December 10, 2019 — City Council Study Session

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[2:23] in study session of the boulder city council a few announcements and one issue to run by folks the first announcement is that Mirabai will not be here tonight as one of her family members was put in the hospital last night so I hope everything works out well for mayor by his family second a Marion I visited Whittier Elementary and spoke with a couple third grade classes that they have over there and one of their assignments was to write a letter to City Council talking about things that they cared about a lot so here we have a bunch of letters from witty elementary third graders

[3:01] I'm gonna put this package of letters down in the City Council office they're fun to read through and there's a lot of concern about trees and bees so it's good stuff and then last Patrick Byrne Kaiser Ling has asked me to speak with Council about how we want to do our state of the city videos so every year we typically put together a state of the city video which includes councilmembers and the city manager but when there are new council members who haven't been part of it's usually a retrospective look at what was done over the last year and oftentimes new council members don't participate in the first state of the city video just because they weren't part of the legislation that got passed and so on so I have a suggestion and I'd like to hear feedback on it the suggestion is that the city manager and the five returning council members make this year's State of the City video and then next year will be open to everybody if that sounds good give me a thumbs up and if it doesn't we can talk about it okay Rachel

[4:05] did you want to say something okay it's fine as long as it's fun with the new council members they're interested in participating then yeah welcome to your okay Rachel would you like to participate okay it's usually not too much about forward-looking stuff and it's mostly about where we are and how we got there Shane do have any thoughts it is very much about where we've been and what we accomplished in the prior year but you know we'll leave it to the individual council members so Rachel why don't you take a look at at it Patrick can hook you up with within and see what you think about it and if anyone if any of the new council members wants to participate if you want to go do what Rachel suggested and watch one of the prior ones you can let me know and we'll make it happen okay with that Jane I think we're ready

[5:01] thank you so the first item on the agenda is a discussion about long term financial needs and I'm creating a strategy for how we move forward so I'm gonna talk very briefly as an introduction and then I'll be turning the discussion over to Katie doling who's our budget officer Cara Skinner who's our deputy finance director and Cheryl patellae who is our chief financial officer and they've got a number of staff members in the audience too they can answer your questions so the first slide is really the one and I'm going to be talking about which is kind of setting the context in the background for how we got to where we are so last year as we were getting ready to prepare the budget in April we had a study session with council which we do every year to do a financial check in in the beginning of the second quarter of the year as we get ready to do the budget and as part of that presentation we had

[6:01] a long list that Katie will be talking to you about in just a minute of items that are unfunded in for the city those of you that came to the city manager orientation for new council members as the candidates were were forming themselves know that one of the things I said that night is that the issue of the financial strategy for the budget was going to be one of the top priorities that I thought the City Council would be facing in the next two years other other people particularly council members have noticed that as well and so both Mary young and Bob Yates have spoken to me about it and asked CAC to put this item on the agenda tonight so the city operates through a number of policy documents you'll see that the main policy documents are our sustainability and resilience framework which forms the way that we look at the budget and looks at the outcomes that we

[7:00] want to achieve here in the city through the dollars that we spend of course the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan is overarching and then we have strategic plans or master plans from each of the departments that fall underneath the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan in fact later tonight you're going to be hearing from the fire department as you know about their master plan so in the past 15 months the council's been presented with a number of master plans the ones on the board are the library master plan the open space a mountain parks master plan and the transportation master plan all of which the council approved overwhelmingly and with a lot of energy and excitement about the things that could be done here's the thing when that happens and you read those master plans the future looks amazing and bright and we want to do everything that's in those master plans because they're so exciting and we want our community to be as great as they envisioned the thing is we don't have the money to do that and so we need

[8:00] to start probably organizing what we do and we need to be thinking about our master plans holistically and about our budget and our financial strategy in a holistic manner so when we see unfunded needs and those master plans we feel bad about it and we want to devote dollars to it and we can't do that so council members Mary and Bob and others express their desire to take a more holistic view of the budget so this is the kickoff for that effort and I think that our financial staff is going to have a lot of great information for you and then we'll be asking at the end a few questions of City Council about how to move forward so let me turn it over to Kate and take it away thanks Jane so the next few slides are really going to be background for benefit for the new council members as well as a reminder of the information that we presented in April because it is important as Jane noted that these master plans do present some really awesome ideas for the future but largely are unfunded and don't have

[9:00] a revenue source to go with it so we know in the existing master plans both ones that you've seen and some that you don't which are internal like the technology that there's some real needs out there and council and previous budgets have worked to address some of the needs but there's still a lot that are outstanding and these are just a few examples to remind council of ones that we already know about and again tonight you're gonna fortunately hear from the fire department so it's nice timing about potential needs that they identify but we also know we're doing a facilities internal kind of strategic plan police is going to be undergoing their master plan as well as Parks and Rec over the next year and Human Resources has done a internal strategic plan and identified a lot of needs within our city staffing and so these are just simple ideas of what could be coming your way over the next few budget cycles again without really any identified funding source other than reductions or new taxes which

[10:01] again are not as favorable to continue to increase to fund these types of items so when we talk about how we get our funding source two quick slides about where the money comes from and what it goes to you'll see that the three largest revenue sources for the city are sales and use tax utility rates and property tax and these combined make over 71% of it utility rates only go to the utility funds and they're not reflective of economic conditions so typically we like to show this next chart which is really what you know main city operations are funded by so the sales and use tax gets allocated to various funds like the general fund open space transportation all have a portion of dedicated sales tax that they receive similarly property tax goes largely to the general fund but some other dedicated funds and then those other sources like other revenue is your license and your permits or grant revenue other taxes could be

[11:00] your franchise or accommodation taxes kind of get split up across the city and across various functions so with the work that we are looking at we have the following proposed goals really getting council input early in the process potentially forming a council budget subcommittee this is used in various communities that are focusing on revenues initially applying a racial equity lens to the budgeting process and service delivery and we'll touch on that a little bit more as we go on and then understanding our revenue mix and our opportunities so that's slide that I just showed you if we were to start over would we have 40 percent sales tax or would we look at a different sort of revenue mix for the city is another thing we're going to touch on a little bit later in this slide and then as Jane mentioned really modifying how the master plans are prepared and presented to council and more of a holistic one so that you don't see one master plan and that's really what the budget priorities become for the year that you have kind

[12:00] of both historic and future looking perspectives into the master planning needs and then refining engineering our revenue and forecast funding model so it can identify funding gaps based upon either our current revenue sources or various economic forecast so what does it look like if we do have a large downturn what does it look like if we have a mini sort of downturn so we really daylight it to council say you guys could be prepared to have those discussions should they arise like I mentioned some of the work examples that we would do is applying a racial equity lens so we've learned during just a very brief cursory glance that communities that do this that this process really is at least a year-long process to develop an equity tool or equity lens through the budget process pilot it learn lessons and then utilize it for the next coming budget cycle so that's what we propose here as a work item that during q1 will look at rely on gear communities

[13:00] that already have a racial equity lens tool for their budgeting process roll that proposal out to a potential council sub-community and then maybe pilot a program or two using those initial tools and questions for the 2021 budget learn some lessons about it refine it and then really incorporate it racial equity lens into the 2022 budget process so really make sure we get this right and not try to rush a tool that might have unintended consequences another example of work that we could do that's been brought up more recently is a question about the food tax which is otherwise known as the food for home consumption tax so again we did this very kind of the napkin estimate so it could be it needs further refinement but just based upon cursory glances we believe that this tax brings in about nine to twelve million dollars annually and important to also note because it's a sales tax that it gets broken into

[14:00] those dedicated funds as well so this is a break out by fund of kind of our rough estimate of what we believe that this tax could bring in it's always been subject to sales tax in Boulder again not all sales and food stores is food for home consumption so that's where we would want to do a little bit more digging to really get a better estimate regarding the food tax rebate programs I know that's coming to Council it's began in 1967 it retains the food tax revenue it improves equity and in 2019 alone we had over a hundred thousand dollars in rebates and I know that the Human Services Department is working to create a friendly portal to make it more easy to apply for the rebate I think sure I was going to add on I was just gonna add two items in regards to the food tax and some of the work that we would need to look at if we went down this Avenue first is we have significant debt here at the city that are supported

[15:01] in some way by sales tax so approximately sixty million dollars of debt outstanding has some sales tax tie through the year 2038 in two of our geo bonds specifically Carrie a sales tax pledge as part of the bonds so what does that pledge mean that means that when we went to issue these bonds we told the investors that we were going to use this revenue source at this projected level to fund these debt service payments so at the end of the day this could mean this could be problematic to our bond rating and to investors if we went and took revenue that we said that we were going to pledge and we reduce that amount in general rating agencies are not huge fans of voluntary reductions in revenues but it certainly would be something that

[16:01] we would need to look into if we went down this road that's kind of the first item and the second item just to think about is when we look at our sales tax picture food is kind of one of those only items that you need no matter what the economy looks like so we've always used this tax to kind of balance downturns and those types of things because it's more of a stable form of sales tax here at the city so again we would want to do some analysis of that and seed do our thoughts on that actually hold true if we went back and looked at some of the downturns okay so next steps in this process we would we would recommend that we form a City Council budget subcommittee as soon as possible and one of the first things we'd want to do with the subcommittee is

[17:00] develop a subcommittee Charter and also take a initial look and focus of that committee on revenue would refine our forecasting models which Katie did mention was one of our goals as well as develop a two-year work plan to achieve the goals of that council wishes to achieve March 17th a big part of this discussion is the library funding and we are going to have a study session that talks about the strict the financial and the legal implications of the district so that'll come in March in April we always have our financial update study sessions so there we would present and discuss a two-year work plan with the rest of the council that the subcommittee has developed and then finally I shouldn't say finally because the work is going to continue but in May we would bring up if there's anything related to revenue that might come on the ballot we would want

[18:02] to bring that up to Council in May it's part of the ballot study session item so this is really hard to see so I apologize for that but what we tried to do here is kind of overlap our normal budget process with some of the things that we've brought up tonight so in the green are those council meetings that relate to financial update financial items along with our internal budget process some of the other work we talked about the library districting the equity lens integrating our budgeting for resilience which is a take off from our grant that we received last year and then finally in the yellow is the master plans and the timing of those upcoming master plans was that we'll take any questions you might have and also we've we have three questions for you tonight

[19:01] and I will turn it over to the mayor great thanks for that guys I'm very well done so let's take the questions one at a time unless people have questions for staff to begin with Rachel there mark thanks a question on the food tax and us having sort of pledged and that being tied in to our rating how long are those pledges good for or how long do they last last the entire length of the bond so for instance the open space which is the larger of the two bonds that we have pledges those bonds mature in 2034 so might just be helpful to know like when is the last bond going to mature that that would no longer be relevant I'd just be curious and then am i reading the food text correctly that if you are like a student a 19 year old and not a person with a disability you cannot qualify we don't know enough

[20:03] about the kind of the rebate program in that short amount of time but we can certainly get pretty narrow so I was just wondering if it excluded a whole essentially single adults without disabilities right and the thing Rachel just think about is that next week on second reading we're going to be talking about the food rebate program and so that will be a really good opportunity for you to ask the folks and Housing and Human Services about it and if you wish to propose policy changes then that would be a great time okay thanks mark a while ago I had been told that across the city departments there were unfunded priorities in excess of 300 million dollars is that an accurate count yeah I would say that's an accurate count so what we did in April was ask departments to identify needs over a million dollars so that's the key kind of important piece of it when you look again fire

[21:01] we'll be presenting relocating fire stations alone is sixty million dollars and so a lot of it is the large capital needs that may not be realistic in the next five to ten years but it definitely is a need within the departments that isn't really overstated in my opinion and the 300 million is accurate though okay thank you so I have a question just maybe to bring everyone to the same level here we have the capital improvement plan and then we have the operating budgets and we kind of look at those separately so the 300 million include both operational and capital it's Kath I see and so when we go to plan the five-year CIP look ahead would some of those potentially be coming in in the next two or three years without a additional revenue source there there would not be potential funding for

[22:00] a lot of those items into the capital plan okay and if I recall correctly trying to set aside general fund monies into an infrastructure internal fund for the general fund and so when will that be all that amount of savings be large enough to begin to take on some of these capital needs so it's already starting to take on a few but if you'll remember council committed several large dollar items including the Hogan pan cost loan repayment the fiber backbone in 2021 or I'm sorry 2020s budget the general fund will be picking up a large portion almost 3 million ish for the fire station relocation shortage from the ccs tax we have probably a million or two then freed up come 2022 but it's still not a huge dollar amount when you're talking a five million dollar kind of capital plan for all general fund okay thank you so you mentioned the community cultural safety tax that's coming up for

[23:00] renewal in 2021 is that right right so that could be if that was continued by the voters that could be a another source of or continuing source of revenue whether it's extra capex is that right yep that's exactly right and that's kind of the work that we would do when we talk about potential revenue sources so the libraries one component of it but looking at expiring taxes would be another looking at new taxes just kind of put all of the options on the table for council to vet here's kind of what you could do and what could be funded with it what do we want to move forward with but the CCS renewal is a great example so I just recently learned this lingo op X and capex and capital expenses for the interested I have I have several questions in the slidecage thank you for for the presentation I really appreciate

[24:00] it in the slides you presented all of the unfunded needs for several master plans and I was curious to know what level those different needs from those different master plans fall into whether it's the maintain action vision level and then kind of a corollary question to that is when we pass master plans and I have to admit my ignorant about this is I don't know whether we're passing maintain action or vision and if if not how is that decided and if we are when did we decide that and let me if I miss a part of it please feel free to repeat it so the unfunded needs and the the list of there I think involves several different layers some of it is just simply maintaining others our vision when you look at the library the first thing that comes to mind is in their vision it was gun barrel library and that's a list as on funded needs so it kind of runs the gamut of it when you

[25:03] adopt a master plan and I'll just kind of say what I think it is you're adopting of a vision for the department to go to work on and really where you adopt the funding level that you wish to see is through the budget process and so when we talked about the library master plan there was a huge desire to at least get to the maintain existing service level and potentially even go to they kind of not not vision but the middle kind of service level since I call it differently I'm not remembering exactly but that's kind of where it gets decided at and I think that's why it's important to more fully integrate master plans into the budget process so that we kind of know what levels were funding again with open space with a with the extension of the tax they talked a lot about at least getting to they're kind of middle level as well and accomplishing some of those needs so that's in my opinion where you adopt what level for the master plan it's really helpful thank you and then I did

[26:00] notice in the fire master plan with that we're going to be talking about that there was some attempt to begin to convey that information so we can bring it up during that conversation another question I have is with respect to you mentioned the equity tool will take a while to develop and then it would be piloted in 2021 and I was curious to know do equity tools are they backward looking at all or they only look forward I haven't done an enough research from what I know from few of my colleagues they're really applied right now see current budget requests and Tania will speak more so to answer that question can you introduce yourself yes I can thank you Sam Tony Angie deputy city manager so we are researching exactly how cities do this and how they actually correlate their equity instrument which is applied to

[27:02] services and programs and then to the budget so that we're consistent with language within the budget process but then as we're developing programs and services to so to answer your question directly it's a little too early for us to answer that and that's why we want to do a deep dive into how other cities are doing this and what are the lessons that they've learned in the process okay thank you for that and I don't know my note I don't know what I meant to ask about that I'll ask that question at next week and then on the you mentioned the library district Jane I met with some folks yesterday regarding the library district and one of the things that came up in that conversation was there's there are options with how council might proceed should there be a decision to form a

[28:02] library district and and one of them is whether or not to form it by resolution or have it be part of the ballot right and if it were done as part of the as part of a resolution or with a resolution then there's a certain timeline that applies and then so I'm wondering if the timeline that you put up there takes that into consideration and how that might work and is there time to do all that okay so the true answer is I don't know the timeline that we put up there was assuming that the folks that have gathered signatures would present them to the county at the end of May like they did last year before they withdrew them and we wanted to give council information early enough to say yes we

[29:00] want to support the library district or no we don't we would like you to do that in April and then that would give them six weeks to decide how next to proceed so part of what we will be presenting in March is information from the City Attorney's Office about the different options I guess even though the true answers I don't know I do believe that we've given plenty of time for either of those options to take place another thing is the formation of a library district is the creation of a new local government and I believe that that the creation of the local government can happen but the funding of the local government has to go to the voters through the imposition of a mill levy and so I think it's gonna go to the ballot anyway that's my understanding okay thank you can I just add to that I think what

[30:00] would be helpful for the library district conversation is in March as if council does have questions that they have on their minds after a last discussion lat last year or things that you're hearing from the community to please send those in to staff and then we can help shape that conversation so you get the information at that session you're looking for thank you any other questions for staff before we move on to the questions for Council one of the things you mentioned your presentation is is that we're gonna shift it sounds like a little bit how we present master plans to Council in the community and I and so let me kind of say what I think you meant by that which is when we're looking at a particular master plan let's say it's open space or parks or whatever in parallel you're gonna kind of remind us all of the unfunded needs from other master plans that have adopted last year or three years ago or five years ago so that we don't get fixated on that one bright shiny object you remind us what

[31:00] else is out there is that a fair assumption yeah that's what I anticipated and I also anticipate really looking at what that visioning category entails to better align you know do we think that we want to achieve vision or is it really something that we want to put out there because it's nice to have but we're being realistic with the community that likely we would get there we wouldn't get there and so kind of looking at dules how we describe what's in the master plan but also how we kind of make it more of a comprehensive discussion as well and then back to Mary's a good point I think it'd also be helpful in the course of that to make it really clear about what what it is we're funding is not the right words I understand goes to the budget but what are we committing to fund or what are we supporting versus what is well that would be really cool if if we ever had the money someday right as opposed to what commitments we were immediately making yeah exactly okay very good so ready to start with the questions first one did the proposed goals reflect councils desires for the initiative are

[32:00] there additional goals council would like to add Erin hey well thanks for bringing this forward I think it's a great idea so thank you for getting started on pursuing this I really like the idea of the the equity particularly the racial equity evaluation tool and so I'd love for that and our deep dive in general to be fairly fine-grained you know like we can we could leave this at a fairly high level where we just say well there's open space and there's fire and there's right but each one of those categories has a lot of initiatives and then those initiatives have probably subcategories to their funding and if we're gonna do a two-year process to really deep dive I'd really like to dive deep right so to get down to that kind of lower level and and think about you know if we way oh here's program you know X under Department Y and actually we we spend a percent in half of sivadier revenues on it but is it really accomplishing our

[33:00] deeper goals not so sure so you know I think when we do the annual budget we don't get to that level but I'd love to have some exposure to the the more fine-grained level as part of this process um and then I'll just mention on them the master plans I like what you're saying about the presenting them in context I think that's important I think we have chased the latest master plan a little bit over the last couple of years but you all have all we also done a good job of always keeping the larger issues in front of essence I think we've done some of that too for example I think we've had fires needs in mind for a while and so when we try to fund them this year will not just be chasing a bright shining object you know and we know what they've been coming but what you were saying about the like the vision plan I know as I've read master plans for many years and out the city it seems like the vision plans are not really a doable thing they're not really realistic they're sort of like if we could do everything well of course

[34:01] there's no department that's ever going to be able to do everything so I like the idea of maybe pairing the visions down to something that you could actually achieve or conceivably achieve at least you know half of or something so I support that idea as we move forward with this Thank You Adam so I've had the opportunity to look at a few different master plans at this point and the thing that always gets me is none of them ever say exactly when something is accomplished or if something is gonna be an ongoing thing or that's just one aspect that I realized that that usually happens in the next level when you're actually completing the project and everything but from the community standpoint it always gets me that we just sort of have this giant list of things that we're going to do and it doesn't necessarily say is that always

[35:00] going to be the case like does this actually have an end date at some point that we're gonna get to and that's that's just the only thing with the master plan scope of work in general that I always had a question on is like oh I'd like to know as a community member since this is a massive list and I think we're getting better at identifying what what is actually achievable but when or you know if it's continuous or not that's the only point I'm trying to give so I think that what you laid out here and plus what's been added tonight I think are really good goals for this project and I it's interesting about the master plans and that we approved the vision plan so we're really approving a lot of stuff that may be unachievable so that's certainly illuminating so one of the things that I heard through another

[36:01] meeting I had actually I had a meeting with Putin last week and she brought up the whole idea of I was sharing this project with her and she brought up the idea of having something like the joint Budget Committee which is what the subcommittee might be like and so as we're out there exploring the different options for this subcommittee to see what might be applicable from that model and I understand there's a whole bunch of different models from a bunch of different cities so I think that'll be a key piece because we never really get to see the budget until way down the road so thank you thank you for the presentation it was very good I also want to say something in support of what Aaron said I think master plans that are unrealistic do with the service to the community it holds out expectations that

[37:00] are never going to be fulfilled and I think reining that in a little bit and look we should be talking about those things that are capable of being achieved in some defined period of time and not leading the community to expect that a long laundry list of things that we simply cannot afford are going to be on the table because they won't and I think Aaron said it very well anyone else so I have a few thoughts and it goes to the vision in the master plans it took a good 20 years to get the North Boulder library done but if people hadn't had that as a vision during the North Boulder sub community plan and then adopted it as a vision as part of that sub community plan it would never have happened so sometimes ambitious goals take a long time to mature and to get the community it had to have the will to be able to fund them so I wouldn't want to make our

[38:00] master plans not have some somewhat ambitious goals in them but I think this should be the most important ones so if we're gonna put stuff in the vision plan of a master plan I don't think it should be a Christmas tree I think it should be the most important difficult to achieve but worthwhile goals so maybe that's a kind of feedback to put into that master planning process that maybe as part of the vision plan there should be some real concentration about what would be the best bang for the buck if we were able to get an extra of 20% for three years or get our project into the CIP plan for the next five years and as you're saying that I'm thinking that maybe there ought to be like a set of criteria for each master plan and for each master plan and another level for the community so a to kind of two levels

[39:01] of criteria that would identify which are the projects that are the ones that are important and really worth pursuing yeah and another example of this is the South Boulder Creek watershed project because that's been discussed and studied for 20 years and now is the time when the money has been set aside in the CIP to actually be able to achieve that so there's examples and I agree Mary if you have criteria and you figure out what's the best bang for the buck by whatever metric whatever bang means if it's open space it'll be different than then the fire master plan but I agree but we shouldn't lose sight of taking on ambitious goals that's and I think that's it for the first question sure I really like the idea of bringing context to master plans and reminding us of what else is out there

[40:00] I would hope this part of that is not just the sexy projects from all the other departments to all the other things that we may have envisioned over the preceding years but also bringing back to us all the really pedestrian blocking and tackling stuff that we do in the city because I know sometimes there's a risk of falling behind in those things you know whether it's filling potholes or doing or buying books or making sure our IT systems are up to speed you know we oftentimes talk about the really big things and the really apparent and physical and infrastructure II type things but I think there's a lot of operating expenses that sometimes can fall behind what our community needs are and I would hope as you bring those things for for context you you would make sure to bring those behind as forward as well that's okay so that's the first question I guess I do have one more comment about this the equity lens piece is very interesting and it's very

[41:01] interesting to figure out how we can apply it to the budget side because I can understand how you can apply it to service delivery I mean that's probably pretty quantifiable but how it's gonna get applied to where dollars are allocated is a more difficult problem to address because a lot of times the tension is between different departments do we fund fire more do we fund open space more you know how are we going to do that and then you'd have to dive down in those departments and see you know are there inequities within those departments that we'd like to correct somehow and what would it cost to do that so I'm gonna be really interested going forward and how you do the criteria in balancing out funding across from one department to another and how that looks from neck WA T perspective I think it's good work and I think it's hard work like a lot of this is but I'll be really interested to hear if we have

[42:00] models from other cities on how they do it on the budgeting side and not just the service side one more thigh in just in addition to where the dollars are being allocated there's who the dollars who's being paid to implement the services right so that procurement side which we talked a little bit about earlier in the budget process about keeping it out on that so I want to make sure that's part of the process too thank you okay second question oh sorry journey thank you I think my question had to do with you know looking at the budget through racial and social equity is that what are some of the timeline because a lot of the times I talk about equity equity equity but what is the timeline you talk about best practices looking at different cities well we be able to see those best best practice cities and the timeline and also what are some of the issues those are very important again I think that's the thing what you know there mayor just mentioned is that we talk about equity but we really don't see how it ties in

[43:01] so I think that would be very important and what are some of the stats because I read the fire master plan as well and it talks about how there is a lack of diversity and how will we ensure that diversity what are some of the actions that we're taking so thank you for that question Julian comment and that is something that we will incorporate as we're doing best practice and part of that best practice research is really understanding what the timeline other cities did so that to really approach what Sam was saying and also Erin we want to make sure that we do this right and that there's not unintended consequences so as we get into the best practice research and learn more from other cities we'll be able to develop or further timeline that then will report back on because we want to be realistic okay next question would council like to

[44:01] form a council subcommittee to work on this and with city staff so let me ask staff a clarifying question on this are you talking about a council subcommittee like a process subcommittee to get through you know establishing the budgeting process are you talking about a standing subcommittee which is more like the joint Budget Committee model so what I would like to see is in the short term have two council members work with staff to understand best practices to help develop the equity lens and to report back in the second quarter of this year what they've found including a recommendation about how the ongoing financial subcommittee should be formed and then at that point if the idea is that it's going to be like the joint budget committee or like the one that they do in Colorado Springs or whatever then then that would take over at that

[45:00] point and work on the financial strategy in the budget so have an early it's not a process committee because it's going to be a little bit more substantive but an early study committee let's say leading to the formation of a different committee that would be my recommendation that's a question is this the subcommittee only if we're looking at the racial equity lens applying to the Budget and Finance like well will there be other subcommittees to try and figure out a racial equity instrument so the rather the guiding coalition that you are now part of Rachel and several others is the group that will be working with city staff to understand all the racial equity projects and promotions and work that the city is doing so that already exists this one is going to be focused exclusively I would say on the financial ways that we operate in the

[46:02] city thoughts it sounds good as long as we have a couple willing council members we're ready to dive in I like say for example the people who brought it forward to this point you know you might think about them you know obviously staffs gonna do the majority of the work but council members will help guide us yeah and I would just ask I personally don't have room for this particular commitment but I hopefully other council members do but I would ask that the the subcommittee check in with the guiding coalition specifically on the issues around the racial equity lens during their work yeah I mean my impression is from what Jane described the racial equity lens is a component of the overall look at the holistic deep dive into the budget so yeah that connection definitely needs to be made and the subcommittee will be looking at other subjects as well I think mary did you

[47:01] want to say something only to volunteer for that to be one of the members of the committee and then also just to add that because to Junie's question earlier is because this is one of the driving principles of this whole project it's at the forefront I understand what you're saying is sometimes it's just sort of added on at the end and this is really going to be part of the drivers I'm happy to volunteer also thank you guys for doing that and we'll just ratify this on December 17th and make it you know something that we make the appointment and then when we're at the point where we want to talk about what it looks like if it goes forward indefinitely then I think we need to have a much more in-depth conversation maybe we can call it the financial

[48:01] strategy Study Committee okay does the proposed timeline work particularly initial focus on refreshing the library district analysis and developing the forecasting funding model and time for discussion related to potential 2020 ballot issues so yeah I think the time line works like I saw it just add a comment here there's been some discussion at the county level about either putting on well by putting on the ballot in 2020 at the county level either a transportation tax or a housing tax or both it's my understanding that county staff is in the process of doing some polling actually did some polling on a housing tax last spring and it didn't pull well enough for the county commissioners to put it on the ballot and so they're gonna go back and do some more polling and I think they're gonna ask questions and all sorts of different combinations and and I think they can also test

[49:01] property tax and sales tax I think they're gonna try to test as much as they can and so I think we're gonna have we this council is going I'm sure those share those poll results with the community including us so I suspect that in the March or April ish time frame we're probably gonna have some visibility about how those things polled and whether the county wants to go forward I think that's gonna instruct a lot of some of the things we're doing on sources of funding for because housing transportation or to our biggest needs so I just wanted to throw that out and make sure that it almost on the same page for that one if you don't mind I'm gonna follow up just a minute we have bill Cowan and Chris Hamlin from our transportation department here it was requested at CAC that maybe someone could be here to talk a little bit about the county issues and where we are on transportation funding so whichever one of you wants to step to the microphone maybe you can update council so well Chris is coming up I'm on a council know that I was invited to attend a meeting of the county working group and it

[50:00] involves some city staff as well as County staff and they have engaged their consultants that did the report on the transportation tax and they're asking them to go look at all the variations of having a single tax measure which includes both transportation and affordable housing housing as part of that tax measure because you can make a pretty logical linkage between housing and transportation so that work has just started and they put the consultants on the fast track to really do the what they call the model which I really believe is mostly a financial model of how much money would be brought in at different levels and what the uses would be at different scenarios and then to poll test those so I expect Poland to be going on February March timeframe and then to inform County decision to move forward in the July August timeframe so that's what I know from the meetings that I was in Chris yes Chris Hagelin

[51:01] senior transportation planner an interim go older manager Mary you are correct they're looking at the county is looking at polling in February and it will be a combination of transportation and affordable housing looking at sales tax property tax and then we've also had discussions about some of other mechanisms to look at as well such as vehicle registration fees that's another mechanism as well so we'll be coordinating with the county on that and then also just to remind council that with the adoption of the transportation master plan this past September we also had a number of mechanisms that staff will continue to do research on and we worked with our community working group to develop those and we had them in tiers and so one of the tier 1 mechanisms was the regional county wide tax one of the other tier 1 mechanisms is a local transportation fee something

[52:01] that could possibly go on a utility bill and that could cover some of our critical maintenance and operational and essential services unfunded needs staff is continuing to do research on how a fee of that kind could be implemented within the city of Boulder and we'll be returning with a I think a study session in February to go over what we've learned we're also looking at some tier 2 mechanisms these are mechanisms that also kind of rose to the top in the community funding working group and these included a vehicle registration fee a curbside management fee for transportation network companies like uber and lyft or Freight and then also looking at congestion pricing different types of congestion pricing so we'll be continuing to do work on that we also have heard from the seedot that at the statewide level they were looking at a number of different mechanisms as well you know they've had

[53:00] the failure last two ballot items have failed statewide so they're going to continue to look at some other mechanisms some of these and may include a gas fee in addition to the gas tax looking at fees on transportation network companies like uber and lyft and then also the road user charge or the VMT tax or fee so they expect to be receiving direction from the legislature to look at those mechanisms as well I can share some good news would you like so some good news state highway 119 funding you know we're looking at a very large complex multimodal project with bus rapid transit improvements for the diagonal we have good news that we have received thirty million dollars from the cidade highway fund and that comes money from Senate bill one in Senate bill 267 we

[54:00] anticipate receiving another ten million dollars from the CDOT transit funds that should be decided perhaps as early as next week we also have in partnership with Boulder County looking at a five million dollar grant to help with design and then RTD has pledged thirty million dollars to the diagonal and we're looking to see if they could move some of that money up so we can have that work in the design in 2020 so the diagonal project is a rather large project over two hundred million dollars but we are now starting to see some of that money coming in and we'll be working with our local and regional partners to put those designs together so some good news do you mind if I if I just piggyback on that sorry Mary but just I was at the the 119 meeting yesterday with our partners at Boulder County and the city of long run we heard all that and everybody's

[55:01] excited to move forward so thanks for that in good news Krista the the polling that the county is going to be doing that Sam mentioned to what extent might the city be able to collaborate with the county in order to extract some information that could inform the city only initiatives that are going on with respect to revenues yeah certainly there's the ability to collaborate when they look at how in the polling you can certainly separate out city of Boulder residents they respond to the poll so we'll be able to get that and we can just make sure that that is a at a statistically significant level so that is certainly something we can work on the county with when we're looking at these things like congestion pricing and Road use user fee is that the county looking at it or us the city looking at that well it's certainly a little bit of

[56:01] both certainly at the city level we could be looking at congestion pricing at any part of the trip but also what the community funding working group would really focus on it's on the regional corridors looking at that may be the most effective place to do some congestion pricing if it was the city I would say the equity lens is probably a pretty good thing to to use there and we don't have it yet so I don't know quite what that factors in okay I mean this raises kind of a meta issue when we think about our budget process because some of our funding they come from sources that are outside and that are dedicated as well and so you know with the County work presumably if there's a county tax it's gonna get distributed particularly for affordable housing for affordable housing projects and so there's a question of equity across the cities in the county because the county anticipates those affordable housing projects are almost all going to happen

[57:01] in cities and so you know there will be issues raised around that question as well so it's kind of interesting to look out at things would come in or things that will connect regionally and how those aren't completely in our control one way or the other so just to keep in mind as we do our budget stuff we're not isolated from the whole world in every way thank you Chris all right thank you okay so library district question as well here do we want to have the library district analysis and time to talk about before the 2020 ballot issues discussion okay and then do we want to hear about it at the March 17th study session okay I

[58:00] think you got clear answers on those any other thoughts on this subject okay very good thank you very much thank you kitty are you sticking around for the meeting perfect timing yeah okay well I mean I could just make it out so our next item is the fire master plan and let me invite our several presenters Mike are you gonna kick it off great so I'll be turning it over to Michael Durazo who's our fire chief and he will introduce his colleagues who will be here to make presentations and answer questions so Mike take it away Thank You

[59:01] Jane again my Colorado fire chief good evening Council with me today I brought members of our planning and administrative team to my far left is dr. Shannon Sullivan dollar our medical director my immediate left our senior financial professional is Devin Billingsley am i right here is deputy chief vulgar Dora who in charge of our admin and support services and to his right is deputy chief Jeff long charge of operations so that's the team real quick what I want to kind of give you a broad overview what we'll be talking about tonight the master plan yes but we're kind of gonna try to take you through where we are today and how far we've come what was involved in the process and and then talk about the big items out of the master plan and the big focus areas and drill down to really just give you an example kind of what you were just talking about in the in the budget process of one particular outcome and

[60:03] how that would be impacted by different funding levels and then finally what comes next so that's kind of an overview of what we'll be talking about without further ado just kind of share with you the mission and vision which were changed for this master plan I won't I mean you you certainly can read it but I hope that you get from this that the master plan was deliberate in one focus and that is really on people so the people we serve and the people that do the serving so it should be focused on them and the outcomes for them so when you see the outcomes that we've come up with I'm hoping you understand that the idea was what's in it for me what as a boulder resident or a visitor what do I get out of this master plan what happens to me so real quick here's what it looks like that we do today you know us as Boulder Fire Rescue and almost everybody in the community thinks fire and that's it not exactly true

[61:02] there's a whole host of services some explicit in the Charter such as you know our response related stuff emergency medical services fire suppression wildland but you can see starting towards the bottom of the services provided list and the right column a whole lot of prevention related activities it could it is our firm belief that the money you spend on the prevention side of the house is probably worth 10 to 20 times that in terms of response in other words an emergency that doesn't happen is is better than the one that does certainly for the family but also in terms of burden on the local system we have seven fire stations and a wildland station 120 for fire FTEs 97 of which are firefighters and most of the services you see on the right-hand column are provided by those eight community risk personnel so they've got a pretty big job this is a little overview of what we're responsible for in terms of protection

[62:01] the only thing I'm gonna point to is the upper right I know our name is Boulder Fire but what we do is EMS so 81 percent of our calls involves some patient of one form or another whether in the traffic accident medical trauma whatever you name it it's going to be related to that this is a description of where we fall in the general fund where a general fund department we are 13% of the overall general fund budget on an operating basis this is a look deeper into our own fund our allocation of just under twenty three million you can see that the bulk of it in that dark blue depending on what screen you're looking at is all of our response related activities and you can see some relate is the support of their work but most of what we spend our money is on the people that provide the response related

[63:00] services key part of that twenty three million dollar funding is it seems like a lot of money but it's all tied up in personnel and contractual expenses we don't have a whole lot for non personnel expenses which is where you use to buy equipment replace maintain so on so forth and if you can look at the under the boulder fire rescue operating budget piece where it says personnel and non personnel the not while the personnel is grown because of contractual obligations the labor contract the non personnel budget has been fairly flat over the last five years so so it's been sort of level funding steady as she goes kind of environment for us on on all the non personnel items what we've done as a department knowing that we were going to complete this master plan and move forward without comes was reshuffle the department and turned it into a number of what we would call programs by function so that when

[64:00] the outcomes were finally complete and accepted by counsel programs would be responsible for carrying out the different facets of the master plan each of those programs is tasked for this with creating program measures that tie directly into those outcomes there their job is going to be to come up with quarterly or program appraisals we've already started those but the idea really is not only to show progress in the master plan but in the interim show the the performance measures and how we're doing in those different areas and we'll be will be sharing those of course with the public as well the idea behind the program really is to tie some position some program to an outcome so we have the accountability that sees these things to fruition and we'll talk about what those look like here in a moment the process itself actually took longer than we originally anticipated but I'll explain why but it really starts back in 2012 with our last master plan so in the five year period

[65:01] and 2017 we spent a great deal of time accomplishing a lot of things in that previous master plan we checked a lot of boxes actually so 2017 five years in was the time for a refresh for the master plan we probably started a hair late but that was the point at which we began our project scoping and then began to actually work on the master plan we decided very quickly with the city management team to become one of the pilot departments for the community engagement process the new one and so that's what sort of elongated our process a little bit because we wanted to be way more deliberate about getting community input this time instead of just developing the plan outside of the community input and that took us to 2018 last year and into this year we're in September in October we brought the planning team together took all of the data and and began preparing the actual draft of the plan so this is what we

[66:01] actually heard from the community I want to be clear though I mean we used every avenue we could through our engagement process this is by no means scientific so let me just say that we got 224 survey submissions we had a lot more interactions in person in fact many of the members at this table actually were physically at rec centers and talking to folks and it was it was actually a fun process I enjoyed it but you can see that number one the people that we did talk to listed emergency medical response is pretty critical we found it interesting that a lot of folks enlisted right after that structure fire suppression I think it's related to our name more than anything because our actual call volume related to structure fires is probably less than 3 percent of our total calls any given year I mean finally wildfire mitigation which you would expect given boulders risk profile so so that's what's predominantly on everyone's mind I think one important takeaway also from this is

[67:02] the bottom piece of the slide where folks did value quick response times but new to my thought process was this idea that if you're the one who comes to my house or to my place of business for a medical call I want you to be the one to give me that patient care all the way till I'm dropped off to at the emergency department so that continuity of care turned out to be fairly important to respondents at the risk of being redundant if you'll indulge me here for the viewing public I'd like to at least describe because it sounds like all of Council has a pretty good handle of the funding model process and master plans but essentially what we're asked to do is sort of create these I don't call them parallel lanes because they're not mutually exclusive but for different outcomes come up with different options depending on whether funding is available or not so this idea of fiscally constrained would be in an

[68:04] environment where funds are limited and you're given only enough to keep basically existing services together today that's you're fiscally constrained model the action version is you're given some extra funding you have an opportunity to stretch a little bit what can you do with additional funding and finally the vision piece of this is not that it's unattainable but what does it look like if funding is not the constraining parameter on you so what would that look like and for that outcome so hopefully that'll be clear as we go through what the planning team did so what we'd like to share with you is we came up with it it matched actually pretty one-to-one doesn't usually happen this way but we created for issue statements of concern to our customers over the next three to five years that was that was the deal that if nothing is

[69:00] done about those things there would be some real issues and real impacts on the customer and so to solve that we came up with four areas of focus for the strategic plan you see the first one is probably what everybody expects what is our response look like particularly around emergency medical services the second key goal area was is around the community itself how do we create a prepared community a community able to bounce back from local and regional disaster how do we help do that key goal number three is around our infrastructure and our equipment how do we keep that state-of-the-art or functioning and and able to do the job we needed to be able to do for us consistent with our services and then the fourth area is about our workforce so what are we going to do about professionalism certifications training and then the makeup of the workforce itself and how we're supporting that so those are the key areas that we wanted to focus on as I go through these I just want to be clear these were just samples

[70:00] we pulled to try to share with you the the big picture but there's a lot of sub goals and I think to your point earlier council members sweat like about dates we weren't drilling down to the exact month in every case but you will notice that we tried to capture the year by which we should have achieved whatever target it was and so for all hazard response one of the big ones and there's a lot of these are brand new measures for us that I should be pretty so clear about to so some aren't so for instance this one about cardiac survival rate you'll notice that the measure nationally is pretty darn low it's higher in some places than others because it depends on what you're actually measuring so a lot of places will say well if they had a pulse when they got to the hospital that's a that's a you know thumbs up but they died a day later ours is you we call a code but if

[71:01] you go into cardiac arrest and you actually walk out of the hospital with no deficits whatsoever that's success I think if I called 9-1-1 and that was my issue that's what I want and so that was the attempt here so we don't actually have the rate it is today but you can see our stretch goal is we want to beat the national average if we can depending on funding and so on same thing with our response times and I'll get into more detail about advanced life support and what that means but right now we're at 10 minutes and 46 seconds probably at this moment is Greek but I'll explain why that matters and then the policy discussion that needs to go around what we have to decide so that's an idea of the the key goal area for number one a second one on a resilient or prepared community is about homes in the interface and being able to help them prepare their homes in case of a wildfire we are not going to be able to

[72:00] save every home and promise that no one's ever going to have their home burned to the ground but we can do a lot as a community to harden it against the threat of wildfire that's a big goal for us and we can do that in this master plan that is the plan the second bullet there about reducing severity of incidents a lot of a lot of our calls to 911 one aren't all they don't all need an ambulance to come in and an advanced life support person to come in and take care of them it's something less than that and so what were you want to be more deliberate about is reducing the incidence on the system so we leave the more advanced responders available that keeps the system more resilient and able to respond to lots of calls chief can I ask you a question about that where I've recently come up where of dispatch health and I'm sure you've that program are you guys now referring some of those calls as you as they come in to 911 or in some is calls back to dispatch health for for

[73:01] addressing in-home as opposed to sending the squad out every time I would like to say yes but we're just trying to really wrap that one up and that's why we're probably trying to be delivered in the master plan about focusing on that stuff okay you want to know I realize that but I just wondered if you guys referred the the caller to ended over to dispatch can you introduce yourself Shane yeah I'm dr. silver dawn EMS medical director I answer your question okay on facilities and equipment real quick this one really we'll talk a little bit more about strong won't belabor the point but our stations need work and they miss a lot of targets city and otherwise even even in terms of a DEA compliance which for community fire stations may not seem like a big deal but access for the public is an issue for our stations I'm finally Workforce

[74:02] Development focusing on our workforce we decided to call out the fact that is a problem in firefighting in general females make up a very small minority and you know in any particular community they're anywhere from 49 to 51 percent or more in our department I can tell you we just looked at this today we have seven of 99 firefighters who are female so we are tracking well underneath that goal of 25 percent it's pretty audacious but we it's called out in the plan and we're gonna have to be deliberate about it now how we go about that will be part of what the program that's responsible for achieving these things for us it's going to do so the how piece of it is not actually in the master plan on purpose so we can start talking about how we're going to get there we will try to talk about some of the house when it comes to the advanced life support piece by the way that bottom one there 90% of

[75:02] all patients reporting quality of care good we're actually not measuring that our aimless provider doesn't measure it for their service but this is something we ought to be doing for anyone that we interact with and we just aren't doing that right now so our goal is pretty big so I'll shift gears completely now and take us to focus specifically on emergency medical services and I want to say one thing about it by Charter we're responsible for providing EMS for for the city of Boulder how we go about doing that can be whatever policy decision that the council wants to make but before we get into the details of how its provided today and what's in the master plan for the sake particularly the viewing public who hears these phrases all the time may not know what they mean there are some big ones you're going to hear basic life support advanced life support and you'll even hear patient transport when people see ambulances they think oh that's got a

[76:03] doctor or a nurse on board or an EMT paramedic on board not always ambulance and the level of sub care that's provided are two very different things all the name you'll ins can do for you as the truck is transport you to the hospital it's the people on board and the equipment that it carries that matter so basic life support is the kind of care you would get from an emergency medical technician basic who can do base no in no invasive interventions basic care no medications that that's the fundamental version all of our seven fire stations and eight companies are at that level at the basic life support level so when they go to the house or the residence the business they that's what they're able to do for the patient advanced life support now you get to introduce medications they could get to do more invasive procedures on a patient I like

[77:02] to call I'm sure the doc would fight me on this but it's sort of a step-down version of the ER you're missing the doctor the nurses and all the advanced equipment but the paramedic is sort of the extent of the doctor and that's really what a paramedic provides with the equipment that's advanced life support in Boulder the all the fire vehicles are at the basic life support level the ambulances that we contract will be at the advanced life support level there are only two or three of those any at any one time in the city sometimes more but usually not and so one or both are going to respond to stop the clock that's really why we sometimes send to if it's a critical call whoever gets there first that's you know get that at least get the basic life support there first but the important thing is it doesn't matter if it's amulets or not you'll at least get basic life support we wanted to share this because if you take away nothing from tonight it isn't about throwing

[78:00] money at the fire department or the ambulance provider a I'm not going to show this video it it won't key up right anyway but we can share with these separately but what we want to point out is this actually happened this year I think was February or March at the meadows racket club gentleman was playing tennis and he started feeling bad and then he just blacked out and you can actually see it on the video and he collapses right there on the court within two minutes responders there at the facility not necessarily just the people there but bystanders started doing CPR that's critical so fast intervention with compression CPR so it could be anyone who knows compression CPR is big for someone's survival rate I don't know many departments fire departments EMS providers that can get to a scene in two minutes or less ninety percent of the time it's really hard to do so a community component that focuses on that is big in this case it happened

[79:01] there was also an automated external defibrillator on property they grabbed that they attached to him and within four or five minutes if I remember from the from the video that was applied and they began following the directions and they're real easy to use they tell you what to do he can't mess it up he was revived we got on the scene at about ten minutes Plus or so if nothing had happened it would have been ten minutes before an intervention happened there from just our system so what I'm trying to say is I'm by the way the happy outcome is they got into the hospital and he's he's back at the metals Club playing again and no neuro deficits whatsoever that's the kind of success story we're after as much as possible that's getting that cardiac rate from 8% to 12 or higher we want to improve that opportunity for anyone who has this kind of event in town but it's not just about the

[80:01] response piece is about training community members it's about making defibrillators more accessible around town there are a lot of things we can do that don't cost a ton of money that we can work on and that was that's part of our master plan is if we shift funding from over here what can we do to move that Neil without breaking the bank so I wanted to share that with you because it is a community solution not just about throwing money at the problem I hope that helps but let me explain not kind of where we are today as I said right now this if we drill down specifically to that cardiac arrest outcome and we're talking about ALS in general so how do we provide the big questions we need to ask ourselves are how fast do we want advanced life support responders to get to someone's side so what what what are we looking for in terms of that that's the question that's the outcome that's that's the intermediate outcome piece because the ultimate outcome is a

[81:01] positive patient outcome do we think the best way to get that is to get advanced responders there faster but is it worth putting a responder in every corner obviously that it can be prohibitively expensive the way we do it today we have all the basic life support units that are fire trucks in town distributed around town they are designed to get there in six minutes or less that's what they're there bogie is now we're probably around seven seven and a half minutes a ninety percent of the time but that's what that's what they try to strive for it's the six minute piece the advanced life support piece which is the ambulances by contract right now they get there between 9 and 11 minutes it's 00 is when when the advanced life support person is getting there that's the current system as we have today under the fiscally constrained environment we looked at these outcomes and we said is there anything we can do with little or no funding little or no additional funding

[82:00] and we identified some opportunities that we think just the just $20,000 could probably help us improve community awareness improve access to Aedes there's even some apps that could be on people's phones and notifying that someone's in trouble and they can actually walk over and help that person out if they know compression CPR so there are different things we can do other than fiscally constrained environment to still move the needle say on the 8% of cardiac survival rate but now let's go to the next level so say we had some funding and we actually cost out in raw costs what this would mean so we take our 8 fire trucks in town and we convert them to advanced life support units in other words the people on them we raise their level 2 EMT paramedic from basic level that gives us those 8 plus the ambulances and now the time that we use for basic life support converts to the advanced life support so

[83:00] whoever gets there first is always going to be an advanced life support person always gonna have that so that bogie becomes closer to 6 minutes probably getting there more often around 7 is if we used exactly we had to do today if we add solute to light response vehicles now here's the key light response vehicle could be an ambulance it could be an SUV with two people it could be anything it could be a type six wildland truck that we put two people on and does double duty as an advanced life support unit that would help reduce that number even further we would not be doing patient transport under this environment and you can see from the from the bullet that that's the annual operating cost it does not take into account some infrastructure costs that we're going to talk about in a minute that's what it would look like in rock it does not factor in whether we step down the subsidy for a mr to do their piece of it it does not factor in any

[84:01] recovery of patient care revenues I because when you start getting into advanced life support you start talking about billing in behalf of the patients whether it's the aimless provider or we do it makes more sense when we get to the vision statement so at this point under action we wouldn't be doing patient transport we would be providing the bulk of the advanced life support and then looking at some way of reducing that overall cost by capturing some of the cost of readiness but there is no way you're ever going to get to a point where you would totally offset those costs if it's for the sake of transparency on that chief quick question do we still have the same level of service from AMR in this scenario it's in this scenario yes we're assuming that they would still have two or three buses around they would still maintain the ALS level of certification and and so they would augment our to light response vehicles and now we would have 1213 units running around the city thank you

[85:03] so in the vision version of the ALS outcome if if the funding were available to do this the idea would be to add three more light response vehicles in this case they would probably be ambulances because I don't know how else we would transport patients we would look at the transport service the raw costs that you see here do not include eliminating the subsidy to the current ambulance provider that would obviously be backed down off of this and it does not include any revenue that we would generate as a result of patient care billing so we wanted you to see that just here is the cost of shifting to this obviously we would look for ways to offset that cost through patient care revenue the way the ammos provider does so that's what those three different levels look like as an example out of the master plan for that type of outcome slash service

[86:03] mm-hmm all right two quick questions the paramedic certification that you detailed in the last slide would that be the equivalent of the training of the ambulance service we have now it's the same and what is the total subsidy where we're paying for that service today it's 860 oh seven ninety seven oh yes right sorry in here and that that subsidy was the result of the living wage piece so if you go back to the last one why not back out that eight hundred thousand and in this scenario bogus if we're providing our own transport wouldn't we eliminate that cost we would and and we it's a great question and we decided you know what let's let's just

[87:01] put the raw costs out they're not backing any revenue or anything else out so that we know what the total cost would be this this isn't obviously accurate from that perspective we we would need to back out that eight hundred thousand and then we'd also need to back out whatever patient revenue which I believe the consultant that their reports included in the in the backup materials actually suggested we'd recover two to three million inpatient revenue but we've left all of that out so that's the raw cost okay but if you go back to the previous slide this has a like a 1.8 million in annual but it's not we're not really getting to back out any costs in this scenario I wouldn't even try on this one because the MLS would still be operating and they probably want to collect the bulk right of the patient recovery and if you go the next one this is almost four million more but we might be able to back out

[88:01] three you know okay that gets him a lot closer together that's huge so I heard three to four because you said two to three for the recovery and then almost a million for the subsidy through yes okay thanks I just can't stop myself from saying this we have to be really careful about counting our chickens before they're hatched when it comes to collecting in another city I learned that collections are pretty low maybe we'd have a better chance in Boulder but we just shouldn't rely on collecting like even 60% which is why so that's not in that's definitely not in those numbers but that's why we went here because we don't want to count our chickens but but we do know there is some recoverable cost I just I don't know what that is and I can only tell you what the with the consultants

[89:00] suggests that it could be so I just have a process question I guess around run this I know we're talking about the master plan it's a great plan decisions around ALS are they going to be brought forward Jaynes separately and in a budget discussion is that how this would work the answer is yes but that's partly why we're doing the fine long range financial strategy because if you were to adopt this master plan which is going to be coming to you in February what we're gonna be wanting to hear at that time which direction you want to go in and let's say that you pick the middle direction we need to figure out a way over the next couple of years to fund the capital improvements that we need before we were even able to add the advance life support training to put on those vehicles so it would be a couple

[90:01] of a year plan but we need to hear what you want to do you want the decision yeah right thank you so that's that part of our discussion I want to again shift gears real quick because no matter what we decide in terms of what ALS or cardiac outcome should look like in Boulder our infrastructure needs are absolutely critical we've highlighted the two most critical station two in station four and I can show you on the map if you like but they're both in South both are essential they wants a baseline a Broadway the other one is south of that from Darlie right off of 93 the top one station two right there across from see you sixty sixty years old it looks like it can house two units but if you

[91:01] look carefully at that slide we did a little trick of the eye there we parked them both in front but you can't actually back them both into that station one has to be pulled out before you get the other one out the supports only one unit that's a cross staff a wildland truck that truck goes up Flagstaff that's the one we need for an interface so they would have to pull the big truck out pull out the wildland truck then drive the one in South Boulder doesn't even have that capability because it's converted home so no matter what we decide these need some sort of funding commitment they've been in the see the capital improvements plan for a very long time they are important because if we chose even if we didn't choose to go to an ALS model they're not working for our services that we provide today anyhow and they don't serve a diverse workforce today they don't even have they're all sharing

[92:01] the same bathroom in the station for so you got males and females having to share a shower that's a that's a problem for these were built when was an all-male workforce and all they did was structure firefighting 15 60 years ago now we do a whole bunch of other things that we can't really technically support from these stations so they have to be remodeled renovated and the problem is is their footprint doesn't allow it so we have to look either expanding the current footprint or elsewhere from those two units those two stations no matter what we do these are absolutely critical they're also a key feature if we did do the vision plan because you notice all those extra units we were talking about obviously we can't put them in in these existing facilities and so our timeline on the master plan is even if we said today let's go full boat vision ALS well that's still a seven to ten year process as we convert we train

[93:00] people up and as we look to improve our infrastructure so regardless of what we do with ALS infrastructure does need to be addressed and these two are the most critical especially as we talk about growth on Cu south and and elsewhere in the city so that's one key piece that call is called out in the master plan we wanted to share finally I went over a little longer than I wanted to but I I just wanted to share with you the next steps in in this process the idea is to get feedback from council tonight and then make changes to the draft plan and then turn it into a publishable document and then look to the Planning Board sometime I'm guessing probably early February and then come back to council in February so that we can have a formal discussion on the master plan and its implications and then starting hopefully with the 2021 budget process begin implementing whatever direction we receive so that's kind of where we are

[94:01] we prepared a couple questions for council to consider we'd be happy to answer any other ones you have but I hope this was helpful thanks for that it was very helpful questions from Council mark 5 houses 2 & 4 would you not be renovating those you'll be looking for a new site the sites they're on right now don't work the baseline and Broadway for example is I think 0.3 of an acre is actually usable for a building the only place to go is up which is illegal from grade we couldn't get enough height on that station so we'd have to look elsewhere there are properties obviously around these stations we could look at maybe purchasing to add to it I don't I don't know if those would be available or not but the existing footprints just don't work and if you found a new site I assume

[95:00] these would be sold off to ameliorate their expense we would we would look to do that or whatever repurposing that council wanted to do with those properties so the question about your technology situation I read with interest the technology needs his husband because that's my day job so I just had to ask so I thought it was it was very thorough very well done how far along are you all through that process in that it's recommended and if that was in the packet I apologize for missing no so as you mentioned we ordered a Deputy Fire Chief for support services so so IT is kind of a little bit of my day job too so so we engaged with a consulting firm very intentionally that was also public safety oriented and when that work was completed it was obvious that we were behind in staffing and we were behind in infrastructure and with great

[96:01] cooperation with the CMO we were able to actually already start picking off one of the most critical components of that and that is our record management system our logistics software as well as some of our other ancillary support systems and we're currently working with a one-time funding and an ongoing funding stream that was part of an ATV that you all approved for us and we are doing very well at getting that done our plan right now although it's aggressive but I think it's very achievable is to have all three of those software systems installed by January 1st 2021 with a goal live we're currently in the middle of doing a digital inspection program we're still putting out currently as of today paper inspections so we're gonna transition that by the first quarter of next year and our logistics software the first module is actually going live with training next week oh great so okay that's great to hear yeah good luck with all that I know none of that's easy but other folks thanks for that presentation and the

[97:02] document was great too this question might be more for Jane is there any aspect of this that we can run through any aspect of the racial equity instrument before deciding I know we're sort of in a transition but if we choose to do that is is there any synergy possible there so what I think you're asking is could the master plan be run through the racial racial equity lens so we from my understanding we haven't actually approved the racial equity tool but I think we certainly could spend the next few weeks well Tonya wants to tell me I'm wrong so what we have planned for the guiding coalition when the guiding coalition convenes in January is actually to review the racial equity instrument provide input so that we can start looking at that what if the

[98:00] council desires we can work with fire and see what aspects we could maybe pilot or test and get feedback and report back to Council when the master plan is presented to Council we need to do a little more research into what we can do okay I mean that sounds great as you know we need to pilot it and I don't want it to be rushed obviously either but if it is if there are aspects that we could use in pilot it seems like a good opportunity and might help guide us let's see that's all for now thanks so on page 41 of our packet is a little table that spells out at the constrained and the action vision and what what the property tax impact and sales tax impact might be and I just wanted to first of

[99:04] all call attention to it to my colleagues that I believe and this is probably a question for Katie that this was one of the attempts at trying to then put it into context and what the impact is of the different levels and so on that page the action plan which includes the the station's two and four witnesses at eight point zero eight seven sales and use tax or a point seven four nine Mills property tax and my question is in the action plan are there still things that could be kind of moved around to move that up or down a little bit the the action plan to

[100:02] move the the sales and use and the the mill levy estimate up or down oh okay [Music] this is based off of estimates on because of our most recent acquisition that's where that's where these numbers are really coming from from station three so there are a lot of assumptions and how much we think we'll spend on these two properties or these two stations we tried to use worst case scenario twenty as a twenty million or 20 twenty seven so we went as high as we thought we reasonably could that would that would include acquisition of the whole property and building out to what we would need what's included in here though is a certain size of station as

[101:01] well I think the the only areas we could probably move in terms of that would be the size of the stations and what's included in them III don't know if that answers your question but in terms of where they're at right now they both need replacing and we tried to come up with the most conservative numbers we could come up with that would require probably relocating finding a big enough piece and then building what we think we'd need for both the wildland the EMS component and even possibly growth of serve of demand so that's what's in here that's what's baked into it we probably I think safely overestimated but I think it's prudent for us like I said as an example then what was the original estimate for fire station number three and what did we end up doing I think we estimated originally is going back I

[102:01] think around twelve million for 14 million maybe but that was when it included I'll include administration included it may not even be that I I might have been nine million that we actually originally and we just spent that for the for the land so it it blew the definitely blew the budget trying to get the land itself which is why we went very high on these thank you sorry no no that that that definitely paints a picture that even the estimate that was probably conservative for fire station every correct this is super a conservative yep thank you okay great tell just one more following up on yours that the difference between the action and the vision and the three to four million dollars understanding Jane's point that we don't necessarily recover everything that's billed for emergency services is there a way for us

[103:02] to get a guesstimate so that we understand next time it comes back how much realistically is on average collected if it's 20 percent if it's sixty percent how much we anticipate building how many average services were doing a year and that the other providers doing a year and then get a decent guesstimate of of whether we're really looking at a million dollar differential between those two are closer to the five million we have we have those numbers we know what they collect as a percentage of total build and we we also have the consultants estimates based on similar data the consultants version of what we would collect was more conservative than what AMR is collecting today but we can definitely get you those specific numbers that would be very important to me and I think Aaron's point is spot-on and what Rachel was alluding to which is

[104:01] there may not be as much difference as is presented on page 41 which is the chart which says how much you would have to raise taxes in order to implement the vision the question about that chart which is there's a percentage at the end 2.3 percent increase vision equals 3 point 6 percent increase it's at an increase over current budget increase over what's the increase in I have been the only senior budget analyst yes that is the increase over the current budget of approximately 23 million dollars okay so let me see if I'm reading this right even without patient billing and recovery to get to ALS which includes

[105:02] both ALS firefighters as well as ALS transport that the fire department is running is a three point six percent increase over the current operating budget on average over the first five years yes that is correct great thank you I have another question this is also about ALS which is I would like to know what our neighboring fire departments have neighboring communities have as far as the type of fire service so by neighboring I mean Front Range peer cities order a hundred thousand or more people what is the standard that Arvada and Broomfield and Westminster or to today I can get you that information I can tell you off the top of my head most of them are doing what we're calling the vision version of this plan

[106:02] but I don't know what their outcomes are there times or any of that but you're looking for just who's doing what is that so I think many people in this community would believe if you ask them that they are getting paramedic firefighters because most people don't make the distinction between an EMT Basic which can do very basic kind of interventions airway management CPR if they're advanced they can push saline and a few other interventions but they can't do most of the things that a paramedic can do they can't apply 12-lead cardiac monitoring and it's just more complicated but higher sophistication than a defibrillator they can push many many more drugs like a empty basic can do I think my day anyway you can do epi pens epinephrine for people in anaphylactic shock and you can

[107:00] do narcan for people who have opioid overdoses so I guess the reason that question is of interest to me is I think our community has an expectation that we have excellent medical service from the first touch by whoever's arriving on scene all the way through our excellent Community Hospital so I think it would be helpful to council as we think about this to have a breakdown of peer communities particularly in the northwest metro region but also further south so that we have the ability to say is our level of service what we think people expect and applying the equity lens it also means regardless of where you are you know are we serving our communities of color and they're disadvantaged communities as well as we're serving other people so I I would just encourage that you don't need to do it right now off the top of your head but I think it's really I'll do I'll do it off of me but we can give you a list meaning we

[108:01] can provide you with a list of all the communities essentially extending from Boulder South to Denver you know up to Fort Collins and and from there I can say quickly though that every department that touches us meaning every department that we come in contact with has a higher level of care than Boulder City does meaning to the south it's rocky mountain they are als transport to our East it's Louisville they're als transport to our North it's bull the rural they just approved having ALS transport so they were ALS and now they're going to be ALS transport and you can actually do the next ring out from there and those are also ALS transports North Metro South Metro so definitely from a perception this speaks to what we did when we went out in the community that's what I found when I was asking them hey what service you you think we're getting from us and they would say we're getting the best we're getting the best service around and I you know I would say okay well let me let me think about how we're providing this service to those people that are

[109:00] that are believing that that's what they're getting and then just answer your question we have a very specific we know very well what reimbursement is for calls you know and I wish it was as good as what you number you throughout 60% in all of medicines it's not 60 percent you know unfortunately in the ER you know we get less than 45 percent for ambulance it's about 30 percent so when you're sending that bill out you're gonna get about a 30 percent you know response or payout from that and when we performed our first model we I think we calculated it at around a 30 percent level I think it comes out to be about four hundred and thirty five dollars per call what the Fitch and associates come to they came two out of four hundred and seventy seven revenue per call so so the reason I'm throwing those numbers out there not because you need to remember that but it this is like numbers that people crunch across the country for this type of thing so it's not us going out on a limb to say what what numbers are we going to get we can have these consultants come in and we can do the numbers ourselves

[110:00] and say hey we do thirteen thousand calls eighty percent of those calls our EMS what will we get for reimbursement on those calls that that's where you get those revenue numbers and we were trying to be conservative on our initial raishin with what that revenue was but we have all that data if you want it certainly available chief you asked Sam if if you if you'd like to see the outcomes and I actually I guess I would I addition to knowing you know by map who has ALS transfer I'd like to see if to the extent that they publish outcomes sure that would be great to know I mean if we're gonna spend millions of dollars more what are we getting right if you know as Shannon said everyone seems to think they're getting great service and the question is are they getting great service and are they getting better service than other communities that'd be great to know that statistically I think when we look at this is exactly what you're talking about what we're trying to focus in medicine nowadays and this is across the board is we're looking at outcomes right because we're gonna spend a lot of money and we want someone to be functional and go home so when we came

[111:00] up with that parameter or someone has a cardiac arrest and they go home to their family what we're looking at as a system is moment of impact through all the processes to going home to their family right that that's the goal is that they get home to their family because if we give each other a high-five that they made it to the ER that doesn't matter to me right and so thinking about these things from the outcome is definitely what we're looking at but it's it's a new way of looking at this and so a lot of these you know agencies and things are just in the infancy of saying what did we have before and what's our outcome difference that we spent you know what was the value for the dollar that we spend and when we look at this when we say we're spending money across the board there are measures out there that you look at value or life year obtained from the service that you did so I spent X dollars how many more years of life that I get from that in our community and those are actually calculations that you can do but those are more robust meaning that you know Rocky Mountain might have some but not all Arvada might have different ones that they're looking at they're all trying to do it but it's definitely its

[112:01] infancy okay anyone else for the questions great let's move on to item so when it comes to the action plan level you would take half of it right if you had the opportunity it's not like you would turn down having one light vehicle or having four of seven advanced medical we as a matter of fact to build out that we we put together actually started with a core set so look for of seven get trained up and then over time you build out till you get to eight and then add the units and so it is act it isn't a overnight put everything in service it's definitely a gradual plan that at the very least takes a three to five year training up hiring the right personnel to do it in terms of the overhead as well as the actual responders okay so it definitely would be like what you're suggest I just want to put that in context for everybody yeah okay okay

[113:01] questions for Council well further information does counsel need on the draft master plan is presented regarding areas of focus and outcomes and this is about what the four five areas of focus and the specific metrics that were within each of them it seems like we asked all those questions well I would just say I want to say thanks for developing the metrics I mean I think they looked very good they were really outcome focused and I thought the way you broke down the areas of focus was also very positive and so it's very clear just somebody reading this what the department will do at the different action levels and what the goal is so I thought that was a really clear presentation thank you so now EMS service level I think that's a pretty pretty open question and I think there's probably I have a lot to say how about other people there should

[114:01] I go first well first of all 20 when I said that a lot of master planes have vision levels that are completely unnatural I actually was not speaking about the one that we had in front of us tonight I was thinking about reading them for many years but not this one um I thought you presented the options very clearly and and they do seem attainable and personally I would love to see a continued pursuit of ability to realize the vision plan I think Sam's point about our community expects a high level of care and emergency responses I think accurate and I think there are fewer critical functions of government than to help somebody who's in medical crisis as quickly as the highest level of care possible so you know the numbers that people are asking for in terms of what would it really cost you know really breaking it down carefully would be very relevant but it makes sense to me that this is an opportunity not overnight but to move forward over a few years with upgrading some of our infrastructure and and then

[115:01] providing Carlos's service so obvious we'll we'll make final decisions as part of budgetary processes and things like that but I think you're on the right track and I want to continue exploring very fully there's yeah I would like to know the numbers and because they're good they are gonna matter but but I fully support going forward with this discussion and the core - sounds like maybe some preliminary decisions in February if we if we can get all that data all right yeah just a quick question you describe the proposed new firehouses as containing community spaces and everybody would love to see that but how material and impact on the cost of those facilities is that as your core mission is it's still going to be services that you provide so what what what component or percentage of total costs for those new stations is

[116:00] projected to be the construction of the community space so I if I remember correctly and you guys can hit me in the head if I'm wrong but I think we had about a thousand square feet per station dedicated for community space multiply that by the number we're using this cost per square foot you're using I think the quote is at eight eight eight hundred straight including land so so it's a little less than that whatever the construction cost is I have to check in with with our fans but it's it's not insignificant so so the we'd have to decide you know as a community piece in a multi-use community space so we have talked about the station that's going up now and about the possibility of community other community needs that could be on the same spot and we'd want to keep the

[117:00] options open but if it becomes cost prohibitive that's the kind of thing I think you're hitting on that okay maybe we don't need that particular thing I'm gonna add a thousand square feet simple space I don't know how material that is so we fire chief for support services we actually have gotten some pretty good numbers recently because we just engaged the architectural firm for the new station three and during those presentations from those architects we got fairly decent programming estimates of what different components of a station would cost those those parts of the station are basically in the mid-range of all the things you have to consider from the bay to the living quarters the living quarters is where it gets a little bit more expensive as you can imagine like a kitchen you know most of us have seen that in our own homes but the other thing to emphasize on the community space that I think is really important is that it also doubles as training space for our firefighters and when we have the ability to train

[118:00] firefighters in their station rather than taking them out to reservoir Road that unit stays closer to its initial response area and so that costs like the chief was saying actually is a duplicate use that really helps us actually with a response as well thank you I'm pretty convinced can i piggyback on that thanks for raising that because I had thought about that as well so if there's a great multi-use function than fantastic but I did if it were more of a standalone I did notice like this the South Boulder one is very close to the George Reynolds library for example which has community space in it so you know just keep that in mind else I'll weigh in on this then so I think most folks know I spent 15 years on the servo fire department and one of the things that I will bring his perspective is the fire service is about continuous improvement both of facilities apparatus and people's training there were few EMTs when I

[119:00] started there were about a third was EMTs when I left and we had no Edie's defibrillators we had no rescue truck we had very very outdated tankers that carried the water and the rural departments to the fires and so this process that you're looking at here of adding on the advanced life support is the kind of thing that fire departments do is they evolve and they adapt their mission you know when Fire Department started they were to put out house fires and in towns where the construction was very flammable and now the construction is way less flammable those safety systems are much better and so the mission has evolved into mostly a medically focused mission and so this I feel like is a great evolution of adapting to both technology the way people live and the needs of the community I am quite surprised that the vision without even any payment from

[120:01] from patients is a three point six percent budget increase that to me feels like something we want to make sure so I think I misspoke I don't think I understood your your question correctly so that that is a three point six percent increase of this tax that's what I expected that's what I expected okay appreciate the correction so even there it still seems like that it will probably be less than three point six percent and if you polled people and asked do you want this critical function to include paramedics responding when the fire engine rolls up I think you would find that that trade-off would be well within the range of the percentage

[121:00] increase so I would like to find out what our peer cities do and as Bob said to the extent we can find out outcomes that would be helpful in making that decision and then including an estimate with and without patient recovering patient cost recoveries so that we can see we know that it won't be exactly what you tell us but it be somewhere nearby and we can evaluate because to me it makes the Vision Plan potentially as attractive as the action plan from a cost standpoint and then the service standpoint would be better and I guess the other thing to say is just like with the North Boulder Library this won't get us there overnight so as far as having these be what's in the master plan and getting there over the next 10 years or whatever it takes to get there and it's really appropriate to be in the master plan as the vision and then I think we will discuss what we want to do with it and 2020 ones budget process right 2020s budget process 20:41 budget or e1 budget process okay so that's what I've got to say I think

[122:02] this is what our residents do expect and if we want to we should talk with people in the community as we visit with them and mention this you know what do you think you're getting and what you know would you be willing to pay 3.6 percent more in sales tax not three points more but three point six percent more in order to get an upgraded service which is more likely to get you a good outcome if you have a medical event and I think this is something people have an easy way to relate to because they probably all either been through this or had family who have been through this and so it's something that that I think we should listen to what our community has to say so I agree this is a basic service of what a city is supposed to provide so it's a very very important and basic basic part of city's

[123:03] responsibility as far as going out and asking people if they're willing to increase their sales taxes by three point six percent I think the correct question for asking people is what they'd be willing to take reductions and other services because there's only so much for example sales tax that you can collect before people start going elsewhere so and again we're looking at it in the context of just this one Vision Plan so I just want to point out that this is why I really want us to go through this strategic budget planning exercise because again we're starting we're already doing what we've always done is just looking at this outside of the context of all the other needs and and just the limitations of how much we can collect and how much money is available it's not an endless amount so so like I

[124:04] said I think the better question and the correct question would be to ask what reductions are you willing to take if you want the vision plan so just putting another end point on on the discussion here and I don't disagree with that I mean I feel like it needs to go through the deep dive into the budget and the timing that it's set up to do we'll do that but I also do think you can phrase the question a bunch of different ways but the point is what's important to you as far as do you want your firefighters to be paramedics and if so is it worth either the increase or the cut to get that so anyway thank you any but anyone else will to comment Adam I just wanted to say thank you for the layout and I think the programs model for goal completion is really really helpful and you know trackable which is amazing and

[125:02] just back to the your point I'm going to throw it right back at you having some dates is great and upfront just clearly visible you know that was probably the thing that disappointed me the most in the open space master plan was we didn't have any specific we'd like to accomplish this by this date anywhere in there and so if we can make that you know sort of a format that we can follow I think that would be super helpful across multiple departments so thank you for that anyone else great thanks a bunch thank you five minutes behind Sam [Music]

[126:36] that's true

[129:05] Sam do you want to get going before the other council members are here we are ahead of schedule no CIC had lots of questions

[130:05] no they're like there's no way that you should be Jane I think we'll probably got enough to get going okay great so we have a really good presentation tonight from our climate initiatives staff really focusing on an update on municipal ization effort where we are what we can look forward to so let me turn it over to the director of climate initiatives Steve cat nack and you can introduce your colleagues who will be presenting thanks leave thank you up so as jane noted i'm steve cat nack the director of the Department of climate initiatives

[131:01] and with me tonight I have Matt Lehrman who works on our financial analysis as well as Yogi Shawn that also does financial analysis and works with the financial forecast tool in the Muni so today this evening we wanted to provide you a update on our local power project and fundamentally kind of level set and what do I need to do to get it up on those screens oh there we go sorry about that so tonight what we wanted to cover was really kind of just level-set provide a brief background of the project itself talk about a proposed new schedule for moving forward towards a community vote

[132:02] and also taking the next steps in premiere preparing the community to have conversation along with that we've of course welcome councils discussion so the questions we have this evening for council are one does counsel have any questions or direction about the timing of the go no-go vote specifically the recommendation to postpone the vote to 2021 number two does counsel have any questions or direction about the variables that inform the financial feasibility of operating an electric utility number three would council like to have a conversation to address whether recent changes and excels business practices and colorado state law impact the value-add of municipal ization and if so would council like to have this discussion concurrent to future budget

[133:01] or valid discussions and what information would council like staff could provide to facilitate that future conversation so i would ask that you keep all those in mind as we move through this information and we'll address them at the end so just to give kind of a general overview of what the climate department is focused on is you know we have our primary goals that we support with the city and in support of those goals one of the things in all of our design principles as we move forward with our climate action planning is really ensuring that we're applying that lens of resiliency and equity to all of the activities that we're moving for in our master planning activity we also are ensuring that we develop

[134:01] partnerships and policy coalition's and support to the changes that we are planning on facilitating in the future as we move forward we're really focused in five areas primarily energy with and that's where the local power project Falls but along with the local power project we're also working of course on energy efficiency and other initiatives related to how we use our electricity also looking at building performance and that really has to do with the electrification of our building systems along with that I will also note is transportation on the ecosystem side we're focused on carbon sequestration and drawdown along with working with open space and our urban forests to really facilitate

[135:00] not just the reduction of our emissions or I should say to facilitate not just stopping the emissions we are currently producing but also to draw down the emissions in the atmosphere we also have a focus and climate initiatives on a circular economy which really has to do with moving from not just a zero waste application of recycling and composting but also how do we start to provide multiple functions and purposes for the waste products we currently have and land use and financial systems are on this slide for to ensure that you know that we are coordinating with those departments so our planning department will be working on the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan mid-cycle update as part of that we are working with them to

[136:01] ensure that there is a focus on climate and on those related to issues and also with financial systems we have included that in our master planning to ensure we're taking into account how the city spends and invest its money so the goals and the targets of the municipal electricity lord local power project really focus around elements of a clean power supply which has been one of the primary drivers of the municipal ization effort and as we've reported before there's opportunity for us to start operations with the local electricity at ninety percent renewable and to achieve our goal of a hundred percent renewable by 2030 but as we all know when what we

[137:01] mentioned earlier is the state and Excel have opted changes that will take the Excel energy to 80% reduction by 2030 so part of the conversation that we need to have is as we look at that Delta or what Xcel Energy is doing is what is the value of the clean energy and what is the Delta but also there are other values that are supported by municipal ization that we need to take into consideration as well one of those is that local control aspect so as we talk about local control what that really means is the city you as decision-makers the community all having the ability to influence how the electric utility is run how the revenues from that electric utility are reinvested into the community and that's

[138:01] everything from really large projects like undergrounding and doing those system improvements to doing smaller projects and just things that reflect what the community wants as we look at the additional values that it brings that local control and those revenues also provide an opportunity for the community to set the rules so right now a good example of that ability to set the rules is Tom and I happen to be writing together the other day and drove past a storage facility you know we have all these different buildings that are all lined up there and a thousand square feet plus thousands of square feet of rooftop space well that particular facility is limited on the amount of solar that they can put on because of a state rule from the PUC municipalities

[139:02] don't fall under that jurisdiction so we actually get to establish our rules that rule happens to limit the production from a solar facility to a hundred and twenty percent of that facility zan Yule energy production well as we drove past all of that thousands of square feet of rooftop space there's a car wash right next door that has very little rooftop space but it certainly has an electrical load that would benefit from solar production because of its operating hours so it's that type of local control and those type of values that are really facilitated by a community in reflecting the community values that a local municipal electric electric utility would bring also certainly one of our core values is reliability and we find that a lot of our community when we have public presentations one of their basic

[140:01] questions is how is the city going to operate an electric utility and how reliable are we going to be and certainly with we have a Charter requirement that says we have to reach a certain level of reliability but it fundamentally comes down to every other Wow what every other electric utility does what our neighbors to the north do and that is you have linemen you have crews you have equipment you have building systems you have all of those items that will help you function as an electric utility but locally you also get to set policies and you get to set the rules around how things are done so if we look far to our north and for Collins one of the things we'll see is they have one of the best reliability numbers set of reliability numbers in the country a lot of that has to do with the fact that it's an underground system

[141:00] but a lot of it also has to do with the fact of how they go about approaching outages because there's a core value there that outages have to be addressed and short as possible so normal operating procedure for a large utility is to send out one guy to go find the problem once he finds the problem he may call another crew in or a crew in to actually work on the problem in for Colin all hands on deck to go find that problem and to fix it and to chase it down so you know they tend to have really great reliability numbers that's the core value of the community that has been set so that's just an example of some of the benefits that we certainly will see beside the ability to move to cleaner energy supply and in the middle here we simply have what our goals were or currently are of 80% by 2050 for

[142:02] emissions reduction I will note that our most recent report indicates that we've achieved 18% emissions reduction across the city so far and we have a renewables goal of a hundred percent by 2030 along with local renewables that we want to achieve excuse me Steve hundred megawatts before you move on to the next slides looks like you were getting ready to move on I wanted to come back to 120 percent rule so I understand that if if we had a Municipal Utility here we would not be subject to the hundred twenty percent local generation eye-roll another way to tackle that however would be to change the state law though absolutely our legislative agenda to have that law changed yes I believe it is absolutely is okay so that would be another way to tackle that and just kind of like maybe a corollary question I don't want to get into peek and so and so forth I just want to just apples to apples with these goals on local

[143:00] renewable generation can you give me an idea like how much what percentage of our needed renewable generation these numbers would how much renewable generation would we need to be 100% self-sufficient I know that week that's not necessarily a goal but I was kind of curious is this like 10 percent or is it 50 percent or can you give me an order of magnitude so if we're talking about our peak demand right megawatts this is a little bit over a third of under 75 would be a third no I'm sorry the hundred by 2030 is typically what we look at so we would be looking at if we wanted to generate it all here locally maybe looking at 300 megawatts is that it but that that's the demand right then there's the energy and as you know the Sun doesn't shine all 24/7 it only shines period so there's only a certain production period and that it's the energy that is produced and the hundred

[144:02] percent I've done the calculation is right around ten percent of our total energy need a hundred megawatts with me yeah okay that's wonder bank Jilla it's kind of curious about that things so certainly one of the questions and why we ask is you know the value of moving to that hundred percent renewable energy so as we look at the city's emissions electricity makes up about 50 percent of the emissions which means the remainder of those emissions come primarily from transportation and from natural gas heating our buildings and industrial processes so we can only really achieve a significant reduction of the city's and emissions if first we are able to clean up our electricity supply and then really transition our transportation to more of an electrified transportation

[145:01] system along with transitioning our heating and industrial processes to electrification as well and as we look forward you know that is certainly part of the focus that we've been working on in the climate initiatives Department as we look at the particulars related to what the electric utility development group has been doing related to moving towards the go/no-go vote you know the purpose of that vote first off is really to ask the citizens of Boulder whether we should create an electric utility and then secondary we'll be asking them to approve bonds in order to allow us to finance the separation of the sisty an electric system from one contiguous system to two separate systems one to serve the electric

[146:01] customers within the city limits the other to serve the electric customers that will remain with Xcel outside the city limits so our work plan and where the electric utility development group has been focused is really refining those costs and completing the financial feasibility study in order for the community to make an informed decision so our current cost estimates are the cost of acquiring the system that's the poles the wire the bolts the Transformers all of those parts and pieces the property rights that are support easements below that electric system and currently in our financial modelling we utilize a number of 150 million as you all just read in the paper we made an offer to Excel for 94 million to purchase that system and are

[147:00] currently starting the process of good-faith negotiations and then if those are unsuccessful moving forward with condemnation we also have a very rough estimate of what it's going to cost to separate those systems we currently have engineers that we've hired in order to determine those costs much more exactly our current estimate is a hundred and ten million to do that construction I will note Excel has also hired their engineers to design and estimate the cost of their portion of the separation construction a start-up costs or cost we've inquired and gotten a lot of really good information from companies that do operate electric utilities under contract but this is a number that we'll have to eventually define by going out to bid and asking those companies to give us in a much more exact price for what it would take

[148:01] to operate Boulder power supply will also need to be updated we did a request for indicative pricing in 2018 and God estimates for our power supply from 83 million to 126 million dollars a year and I will know typically that purchase power is about 70 percent or so of an annual of the annual budget of an electric utility or a municipal electric utility so that is a significant annual operating number as we move forward and again prior to going to a vote we would pursue a more exact number there I have a question for you I've got your 2018 December 2018 presentation that you gave which has the request for indicative pricing presented in it your results 126 million here is pretty close to a hundred percent Xcel

[149:02] Energy which was 124 million so yeah probably around you there is the high end here the Excel cost okay thank you in other words to say that another way the 126 million is what it would cost a boulder municipal electric utility to source its power from Xcel so as a wholesale power provider so that's at the high end of the slide right and I believe that mix would be 53% 2026 are you gonna get in destroying the cost that would be a good segue here I was just about to good I had one prior question just to clarify for me the power supply is not part of the number that would be included in the bond issue that's correct but as we go through our financial analysis it's a key number on

[150:01] the cash flow of the utility and what we are using to define the viability of the utility is more of a cash flow model that looks out ten years and actually will project 20 but one last question I know you've got financial models for all of this is there a I know there has to be a point at which we would not achieve savings if the cost were sufficiently high that the debt service would would eat up any possibility of savings you know where that that level might be and all that yeah we'll give detailed there's a lot of variables certainly the model can point us that way and we've done yeah we haven't actually done that locking in that number because there are so many assumptions so if you change one big assumption and you move the power supply to that hundred and twenty six million obviously that numbers a lot

[151:01] lower if you put it at the 83 million it's a lot higher if you change the interest rates if you change the acquisition cost so what we did was create a tool with the major drivers that change the feasibility on the on on our website so people can download it and they can plug in those numbers themselves and see where it you know essentially would break with those drivers because their assumptions are just so interrelated it's hard to say you know if we lock everything in at our medium case we can put a number in and see it but those numbers are locked in place necessarily that makes sense well it does but I guess people will need to know at some point yeah what type of what the magnitude of the savings will be sure we've always done in the past and will continue to do is present some scenarios like a high medium and low scenario as we get some of these other numbers locked in they won't be as variable so for instance that big 150 million dollar acquisition cost will be

[152:01] locked in once we know the value of the system the separation construction will be locked in so some of those things will be locked in so the variability will lessen but we'll still have probably like a high medium and low scenario we'll look at some other like maybe some some modeling that shows like just different risk factors for the ones that aren't locked in if I could jump in mark just kind of in response if you look on page 392 of your pack you will see a link to the live financial forecast tool which is the multi tab spreadsheet model that has all of those variables and it's if you're a wonk like me it's fascinating to play with those variables because you can change any of the assumptions and you can look at what the net present value cost is what the rates will be and so on so I would anyone who's curious about this further just know the stranded cost obligations in here are currently set to zero because there's a whole bunch of scenarios around that too so you can put

[153:00] in a number there so that's just a tool for anyone to use who's curious about the break points and the break points are different for different scenarios just just for grins let's say that we held constant all the variables you have up there except for acquisition costs we a separation cost coming 110 and start cost come in 28 and power supply comes in I don't know midpoint there and Stratton cost in fact our zero we're gonna talk about those in a second is is the acquisition cost break number in excess of the 214 million dollar cap play with it find out what I'm just kind of curious about that because because if it is and then the question may become moot right if if your break points three hundred million dollars for acquisition costs all these other numbers remain the same we can't go above the two fourteen CPI adjusted any way without voter approval so it kind of as a matter if your breakpoints like way up there because we can't get way up there anyway

[154:00] for other reasons that are related to the finance which was a perfect segue into the next slide the previous slide in that power supply number is that the in the scenario such as is proposed by the Community Choice energy possibility is that what is that the amount of money that would need to be spent under a scenario such as what could happen under that I'm gonna have to think about that a little bit because the community choice model is really organized purchase so to speak of a group purchase on a city scale I would say having not really sat down and worked through it I would say

[155:01] if we were able to organize that group purchase with community choice on a city scale then yes those are probably reflective of what the ratepayers would be paying in total the city would simply be the broker so to speak or the pass-through if I but as I said I would need some time to really apply the two to one another no I think that that that cell phone right there wouldn't what you just said and if it were organized around several communities pulling together then chances are it might be lower is that a fair statement hard to say one of the reasons we did go out for the indicative pricing was to see if we could achieve the same type of prices that Excel saw in there ERP their electrical resource plan which we did so these are kind of where the developers

[156:00] are at so I don't know if I want to apologize that refer people to the financial forecast to a link in the memo which is broken so if you go onto the website and search financial forecast tool it will take you there one link which isn't broken though is on page 398 and Mary this is kind of tangential to your point the link that says power providers takes you to the quarterly update presentation that I referred to and that has a walkthrough of the scenarios Yael described and what the cost would be either the cost the benefit or the the loss and so that's a helpful presentation to have a look at for that power power cost and I will know related to power supply as well that that purchase from Xcel Energy the hundred and twenty six million dollars in response to your

[157:01] question around stranded cost so stranded costs have to do with generation that was constructed and anticipation of serving a load that then departs and there is a requirement to basically make that up but there's a requirement on the utility which in this case would be Xcel Energy to mitigate those stranded costs both through the resale of that power that has been released on the market but one way to mitigate or to avoid stranded costs would be for us to continue to purchase power from Xcel Energy so that's that upper cost so but as we look at that our original planning had always been to do what was called a gradual departure from Xcel and that was as they identified new generation need we would actually rather

[158:03] than them building a power plant we would step away from excel in these increments in order to mitigate that stranded cost part of what our plan was with and continues to be with our indicative pricing and with the prices we have seen with renewables is they have been so low that we wanted to get prices to move quicker to a hundred percent renewable and take the risk and see what that stranded cost may be because it still may be to our cost advantage to go ahead and pay some stranded cost for a much higher level of renewables and for being able to get there quicker just a timing question for you Steve um so I get that thanks for recapping that if our goal is to present all these numbers plus whatever be back into for stranded cost that is where we

[159:00] are on that sliding scale between buying all it from Excel and having their renewable mix by nineveh from Excel and having a different renewable mix but then having to write them a big check we're gonna kind of need to know where we are on that spectrum when we go to go no go though right but but that's three years before the at least three years before day one where we're up and running and so I just kind of understand how easily because we may we let's say this gonna kono go that's in 2021 so we say okay here's we are on the spectrum we're gonna write them a little bit of a check but we want to have smart renewables and I say okay fine this is the number folks vote yes or no and they vote yes based on in reliance upon that number and then the intervening four years what we're doing all the separation work but before we stand up our network we change our minds like how is that gonna work from a timing standpoint so on the renewable because the develop renewable the development time period in there really falls within that three year separation plan time frame from the time you bid

[160:01] contract and they construct so that is not terribly misaligned okay actually you know that plays to our favor because of the fact that what we want to ensure is that we are standing up new renewable resources to serve our load under the timetable that you're we're gonna talk about here in a second on the go no-go vote your goal would then to figure out where we are gonna be on that strand it cost a continuum and how much if anything run would pay your goal is to have that number of my summer or fall of 2021 is that right yeah okay so some estimate calculation you know there's always risk to it but yeah okay thanks but to follow up on that there what you're saying is that the time frame of standing up the renewables is similar to the time frame for building the separation room right so we would want the numbers that we're presenting to be to the voters to be good ones so are you imagining like semi

[161:02] binding contractor estimates before we get the vote then so that we really have good numbers we would bid and have negotiated but not executed until after the vote or put a clause in our bids or contracts yeah so we want to have actual valid bids right on hand ready to sign if the voters approved the process yeah and to answer one of Sam's questions and also a portion of the stranded cost as well there was question on the two hundred and fourteen million dollars that's provided as a cap in the Charter and that cap actually is tied to the Consumer Price Index so we went through and calculated what that cap currently is and it's a two hundred and fifty nine million and I did want to

[162:04] make sure that what the cap is is clear is the cap itself is for purchasing or otherwise acquiring the existing assets of the electric system so that's really the acquisition cost the condemnation cost that we would be paying along with pain stranded costs in one complete payment so if we were to decide that we were going to pay just pay stranded costs Pole to itself that would also fall into this cap but there is also the option in the Charter language to place a stranded costs in two rates fundamentally it falls into portion of your transmission rates over time 259 is calculated through 2019 so that correct yes and so in is the actual operative

[163:00] date of of the cap the date we actually write that check or the date the condemnation award comes out rolls the issuance of debt calls the ocean I should the debt to pay the condemnation award what that would be shortly after the go novo that's after separation and after separation yeah so the kind of 'national work can be acts I'm just trying to be I'm just trying to go out procedurally so we kind of nation number next year we go to the voters and say we think this meets the Charter objective but if it's a close call we're not gonna know what CPI is gonna take us out to 2020 for 2025 right we're not gonna know we're nothing to wear the cap is well we can project what the Capitol any date in the future by estimating the CPI based on past history right okay I can see a close call being problematic but we'll talk about that later yeah Cathy what's the appraisal Cathy

[164:08] haddock City Attorney's Office the appraisal itself is 63 million for the assets outside the you tube with that but the big swing we all know is going concern right in other words leave the polls probably are not going to be not going to be dramatically different than what our prese list but if a judge determines that there's a going concern portion of the kind of nation award which we're gonna have to also pay and bond against that could potentially push up against that number not sure that that's acquisition for issuance debt for acquisition that's paying going concern so we'd have to think about whether that would have to be included in that cap I think the reason I asked Cathy what the equity what the appraisal was because it's unlikely that 150 million number is more than double what the appraisal value could you um could you bottom that out for us and maybe just write us confidential memo on whether you think could go and concern award would be

[165:00] subject to the cap thank you great so certainly that brings us to moving go/no-go vote originally scheduled for 2020 and now we're really looking at that proposed 2021 and as we look at the particular areas where we're focusing you know of course we have the legal component of moving forward with acquiring the assets and we are anticipating that that will not be completed until at least the fourth quarter of 2020 and Blee into the all the way to the second quarter of 2021 so that is information we would not have or will no longer have to inform the vote in 2020 along those lines were as I noted we're also working with the engineers the city has hired

[166:00] engineering group to do the distribution system engineering work our intent is to have that completed by the first quarter of next year at a 95% level for those plans will have a 95 percent engineering estimate and if we move that to if we move to a 2021 vote we wouldn't go out to bid until probably the first quarter of 2021 to ensure the construction values fresh Excel has a distribution engineer that is working and they are committed to having that work done by the second quarter so we of 2020 so they're gonna be a little bit early but with the cost-sharing agreement we negotiated with them they have hard dates they have to deliver by so we will more likely have to ensure that we're applying the proper contingencies and the value we

[167:01] get to excel to make sure that those are covered and then the substation engineering is basically the same thing except because of the PUC decision we've been delayed so it won't be city's work on substation engineering won't be done until fourth quarter of 2020 and excelled they won't have a price and and that's a 25 percent planning price by first quarter 2020 and we won't have anything till fourth quarter of 2020 Stephen in light of the litigious nature of Excel and their desire to string the process out and the fact that some of these items to be fulfilled are stretching into the second quarter of 2021 one of the prospects that it's not ready for a vote then on the engineering side-eye because this is basically a contract our cost-sharing agreement that

[168:01] we negotiated with Excel and was part of the package we took to the PUC which was one of their requirements I'm feeling pretty confident about the engineering work and the engineers are working very well together but certainly as we look at the legal work well all that Tom addressed that there there are risks out there certainly are risks but we are out of the PUC which was the one unknown where when we filed a condemnation we'll be in condemnation court and there's only so so many ways you can string out that so I there is a risk that it will not be done in time to inform the voters of 2021 there's no way to tell for certain but I think there's a good chance so you predict I think the condemnation action of 9 to 18 months which takes us sometime late 2020 to mid 2021 as the

[169:03] side reflect slide reflects I'm guessing that one side or the other is gonna be unhappy with that results kind of hard for me to imagine a kind of nation action where both sides hear from the judge and they say Yahoo that's exactly what I was thinking so so we get the number in late 2020 or early 2021 or sometime 2021 and somebody appeals I'm just trying to figure out how that works visa via vote because it let's say that we're unhappy I guess I've weren't happy we managed to go to a vote but let's say that that we're happy and Excel is unhappy but they then file an appeal and as you know Tom feels too sometimes can take a really long time do we still go to the voters and say please vote on this but we can't tell you 100% confidence that that's gonna actually be the final number because it could always get overturned on appeal that will be your call okay hopefully we'll know what the appeal is by then and we'll be able to provide

[170:00] either provide the information to the voters or decide not to that it'll be your call I can't predict what anybody's going to do in the future but we will have evaluation a number and we will have if there's an appeal we'll know what it is you know the substance of the appeal list yeah the voters will will be able to decide and Kathy stepped up because I think she's going to tell you that that appeals in condemnation cases work right right they're very different than other types of cases it's not an all-or-nothing issue condemnation is different in that there's in limine motions that you do before you ever get to the valuation trial and that's deciding legal issues before you get there so for instance the fight about good going concern will be one that will be decided by the court in before the valuation trial and then depending on the result and depending on whether there's an interlocutory appeal or not we can decide to how to go forward and whether to go forward regardless we

[171:01] would probably have a separate line item in the verdict that that jury gives us so that at the end of the day we may have a number for acquiring the assets plus a number for going concern and then we can quantify with y'all's model whether we want to go forward or not before the appeal is done so yeah after you mention interlocutory Appeals let's just kind of translate that for the non lawyers that would mean that let's say that one party or the other got that ruling that early and they in the case ruling about going concern which I think you're absolutely right that's when it would happen that there may be an appeal that kind of stops the lawsuit the the trial wouldn't go forward and that might go up to the Court of Appeals first and we decided with finality before we actually had the trial on the numbers is that of that's one possibility right one possibility as a practical matter I think what we do is evaluate the the legal issues and we may

[172:01] decide in order to have the condemnation trial go ahead that we want to present the issues about going concern and have a line item of going concern so when it does go up on appeal that we would know the number that we were arguing about but we there's another party in the case so they may not agree with that process they may they may want to take a timeout and take up an appeal stay the lawsuit they may want to and they may win on that issue but condemnation is is for the purpose of the landowner not steaming the government from being able to complete its public projects right okay I think I have a question relating to what Bob is talking about if the numbers are if we're so unsure why are we waiting until 2021 to bring the issue to the voters what can we do to expedite the process

[173:02] so is that even possible well the choice the the Charter says that there'll be another vote before we go forward and the vote is supposed to be fully informed our instructions have been to complete condemnation so we know what that acquisition number is council could decide that we don't need to and that we could go in 2020 that would be your decision that has not been the decision of council our instructions so far has been complete the condemnation that's what we've been working toward yeah yes okay so the last two items of course there's a bid on the operations and maintenance and also on our power supply which will time in order to inform the vote and I did also just want to mention as part of the our ongoing work plan is certainly the communication and engagement with the community and

[174:02] taking a look at the communication plan that we developed and moving that forward and extending it as necessary so we do typically take every opportunity to go out and speak to any anybody that asks but we also do our quarterly updates and take advantage of other events in order to ensure that we're informing the public of where we're currently at and what we're currently working on I think that most of you have heard that those presentations and the asked now the challenge certainly though we want to make sure we bring forward if moving the vote to 2021 does create an unfunded need our anticipation has been and we have been working in order to achieve a 2020 vote so our plan is to continue to work together we've been

[175:02] brainstorming on what potential solutions may be available to us and we would like to come back to Council in April of 2020 in order to have a discussion and with the why April and what that timeframe brings us is the areas we certainly have or the tools in our tool belt are to look at certainly general fund which is not a good option as you've just heard from the past two presentations there are real needs there not that we're not a real need but also you know we want to take a look if there's a potential ballot issue that were timing it accordingly in an April discussion and also looking at other avenues of funding that might be available to us so we like to be able to have that conversation with Council in April and bring forth potential

[176:00] solutions so Steve I looked at the their third quarter expenditure and tax collection report that you all put out last week and I think Katie why did me offline some clarification on that but if I understand correctly sounds like we feel like we're gonna exit the year ahead about Katie correct me if I'm wrong about 6.1 million dollars in spend for this year for calendar year 2019 is that directionally correct and so what we sent you earlier is and a back pocket presentation that sounds about right I think what we want to be clear about with the unfunded needs is the staffing piece so you ot is really meant to cover staffing just for those three years and so if you expand it one more year you've got nine ish FTE that needs to be covered yeah that weren't necessarily anticipated yeah I just wanted to capture the yeah

[177:05] that's perfect thank you so if you look at 2019 and we're walking foot through this because it took me a little while to understand it so if I can get anybody can so in 2019 you see if you go down by column you'll see the tax collected is five by five point 1 million dollars we've spent this year through today about 4 million and we anticipate spending another two point it's called six million so our total expenditure for I paid last sorry I misspoke six point six million dollars for the year right four point one plus two point six okay about six million six point six million but we've over collected the tax if you'd go back to the left in 2008 and we've over collected the tax we selected six the taxes front-end loaded we collected six million dollars in tax last year but we only spent 2.8 million so you can see that those kind of brown numbers on the bottom we had a 3.2 million dollar carryover and and even

[178:00] though the amount we're gonna spend this year is a bit more than the tax we collected this year we can dip into that carryover and we still have yet a carryover about 1.6 million going into 2020 who folks were following along the problem happens next year we haven't got to staffing yet we carry that 1.6 million dollars over to 2020 we the tax drops down to ten million dollars because that's just the way the tax was structured so we only have about 3.6 million dollars to play with in 2020 and I'm guessing you're gonna tell us that we're gonna spend more than 3.6 million dollars in 2020 and I see uh 7 million dollar number up there I drove that's the number but the 7 million is really just to balance out the remainder of it given kind of conversations of whether we want to move into 2021 I guess based upon direction from Council you could Steve could work with a staff and better align what 2020 and 2021 expenses are but bottom line 2021 is still only bringing in 2 million dollars and so

[179:01] the tax was intended to reimburse general fund reserves after the five year period again with the anticipation that this was a three year expenditure project and that doesn't include there was some general funding I'll use the word borrowing that happened previously about 2.1 million dollars way / way to the left of that back in like two thousand thirteen or fourteen or fifteen and about seven or thousand and that's been repaid but there's still I owe you for about 1.4 million dollars from the general voters that way and is it correct that even though we will run a temporary deficit in 2020 2021 timeframe that with the 2022 collection we zero out so this is a cash flow problem not necessarily a debt problem if we only spend seven point eight million dollars in the next three years and I guess you know regardless of whether we spend seven point eight million now and 2020 and have the cash flow problem we're spending out over three years the question is are we gonna spend more than seven point from this point forward are

[180:02] we gonna spend more than seven point eight million does anybody know the answer then as we look at our line-item budget certainly the shortfall we have is staffing in the 2021 2022 time period along with those extended legal costs which as these elements go on it's hard to predict exactly what those costs will be if there is an appeal or if there's different actions that take place so that's what we're we're working to refine those right now too as we come back in April to really have a much better idea of what that is the staffing is generally running us about a million dollars a year roofing ballpark I think it was 1.2 million last year maybe of yeah yeah as a ballpark so that that

[181:00] becomes the the driver that an additional legal cost but in April you're planning on giving us an update we're gonna see this specific issue again yeah along with potential solutions okay one second we have a lot of pocket slides there we go so the next thing we wanted to talk about is the conversations we've been having we can really refer to those as kind of first level conversations asking ourselves the question of Kansas City Mina supplies what are the cost can we afford them and as we've just reviewed that's exactly what we've been working on in order to inform the vote but what Mary brought up to us here probably two

[182:03] or three months ago Mary and a hotline and a very valid question is we believe the other conversation we should be having is also should we be moving forward with this you know there's a number of things that have changed over the past few years primarily elements with it the actions that the state has taken along with actions that Xcel Energy has taken to clean up their energy supply as mandated by the state so we believe there are questions we should be asking ourselves including is a city-owned utility the best path to accomplish our goals and you know are these and we believe these should be part of a bigger conversation so we wanted to provide opportunity in order to have that conversation not necessarily here but we foresee that in

[183:02] April is we're talking about funding and the future there that that would be an appropriate time to have this type of conversation and certainly we anticipate starting to have these conversations with the community as well as we're out there speaking to them so I did want to give an opportunity though for apt to provide kind of a grounding in what some of the changes the state has done and how those impact our pursuit of clean energy as I noted early on in the presentation there's a lot of other values community values that municipal ization supports and as we move forward we need to weigh the value of those against what Excel and what the state how they are moving forward and so I'm gonna turn this over to Matt to give you

[184:00] some a lot of detail not too much though Matt Lieberman energy strategy advisor for the Department of climate initiatives think you have the controls so as you may know the city adopted the climate commitment in 2015 and that set some fairly ambitious targets for community-wide emissions reduction as well as the similar goals for the city organization and then related to that for renewable energy so what you can see here is that we've been working towards those goals you see the current status for each of those three targets as well as the goals out to 2050 there were two pieces of legislation that were passed during the 2019 session that have a significant amount of impact on these targets so the first in the left-hand box is a clean energy plan it was part of Senate bill 19 2 3 6 it requires all investor owned utilities

[185:00] to file a clean energy plan as part of their broader electric resource planning Excel is currently planning on filing that in February of 2020 although they have petitioned to delay it by approximately a year so we should know relatively soon if it's gonna be in February 20 20 or in March of 2021 but what that clean energy plan must contain is a plan to reduce emissions 80% by 2030 that's against a 2005 baseline which is the same as how the city measures and then separately a plan that the way the legislation writes it it seeks to achieve 100% clean by 2050 so in the context of the climate commitment it gets us near the 2030 goal it does not hit the 2030 goal but over a longer time horizon would get to a hundred percent separate but related was House bill nineteen twelve sixty one which includes a climate action plan to reduce carbon emissions greenhouse gas

[186:02] emissions across the entire economy so not just electricity but also transportation industrial loads heating things like that you can see the targets here as well twenty six percent below 2005 by 2025 fifty percent by 2030 and ninety percent by 2050 so that latter number is where we're really shooting for on the broader level for the community in that would that it does hit that level that we have said in the in the climate commitment for 2050 community-wide emissions reduction but what does that mean for electricity so we've heard a lot of questions about where are we today versus where would this legislation get us for 2018 our electricity sector emissions only we're a little over 700 thousand metric tons of carbon dioxide if Excel achieves the 80% emissions reduction goal by 2030 that would leave us at about 250,000 mega metric tons

[187:01] excuse me of carbon dioxide comparatively if Boulder either with Excel or through Municipal Utility were to get to a hundred percent renewable electricity that would obviously put us at zero metric tons for electricity so you can see that gap is about two hundred and fifty thousand metric tons for roughly on the right-hand side you can see there's three different primary objectives we have for closing that gap once to distributed generation on-site solar for example can your solar Gardens another through conservation and efficiency and the third through engagement in the electric resource plan either through advocacy for more resources bidding and our own resources at a utility scale to excel and yes that's a good question sure you say about closing the gap like raishin and efficiency I mean that reduces the gap right because it reduces our overall demand but you still only have a percent that's lacking in

[188:01] renewables right so you can't close the gap with conservation right you can just reduce the total emissions you can reduce the total emissions we could get really wonky and talked about shifting load too when renewables are generating when you know charging your car when the sort when the sun is shining for example or running your dishwasher overnight when the wind is blowing but that's probably a separate conversation question how loose is that seeks to achieve language in the 2050 goal is it enforceable in any way or is it simply a statement of intent so the language says seeks to achieve it probably defer to either Jonathan Cohen or Carlyle Castillo on exactly the specifics there I don't think either of them are here tonight yes so starting actually this Friday there is a stakeholder meeting that is going to start developing the metrics and the criteria of what types of resources and how utilities will go

[189:00] about achieving that so we'll have at least three staff members participating in that working group going forward so I think some of that will be defined in that process but for specifics I would reference either one of them this slide gives you a status update on where Excel is today relative to what their current resource plan shows so on the left-hand side you see their 2017 resource mix which was approximately twenty seven twenty eight percent renewable in 2018 they were about the same and under their current plan they will achieve about 53 percent renewable in 2026 so as I mentioned earlier there's another resource planning period that will start either in the first quarter of next year or the following year that is the plan that will move them probably to 2029 and we'll have a better sense of how they're going towards that 2030 goal at a very

[190:00] minimum but for right now I think the the two main takeaways here are that you know 28 percent renewable almost doubles to 53 the usage of coal declines from about 45 percent to about 25 percent and the emissions reductions do start to accelerate in that time period because of a retiring coal and adding renewables replacing them with renewables and finally this is a slide that we looked at at our October study session this shows exactly what Excel and all the customers are looking at in terms of fossil fuel retirements in order to achieve the 2030 and the 2050 goal the the yellow bars represent national natural gas capacity and the I guess they're navy or blue or black on this slide are coal so for purposes for your takeaway right now I think for 2030

[191:01] it's very likely that there are three coal plants that would need to be retired early in order to achieve the the 2030 goal and an additional coal plant that would have to be retired about 20 years early to achieve the 2050 goal and then separately for the 2050 go about 600 megawatts of natural gas a very very large natural gas plant in order to achieve the goal using technology as we know today if there are advancements that may change but this is kind of the state of play for excels fossil generation today a couple questions first so in order to achieve the 2030 go they would have to move ponies' closure up in my opinion yeah so that's 11 years early and presumably the deals that would get made to do that or the same kind of deals that have been made with clean air clean jobs and others which is they will continue to be

[192:01] paid as if those plants were generating electricity for 10 years even when they are not is that correct I think so I think that's right that's one option that was enabled in Senate bill 19 2 3 6 I think the securitization of and our Hayden 1 Hayden - and Craig - are those in the ERP to be closed in this current ERP are those intended to be closed no those are units those are the scheduled retirement dates that you can see on the bottom there so Hayden won it in 2038 - in 2036 Craig - 20 39 so I think based on the clean energy plan it's required in the in the Senate legislation that was passed there will be a plan I think that would be laid out or we could expect that that may not be the case but I think that those are the best options in order to to get to that 2030 goal and I thought you said something about some gas needing to be

[193:00] retired as well as that day at the 2050 goal the 2050 goal you can see there's about 600 megawatts of gas capacity that is currently scheduled for retirement in 2050 5 which is after 2050 and so if they were gonna hit the hundred percent they would have to retire that as well okay and I guess the the last question I have is we know that they will Excel will still be 45% fossil generation in 2027 2026 they say but starting in 2027 and so how do you predict that they will get to 80% sorry is that right 80% emissions reduction by 2030 what will be the closures that will have to happen in three years I mean I think it's these these plants that you see that are highlighted right here those coal plants for example do we have any kind of way

[194:02] of guaranteeing it that will happen and that timeframe I think the legislation probably speaks to that - best I don't know that I don't know what their parameters are around that that's a good question okay so that's just to know that it's hard to know exactly where Excel will be in 2030 we know where they are committed to in 2027 by the time resource planning process is over at the PUC that would be essentially a matter of law you know they've agreed and and the PUC is signed off on and it's good to go but the stuff that's going to happen later if they if they file their clean energy plan will the clean energy plan speak to that do you think that's the intent of the clean energy plan to map that pathway to 2030 and then more broadly to 2015 and they've requested a year's delay and putting that together yes I don't know what the timeline is for the ruling but if they're gonna file by February it would have to be very

[195:02] soon okay thank you I would anticipate a one-year delay thank you one last question question do we have any legal right to object to that year or delay like can we can we enter an opinion whatever body that's before intervene and my question is actually a little bit similar if they get up to twenty twenty nine or twenty forty six and things are difficult for them is there any sort of waiver procedure on the basis of financial hardship and they extend those times well I'm getting towards what's the enforceability of these requirements so as they move through the rulemaking at the PC that is where those type of

[196:05] requirements and consequences would be defined and also just sad that it's there are some rate caps on how much they can raise rates to meet these in the legislation so it's an interesting thing with financial hardship because they're regulated monopolies they can go for to raise the rates essentially but they can't exceed those rate caps so I think though that'll come out in the rulemaking so I will qualify everything we've said related to retirements and all of this as we are not directly in touch we don't have insider information this is simply our estimation of a of an approach that could be taken so basically we're giving it our best on the show doing running other questions now yeah I just want to highlight our

[197:00] next steps which you all know that or you know we'll continue to work with Excel to determine our path forward regarding substations were in the process of that negotiated acquisition right now and moving forward through that portion of the process we are finding or moving forward with resolving the litigation related to excels attorneys fees we've completing our separation design engineering and are currently participating in excels rate case and we'll be participating in their next electric resource plan so that plan that will establish the retirements and how they move forward will be an active intervener in that case of course we will continue to update our financial analysis in order to evaluate the

[198:02] viability of moving forward with this as noted we want to return to counsel with analysis on potential funding sources and also to have our conversation on should we and updated communication and engagement plan that'll stretch us now into 2021 and I'm starting to lose my voice okay very good there's our questions so do we have questions for staff Jimmy thank you for this presentation and I've met with you Steve I just have a few questions around community engagement and I wanted to know what is the impact municipal ization on the different communities have you researched that and also looking at energy energy pool areas and what would be the impact of the muni on these areas so yeah certainly as we

[199:05] look at programs and that a municipal utility can undertake in support of communities that typically don't have opportunity there's a lot we could do from solar access programs currently even now today with our climate initiatives team we're working on several things with older housing partners you may want to address the solar garden sure so we we have a current solar garden that we're supporting through Boulder housing partners to help with some of their residents as well as we were using some other energy impact offset fund money which is the money that we collect from the cannabis growers to offset their energy use to build a solar garden where we're going to subscribe the residents of Ponderosa park that the city just

[200:00] purchased so there's things like that that we're doing today in motion and I'll just say that what we've as we design programs going forward for the utility we've committed to having at least the level of service that's there today so there is low-income energy assistance programs that Excel funds through the state so that's a bare minimum but I think as a local utility with local decision-making we would have the power to do more or do something differently to serve some of these areas that might be underserved right now so that's okay can I follow on just due to that exact question and say could you describe the just transition work and the work with the Institute at the University good evening my name is Sarah Huntley I'm the Engagement Manager for the city and I think I've had the most recent conversations with our friends over at the just transition collaborative so the

[201:01] just transition collaborative is a group of individuals who work with the University of Colorado who have been committed to equity in our community for quite a long time and surfaced with the city around the time that we were talking about the initial climate commitment and they talked about the goals that we had in the climate commitment all being really good goals in terms of carbon emissions but they wanted to start a conversation with the city about the how so the what in the substance of what we were trying to do was important but so was the how are we gonna go about and how are we going to ensure that any transitions we make in terms of our energy supply or other ways we address climate action issues that they're done in a way that do not harm individuals and in fact try to further individuals experiences and don't don't create to a larger gap between the haves and have-nots so you know currently some

[202:00] of the technology that has come out that people can take advantage of to be able to make more of a climate impact tends to also be very expensive although we're seeing some of that decline but so there's been a gap in terms of who can afford the opportunities there's also historically been much more of a significant impact on lower-income communities in the way we currently generate and deliver energy so they really wanted to focus the conversation around that so we've been some conversations with them over the last couple of years and as we've been talking about the climate mobilization plan we have been really talking about how to not just have that be in addition to the plan right because right now it's a it's a little chapter index in the climate commitment but have equity and adjust transition be a part of the entire planning process so how do we go out to communities that are most likely to be impacted by climate change and least likely to participate in our current planning processes to make them more accessible and we've been conducting we've been actually going

[203:01] through a shared learning experience some members from the JCC the county the city of Boulder in the city of Longmont we've been working with consultants who have really done this community driven climate planning and we will continue continue that learning process through January and then scope out what community engagement looks like in partnership with JCC and other allies and partners in the community to really make equity be at the forefront I just wanted to follow up with you talking about closing the infrastructure gap and I wanted to know has that been taken into account or current budget when you talk about curve yes certainly the work we're doing with the climate mobilization action plan yes and actually we received a county grant also

[204:00] to facilitate some of those costs as far as the bigger electric utility budget as well it is part of the long-range planning work that we've tried to identify Mary so I have a question that's kind of related and it came up I started thinking about this recently because we were told that we're gonna need a new furnace so I started thinking about how okay so if we want to electrify our home infrastructure is gas so we're surely not the only people in this situation and to convert into to electrify the house and get a heat pump and get solar and all of this is quite the challenge and and probably

[205:03] inaccessible to people outside of older housing partners sites and what's I mean we have the goal of getting to 100% renewable electricity by 2030 but there is a challenge of changing the infrastructure in probably thousands of households to be able to carry that out so how does that work into the plan I'm gonna get a little bit visionary as we look towards the future and the scale of our challenge of really addressing this and ensuring also that it's replicable and not just something we do in Boulder but something that can be repeated so as we are moving through the CMAP process certainly part of the discussions we've had is opportunities for partnership

[206:02] because it is a valid question and model that I've actually worked on in the past is you know how do we facilitate something that can be very very expensive especially if you're looking at an older home that's just inadequate for an electric conversion and it really you know as we look to the future it comes down to helping to identify what those potential business models are and working with potential partners or having potential partners develop those type of models that can facilitate that change and one of the questions when I when I've worked on this question previously is why do you own a furnace you know why do I own a furnace what do I know about owning a furnace and taking care of it and what happens when I replace it so are there business models where it's

[207:01] more of a lease model and somebody is replacing it and taking care of it and again gives you the opportunity to change over to something different like electric heat pumps or some to whatever the technology is that's coming forward and that's part of the purpose of the see map process is really to capture a much broader group of individuals to participate in this you know our standard model has always been the city is at the core of these programs and we facilitate programs or else we subsidize and we try and spur on some activity what we're hoping to achieve with this much larger much broader CMAP process is really that participation from outside the city doesn't have to be the lead necessarily in a lot of these activities we need to help facilitate and help

[208:02] identify those opportunities in order to make big change because it is not the ones and two houses that we need to do it's actually most of our housing stock and so the the question that it really raised in my mind then is so we if we get to being the ability to buy a hundred percent renewable by 2030 do we have the capacity to use 100% renewable you know as as a community because there's this infrastructure challenge so it seems to what you just described as that plan has to run in parallel so that we get there at the same time can I just comment on that even if we still have we're shooting by 2030 for a hundred

[209:00] percent renewable electricity and the the fact that we're not shooting for a hundred percent emissions reduction by 2030 is an acknowledgement of the fact that there will still be gas furnaces running there will still be industrial natural gas being burned for various processes so I think you know we have to split apart the emissions targets a little bit from the hundred percent renewables because if we get two hundred percent renewables and people keep transitioning to electric appliances we'll have to grow our power supply right right but we still have to get I mean if we're going to transition the transportation and the natural wealth we're talking about the natural gas right now so we're talking about the green slice of the pie it still requires that infrastructure changed to get the emissions reductions to get the emissions reduction and that's ultimately really what we want is the emissions reduction that's that's

[210:01] where the rubber meets the road or where the solar power meets the roof or whatever and so I guess I just want it to be part of the conversation as you know part of the the challenge the conversation as we move forward to the vote part of the conversation that this is a tremendous challenge and and we at the minimum have to be aware of it so that's that's my main point about this question is we need to we all need to be on the same page of our understanding and you know as we look at the path of municipal ization in the vote in our see map process as well they are aligning together so that it is and we're integrating see map into our

[211:00] conversations with the community as well Rachel thanks so looking at the first question does counsel have any questions about the timing of the goat no go vote you had a slide a couple I don't know half hour ago that was talking about suckled second level of concerns we had the first level concerns that were sort of financial and engineering and legal and then the second was should we be pursuing muni and I guess I'm wondering is that a question that is appropriate for 2020 especially in light of the fact that we have heard from some people testifying that they were going to do a a citizen led initiative ballot measure so is that something worth considering do we want to have our own that is on the second level concern are you asking about a ballot measure or yeah it's ahead of the go/no-go but it's related to a go/no-go vote if the community doesn't want the should we if

[212:01] the answer to should we be pursuing muni is no that seems like we could ask that this year I don't know what it costs us or if it's worthwhile but since we do have those two different concerns or levels I wanted to bring it up we will have a study session in May where council will get to discuss what ballot measures you want to consider for the November ballot that's one of the reasons we wanted to have the conversation in April about the more detailed budgets you could that conversation could be informed if you decide to go that way also if there's a citizen ballot measure we should have a pretty good idea about whether it's going to it's it's viable by that time so those are all discussions they're good questions that you can have in that later timeframe in April May so just a point that I want to make about study session April May one of my questions is what additional bills will it be in this session that would

[213:00] continue to move the collective into into a different energy situation and and I guess by that point in April May we would know what those might be and and what has passed and yep might be able to tell you what what is getting legs right now and if you like I can have him get that information out yeah that would be great if he could just post it on hotline or something so we all know I just wonder if we might move through these snow sure so any questions or direction about going now bill I think we've asked our questions thank you for a very good presentation I mean does seem like 2021 is the year for the vote that we want to present the voters with as much information as possible

[214:01] so let's keep working it getting all the numbers and working on all the details and go to the voters in 2021 yes well I agree with that I mean it's been obvious to me for a long time that 2020 was getting further and further away so this is just acknowledging kind of where we are and you know our charge is given by the voters in the last election 2017 was give us the numbers so we can make an informed decision and I think that's what we need to keep going for okay that's number one number two questions or direction about the variables that inform the financial feasibility of operating and electric utility ESL campuses feedback but I think it's times like these is it's important to remember that in the financial structures that we

[215:00] deal with it's a lot cheaper for a corporation to cheat like Volkswagen did fire CEO pay a fine and then never actually accomplish anything so in my mind it's important that you know when we balance these decisions keep in mind that if you're ultimately dealing with shareholders you may not try to reach the targets you're trying to get to when you say you will and we have decades and decades and decades of proof of that so that's why I think we should always continue on this path because you ultimately don't know what you're gonna get when you trust shareholder led company first emails I mean I think the financial forecasting tool is in quite good shape and that to me is where anyone who does have questions about variables and their

[216:01] impacts on the output should go play with it for half an hour or an hour because it's really fascinating it's thorough there is zero dollars for stranded assets which is one possible future but you can also put in any that you think we might end up with or a community members suggest but that the tool itself is just a fancy calculator and that when you change the inputs it tells you rates it tells you average rates anyway and it also tells you you know will it save the community money over the next 10 or 20 years depending on how you want to look or will it cost the community money to make this so I think for number two I think we're in good shape there and I did want to offer we're always happy to sit down with folks certainly Council but also members of the public and go through the model on a one by one or group basis we've done that several times we don't

[217:01] remember we're getting back together again was it Marjorie or probably lost the plot here I guess sounds like we have a April whatever we get back together it would be helpful if you could I know there's like a whole bunch of assumptions that go into the stranding cost calculation some of which you know outside of our knowledge or outside of our control but you'll be helpful for you guys just give some ranges you know worst-case best-case high low medium whatever it is just so we can have an idea are we are we talking the difference between zero and ten million dollars are we talking we didn't zero one hundred million dollars cuz I mean I just like to get an order of magnitude and you'll have to make a whole bunch of assumptions I get that and the worst case one maybe just like crazy worst case but I just just be helpful to have some sort of range because I just I don't have any kind in zero and I know we can make it zero I don't have any conception of what the like mid case not an high case or even you know I don't even know how many zeros are we had in that number yeah we certainly can do that Thanks I mean the 2018 December 2018 presentation had some

[218:03] of that information in it right if you had at least how it was calculated and what it means and so it might not be a bad idea to bring that to council as well and April timeframe we have some new council members and walk through how stranded assets are calculate I just wanted to just how they're calculated but what didn't actually do the math for us I also just wanted to add that for simplicity's sake in the tool today we we just added like basically a line item that shows it as an initial debt issue the reality is is we would likely pay something over time through transmission costs so that's a next step for us on improving this model is model it's a little more complicated but modeling it in so that it is more would reflect the reality of how we would pay that oh I'm not sure this is the right number for this but just getting back to that Excel asking for an extension to give their plan for 2030 if I understood that correctly I think it would be helpful for us to push back or Way and against

[219:02] that if possible if we need to intervene or something so if that's if I may request that we find out if that's possible and get an update or a hotline message about that and then I don't know if it would need a not a five to say yes intervene or push back I don't know how that works but I think it would be helpful for us and for our voters to know what that looks like for 2030 and waiting a year would be unfortunate Oh Tom for direction on PUC work or 2w trying to say something absolutely caylor's up here you see lower Debra Kalish senior counsel with the City Attorney's Office we can certainly do that we'll take a look and I'm not aware that it was actually filed with the Commission but we'll take a look at the format of how it was filed and whether intervening or offering public comments at least as possible

[220:00] mm-hmm so question three what counsel like to have conversation to address whether recent changes in the Xcel's business practices and Colorado state law impact the value-added municipal ization if so what comes like you had this discussion concurrent to future budget discussions which I think means in the April time frame and what information would council like staff to provide in the future to visit it facilitate the conversation and yeah I think it's a helpful part of the conversation of the what we're working on is pinning down the cost right that's we're working than that but the go no-go will partly be a cost-benefit calculation and so quantifying what the benefits are a little bit more thoroughly I think would be very helpful but with Adams point in mind that's not just about promises right it's about certainty levels right so the the state law stuff is probably reasonably certain although the state legislature could change that excels

[221:00] commitments are a data point but they're a little less certain right so anyway analysis about the the Delta between what municipal ization gets us and what the likely other outcomes are would be helpful for I think us and the community to evaluate next steps very so in that in the memo you have some questions which I think are good questions to be part of the the conversation that conversation and in addition I have a couple more how does local power compare with other options in its ability to a serve the most people and be do so in an equitable manner so that's that's another question and then another question would be how our workers affected the linemen and the the crews that you mentioned earlier and how do the options affect their jobs both current and future so there's just with respect to we were talking about

[222:02] the gestern transition which is the the users of energy as one part of the equation and the provider is the workers themselves are another part of the equation anyone else one question three so I do very much want to track this I think this is really important I need Matt you did a nice job of showing you know the difference between excels 2030 goals and our 2030 goals and what that means for emissions so I don't think we cannot do this I do want to point out this is a typical Muni conversation where we focus on cost and we talked a lot about emissions reduction but there are two other values which are really important here which is democratized and these centralize and so the democratized part is the one that I really think people under value and the reason why is people

[223:00] don't know what it could mean or why we care I'll give you an example of why I think we care as a city a lot because distribution system planning is going to be a big part of a resilient future and the face of climate change and what that means practically is burying the distribution lines one so that's just the most straightforward things so the tree branches don't take them down but it means micro grids it means the ability for neighborhoods to island themselves from the grid and provide their own power so there was a do-e study that older was part of and I'll look to staff to see if you could tell us what conclusions that came to or not but we'll come back to that in just a second the ability for our community to tell us what they would like from their grid the access they want to it the features that they want from it and our ability to represent that and make it real is something we do not have currently it is an absolute

[224:02] impossibility when I was setting up the settlement agreement that we looked at in April of 2018 I along with other people sat and talked with the Xcel leadership the PSK leadership in Colorado for many months and one of the things I asked over and over again is is there any way that the city staff can be part of your distribution planning in Boulder like can we see what the maintenance program is can we see where the congestion points are that stop us from putting solar on our roofs is there any way that we can have any part in that even just reviewing it and giving you comments and the answer was no it was not a soft no it was a hard no and so this whole democratized piece is about the grid of the future and how can Boulder be part of that for Collinses they have these great interconnections with Fort Collins University and the

[225:00] power generation that goes on there I won't go about this issue but there's a safety component to this as well and the safety component is what we've seen happen in California and it's not as much of a risk for us the fire that comes from poorly maintained infrastructure but it is a risk for us and it's a big risk for towns like Netherland because to the extent that shareholder led utilities have typically worse maintenance programs and lower quality distribution infrastructure and munities typically have better it's because the immunities have to be accountable to the voters and the reason PG&E is going bankrupt and the California PUC is debating what their governance structure will be in the future it's not clear it will be an investor owned utility in the future there's the possibility of privatizing it for some of these reasons so I would just point out that democratised has two

[226:00] parts to it resilience and safety and so that's why I think we need to get the numbers so that we can present the costs and the benefits but the benefits go beyond emissions reduction and I just want to keep that part of the conversation okay when you said that in California they're looking to make the investor owned utility private or public public I'm sorry okay yeah I said privatized I apologize I was incorrect they're looking to go the other direction with it nationalize it yeah I've got more about that at Kentucky anyone individually offline at the California situation it's really fascinating you want us any more comments Thank You staff much appreciated good presentation thank you everyone any other issues all right

[227:00] we're done I missed this time 15 minutes [Music] - parasol felt like that