December 17, 2019 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:01] [Music] I'd like to call to order the December 17 2019 meeting of the Boulder City Council um as usual um we've closed signups for open comment um and as also usual um during open comment you can speak to us about anything that's on your mind except for one of our public hearings that will come later in the evening so our public hearings tonight are the acquisition of Shanahan Ranch by osmp um a commitment a resolution committing the council to racial Equity work um a landmark designation of 2326 gos Street and then an update Transportation design standards first

[1:00] phase so with all that said thank you I'll take roll council member Brocket present friend here Joseph present Nagel here stick here wallik here Weaver here Yates here young present we have a quorum thank you I was supposed to do that earlier but I'll get better at this um I would like to propose that we add one item to the agenda this evening which is hearing um from representative Joe nus he's taped a message for us and Jill gr will be presenting that so moved second all in favor okay very good and with that okay great thank you so much um first of all I just want to pass on congratulations to all the new members from Congressman nus he's thrilled about all of you and hello to all the rest of you all my former col colleagues it's great to see

[2:00] you and we just want to say happy holidays and thank you so much for your work and Congressman nus wishes he could have been here tonight but he's in DC and uh filmed a little video for you guys to give a quick update hello there it's your Congressman Joe nus and I apologize that I couldn't be with you tonight in person I want to say thank you for stepping up to serve our community and I look forward to partnering with you as we continue to work to make our communities healthier safer and a better place to live I wanted to give you an update from my office it's been a busy year this year we've been proud to introduce 22 pieces of legislation the most of any freshman lawmaker in the country and all of which came directly from our local leaders across the second district including many of you working directly with our city council members our County Commissioners our local housing authorities and higher education institutions we've been able to propose some significant legislation that will tangibly and directly impact our

[3:02] communities for the better we continue to want to hear from you so we can be the best partner at the federal level in government and I hope you'll reach out to Jill Grano our director of Community Affairs to that end together we've passed the Colorado outdoor recreation and economy act out of the United States House of Representatives which was the first major Colorado Wilderness legislation to pass the house in the last decade the legislation was crafted by color radens over the last decade and represents the collaboration of communities across our state including in Summit and Eagle counties in order to preserve 400,000 Acres of public lands I was honored to lead this legislation in the house written by our communities to protect the lands we love and designate the first ever National Historic landscape at Camp Hale through partnership with our local communities we've introduced legislation to expand affordable housing opportunities and lower the cost of higher education through open education resources and making the train transfer process easier

[4:01] we've also introduced legislation to lower the cost of Health Care ensure helicopter safety and combat the climate crisis through investments in solar energy and regenerative agriculture we're also working to install the first ever outdoor Monument to honor the women's suffrage movement in Washington DC the monument is crafted by an incredible sculptor in Loveland Colorado a beautiful part of our congressional district we also were able to highight Colorado by hosting the first and only field hearing from the select committee on the climate crisis just a few months ago right here in our district and I'm so grateful to the many Municipal and uh governmental Partners uh that made that happen we've advocated for increased Federal funding for our federal Labs our National Park Service and the National Science Foundation as well as full funding for the individuals with disabilities and Education Act something that so many school board members across our district have made clear to me is a a top priority I'm incredibly grateful

[5:02] for the input of our communities and the input of our council members over the last year to help me represent our community as well our office is equipped to connect our cities and towns to federal agencies and to write letters of support for Grants we've already been successful in a few large grants for towns across the district including a grant for Grand County's lift system and Breen ridges energy efficient buses and we hope that you'll utilize Us in future requests in in this regard we're ready to hear from you on policy proposals that will help our neighbors and hopeful we will continue to find ways to partner together in the new year I also just want to say that your work is incredibly important and I am so grateful for each and every one of you as public servants it is such a joy to serve with you and I look forward to working with you in all the year to come thank you again for your service to Colorado great thank you Council and I just want

[6:00] to Echo what Congressman Neo said that everything that we've brought to the house of representativ this year has come directly from the district we worked in fact with Boulder's Housing Authority um who who let us know about a a loophole where you can sort of get out of affordable housing after 15 years when it's meant to be preserved for 30 and so we brought forward a bill into the house um to to close that loophole uh mayor Weaver has worked with us on many of our environmental bills so please as 2020 approaches and as we have a new Council think of our office if there's anything that you want to see happen at the federal level or if there's anything that we can do to support the community we love you guys thanks so much thank you Jill for being here and thanks to Congressman Theus for the kind words and all his hard work thank you yes and this week especially with the solemn work that's going on in Washington right now yes indeed okay and with that I think we'll begin open comment how many people do we have signed up lyette we have 12 people 12

[7:01] and so I believe with 12 people do we do three minutes usually it's always two at open comment okay James feny followed by Leslie glustrom and Elizabeth black I'm James feny from North Boulder two weeks ago I came before this Council to ask you to explain to me why the city's dark sky ordinance is still not being enforced for residential Outdoor Lighting in my neighborhood at that time City Council remain silent and chose not to respond however city council might choose to respond tonight we can at least set the public record so I ask again please explain to me why the city's dark sky ordinance is still not being enforced for residential Outdoor Lighting in my neighborhood trying to make sense of all this I have to wonder about the city's form of government and to put this in perspective suppose that we were discussing a national government suppose that we had a national government which every legislative deliberation was mediated by by the chief executive where in fact every

[8:01] piece of legislation was written by the chief executive and where the legislature never even wrote its own bills and then suppose that the chief executive was not even an elected officer more than that suppose that this unelected chief executive was chief executive for life and for nuance suppose that this unelected chief executive for life was ever shadowed by an unelected Chief prosecutor for Life who never chose to prosecute the police no matter what the actions these police might take against the people or might fail to take in support of the people where do we see these unelected rulers for life and their po police how do we feel about National governments like this looking around at World governments we might agree this form of government was intolerable and it been embodied the very definition of a corrupt dictatorship and then why do we consider that this is an acceptable form of government in the city of Boulder and why do we presume that we will get get some different

[9:00] result City councils will come and go but the chief executive and chief prosecutors stay on and on and while our older City Council Members might support this unelected ruler for life form of government I Look to our younger council members for Hope and the possibility of Reform thank you James Leslie then Elizabeth black followed by Patrick Murphy good evening Council LESA glustrom uh I live in Boulder and uh really appreciate this opportunity wish you all great holiday hope you get a bit of rest so as many of you know I come down just to thank you for caring about climate change I know you all do but you get to have so many things on your agenda so I just really am here because I believe it's the divining issue of our times this is just the most recent story from Hawaii what's going on over in Hawaii and the coral reefs uh when we look at

[10:01] our contribution to it about half of our greenhouse gas emissions come from electricity so I focus a lot on electricity because I am passionate about this defining issue of our times um many of you know that XL is making progress but there's still way over 50% fossil fuels 2018 it was 73% that'll come down some in 2019 which I'm excited about but there'll still be well 60 odds something we'll find out in another month or two my slides all have the the source of the information at the bottom um and many of you know that I'm here to kind of provide some context for the discussions about municipalization we refer to this as little blue bars and big red bars little blue bars are the amount of money we've spent since 2018 on the municipalization effort the big red bars are the revenue very conservatively estimated that go out of our community every year to excel so I've brought a little coin I just as we go forward as we get closer to what we

[11:02] call the go noo vote I think it's going to be very important to look at both sides of the coin it's pretty easy to find the data because actually the city is relatively transparent certainly compared to excel the data about the little blue bars it's very difficult to find the data about the big red bars many of you know I've spent 15 years drilling down into the data on the big red bars so this is a series of rate increases that EXL has gotten in Colorado and you can see it's over a half billion a year we're going to have another one to put up the next time I see you so again doing it in two minute segments is hard but I'll be back so thank you so much thank you Leslie um Elizabeth black followed by Patrick Murphy and Sammy Lawrence Elizabeth black 4340 North 13th Street last month I described the citizen science soil Health Project where 40 Growers collected 96 soil

[12:01] samples today I'll tell you about our preliminary findings first there's a huge range of soil Health scores across Boulder County from a low of three to a high of 36 scores over 18 are rare in Colorado so we should be quite proud of our high scorers this hopeful graph shows what's possible in our area we can get good soil Health scores and sequester more carbon here there's lots of upside potential for some of our lower scoring Fields how about organic versus conventional growing methods how many folks here believe that organic Growers have better soil Health than conventional Growers well that is not what we found I divided our 96 sites into three groups organic conventional and non-farm organic sites the yellow bars on the graph use only organically certified compost manure fertiliz fer and pesticides conventional sites the

[13:02] red bars use all kinds of compost manure fertilizer and pesticides non-farm sites the green bars are what are where no crop is grown like uncultivated abandoned EG Fields forests or grasslands you can see that the graph has no real clear pattern it's sort of a mish mash but when I look at median scores there's a surprise our organic and conventional Growers have the same median soil Health score of 13.6 so organic methods are not any better than conventional methods in terms of soil Health however the non-farm group beat them both with a median score of 21 stay tuned for our next exciting installment of soil Health 101 to find out why the nonfarm group is doing so much better thank you thank you Elizabeth um Patrick Murphy and Sammy Lawrence followed by

[14:09] seal you skip the slide do I back up there we go my name is Patrick Murphy I live in Boulder it's 2019 but 2020 is about to begin for the mun and hopefully end it mun losses increase by one more year and millions of dollars here are the 24 articles of the mun naughty list these 24 items are called articles in honor of impeachment week mun naughty list article one separation costs that were originally estimated to be $10 million are now around $110 million this is the definition of a one order of magnitude estimation error 10 times underestimated

[15:00] a 1,000% error the reasons for this will be presented as parts of article 10 in article 17 article two the mun schedule was supposed to be completed in 2017 but will extend to 20124 just to begin and may extend to 2029 just to pay stranded cost while ex Excel will be at 80% Renewables by 2030 instead of am mun that was up and running after 7 years it'll take at least 14 years this is an underestimate with a doubling of the time we were promised a 100% error article three rejecting the 2016 conversion of all street lights to LEDs for reasons including slightly increased acquisition costs when all the towns around us have already accepted them LED street lights would save us money and reduce carbon we're 3 years behind our neighbors we're not leaders were losers

[16:00] this Begins the articles of the mun nauy list only 21 articles to go articles 4 through 24 will follow the planet Burns floods and dies while Boulder fiddles thank you Patrick uh next we have Sammy Lawrence ly seagull followed by Corey hog testing one two perfect greeting ings new city council members and new city council I wanted to first start off by saying congratulations as some of you know or may not know my name is Sammy Leon Lawrence IV not the first second nor third and I would like to also take a moment of time to provide an interesting story of humility um when I was 5 years old I had made a racist comment in front of my my mother and it's very weird for

[17:01] me to specifically say this in front of you Mary young as a person who is of age and descent um when I was younger I had made the mistake of speaking to Asian drivers not driving fast enough I had heard this before in pasted from my stepmother and one of the most interesting things about me saying this specifically is that after echoing it to my mother she chastised me immediately commented on how I was wrong and why I was wrong and took time to not only address the wrongs of what I said but likewise as well to speed a little faster to show that I was actually very wrong this moment when I was 6 years old impacted me to where I eventually went to a Myanmar internment camp in Reno to watch the results of how how we treated Japanese and

[18:00] asian-americans in this city in this state or in this country rather my bad and I share this with you because this moment of humility impacted me to being a part of who I am now and I would hope and pray that we as a community are able to remember times when we were young and wrong and were able to grow and learn especially when we were willing to be able to learn thank you very much thank you Sammy Sammy thanks for that I'm Mexican-American my apologies my apologies for that and see that is racism and if I can say one more before the time frame there are sometimes when we can make wrong mistakes and have the good intention behind it owning that accountability when you're wrong and apologizing and moving forward is important thank you Sammy thank you um ly seagull Corey hog and Evan ravitz

[19:01] I went uh ly seagull 538 Dewey I went on the affordable housing tour um and up at the bus stop it used to be the strip club it's now a housing area and Michael bosma who's doing 311 actually um was working with another guy in that project um they have solar but they have electric stoves and when I say electric I mean not magnetic induction um so it looks good it's kind of greenwash though and I found another um place on the tour it was very much of a rush deal so you didn't really get to see uh a lot of the detail that you would need to about the Energy Efficiency of the place but if you're talking about diversity and inclusion and all um and making actually uh the bus stop includes your electricity bill and your rent which is

[20:00] kind of interesting because if you're comparing apples and oranges you know to places that are that are not covering your utilities it gets confusing but um those are things to think about when um when we're trying to elevate minorities and um and people with lower incomes in how in affordable housing um in in uh Hong Kong this is um where you live 60 square feet three bunk beds 6X 10 foot room it probably has a high ceiling to get three bunk beds on it but um there's your beds your kitchen your you know like a cook top thing and um like a dining table storage is up high and God forbid how many people live there um I just think that we could um kind of come

[21:02] somewhere in between in Boulder thank you ly uh Corey hog Evan rabitz and stepen Keenan please before my time begins can I offer um or not offer can I ask a couple of questions on process no why don't you just launch into it that'd be great launch into it okay so I find that it is extremely detrimental to have a two-minute time frame on these because a lot of times uh information can't be processed in two minutes and information can't even be conveyed in two minutes for almost any subject whatsoever let alone offering the character behind it so um I would ask that this be reviewed by the council to determine a better time frame that allows people the time to actually offer what they're saying and then allow that to be absorbed um I have six pages of information

[22:00] that's being passed around and because I don't have time to go over any amount of it I'll just skip ahead to the the the 5G stuff that's um somewhere in Back Pages um it is my understanding that this Council um determined to undertake studies to learn what the real effects of 5G are um so 5G isn't all that much different than 4G saying that we need to undergo more studies to determine the effects of 5G um doesn't really mean anything there's actually um 30 years 6,000 studies peer-reviewed studies not corporate funded studies that say that 4G and microwaves and cell phones because it all runs on the microwave um extremely low frequency band that chronically they cause 90% of the disease that we see today is what the the um uh uh uh CDC says 90% of all disease CDC

[23:03] says comes from microwave radiation in the form that's produced through um Wi-Fi baby monitors um everything cell phone towers so um I don't have any time to actually go into this but we don't need to have more studies all we need to do is review the thousands of studies that already exist saying that it causes cancer and I know that this Council doesn't actually have the authority to say no 5G in the future but um taking a stand to say that the city is not going to implement 5G is actually taking a stand for the lives of the people that are here saying that we're not going to allow our our people to have thank you Corey um now we have Evan rabbits Steven Keenan and Ali Katherine wild Evan rabbitz North Boulder I agree with what what Corey said about the two-minute time limit I've seen many lawyers struggle to make their point in that time here one of my faite favorite sayings is attributed to Eleanor

[24:00] Roosevelt great minds discuss ideas average Minds discuss events small minds discuss people this is the main reason I've been promoting direct democracy for 30 years I want a politics of ideas not a cult of personalities but what has preoccupied this chamber and our local media for a month now council member mirabi Nagel's mistake under understandable for a young woman who grew up in Lily white Boulder the fact that we swim in White Privilege can be invisible like water to a fish meanwhile not a peep from any of the media except kgnu about Boulder's world's first online petition for direct democracy which was approved by voters 71 to 29% in 2018 and which has been obstructed in the delayed by City staff who tried to keep it off the ballot tried to

[25:01] substitute an inferior system Denver has and who rejected a free system just what we wanted from a national nonprofit in favor of an absurdly Overkill system which will cost over $200,000 this is the same city staff that went behind council's back to get the opp opportunity Zone which is free money for rich people to gentrify Boulder now they go behind council's back to waste over $200,000 of our tax money and after 13 months not one line of software has been written I want to be able to propose and vote on laws without the brain damage of running for councel or begging here for Mercy for decades thank you thank you Evan Steven Keenan Ali Katherine wild and then Rob smoke

[26:00] good evening Council congratulations on the new council members um I think that uh if the uh vote for the if the people are going to be voting in 2021 about extending the uh acquisition of the Excel assets um I think it might be good for the city to encourage a group called the Breakthrough energy movement to have their meeting in 2021 here in Boulder they started off in Amsterdam in 2012 they had a meeting in Boulder we had an event here in Boulder in 2013 took a few years off had a meeting in Texas just had our fourth meeting in back in Amsterdam a few weeks ago uh it's Global so it's the Breakthrough energy movement and I'm talking about cold fusion and I I think that we should stretch the limits with our discussions

[27:00] with um Excel because this new technology that we have you know this is a DARPA invented technology and just as they invented the internet in what 1969 is when arpanet was um invented with the defense Advanced research project we didn't see the internet till decades later we've demonstrated this new technology and bringing it into the marketplace you're talking about disrupting a lot of people oil and gas and coal will go obsolete Boulder has an obligation that if we think that we're going to be in the Forefront of Renewables we have to look into this breakthrough energy movement group please and invite them to have their next meeting here around the time of the vote so it's Global bem all one word Global breakthrough energy move movement Global be.com thank you very much thank you

[28:02] next we have Ali Katherine wild then Rob smoke and Sandra Jones howdy I'm glad to see everyone again and I'm pleased to be part of the group who gets to address the city council um first thank you so I've been afraid because of my housing I have BHP housing I live at third and PE and I'm sorry but every time I come here I have this angst and anger that I wish to express but you know of course it's joy that carries the today so um I live at third and pearl the thing that I want to bring attention to is how Boulder housing Partners handles compliance now Boulder housing um is under more rules than HUD but HUD dominates the place where I live and um so I learned a lot about the rules last year because we had a meth house in our neighborhood and ultimately the resident was evicted without representation and with pressure from BHP so you know I

[29:00] thought that was difficult so here's what Boulder housing Partners uses as evidence for eviction they use police reports but we know that police reports don't prove anything they can be good depending on the uh talent and precision of the police officer but they don't prove anything and those are the things that are used to evict people another thing they use which is something that I have difficulty is with is something called a demand for compliance or possession letter and those are written by Boulder housing Partners um employees and as a resident if a false claim is made a resident may not address Boulder housing partners and so there's a lack of transparency but those letters of demand for compliance can then be used for eviction I find that to be very difficult so my question is who looked at Boulder housing Partners compliance failures who looks at the impact of the system systemic generated compliance failures who made it possible to use police reports as a means of eviction

[30:01] when police reports do not prove a crime who is gathering data on the Integrity of BHP thank you thank you rob smoke and then Sandra Jones good evening my name is Rob smoke congrats to I live in Boulder congrats to everybody who just uh got elected um I ran for city council twice in 20052 2007 and my my cat was my campaign manager in 2007 and uh I had people coming up to me and Whole Foods like multiple people saying can I just vote for your cat do I have to vote for you anyway I uh you know uh any uh I'm not going to comment on the racial Equity uh issue but in terms of social Equity um I have to give our previous prior councils a big fail uh you're talking about opportunity zones well all you have to do is do uh Google Search

[31:01] opportunity Zone problems and you'll find the Articles from City lab and other places where they've done very careful analysis and it's it's about giving away tax money which is supposed to you know supposed to help all of us to wealthy uh developers so it's dead wrong to do that and it's a horrible uh score for social Equity when you approve opportunity zones uh in terms of policing recently read uh something I think it was on next door our Table Mesa there was a a community policing uh dialogue event and in that uh pitch for that event uh the police wrote If you have a complaint about accountability or something like that uh there's a there's a specific office to call you know um the um what do you call it the uh the review board that this the uh the police department has right now and uh so in other words they going to have a discussion of community policing without

[32:01] accountability you know uh rearing its head at that that discussion group um in terms of uh dealing with homeless issues uh all you have to do is uh look up Boise decision and and realize that yeah uh we accept uh using uh the jail as deao housing under certain under certain circumstances and it's very destructive to do that so thank you Rob just want to say big fail and a lot of work that this Council has to do to make amends on a lot of these issues thank you Sandra Jones good evening council members I'm here from the butterfly Foundation uh you probably haven't heard of it we're at Teensy tiny small profit that small nonprofit that serves the whole state of Colorado and essentially what our goal is is to assist people who've um experienced a tragedy and unexpected illness death Etc and provide them with the means and support to be able to

[33:01] overcome that tragedy um I have a wonderful problem I do have a pool of money from our private donors and we have had a tough time getting really great nominations our website is www.colorado butterfly. org anybody can nominate we make the process really simple I'll interview them and um we can provide that support very quickly um I left C business cards uh with you our uh Council staff and thank you for your time thank you and with that we will close open comment and turn to staff to see if you have any responses to issues that were raised so just a clarification that excuse me the prior council did not approve um the opportunity Zone indeed um I authorize the staff to apply for it and among many other parts of the the state of Colorado the former Governor um nominated us and

[34:01] it was approved by the federal government and we can't get out of it what the former council did is um enact zoning regulations that would limit the negative impacts of it so I just want to be clear that the council did not approve the opportunity Zone um secondly Joan Goose's introduction inspired me to remind all of you something that perhaps you did not know that 2020 is the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment and the state of Colorado was the last state in 1919 to adopt the 19th Amendment and it occurred on December 15th so it's almost 100 years and two days ago that our state approved the 19th Amendment women's suffrage in Colorado I thought you might be interested in that um thank you

[35:00] I have nothing okay um anyone else on Council have any responses to issues we heard about it open comment so I have a few questions for staff that came from it um this just to clarify as far as the energy efficieny codes that affordable housing projects are built to they're built to the same codes and standards as the rest of our building stock right oh yeah yes okay just to clarify um then on LEDs I I just thought staff has done a really nice reply to Mr Murphy and so it's well worth reading I don't know if you want to put that out to other folks to look at it's a very clear explanation of the process and the reason that we were waiting until the color temperature came down so I just wanted to compliment um Carolina for that and to say that that's well worth wider distribution I think um two more quick things I sat down with a T-Mobile person

[36:01] and we have somebody who brought up 5G here and what I learned about 5G is that telecom companies are kind of making it up as they go so the T-Mobile band is the 600 megahertz band which is about 10 times below where um 4G typically operates and they want that for rural areas and then the stuff that we've heard more about is stuff that's about 10 to 15 times higher bandwidth so I would just put out there on the subject of 5G just because a a mobile company calls it that doesn't necessarily mean it's moved closer to ionizing radiation so just an FYI that was news to me and then I guess I have a final comment on Boulder housing Partners Bob I would turn to you as our representative on the BHP board and ask is there a chance for the public to address the board either in writing or in person yes um at every vhp board meeting which is which occurs once a month there is an

[37:01] opportunity for the public to speak to um the board and Al Katherine hasook the board um pretty consistently I think this year almost every meeting and I know that the staff has followed up with Al Catherine on some of the issues that she's raised okay very good that's all I had for open comment okay the next thing is your consent agenda you have items a through J before you tonight and I wanted to bring up the possibility of at CAC it had been mentioned that some council members may want to ask questions or bring up the food tax issue here I don't know if we want to do it now or save it until later Mary well since it's been um coming up I just wanted to say well I posted something on the

[38:00] hotline earlier today asking some questions and just to summarize my conclusion from the answers to my questions is that um what gets refunded is about less than a tenth of the total um revenue from the food tax um no actually it isn't it's way less than that um that the people that are eligible if everybody that was eligible um submitted a a request for a refund it would be a little less than a tenth of the revenue and um I asked questions about the Outreach and what's changing and um and I think that there's a lot of opportunity there for improving the Outreach and um and reaching more people with um applications for the refund um and given that um we have committed in some way that Revenue um through 2038 um my suggestion would be to

[39:02] consider this as part of the budget strategy project okay Aon yeah I I'll just e with that excuse me um then and as part of that budget strategy process in addition to outreach we might consider broadening the criteria of people who are eligible so this is something that we can talk about when we get there Rachel I would do the same and I'm confused as to like if I am a CU student who's 19 uh and does not have a disability and live here 9 months of the year I can't qualify right it requires a full year and you have to be either if you're over 18 you need to be I think a head of a family is so so just like us to look at that as well we have some people in the audience that can answer that question so this is Eden thank you I'm Eden Bailey I work for housing and Human Services and my team

[40:00] administers this program so yes the way the ordinance is written now um in order to qualify you have to be an adult which is 18 with a disability or you have to be an adult 62 and over or a family with children 18 and under 18 that are living with you for the entire year so those have been um the way the ordinance was written those were considered vulnerable populations so so that's the age requirement the eligibility requirement aside from having been a resident for the entire previous calendar year is at 50% or below of the area median income that's set by Hud any other questions nope doesn't look like it okay um anything else on the consent agenda I move the consent agenda second showan right um no roll call roll call

[41:00] vote um we begin with council member wallik hi mayor Weaver hi council member Yates hi young yes Brocket I friend yes Joseph I Nagel I sck yes the motion passes unanimously you have two call up check-ins before you this evening the first is a site and use review for 1852 arapo Avenue does anybody want to call that one up okay your second one is a concept plan review for 2400 and 2450 Central Avenue anyone want to call that up nope I think we're good your first public hearing is the Shanahan Ranch purchase

[42:03] excuse me good evening my name is Luke McKay I'm a Property agent with open space at Mountain parks and for tonight's presentation on the shanan ranch acquisition I'm going to break it down into um two parts I'll begin by talking about what we're trying to acquire which will include a brief overview of the property and uh history of sh Shanahan Ranch followed by a discussion of why we're recommending that we acquire it I'll then wrap up providing some of the details of the purchase and staff's recommended

[43:01] motion so shanan Ranch is approximately 179 Acres located at 10 one9 South Foothills highway it's bordered by the double thumb and Shanahan Ridge neighborhoods to the north and west State Highway 93 to the East and osmp fee and conservation easement lands to the South the property includes one and one quarter shares in South Boulder and Bear Creek ditch one of the most senior and therefore High yielding valuable water rights on South Boulder Creek as well as three ponds the property also has a Severn mineral estate so generally speaking the minerals under the East half of the property are owned by the Colorado state land board while the minerals under the West half of the property are owned by the city and the Shanahan family and I'll provide a little more detail on that in a little bit and lastly the property includes a ranch headquarters consisting of a single family home and five agricultural out buildings and the ranch headquarters is on the map in front of you is outlined

[44:00] by that purple rectangle so shanan Ranch was Homestead in 1863 by the owner's great-grandfather becoming a fixture in the community that has grown around it in 1967 it was identified as a priority for preservation in the city's first ever acquisition plan and has remained a priority for the city ever since in 1985 as part of a larger effort to prevent the development of a golf course and housing complex on Shanahan Ranch and what is now the do blacker and Boulder greens Venture open space properties the city acquired two development rights agreements from the Shanahan family which extinguish nine of the 11 development rights associated with the property at that time the city also acquired from the family one and a half shares in South Boulder and be Creek ditch and their mineral rights except for their oil and gas interests and so although the purchase of the development rights agreements helped prevent the development of the golf course and housing complex they do not fully protect the property from

[45:01] development nor do they fully preserve the property's open space Charter purposes that would be codified by the city a year later in 1986 and so since 1985 the fee acquisition of the property has remained a high priority for the city in 2008 we almost acquired the property and were under contract to do so but had to back out of the purchase due to the rising Global financial crisis and uncertainty over osp's acquisition funding since 2008 the property has been listed for sale several times and we've been in on and off negotiations with with the Shanahan family and so considering that history it's staff's opinion that this is the city's final opportunity to acquire and preserve this property it's often said that the opportunities to acquire and protect land that have been owned by the same family for Generations are often once in a generation and based on our experience it's rare to get a second opportunity with the the same

[46:00] generation so that's some background on Shanahan Ranch and what what we're trying to acquire and I'll spend the rest of my time speaking about why we're recommending that the city acquire it and why it has remained such a high priority for all these years so the primary reason that this acquisition is a high priority is it will enable us to preserve Steward and manage a comprehensive array of Charter purposes and resources not only on Shanahan Ranch but given its size location and the interconnectedness of those purposes and resources we will be able to better preserve better Steward and better manage Charter purposes and resources on surrounding open space as well so for example the property supports native Tall Grass prairie Prairie that's considered imperiled on global and state Levels by the Colorado natural heritage program these grasslands are classified as having very high biodiversity significance and provide important habitat for ground anding song birds rare butterflies and winter habitat from y deer however this acquisition will not only protect the Tall Grass Prairie on Shanahan Ranch but

[47:00] better enable staff to Steward and manage these grasslands on a landscape scale and so the map in front of you shows the Colorado Tallgrass Prairie State Natural Area including its current boundaries and proposed additions based on feedback from the Colorado natural heritage program shanan Ranch is a likely addition to the state Natural Area and give it given its size location and infrastructure it will provide important buffer to these critical grasslands create an opportunity to expand these once extensive plant communities and provide a hub for the agricultural management of this area similarly the ranch's irrigated lower elevation grasslands and ponds provide potential opportunities to manage for important species like northern leopard frogs which were observed on one of the property's ponds and bobel links as part of the dep Department's larger management efforts for protecting these species this acquisition will also permanently preserve a property that's commonly referred to as the gateway to the city and help the city protect the

[48:01] viewshed and scenic areas not only west of State Highway 93 but also from our extensive network of trails and nearby open space in this area the property is one of Boulder County's oldest ranches and is irrigated with one of the most senior water RS on South Boulder Creek with an appropriation date of 1862 but what makes this property especially unique is its size location and existing infrastructure including a residence that the Department's agricultural resource staff envisions serving as a headquarters for a future agricultural operation having a headquarters in this area is key for not only better ensuring continued agricultural use on the property in the future but also continued agricultural use on surrounding open space which includes lands in The Tall Grass Prairie State Natural Area so we also want to highlight that since Shanahan Ranch has been privately owned and the development rights agreements did not Grant to the city rights to provide Public Access there are no planed Trails Trail connections

[49:00] or access points for this property however the property is within the West Trail study area and given the proximity to existing trails and Trail heads and recommendations outlined in the Department's visitor master plan and the West TSA there's the potential to offer passive recreational opportunities on this property in the future and the property will also be evaluated for interpretive educational and Service Learning programs and event ing the outcomes and strategies of the community connections education and inclusion Focus area and osp's recent master plan and So speaking of the master plan how the department will protect Steward and manage the property's charter purposes and resources will be guided by the master plan as well as & P's Resource Management plans including the agricultural resources management plan and the grass line ecosystem management plan so those are the primary Charter purposes and resources we're protecting and the osmp plans that we're advancing

[50:01] accelerating with this acquisition and and one question we've got a lot over the years is you know don't the development rights agreements already protect those purposes and resources and accomplish the city's stewardship and management goals for not only this property but the surrounding area and and the answer to that is you know in staff's opinion is no they do not and here are five reasons why first the property can be subdivided into as many as three parts which would not only impact the viability of future agricultural operations but also fragment the property's unique Flor and fauna fra fragile ecosystems and wildlife habitats secondly the agreements allow for the development of a currently undeveloped residential site and the Redevelopment or re Andor relocation of the existing residents as well as a potentially unlimited amount of agricultural structures which would significantly impact all the property Charter purposes and resources but in particular at scenic areas Vistas and aesthetic values and just for reference the yellow circle on the map in front of you is the

[51:01] location of the UN currently undeveloped uh Residential Building envelope thirdly the water rights are not tied to the property and can be sold off and have acquired for uses other than irrigation would likely dry up the ranch in perpetuity the drying up of the property when it would impact all the property Charter purposes and resources but could also impact the underlying hydrology and the area and by extension Charter purposes and resources on surrounding open space fourthly under the development rights agreements the Shanahan retain their oil and gas rights on the west half of the property which can be developed or leased and finally there's no requirement or obligation in the agreements for the property owner to keep the ranch in agricultural production or managed a particular way and so you know we as a community have been fortunate that the Shanahan family has just demonstrated a land ethic uh you know spanning many decades that's in line with osp's land ethic values and management practices but the development

[52:00] rights agreements do not guarantee that a future owner will share that same ethic and values and keep the property in agriculture so those are the reasons why OSP is recommending this acquisition to recap we're recommending that we acquire the 179 acres of land the impertinent water and mineral rights and the ranch headquarters or to put it another way everything that the city did not acquire through the 1985 development rights agreements uh for $8 million as discussed in the memo the purchase will include a lease back to Lyn Shanahan one of the owners who has lived on and managed the ranch with this Swip Sandy since 1994 and who are here with us tonight to help ensure the UN uninterrupted and ongoing agricultural management of the property and provide some time for osmp to develop a resource assessment and management recommendations and so in closing you know we realize that this is an expensive of acquisition and that we will have spent down most of the carryover funding in our acquisition CIP

[53:00] that has enabled the department Department to make recent and high priority Acquisitions during a period in time when the annual allocation to the AC acquisition CIP budget has been decreasing with that said for the reasons I discussed my presentation osmp and osbt consider this opportunity to acquire Shanah hand Ranch to not only be strategic but of the highest priority and a worthy public investment uh of these acquisition funds and with that I can take any clarifying questions anyone have any questions y Mary then Aaron so thank you for the presentation just um a curious question the um 6.6 million price tag in 2008 did that include water and mineral rights as well it it did yes thank you mhon y thanks as well for the presentation and So speaking of mineral rights so the um we're purchasing the the outstanding mineral rights from the owners right but does that include the

[54:02] mineral rights that are on the Eastern portion of the property that the state land board it did not it does not include the um the mineral rights owned by the state land board um we've verifi verified through our due diligence that there aren't any existing leases um on the East half of the property um but the state is generally resistant to divesting or selling their mineral interests and so that's a conversation that we'll continue to have with the state land board uh but past conversations haven't been successful to acquire those rights okay so we'll reach out to them and try to negotiate but you think our chances of getting those are based on staff's experience yes I believe our chances would not be great and is that roughly the eastern half of the property that it's pretty much the eastern half the property is divided by two uh uh sections and so it's uh I believe it's section 16 where the state landboard owns the the mineral rights

[55:00] okay thank you and then um in terms of the lease that we'd be offering makes sense and so would we uh wait uh to develop any passive Recreation facilities until that lease was complete or would we conceivably do it before it was done we would most likely begin the planning process to kind of explore stewardship and management that advances all Charter purposes so including passive recreational opportunities um but at least in the the short term uh the intent is to kind of continue the current agricultural management and stewardship demonstrated by by Lyn shanan and his family and and and sand his wife Sandy sure in the short term I'm just trying to get to like would would we definitively wait to make any changes to the property until the the lease were done or do we yeah uh Dan Burke director Open Space Mountain Park so uh what the short-term lease will allow us to do is will allow the department to do what we call the uh property integration process which takes

[56:00] several years takes planning you bring in all your staff involving all the charter purposes and you do a complete uh inventory of the property and then determine and you develop a a management plan for that property and uh based on the cue of where this would fall uh that's something we're undergo right now with lip and cot Ranch uh soon to carry forward with poor farm Wells property that typ of process and because we have some things in front of us we are viewing that we're going to need all of this short-term lease period for us to uh get that process underway and to complete it so uh uh the short-term lease will not prevent us or will not uh um uh indicate that we shouldn't start that process but our expectation is um that those two should come together at a at a mutual uh time frame the uh the end of that short-term lease and the end of the management process Process Management process thank you for that Dan so it feels like enough time to complete that integration yeah we're

[57:00] really thankful that uh Lyn and the family are willing to uh uh carry on because it gives us time without having to put the resources right into a property that we have yet to manage and and and don't know as well as some of our other properties thank you a quick kind of follow-up question um was the vision for the passive Recreation of that property included in the west Trail study area no it was not because it was privately owned uh the visions that we have typical with our Trail study areas are are lands that are under our ownership um so we do not um unless it's something like a Boulder Valley comprehensive plan where you put big blobs or circles through certain areas for potential Trail connections that's the type of scale that you would do for property that isn't already under public ownership uh but the detailed level of the West TSA uh that type of scale uh we did not en uh encumber any any other private properties under that uh plan so that goes through a separate process for

[58:00] determining what yes it would be the a specific property integration process where we would look at that property and then look at the surrounding trails and look at potential connections and that's where we would look at education agriculture um uh uh uh passive Recreation and look at those details for that specific property okay great thank you Mark um I think this is a fantastic piece of property and I'm I'm enthusiastic about it but I do have a couple of questions um we previously purchased rights for about a million n did we not some development rights so our all in on this is about $10 million that is correct yes for a property this encumbered uh and restricted in its development capacity is that price supported by any kind of appraisal or anything else yes so um since we've been in on and off again negotiations with the um shanon hand family especially since 2008 we have a number of appraisals on um that were completed for

[59:00] this property and so our um purchase price is based on information from those appraisals as well as our real estate staffs understanding expertise in um the real estate market here in here in Boulder County and also the valuation of uh the water rights and and am I reading your projection correct your cash flow projection correct and that you're going to spend more on this property than you've budgeted for land acquisition for the next six years combined there's a the line item for uh um Acquisitions yeah Mark uh so the $8 million acquisition to give you a sense this is the last year of our uh acquisition Plan update so our our acquisition Plan update is from 2013 13 through 2019 so this is the kind of the culmination and through that uh Council approve approved acquisition plan we estimated that we will be putting a

[60:01] roughly around give or take each of those years 13 through 19 about $5 million in our acquisition CIP to support that plan moving off of that plan and moving into the master plan era in the era where Land Management is more of our Focus not to say that acquis key Acquisitions that support management wouldn't happen uh we are going to be considerably uh decreasing our acquisition uh uh uh uh funds for CIP for instance in 2020 our the approved budget is $700,000 for our Acquisitions versus 5.4 million back in 2018 I believe so that gives you the kind of scale uh of how we built up to complete this acquisition plan but moving into the master plan era our plans are to uh bring that number uh down considerably from where it's been okay thank you well while you're still there this is a little bit off to maybe but um with CU South will there be a budget for we need to acquire land around there for I

[61:02] guess kind of paying open space back for some of the Acres that are lost from say anchoring flood wall is that how's that going to correlate with this budget this acquisition being spent down um are you saying if if the open space department needs to do acquisition uh of any of Cu south or any other lands in that area um well like I said we would we're not completely we're going to be using the 2020 CIP dollars that are allocated towards um um our acquisition fund with the carryover we still will have and based on that fact that we got a council approval in 2017 to dispose of a residence which the acquisition help fund we will have about 4.2 million in our acquisition fund moving forward um and then every year we'd have the ability to um put CIP dollars towards an acquisition fund as we see fit so every year we we evaluate things of where we're going so if we

[62:01] know we have an acquisition on the horizon uh we would have the ability to scale that up and I would also say that uh the voters also approved authorization for bonding so if we have a unique opportunity um we already have voter approval but we could come to council and issue a bond if we don't have in that particular year the acquisition dollars to take it off that would be another option we would have at our ability and we also could use the bumper mechanism which is sort of a seller financ pay it pay over time over 10 or 20 years there's a number of creative ways that you can still compl complete a high priority acquisition um outside of just what's in that particular CIP at that given time okay thanks yeah I had a couple other that were more for staff probably okay I mean you're welcome to stay um going back to the threats that you listed I was a little bit confused by the subdivision vision and and how that could play out as sort of a threat like my understanding is we could only build one other structure on that

[63:01] property so I guess I don't understand the benefit totally of subdividing it and would it be that there would be fences or how would it be disruptive yep no it's a it's a good question so there the the development rights agreements they allow for the development of the currently undeveloped Residential Building envelope which is in the Southeast corner of the property marked by that yellow circle uh and um certain amount of acreage or land with that building envelope so that basically if you if you were to have subdivision out here out here the most likely scenario would be that Southeast portion of the property would be subdivided from the rest and then you'd be left with you know a second parcel probably a different ownership um that um would have the existing residence that that could be relocated or redeveloped anywhere on that remain ing acreage and and the way the development rights are Agreements are written uh the property as it's currently um um uh

[64:04] delineated could be um divided into to three Parcels one of those Parcels though would be undevelopable and so it's it's likely that if that scenario were to play out one of that undevelopable parcel would be um become a part of one of the developable parcels if that answers your question and so I I guess the concern with that is that um by having by having F fences by having that additional development by having uh those properties uh owned by uh at least two potentially three different owners with different uh management goals uh different stewardship and land ethic uh it could have a significant impact on the chart the property Char of purposes and and resources and so our our current uh I know it's not a conservation easement but something similar doesn't limit fences or or things that would divide the property in that way it it really

[65:02] doesn't it's um it's it's an older agreement and um I I think the the pressures that these types of properties are are facing and uh our community and Boulder County in general today weren't anticipated back in 1985 particularly uh residential demand for agricultural properties and then are there any limits to like how how big those uh homes could be the the two developable properties and also you mentioned that the agricultural buildings could be built up we don't have any limits on could they cover the whole area with buildings uh so to that last question they couldn't cover the agricultural buildings this is an unincorporated Boulder County so the property would be subject to Boulder land use code uh and under Boulder land use Co code our understanding is that you could you know a significant portion of this property could be uh covered with agricultural um buildings and structures so think equestrian centers riding Rings

[66:02] Corrals industrial sized green houses um things of that that nature as far as the the the residential areas the existing residence and Ranch headquarters area is not restricted at all so it could be relocated uh and redeveloped uh to a maximum size that Boulder County would allow under County land use code the development rights agreements do restrict the size of the uh Southeast building envelope to a certain uh square footage and um I don't have the exact number off to the top of my head I believe it's about 3,000 square feet total which would include uh I believe a detached garage and a building so I know it allows for up to three residential structures one of them being a house but I can't recall the exact square footage thanks and then just one last threat that I was a little bit confused by is the oil and gas rights we don't have anything in place right now that would that that serves as a limit or

[67:00] moratorium on the ability to use the property that way so right now um um like I believe Aaron asked uh the East half of the property uh we really don't have any control over the the the mineral rights since they're held by the state land board okay on the west half of the property the city owns all the mineral rights except for the oil and gas rights that were retained by the owners uh at the time of the development rights agreement sale in 1985 we are acquiring those oil and gas rights as part of uh this acquisition but right now there isn't really anything in the development rights agreements that would uh allow the city to prevent the uh either the current owners or a future owner from developing or or leasing those oil and gas interests on the west half of the property okay did you want the answer about the moratorium itself kind well I'm just it's a more general question I think yeah there is the city does have a moratorium on oil and gas

[68:00] development both in the city and the city lands outside the the city the open space Department also has a process for processing applications that is that is intended which we I think we're updating right now intended to uh protect open space lands the state law though is pretty clear that uh a mineral rights owner does have the right to go through your land if they have oil under it and um the Supreme Court has struck down two moratoriums very similar to ours in Collins and Longmont so okay thanks anyone else question is there any uh practical danger of oil and gas use of any portion of this property has has there been any indication that there are resources Hi Bethany Collins a real estate supervisor for open space Mount Parks excuse me I have a cold um uh the the geology in pretty much the entire Front Range um is likely that there is oil and gas under it um however the economics of

[69:00] getting to because of the geology there the economics it's just not feasible right now that an oil and gas company would would be likely to develop in that area um I will say um a little bit differently than what Luke said uh state land board actually holds these kinds of assets specifically to sell them or to lease them um it's their a mission to um make money um for for schools um and to reinvest that money and so they hold on to these we can pursue these whether or not they would sell them to us or hold on to them as an asset and thinking that down the road they may be worth more um but we can approach them and see and and we have approached them already just to make sure that the the out outdated lease was indeed terminated um and so we can work with them on that EAS portion to to also acquire the oil and gas um in this area actually as you guys all know from Marshall and and that area the the

[70:01] coal was actually more of a risk and so it's it's interesting that um you know that that we now own the coal and everything in the area but not the oil and gas does that help yes thank you yeah so I have a question would it be possible from a strategic standpoint to acquire a lease over the um development potential and essentially extinguish it because we wouldn't do that we could um look at several options we could even ask for a no no at least at the very least a no surface occupancy agreement from State landboard um that's a a first step of you know if if they were to somehow lease the minerals on their uh they all they typically always hold the um mineral interest under section 16 lands um you know the patchwork of of lands of the plss system um and so they would um very likely work with us to do at least a surface use occup I mean a no surface occupancy which would mean that um if they were to you know lease the

[71:01] minerals adjacent to the property and somebody could put could develop from there they could still get to the minerals under the property but not from the shanan ranch property so that's a step one if they weren't willing to lease the actual mineral um I mean sell the actual mineral interest to us okay thank you anyone else questions okay thank thank you I guess public comment public hearing Linda Parks please come let us know your thoughts hi Linda Parks 2207 Mapleton Avenue welcome new members and welcome all members I'm looking forward to seeing this 179 Acres of the the ranch property added to our open space and Mountain Parks portfolio of alands and I think it is important that it remains

[72:00] Agricultural and nature protected for its ecological value while also providing maybe passive recreational use with no one condition with no possible relocation of any prairie dogs to the property even though we have had the best intentions our other agricultural lands in the osmp portfolio are suffering these properties were purchased for a lot of money and were once highly productive least now they are ravaged dead and weed infested lands destroyed by a highly invasive plague the prairie dog over a decade ago our city council made the mistake of protecting the species they may have thought they were doing the right thing but had they really studied the impact of ranch lands and made a less emotional and more scientific decision perhaps you would have arrived in a different place today the environmental impact of that decision has led to the destruction of our EGS and soils along with the sensitive grassland ecosystem the

[73:01] protection tied the hands of the Lees and osmp the use of lethal means to control the numbers so much time and tax payers dollars have been spent on relocation and dusting the lens with pesticides to prevent the plague these pesticides affect bees insects and amphibians and then the cycle begins again destruction of soils and grass lons osmp officials have cited that Shanahan acreage includes Tall Grass Prairie species like blue stem switch grass and yellow Indian grass valuable in its biodiversity and providing protection of habitat for nesting song birds like the grasshopper Spar and amphibians Boulder valy Ranch and properties North on 63rd were once highly productive and healthy egg properties purchased in the osmp portfolio is this the future of Shanahan Ranch what about gumb Barrel Hills these sensitive grasslands are now under attack as the encroaching north south

[74:00] and Eastern colonies continue to grow I see the Front Range coyotes dying off from mange one lonely Bobcat with a rabbit in its mouth from time to time and a few Birds of Prey flying off with snakes and mice it's not enough to control these prairie dogs for over 20 years I have boarded horses at bould Valley Ranch as many of us wait P patiently for some action to be taken we watch Once productive PES become a wasteland I hope that open space in Mountain Parks is prepared to keep this acreage from the same fate thank you thank you okay with that we'll close the public hearing and bring it back to council any discussion go ahead Bob I just want to I think the Shanahan family is here I just want to thank the Shanahan family for making this available to to the community if no one else has comments I have a couple quick ones um I think the

[75:03] five risks that are pointed out here are risks that we would probably like to not have for this property I mean we've been hoping to acquire this property for decades now and this would be the kind of last to Raw with the current CIP approach and so it's good that the money has been saved for it um I'll also point out that given the development rights even if you take the $10 million figure and you divide it by 179 Acres it's about $56,000 an acre which is reasonable price um given that it doesn't have development rights except for a few limited ones so I think this is great I thank um staff for continuing to work with the Shanahan family the Shanahan family for being willing to have this conversation over many decades and also being willing to help transition it into our a program and I think I think that'll be a really um positive thing because it will support the other osmp lands around it with connectivity and

[76:00] the kind of uses that there now so I'm going to support this I agree with all that and I just wanted to make one comment just here I noticed the um the proximity of this property to the the CU South um lands um that we will be considering in various talking about more about flood mitigation there in upcoming months just to think that um acquisition and some of the um lands there I did notice uh there's potential prebles jumping mouse habitat um on this parcel so I know there may end up being some impacts to open space on the SE South LS and perhaps we can look for opportunities to make up for that with this acquisition and and with some of the open space values on this um this property yeah uh is somebody ready to make a motion move to approve to approve the acquisition second okay yeah and can I just offer a little friendly Amendment um which is I I Dan I

[77:02] love that uh idea of finishing out the is it the integration process in the same time frame as the lease so I just wonder if we might um add to the motion and encouragement to really dovetail those things as staff is um hoping to do so that the integration process is finished um by the time the Le send if that's amenable to you you agree with that so okay um is this this show of hands okay all in favor of the motion as amended raise your hand that's unanimous so congratulations and thank you to the shanahans again I was just wondering if the shanahans wanted to come up and make a comment at all if you are I invite you if not thank you very much we appreciate what we've just AC acquired so thank you and you want to say

[78:06] anything well been long time taking going through this I uh should be happy but I'm not not but for my brother and sister it would been for sale so hope we can work it out thank you thank you thank you sir okay we will move on to our next public hearing your second public hearing is a motion to adopt resolution 1275 committing the city of Boulder to promote racial equity and we're we're pulling up a presentation and this presentation will be made by Amy Kane Amy no now it is now it is green

[79:03] light um thank you all so much for having me my name is Amy Kae and I am a program manager with the city of Boulder and I'm here to talk to you tonight about to help understand a little bit more about the city's racial Equity efforts to date our partnership with the government Alliance on race and Equity next steps with the racial Equity work that has been going on with the city internally and then um the importance of the resolution that is before you this evening so the government Alliance on race and Equity is a national n network of governments um Municipal governments who are working to achieve and Advance racial Equity um and opportunities for all this organization is a member is a when we joined back in 2018 there were about 150 communities as members and now they're up to about 200 and we rely on this national network um for providing us support and resources as we continue

[80:01] our racial Equity efforts moving forward as partners with the government Alliance on race and Equity we have um at our fingertips lots of training that we can participate in for City staff and for leadership as well as best practice research um in public policy and um items resources like the racial equity instrument which the city staff have been working to Pilot in different um areas implicit bias areas within the organization so the gear model for change starts with normalizing and so that's really creating a shared um analysis and definitions of what is racial Equity what is institutional racism and how does that contribute to structural race racism this really helps guide cities staff in understanding the urgency and the importance as well as City leadership in the work that is ahead um as local governments we're the ones who created um racial inequities and it's up to government employees and

[81:00] government agencies to really help um help change that we've been in a process most recently of organizing and that's really creating the internal infrastructure that will set us up for success as well as going into Community um Partnerships so with other community organizations who are focusing on advancing racial Equity we've been really focused on building those Partnerships and relationships because we know that in order to change things structurally we really need to be building those Partnerships and now we are really going into the operationalized um phase where we are implementing those racial Equity tools and instruments to be applied to programs policies and budget making decisions as we go forward in the work as an organization this is a cyclical model so it does go around and round and what we're talking about in the normalizing phase is part part of that tonight is the um racial Equity resolution that's before you moving forward there's been a lot of

[82:01] work that's been going on over the past um couple of years which is outlined in the memo that you all had in your packets but moving forward um there is continued training for leadership and City staff um we are working to get right use of power training for All City Council Members um and we're anticipating that training to start in 2020 advaned ing racial Equity the role of government um at the time that you were sent your packet we had 119 people who had participated in that training we are requiring that training for All City supervisors all of our fire staff um also for our council members and that will be an additional 325 participants beyond the 119 um who we put in the memo to date we are also just went under contract um to have mandatory bias microaggression training for All City staff Council and our boards and commissions that will start with a focus

[83:00] group process um so our Consultants can really understand the culture internally um and the different businesses that exist with in the city of Boulder government and then we're anticipating about mid 2020 to roll that training out with a train the trainer model also moving forward the city um staff have been working on drafting racial Equity plan outline based on feedback from the 2017 Community perceptions report as well as the March 18th Community listening session that we had as well as um just the stories and um the personal relationships that we've been making with community members over the past couple of years to really understand the inequities that we've been creating um since we've been in existence um that uh Community or that racial Equity plan outline is going to be going before Community probably in 2020 um because that's an element where

[84:01] we really need to have Community feedback um and that um plan itself um really outlines specific strategies and goals and action items that affect the policies and the policy areas um that we lead as a government agency it also will have specific actions but as I said because we are doing a robust Community engagement the outline that's going out to community at the beginning of 2020 really only highlights some of the action items this isn't a done deal we anticipate that there are a lot we'll get a lot of feedback from community and we want to make sure that those voices are heard and Incorporated in that Equity Equity plan um we also after the goals strategies and action items are created there will be a creation of metrics um to hold ourselves accountable to ensure that we are really moving this work forward and making real true difference and change um also along with that is um a robust timeline so we have been

[85:00] working with a community racial Equity engagement working group and that is a group of seven community members who've been helping us design that Community engagement process we're about halfway through that process currently we'll be reconvening after the holidays after the first of the year to finalize what that engagement looks like and I think some of our team members are in audience tonight so thank you for that um moving on so the resolution the resolution that is before you is really an opportunity as leaders for you to um really give that leadership support So staff can put together the resources the time and the energy to ensure that this work moving forward is successful and that it is a priority for you all as Leaders of our organization so with that I'll turn it over to questions any questions

[86:00] V thank you so much for your presentation thank you it's very inspiring um but I think the question that I have for you because you mentioned a lot the word Community yes and you know when we think of the word Community we think Outreach we think a lot of people getting together but sometimes within that we can miss out on the specifics absolutely yeah and I think that's what I didn't get really from you yeah here today because I read some of the emails that was sent in and one person mentioned sexual orientation so what I wanted to hear from you when you talk about Community is did you reach out to the lgbtq a community did you reach out to the Latino Community not just the community as a whole because I think it's very important to be very specific and when we mention the word Community yes I would agree with that absolutely so yes we have um the community um engagement that happened with the community perceptions report really gave um feedback that the the white population in our community often

[87:01] feels very safe very comfortable very welcome and very unaware of how others in our community um feel we are very focused with the work that we've been doing on racial Equity um and that is a very kind of gear model and the reason that we start with race and focus on race is so that we can apply the concepts and learnings to other marginalized communities so I will say that the most of the members of the um racial Equity engagement working group are a group of latinx community members who've been participating in this process so we're being very intentional to design that um Community engagement process on the racial Equity outline on what different stakeholders are involved in the community and what community engagement process works best for that specific community thank you juny Aaron yeah I also um thank you for all that Amy you're welcome um also wanted

[88:00] to call it the email that we got from a Mr Fishman um bringing up the question of the language around um saying uh sexual orientation and not preference yes and uh I know the orig the resolution that we're talking about from 2001 used that that other language corre um do you see any issue I can we not just change the language to uh in the new resolution to say orientation rather than preference I thought it was an excellent point thought in the new one it did say that so I downloaded my packet while traveling so I may I may not have gotten the most recent one I me look at that we can absolutely do that yes if it is not already there and is the what is there something more recent a more recent version of the resolution than what's on the kind of current um agenda the most recent one is on the racial Equity website as well as should have been in your packet I'm going to go download that right now just in case it's updated Erin I did read it today and

[89:02] from what I saw it was updated so okay great thanks Adam but I but it was referring to another yeah that was a past resolution and so I don't know how you changed that one that would be a that would be a question for my esteemed colleague me so you can you can always vote to amend the resolution so you could just say we you could add to this motion we're amending resolution whatever number it is by changing SE sexual preferences to sexual orientation um and you could probably do you can do that in this motion I would think yeah that's what I was going to think too Rachel I also thank you for that presentation and all the work that you've been doing um in in light speed over the last couple weeks um a couple questions for the trainings that are going to apply to City Council in particular there was bias and microaggression and some sort of power dnic power training training are those going to be mandatory in the resolution

[90:00] they are not currently mandatory in the resolution okay so I guess I have a question and that may be to to co- counselors whether it's going to be mandatory and then you also talked about metrics and a timeline and I wasn't sure when that information is available like when will we have the the metrics that will show whether we are complying with our own resolution as I understand it so the metrics are going to be for the racial Equity plan and those action items there um those won't be ready until we determine what those goals strategies and action items are with the community involvement because we can't set metrics without having those completely firmed up so that's what that is referring to okay thanks the resolution itself really lends the support to continue the work with the racial Equity plan and training and all that good stuff okay any other questions Mary I I don't have a question I just wanted to

[91:00] recognize the working group that's been put working on the um Community engagement and um if you guys would just like to stand up and be recognized um I'd appreciate it thank you and Mary on that note I think it's worth noting that there are two groups here there's the working group that is focused on community engagement and The Guiding Coalition yeah and the guiding Coalition in 2018 was I think seven people and now we've added five council members so it will be more than that so just as a um a note to the community to make the distinction between those two different groups correct the The Guiding Coalition is um council members and City staff consisting of um directors and uh people in the city manager's office as well as two council members until the

[92:02] recently elected Council which will have five council members on The Guiding Coalition so it's exciting Good Rachel I had one more question yes I think it was on page2 of the big pcket um when we're talking about training is it going to be ongoing or like annual ongoing training yes um the training for 2021 hasn't been fully outlined um because it is so robust with the advancing racial Equity training and the right use of power training it'll likely be that the microaggression and bias training depending on how what guidance we get from our guiding Coalition happens towards the end of 2020 or beginning of 2021 and I anticipate when working with the guiding Coalition that there will be other um training needs that that come to the surface so I would just like to add to that that um I had an opportunity to um look at the proposal for that

[93:00] right use of power and it is really really time intensive um and will require a huge commitment from all of us and um as well as um staff members and um and so that's that's um part of what the guiding Coalition needs to take a look at is the the the time commitments that we'll be making as we move through these processes yeah thank you additional followup to that question so when new staff members come on do we have a plan for that so for our all of our new staff members um in addition to all the supervisors who are currently going through advancing racial Equity Equity the role of government training um any City staff is welcome to participate in that training as as well as um City staff who have signed up to be part of the racial Equity core team and these are City staff members who have committed 10 hours per month to help um build Out programs and trainings and

[94:00] other project areas that help support some of the work of the racial Equity plan outline um as well as just where we need to go internally as an organization that is also going to now be hosted for um all new employees starting in 2020 they will go through that training uh bi us a microaggression training the reason that we are designing it with a train the trainer model is so that we have a capacity to keep the the training going on ongoing as folks transition in and out of the organization Mark in drafting resolution 1275 I I noticed that it's almost entirely focused on process and that until you get to attachment C and say section 2.4 you don't see specific goals of where we're supposed to goh with all of this and and was that a strategic decision that you made or uh I mean it seems to me that that our resolution could incorporate some of those goals in

[95:01] 2.4 because that's the end product that we want to get to so the goals will be heavily with Community involvement with the racial Equity planning process the resolution is truly an opportunity for leadership support and a commitment to the work that the council is really going to focus on and this is also I'd like to point out one of many resolutions that I anticipate um Council will be adopting in this space moving forward thank you thank you Mark and again just to try and be clear you said this in your presentation but we have the resolution that we are going to pass if we decide to tonight right and then we have this outline and that outline we'll get that's where the specifics come in that's where the metrics come in that's where the community engagement at length comes in that the working group will help with so again to break things into two distinct parts we have the statement of intent tonight and then get community feedback on what the specific

[96:00] actions to be taken are and I would add that that's pretty common practice um their communities usually their leadership their mayor their councils um make either a declaration a resolution or a statement of support and this is the opportunity for you all to do that anything else from Council okay ready for our public hearing and how many total are there 13 okay so you'll have three minutes to speak um and we will start with Anna Seer followed by KY Katie Faron and Nicole perilman well I want [Music]

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[99:20] B [Music] and op out thank you Anna um Katie Faron and then Nicole perilman thank you for your presentation Amy uh and I want to say I appreciate

[100:01] Council bringing up this resolution in a timely manner I appreciate council's willingness to open this discussion and make it a priority um and I think we all acknowledge that this is a first step I'm happy to hear about the involvement of community in this process and that there will be measurable metrics as a part of this I and I think others have um a bit of a worry about step two and you might also um but what comes next and how binding is this resolution because that's the thing you're voting on um you know where does real accountability feature into this and what specific policy directives are guiding the language of the resolution um you know are we ready to be directly accountable for this work are we ready to put that into writing and vote on that as such because I worry about the intent is being voted on that's what a resol solution is it's a it's it's intent but the details follow and and I don't know that you're voting on those kinds of things so I don't know exactly you you have this resolution and

[101:00] then you move into work that I'm going to be hopeful about that um but I do want to say as part of this resolution I'm here specifically to ask the council includes something in the process that I and fellow Boulder residents have been recently bringing up in this forum which is a comprehensive audit of all Citywide departments looking at existing policies contracts and other rules that are on the books that might be in direct conflict with Boulder's commitment to Sanctuary City status um there's a line running from that Sanctuary Declaration of 2017 directly to this racial Equity resolution and we have an obligation to strengthen both of the these documents the one that was already voted on and this one to give both documents substance and actual Authority that they need to be effective and reparative and also that there's accountability in there um that's just important and and this is something that's now two years in and I just think it's time to look at that

[102:01] again especially as you're you're focusing on racial Equity also want to agree with juny um that we should be proactively reaching out to community groups directly impacted by racial um inequity um and I'm glad to hear that that's been been going on and I would add that ongoing training as a mandatory requirement should be a part of that res solution um I've taken racial racial bias training and having resources like what G is offering is a literal gift I mean it is a gift to be able to learn and grow in this way especially if you're in a position of power no matter how local that is thank you thank you Katie um Nicole Perman and then nikel Manar and then James feny thanks everyone for the opportunity to be here tonight I could save my time and basically just say every everything that the previous speaker just said because it was spoton and fantastic um a couple of things I was sitting here trying to think of a good analogy about this process and what's going on that would be sort of a bolder analogy and I

[103:01] was thinking the best one I could come up with is you guys are doing great work this is really important and right now you have a tricycle but it could become a Prius that was the best Boulder analogy I could come up with um but basically to get there you need to do the things that that Katie just the previous speaker just outlined um you know we have something here that's full a lot of full of intent this was a fabulous um presentation I learned so much tonight it sounds like there's so many great things coming but I also share the concerns that as things are worded now they might be a little bit vague or a little bit squishy and so I would want to make sure that there's a genuine commitment here um and just get more specific because that's how you're going to get the Prius um and when I think of the Prius I was doing some reading yesterday and today about Portland and all the things that they've done and I don't know if the council members or staff have had a chance to take a look at it but but it's really comprehensive and it's really cool um they've involved everyone all different communities in the process um they've worked Equity lends into budgeting into

[104:00] City Contracting into mandatory training for employees you know all this into work with police in terms of having scorecards and accountability and I think that's what older could have um and I would just encourage you to get a little bit more um specific so that this isn't just something right now at this stage that's feel-good that it's really going to be something that's uh binding and meaningful uh and guess in closing I would just um want to also Echo what Katie had said about taking a look at the sanctuary City status I've um spoken before this group before about the concerns the community has um in particular about uh bi in town that's owned by the go group and treatment of of Asylum Seekers um and that remains a concern and we have other tech companies in town too that are coming to my attention that are um maybe involved with not so great things with uh immigrants and Asylum Seekers and if we really are going to be a sanctuary City I think we do really need to take a comprehensive look at that and this to me seems like a perfectly logical and natural place to do all that and fold it in so thank you for your time really

[105:01] appreciate it so glad that City's working on this and I know it's a lot of work thank you nikil Manar followed by James feny hello good evening I'm nikil man call the chairman of the city of Border human relations commission um I trust you all received the letter um sent to Council on behalf of the Commission in support of this resolution so I'll speak tonight and move away from some of those topics uh one I and the human relations commission support this as an important step and we recognize it as a step uh in a long process but every step is important including the ones that you may have taken before so I'm happy to see the inclusivity resolution uh we made as a city in 2015 now included in this resolution and being uh recommitted to um it's important to specify that in uh this resolution and the racial Equity plan that when we say City we more often than not mean city government as an organization and not to confuse that

[106:00] with the uh the looger community in the city um I will also note I'm on the Outreach and engagement team for that racial Equity plan uh and things have been going well with us and I believe we will uh do a good job with the staff on uh uh bringing in the broader Community input into that plan and and that action plan specifically uh on represented voices um I feel lucky to be able to know about what is happening on the inside within the city government and the significant steps toward towards racial Equity uh being taken in a comprehensive manner that I find impressive um it's just we have to see follow through in the plan um but I think it will eventually extend to um all aspects of the city as an organization um I'm hopeful because of all of the great uh when we talk about action steps and follow through I feel hopeful because of all of the uh great work on racial and social Equity that I've been fortunate enough to be a part of um with many of the councils as chair of the commission including a living wage policy establishing and growing

[107:01] indigenous people St uh and the ongoing uh tribal consultations we have uh in 2018 changing and expanding our City Human Rights protections and housing employment and public accommodations to protect undocumented community members and Section 8 vouch voucher holders and just a few months ago um our city changes to use appropriate gender language and city code and documents and the municipal hate crimes law updates which give us one of the best tools in the country for law enforcement to combat bias motivated hate crimes in the community and honestly there's just so much so much more that I could name um but uh I don't know I think it's just from being so closely involved in these that I it does give me hope uh with these things I've been getting a lot of feedback about you know we've passed these these resolutions before what do they mean you have one from 2001 uh that we now have one from 2015 um but you know sometimes it's good to make note of all of these positive steps towards equity and inclusion in the community and hope to see them continue um outside

[108:02] of my role on hlc I've been lucky to be um included I feel included and and and trusted and respected by Council and especially the staff though I often wind up getting to be the the extra Invisible City staff on on things and I've seen a lot of good happen um just last comment is that um I just want to I think this resolution and the steps we've seen taken can give hope to the Boulder Community and all communities um to just keep taking steps small and big um but keep taking them and have hope um because transformation can happen and impossible is possible I look at where I was in my life in the city was a decade ago I talked about some of this uh when the hate crimes law pass but I look at where the city as as an organization my community the water Community is at and where I am at and so um I know change can happen and sometimes things may seem impossible but they can happen um as long as good people come to go to do them thank you n James

[109:02] feny I'm James FY from North Boulder uh reading through the council resolution uh there's a lot of references to racial Equity but uh I didn't see anything really about class Equity um and so assuming we're not going to discriminate against people based upon ecomic and ethnic criteria then maybe we want to broaden uh the language um the resolution talks about U Equity but fails to say much about uh responsibility and accountability which other people have brought up um there's lots of trainings and Partnerships and workshops and studies and there's nothing about the essentials of change which U council member wallik mentioned uh there's an aphorism that's says change requires change what exactly is going to change here um here city council is a TV show uh there's a camera uh people can watch on Channel 8 we have

[110:02] a studio audience uh they're recurring guest appearances uh City Council Members act essentially as passive observers with voting rights uh our TV critics sit in the back of the room and every week they carefully edit the show narrative for the local newspaper and all the while the show produced orchestrates the performances scripted by an extensive writing staff uh if you want to see the fabric and substance of prejudice and discrimination you look no further than uh the city council chambers I come here and ask simply that Council enforce the ordinances and what happens uh the only response is talking in circles blank stares or silence uh we must study study study and do nothing you say and you discount racism with throw away logic saying we're all racist so no one's racist uh every everyone has suffered so no one has suffered uh we'll be in touch uh just not anytime soon uh don't go away angry just go away uh you can ignore the law and treat the law

[111:01] with contempt when it doesn't fit your ideology uh your officers treat me with insult and contempt they ignore me I'm invisible I don't exist uh but the real world doesn't happen in the city council chambers it happens on the streets of the city it happens at the hands of the city's police police administrators inspectors and clerks uh City policy is embodied in the action of those boots on the ground and in the real world apparently there's no change we just have business as usual where to paraphrase the only business of government is business uh change requires change if you want to see real change uh I think you need to look at uh changing your chief executive and your Chief prosecutor yes uh James you have a question thank you so much for this presentation you just gave I think it's it's really amazing it's great um but I think you also talked about intersectionality which is very

[112:01] important to me and I think one question that I had for you because you mentioned accountability of a lack of accountability within the resolution and I wanted to know what do you mean by that well if there's going to be a shift in um whether it's racial Equity or class Equity uh then something tangible needs to change and so until you're talking to the people who are impacted so sometimes for instance I've heard people come up here and say that uh well you don't understand when I go into the grocery store and somebody demands uh a receipt before I can leave the store um that's a specific event and it's something that uh if we're going to change not just within the city government but within the community at large uh the the way people are treated moment to moment then first you have to recognize that this event is happening to somebody because I don't experience that I can't appreciate

[113:00] it I'm lucky that I you know even aware of it so people first have to show up explain those things and then they have to be specifically addressed thank you James so I will make a comment here around the specifics question that we have an attachment in our packet attachment C which is the outline and so if if the community who's watching has only focused on the resolution many of the specifics that we expect to come from this program are in the outline so next we have Sammy Lawrence Carrie Miller and John tayer yes is back back again so I want to actually take this moment in time to bring up an interesting conversation I had outside with Mr Stone uh two quotes came to mind in regards to this dialogue um from Avatar the Last D bander not the movie the show uh one it

[114:00] is best to admit mistakes when they occur and to seek to restore honor and on that note I apologize Mary young for my comment earlier that was racist and that was wrong to own and have accountability is key and important and as I said in my earlier comments and public comments it's scary I would hope that we remember once again that when we were Youth and we were open to being accountable from our elders and our parents as younglings likewise I also Echo requests of accountability for these this this um this thing that we are creating that city council is creating I speak to it specifically as a man who experienced a type of racial discrimination basically that we're speaking to at this very

[115:00] Podium when I spoke about what I experienced in April when I had five City Council Members two of which that spoke to watching the video and approving of what happened to me basically justify me speaking to you in distress and anxiety from not only having a damaged brain but likewise the anxiety of speaking publicly about something that traumatized me likewise actions afterwards were a bit ridiculous I would hope and pray that we as a community especially people who are leaders can be accountable and seek to be truly fully accountable I say this not only as a member of this community but as a former youth commissioner in Sacramento

[116:00] California these are things that I had to do and when I was young I came to this POS that position with that mindset I hope and pray that in the future when people speak to atrocities that they've experienced in life to this Council that they do not experience the same thing I experienced no one deserves that and I will be speaking about this maybe one or two more times in the future as I Garner my healing from this instance because I will have my healing and I will be heard thank you thank you Sammy uh Carrie Miller then John Tor and Jeff Herod hi good evening first off it's really hard to follow someone as

[117:01] eloquent as Sammy so I just want to say than thank him for speaking as well as Nicole and Katie and everyone before me I'd like to Echo a couple things and add a couple things to what they've said first and foremost I'd like to call attention to the first sentence of the resolution which states that the Boulder Community has long bened benefited from the beautiful and natural surroundings that were originally the home of Southern arapo Cheyenne and several other tribes and I just want to call your attention to the fact that that's written in past tense that's also present tense this is still stolen land regardless of how comfortable you are on it I also just want to Echo specifically about the audit um that's been mentioned prior I think it's really important that it's said that it should be a third-party audit someone who's not involved if our own are auditing our own it's not as effective um I'd also just like to call attention to the recent audits in Charleston South Carolina for uh inter for racism within their city as well as Charlotte North Carolina have really produced some

[118:00] wonderful uh efficient and comprehensive Citywide and agency-wide a audits from third parties as well as calling attention to the Portland audit was third party as well um I'd also like to call attention to the publication like a uh like a loaded weapon the ranquist court Indian rights and the legal history of racism in America which was a book written in 2005 by uh Dr Robert Williams and I just think all of you as you're uh in the positions that you're currently in should take a minute to read this book um really calls attention of the importance of language the important of language in terms of the legal racism that's occurred within our city and within the country of the US so thank you very much thank you Carrie John tayer Jeff Herod and then Claud Hansen theme um John T Boulder with the boulder chamber and this is a statement of commitment to partnership from the boulder chamber with the city of Boulder in their racial Equity efforts um I stand here before

[119:02] you humbled by the subject of racial equity and the work of city council tonight to help launch another chapter in our efforts to write the wrongs of the past and to create a more Equitable inclusive and welcoming Community the fact is that race race relations andace raal Equity are subjects that have challenged all of us here in this room either because you bear the legacy of having contributed or benefited from positions of authority based on racial bias or mistreatment Andor you have suffered degradation mistreatment or Worse from our nation's and communities tainted history of racial inequality I am humbled because I can't claim myself or on behalf of of the boulder chamber organization I represent that I know prec precisely how to address the past sins nor the best path forward toward racial Equity what I can say is that the boulder chamber is committed as an organization to the same

[120:00] journey toward racial Equity that city council is exploring tonight for our membership for our local businesses and for the community we serve of course we recognize that mere words and statements of commitment are not enough actions will tell the real story and with that the boulder chamber has started its Journey with initial actions designed to to make a positive contribution to our community's racial Equity goals example steps we've taken include evaluating diversity inclusivity and Equity as a top strategic goal or elevating goal for our organization as fully supported by the boulder chamber staff and board of directors with planning for specific actions and outcomes building a more diverse board of directors which we have increased to 30% from people who identify as people of color and 35% who are from underrepresented populations through thoughtful and expanded Outreach adopting new hiring practices based on skills and credential versus

[121:01] credentials that are designed to help us recruit a more diverse Workforce while also enhancing recruitment outroot through Community Partners instituting ongoing staff education and areas such as bias equity and inclusivity LGBT and lgbtq sensitivity and we are also continuing our proud partnership with the Community Foundation serving Boulder County and our leadership fellows program that at its core supports and enables inclusive leadership I began my comments by noting that I come before you humbled by the subject you addressing tonight I'm humble because I know the list of actions and steps I just outlined is not enough a resolution is not enough though an important step step the boulder chamber supports and my Tes Tony is not enough we have great work to do as a community to move forward um toward a more just and Equitable society and I know that the work that includes the boulder chamber is a partner with the

[122:00] city council the residents and citizens and business of of Boulder it's a journey and we will stumble along the way let's be direct when we fail to meet expectations that is fair but let's all come together in a spirit of listening and learning from each other and being clear about our intentions as through this resolution as we work to make this community that that lives its vision of inclusion diversity and Equity thank you thank you John Jeff Herod and then Claudia Hensen theme good evening Council thank you Amy um I'm Jeff hero I'm with the Community Foundation Boulder County and just wanted to lift up um the foundation's vision of equity which we we uh Define as creating systems where all can Thrive and our core principles of prioritizing those most impacted by inequity uh something we call do nothing

[123:00] about us without us which is trusting the lived experience wisdom and agency of those who know most about the issue and then finally working in partnership with others which is where uh we want to affirm the city's commitment to the advancement of racial Equity um the Community Foundation commitment to equity exists through its strategic plan and its goals uh reforming its own practices aligning its own programs and grants uh to equity um working in Partnership on Equity itself in issues like these and also working with our donors we hope that if we proceed with this work with some humility we may be granted some Grace along the way because we are very much in a spirit of learning and partnership and appreciation with you and the people in organizations who are working to advance Equity thank you thank you Jeff

[124:00] Claudia good evening members of council Claudia Hansen theme I live in Boulder um I had the privilege of reviewing the equity resolution with a small group of people who have been learning teaching and doing anti-racism work for many years and in many capacities in our community and I'm speaking tonight not because I'm an expert on these issues I'm absolutely not but because I understand that it's time for more people in Boulder to show up for racial Justice and Equity so it's in that spirit I want to share some of the responses that people generously shared with me you've heard some of these ideas woven into comment already tonight in statements from Anna Katie Nicole James and Sammy you may have also seen them in an email sent on behalf of Boulder progressives which had several Representatives at the review meeting I attended to Echo these voices I'd like to ask you to do more work on this resolution before proceeding I do appreciate council member young for bringing this work forward at a critical time for Council thank you for

[125:00] accelerating this we need concrete things like this to further difficult conversations in the community but I don't think that a hasty signing is an effective responsible or respectful response to structural racism and its impact in our community so please don't sign this resolution just to feel good about about it and be done with it I'd also ask you to take time to address two things that are not fully fleshed out in the resolution the first is accountability several people have mentioned it's not enough to Simply direct staff to use an equity lens and to anticipate more resolutions in the future at a minimum we need some way to measure our progress that is a way to evaluate the efforts that we're taking and the effects that they have in the community so as others have proposed some kind of a scorecard to track progress in different Poli policy areas would be helpful and I know there are some suggestions in attachment C of your packet but you're not voting on those tonight the second thing my conversation group talked about is community

[126:00] leadership and I appreciate the considerable work that staff has done here on Education and Training so far um but the work thus far has largely been defined and directed by the city at this point and ultimately it's the community and particularly communities of color that should be involved in defining the problems and the desired out comes that we have as a city in different policy areas I know the city has started to do this with the engagement working group and I hope that continues Beyond just um generating Outreach plans deep inclusion is important to build trust and to engage the wealth of knowledge of people that we often exclude so um as with all things Justice related it is important to act with urgency here but I'd also ask that you please listen to members of the community who deserve depth sincerity and accountability from this process um when we do empty things and by that I mean things that are not binding on us we can cause more harm in this community thank you thank you CL uh Brook stableford and

[127:00] then ly seagull oh I'm sorry Saron hi everyone thank you thank you so much for your presentation that was really helpful kind of a plot twist in what I was going to say so I'm GNA um bring some other things that have come up for me we um you know at the University have required trainings and I just feel like that should be true for our city council as well and really looking it is leadership development and um that this is the world that we live in you know as we battle climate change it is also interl because of intersectionality Dr Kimberly krenshaw is really fun to follow and her work um is is really important to this conversation Janie thanks for bringing that up too um I also have some hesitancy around committing to this I want to see it and um you know I think because there is the opportunity for amendments um that there's some more like to add some accountability and

[128:02] consequences if we don't um do the things that make us uh capable and confident leaders in our city and so um the opportunities to to add more to this is really important um for that conversation I I've been going through the website more and um did miss some of those things I don't know if that was what C packet was um some of that but it was really inspiring I do look at those trainings and think this is awesome but it's kind of like CPR if this is just once a year um or is there an enhancement does there need to be an enhancement in the budget to make sure that this is training for expanding into staff and future for the next 10 years you know is this all the metrics that are listed is that just budgeted for this next year because it is a lot of time um and and investment but we we we get CPR trained every two years if we're providing care right so we just we

[129:02] we white people don't got this like after one training it is an ongoing lifetime commitment to anti-racism and anti-oppression and so I really want to see this in the develop leadership development protocol that we just know that our city council is getting this every year um and for it to be intersectional thank you thank you Zaron Brook stableford dland seagull good evening Council Brook stableford thank you everyone for being here welcome you members and welcome back incumbents um I wanted to ask city council to pause the process and not yet sign this is not quite a resolution because it's not a firm decision to do or not do something it does not include a concrete plan or accountability Council needs to do uh full diversity and inclusion training so that they understand what they're signing otherwise it's not really in good faith so please slow the process down and I really request that you speak with

[130:01] communities of color to hear firsthand their experience and it's imperative to truly understand the experience of racial oppression in Boulder both lived daytoday as well as the experience of growing up and living in a family that has experienced generational racial oppression and denial of opportunity and contrast this to the White Privilege that most people of Boulder enjoy on a daily basis unaware that white privilege exists nor of the harm that it causes and Equity is key thank you very much thank you Brooke ly seigle ly seagull 538 Dewey I think if you really want to do something through reparations I support reparations but there's deeper things going on in our culture that and this is an illusion this is an inequity situation it's inequal wealth and we're distracted

[131:01] fighting amongst ourselves of white privileged black whatever color people we are when climate change comes and gets us it doesn't matter what we look like and I think marbi said it right she doesn't have to apologize for anything I I love what she said it was honest it was true it was pure and it's right on thank you so much I think we need to get down to the city's business I read the resolution it looks fine sign off on it if we're going to do reparations great let's do a resolution for reparations I support it 100% the the wealth and equity in this country could easily cover it billions of times over thank you ly all right with that seeing no other speakers we'll close the public hearing and bring this back to council um any questions that were

[132:00] brought up I have a few things that I caught um but I'll let someone else start Sam there you go so I want to thank all the speakers that came out tonight I just I wanted to um address um um particularly anest sigur's um um speech in Spanish um I I won't do it in Spanish but um because I want my um fellow council members to um who didn't understand um Spanish to be aware of some of the things um she was asking about so um she was just um asking that we make sure that we reach out to um the Latino community and um that we um make sure what their lives are like and um and then we address their concerns kind of in a nutshell is what she was saying and I wanted to respond um just to um

[133:03] say that there is a lot of stuff going on in the city and if you would like to meet with me I would be happy to sit down and um and chat with you about all of the work that's being done in in in that Arena and um it's by all means not um 100% of the way there but it's a really good start and I'll just give you some examples um in the 2020 budget we will um be hiring a language access person um which is something really really important um to many of the points that you made that will provide um some measure of depth in the organization to address non-english speakers um there's also um a move to look into uh paying for the staff people that have bilingual skills because often times they get recruited to do extra work that is not compensated um there is

[134:02] a lot of Outreach going on in Spanish only um in fact on Sunday um there was um one that occurred that was very very much very successful and um and it was the the third actually in series and the effort is to um do it consistently within the community and come back with followup on the issues that they bring up and this is what we were doing on Sunday um and so that's just a few of the things that are going on like I said I'd be happy to sit down with you and chat about it um I also um wanted to um address U Mr fy's concern about um the class and race I will say this um because people of color have been um discriminated against and so much structural racism has been around for so so long when you address issues of race you are addressing issues

[135:02] of class and I will give you an example um so recently I was at a presentation by um a Woman by the name of Jordana Barton and she's a senior adviser for the Federal Reserve Bank and one of the things that she had done um was to dig into Data um and really looked at the data having to do with access to broadband and she mapped out this data and then she did something that I thought was pretty brilliant she compared it to redlining maps and lo and behold they lined up so the impact of policies that were done long ago are longlasting and um to dismantle them will be a long process and I think we're just at the tip of the iceberg getting started and um I think most of us recognize that this resolution is the end not the end

[136:00] all Beall it's a start and in fact the last point in the resolution says that we expect that more resolutions will be coming so um I think that's one more thing a lot of um people brought up the issue of accountability and I agree that that needs to be a big part of it and um the accountability will be um as part of the the plan the equity plan which is just in its draft form right now and that's what the working group is working on is an Outreach plan that will go out into the community and um and reach deep and find out what the needs are and how the accountability will work out so it's no surprise that the the accountability is not in this resolution because we haven't done the Outreach to come up with that um that is coming forward and um in 2020 and I think that's all I have for

[137:00] now Rachel um thank you to everybody who is here and gave testimony tonight I I guess I have a pro process question um stemming from the timing concerns that were brought up tonight uh we heard a lot of people saying that they would rather us kind of slow down or pause and make sure that we've thought through everything and are understanding everything so I wanted to point out one thing which is that there were multiple conflicting events tonight and I think that that that may have um taken away the opportunity for some people to be here to present tonight um in person we had uh Steve fenberg and and I think maybe Edie hooton had had an event tonight that that Drew a lot of people away and there was also a big impeachment March so want us to be sensitive to that possibly being a reason to uh put on some breaks and then also Anna seager's testimony um made me think that we still have not um put in

[138:00] place a process for translators here and so that is um perhaps depriving some people of being here and having the opportunity to present and I wonder if we could get um if it's possible to get that in place before we decide on this resolution um and then third on accountability um I understand we can't get the full um full measures in until we have Community engagement but can we have some teeth in the resolution that gives uh the community some assurance that at least we're going to do the mandatory training we are committing to a deeper level of work so um I I I I guess I'm just wondering process wise are we in a hurry to decide this tonight can this be a second hearing and we can regroup around it whenever that's appropriate and not feel rushed Aon yeah thanks as well to everyone who came and spoke to us I really appreciate

[139:01] your time and your words um Rachel I want to pick up on a couple of those specifics as I was thinking about them as well uh which was uh to state in the the resolution that uh that the trainings would be uh we would commit to those being required for members of city council we would make that we would make that commitment to attend those um and it be an expectation and that in terms of the accountability um I understand people's uh desire to look for that this this resolution is a step on a in a long journey and um so but I I was thinking that we could um potentially include language um about developing um uh metrics you developing metrics and then reporting them back to the community on a regular basis is right now we it we have a statement in there about shared accountability um but I think we could uh insert language in there about a

[140:01] commitment to um to being accountable to the community and and developing some specific metrics around that um I I guess I I'm I'm fine moving forward tonight because I feel like again this is this is a step and it's expressing council's intentions um to do the work going forward and to work with the community going forward and the the plan the racial Equity plan I think is really where the action happens and you know there's a draft version of it and here there's a lot of great stuff in there but that's I think where we really need to work with the community to develop the real specific steps um about what is it exactly that we're going to do and so I I the way I think about it is that you know potentially tonight that we as a council express our clear intention uh to take a step um and to also then work with the community on developing um the very specific next steps that we would

[141:01] engage in okay Adam yeah first I had a question for City staff in regards to the third party audit uh question that came up is that an easily potential option we can ask with our G Partners to see who's done it she'd mentioned Portland we have a very strong relationship with Portland so we can definitely check and see what that entails because I think that is the best route to go we do have a staff team who's working on creating um a departmental assessment so departments can create do their own assessment of where they are in the racial Equity space and what um what actions they need to take so they can create their own racial Equity plans that would roll up to the city's racial Equity plan so in the racial Equity plan outline that was in your packets one of the action items is for departments to well one to create this assessment have departments implement the assessment and then incorporate those um those outcomes um

[142:00] action items into their own racial Equity plans so the way we've been approaching it currently was not a third-party auditor but we can certainly look into to see what that entails and the costs of that yeah I just think that might be helpful in the long term to make sure we're not just judging ourselves I did want to also add that the member meeting this year is in Portland so we're going to have a lot of opportunity to spend with our Portland colleagues so it'll be good and my other comment was for Council I do think if we can put something um regarding mandatory training I think that's a super important part of this else so I have a response to that in that it says here that we commit to ongoing race relationship training including being among the first groups along with other City boards and commission to be trained in the bias and microaggression training as soon as possible as well as to participate in advancing racial Equity the role of government um some of us have already

[143:02] been through that that second module but it seems to me like by voting for this you are committing each council member who raises their hand to vote for this is committing to going to those trainings and the accountability can come from people asking us have you done your work or not so I I don't know what more we can do than say we commit to this when we raise our hand I mean we can be fired by the voters and that's about it so I'm just referencing in two years when a new council member comes on sure and that's a really good point actually is how we refresh this with new councils and I think that that is a really interesting point that you know if we start with this then maybe each Council should recommit to when they come on to this resolution and maybe we can even sign it so that we have our names as accountable so Rachel um I just wouldn't if we're going to do

[144:01] it that way I would not put the onus on voters to to ask us whether we went to training I I think that that should be um publicly available and and disseminated you know after right after we go and I I um I don't know what kind of teeth we can put into mandatory training I know that when I ran for Council I had to sign that I was willing to do I was willing to take this job if um voted in and maybe that needs to be you know you're not sworn in until you've done the training like if we're going to have this resolution it should have some some meaningful teeth that the voters can rely on I think the reporting idea is quite good I mean I think that is a way of us providing the information so that people can see it rather than them asking for it and one of the the Rachel would you be okay if um it started by on the the racial Equity uh web page um on the city's website to have um by council

[145:00] member what they've completed so that that can be one way that people can access that um and certainly open to other ways to communicate that to the public because that's not the only way that people receive receive information so that was a question right is it that was question okay right Mark I just want to say a couple words both in support of uh what Sam has said and what Aaron has said um to me it's not a perfect resolution but it is a step it's a good step and it it contemplates many more steps to come and I would not make Perfection be the enemy of the good here I think it's a it's it's something we ought to do and we ought to do it promptly um and there's a lot more work to be done and I have every confidence that staff and everybody else will do that work um so I would not delay uh i' would be more than

[146:01] happy to consider that resolution tonight um go ahead Bob you haven't spoken yet yeah I just wanted to um go to the uh sexual orientation point if if we're we're done with the the training we are we ready to move on um so um I'm I'm looking at the version that's actually on that's public so I'm assuming that's the one we're all talking about uh and it does say um sexual preference not sexual orientation I don't know if anybody has a version that says orientation so I I whoever makes the motion on this if that's where we're going I think two changes first of all there's a TI I'm I'm in paragraph one after the up to all the whereases and all that um paragraph one um we need to close the parenthesis and am after Amy are you well I call them whereas is because I'm a lawyer um after the lettered ones

[147:01] yes okay if you go to the numbered paragraphs thank you paragraph number one commits to the inclusivity resolution pen resolution number 178 we need to close the parenthesis if that's where you intended to close it it never closes I guess that's probably where you want to close it okay and then in the next line where or two lines down where it says sexual preference I think we should say sexual orientation that implicitly not only well does it here but also implicitly corrects resolution 1178 I think does that it'sit I mean I mean you implicitly it's I mean if we all want to add another paragraph This says and by the way we also amends resolution 1178 time you can draft that for us if you want to if people want to go there I would just do it as part of the motion motion to adopt this and amend 1178 to change all references sexual preference orientation okay thank you Bob is that what you got

[148:03] yeah I was just trying to put them out I went out all right this addresses one other thing that came up um when it comes to the racial equ subcommittee that now five of us are on you know several people spoke about looking at the Sanctuary City status as part of this so is that a natural place where that can kind of roll in Mary I would look to you since you've been the member on it well that's I would want to um discuss that at the guiding Coalition meeting maybe we can add that as an agenda item and I just wanted to tag on to that that we've gotten some emails from folks around this executive order 13888 which is the Refugee resettlement and what actions a city has to take to be able to accept refugees and we learned yesterday morning that it just requires a letter from the city so another thing I would put out there and bookmark is maybe at

[149:02] the end under matters we can come back but that would be an action that we can take that's speaking pretty immediately to this issue of refugees and there's other Sanctuary City issues but that's one that we can move on right away um had one other point I found the critique of the first line to be compelling um that one of the folks who spoke to us brought up um and so I would suggest a small Amendment it says the Boulder Community has long benefited and continues to benefit from the be beautiful natural surroundings that were home to the Southern arapo shyenne and several other tribes so it's just to add those forward sorry which for Words did you want to add um I'll read it again the Boulder Community has long benefited here's what gets added and continues to benefit from the beautiful natural surroundings and so on so it's just

[150:00] being responsive to the point they made that it's ongoing right now it's not just in the past I have a counter suggestion okay sure um instead of your change to change um originally um change originally to were originally to are the stolen home of the Southern Arapaho that's just fine either one gets it into the present or is the stolen home something to that effect get the grammar correct M Rachel protocol question here are we putting out all of our concerns and and comments at this point we're not just on questions true yeah yeah we're we're in discussion okay good um so on page 112 we talk about I think the sentences Council acknowledges Community Values

[151:01] will bump up against each other and hard work will be needed to ensure meaningful decisions are made um I don't know what meaningful decisions mean I'm not sure if we're committing to giving preference to racial Equity as a lens still um and I don't know how it will Pro aail if we don't prioritize it because historically it has not um and as an example uh obbt I've heard the trustees say that their purview is specifically not the health and safety of humans and so again I'm just concerned that this resolution could um could be toothless if we're not really committing to um the the gravity of the changes that will be required and so I'm not sure how this will all mesh given that the city is sort of siloed in some ways and I don't understand from the resolution how we're going to coordinate those different silos as an example again with

[152:01] osbt their purview is very different than what a racial Equity or or an anti-racism lens would do and and so I think what I'm hearing from the community is don't commit to to lip service and make sure that you're giving something that that lets us know that that you're serious and committed and and um again we'll just raise my concern that I don't know that we gave the community enough time to uh give feedback and weigh in so I I'm still unclear on why why tonight has to be the night I would ask to Mary Had the community had enough time are are the con by rual valid this is um this is a um a resolution that has been in the works for quite a while it is a council resolution resolution it is this council's commitment to this work um and it recognizes that um the accountability

[153:03] is coming in the form of the racial Equity plan it also recognizes that there will be more resolutions coming forth um and the other thing I would add is that the community is a welcome to write a resolution as well um that commits the community we're not committing the community to this work we are committing ourselves to this work um the nine of us here um I know that City staff has already committed to the work and um there are a just a myriad of structural um changes that are being made in the form of embedding um the look look at policies and programs through this lens and um and so that that I think um is where we're at and I do think that this this resolution is our resolution and um

[154:02] we've gotten the feedback um just as we got some emails that were saying um don't pass it tonight we were getting emails that said this is um a great plan go ahead and pass it and um and that came from some members of um the working group that is planning um the Outreach for the draft Equity plan as well as the human relations commission and in fact the human relations commission back in I believe it was October had said that we don't need to review this this is council's resolution so um it is our it is the council's resolution um and um the work of the community is something that um will happen and there will be opportunities for the community to come

[155:00] together around this but um that's a part um I realize it's an extension but it is um a part from what we are committing to here tonight yeah and I feel very much the same way Mary does about this in that we have adopted this or will adopt this for our own body here um I agree that there are lots of things we need Community input on and some we have already gotten Community input on but we had the members of the working group tell us two weeks ago when we first brought this forward just to show to the community and invite public comment that we shouldn't wait at all that we should adopt it that very day and so we tried to strike a balance here between having a few weeks with it out where people could see and comment and get the sense of what it what it is but this is our promise to the community and so that's and I agree with Mary I

[156:02] think it would be quite interesting if community members generated their own proposed resolution that community members could also sign on to I just wanted to add you know this discussion is very inspiring just having the community come here and talk but again progress is about moving forward and yes there are community members who find it problematic and want changes but that's with everything in life we always going to there's always going to be a gap somewhere so we have to close the gap but we also have to move forward you know just hearing from the human relations commission and also hearing from the chamber it says a lot that our community wants changes and we are going at it but of course seeing the gaps and also holding us to account is very important so yeah I think tonight would be a great night to move forward and in the future come and hold us to account

[157:01] and ask us to make more changes and I think that's one of the things that was mentioned that once this resolution passed it's not just the end we will come with the meat so the resolution it's like the skeleton from my understanding so I'm willing to move forward because that's what the future requires because sometimes we do talk a lot but not put a lot of actions behind what we say so this is the opportunity to show that we have a skeleton and we will keep working at it thanks all so with that I will move um to adopt resolution 127 1275 committing the city of Boulder to promote racial equity and City relationships programs Services services and policies um with um amendments um to change references to um sexual preference to sexual orientation and to um change the language from

[158:00] um was the home of the Southern rapo to the stolen home something with the correct grammar um and um I think those were the changes second so Mary could you also add to amend resolution 1178 to change sexual preference to sexual orientation and what Tom said before we vote Sam one question okay well I was gon to Aaron you accept that um change from Tom I had a one or other little things but Adam do you want to go ahead sure the mandatory part where did we ever land on that uh show it on the website I think was the first step no the go ahead well I just had I was going to make a suggestion question around that the that in um item number seven of the what we're resolving um it has ABCD about uh what the uh plan would include and uh I was thinking about adding one that would include um metrics

[159:00] on progress that would be reported back regularly to the community including Council attendance at all trainings that'd be good is that M would that work for you you repeat that I lost now I only said um no I really did soil well yeah so um metrics on um progress uh that would uh that would be reported back to the community uh including uh Council attendance at trainings but Rachel you had a thought just a question is there any timeline like an an end point when this Council needs to do that training an expectation even I know a lot of you have already done it some of us have not so the next session that we have scheduled for Council to participate is February 7th and the advancing racial Equity rule of government training we're going to be discussing at the end of January um with the guiding Coalition The Right Use of power training and so that will determine what that timeline

[160:00] looks like and as far as the bias and microaggression training that will likely start mid year because we just went under contract and there's a lot of gearing up to do for that only comment I'd make on this is is um several council members of course do have day jobs and I want to make sure that as these things are offered they're offered at multiple times I wouldn't want a situation where someone was called out for not attending a train simply because they were at work right we have 30 sessions scheduled in January February and March for advancing racial Equity the role of government um that being said they are during the weekday but we'll figure it out okay great thank but we do have one that on your Friday training schedule great I'll I'll definitely Echo that that variety of times yeah I mentioned once before too y y even if it could be during a council meeting that would be helpful because there are some of us who work seven days a week so okay the one other one was just that

[161:00] parenthesis correction that Bob noted yeah anything else from anyone in discussion okay we have a motion and a second is this show of hands all in favor of moving ahead with this Equity resolution raise your hand it is unanimous any members want to make final statements or anything thank you all for coming out oh Aon I just we have a lot of work left to do this is one one step and we um I think we're committing to do the work but we have a lot a lot left I think we all acknowledge that the structural and systemic racism that our government has been a part of for many decades is not going away quickly but we're going to work on it very good Sam when you said moving ahead you're approving Aaron's motion uh Mary's motion is amended by Aaron right that was the vote yes yes

[162:01] okay all the Amendments just being the lawyer just yeah good the record keep uple you approved it okay your next public hearing is thank you Amy yes thank you so much Amy second reading of ordinance 8367 designating 2326 goth Street as an individual Landmark we do it on time I didn't do a check I think we're doing pretty good we've got two more public hearings right we didn't do the call-ups these are five minutes and 30 minutes 30 minutes take less if we do 30 here 45 here like we've said we're at 10 o' I'll get it 10

[163:01] 30 or [Music] so hi um it's time for James huitt I'm not sure you've met James before but he is our historic preservation planner and he will present this item James good evening um thanks for having me here this evening I am James huitt senior historic preservation planner with the city of Boulder and um what I'm bringing to you tonight is uh the second reading of an ordinance for the designation of the house at 2326 gos Street and this is uh a landmark for an individual property um so what we generally do is walk you through the quas judicial um hearing procedure because this is a public hearing um would you like me just to run through this very briefly okay um because it is quas judicial and it is a

[164:00] public hearing um everyone uh that's speaking needs to be sworn in the city council members should note any exart contacts they may have had about this project I'll make a brief presentation the owner will then um have the opportunity to do the same public hearing is open for citizen comment and the owner can respond to any of the comments that were made during the public hearing um the public hearing is closed and you as the city council um will discuss and a motion requires an affirmative vote of at least five to pass the motion to designate or alternately to deny the the ordinance this evening so with the with that um mayor Weaver I don't know if you'd like to so asking for expar has anyone had any expart

[165:00] communication meaning communication directly about the project we're about to listen to and I'll check with the two when they come back okay and then swearing in um anyone speaking to this item um I thought we changed that rule to not require swearing in we did we don't swear people in any longer oh we don't okay oh we do at the landmarks board so okay good planning board doesn't all right so we decide okay well I'll I'll go right into it [Music] then um so you have three choices this evening to uh to approve the designation um by ordinance to modify and approve the ordinance or to disapprove the designation that's 9116 of the boulder Revised Code and um that refers to 9111 and 9112 of the boulder Revised Code which is really the purpose of the historic preservation ordinance which is to

[166:01] protect enhance and perpetuate buildings sites and areas reminiscent of past events persons um important in local state or National History um secondly it's to maintain appropriate settings to enhance property values stabilize neighborhoods promote tourist trade and Foster knowledge of the city's living Heritage and finally um the ordinance uh talks about drawing a reasonable balance between private property rights and the public interest in preserving the city's Heritage so that needs to be carefully weighed with the public good and and the private property obviously so in terms of location um we're talking about a property that's in what is known as the gos Grove neighborhood which I'm sure you're all familiar with um it is that part of town which historically was where the workingclass folks um lived in

[167:02] Boulder and actually the little inset map um on the left shows a green area which um was surveyed in 1986 and ident ified as the gos Grove potential historic district um and is referred to as the little rectangle sometimes and that was historically the African-American um neighborhood in Boulder uh wasn't all African-American but it tended to be the place where African-Americans lived um when they came to Boulder in the early years during early settlement but it was also a place where immigrants from all over um settled in bould sort of a transitional neighborhood and during the postor War II era it changed from being a primarily African-American neighborhood to being more of a Latino neighborhood so it's transitioned over the years and then during the the 70s um

[168:02] became more of a rental neighborhood which is really the character that it is now and the reason I say that is while this isn't part of that little rectangle or gos Grove neighborhood it's adjacent to it and certainly some of the patterns that occurred there in the development are consistent with that neighborhood so just by way of background this came in for review through the historic preservation program um just a little more than a year now ago in December uh December 6 when a demolition application was submitted and um the design Review Committee uh referred the case to the full landmarks board now the design Review Committee is a subcommittee of the uh full landmarks board and they review demolitions of buildings that are older than 50 years that were constructed before 1940 so they referred it to the full landmarks board who um reviewed the

[169:01] application in February of 2019 and they voted to to place a a 5 they voted to place a stay of demolition on the application for a period of up to 180 days and the purpose of that um stay of demolition is to explore alternatives to the removal of the building so that occurred and there were several meetings that occurred with um um Mr Garcia the property owner looking at alternatives to the demolition uh one of which was could that building be kept and the property redeveloped which I'll talk a little bit more about um later so um at the the end of the the stay of uh state of demolition the landmarks board did hold an initiation hearing which they sometimes do if they think a property is of historic significance and they did that on June 5th uh

[170:01] 2019 um that is to hear the application to designate the property which they reviewed on October 2nd of this year now the vote was three to two so two of the landmarks board uh members voted against the designation one of them felt that some of the changes that had occurred to the building um altered it enough that they didn't think it was historic and um The Other Board member felt that it might affect um the intensity of development on the property that is that it it might not if it was designated um be allowed to have as many units in there so um during the the course of these reviews four members of the public have spoken in support of the building's preservation three members have spoken in support of Demolition and Alternatives were discussed including raising the house because it is an an area of Boulder that's in the 100-year flood zone and U

[171:03] certainly during floods in the past that area has been inundated so uh the house would need to be raised out of the flood plane it's not very much it's about a foot um and then it was also discussed that the house could perhaps be moved forward on the lot and then um a new unit or units built at the rear of the property and so in that scenario both of those scenarios Rehabilitation and incorporation of the house um was discussed in sort of the larger re Redevelopment of the property now the owner um it says up there that he's opposed to Landmark designation and I think through the process of the stay of Demolition and the initiation He has expressed um his preference that it not be landmarked but during subsequent um conversations he's revealed that he if he could develop the property as he

[172:00] wants um he wouldn't be necessarily be against Landmark designation but I'll let Mr Garcia speak to that um a little bit later so just in terms of the house this is um a pretty old house it was built in the 1890s and as you can see it's a pretty simple house on the top that's a photograph um from about 1949 that's a tax assessor photograph of the house um it's um really pretty well preserved architecturally it's an example of vernacular house uh of a vernacular vernacular house a house really which was for the working class and of the working class in Boulder it's largely intact with the exception of the reconfiguration of the porch roof um which I'll show you in um the next slide and the application of vinyl siding it looks as though the old siding is underneath so it would probably be quite simple to take that off and environmentally the property retains the

[173:01] residential character of the area that area has been changed somewhat there are quite a few large apartment buildings there but it is a remnant of that residential past so what we um try and look at and consider when we're looking at a historic building is the historic Integrity that is how much does the building speak to its past and and how much does it reflect that past one of the um examples that's given is if um the original owner of the house were to visit it today would they recognize the house and I think in this case you would probably say that yes it's it's really um pretty intact in terms of the form of the house um it has the very simple porch on it pedimented front and then this large hip roof which was really um very indicative of of these

[174:00] kind of four room houses that were built in the late 19th century in Boulder so um one of the things that the landmarks board and the applicant and we as staff discussed Was the removal of the garage and the accessory buildings at the back which would provide for redevelopment of the site um if it were to be landmarked so one of the um understandings is that that garage that you can see on the top right which extends to the back and you can see the shed additions that are on that building on the bottom left um could be removed to make way for new construction on the property so again 9111 um asks the question essentially would the designation protect enhance and perpetuate a building and property reminiscent of a past era um and I think this house clearly is um eligible in terms of it its architecture its um

[175:03] relationship to the property um and does it draw a reasonable balance between private property rights and the public interest staff did recommend um and is still recommending that um the city council designate this property because it does seem like it's really quite feasible to keep the building economically feasible and physically feasible to do that and uh redevelop the property under the current zoning which is rh2 so um as we generally do we recommend um and the landmarks board does as well recommend that the whole property which is about 50 800 square ft be designated um and you can see in the dotted line that would be the portion of the building that would be considered historically and architecturally significant and should be protected and then the other buildings on or other

[176:00] portions of building on the property could be um removed through the landmark alteration certificate review process and new construction reviewed also through that process if it were to be landmarked so again just showing some photographs of the the shed buildings that would come off um in that u in that scenario so um staff does recommend and the landmarks board too recommends that the um city council designate this property and um allowing for redevelopment on the property and keeping this Relic um remnant of the past um on GS Street um for future generations and with that I will conclude I uh Fran sheets is here the chair of the landmarks board if you have any questions of her and um Mr Garcia is here as well so if you have any questions I'm available to answer any of

[177:02] them Council any questions okay start with Aaron so Aaron and Rachel can I just ask you before you begin you were both out of the room have you either of you had any exp parte conversations about this none whatsoever no great perfect go ahead Mark raised his hand first no no um so uh James thank you for the presentation the uh in here it says that that the um non-contributing structures right the garage and the shed uh uh could be removed was what I was reading it but I didn't see and in fact and I I lost it now but I somewhere in the packet it said the ordinance will allow them to be removed or something like that but the I didn't see anything in the ordinance that spoke to the status of the garage and the shed I think what the memo refers to is that Those portions of the building would be defined as

[178:02] non-contributing or non-historic that could be reflected in the ordinance um it's it's actually not we usually don't put things in that we think are not but we identify those aspects of the building that are historically important so the shed and the garage are not mentioned as being character defining features I just what I'm wondering is like what sort of guarantee does propor comes back and says I'd like to remove those what what guarantee would they have that they would be able to remove them well none in terms of what's listed in the ordinance but certainly in terms of the discussions that have taken place um over the past year you know I think that the the landmarks board would be um open to to those the removal of those and they made that very clear in their deliberations okay thank you one other question can you go back a slide

[179:01] sure the or two to I guess to the map the land The Landmark boundary how are many slides back there seems to be a little stuck here there we go we go sorry that one okay so um so the recommendation is that the that it be the whole lot be the landmark boundary and then you've kind of sketched out the the house in blue but that's s of sort of an FYI sketch out right there's nothing no that's not part of the ordinance yeah so the the whole lot would be what would be what you're recommending but there there's there's nothing again calling out the house especially U if I could council member rocket I mean I you are correct that the ordinance does not specifically make a distinction between the house and the

[180:01] garage and the shed building um the motion in front of you is um essentially um the uh the motion that was approved by the landmarks board and what they did in their motion was refer to the the property as described in the memo that was in front of them in your packet it's page 186 of the packet is the memo that was uh in front of the landmarks board and it does it includes that same map and also includes language distinguishing the status of the house from that of the garage and the attached shed to it so while it's not in the ordinance that's in front of you it uh the landmarks board in its recommendation to you was explicit in terms of distinguishing the status of the house from that of the garage and the shed okay we'll come back to it into discussion it just seems a couple levels removed from so but we can talk about it later that that's a good enough for me thank you I guess I'll just piggy back on oh

[181:02] sorry it's my sorry Mark um well piggybacking though on on what Aon said as a property owner I would certainly feel better if if what was landmarked was what I was what was actually landmarked and not buildable so I'm a little bit confused by that boundary and why it's not cleaner and why we would want to build in extra steps and and concern for the property owner um but also wanted to ask it was a 3 to2 so kind of a close vote at the Landmark landmarks board and I wanted to make sure I understood the second dissenting vote it was that they it might negatively impact density if we landmarked it because otherwise it could it could house more people is that accurate that that was yeah that's that's what John Decker expressed um that his his understanding was that it might affect um the density that could

[182:00] occur under the rh2 zoning um and I'm sorry if it's in the memo and I'm not recalling it but but uh what is the density in the kind of on that block or the neighboring units well um I'm not an expert on um the zoning districts but rh2 generally allows for on an average siiz lot um two dwelling units okay by right thanks Adam sorry please Mar forg I have a couple of questions um how many examples of the uh vernacular architectural style are there in Boulder what's the uniqueness of this the uniqueness of it mhm um well I wouldn't say it's necessarily unique in terms of it being a um a vernacular building but it's certainly a good representative example of a vernacular building and how

[183:01] many similar Styles would you say uh exist in the in the gos Grove neighborhood um of this type I would say there's a handful left I a half a dozen perhaps it's certainly a Vanishing it's a it's a Vanishing um type of building and it's not really a style per se you know it's it's that's sort of what defines it it's it's more of a form it's more of a an unadorned um type of architecture and it's currently vinyl sided if if we U approve the designation will either the current or future owners be required to remove the vinyl sighting not necessarily no then how are we going to be evidencing its its character um well I I would argue that it still U certainly exhibits its character I I don't think that the vinyl sighting

[184:00] would um you know in in a major way affect the the architectural sort of elements of that building and the actually the the wood sighing is underneath the original wood siding is underneath so would actually be quite simple to take it off but nobody will be required to do that no one would be required to um and is there a specific understanding as to what can be developed on the balance of the the property which seems rather small are we talking about an Adu are we talking about a two family building what what are the well I think that the uh potentially the the lot could accommodate two dwelling units under two no two in total intal Y and that's whether it's landmarked or not that that wouldn't necessarily affect it if it were landmarked um okay thank you other questions okay anyone

[185:01] else so I may have missed this in the um memo I'm trying to catch up on on the history can you mention briefly the historical significance because that's a criteria that we're supposed to yeah I'm sorry yeah let me go back um it's It's associated with the jorats and the Bader families and um the uh the jorats were early settlers um Mr jorats was born in Marshall um in the 1880s and um they bought the house in 1910 it was built around 1895 we're not exactly sure of the the the exact date St um so yeah he was um he sold it to his brother um Mr jorats and and they actually um ran a a blacksmithing shop on the 1100 block of

[186:01] um Walnut Street for many years uh and they also um ran a liquor store so they were local merchants and um well known in the community and then later it was um it was sold to uh the baders and John Bader was a pilot um and uh piloted b-24s in World War II okay thank you any other questions all right public hearing now um actually the the so the applicant the property owner has an opportunity to to speak hi there Rodrigo Garcia we already discussed for many many hours of all this process so yeah that is vinyl sighting and I

[187:00] want to mention that I did own 1915 1921 1935 and 1921 gos which is the block of the African-American block and and we went through those discussions too and those houses did have in my opinion the significance to designated as a landmark and so I will draw my my demolition application but in this case with this house I couldn't find in this house the potential of this Landmark mainly is first of all the house is in the flood plan so it have to be elevated Tak it out of the flood plan no matter what landmark or no landmark I have to get this house elevated off and there are elements of the the energy efficient of the house as it is right now that is really in in really bad condition 1920 house that has a vinyl sighting and a stereophone glued to the original siding of the house so I'm a

[188:02] developer so I want to develop this property and the landmark designation it will not stop the development because by right the questions you ask can we develop this hous yes I can add a 1,200 ft dwelling unit which have to be attached to this house and this is what the the code is and the other things that I want to make sure is in the in the question is if the house Mark as a landmark not the garage so if this pass or no pass next day I will go to the city building department and require the demolition of the garage and the shed that is from the 50s and the city will say we have to go to Landmark we go to landmark and landmark where already authorized that that was already passed to the city council so that's even though I have to go back to the process of the landmark the discussion has been done so that's pretty much if you guys have any questions I I can answer yes um are you saying that there are are other homes on that block that that are

[189:01] now landmarked that you own or no okay no I will draw the I will draw the demolition uh permit when we discussed on the first what was the value of the African Americans living in those houses and the architecture and I was well that it makes sense so actually those houses are not to be demo they were been remodeled for the inside all of them brand new but still exactly that it was but in this case I did want to go through the process which is a year now into the process because I didn't H see that this was one of those but anyway which we have an agreement it's it's the development is going to happen with the landmark no Landmark if it's no Landmark I can demo the entire house and build something else and the second dwelling unit if it's Landmark I need to raise it make it effic energy efficient and then in the back I can build 1,200 sare

[190:01] ftk I'm just a little confused yes are you so in effect you are consenting to The Landmark designation with the Demolition of the garage and and the shed on the back okay makes life a lot easier yes so I have another question I thought I heard that you had to attach the second dwelling unit to the to the historic home correct why is that it's part of the the code the city of Boulder retion the dwelling units needs to be attached it has to do with parking requirements and things like that attached means you know one portion or through a through a covered area they need to be attached so it could be a covered area it could be a covered area I see okay yes thanks for talking to us Mr Garcia um so if we change the landmark boundary to only include the house itself and not the back half of the lot does that make make your life easier that's the only way that you make my life

[191:01] easier if you designate the entire law and then we start discussions about the shed Building 19 you saw the pictures put the pictures one more time and the garage which is collapsing and it's it's it's nothing historical into it mhm so that's that's then we're going to be another year discussing you know a metal roof garage that is collapsing and I mean you take a picture of the sheds in the back it's just my daughter can build a so why is it James this is just for you yeah why is it that um you wanted to designate the entire lot is it because of an address put the could you put the slide back on just um we could take a look at this again um you know typically we do that we we do the whole property not just the building and and the reason for that is that um you know at some point you could perhaps build in front of the building or do something that might really um in the

[192:01] future uh be to the detriment of the historic building so it's it's really about context yeah and we've seen that before the last Landmark case we looked at had something just like that so would it be possible to designate the front part of the lot all the way to the rear of the house oh sure yeah because that way it removes the question of the shed and removes that additional process but it captures the yard and the home itself and we have done that in the past where we've done a sort of a view Shed from the right of way and then you know the the new construction would not um be subject to review through through the land Mark alteration certificate process okay and if we were to decide as Council to do that um would it need to go back to landmarks for their comments I I don't think so I think that probably could be amended here yeah I think it's

[193:01] consistent with landmark's recommendation yeah so what you do need to do is amend section six of the ordinance to just insert the words a portion of the lots and then substitute the map that's exhibit B with a map that shows only the fourth portion in green and eliminate the back the rear portion um and you could do that you'd have to bring it back for third reading on January 7th but I see that as a problem another reading I thought this was it what's it I thought this was the last reading if they amend it they'll have to have can't amend I see but that's usually proor we often make the decision it wouldn't be a public hearing necessarily on the consent agenda it would pass so it will be just between you you know drawing the new you know the lot from the back to the front and and use one more month for you guys just to vote it without probably hitting all discussions about it jnie I just have a quick question about it may not concern building construction

[194:00] or anything like that um with the his because I live in go near gogroove and you know how they have the little placards in on the homes that say it's a flood plane but I've never seen anything like that in any of the homes that say this is a historic home so I'm wondering or maybe I missed it yeah you actually um for all the properties that are individually landmarked we do provide a a a bronze plaque with with just a a short history that um can be mounted on the house or somewhere else on the property okay yeah thank you okay anything else you'd like to tell us nope okay thank you thank you now public hearing great um I'm not in a really good M mood about demolition after being up at the 311 property yesterday

[195:01] um and I went to the site and I saw the uh extension off the back the the what apparently was probably it looks a little bit like Jo Auto Body and repair which I sent you about I want to Landmark that um it's really long it's short it looks like a dwarf could be in there maybe so I'd say if you if you could do something if you could do a landmark alteration and and pop that up um it might be a little bit narrow or if you could keep the wall on the um west side and extend the building out um on the East that would be cool um and then you could connect it to the house they have a little patio in the back there's a little um what do you call the thing that sticks out a dormer on the side that's on the east side of

[196:00] the main house that like I definitely recommend landmarking the place but um I just would like to see that cute little building which I'm sure you hate the the drive you know the garage kind of thing it's not really a garage I don't know what it was the function was it well I guess it is kind of a garage you see it from the front as a garage and that shed on the back that could be demolished I think or deconstructed nothing at 311 is being deconstructed um but that's my recommendation landmarking it and then you have that space in the front it's always going to have to be there like you lift the place up I mean that's pretty typical in gos Grove you're going to have to do that I mean when you buy that property you know you've got an issue makes sense to me land market and and do some alterations on that back

[197:00] building save everything we got thank you Lynn bring it back to council no you should give Mr Garcia a chance to respond respond on okay you has any responses to miss the shed in the back and the garage there are encourage on what is the the the right the eastment of the property so they're actually the garage will have to be lifted because also is on the flood plan it's no structural safe to be lift it's not it's not liftable that's that's the reality of the garage is is a is sitting on a slavo concrete doesn't have a basement and you know 2x4 structors with the with the roof and no electrical it's just just not it's not liftable nobody that the two people that came to take a look in the house they all the garage is like we can't this is this is not liftable

[198:01] so just to say okay okay thank you I'd be happy to move us forward with a motion about change with that includes changing the property boundary if that's amendable to folks sure um so I'll go ahead and and move um acceptance of ordinance 8367 um but to amend um uh section six to say that the legal Landmark boundary incorporate encompasses part of the legal lot upon which it sits with then an amendment to the map in exhibit a to draw the boundary at the southern edge of the main house house does that work Tom yes perfect second any discussion you want to speak to your motion well I'll just say w with with that as amended it seems to strike the sort of balance of uh public and private property public interest and

[199:01] private property rights so you could demolish the non-contributing garage and shed easily put another dwelling unit on there which the city could use while maintaining some historic character in a smaller home that presumably won't be super expensive to live in not that that's a criteria it's just a sort of side benefit I think Aaron said it really well thank you yeah and just a reminder this is a criteria based decision we're making so we're making this adjustment to um strike the balance Aaron spoke about but this is quasi judicial and so we're interpreting accepting the findings of Staff in this yeah those extra couple things I said are just like nice to have but the CR criteria the public and private benefit right balance okay anyone else just chime in and say something real quickly I think that um the the idea of landmarking a home that belonged to the working class I think is um

[200:02] significant in that um it recognizes that segment of our community and I think it's important to recognize as well as the big stately homes okay all right it's there's no more comments why don't we take a vote is this show of hands okay all in favor of the landmarking as described by Aaron raise your hands unanimous very good thank you thank you your final public hearing for this evening is second reading of ordinance 837 updating Transportation design standards presenting I'm

[201:04] sorry to be raise I don't know know that Jan J we can probably start whenever you're ready yeah we're just waiting for this to get pulled up so you all know Garrett Slater okay oh there we go and Garrett is our principal Transportation projects

[202:01] engineer good evening so um we are here to present the um the update to what we're calling the phase one of the design and construction standards and the reason that uh I am presenting this before you tonight is because I coordinate the activities of the capital projects program for the transportation division of the public works department and the uh updates that we're bringing forward to you tonight for um your consideration are pertaining to the transportation design standards um joined uh joining me tonight is uh Bill Cowern our uh acting uh director of Transportation as well as as DK km uh Transportation planner uh with Go Boulder that's been uh actively involved in the uh the update of these standards as well as Edward Stafford from planning and development services and uh it's important that Edward's here tonight as well because uh it's his work that actually uses the um the DCS as a

[203:02] guiding um standard and document for the uh the standards by which um public improvements are built uh for private development so we use them in terms of public uh investment and Improvement and and his group use them uses the standards for for private development so um our uh desire and being before you tonight uh it stems from a desire to provide some update to some critical sections of the design and construction standards that uh we've heard feedback from various members of the community as well as uh ourselves as practitioners and implementing projects uh throughout the transportation Network uh as well as to uh bring the DCS into uh conformance with our recently adopted Transportation master plan and the uh Boulder Valley comprehensive plan and so the changes that uh are bring uh here for your consideration uh consist of uh various elements in

[204:01] chapter two pertaining to Transportation design in terms of site access and transportation facilities there's uh more specifics that I'll get to here in a moment as well as uh some updates to the technical drawings that pertain to our Ada or Americans with Disabilities Act practices for uh pedestrian ramps and improving Mobility for people of all ages and abilities within the pedestrian uh Network so this process started at the beginning of 2019 and uh as noted we uh heard from various folks uh primarily are uh Partners at Community Cycles about some concerns about making the DCS more compliant with where the the direction of the TMP was heading and our counterparts within utilities were also working on an update to the DCS um so that they could make it compliant with State regulation requirements and they had a firm deadline of uh getting the their DCS updates in place by uh I

[205:02] believe it was July or end of June of 2019 and our initial desire was for those uh updates to to be brought forward jointly and so we commenced that process working with Tab and identified the process and the key areas that we wanted to make some updates for um and including intersection Street geometry Lane widths and right turn bypass islands and that work was continuing forward um but uh we were also all uh moving forward with the heavy lift that was uh getting the transportation Master Plan update um um brought forward and so we ran into a staffing constraint and so uh we had to slow down the process of uh the DCS update and decided to detach it from the utilities update effort and so um we uh were then able to bring forward to tab a public Hearing in September uh the consideration of these updates and

[206:00] they uh uh endorsed these updates unanimously and then at the November planning board meeting we brought these uh updates for their consideration and your recommendation as well and uh they also unanimously uh endorsed the uh the updates but uh planning board um also provided some friendly amendments to the recommendation that I'd like to address here with this slide and so the first was uh a desire to consider recommending the increasing of sidewalk widths from uh 4 feet to 5 feet on residential streets and uh uh uh council member Brocket uh raised some questions via the hotline earlier today or perhaps yesterday uh any count uh um Bill cow the acting Transportation director provided a response that spoke to our desire for this to be uh a phase two work program effort um we are uh certainly interested in seeing what we can do to make all of our pedestrian infrastructure uh more friendly and accommodating for uh uh users of all

[207:00] ages and abilities um but uh we want to make sure that we fully andc uh fully um understand and and comprehend all the implications of what that might mean and um so uh propose that that be considered in phase two and uh then another consideration was uh the uh an alternative Street design Amendment uh uh specifically Street shall be designed with due addition to building spacing and setbacks green spaces attractive materials plannings Landscaping pedestrian safety utility multimo use walkability and alternative designs and so um I would say that the uh the transportation master plan includes a number of policy uh objectives and goals that are entirely consistent with all of these desires and because Council adopted the transportation master plan as a framework by which we want to implement all of our transportation infrastructure that uh it might be somewhat redundant for us to uh adopt it into to the to the code um and so our preference would be that we continue to

[208:00] study what we can do to um um uh to incorporate that and the phase 2 DCS update and then uh finally uh there was a desire for city council to consider the 20 is plenty movement and uh as um Bill Cower noted um as part of the vision zero action plan for um 20 um 20 uh as well as the neighborhood speed mitigation that will be an effort that's uh studied and evaluated as we get into 2020 so just wanted to respond to each of those amendments and um um appreciate uh uh planning board's uh thoughtful uh review of these updates and so our Purpose with you tonight uh is the second reading and the consideration of a motion to update the the transportation design standards by amending the uh the the city of Boulder uh design and construction standards and um as I've uh conveyed to both uh tab as well as to planning board this violates every uh PowerPoint uh do not do this uh

[209:00] uh uh example I've ever seen uh because it's Laden with text and words so I have provided it though just in in the case you would like to dive into the details of the individual elements of the design standards we're proposing for for update uh that we can access it but you can see it consists of speed change lanes um access and curb withd uh uh criteria um uh Lane widths um uh I'd like to touch on this briefly we we noted this in uh the response to uh council member Brockett as well as in the MMO that our desire is to make the DCS uh more consistent with our new vernacular within the uh the low stress Walkin bike Network as well with uh what uh nacto for those that don't know what that means that's the National Association of city transportation officials and it's an organization that's much more oriented towards city transportation design because a lot of the standards that we have used historically are oriented more towards um big rural Highway design and we want to make sure that we're designing in a way that's uh

[210:01] uh sensitive to the context of our uh our city and our Urban nature and so that uh is is incorporated into this um as well we've got uh some updates with respect to multi-use path on street bike parking and uh Street lighting and Transit facilities as well as some upgrades to our as I noted earlier our curb rep uh revisions for adaa standards um here's a quick recap of the timeline that we've been on over recent months and um as noted um looking forward into 2020 we'll be initiating the phase to update and um so our uh recommendation for you is to uh adopt ordinance 8370 as included in your memo so with that I'm happy to take any questions you might have great thank you questions from Council Mary thanks for that Garrett I do have um a few questions um the the first one has to do

[211:02] um with the 2.13 um on um Transit stop design design practices and I was wondering if um in nacto in well they don't have any is that is that correct did I read that correctly that they don't have much of um standard in transit stops so it's uh uh nacto does include uh uh pretty strong Guidance with respect to Transit stop um uh implementation and installation it's our uh it's the design and construction standards which oh okay okay and so I'm wondering if in their um detailed um Transit stop design practices they include um the potential for areas um to for snow storage so say um you know adjacent to the transit stop there might be a place to put Snow excess snow is

[212:02] there anything like that in there off the top of my head I don't know I good evening console Dave Kemp sen your transportation planner and so it's really contact sensitive the design manual and so you know whenever we do a particular project there is the ability to you know take a look at um what space we do have available and then make that consideration when we actually design um the facility is that something that could be considered um in the the design standards is to add something that where it's permissible to add a place for snow storage absolutely okay thank you and then um let's see next question is um has to do with curb ramps um I noce when I'm out and about in town that there are some curb ramps

[213:02] um especially um on Barrier Islands or large intersections that don't have um the tapers where they fall off um vertically and so I'm wondering if is that to some old standard or um with these new standards would that be um not allowed so with the you're with the the vertical drop off you're describing yeah where there's a yeah where there's the the curb ramp with the little knobbies um right what are they called yeah yeah the the det detectable warning panels so but you're you're describing as you go through the ramp uh on on the the sides how some have a an adjacent flare and some have a vertical Edge correct right and so our preference is always to to put the the tapered flared Edge um we're

[214:01] practical but um the design and construction standards recognize that um particularly in um built out um really constrained environments sometimes you don't have the space to do that so there will continue to be provision for that vertical Edge to be present and and our interactions um uh we did uh an exercise with um the uh um the the local I'm I'm blanking on their their name right now but the the group where the people with disabilities um where we actually are we brought our staff over and we uh went through an exercise where we were blindfolded and they guided us through U so that we could understand what it was like for them and what we learned from them through that exercise um is that uh someone who is visually impaired um would um uh they were less concerned with um um not having the flare because the curb they said with the walking stick would communicate to them that they would need to to be able to carry forward and they said that uh uh at Le

[215:01] this is anecdotal but U their their observation was that is more likely to be a problem for um somebody who's not visually impaired and and in a whe perhaps uh and and so in a wheelchair um right then the path would be for them to to uh there's supposed to be um adequate width in the approach to each one of those ramps so that there's a maneuverability space um to allow wheelchairs to be able to get in um the primary purpose of having the flare is to to eliminate a a tripping Hazard okay okay and um so what I'm hearing is that in the cases where it's vertical it's due to space constraints correct okay um and then um right before 2.12 Street lighting and I for I don't know if I can go back to what the section is but it's talking about um on street bike parking um Corrals and um it refers to um placing

[216:06] those in areas um with high pedestrian vol volumes and I was wondering where High pedestrian volumes is defined I'll let DK speak to that but you you might be familiar with the location on West Pearl and that's an illustrative ex a great example so basically um many locations in our downtown where we've got a lot of um activity on the sidewalks those would be ideal places to install on street bike parking carals while understanding there is a balance between you know achieving a certain number of vehicle car parking spaces we are also trying to look at where we can take some of those bikes off sidewalks and put them on street okay so it's um so high pedestrian volume would be observed pedestrian volume it's not necessarily some sort of a count on number of people that go by or anything like that there's not a no

[217:00] there's it's it's a little more anecdotal and and saying that this particular area is a commercial has commercial use and and there's a lot of people out walking around and whatnot so okay yeah there's not a quantitative all right thanks DK um and then that's all I have okay anyone else Adam Mary brought this up briefly but did any of this work include sort of a view with snow removal in mind since that is such a large recent topic I'm not sure that uh snow removal was contemplated as a part of of the this specific update but I I do know that uh uh I can speak uh in terms of our general practice and the implementation of capital projects that uh provision for snow storage is always a

[218:01] consideration um uh and and in a good example of that would be uh whenever we uh do a Bridge Project historically um uh there are a number of Bridges uh around the the community um where we would narrow The Bridge to save cost but then what would happen is that meant that the sidewalk was directly adjacent to a travel lane and then there's no place to store snow and so our practice now is that we want there to be separation between the travel Lane and the um and the sidewalk so that we we have snow storage and so that's just one small example of how we we we we work with our uh counterparts and operations and maintenance to to provide um snow storage that's great I just think it's important to recognize that as that comes up that we constantly reassert that we're doing stuff for snow removal purposes Aon thank you so just to interpret that the maybe a fair statement to say that this particular update didn't focus on snow removal but that it's integrated throughout these

[219:01] standards it's it's always uh absolutely a design factor and a consideration great thank you anyone else questions okay I guess it's a public hearing so all right James FY and then Kurt [Music] [Music] Norbeck I'm James feny from North Boulder um a few things stood out to me uh reading uh through the ordinance um there were some problems with the form of the ordinance uh certain lack of professionalism uh fails to highlight the revisions in the ordinance when I read through it uh ordinances used to be written that way so you could just see where the changes were being made um there was nothing like that in here there's also a PDF file made available on the city's website that had some non-standard PDF format uh that didn't allow cut and paste um that was kind of

[220:01] annoying um so I don't know whether anybody was able to do a side by side with the old and the new um but uh it was kind of a problem uh I want to Echo uh Mary's uh raising the point about um snow removal on uh uh bus stops uh I don't think that you should just let that pass uh I'd insist that some explicit wording be uh incorporated into the standard because otherwise it's just not going to happen um three things uh that stood out uh for me uh construction standards 2.04 H speed lighting changes um the enabling language didn't clarify to me uh whether uh the change in the language is going to uh allow the removal of speed uh change lanes uh or the um addition of speed lane changes and uh most terrifying example I can think of uh is the intersection at Valmont and foothills uh you have a s lane Highway uh and there's no

[221:01] acceleration Lane so uh entering traffic may be surprised to encounter oncoming traffic and what otherwise might be expected to be an exclusive acceleration Lane What could possibly go wrong so um I hope uh that the um the standard change uh requires uh speed lane changes as opposed to allowing uh the director to uh eliminate those speed lane changes and I'd like to find out what actually happened there I don't know what happened there um the second thing U uh 212 B4 uh Street lighter design um uh the language there is poll should be located uh so that the center of the pole is 3 feet behind the face of the curb so you have this four or five foot sidewalk and conceivably we're going to put the light pole three feet into the middle of the sidewalk uh that sounded like crazy talk to me um because obviously it's not a good thing to stick the lamp post in the middle of the sidewalk uh the standard wording could

[222:01] be changed to Simply allow that uh um the lamp has to be not in the middle of the sidewalk so uh I think now is a better time to U address that wording um uh DCS chapter 11 uh the curb ramps um so uh there's a standing joke in engineering that says that the nice thing about standards is that uh there are uh so many to choose from uh the obvious uh implication here is that having a lot of Standards is equivalent to having no standards at all uh this is a bad idea I counted 12 different street designs in the drawing uh really seriously uh I thank you lower the number there ctor back hi CT NB speaking first on behalf of community Cycles uh we thank planning and transportation staff for their work on updating the DCS it has been a

[223:00] pleasure to collaborate with them so far and we look forward to a continuing productive discussion on subsequent revisions we support the proposed modest changes we also strongly support the comments by both Tab and planning board in particular we would suggest that planning board's proposals for increasing the residential sidewalk width standard from 4 feet to 5 feet and adding consideration of pedestrian safety utility multimodal use and walkability to the criteria for alternative design to be sufficiently minor changes to justify their inclusion in the current phase 1 ordinance we also greatly appreciate uh planning board's endorsement of 20 is plenty however we want to clarify that speed limits and design speed or Target speed are different but complimentary speed limits are what show up on the signs but it's important to reinforce those limits through Street design that encourages safe traffic speeds and makes all users feel more welcome to help reinforce the 20th plenty campaign we

[224:02] strongly support reductions to the street design speeds specified in the DCS in phase two we also hope to see consideration of changes to intersection design such as Corner ADI and slip Lanes sidewalk reconstruction standards and traffic study requirements among others all based firmly on the TMP goals Vision zero and our climate action goals we urge Council to support staff in prioritizing these phase two efforts thank you I want to add something quickly just from myself that I thought of uh in listening to the discussion about uh the gear resol solution um so this is again just coming straight from me people of color undocumented persons and the disabled among others are less likely Than People of privilege to have access to cars and are more likely to depend on Transit walking or biking to get around they therefore have historically been and continue to be

[225:00] treated inequitably by our motor vehicle Centric Transportation design it's time to begin to rectify that updating the DCS is an important step in that direction thank you thank you Kurt okay bringing it back to council for consideration you want want to kick us off so okay um go for it I move to adopt ordinance 8370 updating transp portation design standards by amending the city of Boulder design and construction standards DCS originally adopted pursuant to ordinance 5986 and setting forth related details consideration of this ordinance is Phase One of updates to the transportation design standards of the city of Boulder

[226:00] and I wanted to add um to section 2.13 um something to the effect of um where it says new Transit stops and enhancements to existing Transit stops shall be designed in accordance with rtd's bus infrastructure standard drawings with consideration of nacto Transit Street designed and where space permits include um consideration of snow storage or something to that effect I'll second it right so um thank you staff for making these changes and uh the meaty stuff I guess is going to be in phase two and um I look forward to that

[227:00] okay uh I also appreciate breaking it into two phases and getting these important Ada and other changes made so that we can move forward with all new construction having those safety features and then also bringing forward the speed issue in the next phase I think they'll be a lot to that agree with all of that um and I wanted to thank uh bill and the staff for the answers to my questions that I posted yesterday appreciate that and so I look forward to the the phase two doing a a deeper dive um on some of those um those issues about pedestrian safety and the implementation of our transportation master plan goals um and as well as the 20s plenty initiative that we'll be undertaking in 2020 um I I did just want I had one kind of Remnant question um so I don't know Bill if this is for you answered my earlier question but um it's about that um the criteria for alternative Street designs and so the the I thought was interesting so the the

[228:02] current language says that street shall be designed with due attention to building spacing and setbacks green spaces attractive materials planting and Landscaping and then it also says that if the pavment and RightWay lifts are are less then you should get improved safety out of it but it doesn't mention safety in the alternative in the street design itself and so I thought you made a a good point that that planing board's recommended language calls out a certain subset of goals but maybe they're not the right ones or something like that but but it does strike me that that the language for Street design doesn't mention mentions a number of things but but not safety right so what's your thought on Bill Cowan uh principal traffic engineer and Inter Transportation director um so you're correct that I think one concern we had is that um we would question the value of putting only a sub set of goals into an ordinance

[229:00] um rather it would be better to Simply reference something like the transportation master plan or or something of that nature that um such that it would then change whenever that document changed um certainly um safety is a a primary consideration in roadway design um and again it would be I think a reasonable expectation of the community and policy makers that the director whenever they are making decisions about alternative roadway design is considering the Transportation uh master plan goals um and safety would be Paramount in there okay so that and that makes sense what what would would you think about since it does list a number of things you know adding to the end something like uh as well as the overall goals of the transportation master plan yeah I mean I think that's probably reasonable I think I would I would keep our recommendation the same I'd prefer not to edit an ordinance on the fly right I would

[230:00] prefer to um make any any wording um changes in a very deliberative process and so I would rather that we do that in phase two and and determine exactly what it should say but I think that if you were determined to do it then language like that would probably be better than um what planning board had suggested okay well I I guess in the future I reserve the right to make edits on the fly but I know phase two is coming right up so I can I can wait okay thank you other thoughts comments okay we have a motion on the second show of hands to you're amending right yeah yeah yeah we're as amended as amended by Mary I didn't make an amendment okay all in favor it's unanimous very good thank you thank

[231:02] you all right so we didn't we have no Matters from the city manager no Matters from the city attorney we did not do a call up for either 8A or 8 B so we're on to 8 C I think y yep okay committee assignments so I think that we have settled most things and juny has a few additions so would you like to tell us about those yes thank you um I did send an email to council last last week about being added to the county Consortium of cities and I'm not so sure if I guess since Mark wallik is in it I wanted to know for the Colorado Municipal League does it have to be staff as an alternate no so can I please be added to

[232:01] that the CML yes okay so I think Mark so do you not want to T about Consortium of cities I did but since Mark is already Mark did you sign up for that or would you just assign yeah so heed upon me I I okay so can I be added to the CML instead so for CML yeah um yes I think you can um we have two votes on the Colorado Municipal League because we're above 100,000 people yeah and Carl will probably still come Carl Castillo will probably still come with us so I think that would be fine okay perfect too bad he's not here I would ask him what his thoughts are just recall that that meets three times a year and it's long meetings 10 till three that's perfect so um I can comment on that and that's how it was set up it was suzan and myself

[233:00] and um Carl would go okay is stord you get lunch yeah that's great and and it's focused yeah really on the Colorado legislative agenda that's even better okay thanks and also I would like to be added to the financial strategy study committee okay and also the Alpine Balsam County participation subcommittee so I would make one comment about that and that's to have Bob give a briefing on where we think that's going okay yeah I think Mark Mark and I were at the last meeting I think we're only going to have one more meeting um so um it may not be a real satisfying assignment that's that's still fine I still want to be part of it okay thank you I I think it's it's fine that the purpose of the last meeting is really a uh preparing a joint communic and what has been I think agreed by the participants but you'd like to participate in that it's on uh January 7th that's perfect y may very well be the last meeting of that

[234:00] group and I have a question about the um Financial strategy subcommittee do you need um was it your desire to be added to the Charter subcommittee um or to be considered um at the end of the charter when we decide what form we might move forward with yeah I would like to be part of both processes yeah okay thank you okay so I think anyone else have any additions or changes from our last conversation okay so did you get those CML Financial strategy and Alpine balam County working group so okay if there's no other changes um would someone like to make a motion that we make these our city council committee assignments so moved second okay any

[235:01] discussion all right great all in favor okay ten Andis all right and then some work items right do you want me to kick it off do you want to start the retreat why don't you start Bob okay it might be helpful to work backwards actually from The Retreat and then we can work back into some things that we'll need to do before the retreat so you all received in your packet um a proposed agenda uh for the retreat which was put together by Mary and I I and Lynette and Jane and um Taylor and other people that participated so this would be a good time to speak up if you um like to do something different for our Retreat just to recap The Retreat and this is um this is for those of you who've been on Council for years uh this is pretty similar to what we've done in the past we have found that works we are facilitated by Heather Bergman who does

[236:00] a outstanding job of getting us through all of this um and we typically kick off at four o'clock on a Friday afternoon with a bit of an icebreaker and the emerging etics profile which we'll talk about in a second and then we spend the rest of the evening on Friday evening talking about Council procedures and this is our opportunity to suggest to one another um changes in our procedures I know we've heard a few of them already and and um we'll have an opportunity to express more uh well before we arrive that day um we have a working dinner and the the idea is to to get out of their 00 with some idea of of some changes and procedures then the next day we really are developing our work plan for really it's a two-year work plan focusing on 2020 but also looking into 2021 and we talk about our priorities first and again we will have expressed those ahead of time we'll talk about that in a second and then it's a bit of a negotiation with staff about um what we think we can get done in uh in the time frame and staff will have sized

[237:00] for us they'll take the recommendations or request that we make in advance of the retreat that will have sized for us small kind of small medium and large so we have an idea of how many Smalls and how many larges and how many mediums we can we can put into a 2020 work plan with the objective of obviously not filling up our entire schedule because things invariably come up during the year that we don't expect uh and then the goal is to get out of there by about 4:00 with a work plan more or less um in hand typically what happens is a few weeks later I think three or four weeks later staff will refine that and bring that back to us for final approval but the idea is at least to have a kind of a rough draft of a of a work plan anything else Jane or or Mary on the on the retreat agenda so folks comfortable with that yeah mayby do we have to redo our em what Emer genetics or can we keep no he don't so that's a great segue thanks because you did it before right yeah yeah yeah so that's a great segue into the homework so in order to get I I had

[238:00] something actually oh yeah so the schedule is clearly designed by morning 00 00 personally I'd 00 but I was wondering if folks would be willing to move it back 30 to 4:30 apologies uh I have to leave for a wedding probably two hours early that I'm in I wouldn't go to it otherwise but that's my only push back sorry Aon all right no worries I'll I'll get up early for the team Aon you were brilliant you 30 this morning oh yeah my eyebrows my eyelids did make it all the way up and you're still up you're still up this has been a long day for all of us to me this looks good I I mean if you're having to leave early anyway that's kind of problematic because we will not be done with the work plan discussion yet so um you have to make sure that you have a list and you leave us with anything that we don't get to okay is is it actually you getting

[239:01] married Adam okay just wondering if congratulations were order no so I think this we were definitely not invited yeah yeah just take one pass it down so u in order to to have a successful day and a half we need to do a little work ahead of time so what I've just passed out is something that Mary and I worked on this afternoon to kind of frame up the homework um and so um M by mentioned the emerging etics profile a new council member should have received a link from Lynette on on that profile it takes about I half an hour 45 minutes to answer those questions and I hope you've done it and if you haven't if you could do it by the end of this week um it's kind of if you've never been through it's kind of Myers Briggs that kind of talks about how you receive information and process information and and communicate and a whole lot of things about your personality those of us who've already done it they're just going to bring that back so you don't have to do it again the assumption is we don't change too dramatically from year to year but I'm going to do it again see

[240:02] if six years six years of council has traumatized my personality you'll answer much more carefully then moving forward to um right after the break or as we're coming back from the Break um what we're asking you to do is provide Lynette with two things well three things actually um a your list of your 2020 work plan requests um these are the things that you liked us to tackle in 2020 um and uh some of you have already started to submit this as a matter of fact we reviewed for the veteran council members we actually reviewed some of our lists from I think on October 29th so if you've already submitted those you don't want to resit them again we we can recap capture those um but this is your list of of items and it would be real helpful if you kind of prioritize them you said this is if we only did one thing this year what would we do and if we got two things done would we do so if you could

[241:00] rank order of than 1 two 3 four 5 so we know what you really really care about and it's undoubtedly going to be true that there's going to be some things that are going to be on many of our lists which is great that's how we determine that this is a really important item similarly with Council procedures I don't think you need to number these but any ideas you have on ways to um improve the way we operate or engage with the community I think Aaron's got a bold proposal out there that we Shi meetings to a different night of the week so anything that relates to length of the meetings or how meetings were operated or the role of the mayor and and distribution of responsibilities anything about process um uh put in that note to um Lynette and she will uh kind of consolidate them and find where is of overlap and and we'll be prepared to discuss those later that week the second thing is you'll be receiving soon when Lynette I should have all of them by Friday by Friday we'll have we've asked all the boards and commissions to um deliver to us a letter listing their

[242:01] priorities because that's going to help us frame our priorities and uh we will each be assigned two or three probably two um boards and commissions kind of randomly um and so while it's always great if council members could read all of the board's letters which we will receive in particular focus on the two that you've been assigned randomly and um prepare just a short little bullet point summary of what you perceive that board is asking us to do for 2020 and get that into Lynette by January 6th you can get it in earlier if you want and what Lynette will do is we'll again kind of amalgamate all these things and turn into on one master presentation so taking that information on the 6th um uh the next day we have a regular council meeting on January 7th and we've set aside time in that meeting and this is really not for us to advocate for our our work plan priorities that that will happen at the retreat but this is an opportunity for

[243:00] staff to ask us questions we've only allocated I think about 30 minutes for this so this is just this is really them asking us so Aaron you asked for such and such what are you really hoping to accomplish with that or what's what does this mean or what's the um the output you want us to get from the and if if if we're all very very clear that may be a very short discussion because between our meeting on the 7th and our special meeting that week on Thursday the 9th um staff will then kind of size these things you know some of these projects one thing I've observed in my four years on Council is to council members everything is a no-brainer everything is really small and we can just do it really really quickly and and then and then staff interjects reality and points out to us that we have lots of community engagement to do and there's lots of drafting to do and we have lots of research to do so they'll Endeavor to in that two-day uh time frame size these things so we so that when we get to the retreat we know how many Smalls and how many mediums and how many larges we have so we don't overload the schedule the other thing we'll do that night on the 9th our special study session is we will then

[244:02] present those two boards and commission letters each that each of us so we'll we'll put together our little for the PowerPoint and Lynette will create a master PowerPoint and then we'll just probably go down the line and and present to each other and to the community what we're hearing from the boards and commissions and then finally um a Woman by the name of Heidi who is our specialist in emergent etics will um help us interpret and understand the profiles that we have U um and then what we're going to ask folks to do is between then and the time we actually have a retreat is we're going to randomly pair up council members and because there's nine of us um one of us will be fortunate enough to be paired with Jane and so those five pairs are um asked to go off and have a cup of coffee or whatnot and kind of compare each other's profiles and when the idea is one of the things we'll do at the Icebreaker at that um that evening session at the retreaters we'll introduce each other and we may talk a little bit about each other's profiles um you can of course um when we'll have those assignments Lynette when will you on Thursday on Thursday session okay

[245:02] could you assign um us cuz it's just assignments a little earlier that way if people want to put things on the calendar um we won't have our emerging etics or our Pro our analysis of those until the 9th but if people know who their partners are and want to put some things on the calendars maybe they can do that ahead of time I'll do that right away is there um we might want to check in with Heather um just to make sure that that doesn't mess anything up I don't think it will but um but the the concern was that if we don't um assign that sooner it's kind of hard to set up times to to meet so we F yeah okay great and Heather actually will be walking us through the study session on the night so those of you who haven't met hether you have an opportunity to spend some time with her before the retreat anything else Mary that we're missing that's it I think you covered it you guys have any questions for those of you been on Council this is relatively similar to what we've done the last few

[246:01] years seems seems to work if you guys got well don't forget that mid year we had a baby Retreat that's right and so one of the things I think we'll talk about when we get to process is whether we should have a mini retreat maybe in July to check in to see how we're doing um no I was talking about the one in January oh last this year yeah we only had a baby Retreat this year yeah yeah where it was just the Friday evening and not Saturday yeah so I think we tend to on I think that's a good tradition it is a good tradition so when we have um newly elected council members and we we just launched this Council this tends to be a longer retreat and then a year from now we may have have a shorter check-in retreat but we also may do a check-in in July just to see how we're doing mid year so I mean the only question I have is how you're thinking about handling the ongoing priorities so obviously if there are things which staff expects to continue I wouldn't expect us to necessarily be ranking them great segue okay

[247:01] perfect so can we start with that so what cic and the Retreat committee asked staff to do um so that you can prepare over the holidays to figure out what your priorities are is that you asked us to talk about what our ongoing priorities are so you don't need to list these on January 7th as things that you want to do unless you need more clarification on them um remembering that this is a two-year work plan that that we're thinking of so if you've got priorities that you think are bigger or Bolder and can't be be done in a year but they could be done in two years those are perfectly fine priorities to add on your January 6th um item the other thing is that on your uh desk tonight you have a book and this book is the council action guide we prepare this every year and it has information in there about some of the top projects

[248:00] that staff is already working on so as you start thinking about what your priorities are please take a look at this to see if we're all already working on it there's also descriptions of um departments in there so just lots of background information so tonight what we're going to do is go over a number of priorities that we have already established that we're already working on and I have a staff member here that will discuss each one of them and we'll go through the slides one at a time so there's several items with regard to The Climate commitment several items with regard to the planning work that we're already doing the South Boulder Creek flood mitigation project the comprehensive Financial View Vision zero and racial Equity so those are projects that were already working on so I'm going to start by turning it over to Steve katak our director of climate initiatives to talk about their two projects good evening mayor and city council um I'm glad we recently had a conversation so this I particular topic

[249:01] I can make relatively short uh as you know the city is pursuing the development of a municipal electric utility which has been an ongoing initiative with the city for uh multiple years uh we have in the past year had several Milestones where we have uh emerged from the Pu and have a clear path forward uh towards municipalization so as we move forward in 2020 and uh towards a vote in 2021 we continue to work to refine the costs of standing up the utility uh the cost of acquiring those assets uh the cost of condemnation is of course path towards that our cost for separating the utility and of course our commitment to a continued Community engagement and really ensuring that we are being as transparent as possible uh to the citizens in the community uh so

[250:00] with that if we could advance to the next Slide the a new initiative that uh we brought before Council in July of this year is both the continued implementation of our climate commitment but really the refinement through a climate mobilization action plan and this is in recognition of the fact that we really need to establish a plan where Equity resilience are core filters that we're applying to multiple areas primarily our buildings our Electric System our electric supply and and also our transportation systems recognizing that also how we utilize our land and our buildings and also how our financial systems are established are all key to creating this plan uh we also are moving forward with this plan with the understanding uh that because of the urgency of our climate U crisis we it's

[251:02] really critical that we start to address systemic change that we're not only looking at initiatives that are going to affect uh the community of Boulder but how do we go about making those big changes uh that affect a much broader area and those large systemic changes that are going to make a real difference in what we're trying to accomplish so I don't know Jane if you want anything more but at this point no our plan was that we would go through each one of the items and then Chris Muk is next with items that they're working on through the planning department thank you all very much you thank you thanks Jane good evening Council Chris M uh interim planning director assistant city manager so the planning department has three priorities that are continuing um for the next two years uh the first is related to the community benefits project as well as the site review criteria update and so uh

[252:01] Community benefits that is a project that um we started last year we finished the first phase which was to establish a community benefits program in the land use code um that says um for those areas that are allowed to go from the base zoning height which is typically around 35 to 38 feet up to the Charter maximum height of 55 feet that extra height that you get the community needs to get a benefit in return and so that's the concept of the program the First Community benefit that we established was for affordable housing um the program always intended that there would be a suite of community benefits that an applicant could choose from so this second phase is to continue that Suite of um potential Community benefits that someone could provide and so that's the work that we're going to we're going to do um and that includes everything from affordable um commercial space to maybe space for nonprofit or the Arts or for

[253:01] um Human Service organizations so those are the sorts of things that we're going to continue to explore through this we'll o be looking at the site review criteria um the site review criteria are for um larger developments that go through that discretionary review process there is a very long list of criteria that they have to meet um and there is some cleanup to that uh criteria that is necessary and so this project because it will already be working on the site review criteria um we want to clean that up as well and so that's what this one uh is about the next one is the East Boulder subc Community Plan so on last year we kicked off um kind of a renewed effort to do subc community planning we have 10 subc communities in Boulder the North Boulder subc Community um is the only other subc community that has a plan so we are um finished we have finished the first two phases of this project um there's a community working group that is working uh uh to um guide this project um and

[254:01] the intention is that through 2020 we will complete the the East Boulder subcommunity plan and then the very last one that we have uh is related to use tables and standards so this is the second phase of this project um we did the first phase the use tables are in the land use code and it is basically a very long list of all of the things that you might be able to use a piece of land for and which zoning districts they're allowed or not allowed or they're allowed if you meet certain criteria and um for many of those categories we had not updated them in decad ades um and so we have things like data processing facilities um that isn't really how you you process data these days so things like that that we need to update the first phase we focused on the zoning districts that were located in the geographic area of the opportunity Zone to address any concerns there um and this next phase will complete all of the other zoning

[255:00] districts we have 42 zoning districts in the city um to go through and review all of the different um uh uses and whether there's any changes the idea of this project is really to help bring it into conformance with um the visions that are articulated in the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan especially around things like 15minute neighborhoods so we anticipate that that'll be a high part of the conversation so so Chris just to level set on this one a bit we did 18 zoning districts in the opportunity zone is that right I believe so we had done bc1 and bc2 so we're something like halfway through the work of the stes all right y um this is I maybe you didn't put this up here because this is not really a continuation from this last Council but we talked a week or so ago about the comp plan midterm that's also on our work plan yep right okay so yep it's still on the work plan these are just the continuing ones that's a new

[256:00] initiative that we're starting got it okay great yeah great so with that I think I turn it over to Joe tauchi and Public Works utilities great so good evening I'm Joe tatui utilities director in our public works department um so on November 19th we had a process checkin with you where we talked about the South Boulder Creek flood mitigation project and the CU South um annexation and just quickly the the flood mitigation when South Boulder Creek floods it overflows its banks and um creates a new flow path down the West Valley and floods neighborhoods um in South Boulder and so the flood mitigation project is aimed at creating flood detention and storage to protect those neighborhoods um in order to construct the project we need approval from three different Property Owners which includes the University of Colorado there's city property that's

[257:01] managed by our open space and uh Mountain parks department and then uh some work with C do and in order for the annexation of cu's property to move forward that's part of this the flood mitigation project really needs to be defined what the footprint is and what the inundation areas are and so for this year um we are actively working towards a February study session where we'll be checking in with you on the engineering work that we've been doing and um really bringing in a comparison of what's been uh termed the variant one concept and looking at different flood protection levels the 100 year the 500 year and in between and giving you um information about what some of the trade-offs would be with all of those things and so following the study session we'll have uh public engagement give the boards an

[258:01] opportunity to weigh in and then come back to council hopefully in May to get direct ction and kind of final definition of what the project is so that we can move forward with um preliminary design and permitting and kind of the heavy lifting of the annexation process okay and Cara Skinner who is our deputy director of Finance is going to talk about our long-term Financial strategy project thank you good evening Council uh we did disc discussed this project just last week so it should be quite familiar uh it is anticipated to be a two-year project and again focused on a more holistic long-term approach to financial planning uh that also applies a racial Equity lens um the outcomes of the goal we dis are the outcomes or goals that we discussed last week are listed here on the slide um the first work that we will get to work on uh

[259:01] early January is the financial strategy study committee will focus on the library District analysis researching ongoing Finance subcommittee structures refining the forecast funding models for discussions related uh or that could inform our 2020 ballot issues discussion in May and then also researching racial Equity lens tools so that's the sort of phase one of the project but we do anticipate it will be about a two-year project thanks Cara and then I think Bill caran your next with vision zero good evening Council um Vision zero is uh a summation of our travel safety goals um our primary goal Primary Vision zero goal being the elimination of severe crashes in the city of Boulder of serious injury or fatal crashes um Vision zero is something that permeates um all aspects of transportation we

[260:01] includeed in the way that we uh design plan and design our facilities the way we operate and maintain them and the way that we educate the community around legal expectations um and and generally safe Behavior there is a many ways in which this can come before city council um but two areas in which it will come before city council for sure is um the discussion of residential speed limits and the update the phase two update of the design and construction standards and you may recall that we mentioned this this morning a little bit when we talked to our legislative um committee about what we're working on then the last item is Amy K going to talk about racial Equity um yeah Amy so thank you again for having me back um so 2020 priorities which we already discussed was the community engagement um and the adoption of the racial Equity plan the bias and microaggression

[261:01] training that we'll be rolling out for All City staff councils boards and yourselves um and then also one thing we did not talk about earlier this evening was the implementation of the police oversight um the police oversight implementation committee most of the members of the police oversight task force have decided to continue on with the work and we will be starting the implementation phase January 9th so we will be pres providing updates to council as the process goes throughout um and we'll just keep everybody informed along the way and hopefully have another um res or um ordinance up for adoption sometime towards the end of the year so thank you very much yeah have something about Amy thanks for um talking about the citizen oversight yes um task force I just wonder in in when we're presenting things to the community about a work plan if that might get a separate bullet point if it's maybe a subheading or something like that um because it is a very concrete step and

[262:00] people might not realize that racial Equity includes the formation of the citizen oversight task force okay thank you for that yeah thanks that's a good a good suggestion and a reminder so um just we're happy to answer any questions but I did want to talk a little bit about the book that you have in front of you because it could be very helpful at the very beginning of it you should have um this PowerPoint followed by a table of contents and you'll see that the first thing in there is our 2019 accomplishments so you can take a look at one of many of the things that we accomplished it's been divided into different areas and th these areas are part of our sustainability framework which is how we look at all the operational work that we do in the city so environmentally sustainable accessible and connected Etc and it's how we think about our budget every year as well so this will give you an idea of the kinds of things that we can accomplish in a given year it's followed

[263:00] by the project summaries and those project summaries are in more detail of the item that you've heard tonight so these are the ongoing projects and then the next part of it is overviews of each one of the Departments and the work plans that those departments are always already working on so you might take a quick look at those particularly if you've got a thing that you want to do and you think it it falls in a particular Department you might take a quick look at their work plan already to see if maybe it's already on there um might not be but it it might be as well um and of course all the work that we do goes to the core Services of our community um because when people wake up in the morning they just want to get to work and get their kids to school and that's what we do so any questions about what's been presented tonight or um your assignment any way we can help you get ready for the retreat Jane is the this document available um electronically excuse me is this a did

[264:03] we receive this electronically electronically are are we yes we are receiving it electronically you can re receive it electronically and it's on the website okay yeah great thank you um I just want to make an observation which maybe some of the veterans will agree with or disagree with it seems like um it's not a bad thing or or good thing it's just a fact seems like we have a lot of carryover this time more than I can remember my four years and which is fine because we broke a lot of things into phases and you saw a lot of phase twos up there so I just I guess guess I'm making that observation to um um suggest that as we come up with more things to do over the next two years we just want to be mindful of the fact that we've already got a lot of work on our plates already right I mean we've got you know months of work right here I totally appreciate that comment thank you so much not to discourage anybody from throwing new ideas on the table I just want us to recognize that

[265:00] we we've already kind of got a fair amount of work already and I guess the other oh sorry go ahead yeah I appreciate that Bob very true although it is the council's prerogative to take things off as well so the majority of council said you know what one of those things not the most important thing anymore we certainly can decide that we got a lot of new people who might have ideas Mary no and I was just going to add that um we also want to end our meetings by 10:30 or earlier and and yeah and at add in stuff is more time so yeah another reminder is that there will be things which come up that we don't plan on whether it's an assault weapons ban or some other outof the blue kind of deal that the community really wants us to to take up right away so leaving a little slack in the work plan has advantages when those surprises arise

[266:01] Rachel so for what's currently on our agenda do we need to like rank those or or do anything in advance or we're just I guess following up on Aaron's suggestion like are we ignoring those I don't think you need to rank those those are already underway I I think the only way or only time that you would be kind of ranking them is if something really important came up at The Retreat that everybody said oh yeah we want to do it and then staff said yeah but we can't unless you take off something and at that point you'd be looking at the other things and going oh well maybe you know East bould or subc Community wasn't as important as we thought it was but and I just picked that as an example I'm not suggesting it in any way so that otherwise we're doing this stuff and onward and some of it really is integrated on work plans right now and is kind of rolling along like Vision zero that all came out of the TMP and so that's not it's work that they're doing

[267:02] but it's not like a new project or anything um the phase twos I will point out they are particularly the use tables in the site plan review cat area they are as unsexy as you can possibly imagine they're planning wonery but there's stuff that has built up 20 years of a Creed Badness and when people when developers talk about wanting to to streamline things that's the work you have to do is like revising Ed tables from the 1990s isn't going to get anyone really excited but it is going to get us towards our goals on land use and so that's just something to know is that some of these if we get them done they won't get touched for 20 years likely so it does get some of us excited so just not very many people maybe three of us up here um anything else from anyone just one thing I I just wanted to um just request that we get a link to the

[268:00] electronic version of this please yeah um can we do that tomorrow that would be excellent thank you thank you any feedback on the meeting any debrief thanks for coming back guys yep thank you and we're adjourned before 10:30 happy holidays yep happy New Year happy holidays everybody enjoy your time off Live from Paris on fat