so we need a vote on the amended agenda not on the screen [Music] so um all in favor all right so we've amended the agenda so we will start out with um public comment um

[4:00] all right and each speaker will have two minutes um and our first speaker is Valerie sarachi followed by Sarah Don Haynes and then Lynn Siegel I first want to say congratulations to everyone that was sworn in earlier today as a long time Boulder resident I was relieved to see both sides receive seats as well as Bob my favorite independent um sherlyn sure I feel that after 22 years of watching and participating in local politics this past election cycle was noticeably different almost like watching Progressive liberals versus Progressive conservatives and while there's always been to some degree and US versus them mentality in Boulder what I witnessed over the past three months to me was more of a visible divide than I've seen before in my community so let me start by saying that's not how

[5:00] I think of Boulder and that's not how I see the future of Boulder I don't believe density protected bike Lanes or caring about people without homes is it black and white yes or no or NIMBY versus UMB issue nor do I believe anything ever gets solved by one side alone what is wrong with me in front of me right now that shows me that there are Greece again I'm happy to invite new voices to city council especially when the words affordable housing were brought up so after so often during your campaigns as someone who relies upon it and continues to continue to live work and raise my children here I'm excited to see it finally getting the attention it deserves and as someone who sat on the BHP board for nine years I also know there are many ways we've been able to help our communities of affordable housing because of our partnership with the city as well as non-profits local businesses and our neighborhoods because of these past successes I'm even more excited to welcome more people to city

[6:00] council that want to work to find Creative Solutions for affordable housing needs there's so much more we can do together than separated and housing and protecting our working-class families through our affordable housing programs is crucial for a stable healthy inclusive and diverse Boulder so thank you for your support apologize for my shaky voice thank you Valerie Sarah Don Haynes Lynn Siegel and then John Carroll hi everyone wow so exciting um congratulations and thank you and of course it's been said so many times thank you Diane for all your work to get us here so we have um the words of my pastor with us and she gave this sermon a few weeks ago and it just it was I asked her for permission and um it's a we're a cucc Down South Boulder root of the tradition is Trader deliver Handover surrender a handing down a giving up so even though tradition is

[7:01] often presented as the unchanging truth of the past maybe holding fast to tradition isn't resisting questions and change maybe just being willing to let old patterns and old ways of thinking die when it's time perhaps holding faster our traditions and turning to the new Breaking Through letting stories that suffocate die letting rituals that don't give life Move On Letting belief systems that harm unravel letting words that build worlds we don't want remain unspoken and unsaid sung when all that doesn't serve Falls away what remains is what matters what gives life Trader deliver Handover surrender giving up and there is this fight of what we want to hold on to and what we want to build from and the disagreement about the best way forward and so I just want to say that we we have some traditions around

[8:02] land use and Zoning that we we need to give up I believe in order to move in the next 10 years on climate change and I hope to be here with compassion and accountability and that will be um in relationship in our community really creating the future that can hold all of us so thank you again for your service thank you sir Don Lynn Siegel followed by John Carroll and then um davidone I'm eating pomegranates here as fast as I can to detoxify everything that's going on in Boulder can't eat too many of them um we do have a history here I was just pulling up X County D.A criticized for representing eight North Stan Garnett problem

[9:00] Stephen Tebow leased units illegally problem um now 1852 Arapahoe I want it Landmark it's the last affordable housing for college students or for anyone in Boulder it used to be commercial then it's residential now they're arguing that it should go back to commercial I thought that's the opposite way we're going we need less commercial more housing um the exemptions for housing on this article about attempt to copy Boulders one percent limit stirs controversy the exemptions the highest bar on this graph the exemptions okay you build something like The Balsam across from the hospital

[10:02] four bedrooms or three thirty four hundred square feet four baths in each place in my house I have two and a half baths in the same area plot of land they have 20 bathrooms five units four bedrooms each what's wrong with this problem that is not going to solve our housing problem and neither is the permanently affordable housing you don't stick it on the permanently affordable on the middle class why should they take less of you know interest in their house why should the city pay for that thank you Lynn with a potential Bond rating lowering when we have a downturn thank you Lynn next up is John Carroll and then um davidone and after David is Mason Moyer hi there everyone my name is John Carroll I live on koala Drive in Boulder um welcome to everyone it's great to see some fresh faces up here on Council and

[11:00] congratulations um I'm here on behalf of the South Boulder Creek Action Group and all my friends and Neighbors in the Fraser Meadows neighborhood all of us are In Harm's Way the next time it floods and the CU South flood mitigation project is incredibly important to us I look forward to working with you all to move this project forward and congratulations thank you thank you John um davidone and then um Mason Moyer and then after that Ingrid avacyn good evening city council my name is David Adam and I'm the executive director of the boulder Museum of Contemporary Art I would like to give a warm welcome to all new council members and to thank the continuing council members for their support of the Arts and the community is here to bring art to our community and to make creative experiences accessible to all each year we serve 114 000 individuals and more than 7 500 youth

[12:00] through our education programs and currently we partner with our four organizations to support local artists and local Arts nonprofits I will reach budget and programming have all grown significantly and far beyond what our current facility was assigned to accommodate it is with this in mind that I'm here tonight first some background in 2017 city of Boulder Boulders over Wembley overwhelmingly supported by love measure to m n which approve a matching Grant of 1 million dollars for bimarcatrax Spanish building and programming for the community we strongly believe with Bolder boaters that an expanded remote will both allow us to better serve the community and it will enliven the ease book and through free public programming and serial Independence encounters with art in 2010 CD planning staff and city council identify and expand an expansion of bimoka to the South as a quote

[13:01] highest priority used to be included in all the sign Alternatives end of quote for the East Buchan we have identified an appropriate facility for this expansion which is conveniently located next door to bimoka and is currently news by the city we have proposed a face expansion plan which takes into account all needs as well as all parties concerned and we look forward to working more closely with his Council in these regards today bimoka is ready and excited to expand its facilities and we thank you for your support and welcome thank you David Mason and then Ingrid Avison and Elizabeth black congratulations and um Welcome to our new Council I'm Mason Moyer founder of Boulder progressives a community organization that views governance climate action land use

[14:01] housing policy Transportation policing and other issues through a human rights lens this is a perspective from which the outgoing council did not perform well relative to the city's stated values about inclusivity diversity and service since the 2017 elections we have seen the police department abdicate their duty to protect Boulder citizens and visitors as people open carried assault weapons down Pearl Street we have seen and witnessed unacceptable police force in interactions with our homeless population we have seen and witnessed unacceptable Police use racial profiling as a tool to harass Boulder citizens and we have seen the people of Boulder Marching In the Streets to protest these actions that's what it took to finally get Boulder to look at police oversight and reform we the people had to lead our leaders since the 2017 election we have seen a consolidation of homeless services that has literally left some homeless out in the cold and has eliminated Boulder's most inclusive and welcoming of

[15:00] emergency homeless Services reaching our most vulnerable of people since the 2017 elections we have seen a council so aligned around implementing anti-housing policies that they would leave citizens lives at risk as they negotiate over how to mitigate flooding problems around CU we have seen a council so against new residential development that they have continued to accept over 60 000 people commuting into Boulder for work each day climate impacts and traffic's concerns be damned we have seen Council that even after being shown how these land use and housing policies Drive racist and classes outcomes have continued to pursue these policies with vigor I'm going to get cut off in a second but the people who organized for human rights inclusivity diversity and change in our city have spoken how our police treat community members of color and homelessness in our community have spoken we hope that you will lead with inclusive compassion and see the world through human rights lens thank you for those that are least able to advocate

[16:00] for themselves thank you next is Ingrid avacyn Elizabeth black and the Nicole Perlman so Ingrid is not here okay so um Elizabeth black congratulations new and returning council members I wish you convivial times solving Boulder's problems last month I told you about soil health and explained how healthier soils fight climate change today I'll tell you about the citizen science soil Health Project which helps Growers improve their soil's health I have recruited 40 local Growers to join the 10-year-long citizen science soil Health Project our very diverse

[17:01] Growers include nine commodity Farmers 14 organic farmers eight ranchers 19 osmp sites eight Forest sites and two golf courses our Growers each receive one Free Soil Health test each year and can buy as many other soil Health tests as they want they collect their own soil samples I send samples in for testing track the results and pass them on to our Growers our Growers have all agreed to improve their soil health over the 10 years of our project but they will each improve their soil Health in whatever way they think best our Growers have very diverse soil types diverse crops water availability and growing methods so we can't compare one grower with another we only compare each grower with themselves over the 10 years of our project we are funded by the USDA osmp and nine

[18:01] other local groups costs are 250 dollars per grower per year we've raised the money for our first four years of expenses in 2019 we enrolled 40 Growers taught them how to take soil samples completed our first round of testing and analyzed our Baseline results next time I'll tell you about the general Trends we've discovered stay tuned for our next exciting installment thank you thank you Elizabeth Nicole Perlman followed by Juana Gomez and backspoon good evening I'm Nicole Pearlman and I live in Boulder it's such a pleasure to be here tonight and so exciting to see so many good new and old faces really appreciate the opportunity I wanted to just quickly bring up two issues that are really important to me as Council starts the new session here the first is the issue of the homeless in Boulder I've been learning more about this as a public policy issue and my understanding

[19:00] is there's something now like 4 200 homeless in Boulder and something like 250 shelter beds and when I found that out I was just aghast especially as you read stories about people freezing to death I think in a town as to use the word wealthy um with so many privileges that we have it's just horrifying to me that we can't do more about that it's horrifying to me that we can't leave the emergency shelter open um every night of the year especially given that it would basically cost Pennies on the dollar to do that I've heard some people say that that would draw more people from Denver which is why we don't do better for the people here but to me that strikes of the same logic is sort of Trump's build the wall so to speak so I think we really should try to do better by everybody that lives in this town and I think we can do that for like I said Pennies on the dollar I hope you'll take that into consideration the second issue that's of concern to me is how we treat immigrants and it's also come to my attention that we have a big multinational company owned by the Geo Group in this town called bi that you'll

[20:00] be hearing a lot more about from many concerned citizens this company has uh 500 million dollar billion million dollars from Ice to run the only electronic detention program in the country we've received some horrific stories of immigrants that have been abused by this company and many of them actually do live right here in Boulder County I think it's a sanctuary City not only should we do better but I think we're morally morally obligated to do better I'm going to encourage the council to really take a look at what that means to be a sanctuary City what the policy implications are what it means to have a company in town that we know from dozens of documented stories is openly abusing immigrants rights and you'll be hearing a lot more about this in the coming weeks thank you so much Juana Gomez followed by big spoon and then Patrick Murphy hello Council thank you and welcome to the new council members and returning as a member of the community and as a

[21:02] library commissioner I thank you for the additional funds in the latest budget to meet some immediate needs thank you also for your stated commitment to funding our library system it is time now to discuss the creation of a Library District we are into our third year of intently studying the library's funding a year ago we presented the master plan to you and received and you received it well it is the culmination of internal and external reviews that included input from Community surveys open conversations and focus groups in the commission's forward of the master plan we stated our unanimous endorsement for creating a Library District as the most viable and best mechanism that provides the capital necessary to pay for the current and future needs

[22:00] a subsequent statistically valid poll contracted by the city of Boulder confirmed that there would be wide voter support for funding such a district as you know our budget has not grown in proportion to the cities since 2002. meanwhile the demands continue to grow on the library as our most trusted public Institution as a visitor destination as the place in our city that best exemplifies diversity Equity inclusion as a community hub as a source for Innovation and as a secular place of Refuge the beautiful North Boulder branch and a future Gunbarrel Library will embody all these qualities if funded adequately thank you very much thank you Hannah Beck spoon followed by Patrick Murphy

[23:01] and then James Feeney hi um we rarely challenge our own preconceptions Privileges and the standpoint from which we reason my wish for the current incarnation of city council is that y'all work on that as individuals and as a group um wherever you uniquely land on a specific subject consider the following questions how might race gender sexuality ability class or sex impact this subject are the people you're hearing from and opinions being considered truly representing the diversity of identities that interact with the subject who writes the books and articles used to inform your opinions who are you listening to what identities and experiences that that might differ from your own are you looking for what you don't know

[24:00] are you shifting some focus and power away from the most privileged in the conversation and are you prioritizing the opinions of those who are often overlooked the notion that we're equally impacted by Council decisions isn't holding up this is an invitation what can you do in your role as a city council member to share and relinquish power with the appropriate people I also want to read a quick statement for from Jenna McAfee who wasn't able to participate because of the lottery but she attended a panel discussion on November 12th about the manifestation of trauma and immigrant and Refugee population and it was heartbreaking and reinforces our concerns about how bi treats Asylum Seekers and we have heard stories in the last month about inhumane treatment in Colorado of people who have already been traumatized by their Asylum seeking experience and then re-traumatized by the program run by bi and so she was really pleased that two

[25:00] council members are going to be joining us in the second meeting with bi on November November 21st and looks forward to having your support in this extremely important matter thanks thank you Bex Patrick Murphy followed by James Feeney and Claudia team yeah my name is Patrick Murphy I live in Boulder leaving staying or coming to those of you on past present and future city councils I wish you discernment you have to figure out what you did and did not do right and what is or is not right and uh is messing up logic it's easy to recognize propaganda it only presents one side of the truth and claims to be the full truth when the full truth finally arrives it's easy to recognize propaganda who was and is supposed to present the

[26:02] muni full truth but only presents half truth that would be bolder that would be us the muni is a failure in many ways the Alternatives would work successfully and immediately in many ways our failure and success so hard to differentiate I don't think so so I wonder why the Munich continues when the full truth should be known it's clear to me the Munich continues because the full truth has been hidden over the last eight years due to intention incompetence ignorance vain denial or ego and job preservation the road to Muni failure has been paved with good intentions and Center striped with a lack of true critical review and honesty the planet Burns floods and dies while Boulder fiddles time to burn the fiddle and let real carbon reduction begin

[27:00] why would Boulder want to end the muni because we can do math we don't like to be fooled and the words urgent and existential means something real the muni process will take five more years and in the end close to a billion dollars lost decade lost billion doesn't make sense doesn't add up subtract the muni and let real carbon reduction begin thank you Patrick James Feeney followed by Claudia team and Ethan o'green I'm James Feeney from North Boulder as Board of Directors for the city of Boulder Municipal Corporation please consider your appointment of senior officers Council may consider a two hundred seventeen thousand dollar report earlier this year on workplace climate by consultant team Tipton which found a pervasive sense of utility and low morale among city manager staff based upon a sampling of two City departments and subsequently while assistant manager

[28:02] Chris meshook has reportedly brushed off concerns that these issues could cause a mass departure of city employees I'm also aware of reports that in other departments some 60 percent of Department staff have been lost or planning to leave in less than a month reasons cited include employees being called stupid by department managers and closed-door one-on-one meetings and employees being required to work with dysfunctional and mismanaged software and then Council may consider the incident last March involving a young black man at naropa University and city managers police during that incident we see third degree criminal trespass given there's a private property sign on the property a class one Petty offense a second degree criminal trespass given it's an apartment building a Class III misdemeanor first degree criminal trespass given the trespasses in a dwelling a class 5 felony racial harassment given he's a young black man a Class one misdemeanor menacing given several guns are drawn a classified felony and racketeering given that the

[29:00] crimes are committed by an organized group class II felony despite the commission of petty offenses two misdemeanors three felonies City attorney saw nothing wrong I asked city council to please reflect upon the consequences of their choice of officers thanks thank you James Claudia team followed by Ethan o green and Peter Petra Herrera good evening members of council and welcome to all of you on the first night of this new session my name is Claudia Hansen theme I live in Boulder and I'm on the steering committee of Boulder progressives there are so many issues we want you to hear about tonight so I'm really grateful that speakers before me Val ceradon John Mason Nicole Juana and Bex have addressed some of them so passionately since I had to bring my kids with me tonight I thought I would speak about the thing that concerns me most as a parent and that is climate change

[30:00] as leaders in an environmentally woke City you all know that we have 10 years to make serious progress on reducing Global carbon emissions and while we're working hard locally to reduce waste and decarbonize our electricity Supply that is not enough there is no scenario for a sustainable and socially just future that includes the level of private resource consumption we've enshrined in our approach to housing transportation and land use in Boulder the way we've built our city locks even the best intentioned people into carbon intensive ways of living and to do our part to say nothing of being leaders we need to support radical changes to how we live in the next two years I will be here as often as I can to advocate for modest housing in truly walkable and inclusive neighborhoods for pedestrian bike and Transit infrastructure and for a rich public realm that will help us to minimize our per capita carbon footprints

[31:01] and despite my anxiety and grief for the future I will pursue these things with joy because I believe they make our community stronger happier and more equitable going forward we'll have plenty of time to get into the weeds together but tonight I joined the chorus assembled here in asking you to think big to remember what is at stake and the timeline that we're on in this climate emergency what will you do to lead thank you Claudia Ethan o'green followed by Petra Herrera and then Matt Benjamin congratulations to our newly elected City councilors I'm a tree teller with a tree test tree trust a program led by play boulder Foundation to work with citizens to support trees in Boulder and promote a healthy Urban Tree canopy for years to come the tree Titan program educates and empowered citizens to take care of our local trees a few times like myself are in basic tree planning maintenance and

[32:00] we connect with community members in need of assistance caring for and planting trees on private property we facilitate tree distributions lead volunteers and planning projects and share tree trust initiatives with the community in 2018 Boulder fire she appreciate approval for the urban Forest strategic plan a comprehensive 20-year plan for our Boulder Urban Tree canopy foliage Urban canopy covered approximately 16 percent of the city's area in 2013. as she losses due to Emerald ashbour will reduce Boulders campaign by nearly 25 in the coming years Boulder forest trees overarching 20-year goal is to preserve and maintain rather increase its current canopy covered with 16 percent I believe this is the wrong policy Boulder should work in coming that case to increase our tree canopy cover because air quality is getting worse and trees provide critical mitigation for climate change including soil carbon sequestration water retention and direct remediation of air pollution existing tree canopy is in Central and North Boulder in the foothills I believe

[33:00] we should create new Forest buffer zones in east and south Boulder along highway highway and busy road medians and throughout the perimeters of Rural and open space land surrounding the urban core especially to mitigate the poor air quality and often toxic air pollution playing in from Weld County fracking and from the brown cloud of Denver um on a global scale we can affordably scale regenerative practices to the 12 billion Acres of farmland and patchland across the world and draw down more than one one trillion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into agricultural soils let's lead this effort locally by investing in Boulder based Green New Deal working towards 100 clean energy and regenerative land stewardship of public and open space lands thank you Ethan Petra Herrera followed by Matt and then Mark galeband we're not nauseous

[34:04] um good evening her name is Petra Herrera and we live in that 2.5 square mile opportunity Zone and no one from the city told us about the proposed development in the opportunity Zone and we have three quick but very important questions why did the city not informed citizens about the opportunity Zone and why has the city ignored our questions and comments why has the city not informed us about nor invited us to participate in the soft community community planning committee thank you very much for your attention yeah and ma'am at the end of open comment I think we'll make sure that the city manager addresses your questions so if you just told type for a couple minutes we'll we'll get back to you um

[35:04] Matt Benjamin Mark galeband and then Clint Todd hi everyone Matt Benjamin live in South Boulder it is nice yeah I'm a little taller than the last speaker not as tall as Adam now so you got to lift that up too right um thank you all for the new faces um it's nice to see the new and the old and I think new faces means a fresh start a fresh start on some of the issues that we have maybe had false starts on up to this point I think of Cu South flood mitigation kind of at a false start maybe a few false starts on that what's a fresh start for us a fresh start is to take some of the action you have right in front of you you have opportunities in the next six months to create real action instead of playing politics with the lives of 3 500 residents and I'm looking at some of the new faces and some of those that have been here a while and looking at the opportunity we have with a group that has really campaigned on being more moderate and less extreme in past years so what is more moderation more moderation is taking the legal right you have on Council to apply flood

[36:01] mitigation as a use to open space Occam's razor says that the best solution is often the simplest that's the simplest your second option is certainly to dispose both of which can be done without waiting for anything without waiting for NEPA or any Esa studies or waiting for CDOT or waiting for the University this is action that can show the 3500 residents in the flood zone that you're really serious about caring for their well-being the second thing that's really clear that is a fresh start is how we approach housing again we've had some false starts I think of Alpine Balsam as an exam sample of that how are we going to reach that goal of 15 of affordable housing we need to be real in our approaches we need to start thinking bigger and we need to actually start increasing our inventory now because by not doing that you just mean you have to build more later and that's not something that I think certainly some of you don't want to see so moderation is key there and that's a fresh start and lastly the last Fresh Start we have has to do with the Tipton report staff morale and being bringing out the best and the staff that we have in our community their expertise their knowledge their willingness to tackle

[37:00] these issues head on we should be encouraging those great ideas and fostering a community and an environment for them to be best and less micromanagement and allow them to do the best thing for our community with your steadfast leadership thank you and I look forward to seeing you guys again soon thank Mark gilban 505 College welcome new Council congratulations I'm going to Echo although it was not coordinated a bunch of what's already been said for the first time in my 30 30 plus years in Boulder I'm heartened by a community that has voted with a clear notion that diversity inclusivity and social Equity matter and at this point in our time in history it is undeniable the connections among housing climate change all Transportation

[38:00] diversity inclusivity and social equity people may disagree on how we get there but the fact that we still make single-family housing sacrosanct in this community is absurd on face value because what it does and what it has done has done and I will challenge Aaron Sam Bob Mark Wallach to look at this Through The Eyes including myself of five white middle-aged privileged single-family homeowners I have watched this community make decisions that consistently value the ideas of the most privileged and proximate single-family homeowners over a sense of community and I too will challenge you to broaden your perspectives and to think about Boulder's homeless the lack of diversity

[39:01] and inclusivity that we hear all about in this community as a father who raised two brown children both of whom who have been called the n-word too many times I am ready for change that includes an acknowledgment of the problems that have not been addressed for 40 plus years in this community and I challenge particularly the men who look most like me to stand up and make those changes thank you Mark Clint Todd followed by John Taylor good evening everyone um I'm present here tonight to voice my support for the 26th Street nsmp project that's up for call up consideration this evening um my I live directly on 26th Street within the project boundary I use the street daily in my car on my bicycle walking with my wife and my two young

[40:01] daughters 9 and 11. my 11 year old is now commuting to Centennial Middle School she's a sixth grader and frankly I'm I'm concerned about her safety on the street as I'm sure you you'll see in the report from Ryan and his team the proposal enjoys overwhelming neighborhood support it also has the rather Infamous moniker of scoring the highest 85th percentile speed in any of the 20 neighborhood streets that were that were up for the study this year and so I think it's the worst of the worst speeding streets in Boulder if if you can believe that I think the reason is that commuters are coming down well going both ways but they're trying to avoid the traffic on 28th street so they're coming through a neighborhood with one stop sign in 25 mile an hour speed limits that's not set up not set up to handle that kind of traffic and those types of speeds because of the bike paths and the schools and all the other things that are on 26th Street so I'm I'm asking that you approve the call

[41:02] up or excuse me approve the proposal at call up tonight so we can get those speed mitigation project underway as soon as possible thank you thank you Clint John tare thank you John Tara with the boulder chamber and if I time allies I will have appreciation unfinished business and shared goals so first of all just joining in the course so congratulations and thank you to the newly elected council members as well as the returning members I just say that one thing that Boulder is great is it makes Boulder great is the passion and commitment of our citizenry and the leaders who commit to public service and the boulder chamber shares that commitment to and passion for helping our community and and making sure that we build community Through business so we look forward to working with you in the coming years but first some unfinished business which comes in a statement of apology to council member young and this is an open letter so I will

[42:00] read it as I read this formal note of apology to you it's been exactly six weeks one day and two hours since I looked at my calendar while meeting with an out of town colleague at the new chambe tea house and realized they had made one of the worst scheduling Stakes of my career my colleague later wrote that I felt for me he felt for me after seeing the expression on my face recognizing quote the mortifying oversight I obviously had made yes it was mortifying though it wasn't me that deserved the condolences it was clear to me that I just screwed up the chance I had to rectify the break in our relationship that occurred to due to previously missed meetings further and most critically I knew that breaking trust I was breaking trust and displaying disrespect albeit unintentionally to a leader in our community who deserves much better I stand before you tonight embarrassed by and truly sorry for the pattern of behavior that I exhibited in my relationship with you I know as council member Sam Weaver suggested I need to

[43:02] dig deep in my heart to understand how could I have committed such a terrible series of Errors I have and will continue to do so to that end and as you requested in our brief exchange the other day I stand before you tonight and offer my sincere apology however unintended no one let alone someone I respect for their role you play in our community deserves such treatment sincerely John Deere knowledged and accepted councilmember young I'm sorry that closes yeah we have Ingrid here to speak oh okay please Ingrid thank you and sorry for being late my name is Ingrid Avison I'm a boulder resident and a clinical social worker here in Boulder and then among many important issues facing our community today I want to impress upon you the importance and

[44:01] urgency of taking firm significant action steps to leverage the power that you all have to support the human rights of immigrants in the Boulder County by holding the company BI Incorporated accountable for their human rights violations against immigrants the inhumanity that immigrants are subject to right now at the border is awful as we all know and it's unacceptable and it's also easy to distance ourselves from what's Happening Here by pointing the finger elsewhere so I hope to um look right under our noses at the violent and oppressive and Humane systems that are running day in and day out so let's see only a minute left all right so I urge city council to divest from the private prison and detention companies pressing the owners of bi Inc to building to vacate it and asking bi Inc to cancel contracts with ice I urge city council to invest in a community-based case management model with research from the national

[45:00] immigrant Justice Center that suggests having 90 compliance rates and costs 80 percent less in detention than detention and I urge Council to prioritize taking up a comprehensive audit of All City departmental policy policies to see how they align with the sanctuary policy that we passed in 2017. I urge Council to continue to stand with the community to encourage bi to enact other measures that will directly improve the lives of immigrants in Colorado thank you Thank You Ingrid so with that um I will close the public comment and we'll move on to the consent agenda Mary yes oh I'm sorry yes thanks so there are two items that came up that I want to respond to so the first was Mr dardone from the boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and his

[46:01] request that the city provide additional space for the expansion of that facility the space the the mocha has identified is actually owned by the city and used every single day by our Parks operations staff that works on cleaning up the parks and managing the parks and the local Central Park area that building is not for sale currently and we would need to do a facility study to find a place to move all of the equipment and all of the employees that would need to be centrally located so that we continue could continue to provide services in this area we are currently undertaking a facility study and Yvette Bowden from Community Vitality has written Mr dardone with regard to this and he is well aware of the fact that we are undertaking that facility study so to move forward right now would be very premature and I wanted to make sure that you were aware of that

[47:01] uh the second item was Ms Romero who spoke about the opportunity Zone and what I picked up from her question is why were they not included in a sub-community plan with regard to the opportunity Zone the thing is that there is not a sub-community plan that covers the entire opportunity Zone we are working on the East Boulder sub community plan which involves an area that is mostly to the eastern part of the opportunity Zone as well as an area that is outside the opportunity zone so we we don't have a sub-community plan underway that would include the areas to the western part I don't know if there are other parts of her question that you'd like me to answer but I'm happy to okay well could I translate first um

[48:16] San Juan um [Music] [Music] the Brenda Lyle

[49:00] um the opportunity zone no um

[50:07] so basically I added to Jane's comment a whole bunch saying that we that we have put in place what we have done on the in the opportunity Zone that has the prohibition against destruction of demolition of any housing so there's no danger and I also added that we had received an email from Brenda Lyle asking why we were going to allow the the apartments San Juan Del Centro Apartments to be sold and that is absolutely not true I contacted the owners of the apartments out in New York and they said they have absolutely no plans and they're committed to keeping it affordable housing for the foreseeable and long into the future so thanks Mary you're welcome

[51:01] Mary hi yeah that was thank you for saying all that because that was what I wanted to make sure we got out but not only have they the owners expressed that they planned to keep it affordable housing they're actually required by their contracts so it's not just their Goodwill that we're relying on um just to add that see um thank you for the Translate so one more thing to be clear about the East Builder subcommunity plan which is underway right now has almost no residential in it at all so it has 400 residences in the plan and those are not actually within the city boundaries yet so those are a mobile home park which is just adjacent to but the staff decided to include it because it's contiguous with the city so just to be clear the

[52:02] current sub-community plan doesn't have much to do with existing housing um planification all right um anything else Council Juni thank you so much as a new member of council I just have a quick question because I understand this is about the opportunity Zone but I would like to know what are we doing to ensuring that people who live on the west side as you mentioned they get the opportunity to express themselves and be part of the process because from what I'm hearing

[53:01] that yes we have we are starting this East subcommunity plan but these people were not part of the process somehow what can we do and what are we doing to ensure that they're part of the process even for the future so yeah can I answer that um um we are um so last year there was a an issue at San Juan Del Centro that had to do with um some less than Savory um Towing that was going on and um so the council passed a or basically localized a state law that um prohibited some of the towing that was going on so as a result of that the city also has begun a an effort to organize the residents and so the residents are um being empowered as part of that process to um

[54:00] to reach out to the city and actually many of them do reach out to me so okay um the San Juan um any other questions all right um so with that we'll move on to the consent agenda item oh I'm sorry items a through L are

[55:00] before you tonight on your consent agenda I move the consent agenda um so make a motion there was um question that came up during CAC which had to do with the supplemental Appropriations just a little more clarification about that or or actually is that for you know we were going to talk about that on December 3rd okay yeah okay okay so then um we'll just leave that for December 3rd um so a second promotion probably okay moved and seconded um all in favor Oh Aaron sorry keep keep popping out here I just wanted to um mention I had some first reading questions about the building code but I'll just send that out over Hotline in the next few days so you can just focus in planning department can watch for those thank you so and just to know you have on your diet and green paper uh an

[56:02] update to item 3H which has to do with a lease to Excel Energy for undergrounding some lines that'll serve the 30 pro project that was just finalized this afternoon which is great news so by passing this you'll help enable and Kurt fernhobber is here if you have any questions his staff did a tremendous job along with David gear in my office and getting this this done for you tonight cool thank you sorry so that's great news Tom and it's really good for uh moving 30 Pearl forward so I'm very happy about that will allow us to sell the first market rate plot at 30 Pearl and bring in money which will enable some of the affordable housing projects to move forward so that's great work and I'm glad to see that moving forward the other thing I would bring up is that we've received a few emails about including appendix q and our building code and what that translates into in non-planning speak is Tiny

[57:00] housing rules which will be incorporated in the new Adoption of the building code so it will enable tiny houses to be built in Boulder on fixed foundations and so we have that first reading tonight so there won't be any discussion of it I know there was some interest in the community about that and so by moving this forward we will be advancing the second reading what we will discuss any of the codes that are of Interest so I just wanted to highlight that for the community anything else all right a roll call vote okay we start with council member Nagel hi sweatlick hi Wallach hi Weaver aye Yates hi young yes Brockett Hi friend aye Joseph aye the motion passes unanimously

[58:01] you have two column check-ins this evening the first one is an accessory building at 730 Maxwell Avenue any interest in calling it up or comments all right okay your second one is a 2020 neighborhood speed management complex project installation and on this one we have staff presentation so Bill Cowan and Ryan Knowles are here from our transportation department good evening members the city council while Ryan's getting this set up I'll just introduce

[59:01] like as Jane mentioned my name is Bill Cowan I'm the city's principal traffic engineer and interim Transportation director joined by my colleague Ryan Knowles who administers the neighborhood speed Management program we're here tonight with an item on the call up pertaining to two complex projects that the first two complex projects that have gone through the neighborhood speed Management program and and are now in front of you for adoption so that we could move forward and construct them but at the council agenda committee it was asked that we present some information about the neighborhood speed Management program some of the things that we do through the program and some information about the backlog of of projects and so with that Ryan we'll present yeah thank you Bill so my name is Ryan and I'm a

[60:00] transportation planner with the city here and this evening we want to provide you with an overview of the neighborhood speed Management program talk about some things that we've done and then really focus in on the 26th Street and 55th Street complex projects so the purpose of the neighborhood speed Management program is to reduce speeding on residential streets in the city with the goal of improving the quality of life and safety in neighbor in neighborhoods across the city and that's in pursuit of our vision zero goals and our transportation master plan goals the nsmp was created by the community and hosted by tab in 2017 through a very robust Community engagement process the program has a 250 thousand dollar annual budget which is allocated by Council each year it has four components education enforcement engineering and evaluation and to date since summer 2018 we've installed speed UPS on 15 streets and a

[61:00] school zone radar speed display sign a pair of them on Hawthorne Avenue so by registering for the neighborhood speed Management program all applicants and all neighborhoods that get into the program are eligible for education and enforcement tools so these include yard signs the mobile speed trailers you see on a weekly basis throughout the city as well as targeted enforcement and photo radar vans by also filling out a petition you are entered into consideration for uh traffic calming so things like speed Ops traffic circles raised crosswalks Etc and so by completing a application that green lights the city to do a speed study to see if the street will qualify for engineering once we find that history qualifies we categorize the project as either simple or complex so simple projects are less than or equal to fifteen thousand dollars are not on Emergency Response

[62:01] routes and uh typically have no adjacent impacts or impacts to adjacent streets rather whereas a complex project is typically more than fifteen thousand dollars can be on an emergency response route and may have some impacts to adjacent streets and so we'll have to take a look at those while we're doing the planning the nsmp guidelines in clue us include a scoring criteria which is how we Rank and prioritize projects in the program with a limited budget so some of these criteria focus on the 85th percentile speed that we observe in the speed study as well as the number of speeding vehicles uh the presence or lack thereof of pedestrian and bicycle facilities on a neighborhood street and activity generating land uses so things like schools churches places of worship neighborhood commercial centers and so once we create preliminary simple and complex project lists we then go to

[63:02] Tab and ask for their review we hold a public hearing so that neighborhood residents can come and share their opinions about potential projects that we asked tab for a recommendation on how to move forward with the program and which projects to prioritize so one focal area of the nsmp one area that we've been uh very very focused on is equity so during the program development we really looked at equity in in two specific lenses so one was funding for the program so the nsmp guidelines actually state that a neighborhood cannot contribute funding to the construction of a project that it has to be constructed with City funds alone and the the reason for this is really so that areas of the city that are perhaps more wealthy than others cannot rise to the top of the list or get speed

[64:00] mitigation faster than other neighborhoods that maybe don't have those resources another focal area for Equity during the program development stage was looking at again those bike and pedestrian facilities or lack thereof and so the nsmp guidelines really prioritize streets that do not have things like multi-use paths bike Lanes sidewalks because if people are using those streets to walk or bike and don't have those facilities available it's more important to make sure that vehicles are traveling slower on those streets than streets where you have separated facilities during the delivery of the program over the past two years we have identified another area where Equity is a concern and that's in regard to how we demonstrate neighborhood support for a project before we get started so we've recognized that that the petition can actually be a barrier to entry and this I think was originally highlighted by council member Young and so we found that

[65:02] in cases where perhaps neighborhood residents would be um worried about signing their name and address to a petition that there are alternative ways in which we can demonstrate support before we embark on a project a good example this has been in Boulder Meadows where we've held two Community meetings um over the summer we actually had a second community meeting where we did a straw poll asking folks during the break in the meeting and just at their Leisure to come up and basically vote into an anonymous polling box if they would support a project or if they wouldn't and we found that um so that that meeting had over 50 participants and we found that most of those residents didn't support a project and so now next month actually a tab will be presenting a preliminary list for their recommendation that includes four project streets in Boulder Meadows so once we

[66:01] established that a project is on the project list and we've ranked and prioritized projects we have a strategy for implementing them in the following year so in the first two years of the nsmp the strategy has been to implement all the simple projects on the list because we had available funding to do so and then the plan the top two projects from the complex project list so these are 26th Street and 55th Street which we planned this previous year for installation in the following year so the reason we had funding to install all the simple projects in the beginning of the program was that we didn't have the cost of planning and implementing the complex projects the complex projects have a longer project development process timeline than the simple projects too so in a simple project you plan and install a project in one year well the complex project you plan a project in one year and then install it in the next and so we've come to a

[67:02] moment in that SMP now where basically we have to pay for the installation of the complex projects in 2020 which means that we'll have a reduced number of projects with the current available funding for simple projects so going forward you can see on the right hand side of the slide there that there are 17 projects on the complex project list and all average about a seventy five thousand fifty they're between fifty and a hundred thousand dollars each so average would be about 75 000. so to implement all of them would cost over 1.2 million dollars and again the program budget annually IS 250 000. so again the reason we are here this evening is really to present the top two complex projects which we just planned and are planning to install next year

[68:00] and ask for your consideration of a call up on these so we began the process of planning these projects in February with a tab recommendation and really we kicked off the planning process between April and continued through September we had three neighborhood meetings for each project location asking for feedback at each of the meetings we developed two conceptual design Alternatives and really engage the community as much as we could to get feedback on those alternatives and came up with two recommended staff recommended designs which we presented to tab in October tab recommended that we move forward with the project and so tonight we are presenting these recommended designs to you for your consideration as a call-up item through December 18th should the projects not get called up then we will continue with our plans to install the projects by the end of next year

[69:02] the top ranked project from last year's complex project list was 26th Street and so the recommended design that we developed with the community over those three Community meetings includes two medians so one is north of Kalmia Avenue and one is south of J Road and then in between those two medians with Norwood kind of being the center of the project area there are three speed cushions so it'd be median speed cushion speed cushion speed cushion Norwood speed cushion speed cushion speed cushion median for a 55th Street the recommended design includes buffered bike Lanes south of Baseline Road before 55th Street Narrows and then a series of five speed cushions with shared lean markings the total projected cost for 55th is between Thirty and thirty four thousand dollars and for 26th Street it's between

[70:01] 88 and a hundred thousand dollars so next steps for the program and the complex projects again in December we will ask Tab to finalize new complex and simple project lists and to prioritize which projects to work on in 2020 and then we will begin planning and installing those projects next year for the complex projects again if you choose to call call up these projects you have until December 18th a 30-day period um if they are not called up then we will continue with our final design and Engineering beginning in January and we'll install both projects by the end of next year and if you have any questions I'd be happy to take them thank you Ryan I am the one who keeps talking to night a couple couple quick questions I didn't see in the packet and maybe you missed

[71:00] it any analysis of impacts on emergency response time from the for these projects is that identified so when we were developing these particular projects we worked with the fire marshal in the planning and development process and yeah he didn't think that the speed cushions would have a significant impact on emergency response that was based on the one that we actually installed on Edgewood Drive in 2018. do you want to speak to that just to clarify the the primary treatment that's being used on both of these devices the speed cushion is designed in such a way that it um it lowers to the road on and is grooved in such a fashion that a fire trucks wheel span can pass through them and not cause emergency response delay so maybe I'm not familiar with this treatment do you have a little information on what how exactly a speed what it looks like this is a little different from our regular speed bumps then it looks very much like a speed hump except that it has um it drops down to the road and then

[72:00] comes back up again at a spacing that equates to a fire trucks wheel span so um a passenger car or or even a pretty sizable truck won't be able to make use of that but a fire truck can shoot that Gap and not be delayed great okay lovely design and are those would those be in a spacing such that they'd be usable for cyclists as well or is the cyclist just going to go over the they're pretty much in the middle of the travel Lane so they certainly could use them um depending upon traffic on 55th they'll probably be more usable for cyclists than on 26 which already has existing bike Lanes right yeah because you but in the bike lane on 26th Street you'll still go over the you would still be pushing yes like a regular speed hump right thank you Mark yeah um just a quick question uh Pine Street scored either first or second in terms of the uh the priorities um

[73:00] number one um why did we not prioritize Heinz Creek so this uh project list is actually next year's project list so the previous list had 26th Street and 55th Street as their top projects thank you and then of course we're we always have the potential of adding new complex projects each year and that was the case this year as well so we took two projects off the list 26th and 55th but through the process added to more complex projects on thank you anybody else Adam yeah um really quick so I saw one uh public comment that stated that there wasn't an option for like no change was that the case when this was being presented to the public so we did not present a no build alternative but we did hear from a number of residents through the process that they would prefer not to see anything done gotcha okay any other questions

[74:00] yeah all right thank you thank you very much thank you very much all right um so that's the end of the collapse and so we'll move on to the public hearings our first public hearing is the election of Mayor and mayor Pro Tem so I'll open it up for nominations Mark I'd like to nominate Sam for mayor I believe we hold a public hearing first oh we hold the public hearing first oh okay well then let's have a public hearing I withdraw my nomination permanently go home and make dinner and so I wasn't

[75:00] sure whether I could stick around but you know following up with what was said earlier with regards to diversity inclusivity social equity and how we're going to consider who just feels like they're entitled to be the mayor here as opposed to looking around and saying what just happened in this community and what just happened in this public comment we have five white men up there four of whom again are some version of a single family homeowner I know Aaron that you live in Wild Sage and it's a community home but you are privileged enough to own a home and quite frankly that perspective excludes a significant portion of this community and quite frankly it it excludes the portion of this community that for at least the 30 plus years that I've been here has been begging to be heard has asked repeatedly

[76:01] I've heard Council after Council say that they are going to include new voices and and it's wonderful to see someone like Adam up on the on the diocese you know who was given an opportunity for housing board brings a slightly different perspective even though he comes from one of the long-standing political activist groups here in town the one that has dominated the community conversation for the 30 plus years that I've lived here it's heartening to see very young it's it's it's a pleasure to listen to her to her speak in Spanish to constituencies that are often ignored it's wonderful to see Rachel friend and to see Mira by Nagel to see women included in in the conversation and it's especially a pleasure to me to see a first generation Haitian immigrant Junie Joseph on Council as someone who

[77:04] grew up in Miami and quite frankly understands how difficult the journey from from Haiti to Miami as a teenager to sitting up on that dice it's a pleasure to know that she was got the second highest amount of votes in this community only behind Bob who's been here for such a long time and earned a lot of credibility so I would say as you consider mayor and mayor Pro tem the notion that two of the most privileged white men on the council it's interesting that the the three most privileged are sitting next to each other right now um certainly in terms of you know the amount of equity in their homes that that you consider the rest of the community something that a lot of people ask for tonight something that this community has quite frankly been begging for for 30 plus years and has been roundly ignored anyway I'll leave it at that and I just

[78:01] again would challenge all of you to think about that thank you thank you Mark are there any other folks signed up Lynn Adam Smith mayor and Mark Wallach Pro tem is that the correct no denunciation okay yeah and the reason is we're at a housing crisis but we're also at a climate crisis and ultimately the third thing we're at is that a population crisis and if we go on this building's breathed like the way we've been we're headed for downfall on the climate crisis and I think that Adam and Mark are going to be most attuned to how to avoid that train wreck thanks

[79:06] thank you Lynn all right um if anybody else was to sign up please do so and you can come on up and then and then sign up afterward Elizabeth yeah come on up and you can sign up afterwards I'm not sure I understand the Pro Temp nominees I think Mary young should be the mayor she's done a great job she's been here for a while she's reaches out to some of the other people in the community uh that are not as fortunate as the rest of us and I don't understand where the nominations came from why we was Weaver and Yates if we're

[80:02] just with Weaver and Yates then I think Sam Weber is more qualified because he has been in the climate [Music] initiative from day one and I know that the mayor travels to these climate conferences in other countries and I think he'd be more qualified so can somebody please explain to me how we got to Pro tem of Weaver and Yates so we can just based on both what we can we can address your questions Elizabeth after the hearing okay thank you thank you Andy thank you I'll be brief because I think Mark said a lot of what I would have said um I believe the new Council especially is representative or becoming more representative of Boulder and I think it's important that you elect leadership that also reflects that so while it is certainly your prerogative to choose your leadership I would strongly

[81:01] encourage you not to select two white men as a white male myself I would say it's extremely important that we have voices that are not merely white men on Council I'm glad to see that and I would like to see that in your leadership as well so please consider that as you are selecting your leadership this evening it will set an example for Boulder it'll set an example for this Council and it'll set an example for the kind of voices the council values going forward thank you thank you Andy um Katie farnan on the Fly I don't have anything prepared I just want to say Andy and Mark I 100 agree with what they said and I do believe that as we are trying to represent more of Boulder that the leadership should represent more of Boulder as well and please take that into consideration uh I just agree that diversity is important especially not just seats at the table but real decision making power so please consider that thank you

[82:01] thank you Katie all right um I don't see one more okay Mason hi um yeah I would I want to Echo what everybody else is saying and I think this election in general we had a resounding um vote for Progressive values and forward thinking and I think again I would go with um women Mary I wish you would stand Aaron I also think you should I know it's not usually traditional to go with some of our younger candidates or new candidates but again I think we've already heard from the community and having representation after this election based on the community that stood up because we've been hearing about this for several years right that the loudest voice in the room wins well we're here and we would like to see representation we voted we stood up and

[83:03] we want people to follow through with what you saw happen in this election all right um so seeing no more people signed up I will close this public hearing and continue on to the nominations or does anybody want to comment I was going to suggest that you explain the rules and how we got here all right um please uh the these rules have evolved over time uh it it used to be that there was a kind of deal made and that people would show up on this day and there would be an election and no one would understand how that came about so councils have been expressed more interest in transparency so the original rule the change was to have uh speeches made on the second Tuesday in November and then votes on the third and that

[84:01] required an extra meeting that folks thought may not be necessary so the rule was changed two years ago maybe three to provide that if you were interested in running for mayor you had to put a statement on hotline prior to the second Tuesday in November expressing your interest for mayor or mayor Pro tem and so the idea is that the community now has had a week to understand who has offered to be who seeks to be nominated the rules provide that you can only be nominated if you've previously stated your intent on before the second Tuesday in November of course the rules are Council rules and they can be suspended by majority vote of the council so they don't lock anything in but the the intent of these rules is to provide transparency in this process uh in in some manner thank you Tom when was that told to us

[85:00] I'm not sure what your question is Adam so I never heard that just as a rule yeah so not knowing the rule not saying I was ever going to put up myself up for a position but just for the transparency itself to the council members I I personally didn't hear about that rule so I'm just wondering if anyone else didn't hear about that rule and maybe that's something that future councils should be informed of upon their election okay The Retreat and yeah we can always evolve our rules further any other comments Junie I think I would just like to Echo some of the things that's happening in here there seem to be a little bit of confusion what would it mean to suspend a rule would we still have the mayor elected tonight and if that were to happen would Mary and Aaron come forward

[86:01] with other people on this diocese come forward well um Tom could you respond to um what could happen so you can of course suspend your rules by a majority vote so you can do that I I'm very quickly reading the charter to say whether or not you have to elect a mayor tonight I don't believe that's a requirement the charter but I want to make sure before I say that but you could if five of you agree both to suspend the rules and allow additional nominations is nearby I personally am happy to move forward with the nominations I think that Sam is excellently suited I also you know this might not be popular but

[87:00] we're sitting here talking about white males I'm guessing you two have pretty different backgrounds in terms of your race I'm pretty sure you're born in different states I'm pretty sure you have different income levels I'm pretty sure you have different values I'm pretty sure that you went to attended different schools and study different things I'm a white female but I'm also Jewish you guys have pigmentation that you can't help and you have genders that you can't help but you're being lumped into the white male I mean every single race on this planet has in some way been it's had something horrible happen to them at some point in our history so for us to be lumping you as white males is just I'm sorry I've had it it's it's obnoxious you have completely different backgrounds so I'd be honored to see you both I think you come from both different political backgrounds I think that you'll both represent us very well

[88:00] I think you have a lot of brains and I like that you actually think through a lot of the things that are in front of us so I would be thrilled to move forward with this process would anybody uh Mark yeah I think there's a misunderstanding of the implications of what we do here tonight this is a collegial body of people nobody's voice is going to be suppressed based on who we elect as mayor or mayor Pro tem no one is not going to be heard I think the individuals who are standing for mayor and mayor Pro tem are fully qualified to do so they've had experience on Council they will be able to adequately run the meetings and organize the Affairs of of the council I just don't think it's going to be a problem for anybody on this Council to make their voice heard based on who is serving in those offices any other comments and

[89:03] well I'm I'm also fine with moving forward tonight um you know I do think that the the folks who the Sam and Bob who put their names in will do a very good job and Mark that was a point well taken about the these roles um these roles are uh not enormously consequential having been mayor Pro tem myself a couple of years ago you do get to help oversee the uh the schedule and the agenda at the um the weekly CAC meetings um so there's there's some role there but uh fundamentally this is a it's a council of equals um and as a mayor you get to call on who goes first and who speaks next it's kind of a traffic cop role so um that said I would love to have some additional representation in in terms of um uh gender diversity and and ethnic diversity on our leadership team but uh folks have to actually want to be in those roles for us to vote for them um

[90:03] I just have to respond a little bit I mean I do feel like as a white male that role carries a great deal of privilege that I and I think the rest of us have benefited from enormously throughout the course of our lives but um it obviously doesn't it's not everything and I do think that the two gentlemen in front of us tonight will do a good job on those leadership roles over the next year or two depending on the length of the term thank you any other comments Rachel I will um Echo Aaron's sentiment and I I have a question I'm not sure of the etiquette which is um part of why I will not be putting my name forward for mayor because I'm learning and I don't feel that I would be doing a boulder any favors by trying to take on a higher leadership role before I really understand exactly how to run meetings but just as an etiquette question if if we were to suspend these rules and would anybody else put their name in like can I can we just figure that out and then

[91:01] maybe go from there that makes sense like we're talking about suspending and I'm wondering if that makes sense um any other comments so I'll I'll comment um so a couple years ago I did put in my name to um for mayor and things have changed in my life um personally and um I have um the the role of Mayor um although as Aaron said is um we're all equals up here does require a whole lot more time that I I'm not willing to sacrifice and so um but I will say this one of the things that I will bring forward at The Retreat is the idea of what I'm terming power sharing but as we're all equals um it would be the appearance of power sharing um but um to share in the leading of meetings and

[92:05] we cannot share the leading of a business meeting but we can share the leading of study sessions so I will bring that forward at our Retreat to our our my colleagues to for consideration and so I hope we can do that and the other thing there are some other things that I would like to see happen but they would require a charter change so that might be something else I bring forward at that time but at this time I would not put myself forward any other comments all right then um I will open it up for nominations I'm going to try again I nominate Sam for mayor

[93:00] um I don't believe a second is required I don't think it is okay no okay um all right then um any other nominations all right so um Sam your mayor by acclimation I think he needs to give a little speech to that we have to get ready so let's let's um do we want to go through an um and the like mirror Pro tem and then have each of them give speeches would that be okay all right then um so would anybody like to nominate mayor Pro Tem come nearby I will nominate Bob Yates all right Bob eats any other nominations Bob you are mayor Pro tem by acclimation so um congratulations and let the speech making begin Mary can you just at least have a vote just everybody okay so we don't have to

[94:01] do a back limit okay sure we'll have yeah you're electing a mayor it would be nice if everybody just voted okay well there's a record that it was you now all right then so um so everybody um voting for Sam for mayor please raise your hand and the vote is unanimous everybody for Bob Yates for mayor Pro tem please raise your hand and it is unanimous as well thank you Mary all right well I I put my policy initiatives out in the hotline post that we talked about earlier and that's not really what I want to talk about tonight I want to talk about my approach to serving as mayor and the main the main reason that I wanted to be mayor this year was to facilitate conversations within Council and with the community Boulder's residents and businesses have

[95:01] many different diverse values and aspirations for the future and some of those conflict with each other and in a conversation with Suzanne Jones last week she gave me some good advice which is to focus on the word we and we on Council are each representatives of the whole Community which elected each of us in the best world we will treat each other with respect collegiality and kindness has reshaped the policies of our community there will be differences of opinion on Council as there are in our community which is a healthy thing the trick is not to be disagreeable as we disagree diversity of all kinds produces strength and resilience especially when the diversity is expressed collaboratively we have a pretty unique setup on our Council the mayor is a member of council and has no more or less standing than any other council member the function of

[96:01] the mayor is simply to facilitate the council discussions and to represent Boulder to the outside world but we all represent counsel to the community and the world and not just the mayor as I become mayor I commit to valuing everyone's input to be fair to all council members and members of the public and to strive towards efficient meetings that do not wear out counsel and the community furthermore I can't do the job without all of your help I will hope to share the load as much as possible including committee assignments travel to conferences and if we so agree to Leading study sessions each of us leading study sessions this is one of the most diverse councils ever seated in Boulder and I think we can do great things treat each other well and have a great experience I look forward to serving with you I really really look forward to serving with you and I will say to the community I do understand your concerns with racial and

[97:00] gender diversity this happened to be the way that the people with experience and the people who are willing to serve ended up this year but I hear you and I think we all hear you and we understand that we can do better and that's my intention is to listen to that message and to try and reflect it and to try and make sure that all of council hears it and reflects it as well so thank you for putting your trust in me to do this job I'll need your help and I'm really excited to serve with you guys so thank you same I'll just note that well your one amongst equals you do get to do a lot more ribbon cuttings than the rest of us so that's for sharing the load comes here enjoy that and groundbreaking well I can't say it any better than Sam just did so I think I'll quit while I'm ahead and say that I agree with Sam and I look forward to working with each and every one of you

[98:00] foreign all right let's switch it Bob that's okay it might be in the charter your next item is the 2020 policy agenda so Carl Castillo who is the senior policy advisor in the city manager's office is going to be presenting this item Carl thank you Jane

[99:00] congratulations to all of you and I do mean all of you of course the mayor to the mayor Pro tem to the new members and just all of you for being part of this new Council and just the word I am always so inspired by what you commit what you commit and the time you put in it is a big part of what keeps me feeling like this is a really meaningful part of my life and I know that you guys are putting a lot of your life into it so thank you again and congratulations um so tonight's item as you all know is an opportunity for all of you to provide comments on the proposed 2020 regionals uh I'm sorry City Boulder regional state and federal policy agenda as you'll recall Council asked to change this from being merely a legislative agenda to a policy agenda to reflect the fact that a lot of the policies we change aren't just done in the state house either at the Capitol in DC or in

[100:00] Denver and we included Regional because we have a lot of regional efforts that we work on so it's just an attempt to have all of your external policies documented in one one document and that of course you're not going to get it all in there but as much as we can think of so that it can inform and direct those advocacy efforts that we make when we are involved in those arenas so I wanted to start off by just reflecting on the successes that we had in 2019 and there were many as you know you adopt the State Legislative priorities in addition to the many Physicians last year you had five of them and all of them passed that started with the mobile home parked an oversight bill um the greenhouse gas emission goals a local option for minimum wage fixing the mistake that was made in the local

[101:00] government division of Pera and extending tax credits for electric vehicles those all passed um which were major successes in addition some that weren't listed as priorities also passed such as the red flag law the extreme risk protection order that allows guns to be taken away from from people who are are a danger to society after due process is uh has been provided of course we have the major reforms to the laws applying through oil and gas industry we had puc reform which now includes the social cost of carbon is now Incorporated and now to be considered for all plans that they approve and we had increased penalties for serious bodily injury when um when when is caused to vulnerable users vulnerable Road users excuse me we also had some administrative successes working closely with the

[102:00] Colorado communities for climate action we had the adoption of the low emission vehicle standard and a few months later we had an adoption of the zero emission vehicle standard so all in all it was a fantastic year of course we cannot take credit for that we were part of it I would say if anybody deserves credit it would be our legislators and specifically our delegation who are part of leadership so we've done it before but I'll say it again here we owe them a great debt of gratitude and luckily they will continue in 2020 to represent us so that continues to be Casey Becker as Speaker of the House Steve fenberg as a majority leader of the Senate and Edie Hooten as the majority caucus chair we also continue to be well represented in the executive office so of course we have Boulder's own Jared Polis as Governor we have will tour as the Colorado Energy Office director and John Putnam as the cdphe Director of environmental programs which was

[103:00] essentially the part of cdpg that is in charge with implementing the greenhouse gas mandates that just came out of the State House um so some of the you know one thing I don't have here today is our lobbyists typically we have will will and Adam will like wolf coin and Adam Mike Burke so you won't get to hear their first hand uh forecast for the uh for the general assembly in 2020 but I will tell you that um uh what I'm hearing from them and others is uh family family leave will be another priority you can expect that to come back the issue of making sure that there is paid family leave to care for newborns receive treatment for a major illness or uh somebody who needs to leave a relationship embarked by domestic abuse that will be a priority that is being considered there will also be as you know the governor has proposed making it a priority of receiving funding for preschool uh more funding for preschool so that's something that you can expect to be um uh among the many priorities that are

[104:01] being considered finally transportation funding this is a really challenging one we all know that we had a Statewide measure that was not successful um and and many of us feel like we're beating our heads against the wall when it comes to providing new revenue for transportation but what we can expect to see is a bill that would empower the Metropolitan planning organizations in our case that's Dr Cog the Denver Regional Council of governments it would essentially give that body the ability to Levy a tax within its jurisdiction if its voters supported it in return for promising and specifying a certain amount of Transportation projects that would be provided City Boulder does not have a position on this as I've mentioned before there are some concerns about it but nonetheless it's something I want to give you a heads up on that it is going to be considered as far as transportation funding goes um question yeah sorry just on that is that

[105:01] the one that's coming up on the 2020 ballot because I heard Governor polis was on NPR the other day talking about it and saying that there was going to be some fourth try on the 20 on a new ballot but yeah that was 2020. I don't think so so the way it would work this empo as it's performing referred to empowering the mpos it would pass through legislation so during the legislative session the state house would say all mpos including Dr Cog can choose to refer a measure to the ballot so in our in our case you know at the past Dr could choose and to refer a measure to the ballot on November 2020. I don't think that's what the governor is speaking about and um frankly I'd be really I'm really not sure what what that was about he was talking about a new bonding thing and he said it was more of the same and he thinks that should come off because oh yes right it was there is a um a legacy of a previous bill that had required that the voter is considered

[106:00] um allowing the state to bond for a certain amount of money for transportation yeah we've been posted in the past because it's we basically don't think that there should be money taken away from higher ed K-12 Human Services unless there's new Revenue that measure if it continues to be referred to the ballot which currently it's self-executing but it'll probably be rolled back would in fact give the State House the authority to bond for transportation money and it would basically require the funds to repay the bonding to come from at the expense of other state priorities so I think that's what he was talking about okay thanks sir clarifying yeah and please do interrupt me as we go that's helpful and thank you for that question two other bills that are that are relevant to the city that uh probably are going to come up one has to do with an anti-immigrant piece of legislation that was passed in 2003 won't go into the details but it's called the secure and verifiable identity act it essentially prevents local governments from deciding what

[107:00] identification they accept before they provide services it was branded as post 911 you know terrorist security but in fact it's a way to discourage local governments from being able to provide services to homeless to undocumented immigrants without having to worry about liability so that's something that it's not one of our priorities but I'll mention it because I do know that that is likely to come up and lastly you've all heard that there's been an effort to uh uh and the city has officially supported considering alternative financial investments uh specifically public Banking and Credit Unions I do believe that that may come forward probably in the more minimal form of allowing cities to invest in credit units which is a significant lower burden or I should say task then asking for legislation that would allow us to create public banking it could very well be considered a sequential step so it's not like you'd have to consider one

[108:00] versus the other um one other thing I'll say about 2020 is we had kind of a mess last year in terms of tons of bills that were introduced and that the senate had to wrestlewood at the in the last the last days you might recall This was um there was many issues that this this created but um bottom line is this year leadership is saying they're going to make a significant uh production in the amount of late bills that they're going to allow so I take them afterwards so it's something for us to know because in the past we've always felt well if we have leadership on our side and we have a good idea we can introduce this after the uh the deadline well that's certainly not something that we should expect this time um another big Dynamic is we had a tremendous amount of climate and energy bills passed last session that's part of the amazing successes this year we're going to of course see more of them but we're going to see a big shift that attention going

[109:01] into the administrative executive realm where the the law basically said create this greenhouse gas goal uh make sure that it takes place in all the sectors of the economy it has some specifics for energy utilities but it has there are now needs to be rules adopted by these by the Colorado Department of Public Health environment the air quality control commission Public Utilities Commission all to make this meaningful at the different sector so we're going to see a lot of work taking place there and I can tell you that as a member of cc4ca the climate organization we're going to be part of trying to influence those to make sure they are as protected as possible um and then on the regional level I think you know that Boulder County is considering a transportation tax measure which is an alternative I suppose to the empo which is more of the regional approach and they're considering one that would combine affordable housing uh with with

[110:01] funding for transportation which is perhaps a very logical Nexus but they're going to be doing some polling on that so that's something that you can look forward to hearing about and certainly have an opportunity to weigh in on okay so moving on to the actual changes that are being proposed I'm not going to go through it all because there's a lot you have it all in your packet um they are highlighted in the attachment a um any substantive changes from the previous one um summarize and attachment B um they were reviewed and revised by the intergovernmental Affairs committee which is composed of uh of Mayor Weaver and council member Brockett and former mayor Jones I have to pause to say that um and most of the changes are minor changes to the wording of existing positions or they are new examples of how we can reach our policy goals so if you recall our positions are kind of like here's the goal and then we have

[111:01] like these a b c d as like specific approaches of how we can get to those goals so a lot of the changes are new examples of how we or strategies of people of how we can get their goal we also deleted a lot of positions which is really just a reflection of our success I mean all the positions that were deleted are no longer relevant because we have passed laws that address the matter and it's certainly healthy to uh but yes I have a question um with regards to um one of the things that is still in here I'm wondering um has any progress been made on the purple card and is that effort still ongoing so the purple card being a uh identification that allows something short of full citizenry but uh you might have to refresh my memory because I'm the answer is no but I don't even remember exactly it was it was um

[112:01] like a green card but um it came with a it would come with an understanding that the holder of the card would never apply for Citizens right yep thank you I did want that to be explained rather than just say that it's it's no there has not been progress made on that is the answer although I just found the language I think it would it would neither mean eventual citizenship nor preclude of Interest citizenship it's kind of neutral and that was that was what why we supported it right yep I think that was the condition that Council requested that if we support that we don't preclude the ability of these these purple card holders to become citizens okay um a few of the positions that I do that are brand new that I want to mention is one is the support for implementing the

[113:01] greenhouse gas goals that again is going to be regulatory that's position number one position number three would have a span or accelerate the phase out of hydrofluorocarbons position 21 would allow us to uh use the inclusionary zoning to include rental Housing Development and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second position 23 would have a support d ending the mistreatment of migrants in the U.S uh through ice detention facilities as well as alternatives to detention programs position and I'll talk more about that as well position 33 would have us um protect the support protection of the institution and the autonomy of Municipal Courts while accepting necessary State oversight that ensures consistent protection of the constitutional rights of defendants and position 39 would have a support discouraging e-cigarettes and tobacco use particularly among

[114:00] youth so with that I was going to begin summarizing these recommended priorities first one is to support legislation that would have us protect the interests of those who live in manufactured home communities as we mentioned before HP 1309 passed this last session fantastic first step and basically creates an enforcement mechanism so now if you live in a mobile home community and you feel like your rights have been violated you don't have to hire an attorney you can actually have the department of local Affairs to turn to and make a complaint they will do an investigation to which violations and fines as necessary great first start but the sunset review that was done in 2018 actually was sunrise review said that there's three things that we need to do enforcement check we've done it two it says we need to make sure that they have an opportu that people who live in mobile home communities have an opportunity to purchase opportunity to to eventually own their communities

[115:01] the discrepancy between the ownership by somebody who's uh his interest may be purely looking at making money and those who are who own their own homes but don't own the land beneath it is one that is of great concern to a lot of us so having that opportunity to purchase is another one that's one of the things that we're looking to address through legislation in 2020 and that we're asking to be supported as a priority the second aspect of it is there's other protections that should be and need to be created to enhance the livability and the fairness of those who do live in these mobile home communities and that's things such as uh clarifying what the rights what it means to be retaliated against and be clear that retaliation is illegal not just if you choose to file a notice of evaluation but a variety of other things it means that um how water fees are allocated to you and needs to be transparent and fair and Equitable that's been this that's a

[116:01] great concern to a lot of people um there is a variety of other protections that are we're talking about on this let me just say at this point that this bill has not been finalized nor would it be appropriate for me to say exactly what's in it that's that's really the prerogative of this sponsor to make that final decision but the the gist of it is that we're asking you to support and increase protections for the owners and mobile mobile home mobile home residents second one is to repeal the prohibition local government bans on the use or sale of specific types of plastic materials or products or restrictions on containers for Consumer products that's the exact language that's in the law right now so there is a there is a preemption of our our local ability and it's one of the reasons that we chose to apply a fee to plastic bags rather than to ban them all together there are other cities including Denver who would like to ban them and we would like to be part

[117:01] of an effort that is being led and that bill will be introduced to have a restore that Authority for local governments that make the band those Plastics the third item would similarly restore our authority to regulate certain pesticide uses that was an authority that was taken away from us in 1995 and 2006 two pieces of Bills versus it said commercial applicators weren't subject and then it said even private applicators we can't regulate we think that it's important that we have um our local government officials make a decision about what is safe and what is the risk that we want to take for a variety of issues in terms of pesticide use in in the city so that is the third recommendation fourth yeah I think we have a question yes sorry Carl I was trying to let you get through this but uh go back to the

[118:01] plastic really quick is that gonna if we get that back will we be able to also work on the whole issue with styrofoam specifically because that's yes so that would be straws plastic bags styrofoam polystyrene you know excellent so we'll have like full control again exactly that's awesome and I guess I'll just pause and say that I think the chances are good that we'll get that yeah um fourth is it is uh support legislation at the scourges e-cigarettes and tobacco use especially among youth obviously we've done what we can we've taken some some action on that part locally but it's much more important and meaningful to have that be Statewide so that it's not people just crossing boundaries to a circumventor of rules um and by the way we do have a letter that we are prepared to send out jointly from the county and the university and the school district because all of us in Boulder are uniquely impacted by this you may know the statistics show that vaping by youth is worse than Bolder

[119:01] than it is in Colorado and in Colorado it's worse than the national average so we definitely have a reason to be banding together among those who protect children for this the fifth priority would be to allow us to use our inclusionary zoning authority to require a permanently affordable rentals so right now we're able to require that of um housing that's for sale but we have limitations on how we can use that for rentals we we are and Tom of course should jump in if I get this wrong way we right now require in lieu funds that goes to our affordable housing fund there are limitations on our ability to say in return for development approval we you must have on-site affordable rentals and that is an authority that we'd like to have returned to us and we have a group a partnership with the Colorado Municipal league and others to

[120:01] see that legislation like that gets um introduce did I get that right down yep great um lastly got a question I have a question just so I'm clear um so this legislation would allow for the creation of on-site affordable for allow that so okay so I'm confused and here's why um I thought that it was possible it was just difficult to um to accomplish so in the rent control preemption statute there's a provision that says that the prohibition against rent control doesn't apply to um to voluntary agreements reached between a city and a developer but then there's another provision two sentences later that says that um the city can't withhold any development approval on condition of uh stabilizing or rent control so you kind of have

[121:00] there's a there's there's no case that says what a voluntary agreement is but to enforce our affordable housing we would have to refuse to approve a development application and so since the statute clearly says that so A small tweak to the statute can give us that ability so our advice has always been you cannot require on-site affordable rentals because of this provision in the statute that prohibits us from withholding development review so we're hoping that the legislature will help us with a little bit of a tweak to give us that ability so um but um would that then help us overcome so there have been cases where um Violet Crossing for example where um the developer was willing to provide the affordable rentals on site but then it fell through because it became so difficult to do in practice so this legislation would allow us to condition it but we will would still be confronted

[122:02] with the that some of our developers have yes thank you I mean when Carla and I spoke about this very much like you say it is a tool that we can use in situations where it might be possible no I just yeah but I just wanted to be clear on that yeah and we've we've had instances where developers wanted to try it but we didn't feel comfortable because we couldn't require what it would have to be voluntary on their part and then it's not enforceable and so the city's then not willing to give benefits if it's not going to be something we can require thank you all right thank you Tom um so moving on to Federal priorities we always adopt um two or three that stand out there well the first one is is the one that we always have which is you know we only have so much impact at the federal level we're just one city great important city but we're we're just one city but we have the boulder Federal labs and we have the University of Colorado so we have to make sure that we

[123:00] are standing for making sure that they're fully funded retain the funding and that in the case of University of Colorado that the funding actually increases so that is um position number one number two is what I mentioned before it's the ending the mistreatment of migrants in U.S immigration and custom enforcement and detention facilities as well as alternatives to detention programs um one of the reasons I mean this is important I think for a variety of reasons because you've been hearing about it from your community members but how how distrusting it is to hear about uh mistreatment whether it is in the hands of ice or in you know when they're actually in these alternatives to detention but it also has relevance because our own Congressman the goose is part of a um is a co-sponsor along with representative Jason Crowe of a piece of legislation called the Pod Act of 2019 which would ensure that the congressman cannot or congress people cannot be limited in their ability to go through

[124:00] investigations of these detention facilities so they can see firsthand whether or not they are you know within the kind of uh standards of decency that we would expect so I think it's it's always useful to have something directly relevant to what you know how we can Lobby this so Carl I have a question with regards to the language on that yes um it says provide stricter oversight um would it make sense to include provide and fund stricter oversight because it's one thing to provide for oversight it's another to fund it and are you talking about I'm talking um you could refer to the page number yeah 392. okay and it is um bullet a right okay so the reason that word is used is because that's how the bill was written um so that doesn't mean that we can't add our support for the funding as well

[125:02] there's no reason to maybe maybe we want to talk to the sponsors about including funding right right yep it makes perfect sense and uh assuming there's no opposition that's something I can add to the uh add to it of course it may very well mean a separate bill because you don't want to jeopardize one bill for the sake of potentially an appropriation issue but I will add that and then last is um promoting a greater understanding of the Nexus between pesticide use and climate change mitigation and adaptation particularly the ability of regenerative organic agriculture to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide and to sequester carbon again this is particularly interesting to us a couple of us just had a meeting with uh Congressman the Goose's office and learned that this is a bill that he's into a package that he's interested in putting together it's basically to evaluate there there's there's a lot of

[126:03] belief that organic pesticide free for agriculture when done right can be a significant way to avoid the emissions of carbon dioxide that would otherwise come with heavy pesticide use and synthetic use but also as a way to mitigate and sequester carbon but there's still a lot of testing and piloting that needs to take place so there is actually going to be a meeting of the Beyond pesticides organization it's going to be their annual conference in Boulder in March I'm sorry it's in April of 2020. so we thought what a great way to talk about partnering with Congressman Goose's office to put this package together have him be a speaker perhaps at this conference of course no promises are made this is just something that we're interested in considering um so so so so that is the third proposal for federal priorities

[127:02] um one one quick comment yes on the federal priorities a number of federal legislators have been starting to circulate proposals uh to make opportunity Zone Investments more transparent and to invest communities with greater rule-making authority over what happens in those zones I would urge you to look at the possibility of adding that as one of your federal priorities to work with those legislators and create a system that's going to work a little bit better for bowler especially in light of the uh the great concern that opportunity Zone has caused among members of the community so are there any other questions have you done Carl I'm not done okay all right keep on okay I will get back to that because I don't want to lose that um I just want to mention that a few council members were good about reaching out to me and mentioned that they have a

[128:00] few other suggestions they want to make I know that council member friend would like to suggest some changes related to gun violence prevention and capital punishment councilmember sweat leg regarding minimum wage rent control and health insurance reform councilmember Brockett on Community Choice energy and mayor Weaver on resilience and safety regarding electric transmission lines I have proposed responses to them if counsel and is interested in in exploring that but I'll let them bring up the topics on their own uh in terms of next steps so your job here is to give me input tell me what to take out what to add what changes to make I'll come back on December 3rd and uh bring you a revised policy agenda if things have gone like they've done in the past hopefully I'll get your input right and you'll be able to consider it on consent but otherwise you'll you can always pull it off that's also the same night that you'll be considering counts considering a council committee appointments for a variety of

[129:00] your intergovernmental organizations which is very timely because there's going to be a lot of meetings that are coming up that I'd love to know who's going to be serving them December 17th we're going to have a legislative breakfast with our estate legislators so that would be a representative Becker Hooten and representative singer and Senator svenberg and Foote so we're fortunate to have a couple people who are not technically part of the city you'll also begin intergovernmental updates I want to make sure that you always have knowledge about what we and that's any of us who are speaking on behalf of the city are conveying as our interpretation of your your policy agenda and always give you an opportunity to correct this if we're not getting it right um and we will also do a check-in late in the winter so I'd say probably around March uh to let you know about like what is actually being introduced and the unexpected bills that might have come up that you might want to take a position on uh so with that I just want to express my appreciation to all the people who made who brought this agenda together

[130:01] you see me as the as the person who pulls it together but it really involves so many starting with our Council of intergovernmental Affairs committee um staff throughout the city who've contributed greatly to this our regional partners and two people I want to call out particularly today that are here Taylor Raymond who is your assistant to city council who's helped me pull this together she's also going to be part of the team to help Advocate it and Jonathan Cohn who's the senior sustainability policy advisor who's worked on the substantial amount of your agenda which has to do with environmental sustainability they are both here Jonathan particular for questions if you have any and I too am open for any questions great so questions from Council happy too I just uh etiquette question again when do we maybe advocate for the proposals that we want to make so we do typically questions um so we check and see if there's any

[131:01] final questions so we interrupted ask questions then we checked to see any final questions then we have the public hearing and then afterwards we bring the discussion back to council and we talk about it so seeing no more questions we open the public hearing do we have anyone okay so um I will call out the names of the next few people and let's be moving up to the podium first is Carrie Kris Jenner and Jim Hooten followed by Dan Greenberg and you will all get three minutes good evening my name is Kevin or I live in berth that although I lived in Boulder for about 30 years and I'm a renewable energy Advocate especially in the area of local clean energy and Community programs so I'm

[132:01] very interested in as as we all saw in the Daily Camera Edie hooton's bill and what's funny about it is that people might think that I'm crusading in the streets and saying well wow the policy that I supported for years in California that is finally flourishing in California is is coming here it's great you know you know send out the parade um but in actuality it's really really critical that any Bill like this gets it right because also as as Jane and Tom have known that I've advocated for programs that are as close to CCA as possible but within the regulated space and the reason for that is because to get true local clean energy at any actual scale it's taken forever in California to get these programs off the ground problems with credit ratings in fact some ccas are buying Rex from Excel so up in Pete's and Carr in that area you can I

[133:02] can watch wrecks that are being used in California for the CCA programs so to get real boots on the ground local energy which also helps with resilience electrification and organized programs it's going to be really critical that this bill lets the puc explore all options CCA being one of them do the fiscal impact but then if they run into a problem with the for example ccas have to pay stranded costs just one example so if we're going to throw out all the policy making that all the the advocacy Community has done for the last five years including clean energy plans you're going to be stranding the the the actual generation that's being developed now but there is a way to make it work and I mean I've been working on this idea for well as we all know for about seven years I've been coming in front of council to advocate for these types of

[134:01] programs so the the point is that I do think the bill will pass if it's um I think it'll pass which is good in a way but we need to make sure that that it doesn't mess up the greenhouse gas progress that we saw in this past legislative session so we're not literally going backwards um and we need to leave options open I also think that there'll be a lot of pushback from the advocacy Community like the main people that are down there at the puc every week every at every hearing they're not going to be happy about this at least the people that I know and I've talked to so leaving the options open with the focus on local clean energy I've so I've supported that being through qualified facilities like the purpa um and I hope that you'll consider that thank you Jim Hooten and Dan Greenberg followed by Larry milosevic uh thank you for the opportunity to present my name is Jim Hooten I'm a

[135:01] 22-year resident of Boulder a dedicated volunteer with citizens climate Lobby and the husband of Edie Hooten who could not be here today the city of Boulder has a long history of leadership in the fight against climate change many of you here on the panel and your predecessors should rightfully be proud of those efforts one of those of course is municipalization but regardless of what happens with Boulder's future municipalization efforts it's sadly obvious that the long expensive legal battle with Excel has deterred other towns from following our lead therefore a more General solution for Colorado communities is needed therefore I'm asking the council to support state legislation that Edie Houghton will be introducing to evaluate Community Choice energy as one of your top priorities Community Choice energy sometimes called Community Choice aggregation allows communities served by an investor-owned

[136:01] utility like Excel to buy their power wholesale from independent power producers or power marketers or generate its own power this approach differs in a significant way from Boulder's municipalization plan because with CCE the utility would still own and operate the poles and wires and deliver the electricity customer bills would still come from the utility but the power would come from the source selected by the community if an individual doesn't agree with the community's choice they can opt to stay with the utility the initial legislation that Edie will propose in 2020 will be a study to work out the financial and Regulatory details of CCE if the results of that study show the benefits that are expected it would be followed by enabling legislation in a following session the idea behind this legislation is not to be pro-muni or anti-muny but to provide a path to clean energy faster

[137:01] for Boulder and for many more communities in Colorado I urge your support thank you thank you Jim Dan Jim if I sorry anyway Jim I just want thanks for coming and appreciate your Edie's work on this and I will be bringing this up under our discussion so Dan Greenberg then Larry milosevic followed by Judy mabeli well thanks for this opportunity I'm Dan Greenberg I've lived in town for almost 19 years I just want to say congratulations to the new members to the new leadership and thank you all for the sacrifices you've made in guiding this community forward I'm here tonight to ask for your support for Edie hooten's Community Choice Energy bill representative hooten's bill would not enable CCE as we've heard but rather create two studies to assess the feasibility and desirability of CCE in Colorado and how it might be best implemented the bill becomes law one of the studies will be conducted by an independent puc

[138:00] selected consultant and will assess the financial and Technical feasibility of CCE in Colorado investigating numerous issues such as Regulatory and policy considerations performing CCE authorities the magnitude and duration of exit fees that cces would pay and likely electric rates cces could offer to determine the potential for cost competitive competitiveness versus the incumbent utilities the second study would be a docket at the puc involving all interested stakeholders to consider the regulatory implications and legal impacts of CCA and to provide recommendations to the general assembly regarding weather and how CCE could be enabled here this docket would review the experience of CCE in other states so that fcce were enabled here Colorado could utilize best practices and avoid mistakes made elsewhere I believe that CCE holds tremendous promise to contribute to grid decarbonization

[139:01] across the state at substantially faster pace and substantially lower cost than our utilities are likely to achieve on their own CCE is entirely consistent with the proposed policy agenda for Boulder but it is not currently amongst the six priority items on the agenda I encourage you to pass a resolution of support for representative hooten's Bill and to elevate support of this bill to be one of Boulder's legislative priorities thank you thank you Dan Larry milosovich and Judy Mabley counselors my name is Larry milosovich and I'm from Lafayette I'm here tonight to speak from an external perspective on a State Legislative priority that's worthy of your consideration I I too want to encourage you to support representative Edie hooten's Bill to evaluate the idea of Community Choice energy CCE in Colorado

[140:01] Community Choice allows communities to purchase their power from an alternative wholesale supplier while the electricity is still delivered by the incumbent utility which continues to own and operate its transmission and distribution system the motivation for studying CCE was to find the solution for the many Colorado communities with ambitious renewable energy and climate goals these include the ready for 100 cities that want 100 renewable energy by 2025 to 2035 as well as members of Colorado communities for climate action or cz4ca allowing communities a choice of wholesale electricity supplier introduces competition that will likely allow them to reach their energy goals more quickly and cost effectively but rather than just enabling CCE in Colorado it is prudent to First study its financial and Technical feasibility and Regulatory implications which is exactly what representative hooten's study bill does dce promises communities more choice and control over their energy sources energy

[141:01] costs and energy programs and it merits serious study to see if that promise could indeed be realized in Colorado Boulder should support the CCE study bill even as you pursue municipalization because Boulder has always been a Statewide leader in advancing the energy transition this bill is about the potential for making great progress on energy and climate throughout the state in dozens of communities that are unlikely to pursue municipalization and in a way that does not interfere with Boulder's municipalization effort to summarize I ask you to embrace representative hooten's CCE study bill as one of your legislative priorities and consider passing a resolution of support for the Bill thank you thank you Larry Judy hi I'm Judy immobili and I'm here with a group of people who are mental health therapists and they've recently learned that their reimbursements are at risk of being cut by a 20 percent and they have

[142:01] uh they're interested in a bill that would stop that from happening so I'm on the board of the National Alliance for mental illness here in Boulder and I'm also on the board of Mental Health Partners I mean I'm sorry mental health Colorado in Denver but I'm here today as the mother of a son with schizophrenia and co-occurring substance abuse disorder if we cut the reimbursements for these mental health care providers we will reduce the access to care we will reduce the quality of care and we will endanger people's lives so I hope you will all really consider taking a look at this bill and getting behind it because all over the state we have a catastrophe of a lack of access to Mental Health Services and it is getting worse and worse and a big part

[143:01] of that is that mental health care providers are not at parity with other health care providers and we've passed a lot of parity bills but we apparently don't really know what parity looks like and if we want people to be in the mental health space as practitioners we have to make sure that they are being reimbursed at the same rate as other practitioners mental health is a huge factor in a lot of the issues that people here in Boulder care about including homelessness and incarceration and we need to be addressing the Mental Health crisis in our state before people are in a crisis and after the crisis is over but currently we only treat people with serious mental illness when they are actually in the crisis and the

[144:00] secret about that is that even then they really don't get the treatment they need thank you other people are going to get up and explain the bill that they're proposing so so I have a question for you real quick um is this a federal bill it's a state state Bill okay and when did this um is it a cut or is it just not a parity it's a reduction in the current reimbursements and when did that happen they they've all gotten a letter just recently in the last several months okay thank you what he said thank you okay thank you I'm sorry Andrew Rose is next then Renee Hamill and Philip horn great um so Andrew Rose 1177 Four Mile Canyon um so I've operated Boulder emotional Wellness here for 10 years I've got eight intern therapists from naropa I've got nine extern therapists

[145:03] um I got three supervisors our current census is 145 Medicaid clients um just imagine a 20 pay cut what's going on here is Anthem which is actually ccha which is the Medicaid payer for region six which is what we're in sent us a letter October 5th saying that our um compensation rate or reimbursement rate which has previously been a hundred percent of the Medicaid fee schedule is going to be reduced to 80 percent um that's huge that's my mortgage that's my student loan payments my contractors don't want to work for Medicaid anymore you guys have a a legislative priority number 27 to oppose further Cuts or policy changes to State and federally funded Health and Human Service programs that negatively impact accessibility availability and cost of basic basic Health and Human Service needs so it's already in your priorities to to oppose

[146:01] this what we've offered um is we've had meetings with Anthem that have been unproductive we've looked into the class action lawsuit that was won by therapists in California I think it's a much more constructive approach to legislatively fix the reimbursement rate so all we're asking for in this legislation is one line that says the Medicare Mental Health Providers will be paid at 100 percent of the health care policy and finance fee schedule so Health Care policy and finance has given up control of the reimbursement rate to Anthem and Beacon and Colorado access and Rocky Mountain Health Plans in a way that makes us terribly vulnerable to pay cuts I have a contract we're independent contractors have you if you follow the Seattle Uber and Lyft case there's no way for us as independent contractors to collectively bargain because they'll call us a trust so we are at the

[147:01] government's mercy here to maintain expensive operations I have to train therapists I have to pay for space so we're at 34 34 47th which is in city limits are are our Lee Space is really expensive it's almost four thousand dollars a month for me just to put therapists into offices I have to pay for training I have to pay for insurances so when you see that rate in the rate table that right now is 104 dollars which is still 74 percent of the Medicare rate which is 134 dollars that to see that cut 83 dollars is going to put us in Jeopardy for training and for delivering and I'm talking about Medicaid clients in our city the 20 percent poorest population we got students we got workers all that kind of thing so thanks very much for listening everybody you guys have the legislation in the council at Boulder at your email yep so one more question I'm just trying

[148:01] to understand the context here you said some group had given up price setting control to Anthem and you name some other um providers or sorry insurers what was the group health care policy and finance is the Medicaid administrator for the state unsinger and myself are going to meet with Laurel carabatos who's the administrator of Medicaid administrator Medicaid on on the 22nd and we're going to encourage Health Care policy and finance which under federal law has the right to mandate minimum payments um so we need your support on this we're looking for a sponsor for the bill and Etc okay thank you Andrew Renee hamo oh sorry apologies can you come back up Andrew and we'll go ahead and get it I'm sorry I didn't see you question you said something about region 6 or something like that is it is this

[149:01] something that's only impacting a subsection of Colorado or is it a Statewide reduction in so all mental health providers are paid through these Regional um they're called raes Regional accountability entities the medical side is not um so that's the parity issue which is a federal law issue region six and region seven region seven is also administered by Anthem that's Colorado Springs there's over 300 000 members in region six and region seven regardless of that every mental health practitioner is vulnerable to changes in our rate in an unregulated way which makes it impossible to plan for anything okay thanks anyone else all right thank you Andrew Renee Hamill Philip horn and then Ryan Burkhart hi I'm Renee Hummel Boulder first I just want to congratulate on the council welcome the new council members and I'm actually speaking on behalf of the Vista Village HOA board of directors here

[150:01] um manufactured home issues are one of the things I work on a lot we really want to thank the council for all their support of manufactured housing over the years the legislative and the staff thank you Carl and your support has been so tremendous for us and the ripple effect to the whole state I mean HB 1309 that was passed that creates new dispute resolution enforcement program is so important and I'm just so pleased to see the manufactured housing issues high up on the policy proposals so thank you so much for your support and I hope that will you know continue to have a high priority for you as time goes on and the affordability component is also very important because people are being squeezed out at the fall form that we had recently some of these Elders who are talking about the rent increases it's just heartbreaking what's happening

[151:02] so thank you for support on that and um I have to say I'm just so happy with Boulder and and these various policy things there's so many important policy issues that you're working on here and these mental health people in the CCE it's all important and just thank you so much that's all thank you Renee Philip horn then Ryan Burkhart and then Richard Andrews hello first off thank you to all the new faces lift the mic yeah sure my name is Philip Horner sorry it says horn up there I want to welcome all the new faces it's good to see you all some of you look familiar it's nice to see you again I am here as one of the mental health providers as well trying to support some of this change that's happening um I'm wanting to speak today to raise something to your attention the Medicaid reimbursement rate for our county is being cut by 20 for mental health therapy I'm gonna say that again the 20 cut to

[152:01] mental health therapy this drastic cut is already causing immense negative impact on the mental health availability of those with Medicaid insurance to speak for myself I am a director of a mental health clinic in town called whole connection we have about 11 therapists see about 95 people a week this cut is going to end up I've already had to cut my pay I'm actually back on Medicaid myself trying to figure out ways to keep our existence alive till at least May so I can let some of our trainees finish out their program and at that point I'm not sure we will continue this is because administrative costs liability training and the fact that we are not paid if our clients don't show up which is understandable and also just the cost we have to factor in all these make working with Medicaid tends to be cost more it was expected 20 cut to therapy we're looking at more providers dropping Medicaid as an insurance they accept which more more pressure on Mental

[153:01] Health Centers such as mental health partners to see more clients which they already can't see there's wait lists of two to three months for some of these clients I get calls regularly from people who haven't been able to see anybody there's already movement on creating a bill that I think Andy talked to you about from representative singer who I've met with as well and they're going to be having larger meetings about this but it's good to know this is impacting Boulder County and a few others but greatly impacting this city you've already talked with one director and he's sitting here as another we're looking at just that's just 250 clients right there people who won't be able to access mental health care who wait months who will most likely an end result decide not to get care and end up either going having their own difficulties in other ways end up in higher level of care hospitals and costing the city actually a lot more money I'm happy to spend more time with all of you to explain this in more detail and how this law has passed to create some

[154:00] of these unstable situations and I really hope that you'll consider looking over this more And discussing it further tonight But please understand that Andy and I aren't the only clinics here that are being impacted there's several others that do the same care that saw the need and saw how much this population was not going to be served and many of them will stop serving this population with this cut thank you so much for your time thank you Phillip Ryan Burkhart and Richard Andrews uh good evening my name is Dr Ryan Burkhart I am the executive director of the Colorado counseling Association I often spend much of my time representing the needs of professional counselors in Colorado of which there are just under 10 000 professional counselors in Colorado in total there are 24 621 mental Professionals in Colorado the largest portion of those mental health professionals are located between Fort

[155:00] Collins and Colorado Springs so I'm here to speak to you about these Medicaid cuts the cuts in our reimbursement I got into this profession because I wanted to help the most vulnerable in our populations my brother in 2008 was in a car accident traumatic brain injury and is now wheelchair abound and as a result is on Medicaid these cuts are going to impact our community in a very negative way and I hope to explain why so I want to step outside of my role as the executive director of the Colorado counseling Association advocate for my clients right now how it works some of those vulnerable clients or community members that we have are currently on Medicaid there are about 3 000 Medicaid providers in region six as it stands right now who are trying to service over 300 000 people who are on Medicaid those three those 3 600 ish Medicaid providers are spanned between both

[156:00] private practices Community Counseling centers and also group practices now we've already mentioned right now we're seeing at 10 to 30 percent shortage in Community Mental Health Centers so we have a two to three month waiting period for clients who are on Medicaid to get in and receive mental health treatment what you're concerned about this we sent out a poll and 97 percent of our members of the Colorado Council Association has said that this will most likely impact their ability to take Medicaid clients what we are expecting is we will see a dramatic decrease in mental health providers who are willing to see Medicaid clients after a 20 reduction in their reimbursement so what will happen is we will have a mental health access crisis in Boulder the 300 000 people who are on Medicaid will see a drastic reduction in the number of people who can provide Mental Health Services to them now it is illegal in Colorado for anyone who is

[157:02] not paneled as a Medicaid provider to provide Medicaid services to someone who's on Medicaid so these individuals are stuck to only see people who will take Medicaid clients and you want to see a reduction in people and and counselors in Boulder who will Who will provide services to Medicaid because we simply can't stay in business so what we're forecasting is a mental health access crisis in in Boulder County as a result of these Medicaid cuts a 20 reduction so we need your help we need your help in making this a legislative priority thank you Ryan next is Richard Andrews and after Richard Heather McLaughlin and Lynn Siegel my name is Richard Andrews I've lived in Boulder area here for 40 years and much longer than that in the whole region um

[158:00] I'm an environmental scientist engineer and organic farmer first off I want to acknowledge Carl right over here super guy and very talented and I we recently met together with Joe nagoosa's office along with another exemplary person from City staff azarella Abernathy she's in charge of the integrated Pest Management and pesticide programs that's primarily the focus of my comments which I've handed out comments copies too I definitely support what's been included in the policy document but I'd like to take it a little further um particularly on the on the area of pesticide issues pesticides are everywhere they're in your food they're in your water they're in your beer your wine your bread everything and

[159:00] you are being poisoned every day and we don't need to let that happen in in this area particularly on our open space lands so there are ways to correct that with the legislative process right here on our own state city county and other jurisdictions um I definitely want to encourage and Link some of the issues that have already been discussed and that is pesticides are definitely linked to climate change they do kill the soil they prevent effective carbon sequestration of the soils on which crops are grown I'm a scientist I've been reading and studying this stuff for years I hope you can take that as a credible comment um another area of crossover and the Nexus is by some of the other people that have testified about mental health and health care for my own family is suffering from diseases that are definitely linked

[160:04] to pesticides and I just can't let that happen and continue to happen so I encourage you to take strong efforts in encouraging the legislation that has been proposed one of those is of course is bringing the linkage or the preemption clause and eliminated from the state law at the moment another is uh is in fact strengthening legislation on the class of pesticide called neonicotinoids which are neurotoxins they don't just kill the insects they kill us too because they are they have neurotoxin effects on us as well as endocrine disruptors um so anyway um I will stop at that if you have any questions I'm always available great thank you next is Heather and then

[161:00] Lynn Siegel hi I'm Heather McLaughlin I have lived in Boulder for 22 years and worked here for 20 of those years I've worked in the school system I've worked for non-profits and I've worked for the county always in the capacity of a social worker and through that sort of a lens I now am the executive director of the National Association of Social Workers here in Colorado so now I'm working on behalf of social workers clients and communities around the state but as a resident of Boulder I wanted to be sure to come tonight to be able to add my support and that of the National Association of Social Workers to the legislative proposal that's been put um in front of you by Andy Rose and we have had opportunities to meet with Congressman Augusta's office with Senator fenberg's office and with representative singer and more meetings are planned we participated this morning

[162:02] in the Colorado Coalition on parity to have this conversation and move it to the next level I do think I would just really urge you especially as Boulder when Boulder County a couple of years ago endeavored to determine what the community priorities were for health what was the number one priority Mental Health so I think that this is a time that you as City Council Members can really move that needle forward and help the community in terms of achieving what it set out to do through that planning process which is address mental health the way that you do that is ensure adequate capacity of those that especially offer preventive outpatient mental health that is the bulk and the most efficient way that's the bulk of the mental health that's delivered and and Behavioral Health substance use disorder prevention

[163:01] and if we are to um survive as outpatient mental health delivery persons we are going to need to have pay that is that we're going to need to have parity as a part of that dialogue and we're going to need to have pay that enables people to live in this community and work in this community especially those that want to serve the Medicaid population that does have those additional concerns around issues of homelessness and co-occurring disorders and just can be a community that can have additional challenges we know that right now in Boulder and in Colorado we're facing epidemics with suicide and with substance use disorders with opioid and other substance uses if you cut the reimbursement to your providers your Master's level providers your social workers and your counselors that are providing these Mental Health

[164:00] Services they will pull back and they will start to close their doors and you will lose that infrastructure so I feel supported as a legislative priority thanks amen foreign Siegel Mountain Heights to I'm going to address CCA or CCE but I while we're on this thought still my understanding according to what these folks said is that there is a mandate so if if Carl can say um there there is a mandate to keep this hundred percent you know like then I guess the city would be kind of standing behind that mandate or maybe that's a legal thing that you wouldn't even have to stand up to you know like but it sounded like they need your help so sort that out because because the this is my other

[165:00] issue is affordable housing here and my own affordable housing which is permanent I thought I holded a mortgage but I'm actually kind of in the rental situation as I heard from a kgnu piece about early Denver development where this person had a bunch of Housing and suddenly Denver it was kind of a depressed City originally and everyone came in and flooded a bunch of money and their property taxes went up so much they had to they collapsed they lost their properties as Bob Yates himself said um when he said he had an office and I'd just been to the office and it wasn't there anymore and I said what's the deal with the office and he said my rent went up our own City councilors are getting pushed out with rent this is this is like completely unacceptable it's interesting I hear you say that you

[166:02] want permanently affordable rental to be concluded in inclusionary zoning um and yet mobile homeers are trying to purchase a permanently affordable you know they're trying to have the ability to buy but you want renters to have permanently rent rental afford I mean there's it's fascinating to me the issues going on with the legislature It's a grand opportunity Sam for efficiency really now regards to CCA um the thing is I've always dreamed of our municipalization as transactive energy microgrids trading energy between and we have our poles and wires that we're going to own but this large-scale transmission could also be kind of a deterrent if other cities are seeing that as a route to go and more

[167:00] large-scale solar and large transmission type generation it takes off based on that because I'm seeing this as we're all going to go to self-generation and we aren't even going to be trading between cities we're going to be generating on our own and that takes money and so do transmission lines thank you just saying okay with that we will close the public here transmission we'll close the public hearing and bring this back to council um Carl was there anything that you heard that you wanted to tell us about and then I have a question for you from a process standpoint yeah super super quickly um CCE is something that we have direction from Council to support and we actually have been supporting it um and uh certainly will be interested in taking any questions you have on that uh the neonix bill which is a separate pesticide bill is one that we have direction to support we are supporting that as well and that so let's take a

[168:01] moment there and slow down so can you explain to council that there are two bills being run one Statewide and one which is the preemption and kind of Flesh that out and do the same with the Plastics sure um so from the pesticide perspective what we're proposing is to restore local government authority to regulate pesticides at the same time and that's something that we have worked with Senator fenberg to have introduced and the p-pan the people in polander's Action Network we learned that there's also a bill that would restrict neo-index Statewide it would it would not make it available to private users anymore it would no longer be at your Home Depot for for private use that is something that we've indicated that we would also support and we think of it as an interesting parallel in other words you have a Statewide Baseline certain things that you can't use in this case if you know neonics but in addition we'd like to give local governments the authority to go further the connection to Plastics is that

[169:01] there's a similar type of dynamic there and that we're asking for a local authority to ban Plastics but there's also going to be a bill that would restrict the use of polystyrene the sale of polystyrene so that's statewide right that would be Statewide so in both cases there's a Statewide ban or I'm sorry a Statewide ban of a specific issue one what case Plastics that are one neonics and then in both cases would be seeking the restore our local authority to go even further than that okay great thank you um and then the last thing I would ask you to talk about for us so we can organize our discussion here is how is the legislative agenda used so just as a as kind of background like here's here's what we have right in writing and then how do we use it at the state and federal level when there's sessions going on yeah um so focusing specifically on legislation it gives anybody he works well it gives certain

[170:01] officials of the city the authority to represent the city to advocate for that position I have one of the few jobs I think that is dedicated maybe not 100 but quite a bit towards that everyone else it's as time allows and as it overlaps with a work plan council members and the mayor of course would always have the ability to do it but there's obviously a limit in our resources Beyond just resources is there a political um there's a there's only so much you can ask of your legislators before they stop listening to you and there's always so much that we can ask that we have credibility on that you know there's a reason that the city should ask for so we um just something to take into account always as you're considering any changes to make we also are members of a many intergovernmental organizations they are often more influential and we can influence them to take positions and that includes the coward of Municipal League the Denver Regional Council of government U.S 36 Mayors and Commissioners

[171:01] coalitions so there's many organizations that we belong to that actually advocate for legislation and so one of the ways that we use this agenda is to convince those organizations or at least attempt to and find other like-minded organizations to do so we're always building coalitions it's very rare that we just think that we can go to our legislators and make it happen so this has really given us the authority to build the coalitions necessarily through informal coalitions and exists in intergovernmental and of course to speak directly to our legislators and ask for their support great Sam may I add something please just a little bit broader overview when the legislature is in session things happen very fast none of us can can anticipate everything that's going to occur this gives Carl the license to advocate for or against a bill that you've already decided your policy position on if we have time to come back to council to ask is this a good idea we can do that but a lot of times we don't have that time so this gives him the ability to do that and

[172:01] also as you'll see later we get frequently asked to participate in Amicus as Mikus in various issues particularly with the current federal Administration and the legislative agenda if it's something that's covered in there I have permission to go ahead and sign on to a brief so it basically gives us the ability to implement your policy decisions in between meetings without having come to come back and ask you or just say no because there isn't a meeting in time yeah and that last point is one that I just want to raise here this once we're done with this and we pass it off this for the next year we'll guide how Carl and our lobbyists we have two lobbyists who you have not met but they are also charged by Carl with lobbying for or against bills and a lot of times things move really fast at the legislature during the session especially at the end and you know we will never have time to touch it and so those specific bills so when we hand this to Carl it's basically marching orders and then I want to highlight the letter legislative breakfast that he

[173:00] called out on the 17th that's another time that we give all of our state legislators a copy of this and then we go over and Carl highlights the priorities so so here's a thought about how to organize the discussion I've captured like six subjects that people have brought up that we should probably touch on and I would ask if people wanted to add to that list here's what I've got so far the Medicaid reimbursement issue an issue I'll bring up about safety culture that Carl mentioned for utilities Community Choice energy refrigerants and methane leaks and then the opportunity zone so those are ones that I have now captured are there others that people would like to bring up Rachel were you so so just to let me know you want to speak just put a finger up oh there you go and then you married Carl mentioned that a couple things to add yes gun violence prevention okay and death

[174:04] penalty okay and we will talk about those in order yeah Mary's next and Adam so additional language in under the human services and human rights area and also under the transportation access Adam Statewide minimum wage increase to 15 an hour and the removal of the prohibition on rent control Statewide okay okay anyone else okay so one thing I will say about the way this discussion has gone in years past is people kind of wax poetic about why but if we're all generally in agreement we don't need to wax very poetic because we have a lot of subjects

[175:00] here so you know I bet we'll be in pretty good agreement on a lot of these and we'll ask for Carl for feedback at the end we will see this again on consent on December 3rd so just FYI this is our one time to kind of take a crack at it but we when it's on consent December 3rd if you see something that didn't get captured or you don't like you can send in a note and we can talk about it then alrighty well why don't we start with the ones that were kind of already teed up and Carl told us are in there the CCE subject does anyone have any thoughts on that Aaron yes I posted that on the hotline so thanks for that Carl I know we do have it currently in our agenda to support that but I just wanted to um give us the opportunity to specifically support uh representative Putin's bill that she's bringing forward so is that something that we could maybe if uh council is interested to have a resolution on a future meeting you certainly can so I would put that out as a as a step

[176:01] that we could take in support of that yeah and I had spoken with representative about that as well and suggested that when the bill is introduced which I think it's one of her five early ones that we then take up the resolution so it might be early in January or something like that is that good yeah are other folks amenable to that approach yeah right thank you thank you so the one comment I have the the one argument against CCE that's been floated has been that it would somehow slow down the progress that Excel is making and I think you can make sure that that doesn't happen by requiring that anybody who any Community who subscribes to CCE has to have at least as clean of an energy mix as Excel has at the time so that way you could add that caveat so that for sure any CCE contracts added would be as clean or cleaner than where excel's got into at that point so that's just a comment we can see how that goes um

[177:00] okay I think uh that one's done um Mark had brought up the opportunity Zone you want to talk about that I don't have that much more to say um other than uh there's been a lot of legislative conversation about it um and including from representatives of some of the more disadvantaged communities who don't feel that they're getting a fair shake from the opportunity Zone and the lack of Regulation concerning the opportunity Zone and the opportunity Zone Investments is a little bit scandalous to me and if there is a good Federal proposal to make that process more transparent and to invest communities with more rule-making authority over what transpires in the opportunity Zone I would I would support that Carl do you want to speak to that just

[178:00] for a quick way we can do that we can we can indicate support for that and I understand what you're saying okay great yeah I think that's a timely thing it wasn't there last year everyone thumbs up on on that okay um next I want to go to something that is in our legislative agenda but I'd like to see if we can make it our fourth Federal priority um so one of the conversations I've had with Congressman the goose is around regulation of both refrigerants and methane and we actually say something about both of those and I believe that there's a good chance and Carl maybe you can check with him to see if this is true that we've had several conversations between me and others in his office about introducing a bill to do that and it may just be hfc's or it may include methane so if that's a possibility if Congressman the goose is has a timeline on that bill I would like to suggest that we add it as of the

[179:01] fourth federal legislative priority um just for background these refrigerants and methane have hundreds to thousands of times the global warming potential and they have short resonance time in the atmosphere so if we were able to control their leaks we would have a much more short-term impact than controlling CO2 levels so is everyone okay with doing that if Congressman the goose is going forward okay thank you um let's see this okay I have one I'll come back to that [Music] um so the health care um reimbursement for mental health Carl do you have any thoughts on I saw you writing a lot while they were testified I was I was given a suggested bill that has a very clear very simple language it's one sense I'll read it to you it would amend section 25-4 uh 25.5-4-401 of the Colorado River Rise

[180:02] statute to add the following the state department should require the payment of qualified Medicaid Behavior Behavioral Health Providers according to the state Department's Health First Colorado physician fee schedule unless the rate exceeds the limits in 1B I in which case 1bi determines the reimbursement rate so given that a very clear direction if council is supportive of this I see no problem with adding this to our agenda okay and especially the fact that representative singer is somebody that they reached out to that somebody will be meeting with so so this complies with principles already in the agenda so do you want to call it out specifically or do you just want to support it from I I think this would require a new position okay great thank you and so you want to do that everyone on Council support that okay very good um next I have gun violence Rachel thanks

[181:00] um I have talked with Carl about this a little bit um and I'm not I you know I'm trying to get the protocols and etiquette here but I think I'm looking at item number 42 if I'm looking at the current version um PDF page number yeah so I don't know I think it was 38 on but that didn't comport somebody said 300 something so although I was at a four at a 38 but that can't be right um but on the scroll that's what my screen said so I think that um gun violence prevention organizations are going to be pushing for a three-day waiting periods for gun purchases and for raising the purchase to age 21 for all gun sales I don't know if there's going to be um an appetite by the legislature to take those up or not but wanted to see if we would support those do I need do I need to explain that further I think for me you need to explain it just a bit further Okay so I think an example of this would be last

[182:00] spring most of our schools in this region were shut down after a 18 year old from Florida got on a plane and got off in Denver and purchased a gun and so people started looking at having the age raised to 21 for gun purchases and for some sort of a waiting period and the consensus is around three days and that would it would also have a pretty good impact on reducing suicides which is what that young woman ended up doing so how do you combat the 18 year old military man who or woman who's in the service who owns a gun has been trained to have a gun so I I assume that there would be exemptions written into the any state law that would be proposed so you're proposing this for the state or the federal state state level it's the state that would be looking at this okay and the three-day waiting period would be Universal for any gun I'm sure there would also be exemptions

[183:00] no I think that's a good question my guess would be if there was like a domestic violence situation there's usually exemptions for things like that okay I'm in favor of it but um Carl do you need more guidance to um I I understand that there's already an age limit for handguns but not long guns and I'm seeing nods so I understand that this proposal is to make it an age restriction on either kind of gun and then the three-day waiting period I'm not familiar with any legislation that's going to be introduced on this but it sounds like there is a group that's advocating for it so if council's supportive of it I could research that and make sure that that's included and and I wonder if our legislative position might be to support a waiting period so that if they come up with a four day waiting period we wouldn't we would be able to support that as well

[184:00] so I mean I guess from my standpoint I'm generally supportive there are certain types of guns that you know are are a little less um like shotguns for instance are much less typically used unless they're some kind of combat shotgun so I'm generally supportive of this is everyone generally supportive of this Mary yeah okay then why don't you do the research and if you could between now and December 3rd if you could send us just on hotline the position that you're thinking of putting in or um I think I understand it I mean I think I can capture your ideas and make sure it's included in the agenda unless there are specific concerns about how it's being proposed I think I can capture this bring it back to to you on your December third packet very good are we good with that Rachel yes thank you death penalty okay death penalty so um the Criminal Justice Reform

[185:02] um paragraph in here is is sort of brief compared to some other sections so in future years I might have other suggestions but I believe that the Colorado State Legislature is going to be looking at abolishing the death penalty this year they looked at it last year briefly and then sort of kicked it over to this year and that is something that I would like us to consider weighing in on as a body I would recommend that we support abolishing the death penalty right now there's a state moratorium on it um if if we need me to X poetic I'm happy to I will just say that it is um statistically highly racist in practice and for that reason alone I would support abolishing it um and and just two other small points on the paragraph that we have and again I'm assuming I'm looking at the current one we say that prison populations continue to grow to record levels and I think that the state prison population has actually decreased over the last few years from a peak in around 2010 and then in terms of what's causing prison

[186:00] population we say it's a Hardline approach to drug crimes and actually prison admissions for drug cases have dropped five percent over the last five years according to the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice so I just think we might tweak that language a little bit I'm highly supportive of all the Criminal Justice Reform um just thought we might okay make those amendments bring the rest of council up to speed I think you're referring to the paragraph that I sent you personally so I don't know if everyone seen it so so item 28 is what I have is it already in there no the link which isn't quite there in 28 yeah the um it doesn't have all of them it may have been part of what he sent to you okay it might be something that yeah so I I try to anticipate um just trying to get ahead of the work you know as I have basically responses ready to go if you all support it and one of the responses I developed for uh council member friend um had some language it sounds like you have some suggested changes to it um the gist of it is you know repealing the

[187:02] death penalty in Colorado and and she's correct that that would likely come back come forward I had to use some justifications why that made sense but it sounds like you have some perhaps some some different uh factual uh if you could just provide that to me and if Council supports that I'm ready to go on that as well do we have anything in the current legislative agenda that speaks to the death penalty okay I'm everyone how do you feel about repealing the death penalty thumbs up or thumbs down okay all right I think we have a preponderance of counsel that wants to support this so we'll go forward and you'll work with Carl to get him the supporting language thank you great okay Mary Human Services language um yeah on page 391 um in the

[188:00] new added language that says conversely the city will oppose the adoption of any federal state policies that penalize non-citizens who have used public benefits etc etc I just wanted to find out for my colleagues and suggest that we add a couple things in addition to public benefits or any federal policy that denies due process or that discriminates against economic status um thinking about the um the current requirement or the recent requirement to for immigrants to have health insurance in order to be able to apply so um just adding those two additional items within that paragraph any any policy that denies due process or discriminates against economic

[189:00] status do you think economic status would capture your example of health insurance um I that's the example I have in mind and leave it to Carl to come up with great great Council how do you feel about that Edition yep okay very good and then you had yeah transport I had Transportation um let's see under it is on page 412 policy 53 which doesn't have any subtext on it um but that says support policies and funding mechanisms that would increase affordable Transportation access and access um is consists of of several other dimensions so I would propose that we um

[190:00] add um access contains in addition to Affordable as one of its Dimensions also consists of available Transportation so in other words is there enough um frequency in the schedule and then accessibility which has to do with is it close enough to people and then accommodations is it in ways that people can understand to use it so I would just propose to add affordability accessibility availability and accommodation so to support those policies just to cover in addition to affordability to cover those others would it be fair to say that maybe we could do subtext below the heading to call those things I mean that's the idea of Carl wants to do subtext that that'd be great it may be easier and I I know I heard what you're saying I can capture it up

[191:00] and then um I had an addition one that I did additional one that I did not bring up as a topic but under the vaping um to and I don't see the paragraph right now let's see maybe it's above here position 39 yeah okay position yeah it's because I hadn't scroll down far enough um but under the items um increase the age band flavor tobacco powders and then to add a d to that which would be um and makes allowances for Vaping as a cessation device as a smoking cessation device um so perhaps right so the the idea is to make sure that we're not eliminating the ability of vaping as a cessation device correct so perhaps that's the idea and however right so perhaps that gets added prior to so you know as long as you don't eliminate the ability of vaping being a cessation device yours otherwise

[192:01] what we want to make sure is in voice can we include an FDA approved cessation device what well that that was the argument that was provided during The Vaping um discussion that um in my view a lot of the folks that we're using it and um as a cessation device and having success with it um were disregarded because it was not FDA approved and so um I think the evidence is that it's not actually a cessation device there's a lot of evidence that more people become addicted and then cease well I during that that process I spoke to a lot of people that had used it as a cessation device and that so I'm just saying okay it's up to you I just yeah yeah clarified Aaron yeah well is to the point that Tom made

[193:00] of it obviously we all those of us who are on Council a few months ago spoke to a lot of people about this and went through several public hearings at length about it and I have to say I found the arguments um compelling that said that we should not be promoting vaping as a smoking cessation device because it's not FDA approved and because of what Tom just said about the number of people who are getting addicted is far greater than the number of people who are switching to potentially less harmful alternative so I I can't say that I would support adding that in there based on the kind of what I learned in the conclusion I came to in our vaping discussions sad that I did read peer-reviewed papers that supported um it as a cessation device so there's a lot of research anybody else want to comment on this um so I mean I'm not wild about that necessarily either because I read some peer-reviewed review papers that looked down at a whole bunch of other papers so they were synthesis papers and what they

[194:00] found is that more people became addicted when it's widely available so I just don't know how you make sure that it's really being used as a cessation device and not some one who's become hooked on it as they've started um so I just want to be cautious about it maybe Carl if you could take a crack at something right so a suggestion would be that we indicate that these argu's are some as a cessation device but that we don't endorse that since apparently there's some mixed feelings on accounts about whether that isn't legitimate for but we indicate that in fact it has used that are the operational effect of adopting this is to say tax it no flavors and higher age so we're not restricting it by by our actions to be used as a cessation device so it's kind of a middle ground rather rather than say we we recognize that

[195:00] this is an effective cessation device we just say it is used that way and we're and none of our proposals would prohibit it from being used that way that work Mary yeah that would work okay so if that works there that works go ahead I'd have to see the language not as an item D maybe somewhere in the in the paragraph So I say Carl go ahead I I guess a possible compromise would have Carl write the language and submit it as part of the second reading and then we can review it and tweak it and and I certainly could if there's any question uh shared uh with a on hotline or something like that before to make sure I don't get this one wrong maybe if you put what um you and Rachel work out and the thinking on hotline that'd be great sounds good then we have Adam uh minimum wage sure um so we now have local control

[196:01] over minimum wage I'm just looking to take the next step currently we're in a very unique situation in that the unemployment rate is extremely low and we have an affordable housing crisis so I think it's worth trying to be a little bit aspirational and look towards a 15 minimum wage at the state level uh with the Confluence of those issues hitting at the same time a lot of housing affordability issues would be solved if people had living wages so I guess there's a counter argument to that which is that the one-size-fits all is why we try not to do as much Statewide and try and leave it up to localities I just think of the rural areas you know that they they really do have lower housing prices and they also have lower wages so I would I would ask if there's a way that we could craft it so that it's a minimum wage that's a fraction of Ami or something like that so that it takes

[197:00] into account the the fact that wages are much higher and housing costs are much higher in the Front Range than most of the rest of the state I'm definitely open to that okay Carl any thoughts um the only thought I have is that the Boulder County Consortium cities which is made up of Boulder County in all the cities we'll be taking this up as a topic partly out of recognition that any one City without working with another city can be disadvantaged if they have a higher minimum wage so another approach could also be to support um of regional sort of minimum wage so you know the rural areas clearly have a different situation so the Metro mayor's caucus for example could certainly work together to have a an IGA which is what is specifically allowed to have a minimum wage adopted on the Front Range or along you know so so that's another option that the you might want to pursue but you tell me what you prefer do you mind if I can I just speak to

[198:00] that kind of separate from from your proposal Adam I would love to get into something about the regional collaboration on a minimum wage and that's that wouldn't be a state or federal position but this is our intergovernmental positions right it's original so so I would love to see us work with our other cities in in Boulder County or across the region to Institute a minimum wage across a region so if people are I'd love to get that in there is something that we feel like is a good idea I think that's a really good compromise okay all right Carl you want to is that clear um yeah absolutely and uh so when that bring gets brought up the Consortium cities I will make sure that we convey that our council is interested not only in county-wide but perhaps more of a region-wide great and everyone on Council is that okay yeah yeah okay good enough rent control um another one rare opportunity um so last year this came up it actually passed through committee and then I

[199:02] don't think it ever actually got a hearing um as a whole body at the legislature so um this might be the last opportunity to have it and I think we all really appreciate local control and we've heard time and time again from staff that we need every tool possible in the toolbox to help our affordable housing crisis right now so um I just want to put another tool in the toolbox in this sense and I think it's very important that we support that at the state level thoughts Carl what's our current policy on rent control our current position last last session was that we supported it more just because it was a matter of local control so we're always going to be supportive of having options so we supported it at the Colorado Municipal League it it contributed to that there are supporting it we also indicated support to our delegation members of it it was clear that it was not going to

[200:01] pass so we did not testify at the Committees there's two things that we currently have that relate to this one we say that we're supportive of rent control when it relates to mobile home residences because of the unique uh you know split split ownership that exists there and we also have this inclusionary zoning allowance so what you're proposing would be just a broader get rid of you know allow cities to do whatever it would be under rent control um so we there's no reason that if Council wants to do this we shouldn't write this explicitly so it's not just part of local control so Adam to make sure we understand um are you talking about removing the preemption right okay so how do people feel about removing the preemption is when the state says the city can't do it and so Aaron I'll just chime in the um I think we've already supported it right in the

[201:00] because it grants us more local control and so I'm perfectly happy to get it in there because we want local control not necessarily because I support rent control in a broad level but uh but because it would give us more options that's the reason I'm supporting it as well just so you know and but just then to make sure we keep our other couple policies in there they're more targeted bits because they need to be maybe what gets across the Finish Line this year anyone else yeah I mean I think Carl's Wright leadership does not look favorably up on this and so I don't think it will go forward but I would like to see it explicitly supported in the legislative agenda you and us okay all right so that brings us down to the last one I have on my list which is one that I've been thinking about in the last couple months um so California had some terrible wildfires over the last two seasons and many of them were started by their

[202:00] biggest utility PG e and they were started because they had poorly maintained transmission lines and distribution lines and so I would like us to have a position in our legislative agenda under resilience that talks about a state level audit that happens every few years of of transmission lines because in our Mountain communities we don't want to see this kind of thing occurring and when things occur in the nearby mountains they can end up in our laps and so this is a safety issue for Boulder I think a wildfire safety issue and so that would be one thing I would put out there and another thing that's related just to get it on the table is one of the reasons that we're pursuing municipalization is to be able to have control of the way our distribution system evolves like Fort Collins has undergrounding so they have eight times better reliability than we do Longmont has four times better reliability than we do because they have

[203:00] a significantly more undergrounding than we do and then there's the issue of the perverse incentives for utilities to do maintenance because maintenance doesn't add to their asset base and so they don't make money off of it so the other part would be to support legislation that asks the puc to allow municipalities to have input into the growth of their distribution system so right now we have zero visibility into that and if there could be a way that we just get to review and comment on the plans for the distribution system I think that would be valuable for all communities that wanted to do so and it would result in better reliability some of the things that I think about include microgrids like how do we make ourselves ready to Island neighborhoods when we have big floods how do we make sure that there's enough capacity for solar installation because that's often limited by the distribution system layout and so on and so forth so without

[204:00] going on much more starting with the safety culture piece of it and the third party auditor is there any support on Council for that yeah okay Carl I think I got a lot of thumbs up for that one is that something that you can add I'm just going to look towards Jonathan who has been helping me with this to make sure that he's captured your understanding and is prepared to help me okay two thumbs up okay and then uh distribution system planning input just commentary about like having a view three years ahead for what excels planning in our footprint and having the ability to comment on it in in regards to our sustainability and resilience goals people good with that great thank you okay that's all I have on my list is there anything else that we want to add or talk about

[205:02] all right that was a nice list of issues thank you discussion you don't need a motion tonight do you I I don't need a motion now is that good Carl absolutely yep thank you thank you thanks Carl can we do a time check okay if if the purple sheet is right we still have two hours of stuff um ahead of us I know that's about right yep okay well I have to propose that we move something off because I'm not staying till 11 30. so the national league of cities we can't move off but that's probably five minutes because that has to be done soon CU South process check in I'm going to try and make that less than 45 minutes if we can because it's processed and not

[206:03] um the 20 minutes that you have for NM in SMP is already done so you can take that 20 minutes off I did um so we have 45 minutes for a historic plan and I'll bet that takes half an hour okay so you guys think it's not going to be two hours you think it's going to be one hour hour and a half so I would suggest that we keep moving and then as we get close we make a decision okay I would just want to be respectful of Staff too because if we decide an hour and a half from now that we don't want to do is to use South process update they probably would rather know that now than 11 o'clock tonight Jane your thoughts well Bob's certainly right that if it's 11 o'clock and we're telling the staff member to go home that's not okay but my hope is that we can do the historic preservation plan in a lot

[207:00] shorter time than we have indicated and we'll get to the CU South and hopefully a soon time frame okay we can do the Amicus and NLC things like that yeah okay okay next is your five year update to the historic preservation plan great thank you I'm Chris Mess Jack interim director of the planning department assistant city manager tonight both James Hewitt and Marcy Cameron who are our two historic preservation planners for the city are here to present the five-year update to the historic preservation plan and with that I'll turn it over to Marcy for the presentation oh yeah I'll just I'll just kick it off and start by congratulating you all tonight really happy to be here on the first night of this new Council and to talk a little bit about historic preservation um just by way of History you know we've

[208:02] had a program in in Boulder historic preservation program since 1974 so it's a 45 year old program and it's it's a diverse program I think without further Ado I'll just turn it over to Marcy who's got a PowerPoint for you and afterwards we can answer questions if you have them for us thanks good evening my presentation tonight is about 10 minutes so um I thought I would take the opportunity to give a little bit of background information on the program as James mentioned it was established in 1974 the ordinance was written by historic Boulder and adopted by the city council and it was really in reaction to the loss of some significant historic buildings that the community galvanized around and created one of the earliest preservation programs in Colorado it established the design review and the

[209:01] landmark designation and then in 1994 the demolition review for non-designated buildings was added so over the course of the 45 years we've designated 170 197 individual landmarks 10 historic districts and that total is about 1400 designated properties mostly located around the central area which is the oldest part of Boulder our landmarks board is made of five volunteer board members appointed to appointed by Council to five-year terms and then we are the program the two historic preservation planners as well as admin and intern support so the code chapter that we live in is chapter 911 and it talks about the purpose of the historic preservation program is really to protect enhance and perpetuate those building sites and areas of the city reminiscent of past

[210:01] eras all in the spirit of enhancing property values stabilizing neighborhoods promoting tourist trade and interest in fostering knowledge of the city's living history and then the code goes on to say that the council does not intend to preserve every old building but to strike a balance between private property rights and the public interest so what does that look like on kind of a day-to-day business we review changes to designated properties through Landmark alteration certificates we review demolition requests for buildings over 50 years old we designate or bring to you to designate new landmarks in historic districts we review state tax credit applications which is a great way to offset the rehabilitation cost of historic properties and then we have our community engagement efforts brings us to the creation of the historic preservation plan which was adopted in 2013 and funded by a certified local government grant it was

[211:02] a bit unusual because we were a pretty mature program at the time but it was an opportunity to assess what was working and what wasn't working and to chart the course for the next 10 to 15 years the community engagement during the process included a survey of recent applicants open houses and a working group and it has helped establish priorities for our work plan over the last five years the historic preservation plan is broken into three sections the first is kind of a digestible summary of our program areas then it sets out the goals and objectives of where we'd like to go and then has the recommendations of how to get there those recommendations are broken into program operation resource protection and then Community engagement so the scope of this five-year update was to document the process towards the goals made in the first five years to confirm the goals and objectives and to

[212:01] revise the recommendations so that they were clear and measurable and this meant identifying recommendations that were vague or difficult to measure we would propose the revisions and then identifies the roles in the timeline as well as funding sources the process started last September and the first phase went through the end of the year which focused on the goals and objectives and documenting the progress then we moved into draft revisions in the first part of 2019 and brought the final revisions in April to the landmarks board and here we are in front of you tonight for the engagement as part of this five-year update we had an internal coordination team comprised of representatives from different departments and then we had a community working group of 17 people which were really great to work with and a pretty diverse set of perspectives from

[213:01] historic Property Owners to frequent applicants representatives from Chautauqua and historic Boulder as well as a CU student and a past landmarks board member and as well as open houses in an online survey so the first kind of piece of the update was documenting the progress towards goals and in your packet you have the whole spreadsheet of of what's happened in the last five years but a couple ones to highlight is that we completed a grant funded historic resource survey plan looking at what do we have documented and what are the gaps we hired a consultant to prepare a national register nomination for the University Hill commercial District which ended up not moving forward but that has a lot of really great information about those properties and the history of of that area the landmarks board presented a lecture series for five years picking films and giving talks having

[214:01] walking tours bicycle tours and then focusing on the program we made improvements to the demolition review process and updated on various design guidelines for the confirmation of the goals and objectives the goals remain largely the same we revise them to recognize cultural resources in addition to architectural and environmental resources we also revise it to increase the awareness of an importance of underrepresentative underrepresented community histories and then aspiring to be more proactive in the review and protection of the historic places in Boulder so I've picked out a few of the bigger recommendations or the bigger revisions that that were made with input by the landmarks board and the working group and so the first one is to develop a plan to identify those potentially

[215:01] historic places so that would be looking at what's already been designated and identifying the gaps of of what's missing in order to tell that full story of Boulder's history the second one this list came primarily from the working group but developing additional historic context reports these different potential research topics so that we have a better understanding of Boulder's history and maybe just to highlight a few it's Boulder's indigenous Heritage African-American and Hispanic communities women's history LBGTQ history there's the counterculture movement science outdoor recreation to tell a broader history because we have a lot on the settlement of Boulder and even maybe through the 1940s and a little into the post-war but really it's um there's a lot more there that we could um that we could learn about moving into resource protection there's

[216:01] a recommendation that was added to explore establishing a grant fund to purchase very significant properties that are threatened with demolition often it's the pressure of a pending sale that will that puts the pressure on Demolition and if there were a fund to pause that or relieve that pressure um it might save a historically significant building and then Community engagement so this one was maybe unexpected but based on the feedback from the community working group we removed the recommendation to establish neighborhood Liaisons what we heard is that there's really a better way to build relationships with historic Property Owners rather than rely on one person in the neighborhood to be kind of the um the avenue to convey that information you have a question rushy yes one really short question was there like a vote for that was it do you know the outcome of that vote if there was

[217:01] um it wasn't a vote it was more as we were going through the the recommendations and looking at specifically Community engagement of what's the most effective way to engage the community and specifically build relationships with owners of historic properties and um this recommendation for neighborhood Liaisons we had one neighborhood liaison in one historic district and and that person was on the working group and he said he felt kind of in an awkward position because he felt that the city should be the ones conveying information about the process and about guidelines and there is a better way to maybe have that be direct rather than through a representative thank you yeah um and then here's one um about transitioning to electronic or over-the-counter reviews for some um case types and then conducting an annual applicant survey so that we can have a better sense of how we can provide good

[218:02] customer service or great customer service and then finally with program operation we added some detail to analyzing the effectiveness of the existing demolition ordinance and that could be having an annual report seeing how many cases come in versus how many are approved of of potentially significant buildings increasing the clarity of information we provide and then assessing the code definition of what a demolition is others are coordinating existing sustainability and historic preservation programs that was mainly to update the language to reflect the current programs that we have today in 2019 and then the last one is to pursue collaborative approaches to integrate preservation and other City operations and this one came up because there were a few points of friction over the last five years with

[219:00] inflicting code sections like a hundred-year-old Barn that encroached in the alleyway six inches and rather than reacting to these as the on a case-by-case basis is there a way to integrate within different departments to get ahead of these issues that we now know about um so that's kind of the very brief overview of the five-year update to the historic preservation plan we're here tonight for your consideration to accept the five-year update and we're happy to answer any questions you may have great thank you for that um questions yeah in section one nine the establishment of an archaeological program you state that it's going to require significant staff time and resources do you have any estimate of what that staff time and resources will look like

[220:02] to what we have now do you have any ideas yeah well I think it would really depend on the scope of you know how far we went with an archaeological program I think it would we'd probably try and tackle it in smaller steps start by Consulting archaeologists because neither Marcy or I our archaeologists so we'd kind of want to find out more about that um but significant means I think that through through development of a program there would be some sort of a review mechanism so it probably would would require some volunteer time from you know I'm not I'm not opposed to the concept but I'm opposed to an open-ended concept that we can't quantify would would it be something that would come back to council at some point with an update if you're going to do it it absolutely would yes okay yes

[221:01] and and I think I I would say that it probably would um be best established through you know an ordinance or an amendment to the historic preservation ordinance Mary thanks for that Marcy um I have a question about the um historic context reports and how would that happen and is that something that could be um done what I'm thinking about is that situation that happened last year where the process didn't allow for um doing research in real time so I'm just wondering how the historic context reports would be created and what space would there be

[222:00] for any gaps that may still exist afterwards that afterwards that could address situations that come up in real time to the historic resource survey plan which lays out the um it's more building specific but it has what's already been documented and then provides a prioritization of um potential areas in the future and so a historic context piece could be equally strategic in saying you know in the next five years here are the ones to prioritize hire a consultant to then create those reports so that we have them as a as a growing Library over time ideally rather than having a property come up in US realizing that there's a gap in the in the history but to get ahead of it and our historic is that the only source material for determination of significance or is are there other

[223:02] documents books absolutely okay I think that the value of the historic context reports is that they can be very localized and so you have a historian focusing on Boulder on a specific topic that would pull from newspapers and books and other sources but would be specifically about Boulder okay thank you other questions so with that we will go to a public hearing I will um I just wanted to bring up this issue with marpa house that got me thinking about things I've been thinking a lot for a long time about historic preservation and that is we we preserve the exterior of houses and the interior

[224:00] can look like New York City you know and to me that's just kind of obscene and and also there's the culture and you describe that the culture is a concern of yours the cultural resource for example marpa house was 40 years 40 people right on the hill no problems super efficient use of space bathrooms with cubbies you know that like comparing it to to The Balsam next to the hospital you know and 20 bathrooms in you know a single lot they're they're very and 40 people you know in one small space with really efficient use of kitchen and the whole thing I think that should be like something that would really latch onto as a value about Boulder for efficiency

[225:03] and with contemporary considering contemporary situations of Energy Efficiency especially and asbestos is not the end of the world why aren't we connecting more much more tightly with Boulder Green Building Guild and with Building Services Department and planning and development to see how what the latest ways are to save these spaces from being demoed um because we're absorbing these huge costs that aren't articulated in our our community because there's you know you because you can you can just dig it all up all the cement all the embodied energy that's lost in transporting heavy materials out you know and there are there are people that have come before Council on that hospital and said how

[226:00] you could redesign it for you know some homeless people or or low-income people and with the the way the nurses stations were designed is ideal for that and there's other communities that have that have changed you know re repurposed really excellent repurposing of buildings and that should be first in mind with our our new history the history that we're going to look back on you know 100 years from now or 500 years from now on what Boulder did and how how we reacted to climate change thank you and it's Jamie Boyle hello um I don't have anything prepared um I uh I'm the interim executive director of historic Boulder I just wanted to say welcome thank you guys all for your service to our city Mary I know I've had the chance to meet you before

[227:01] at our member party last summer I just wanted to commend Marcy and James on their excellent work and to thank you guys for involving Us in um the sort of evaluation and Redevelopment of the plan thank you looking forward to working with everybody as much as possible thank you very much with that we will bring it back to council and I would ask for comments I wanted to put a motion on the table go for it right so I move that we accept the five-year update to the historic preservation plan second Adam got his first second all right Barry thank you Marcy and James for this and everybody that was involved I think they're these are great updates and a great Improvement on the process that keeps evolving so thank you Adam

[228:00] yeah I I got to read almost all of it and it was really really excellent and I just really appreciate the time you put in you know landmarking is such an important part of keeping Boulder Bolder so uh just really really appreciative of all the work Aaron in addition to all the great work that you did so very fine document I just wanted to call out that I particularly appreciate the addition of focus areas on places of significance to indigenous peoples and underrepresented groups so I was really glad to see those at it thank you anyone else and I'll jump in and I will agree with what Aaron and Mary have said it's very good work um I especially like the way the memo laid out the changes so that you could quickly start with what's changed and then you know look at what you wanted to follow up on so I appreciate that very much so we have a motion and a second and this is a show of hands so all in favor of approving The Five-Year update to the historic preservation plan raise your

[229:00] hand it is unanimous great thank you guys thank you and if anyone ever wants a tour just let us know pick the area and we'll we'll tell you all about it okay that's right so Tom I think your next um consideration of emotion I will be brief um we are asked as I said earlier with some frequency particularly because of some of the the policies of the current Administration a lot of cities around the country have sued this is a case involving a ninth circuit decision uh the United States against sineg Smith it involves a federal statute 18 USC 1324 which prohibits individuals from encouraging or assisting someone to remain or enter the country illegally if they know or or recklessly disregard the fact the person what they're doing is illegal the ninth circuit held that it

[230:01] violated the First Amendment because the word encourages includes all sorts of broad speech the ninth circuit's the only Court that's ever held that statute unconstitutional I believe the third and fourth have upheld it um the United States government petitioned for sir sharari to the United States Supreme Court the court accepted certiorari San Francisco has taken the lead for some cities in support supporting the defendant in that case against the United States government's actions they've asked us to be one of the anchor cities in drafting their Amicus brief they're going to then invite other cities to join I would I would recommend that the city do so very good thank you um anyone have any comments questions do we need a motion on this I make up this procedure as we go uh yeah that would be helpful yes so moved okay all in favor you Julie all in favor all right very good thank you Tom thank you

[231:01] um and so next we move on to the CU South um process check-in because we've had our call-ups well well staff is coming up I want to frame this up a little bit so this is a process check-in meaning that we're going to look at what the next steps are and what other agencies or bodies might be involved we are also going to be seeing something on January 21st I think and something else in February so staff will probably talk to us about a report they expect to get by the end of the year and the placeholder for the 21st is to be able to learn about that report so that's an update in the time in February is for us to do a deep dive into the substance of what we've learned and what that might mean and so bless you so for this to keep things contained for this discussion we're going to be focused just on process and just on what the next steps are to get us to the report at the end

[232:01] of the year and then the discussion of that report in January and then the Deep dive of what does it all meeting in February so that's why we scheduled it for 45 minutes or less and I'm and I'm not really sure which which tadayucci who was the interim director of utilities and Phil kleisler with the long-range Planning Group they each have different aspects of the project so I'll let you decide who goes first Bill thank you Phil Chrysler with the city's comprehensive planning division thank you very much for your time this evening also in the audience we do have representatives from the open space and Mountain parks department as well as the comprehensive planning Division and so again this item is really a process check-in to update Council on two of the primary primary and highly integrated components of the project and so that would be the potential annexation of roughly 300 Acre Site in South Boulder owned by the

[233:00] University of Colorado Boulder known as CU South as well as a regional flood detention project along the South Boulder Creek located on and adjacent to CU South so this agenda item as as the mayor mentioned is scheduled for 45 minutes and is really focused on process really what's happening now and what to expect moving forward and so what we'd like to do is spend just a couple of moments going over some of the background on the annexation as well as the flood mitigation project prior to going into the next steps a little bit of background on the annexation piece and this will kind of be a kind of a quick facts version of this but the CU South was I think as some of you know the site of pretty extensive gravel mining up until the time when the university purchased it in 1996. the city does own and manage open space directly adjacent to CU South though on the CU South site currently there is no

[234:01] protected open space there is however pretty extensive informal recreational uses which you've probably seen out there informal dog walking occasional cross-country skiing and so on in terms of development plans there really is no hard development plans for the site right now the university has indicated that if annexed within the next five years they'll likely be seeing some activity being the flood mitigation construction some low impact recreational Fields maintenance and improvements of the existing trail system particularly for their cross-country team as well as making some of enhancements to the existing recreational facilities particularly the tennis courts restrooms locker rooms and so on the university is underway or beginning a process for their update of their 10-year update for the campus master plan which they anticipate completing in 2020 21 and then they would pretty much turn a corner and moved right into Master planning specifically for the CU South

[235:00] site which they would anticipate completing in 2023 so just a couple of words and and some of this is not new information for some of the existing council members but we thought it'd be nice to provide at least some context for the new council members who haven't seen these really nice slides that we have that the others have seen annexations in general you know there are legislative process to make geographical changes to municipalities boundary and in Boulder land can be considered or land can be annexed into this city if it's consistent if it's complies with State annexation statutes and it's consistent with the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan which is really the community's vision for future development and preservation in the Boulder Valley the major framework in the comprehensive plan that determines whether or not a site can be annexed is What's called the areas123 map and so that's what you see on the the screen here with area one being generally within the city to accommodate Urban level development and receive city services

[236:00] area two being oftentimes adjacent to the city and is eligible for annexation but currently in the unincorporated County and that's what CU South is designated as and then lastly area three is really the remaining land within the Boulder Valley that the city and county work pretty closely together to ensure that we preserve the rural land uses and character in those areas and so again an initial zoning would be applied to any property annexed into the city of Boulder and that zoning would be consistent with What's called the land use map in the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan and that's what's shown on this slide for CU South and so just leading into this and this is the final annexation piece is that after this University purchased the site in 1996 they did approach the city several times with the intent and request to examine the future land uses and have a discussion about what happens to the

[237:00] site in the future the City Deferred those conversations until a time in which we had a plan for the south for the flooding along the South Boulder Creek drainageway in 2015 city council accepted the South Boulder Creek flood mitigation plan and it's at that point that we in 2016 engaged the university and had a community dialogue around the future of this site and so when we had that public process one of the things we heard was there was a bit of uneasiness around changing the land uses without having a better indication about what's going to happen on the site and so we did something I don't think we've ever done in the land use planning realm which is we adopted the CU South guiding principles and we actually Incorporated that into the comprehensive plan and so when you see those those will indicate the desired uses long term that we would anticipate for the site and it's generally done through a map based approach and so from a land use designation as you see highlighted here the parks Urban other land used

[238:01] primarily being the footprint to the original preferred option in that 2015 flood mitigation study as well as some ball field use and recreational use where appropriate a large swath of open space other land remain designated as such in the comprehensive plan which is really an indication of the city's interest to preserve and protect Those portions of the land and then finally the remaining Porsche version of the site is designated public and that's where we would anticipate the University's development taking place predominantly we would anticipate housing for faculty staff graduate students and non-first-year students to facilitate more on-campus housing opportunities as well as some small-scale academic facilities and lastly the university did submit an annexation application earlier this year that as well as City staff's response is available on the project webpage which you'll likely be seeing soon what you'll see when you see that

[239:01] is a draft term sheet that has each of the guiding principles in the comprehensive plan along with where the university and the city currently stand as well as a level of indication of whether or not we're aligned so with that that was our five-minute introduction to the annexation land news history on CU South and I'll go ahead and turn it over to Joe thank you Phil before I start I want to acknowledge Kirk Vincent from our Water Resources Advisory Board who's in the audience tonight for this discussion and so Phil just gave a background on the annexation and in addition to that the other underlying component of our process discussion tonight is the flood mitigation um and so just starting with some some grounding uh look at a photo here this is the street flooding that occurred uh during our last major flood in Boulder which occurred in 2013 and this is koala

[240:03] Drive in South Boulder in a part of the area that would be protected from this type of flooding for the by the flood mitigation project and so click one more time okay thanks um so this slide shows the flood inundation limits from our some of the modeling work that we have done this is the hundred year flood in South Boulder Creek and if you see the diagonal line that kind of comes across from the bottom right part of the photo that's us-36 at the bottom portion of the yellow oval that's where Table Mesa Drive is and the park and ride and so in that yellow oval the flood mitigation project that we're talking about would basically protect those people and prevent that type of flooding from happening in the future for whatever level of flood we design for so that's

[241:01] that's really the Crux of what we're doing here and then this this slide shows the the general concept that we've been working on uh given the most recent Council Direction and this shows the um what's been referred to as variant one it's the 500 year inundation limits and one of the things that our design consultant is working on right now is bringing back information to us to show what the inundation limits would look like and the project footprint would look like for something less than 500 year between 100 and 500 so that's some of the information that'll be coming to you early in 2020 and we're looking forward to seeing that it'll be presented to our staff in a technical memorandum at the end of the year and so we'll be planning to prepare that for Council and have a discussion

[242:01] so I that is a super brief overview of the flood mitigation project and now getting into process and schedule and so this slide shows the overall timeline and I know there's been a lot of discussion that this Project's been taking a long time there have been studies going back to 2003 and we've been working on various studies all the way through 2017 since 2017 we've been working on concept design narrowing in on Alternatives that could move a project forward just looking forward from where we are today a project of this complexity and magnitude often takes multiple years to both design and construct so you could say that those year values on the top of the forward facing part can be penciled in those could move hopefully we can do things faster than that but it is going

[243:01] to take a while our most recent major Capital Improvement project The Carter Lake pipeline from the time we got approval through design permitting and construction is close to four years so it does take some time one of the questions leading up to tonight's presentation is where the environmental agencies and approvals and clearances come into the process and stay on that slide for just a second and so typically that occurs when you have the project fully defined and you and you know what it is and um we would move forward with that the staff and Consultants often prepare those applications and and go through it and so in terms of when we could engage the agencies and Phil did a sneak preview of the next slide that shows who the agencies are typically that would occur once the

[244:02] project is defined we're close to that point but we're not quite there yet and so um now you can go Joe can I ask you a quick question when you say defined you've used the term in the past 30 design is that are those the same thing yeah um depending on what who the agency is um if it's something that involves an environmental impact you have to have the project designed to the point that you know what the footprint is and you know what the disturbance limits are and right now we're talking about something that could be a hundred year design or 500 year that could change the length of the flood wall and other things that we just wouldn't be ready to submit those permit applications something like an application for approval from the state engineer the the design would need to be a lot further along than that so it varies

[245:00] depending on who the agency is but that's generally kind of that that middle bar up there is when that occurs so um this slide shows that the agencies that are involved and at the top and that would have Regulatory and permitting authority over the project at the top or some of the federal agencies in the lower left are the state agencies and the and the lower right are the local agencies fortunately I am for your benefit I am not the person to walk you through that process in detail so I'm going to move on quickly from that slide Joe I do have um a kind of a general question about how these approvals happen are they are they is there an effort to make them as parallel as possible or is is there by

[246:02] Nature do some of them have to be cereal how does that process work generally with the federal agencies and this is probably something whatever I say wrong right now we can correct during our February study session but there will be a lead agency that that takes charge and consults with all of the other agencies through a process and so it it doesn't necessarily have to flow altogether one of the things that our our team and our Consultants will look at is just the the regulatory requirements for approval times and and notice and just sort of map that out on a schedule so I think we'll be talking about that in more detail as as we get into 2020. okay thank you so this this slide shows the near-term timeline and this is what we really

[247:00] wanted to focus on with you tonight the kind of the Crux of our our presentation if you think about the annexation process that Phil talked about and the flood mitigation and all those agencies and approvals and the public and the boards it quickly gets overwhelming to Mary's question about how all those pieces kind of fit together and we do have a very detailed project schedule for the flood mitigation project that's multiple items that were actually updating fortunately we do not have to digest all of that tonight and it's just really the near-term timeline that we're honing in on and we're here tonight with this process update in November I mentioned that our consultant is working on the alternatives for the concept analysis and bringing back to our staff and and the boards and Council what that looks like for the various flood levels so we'll be able to talk about that and some of the other elements of

[248:00] preliminary design like the geotechnical investigation and so we're really ramping up for the study session with Council in February of 2020 to kind of lay it out and kind of show the trade-offs of of things and the inundation limits and the impacts and Phil will be able to talk about it and others about how that might affect the annexation process we'll want to be working closely with the University from now through the all of the process shown on this slide to make sure we're bringing them along as well what we would hope for from the council study session I know Council doesn't take action at study sessions but just to get your feedback so that we can then do a public and engagement process and bring the boards along and hopefully bring this to a decision point in May where we could have absolute definition

[249:01] of what the project is and then be able to move it forward efficiently through the design and permit process so that again is is the Crux of our presentation and and what we wanted to show you tonight what we're planning in the near term and get your reaction and feedback so I have a question real quick just about process at CAC I recalled that there was a January placeholder and is that is it correct that that is the update so that we know what the report your consultant gives you yeah that is something we put on on the schedule as a potential progress update if there it may or may not be needed if there's something that we think would be informative for Council before you see the bigger picture we would use that I think it's intended to be a matters update thank you uh Mark yeah a quick question I'm a little confused about the process um in the absence of having an

[250:01] understanding with CU as to what they're prepared to accept how can we keep moving the concept analysis along and go into public engagement Phil can probably speak more historically to the engagement process that we've had with CU and and he will be talking about a subcommittee that they participate in um we do meet with them monthly and and just kind of sit down and go through some of the planning and so we have been having discussions with them about the various options the one that we're showing here and the one that Council directed us to work on is not the University's preferred option but they have indicated to us there is a version of this one that we showed that they believe they can work with they're very interested in the in some of the cost components that go with that so as I

[251:00] said we will be working closely with them throughout this process with the hope that when we get to that may 2020 we have an indication from them that there's a workable project to go forward through the annexation and one follow-up you said that they proposed an annexation agreement and you responded to it and they responded to your comments yet no they have not but again we have been meeting with them on a monthly basis um and you know I think there's a lot of areas where there's alignment and there's some areas that we have to work through and again it all kind of links back to those The Guiding principles that we had talked about but um we do list in the in our referral comments you know there are some pieces where we have some initial disagreement that we need to work through um and some of the things we can work through prior to May some of the decisions that we need to make are somewhat contingent on the flood concept

[252:00] and so um those will need to be made after May Rachel when I'm looking at the near-term Timeline where it says concept analysis completed and then public engagement and then project defined is that essentially the same place that we were at in August 2018 like are we picking a concept in the same way that we were picking one it'll be almost two years before that so I I haven't I wasn't part of the process at that time so I can't speak to where where we were with the university that's possible Douglas I don't know if you can speak to that it's I don't know as picking a flood concept something to send to preliminary design which we thought we had done in I think August 2018. I'm just asking like on that timeline are we two years delayed approximately

[253:02] so again Douglas can can speak to it historically but what I would say is one of the reasons that we haven't been able to move forward with the university is we have been stuck in kind of a do Loop of going back through the Alternatives and so as a as a project team and I'll show you in a second what our team is we have really worked hard at aligning ourselves around an option internally and trying to move this forward so honestly the the history goes way back and I don't know how constructive it is to to recreate what happened and how we get here we're really trying to focus on being clear in our communication and what the process looks like going forward and working that as a team as efficiently as we can I appreciate that and that you you have been in a loop that was not of you know your own making but when we then look at the Timeline

[254:00] going past that I guess I just wanted to be clear if we've sort of delayed for two years and that that first when the slide that you showed was looking right across the street from my house on koala like we those of us who Live In Harm's Way take those two years health and safety very seriously so I would like to look at ways to condense the timeline going forward because I think that we've we have eaten up a lot of time in this phase we understand that and the the schedule I showed going forward is definitely in Broad Strokes at this point and we will want to refine that as we as we work Bob I want to I want to come back to Mark's point and just maybe at a point of clarification response mark because it's a really good question uh first of all I'm uh Cindy and I have been on the process subcommittee working with this team um over the past few months to get us where we're at right now and I think we're gonna have a discussion we do all of our committee assignments on December 3rd to see who wants to serve on the process committee going forward but I do want to respond to to mark because I do

[255:01] have a little bit of information about this based upon my serving on the committee um while Phil Phil identified that there was there's six major issues effectively in the annexation agreement that that um the the university put forward and they are working through some of the the issues but the big one really is how much buildable land um and um one of the reasons why this team is working on storm design and a couple of other variables is because CU has said we have a little bit of a bid ask quite frankly the the variant that you saw up on the on the on the um screen earlier um provides about 99 Acres of buildable land for CU and CU has said that they want 129. so we have a gap of about 30 acres and one of the things that we're trying to bottom out here and trying to learn is whether we can close that Gap either entirely or partially by some of the the design work and experimentation that these guys are doing so to answer your question that really we do we do have a pretty good idea at least with respect to buildable

[256:01] Acres of what cu's request is we may not be able to get entirely there but the objective is to see how close we can get to that there are some other issues that are independent of buildable land but this is probably the biggest single one um that's been a blocking Factor here so if I could follow up on that um it seems to me like that's what staff is going to bring us so I would say one of the differences between two years ago and now is it's not a variant one variant two kind of thing it's like how much detention would give CU how much land right and so it's this trade space and it may be that we both have to give a little bit we get less detention than we want and they get less land than they want and we make a compromiser deal and so I think what we hope to get from this concept analysis completed is the information about how to make that that trade-off which is essentially the

[257:01] discussions with CU as Bob referenced but also how that trades with the tension because we may have to strike a compromise and so I don't think it's the exact same that you're thinking about I think it's further along but I'm sure it's not as far as long as you'd like but I don't think the questions were addressing are the same questions we were considering two years ago if I compile onto that Sam one other learning that we've had over the past probably 12 months maybe nine months is from the Colorado Department of Transportation we didn't have a very clear idea until I think this spring maybe about nine months ago about what they were going to allow and what they were not going to allow and and Suzanne led the charge on that and bottomed that out and so we have a very clear picture of that which does affect a lot of what these guys are doing right now as far as the placement of the wall impacted open space and some other factors and so that is um it's progress we we may not have been delighted with the answer we got but at least we have an answer and we have some clarity do you want to go on with the structure

[258:01] and so I I mentioned the um working with the university throughout this process and also this this project structure so one of the components of feedback that we've received from Council and from the community is that it has not been clear how we've been managing this process project as a staff team and so I just wanted to put this slide up there it's kind of a simplistic view of how we're covering it there's there's other components that aren't shown here um but working really closely with our open space staff and and the open space board has has helped us get aligned um in the way we're going forward with this there are some color differences there the the two departments in the middle that are shown in red the reason I made that color distinction is that the annexation process and the flood mitigation process are the two drivers

[259:02] of this whole project and so the other departments and interests that are shown in blue they wouldn't have anything to do here on their work plan if if the the planning work and the utilities work wasn't going forward and so the role that I have been taking is kind of the spokesperson for the project and the overall coordination and just working to achieve that alignment from not only our internal stakeholders but external as well so I I am certainly a a point of communication for the council members as this goes forward and that's how we're organized as a project team so I think our last slide I'll turn it over to Phil and he'll he'll talk about the process Committee just a quick note that the council will be making a decision on December 3rd to reappoint members to the process committee for CU South this committee meets about once a

[260:00] month at the public meeting we get about a dozen or so I'm interested community members that come and speak during the public comment portion I would say so this is a council initiated committee and I think from a staff perspective we give it two thumbs up it's been really helpful council member Yates and council member member Carlisle were were had about six meetings since their appointment in March they've helped us develop a plan for how we're going to approach engagement moving forward and they've also helped us navigating the occasional kind of sticky situation a meeting approach and so on and so it's been very helpful and we look forward to Future meetings with the with the new committee that's that concludes all of our slides for the evening great and so my question to you all is what would you like from us around the process do you just want to hear our feedback now are you hoping to hear anything from us if you have any feedback on particularly

[261:00] on the slide that had the back black background and the Arrow showing what happens between now and may that it would be great to hear that otherwise we're we're getting ready for the February study session and we'll really want to get some feedback from you then anybody Aaron yeah thanks for laying this all out which I appreciate it I used my my one piece of feedback would be a lot of it to CAC just that um you know to to the extent that we can either stay on this timeline or make it any sooner like if it's the first meeting or the first study session February versus the second for example or if it could go in late January I just from my personal perspective I feel like this project is the highest priority for this Council given the amount of health and the health and safety involved for all the downstream residents so just ask that CEC like if there's a potential conflict that comes up you're like oh well there's this other thing so maybe we'll push the Sue South meeting back a week or two I would say please don't and

[262:01] let's really try to stick to this schedule at the least Rachel will you tell me if I'm going off process happy too inviting um so a couple questions that I have again wanting to make sure that we're compressing and not expanding this timeline going forward um one is that when you come in February we have a really good indication of of the dollars that'll be involved in in this new variant one my understanding is there may be more than we initially anticipated so I would not want us to get farther down the line and and not be on board with the dollars um and number two and I don't know what if this is coming from you or Council but I think CU has said that under this new variant they would not be willing to do student housing so I just want to know like when will that sort of discussion come in and and with this is that something that you're going to

[263:00] bring to us and is that going to be in place by February sort of what we know so that we can have a somewhat informed decision on if we move forward with this variant that that some of the guiding principles might be demolished and it's not something we know right now but it's something that I think that comment in particular about how that would imp how a flood project would influence future uses is something we'd want to know sooner than later because we would want to talk about open up that conversation okay um and and so then another project Partners obviously osbt and I'm hoping that Tom can update in February or now he had said previously that disposal might not be required and I just wonder when would that be something that Council would consider if we wanted to thanks on the last point I mentioned the Carter Lake pipeline which is one of the recent big projects we did that involved open space disposals as well and that took

[264:01] place in that window of the kind of normal permitting process and really didn't have an impact on it well I think my question is a little bit different it would be whether we're not going to do a disposal yeah the question is the council decides whether or not something's something I don't remember the exact language but there's language in the charter that talks about flood you get to decide whether or not this is something that's an appropriate open space use and if it's not then it has to be a disposal and then that goes through the disposal process and is your legal opinion the same that it would be a proper use of open space to do flood mitigation I think I've ever given an opinion that's that's a quick question for Council okay anyone else so I'll just make a comment to be clear what I've talked to um and others hip talk to staff about which is what we're really hoping to get is some kind of Continuum or sensitivity so calling it 100 200 300 400 isn't right

[265:02] because there's no definition for anything but the one and the five but having a range of detention volumes that ranges from the 100 to the 500 and then understanding some idea of cost number of People Protected um land developed by CU so that we can look at that and make a trade and have a discussion with CU because right now we have two endpoints and so we know the costs for those and we know the detention levels for those but what is there in between what's it look like because neither number 100 or 500 is magic so I I mean I guess I just feel like that's what we're hoping to get you know is some way to feel what that looks like and then work within that space so I don't think and I think another thing that varies is right the flood wall design would would change with the detention but largely it's just about giving us ncu the information to have a thorough discussion

[266:01] in addition to the um to the design world the modeling work that you guys are doing um right now one other variable that we might be able to to dial um we can talk about this in the meeting in February is purely political so it doesn't have to do with these guys and that's where the oso line is the line was drawn I don't want to say arbitrarily but it was was drawn without maybe complete information and so getting back to Mark's good question how do we get CU closer to to where they're amenable to to doing this and that moving that line which doesn't really require any engineering work could be a possible contributor we finished here I'll just make a comment this is very helpful and I think staying really engaged between here and may will keep the council in the community filled with information and happy that we're making progress so thank you I think there's a plan for the process where was on the process committee to meet in December and

[267:00] January is that right Phil I don't know if they're scheduled yet but we talked about I kind of talked about that conceptually so that data between Council meetings there's a process committee that's being with staff on periodically to to make sure that things are moving along we don't have any surprises good thank you thank you your final item is the national league of cities invitation to participate so I'm going to address this item about 10 days ago mayor Jones received a letter from the national league of cities inviting the city of Boulder to participate in a cohort of five to seven communities that had been essentially selected by national league of cities to work through their race equity and Leadership program what they intend to do is Select these five to seven cities and in the next two months by the end of January help those communities work through a workbook that they have and learn how to strengthen our community's ability to sustain

[268:01] conversations in our community around racial Justice and Equity it is a great opportunity for the city to engage in and we need to make a decision tonight about whether or not we want to accept that opportunity the reason why we need to make it tonight is that later this week the national league of cities is going to be having its Major meeting in San Antonio and I believe Bob you're attending that I'll be leaving in seven hours yep and Deputy city manager Tanya Angie who you've met several times will be making a presentation at that meeting with regard to the city's efforts to work on racial Equity issues they need to announce at that time who the cities are so I hope that we'll choose Department paid and if so the second thing that I need from you is the name of a council member who wants to be part of the city cohort to do this work it will require some effort in the next two months so there'll be two webinars

[269:01] there'll be internal work that the city staff will be working on but we would love the council member to be helpful and then finally there'll be a trip to Washington DC in late January to meet with the cohorts in the other cities so I hope you will say yes and please let me know if there's a council member that wants to participate income so thank you Jane for that and I would just like to say that I would support it and the reasons would be that it aligns very closely with what a lot of work that's already happening there is um small committee that's meeting right now to figure out a community engagement plan for our racial Equity plan that is in process as well so what this work

[270:00] involves is very much aligned with work that's already happening so um and then I would like to ask Council if they I've been serving on the um Gare subcommittee for two years now a year and a half and a half and so I would ask Council to um I would be interested in being that council member anyone else and well I absolutely support this for the same reasons that Mary states don't go on anymore and I'll just say that Mary I will absolutely defer to you this has been something I would love to do but you're by far more qualified so I totally support you okay any other comments I just want to make an observation about National League of cities um it's an organization and we'll talk more about this in December there's an organization that's got about three or four thousand City members this is a pretty big it's it's the it's the organization for elected officials and Mayors throughout the country of cities of all size and Boulder has really

[271:01] punched above its weight with the national league of cities of course Applebaum was on the board of directors of the national board uh Sam and I serve on um to the major committees Tanya will be presenting um later this week on Race inequity this this invitation was obviously quite an honor for us and they identified us as as being an appropriate City and then our own judge cook is actually the head of an organization that she's created with other Municipal judges around the country to create a municipal judges Association and they're hoping judge cook will be in San Antonio this week as well hoping to put that under the umbrella of National League City so it's something that the city I think it's a good investment by the city we get a lot out of it from the standpoint of networking and under standing best practices across the country and when we meet on December 3rd to talk about committee assignments I think Sam and I will encourage others of you to consider participating in getting involved nationally so there's no limit to the number of Representatives we can have so and there's a there's a whole lot of topics to tackle so I I just want

[272:00] to put in a plug for our particip our continued participation in National legal cities okay so uh everyone give a thumbs up if you want to do this all right we're all good so Jane I think you have the green light for this okay so we're down to the debrief and what this is in the meeting is when we bring up just process questions or feedback like Sam you did a terrible job that's fair game but you should tell me that later um I have a few things but and they're just kind of you want to ask if other people want to yeah I was gonna ask that's what I was going to ask first um so does anyone have any feedback on how the meeting went or yeah I thought you did a good job of baby stepping us through some of the process at a couple points so I appreciated that as a first timer okay thanks thank you any other feedback on the organization of the meeting I'd have to say after one meeting I'm excited about this new Council yeah good me too so I just have a few small things I'm

[273:02] going to mention um mayor Pro tem is a one-year term so for those of you who are interested in learning about leadership and what it means to sit on CAC you know every Monday for a year I would have you start thinking about that now because come this time next year we will make an appointment of a new person so think about if that's something that you'd want to do and typically we try and pick somebody who hasn't done it before so Mary's done it I've done it Aaron's done it and now Bob's going to do it so for the rest of you just be thinking about that because we're always looking for folks to do that and I will just add that I did it my second year that's right I did it my second year so yeah um socially responsible investing we got an information packet about how the organization is using its deposited funds in a socially responsible way I just want to say thumbs up to that Jane

[274:01] thank you and I wanted to call it everyone's attention if you didn't happen to catch it I just got it in them bookmarks the next meeting December 3rd we will be doing our committee assignments we're trying to do that before the retreat so that we don't miss any important meetings so please be thinking about what you would like to do on that and you know have a read through what the descriptions are and so on um and the last thing is this is just like a tip about how we often try and get everybody caught up when we're talking and making a point is referencing the PDF page number can help us get there really quickly so if there's a way I mean I don't know if the Nova system has I think what I experienced is I didn't download the entire PDF which is why we had different issues with page numbers so I can show you exactly where that is because I figured it out mid meeting and um we get a email with the link that

[275:02] goes directly to it so you can just click on the link and click on the PDF and get the whole thing so if we all have the same PDF then we all have the same you know we can get that quickly well so so much the the things are a little different now because the the full PDF no longer has the internal bookmarks for finding all the differences which to me is incredibly useful and so you have to get the individual packet items now to get the bookmarks for each of the sections and yeah yeah and and I I when you have a like something like the building code that's like 200 odd pages long I think those internal bookmarks are very very handy so I I I'm still adjusting this but what I'm finding is I'm downloading the individual PDFs um so we might end up I think we just need to be clear you if you refer to either the individual PDF page number or the total packet page number which one you're doing so what you're referring to Aaron is the the sub drop

[276:02] where you could go to a bookmark and then have the bookmarks underneath that right like if you have the initial okay and then appendix yeah I noticed that attachment B yeah yeah I noticed that and I do I rely on this yes so Lynette is there any way that we can have the large PDF the full packet PDF have the sub bookmarks so if you go in through the HTML version if you don't download the full PDF if you go in through HTML those do maintain those secondary bookmarks and what we've also added to those attachments is a footer on the left side that is item page number so regardless of what format you're looking at you can all be referring to the same page number of each item super Lynette that doesn't have the total packet page number right and so so if somebody's looking at

[277:00] the whole packet versus the individual item they're going to be different page numbers well you'll still have that page number on the left which should be consistent throughout every format so [Music] so let let me ask this question if you have the individual PDFs can't you just use a tool to roll it up into one PDF and maintain all the bookmark information and the page numbering one more time okay so you've got your individual PDFs for the the agenda items um I know there are tools I've used them where you just append PDFs onto each other and then save it as a final file so that you would have the entire packet with the full set of bookmarks that were in the individual PDFs I can talk with you about it offline it was just very convenient in the past to have the PDF that had the full bookmarks and we would all just refer to one page number and we could get there I will

[278:01] note we did we did get an item an email about this from from the city clerk's office that I think it took a number many extra hours to do that the way they were doing it before and so this was a process Improvement that they were doing to be more sustainable within their office which I support so but if there's a quicker if there's a quick way if there's some like way you could do something in 10 minutes to roll it all up that'd be great I think there is a possibility so I'll talk to them about that okay that was all any other final thoughts so I have just one question for Lynette along this lines um so you sent out an email saying that we could get trained on this new system and do we have any dates set we don't I'm going to revisit that starting this week I haven't gone back to that okay great thank you but if there's a time you all would prefer that I can look into you had mentioned I think right before a meeting yeah I suggested um right before meetings because we're here anyway and it's always easier see nodding okay yeah I'll look into that

[279:01] we're also doing a Friday focus on preparing for Council meetings for the new council members and old council members are invited and I thought that was something we could discuss during that session as well because accessing the packet's a big part of preparing for meetings anything else okay with that I'll note that we're half an hour early and the meetings adjourned Happy Thanksgiving [Music] Live from Paris of cultivine cat [Music]