March 3, 2020 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] [Music] when they do this I know they're real proud of it all that that's what it is hey there are you doing right good are we ready yeah welcome to the March 3rd Boulder City council meeting um Lynette could you call the role council member Brocket present friend here Joseph here Nagel here swti here wallik here Weaver here Yates here young she's here she's here we have a quum May k

[1:00] okay so open comment is closed as usual PM um tonight we have two public hearings there's a second reading of ordinance 8381 or 8384 regarding the marijuana licensing Authority name and then there will be an update on state legislation and consideration of a motion to revise the city of Boulders regional state and federal policy agenda those are the two public hearings um 20 20 boards and commissions annual recruitment applications have closed however there are four boards for which we are still accepting applications please please sign up if you're interested in in working and contributing to City decision making there's Boulder Junction access District parking there's the design Advisory board so if you're interested in architecture that's a fun one downtown management commission focuses on downtown and the um condition

[2:00] there and then landmarks board um is a big one which um designates landmarks in the city of Boulder uh the general requirements are that you've resided for one year within the city limits of Boulder you're 18 years or older and then certain other seats have different applications on different board or sorry not different applications different requirements for certain seats on boards so the information is available at bouldercolorado.gov slbo commmission and just as it heads up there's no meetings scheduled for next Tuesday March 10th and then we amended the agenda to add a few items um we added a Corona virus update that we will have here shortly and then we have followup on the CU South study session that we had last week need a motion yes we need a motion so moved and before before we go I'm just going to switch the order we're going to

[3:00] do the Declaration for the census last um before open comment so that we can get the Corona virus update and send that person along to the Long Mount city council meeting I move the uh amendments to the agenda second all in favor great well we will begin tonight then with a a wonderful recognition so just right here um so I'm really excited to be here this evening let me introduce myself my name is Trish Styles I am the Town Administrator for the town of Bennett uh but I also get the pleasure of serving as the 2020 cccma uh president so I'm here tonight to present to you our 2020 city manager of the year I have to say sometimes when you meet good people you

[4:01] just know they're good and Jane is one of these people in fact I think she's not just good I think she's great um not only does Jane lead the city of Boulder while modeling exponential public leadership but she also does that for Colorado and Beyond she represents Colorado local government on a national stage as the IC president to help our profession Thrive into the future she truly believes and Dem demonstrates that there are all leaders of at all levels of local government by actively encouraging others to explore training and development and personally serves as a resource for those seeking to grow in the profession in fact she has specifically stated that it is her responsibility to ensure ensure that there are more women in leadership positions in the future and specifically the title of city manager did you know that Nationwide less than 20% of women serve as city managers Jane is a

[5:00] champion from Equity inclusion and diversity and Views this as a moral imperative of the profession for our communities Jane's leadership is one of the reasons that we will see more women serve as city managers and help make that number change in October Jane was also named as a finalist for the women uh the league in of women in government's Trailblazer award the reason for her selection included Jane says yes and encourages women in Boulder and throughout the profession to step forward and seize opportunities to contribute to the profession and grow their careers Jane has directly influenced many women in the profession to advance from assistant to the city manager to a role as either a deputy city manager or a city manager she invests her personal time to guide women in their career path and more specifically she continues to ensure the success of women in these roles and makes herself available to provide

[6:02] perspective and advice when needed Jane's leadership has also had an impact on some of the most pressing issues of our time in the past year alone the city of Boulder has made significant progress under her leadership including racial Equity climate change homelessness police Community Trust and relations and affordable housing her ability to dive into addressing Boulders adaptive challenges while balancing the diverse voices of the city council and the community is exemplary the progress Boulder has made in these areas along with the commitment to serve to continuing to serve and exceed Community expectations makes Jane's work as a city manager a model everywhere Jane has shaped our region for the better as city manager she demonstrates humility authenticity integrity and compassion even in the midst of challenges confronting our communities

[7:00] it is my great honor to present to you Jane bran the first woman to receive the cccma city manager of the EUR board i' also add that we have our executive director Denise Taylor with us as well as where did Heather go Heather's right here behind me as well Heather baller so yep thanks very much so just so you know Heather Bowser is the city manager of the City of Lewisville and has been a longtime colleague and friend of mine so I'm super glad glad that she's here um the

[8:01] thing that I want to say is that it's so gratifying to get an award from your colleagues in the profession it really means a lot um and when they read all the things that supposedly I did especially here in Boulder I just want to say that really it's my colleagues in our organization and the city council that have made these things true and I feel so gratified to be able to accept an award um getting credit for stuff that other people really um helped make make true so thank you very much for allowing us to do this this evening it means quite a bit to me um I've had a very long career almost 45 years in public service and it's been amazing so thank you well congratulations Jane and I think I speak for all of council when I say we are we are very lucky to have somebody as hardworking and as uh successful as you are what you do so

[9:01] thank you very much thank you mayor okay next up we have an update on the Corona virus response that we can expect from the county of Boulder thank you for being here thank you for having us and congratulations this is forward we'll get your presentations right up there perfect thank you um tough agenda item to follow but yeah congratulations from all of us I'm Carol Helwig I'm communicable disease epidemiologist at Boulder County public health I'm here along with our agency director Jeff Zak our emergency manager from Public Health Lisa whak and the emergency manager for Boulder County and city of Boulder Mike chard um we are going to share this update with you about the coron virus situation um so right now Corona virus has been detected in 77 countries and territories around the globe this is nine additional locations than just 24 hours ago um in the last 24 hours there

[10:03] were almost nine times more cases reported outside of China than inside of China the epidemic in the Republic of Korea Italy Iran and Japan and Japan are of great concern and of course our greatest concern now is that there is community spread occurring in the United States um so the United States covid-19 case accounts as of March 3rd um include 12 states with confirmed and presumptive positive cases the the official CDC case count from earlier today was 60 with 11 confirmed person-to person spread 27 under investigation um and so far six uh confirmed deaths earlier today we do have the reported instances where Community spread is is occurring as particularly in Washington state where

[11:01] they have had multiple people with no known travel exposures and health workers have been impacted and there is a potential uh outbreak identified in a long-term care facility this situation is is really evolving very rapidly and we are paying attention to all the details as they become available so far this is um the case the case count in Colorado is zero the case count in Boulder County is zero uh in Colorado since earlier today there have been a total of 37 people under investigation this means that they may have traveled to one of the impacted areas and um needed testing to make sure that they were not exposed to the virus of those 29 of the cases were found to be negative and eight are pending um in Boulder we have monitored Travelers uh We've monitored 32 Travelers um total and current currently we only have four

[12:00] being monitored the rest have already completed their monitoring period and we have had four people under investigation all of them negative um I just wanted to do two minutes of quick steps that people can take now to prevent um the the virus getting a flu shot is not going to prevent covid but if you haven't had a flu shot getting a flu shot will prevent you from potentially getting the flu and we really want to reduce the impact of respiratory illness in our Health Care Systems right now so we are recommending that everyone get their flu shot we're recommending everyone stay home when you're sick cover your coughs and sneezes with a tissue and throw it in the trash or wash your hands often um and make sure to step up your cleaning of frequently touched surfaces door knobs and things like that we also have recommendations for employers we recommend that all employers recommend that their staff get a flu shot they stay home when they're sick um that all places of employment step up

[13:01] their cleaning and potentially if it's if it's in alignment with the type of work to increase the capacity to staff for staff to work remotely and meet virtually these are the recommendations that we have for you right now and now we're going to pass it to Lisa to discuss what we've been doing in our response activities thanks go which one moves forward this way thanks hello how are you guys um okay yeah it works um so Boulder County Public Health was actually the first local public health agency to activate our Emergency Operations plan we did so on January 24th um at which point we established an inant incident management structure and activated an internal Incident Management team I'm The Incident Commander for the team um and we created an an incident Action Plan um we established a objectives which is standard for an incident Action

[14:01] Plan uh prevent the spread of covid-19 provide situational awareness and guidance for response Partners provide public information to the local community provide guidance and Advance warning to local governments school districts businesses and the general public regarding appropriate social distancing measures and what to expect as an outbreak progresses to assess available resources to support the response and to provide guidance to and and support to administrators in Boulder County um we've gotten a lot of that done uh let's see we've been reviewing our plans and annexes we have um in addition to our Public Health Emergency Operations plan we also have quarantine and isolation plans Community um support plans quarantine support plans um and Community containment plans and we've been reviewing those with our partners it happens that we have um been working on an alternate care site exercise series um as part of pandemic planning

[15:00] for the past almost year and a half now and so that has brought us opportunity to already have reviewed our pandemic plan and our alternate care site plan and many of these plans with our P um Partners in great detail before we ever got Corona virus so we're in good shape for that um reason um we've notified and activated our response Partners brief Community leaders and we've been um Distributing Communications as well but we continue um one of the things that we are doing that um Carol alluded to was is monitoring um people who have had exposure so we have daily monitoring of people um and we also have activated the quarantine and support plan which we um is administered by our housing and Human Services and Community Services folks so they provide case management to people who are in quarantine this is a unique thing for Boulder County that Boulder County has um implemented because we recognize that

[16:01] people who are in quarantine are stepping up for the their community and making a sacrifice and that it's important that we do the same for them so we assess whether or not they have adequate financial support when they're out of work for two weeks that they're getting their groceries that that their child care is being dealt with anything that they might need in quarantine we make sure they get we also have been partnering with the office of emergency management I think slides got chied so this is you Mike you're up me all right thank you very much all right good evening Council uh the the focus of Emergency Management during this event right now is in the coordinating and supporting the incend command structures and all the other could you introduce yourself oh I'm sorry Mike Char director of Emergency Management should have known that apology uh and our role is in the uh support coordination of our response structures uh currently what we're doing um we held an agency administrator meeting uh and that is the principles from all the municipalities across the

[17:00] county came together uh we did a briefing with them similar to this we're continuing with that process uh for the next two weeks uh every Tuesday and the idea behind that is to make sure that policy makers are uh moving with this incident if it escalates up or de escalates we want to be able to make sure that we're able to make the decisions in in real time as conditions change uh secondly we're working within uh continu operations planning it's you'll heard the term Coupe and that's the process of looking at our internal plans within the city and county organization of how would we deal with things the coupe model usually is based around a facility interruption or an infrastructure Interruption and being able to provide critical uh city services we're looking at that now from a different perspective is what would happen if we had more staff that became ill had to take care of their family members and we saw uh some availability issues around uh executing a critical Mission so we're doing some workshops with City staff over existing plans that exist making sure that that lens is being utilized to evaluate the the

[18:00] validity of the plan uh we're feeling pretty good where we are moving forward in relationship to that is as this moves potentially into the community um the situation awareness side we are using our EOC technology and and processes to make sure we're Gathering all information from uh as many different points that we can assembling that and then being able to distribute that to anyone that may access it we've given that um our partners all access to that real time situational awareness information we're holding a coordination amongst all Emergency Management agencies uh within the county including the University of Colorado to Longmont and to other um um programs that exist to make sure that that coordination is occurring so uh we're not activated in the eocc we are under what we call a staff Activation so that means we're taking all available Emergency Management staff putting them in support and coordination and Performing these functions and making some shifts and some scheduling to make sure that we're able to um execute the duties that that people are looking us to help with um these are the workshops that we're doing coming up soon you'll see one of them is

[19:01] with the public safety sector uh the incident command structure has a liaison uh function that wants to engage law enforcement Fire EMS the the jail and we're ensuring that the information they need related to Public Health and their operations is being coordinated and they're having access to epidemiologists to be able to help them with response planning and adjust any operational needs that need to happen and that'll be a routine meeting they're setting up a schedule and that'll be starting uh in a in a formal process every Wednesday I believe is what they're looking at in our first On's next Wednesday so we'll be able to uh address that issue there's some Emer emerging issues that have come up as you can see here one of the things that we have done is uh work with this uh the Spanish speaking community and uh engaged our cultural Brokers to ask them the messaging we're sending out is it appropriate is it meeting the needs of the community and if not inviting that conversation to be able to make sure that they can reach back to us and say that here's where we could use additional messaging or change in the

[20:00] messaging and that is um then would carried back to our joint information system so we've created unified joint information system with Longmont the city of Boulder and Boulder County being the managers of it it's designed to centralize the messaging and that's really in closing what I'm you know for me the biggest issue is are we getting the right messaging out to the community in a coordinated way and that all the needs of the community are are going to be internally processed and submitted into a centralized place where that can be um either routed to a subject matter expert the message is properly created and then released out in a thoughtful and strategic manner so that we don't get a lot of that that one person said this and and uh they're reading misinformation or they're becoming distorted with that so that's the goal that structure um we're working on building that process and system out it should be operational by Friday and everyone will be working under that structure uh within the uh city and county and that we'll have an internal Focus for uh messaging with employees and then also an external focus with messaging with with the community so uh

[21:01] that's all I have and great thank you very much there think we may have some questions for you please Mike this one's probably for you thanks for coming tonight um what steps have we taken to ensure that our EMS providers um have all the protective gear they need if they're doing patient transport yep so we are that's part of engaging our Public Safety community and uh we are there are some shortages being reported I'm not hearing anything right now that's saying we're at critical uh stages but uh definitely there needs to be a dialogue around what is the level protection how do you utilize that and that's part of connecting with uh the public health liaison is so that they can actually evaluate that so uh we'll know more when we meet with them um you know but we're not picking anything up right now that there's any crisis with providing EMS services to our community at this time thanks Mike anybody else thank you all for coming very helpful

[22:00] are we going to talk internally at all about what we're doing on virus or is that discussion no no Jane do you have any um comment about how we're coordinating with the county yeah absolutely um so the first thing to note is that we placed on our website today um information about the Corona virus with a link to the CDC and all of these organizations is on there so if people need accurate information that's available we've sent an email to all of our staff talking about best practices and Patrick Von kaiserling along with Barb Halper at the county are joint co-chairs of the joint information system that Mike Chard is is working with with the with the region so we are right in the center of the information Place Mike was able to come to our staff agenda meeting on Monday and we talked with all of our department directors then about refreshing their continuity continu what is it continuity of operations plans I just keep calling them Coupe plans um so everybody is

[23:01] taking a look at those those were prepared um mostly with an eye toward a natural disaster and so we want to take a look at how we should change those for a pandemic so for example the city manager's office is looking at whether or not we could operate completely remotely in the event that there was a full quarantine so um every Everybody in the in the city all the department directors are taking a look at that so that we can keep um efficient operations going Services going um during a time of pandemic so we we think we're on it and you know ready to respond um using the EOC and public health as our main sources of information thank you and just wanted to clarify would that could we hold meetings remotely if we needed to I would just like to note when when they started talking I realized I was sitting like this and I was like dang it like that's rule number one right and all of us were touching our faces during that Pres presentation so I I'm a little bit

[24:00] worried about uh the pandemic maybe a little bit farther down the line than we think it is because we can't currently test people unless they've either traveled or are at the level of having to be hospitalized so assuming that it becomes pandemic maybe quicker than we think and I'm understanding that City manager's office may work remotely can we continue to do this business so we don't get behind can we work remotely you can't meet remotely I'm just checking there's a provision in the emergency power is about um meeting outside of the city but um there is no provision for um remote Council meetings calling in or video or anything so having just come from a charter committee meeting with that require a charter change it would be helpful to have a charter change on it thank you Mary the the less that we can expose people to when the time comes and everybody wants to be part of meetings when an important issue is up I think we have to look without wanting to

[25:01] cancel things as they're coming up with how to to be efficient and not promoting the pandemic okay anyone else it's a serious situation so I think Rachel to your point we can certainly have conversations as we need to even if we need a charter change maybe we could do something very quickly so next up I'm going to read a declaration are they okay so um we've got folks coming up here who are going to be part of this um one one thing that we want to do is call attention to the fact that this is a census year and the responding as a community to the census is really important because lots of important things come as a result of uh an accurate count and we want to be well

[26:01] represented and so the motto for this year is everyone counts in Boulder County and so we are working with a bunch of Partners here to to make sure that we get as responsive uh uh response to the sentus as we can so I'll read this and then I'll have each one of our partners say a few words so sentence Awareness Month March 2020 April 1st 2020 is since State for the United States of America pursuant to Article 1 Section 2 of the US Constitution the 2020 census the once in a decade population count of every person living in the United States will open on March 12 2020 and continue through July the target date for community members to take the census is by May 12th the correct apportionment of federal representatives to each state as well as billions of federal dollars for public health education transportation child and Elder Care food assistance

[27:00] emergency preparedness Disaster Response and many other critical programs and services depends on complete and accurate age population and other demographic information gathered every 10 years through the census an accurate census is required for the proper allocation of Representatives in the US House of Representatives and the Colorado State Legislature and is used in the redistricting of state and County voting districts census information is critical for planning future city services and to be responsive to community needs information collected by the US Census Bureau is confidential and protected by law any data related to the census can only be released in aggregate form that does not identify individual respondents the city of Boulders complete count committee is working to ensure everyone counts in Boulder and is also supporting efforts of other complete count committees in Boulder County including the University un of Colorado Boulder Boulder County nonprofits and the city of Longmont to

[28:02] increase participation in Boulder the city council of the city of Boulder Colorado is committed to partnering with the US Census Bureau to ensure a complete and accurate count of our community so I will turn this over to Phil kisler with the planning department here at the city thank you mayor members of council community members here and and AAR um we're really here tonight because this is the month where the 2020 census finally goes live um and as um described in the mayor's declaration um the 2020 census really is safe easy super important and it is uh going live any day now in fact if uh community members wanted to mark your calendars the online survey goes live in 9 days 4 hours and 50 minutes um and so just to give a sense about what to expect um everyone most people will be receiving a postcard a letter in the mail with directions on how to take the census this uh the 2020

[29:02] census um this is the first year that you'll be able to actually complete it online um and you'll also be options to call in over the phone or speak to somebody in person um but just to back up just a moment about this time last year the Boulder City Council recognized that the 2020 census was a pretty critical thing for our community to get right counting every person once and in the right place um and it was around this time last year that Council had a discussion around we need to start um having conversations with community members service providers and just people interested in the census in general and that's when Council directed staff guided staff into development of a complete count committee and since then we've been meeting on pretty a pretty regular basis some of our partners are here with us this evening and they wanted to just say a couple of words about their involvement locally um if you want to learn more please email census at bouldercolorado.gov we have a training to arm you with all the information you need to be a census 30

[30:00] in this room the city council chambers and so I'm joined here on the stage this evening um by Sierra uh dyra CU Boulder Student Government Census engagement engagement chair um uh Pamela Craig of Boulder County and Chris barge with the Community Foundation of Boulder and so just a um yeah so like you said hi I am a student here representing CU Boulders efforts with the cus um CU student government is also working with cu's Administration along with the Chancellor's office to make sure that all of our students faculty and staff members are represented in this year's census as the student population is extremely underrepresented and we want to make sure that Boulder County doesn't get chipped in the next 10 years um with a lack of turnout so I'm just really quickly want to read a statement from our Chancellor as well as Colorado's Flagship public research University we consider it a part of our mission to prepare and form and engage citizens this census calls upon all of us to

[31:00] Define our community in a singular yet communal act that will support us in a multitude of ways over the next decade I encourage you to encourage any young people in your life or people who may be going to college right now to partake in the census it's often something that is um overlooked and a majority of people who are in University right now cannot even conceptualize um how impactful 10 years can be so make sure that you are engaging with the young people in your life to encourage them to partake as well as yourselves thank you so as the Boulder County 2020 census campaign manager it's part of my job and my co-worker who is the Outreach coordinator to make sure that the resources that are needed in the community and the entire County are available so that all of you can help get your voices out there to encourage a complete count so we have all manner of material that have been designed to educate people about what the census is how they participate to address all the

[32:02] myths and any kinds of questions you can imagine so if you determine that you want to be more involved and get some of this material out into your areas then please um please contact us um it's p Craig bouldercounty.org and we'll make sure you get the the material that you need thanks uh so I'm Chris barge with Community Foundation Boulder County and we are just so honored to be a part of this census Outreach effort uh pamel and Sierra are two of 21 uh on the census Outreach campaign team across Boulder County who are making sure that the historically hard to count populations uh are counted uh this time around is so important both for political representation Colorado is due to get an eighth uh uh member of Congress and for federal dollars uh every nose not

[33:01] counted is $2,300 per year that does not land in our community in the form of 55 different ways at Federal funding lands for sources like education Transportation uh food assistance and uh the list goes on historically hard to count populations include our students they include uh families with kids 0 to five you'd be surprised how many families with babies underfoot um for get how many are in their family when it's time to fill out the census they include uh people uh who are uh experiencing uh Financial stress they include Spanish speaking and immigrant residents um they include our Mountain neighbors uh in our rural areas um and they include seniors and people with disabilities and so there are cultural Brokers people who share a common uh background uh uh with the populations that are historically hard to reach uh all over the county that are doing this Outreach and it's made possible because

[34:01] of a census 2020 fund that generous donors have contributed to at the Community Foundation as well as uh partner funders including Boulder County the Colorado Health Foundation DOA and the next 50 initiative if you feel uh called to contribute to this effort please get in touch with the Community Foundation you can just Google us and contribute to the census 2020 fund uh and we are doing a rapid response uh directed Grant making protocol where we are um granting the money as soon as it comes in so that teams of people such as uh Craig and Sierra uh can be out there advocating for this important cause thank you all very much thanks for being here appreciate itess you

[35:00] okay I think next is open comment so with that um when I call your name please be ready to speak I'll call three names at a time so open comment tonight starts with Steven Hell Followed by Sarah Murray and Samy Lawrence Stephen are you here no Steven so then we'll go to Sarah Murray Sammy Lawrence and r manuso good evening council members thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is Sarah Murray and I'm the executive director of women's Wilderness if you've not heard of us we're a local nonprofit that's been here for about 21 years and our mission is to support girls women and lgbtq plus people in accessing their power and improving their health through connections to the outdoors and to community we are also the proposed tenant for the historic

[36:01] harck bergheim house that you'll be seeing in your consent agenda tonight and I'm here to speak to you a little bit about our bid and why we are a fit uh I'd like to read a quote from a historical document that I found about why the city bought the harbick bergheim house which is now valued at around $3 million um back in the 70s and it was to provide a quote a cultural center for encouragement of nature study and interpretation conservation gardening and related activities as well as various Recreation classes I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better tenant for that space than women's Wilderness uh we are doing a lot of backpacking rock climbing canoeing uh for all people but especially people that are least likely to be outdoors um we serve about 23ds of our participants are living under federal poverty guidelines about a third are people of color we intend to use the harck berim house in a multi kind of mixed use way

[37:00] multi-dimensional way it will be a home for us but that's only probably about 25% of the space we will also be using the very top floor which is this beautiful about thousand square feet of attic as free community space for events for nonprofit purposes um and Community Building purposes and lastly we're going to be using about half the space as a co-working for nonprofits like ourselves many of whom have a hard time finding affordable rent in the city anymore so we're delighted to be in front of you today I'd like to thank vet and Margot Tina Caitlyn and the team at parks and Rex who have done a great job in this negotiation and looking forward to moving forward in the process thank you thank you Miss Murray um Sammy Lawrence rile manuso and then Patrick Murphy so repeating myself one last time from the last city council meeting thank you for yall's accommodation I appreciate it it's a simple thing but thank you um um I have forgotten my phone so I'm going off memory and as we

[38:00] know some my memory is very terrible first thing is I'm actually here today to speak in support of the people who seeking support in sanctuary cities and the sanctuary City especially for Boulder it takes only a mere second to confirm um that we are as we say we are and to ease the stress of others likewise I wanted to address as well that there was someone who me mentioned that there was a ballot that had been voted for by our constituents our citizens and it is my hope and prayer that city council takes it to account to enacting this if it has been wished and requested to by the cities the city I appreciate that and finally um I have something completely different than what I was originally going to say because I'm going to have to wait for next city council meeting to approach that I had a gentleman two to three weeks ago about my bad a month and a half ago that was stuck outside

[39:03] in the cold in the snow specifically he was at the First Presbyterian Church utilizing their feed every Thursday this man was not allowed to go inside because the church does not need to comply with Ada law from what I've have gared because they are tax exempt and as a man who has seizure issues and a brain injury I wanted I wanted a a companion like that and it scares me that I would not be able to have that potentially if I were on the streets finally the same man actually addressed to me that he has been getting chemical burns from the snow melt that we are utilizing and as it stands to say that costs us money it costs us money not only in hospital care but likewise taking care of those people on top of it thank you Mr Lawrence you're welcome

[40:01] thank you Ry manuso Patrick Murphy Mark gelband um good evening city council um my name is Riley manuso um I am also here tonight to ask the council to please um reaffirm Boulder's commitment to being a sanctuary City and to actively existing cooperation um with immigrations and Customs Enforcement um in targeting um immigrant and undocumented members of our community um I urge the council to um please listen to people like ingred and ingred and kalada lore who is who are seeking sanctuary in our community um in considering future policy um I also ask the council to once again consider revoking off-duty police availability for BI Incorporated and

[41:01] other corporations involved in the for-profit um incarceration and immigration enforcement Industries um as the city already prohibits it for marijuana and alcohol businesses um and as the council briefly did last year um these um these uh bi in particular does a tremendous amount of harm um the ankle monitors that it has manufactured um are have been known to cause um electric shocks Burns and um and injuries to the people who are forced to wear them as well as being humiliating um and um unnecessary um and um uh so yes I I urge the council to reaffirm Boulder's commit as a sanctuary City and consider revoking off duty police access to bi

[42:00] thank you thank you Patrick Murphy Mark gban and then minina Lambert my name is Patrick Murphy I live in Boulder this is the continuation of the 24 four articles of the mun naughty list article 16 failure to get a significant majority of Voters to support anything other than limitations on the mun article 17 Boulder's early plans assumed no requirement to submit a separation plan to the Pu assumed acquiring a 30-m transmission Loop without FK approval assumed forcing Excel to serve its customers over city-owned facilities assumed forcing Excel to design build

[43:01] and test Boulder side of the system assumed forcing Excel to finance Boulder separation and be paid after completion assumed Excel would Finance its own expenses for Boulders municipalization assumed that a third party would do the work for Excel all of these assumptions were wrong article 18 Boulder recently assumed it could get all cost estimated by 2020 but it never did costly court cases will drag this out to at least 2021 but perhaps it never will not until 2025 do you want to end the mun I can tell you how end the muni.org and let real carbon reduction begin now not 5 years from now just search on end the muni one word you'll find out how to end the mun with democracy and full truth we need more of

[44:03] that to be continued with articles 19 through 24 the planet Burns floods and dies while Boulder fiddles time to burn the fiddle thank you Mr Murphy Mark gban minina Lambert and Lisa White Mark yelan 505 College uh this was a recent plan Boulder tweet we prefer a horizontal wall of Green Space to surround our city I think in 2020 there's nothing funny about joking or joking about a wall and it's a shame that none of our counselors have um said anything about

[45:02] this I want to know why Carlos Hernandez is no longer working with the city and I feel like the city's strategy for responding to Coral requests is to Opus skate you don't tell somebody and and with all due respect to your award Jane and you know I've complimented you plenty of times but with all due respect you do not say not a good fit that's what you say to a shoe salesman or to a tailor that doesn't describe why someone leaves employment what is the height limit in the city of Boulder it's 55 ft it was done by a vote of the people it's in the charter but what is the height limit in the city of Boulder it's 38 ft currently and that's at Council legislating through moratoria why you can see four at least of Boulder's most iconic buildings there that's the academy the Boulderado the courthouse the Shambala Center all of

[46:00] those buildings violate our height limit and we responded to the Colorado building there but ironically we just landmarked that building what is the definition of height I wish I had my glasses on because I can't read but it has something to do with 25t radius and the tallest wall even though the tallest wall often isn't the tallest wall on a building and how many ways do we measure height in the city of Boulder at least six I'm going through this quickly because I want to get to this I talked last time about legal non-conforming structures and I just want to say that the Adu map is incorrect and does not account for compatible development or solar Shadow ordinance thank you Mr galban thank you for not interrupting me this time mcka Lambert Lisa white and Leslie glustrom hello Council my name is McKenna Lambert I live in Boulder and go to see you these are my friends and together we

[47:01] have been working on a community- based project Focus focusing on supporting women and families living in sanctuary in Colorado for fear of otherwise being deported we have been working closely with ingred and kalada Lor who has been living in sanctuary in Boulder for two and a half years now meeting with her weekly to discuss how we can best support her as she fights for her right to a pathway to citizenship I have learned this past year that so much of immigration Justice work is reactive it has to be for example someone is detained by ice and an immediate action must be taken to advocate for them or someone has to pay outrageous legal fees for an immigration attorney and we quickly scramble to fundraise tonight we have a rare opportunity to be proactive on Valentine's Day the Trump Administration announced their intent to send an Elite Tactical Unit called borac into Sanctuary cities that will essentially function as an immigration SWAT team and Aid ice in detaining and deporting undocumented people they're highly militarized and being deployed to heighten the administration's fearmongering tactics right now Boulder is not on the list of sanctuary cities

[48:00] under attack but that doesn't mean that someday we won't be added to that list so we must act now what many people don't realize is that Sanctuary is a political term not a legal one it is a promise to the community that local law enforcement will not assist ice when they come into our city to carry out their anti-immigrant agenda however if we the people do not demand that our elected officials hold our local law enforcement accountable our Sanctuary status has no weight it protects no one we are lucky here in Boulder to have a DA that is supportive of our Sanctuary policy but unfortunately we have a sheriff who quietly continues to work with ice and undermine not only our values but also our safety we are here tonight to thank you for how supportive you have been in the past and ask that in light of recent threats at the national level you reaffirm your commitment to our Sanctuary policy by passing a new resolution one that is specific to ingred and one that can do more than just serve as a symbolic gesture thank you so much thank you Lisa white Leslie glustrom Caitlyn

[49:03] Larsson hello Council my name is Lisa white and I live in Boulder along with many others I was extremely impressed by the newly hired former Transportation director Carlos Hernandez he had a vision he talked about the role being his dream job he wanted to support and Empower Transportation staff and importantly he had experience working on projects with the city and the knowledge of what needed to be done to make forward progress on the transportation master plan so as you can imagine two weeks ago I was extremely disheartened to hear the news that Carlos had resigned I have to wonder why he was not a good fit and I can't accept that statement at face value my observations and the resignation do not add up and it seems unfair not to disclose with the community what actually happened I believe former Transportation Advisory board members Bill Rigler and and Johnny jck that our transportation department is in crisis we have a better multimodal system than a lot of the us

[50:02] but we have stopped having momentum years ago and we are falling behind other US cities we need to acknowledge the issues we have around safety air pollution noise pollution and quality of life for Boulder residents and Workforce I want to be clear that my statements are not a reflection of our planners or public work staff the department has a lot of amazing employees instead I'm commenting on the trajectory of the Department which I believe is a function of leadership it's time for a boulder to regain its leadership status when it comes to Transportation this means investing resources in creating safe affordable and convenient ways for people to get around town but just as important it means having the political will to actually make progress rather than standing still empowering staff to make forward progress is how we will attract and retain the best talent to move forward towards our TMP goals thank you thank you Miss White yeah Leslie glom Caitlyn lson and Janet

[51:02] dhy you wanted ask her a question maybe at the end if she's still here evening Council lesie Lester I live in Boulder and as always I want to thank you on top of everything else you do for taking for also paying attention to climate change because of the incredible pain and suffering it's causing around the planet so as most of you know our greenhouse gas emissions about half of them come from electricity that's why we talk so much about electricity um and I always want to look at this sort of comparison think I talked last time about my non-existent artistic skills this is the amount we spent on examining the possibility of forming a public power Municipal utility this is excel's after tax profits from Boulder in the same time except for that we just got 2019 which actually you can see 2019 is after tax profit profits are the same size as the whole amount we've spent on municipalization so now we have to put

[52:01] this on top of this and so my goal is always with a couple minutes to slowly help the council and the community think about this comparison sort of this comparison shopping so uh oh well with XEL I want I would suggest that the pace and the price have been wrong when we get there we've just gotten xl's 2019 10K which is where they tell the truth as far as I can tell it's a lot easier than trying to get it out of the commission and we now know that XL while they're 30% renewable they're still 70% fossil fuel that's obviously a step in the right direction to be 30% renewable energy but to be 70% fossil fuel at this point in time I think is not very defensible the little red bar is the bids the renewable energy bids that XL took in their last round this blue bar is half of the bids they received so it's one thing to say we're making

[53:01] progress but they could obviously be going much faster and it goes back to 2009 they had 15,000 megawatts of wind and solar slow walking in 2009 perhaps is understandable but not now so thank you so much Council thank you m g uh Caitlyn Larson Janet dhy and Evan ravitz my name is Caitlyn Larsson and I am the organizer for ingred and gal Lor and I will be reading her testimony my name is ingred inol Lor I currently live in Boulder Colorado and I have been a refugee in the Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder for the last 2 and a half years I have three American citizen children I am an immigrant a mother and a woman of color who is fighting for justice through our immigration and criminal justice systems I I have been facing deportation since 2010 in 2011 I pleaded guilty to a

[54:00] felony without knowing the consequences and for 4 and A2 years I paid for this felony through restitution to the IRS money for lawyers and 2 and A2 months in jail I paid to the full weight of the law and compli complied with everything however I was punished double through the law because in addition to paying for my mistake the doors were closed to me to have legal status here in the United States now because of these broken systems I have spent 2 and a half years living in this church it is extremely difficult because I do not go outside even to take my children to school in Boulder I have seen you all stand up for justice for immigrants and for me by approving the sanctuary City policy and the people's resolution I truly appreciate that because it makes me feel accepted here I hope you will continue to stand for justice because there is more work that needs to be done which is why I'm asking you to pass a resolution reinforcing the already approved Sanctuary policy you

[55:00] can also stand with me by supporting nasos an information campaign to help undocumented immigrants know the consequences and avoid using false documents I ask that if you decide to pass a resolution that you join me at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder to read the resolution and celebrate its passing finally I encourage the Immigrant Community not to be scared by the threats by the federal government sanctuary City protects people we immigrants want to follow the laws and not be afraid to send our kids to school go to the hospital or go to official buildings thank you um jet dhy Evan rabbits and Claudia team Danna dhy no Evan rabbits Claudia team and Anna Ibara Evan rabitz North Boulder um online

[56:02] petitioning is on the agenda tonight online petitioning is simple Arizona has used it for eight years Arizona's system is for candidates but the only technical difference is the text of the petition in spite of what the City attorney repeatedly tells you please look at the system yourselves and so anyway I've sent you the URL of Arizona system maybe it'll be up on the screen someday when I suggested this to the Colorado Secretary of State Jenna grizwald at a public meeting she nervously looked away didn't respond and also ignored my email staff says she has refused to either host boulders petitioning system or to share data including driver's licenses the city

[57:01] could use I don't know if someone told her not to cooperate or if she's afraid since she's out of her realm of experience this is a problem with making lawyers responsible for Tech projects as you have with the city attorney longtime former councilman Steve pomat has a workable solution using only publicly available data anyone can buy from the county clerk please ask staff to adopt it terminate the contract for an inferior system made under fraudulent circumstances and accept National nonprofit map lights free offer to implement it and ask staff to obey the Colorado open records act they are refusing to give me four videos which have been scrubbed from the website thank you thank you Mr aitz Claudia team Anna iara and Bob [Music]

[58:02] Norris good evening members of council Miss Bram congratulations thank you my name is Claudia Hansen theme I live in Boulder and I'm here tonight because I like Lisa white am troubled by the resignation of Transportation director Carlos Hernandez I have no personal loyalties to Carlos I did not have a chance to meet him prior to or during his six week tenure but I trust the opinion of many members of Boulder's sustainable Transportation community that were excited to work with him given the time the resources and the Hope put into this hire Carlos's early departure is a spectacular failure no matter where blame lies if the city stifled his vision then shame on us for making him think he could make a difference if he had some irredeemable fault that came to light so quickly then shame on us for not vetting him more thoroughly and regardless shame on us for only attracting one truly standout candidate in multiple National searches given Boulder's needs and

[59:00] Ambitions the lengthy vacancy at the head of the transportation division is deeply concerning meanwhile positions leading the Go Boulder and vision zero programs both of which are critical to implementing our transportation master plan are unfilled and it's only been six months since the Tipton report which pointed out particularly low morale amongst Transportation staff Miss Bram has disputed this but from the outside Transportation does look like a department in crisis and that's a big problem if we hope to bring in another forward-looking leader and I worry that it compromises Boulder's ability to recruit in other departments as well I know that Personnel matters are sensitive legal territory but we need transparency here I understand that several cor requests for emails related to Carlos's departure have been filed and I look forward to seeing them fulfilled in a complete and timely manner in the meantime my question tonight which I hope you will put to the city manager is this how does the city plan to recruit and support a progressive Transportation leader in the

[60:01] future thank you thank you Miss stee Anna abara Bob Norris and MaryAnn [Music] Mahoney um hello uh my name is Anna Karina kasaar and I leave at 4500 um 19th Street Lot 46a Boulder Colorado I have been a resident of Boulder for 21 years and my brothers and I grew up in Boulder in 2010 one of my brothers got deported in 2012 after a traffic stop my other brother U brother was taken by ice in 2015 my dad after a car accident was also taken by Ice I know firsthand the pain the frustration and the helplessness of family separation and like mine there are a lot

[61:01] of families that have gone through the same situation here in Boulder sorry the torture that people are being put through and the name of prophet Israel so I am here to thank you for the steps you have taken to support your immigrant community commity thank you for your support of the people's resolution thank you for the support um of ingred and kalada I want to um to ask you to continue this support regardless of the threats of that White House please continue your support of the people's resolution and most of all continue your support of ingr encalada who is one of the strongest women I know who has continued the fight regardless of the adversities she has gone through which has made a lot of people give up and lose hope and please pass a

[62:00] resolution to make your support more than a symbolic gesture thank you thank you Mr Bara Bob Norris Maran Mahoney and supran Bob Norris from the Republic of Longmont I want would like to thank the two people over here for helping us plan this event this evening but I wanted to talk to you about the connection between public charge and the census public charge is one of the really strong anti-immigrant things that have been done by this Federal Administration that is going to make it much more difficult for you to get immigrants and people of color uh to sign up for the census because they'll be afraid so um the U Trump administration's Department of Homeland Security posted new regulations that will make the legal process of qualifying for a green card more difficult doesn't need to be more

[63:01] difficult um the first courts kind of turned this away but the Supreme Court recently said they can go ahead with it and this policy has existed for a long time but they've made it much more difficult um the public charge test occurs when someone is applying for their green card from inside the United States this is called an adjust of status currently immigration offs uh officials applying the test can consider whether an applicant for adjustment or status have used government programs to provide a cash benefit or that pay for um people to stay in nursing homes it also counts for uh food for kids and I'll explain a little bit more um the new rule allows immigrant officials also to consider the use of Medicare snap that's the food stamps program and federal Housing

[64:00] Programs people usually don't become uh able to do those until they do get their green card so just quickly say that this is really aimed at people of low incomes children and stuff and there's over a 100,000 people have quit taking Green Stamps and feeding their kids because of the fear of this get out there and help Maran Mahoney Su prant and Mike hner good evening Council thank you for your leadership Jane congratulations on the recognition by your peers pretty impressive um just want to take a minute to say we're in the process after our resident sentiment survey I believe a lot of you have received it may have read it that we're embarking on our destination assessment and really a um asking you as elected officials to take 15 20 minutes I'll send a link tomorrow to your your account just to look at our destination with a holistic eye we don't

[65:02] want to do this as an insulated uh exercise just with our board of directors and the people in our industry all of you as elected uh leaders as well as boards and commissions is who I'm requesting to to fill this out what we'll do is this evaluates our destination strength variables brand accommodations or entertainment our facilities our events our infrastructure how do we function and how do we um Stack Up and with your clear lens we'll stack up against 500 other destinations around the US to see what do we really want to work on as an organization um as a tourism leadership but us us as a community to figure out what can we do together to continue to improve our destination really for our residents and our quality of life just want to say tomorrow you'll get my little email and thank you for some input thank you Miss Mooney uh suant

[66:03] Mike hner and David prow II hi suant Community Cycles how are you so I sent you a letter earlier this afternoon I hope you all got and have a chance amongst you many things to read to read um but IT addresses the situation at transport so moving forward which is what we at Community Cycles really look to do to move forward to modernize our transportation department and really regain the leadership that we had Nationwide which we have certainly fallen off of um so we recommend a few things first of all implementing the 20 is plenty um but there's as with all of them there's a few rubs here so we want to implement the 20's plenty but implement it soon and on a sooner time trajectory than what has been proposed by the staff last Thursday night the

[67:03] vision Z partnership meeting and still what I was hearing from the staff today um which looks at an end of year timeline we want to get something done this Summer that will get us to definitely be it in the first in the state if we wait till next year we may not being the first in the state if we W really want to show that we are leader leading in transportation we need the publicity of getting this done soon and and be out there as a place that's that's leading if Denver does it first we don't get really any attention for doing it um the second thing is looking at how we can use our restriping program to make make cheap and temporary but in or rather interim improvements to Road Safety we do a lot of gigantic plans that will never get built I discussed this at length in my letter um we should be looking at interim Solutions because we have streets that are very unsafe now and we need to look at how we can fix

[68:00] them without Oodles of money and tens of years to do it so please read my letter I hope to hear from you guys and I hope to keep this issue on the table and not just have it swept under the rug because 18 months was too long to wait for the next Transportation director thank you thank you Miss PR Mike hner David prow III good evening Council my name is Mike hner I'm Boulder resident I recently sent you a letter advocating about the homeless and the Corona virus um I think when we turn around we're all in this together uh we don't want to lose fact that we do have those that are unhoused that are staying at the shelter and Bridge house in in big masses and I wanted to make sure for the record that I wasn't criticized in what bridge house and what the shelter do the only thing is that those people that are on the street don't have a place to shower they

[69:02] don't have a place to isolate should they become infected um what are we going to do for that uh you know the only thing with the with both Bridge house and the shelter they don't open their showers up to anybody that's not been able to get inside and I think that's you know a use of a resource that we underutilized there everybody wants to be clean and take a shower and get washed and they can't do that here the other thing is you know our bathrooms in our cities are usually not encouraged to be used by the homeless should I say nicely um I I just want you guys not to lose the sight on the ball for those that that are marginalized as it is um I thank you and good good luck thank you Mr hner David prow III going once going twice I think with

[70:03] that we'll close open [Music] comment um sorry uh do we want to start with staff and yeah okay doing next so staff do you have anything that you'd like to address from open comment yeah thanks so first um I want to thank Mr hner for the email that he sent us um raising the issue of homeless individuals and the Corona virus so um that prompted us to be speaking with Mike chard and our agency partners and they are going to be meeting later this week I believe to begin to understand how we can serve that population so um that was a good call call and and a good reminder for us to be working together and of course um you may have seen an email where we responded to Mr hner

[71:02] earlier this evening so hopefully he's aware of that so the the real issue that got brought up tonight by several people um is the issue of the transportation department um as I have spoken with each one of you I don't know why Carlos left he gave us 8 minutes notice when he left um I wish I knew I really really loved Carlos I respect him so much for what he brought to our organization and I find it devastating as well that he chose to leave I don't know why that occurred the thing that Carlos gave us that was so amazing is he gave us hope that things could really move forward in transportation for the city and when your hopes are raised and then dashed it feels so bad and that's what I

[72:00] feel the community is feeling I know I am and also the staff members that worked with him were feeling that as well um and and so receiving criticism about the department is really hard for them to hear because they too are very sad that this occurred what what I appreciate is that Su prant met with me and Tanya yesterday and and also we had phone calls last week and also all of the tab members have reached out to me and I have meetings with all of them next week to talk about what their concerns are what their hopes are for the future the items that Sue brought up in her letter to you and tonight I think are incredibly valid and T and I made a commitment to her and we make it to you tonight that we'll be working with the transportation staff to address some of the issues that she raised I think they're completely um reasonable and valid issues and we're

[73:02] going to be doing that the search firm that we used um and successfully found Carlos through has a contract with us and my understanding for reading the contract is that they have an obligation if the person that we hire does not stay for 12 months to assist us in moving forward to find a new transport director and we will be working on that in the the next week or two trying to get that out as soon as possible you know the thing is that when I say that it's like oh maybe we'll get somebody in a few months this was a hard hard search and a person coming to Boulder knows what our history is our proud history around transportation and they know that this is um a community that has really high expectations and so I simply can't promise that we're going to find somebody as great as Carlos in a short period of time but we are going to try our hardest to find

[74:02] someone and and will not accept anything less and it it could take a while um in the meantime we're trying to figure out ways that we can um make sure that our vision zero engineer gets hired that our Deputy gets hired that these other positions that have not been filled are getting filled in the near term with amazing people that have the Bold Vision that our community and that our Council also has um we are doing our best to make that so and you know I can only End by saying this is so unfortunate and I'm sorry for our community that this happened thanks Rachel thanks for that Jane um things oh had a couple of things oh I didn't was this about it is about Carlos I don't so so I thought we'd just follow up with that directly and then come back to Tom

[75:00] so I'm I'm with eane and feeling pretty devastated that Carlos left and was also excited about um his vision and energy and passion for the job um and I think that part of what the community feels is a lack of transparency and understanding and I understand you're saying you can't give us that you know an answer that you don't have um but one thing is Kora requests I know there's been some frustration about that so wanted to make sure we followed up on um that and then um I'm also really excited about the new police chief and you know having a culture in the city where people feel supported and especially people that we are excited about want to stay so you know tipped in concerns and um how we as a a city council staff and Community can support these great individuals I don't know what more needs to be done but maybe a little little update on where we are with Tipton um and and how we are working to make sure that we are a city that can recruit and keep the great

[76:02] talent and also the core request thanks so can I respond on the core request um so we have a policy that says that uh you get your first hour free of search time and then every after that you pay $35 an hour for searches um Mark Elman I think has issued 12 different cor requests breaking each one down by word so that each one's separate so he gets his free hour for for one he issued them on Saturday and Sunday so our staff is working on them uh there is no delay we are one of the most transparent cities in the state um that that that criticism is particularly unfair particularly coming from Mark who's kind of playing a game with the rules and and also our staff doesn't work on Saturdays and Sundays they work pretty hard during the week so the we got we got most of his requests yesterday um I think that's right yeah yesterday so he'll get the answers um the fact is he's trying to show that that Jane fired Carlos and that's not true so he's not

[77:00] going to find the information we can't we don't give information we don't have the other thing U Mr rabbit's raised Kora um about some meeting videos not being on the website anymore um they were rotated off um we are in the process of identifying all council meeting videos and seeing if we can digitize them the challenge that we have is that council meeting videos go back many years and we have some in beta map some in VHS some some in various different formats we're working to to to analyze those and figure out how we can get them all digitized up online they will eventually be and off the website they were there Mr Rabbits liar that's really uncalled for Mr rabbit called for no it's not why I say so the other thing Mr rabbit said was that we shouldn't have the City attorney running the online petitioning system the City attorney does not run the online petitioning system the IT department and the clerk's Department run it I present on it because of that uh Mr ravitz is abusive to our staff and I I can handle it other folks it's not fair so the only reason

[78:02] I'm the face of the online petitioning system is because that's the way he behaves all of the time and it's unfortunate it's unfair it's unfair to our staff but to be clear I do not run the online petitioning system I only report on it I actually had two other things Sam if well so let's we have an exchange going back and forth do you want to talk about what we're going to do as far as the discussion around Tipton yeah absolutely so as a context setting you know the Tipton report was issued back in September that's six months ago do you think we've been sitting on our hands since then we have not and you all know it because you've met with our staff that has explained to you that we have the next phase that we have completed and it is a very positive phase of moving forward that was designed by staff members nominated and selected by their colleagues not by any person in

[79:01] power in the city and so that final report I signed off on it today and it will be issued later this week indicating what our next steps are um Bob Tipton continues to work with us as we move forward to the next steps at cic on Monday cic agreed that Mr Tipton could come to speak to Council on April 14th at the study session which is our next study session because this is March and we don't have a study session in March um to explain to you the status that we're at um I'm sorry that that's six weeks away because I want to assure you that things are moving in an incredibly positive direction and I'm feeling super hopeful about it all a thing that I just have to say out loud is that the Tipton report has become the new fulsome and that's not not fair um we've moved past both of those and we're on into the future and things are looking much brighter um and the the

[80:04] thing that happened with Carlos's resignation really hurts that and I'm so sorry about it I wish it had not happened but um our our staff is positive and moving forward and we are going to make a bold statement around transportation in this community thanks great thanks okay Tom so I just wanted to point out several people mentioned the city Sanctuary City policy City actually has a sanctuary city ordinance which is much higher level than a policy uh Council adopted in January 2017 it can be found in section 12-52 of the boulder revised code and it absolutely prohibit prohibits city employees from cooperating with the immigration uh service it also prohibits the use of any City funds to support any immigration uh service activities so it's a fairly strong ordinance you could adop a resolution reasserting that there's no no problem with that but I didn't want people to think that we were just operating under a policy uh Council took a much stronger step in 2017

[81:02] B thanks Tom that was helpful Tom one of the speakers um alleged that Sher P was um I think Boulder County is a sanctuary County as well the commissioner passed a a resolution I believe I think that's right yeah and one of the speakers alleged that Sheriff P was working around that or or doing things that would not be consistent you anything about that allegation not to my knowledge Boulder County of course runs the jail and that presents some challenges to u to Sheriff P the the um the immigration the ice has a a practice of issuing detainer orders which are unconstitutional uh Sheriff P does not honor those orders no does any sheriff in the state of Colorado because they've been found to be unconstitutional he is required to order to to to obey a lawful order issued by a court and I assume that he does and our officers are required to do that as well they can't so if there's an issue an order issued

[82:00] based on probable cause or a conviction that uh is issued by a court and Ice requires that he produce somebody he has to do that there's no way around that uh but he does not cooperate with the the detention orders that some sheriffs around the country do thanks Aaron thanks thanks for that Tom and for clarifying about the strength of the sanctuary city ordinance so we passed a few years ago anyway I I appreciated the uh folks coming to speak to us about those matters in our Sanctuary City status and just I wonder if Council might entertain the possibility of uh putting together a resolution kind of reaffirming our commitment to our Sanctuary policies it has been three years and um there are um efforts by the federal Administration to kind of put Sanctuary cities under threat so this seems like a reasonable time to say hey we we stand behind these policies and you know we have a new Council and so just want to put that out there for our considerations great and I would just add I'm I'm not sure what the is the people's resolution

[83:00] probably not part of the ordinance so would we separately also reaffirm that maybe I'm sorry what's the I think it's called The People's resolution some or else whatever is specific to ingred I think there's a resolution that was fair that was passed during um um actually a study session last year year before um and it was it was specific to ingred so um I think if we're going to have a resolution they it could be done together yeah so I I think it would be worth us um especially because there are four of us I think new that didn't get the chance to to express our commitment and I think it would be a nice gesture to the community to have a unanimous Council reaffirming our um commitment especially in light of um essentially an ice SWAT team that may get deployed at some point to Boulder a new second circuit ruling that puts more Federal fund fing I think at risk and again new council members and I do like the idea of us going to ingred to present the resolution I think that would be uh

[84:01] especially if we incorporate the people's resolution I'm happy to go and be a representative but I think it would be uh awesomely powerful if we all went so so why don't we why don't we bring this back to Council in just a second and have a full discussion of it when we do Council Bob did you have some I mean sorry B Tom did you have something else no that's it it was it res Mary's right it was resolution 1231 that Council passed in support of ingr okay great so we can start with that then I'm coming back to council um Adam yeah one piece of this that I just have a question on it I'd love to have a little time with Council to discuss is the in uniform off-duty officers at private companies um we haven't had an opportunity to discuss that as a council I think that's an interesting policy that we have in general and I think it's worth just spending a little time on at some point so like the officers you see at Whole Foods who are technically off duty but

[85:00] in uniform in police vehicles that type of stuff question and so no no no you don't shout out no no so well you can write us an email with your question and we'll respond to you thank you so I I think so there's two things now on the table why don't we take them in order the first thing being the um proposal to do a resolution um I think that sounds great um and I think we could probably I mean you have each listed some of the things that have changed in the last three years I think one of the most important things to do would say what's new that we are not um happy with and that we want to make sure that we are responsive to um so is there any objection to doing a resolution I have no objection I just um let's let's not we have a very tight public hearing schedule so I just would like ask not that it be scheduled as a public hearing and bup other things off okay and and so

[86:00] what we'll take that to CAC and see if we can get that scheduled and assigned and then um figure out when that's going to be I would suggest that we read it here in council chambers so it gets televised as well as then going and presenting it um if people are good with that okay that's great and then the second thing I think that should just be a request to CAC if you wouldn't mind um send a request to CAC to ask that we at least discuss revisiting um the policy of the officers we will have a new police chief coming in so it's probably a discussion worth revisiting there's new council members we did go through this before and there had been a process previously around bi and a discussion around it in the decision but it doesn't seem unreasonable to reopen it again with the things have change the other question I ask again is process one is is um I don't know if this is a short discussion or long discussion um if it's a longer discussion it does feel like a work plan adjustment to me I mean if

[87:02] we're going to have staff do some work about off dut the officers and what our policies and then if we're going to come back and we have a public hear it does feel like a work plan increment adjust adjustment I know it's unfair to the four of you that didn't go through that last year um but um I'd like to suggest unless staff thinks it's a really really short period of time that this come back at the midye um Retreat and for consideration a work plan in the second half of the year if that's okay with you Adam just I don't I don't want to dodge the question I just we we've kind of loaded up the front half of the year I'm not sure we'll have time yeah I totally get it it's just something that want brought up at some point and I think it is good with the new police chief to re they give her opportunity to obviously get up to speed and participate in that as well great yeah that's helpful thank you um just really quick maybe leading in I I agree with what you're saying um um and appreciate Adam bringing it up maybe before the midyear Retreat though um we could just get a brief update on or at

[88:00] least something in writing telling us sort of the history and where we are now so that we know whether we want to pick it up at at the retreat so we're informed that seems reasonable if we could get an IP on that and have it called out perhaps okay maybe just from the packet when we heard it previously I would also suggest we can talk about this at CAC that this could just be a matters so not to jam our public hearings we could get our IP and then potentially decide to have a discussion under matters because more policy guidance than necessarily something we need to have a public hearing on plus many of us have been through the public hearing on one side or the other of the dis so okay um anything else from Council different subjects no I just wanted to say thank you to all the community members who came to speak tonight um and especially I think it was Miss abar who shared her personal family story that was really moving and um thank you for sharing that good Mary I just wanted to comment

[89:01] on um the report that was addressing the Tipton report um Adam and I and I know other council members have had a chance to sit down with staff to go over um what moving forward looks like and have to say that it was a very um a hopeful um moving forward um plan which has a lot of specific or several specific steps and um implementation and it's it's a really great plan and I just wanted to share that um coming out of that meeting I know I felt pretty hopeful and um I'll add one more thing in terms of um I had never been up to the um the planning area where the all the plans are and there's going to be some good improvements there in terms of um moving

[90:01] away from paper plans to actual um computerized system and that's going to make a huge difference in terms of um personnel and um I just wanted to share that because it is related to um the transportation um issue that was brought up tonight which um I have sat down with Jane and spoken about this and there really is no explanation for why car Carlos left there really isn't and um I wish we could get up here and just say he left for this and that reason but there simply isn't and um so I just wanted to um reinforce that and to share what um the sentiment behind the Tipton report actually action plan that um Adam and I sat on last week and and to follow up on that there will be more information we're going to

[91:00] have I think a 15minute session here before too long where we review for The public's benefit I know most of us know what's going on but it it's helpful to to share it so okay anyone else okay your consent agenda tonight contains items B through G [Music] I just want to comment that it sounds like we've had a nice resolution on the um arbec beram house so thanks to everybody who worked on that that seems like a really good fit and the representative who was here and called out what the intention was when we purchased it um that was really great thank you Mary so I had a question on that one um and that that was trying to understand the two pieces of the revenue stream and I just wanted to understand how it was arrived at because it's it's

[92:01] a little um I had to read it twice to get what was going on so I just wanted an explanation Isa so our former Parks and Recreation director of vet will answer this and she was the leader of the department when this all occurred so AET thank you and and has not resigned moved on to other departments good evening Council um thanks for your question Mary uh I believe you're referring to the negotiated term between the city and women's Wilderness and how Revenue would be split um when we received direction from Council in 2019 to go forward it was to anticipate covering the cost of operating and owning the home to the best of our ability Council gave us direction to Pur Pur things that were at least at Cost recovery but would kind of certainly consider the uses um and try and lean into what the Community Values

[93:02] were we ended up in a negotiation with the preferred tenant who you met earlier hi Sarah um and with the assistance of our team we have two parts one is a flat monthly rent which is below market rate on the home this is a 12 room home um in the University Hill area and the flat rent is $1,600 per month that is not full cost recovery but what we did want to encourage and what we also as a staff appreciated about women's wilderness' proposal was that they wanted to create opportunities for other rentals um with con the consideration and consultation of the Colorado group we looked into the full amount of our cost recovery as well as trying to encourage them um but not discourage subleasing to other organizations and Community uses so the second part of the revenue stream tries to get us a little bit closer to cost recovery we're not

[94:01] close but um it does encourage in a way that says we want you to be successful there's a small amount for the city in cost recovery and we also want to acknowledge um that they're covering some of the maintenance of the home as well so it's really getting at Cost recovery in three ways flat rent a very small percentage that escalates year-over-year from five ultimately up to 10% of their sublet revenue and then finally partial cost of Maintenance I do want to point out that in negotiations we deliberately kept that number very low in the hopes that it would encourage um cost recovery considerations but also lots of use by other organizations the rental revenue does not cover any cost of free use by the community in the home thanks that's very helpful thank you any other questions yes Mark sorry

[95:02] um is there any cap on the ability of the tenant to make non-structural alterations terms of dollar value or scope I understand that that there are limitations in terms of uh compliance with statute and and and that sort of thing but are there any um is there any that prevents them from basically gutting the premises and and altering them thank you so much for your question um other direction that we received from Council was to consider the community value of this very important Landmark property the property remains a city of Boulder asset and a landmarked amenity all exteriors are therefore protected by the local Landmark ordinance when we got to the issue of the Interior um considerations I want to acknowledge my colleagues in the room um your new director of Parks and Recreation Allison rhods um Margot Josephs who works on public private Partnerships and two people who could

[96:00] not or three people who could not be with us this evening Jeff Haley and planning Tina Briggs and planning um for our department and Caitlyn bruy Smith we did an extensive Ser uh study of all of the Interior amenities of the home identifying its special features um those were paid for by the city and in an unusual Spectra but I also want to acknowledge sandre jannis is in the room who's our assigned attorney on this project uh we were able to come up with a declaration of use that protects once we file it should you approve the lease this evening those would protect some of the Interior features that were um set aside for their significance um no other amenities that are fixed to the home could be changed outside of that Declaration of use without the city's approval and actually I have a question for Tom um in the lease um SE it's section g to

[97:00] attachment a is the prohibition on contracts for public services language um which basically says that U the tenant shall not knowingly employ or contract with an illegal alien or do business with any company that employs an illegal alien is that required language in our contracts it's required by federal law okay that's the end of that and that that exact terminology is required illegal alien I don't think we say illegal alien does say illegal alien uh yes it does I believe yes it's in the stat that language undented Sandra's telling me that language comes from federal statute okay and so we can't change it that's what we're saying uh Sandra do you want to come up and explain she knows this area much better than I do well it's been a while since yourself sandriana city attorney's office it's

[98:02] been a while since um we've looked at that but when the law first came out um we did some extensive research and um in fact we we were required to use that exact language and so that's what we've done since the since that log came out okay we will certainly take a look at it make sure it's up to date I I doubt it's changed but doubt at all I'm happy to take a look unfortunately yeah Bob this is just a thank you to you and your team you V for of course the um the house was the home of the boulder history museum for decades and I've spent hundreds if not thousands of hours in that building and I know it inside and out every nook and cranny and I really appreciate you um not only preserving the historic character of the inside of the building as as Mark called out but also finding a really great tenant for the building so thank you so much to you and your team we excited about the partnership and we thank Council for the opportunity fulfill against the city's values Aaron and just a congratulations to the women's Wilderness Institute it's

[99:00] a phenomenal organization that does wonderful work in our communities it's so I look forward to the partnership thank you thank you great any other issues with the consent agenda is this roll call yeah we don't have a motion how about I'll move the consent agenda okay be clear about e one and two well are we not passing both you're passing all three yeah yeah all three so unless you decide not to I have issues with some of them but I'm willing to let them go tonight and handle a second reading yeah handle it second reading okay seconded I think Aaron made a motion second Motion in a second it's a roll call vote we start with council member swle hi wallik hi Weaver hi Gates hi young yes rocket Hi friend friend yes Joseph yes Nagel I the motion passes unanimously your first public hearing tonight second reading of ordinance 8381

[100:02] and 8384 regarding the marijuana licensing Authority Debbie could you put it so sandri Janis Deputy City attorney will be making this [Music] presentation good evening Council joined uh joining me tonight is U michan cook licensing manager and um I think uh Kathy hadak is somewhere in the building she's also uh joining us senior Council um so tonight um we're bringing forward to you the second reading for uh the change to

[101:00] the slight changes uh to um the marijuana board that um we implemented um a few months ago and so let me work my way through that so um we're doing some slight tweaks to the to the naming of the board and so um when Council adopted this in August of 2019 um the term Authority was used in the name of the the uh board and unfortunately it's a um term of Art in the state statute and so because this board will not be doing licensing right away um we're recommending that the name be changed to either the marijuana licensing and Advisory board or the

[102:01] Cannabis licensing and Advisory board we're also providing in this ordinance some clarification regarding the term of the board members in terms of making sure that they're staggered for the initial board as you may recall the member requirements are that uh members be 21 years of age their City residents for fiveyear terms uh a total of seven members with the option of adding up to two ex officio non-voting members and just to explain a little bit about the exofficio positions they were intended for the non-citizen residents uh from the candidate pool who would o otherwise qualify but are prohibited from appointment because of the resident status requirement in terms of the makeup for

[103:00] the membership we have uh two members who will be marijuana industry Representatives or hemp Representatives if you should desire to have the board include uh hemp as one of its um functions we have two members who will be health or education field and three members uh that will be community at large again uh the total number of membership are seven uh no more than two terms expiring in one year um this sort of explains the Staggering of those memberships one member having one oneyear term two for a two-year term two for a three-year term and two for a five-year term and that is the extent of my presentation questions from Council before we open the hearing

[104:00] gotam is that just the standard staggering of terms those excuse me those term limits are those just the standard staggering that we use much every for the housing Advisory Board okay and planning board okay and the reason is that you don't want too many expiring at once and you don't want one Council within two years to propoint a majority I get that yep Rachel um with two members that are supposed to be health and education field I'm not sure with the current um application pool as an example that we got to with that with those credentials what happens if you don't have enough for one of the particular categories don't we yeah I actually think that we have four now so we don't have to worry about that but just to pursue that a little further if I may that but if we did not we reopen the application process that we we do sometimes for awards yes I think that would be the wise thing to do because really what we

[105:01] want is a balanced um board and so it would be important to have that voice on the panel okay any other questions for staff um public hearing right so do we have any no anyone signed up and anyone wants to speak to this now is the time okay if not we'll close the public hearing bring it back to council for discussion sobody want to kick us off which you prefer go ahead Bob I think the staff recommendation was for cannabis because of the broadening on hemp is that right that's correct yes does anybody disagree with that so this seems fairly straightforward and non-controversial would someone like to make a motion so so moved so I assume you're moving ordinance 8384 for the Cannabis yes title yes

[106:03] second okay we have a motion and a second to pass ordinance 8384 as it's found any discussion we had just I guess I'm I'm still just a little bit confused on the hemp Ram appications because we talked about applicants wouldn't be aware that they were applying for a hemp related board but we're still going to use this current pool right and then in future years make that more clear that be the intent I think that's the intent and I think further to that sometimes during Camp processing hemp becomes marijuana so at least the concentration is high enough that it falls under the legal definition so we can make it more clear in the future but I think for now it's pretty close Aon well I'll just be clear I I I don't know exactly how we might regulate him seems like we'll regulate at least a little bit um but we don't necessarily have to do everything that we do with marijuana but I think to me

[107:01] this just gives us the flexibility in the name right and whether H is licensed or not we don't know yet right and so we license marijuana facilities not necessarily hemp facilities so it could just be advisory on hemp and marijuana but regulatory on marijuana okay any discussion okay show of hands no roll call roll call okay start with council member wallik hi Weaver hi Yates hi young yes rocket Hi friend yes Joseph yes Nagel hi swti yes the motion passes unanimously your second public hearing tonight is regarding your policy agenda I'm hoping that Carl Castillo is

[108:02] here we're 25 minutes ahead of schedule yeah exactly darn that efficiency this is like never happened ever so horse CS are so I mean I think what we wait for him to get here maybe we can cover just a few of the things that we did at the legislative Committee hearing last week um I think a few of the things there he is Carl come on down you you were leaving us a drift Carl this is a new Council we're yeah yeah you know let you know the uh the recording runs a little bit behind and you guys ran a little bit ahead what I expected uh good evening Council Carl Castillo Chief policy advisor and as I catch my breath here um the purpose of this agenda item is to

[109:02] quickly update you on some State Legislative priorities your priorities going to be emphasis on quick because we did have our Council intergovernmental Affairs committee here a rather in-depth presentation on this on Thursday I will allow you to ask questions if you want to get into detail otherwise I'll keep it short the second part is to ask for action on recommendations made by staff and the interal committee um and finally I want to briefly touch on the encryption legislation uh that was front page of the Daily Camera today and I think it's probably something that you're interested in hearing about so I thought I'd give a little bit of update on that and of course be interested in your feedback uh so starting off with with uh the council's first priority had to do with mobile home residents and making sure that we increase their uh opportunities to purchase and provide

[110:00] additional protections and um look look out for the rights and the interests of mobile home residents um we are very I'm very happy to report that there's two bills that have been introduced they've been summarized in the memo and um in other discussions that I've had with you uh they're going along very well we the first one which has to do with the mobile home park act updates it's just kind of like a a series of different reforms that help provide protections has to do with retaliation transparency and equity and utility fees making sure that there's sufficient infrastructure and water provided um PR prohibition against unfair rules um things like that that bill uh passed the committee uh the the local government committee two weeks ago go it is scheduled to be heard in on second reading um by the by the whole Committee of the whole this Friday and we are in the process of negotiating uh

[111:01] amendments with the park owners which is which is great because with those you know that increases our probability of getting it through especially in the Senate where uh our support is a little more narrow even better news hb21 which is the bill that provides this opportunity to purchase so essentially at the park owner before they go enter into a final contract that for sale of the park they have to give the residents 90 days and essentially the opportunity to present their own offer um so this is very important it's been used successfully throughout the nation in conjunction with cities housing authorities um resident-owned communities rocks these are groups that help uh of residents put together an offer so very excited about that and we did uh get an agreement from the park owners on this and they did drop their opposition so this is fantastic news um it should help us quite a bit um it did

[112:00] pass uh today um on third reading uh with quite a bit of majority in the house and so we're on to the Senate I can't guarantee this is going to pass but our odds have gone up substantially so that's the first piece of really good news um the second bill that uh count ccil has asked us to look into is the authority to ban the use or sale of plastics and uh you probably recall uh through an earlier report that I provided that this bill was Senate Bill 10 uh was killed in committee uh Senator Williams was the Democrat who voted against um there is however as was also written in the Daily Camera I think on Sunday talk about reintroducing it so we're working closely with our delegation and the Colorado Municipal League uh to make sure that that does occur um many would argue that having local authority to determine whether or not plastic bag straws polystyrene

[113:02] should be banned is preferable to a State wide band although I think none of us want to pit these two against each other uh all of them have benefits of of creating a baseline as well as additional protections um the next bill has to do with regulating pesticide uses again this is a a preemption matter the state has preempted our ability to regulate the use and application of pesticides this bill was just introduced today Senate Bill 189 um it would repeal the state preemption it also creates express permission for the city so it isn't just a question of creating a vacuum of you know who has Authority it says cities shall have authority to regulate the use and um application of PES decides it does expressly accept the cultivation of marijuana and the production of Agriculture so those are two that are left out and it wasn't for no reason it

[114:01] was in order to get the Farm Bureau to go neutral Farm Bureau is the 800 pound gorilla at the capital on this issue and it was quite important to have them drop to reposition again this does not guarantee that there this bill will go forward uh we feel like we have a good fighting chance but um you know there are still a lot of groups uh the pesticide manufacturers uh the retail retailers who who sell pesticides the landscapers so don't want to create um expectations uh beyond what I've said there um the next one has to do with discouraging ecigarette and tobacco use so recall that we passed our ordinance and our our residents or citizens or uh or voters passed an additional measure um and what we wanted to do is expand that those issues at the state level well there's bills and there's action to do just that there's a bill

[115:01] hb1001 which would raise the age to 21 uh for persons to whom cigarettes tobacco products or nicotine products are sold and importantly it would create a state license that could be revoked if the retailer violated that so it really helps with the enforcement mechanism the second thing is a another bill HB 1319 which prohibits uh the sale of flavored nicotine products um and I ran this by Tom Tom reminded me about the importance of making sure that it is has language to um clarify the uh the loophole that we were finding where some people were creating separate products and flavors that could be added I've confirmed that in fact has included that plan so um so that's good news the third measure is a citizen initiative were actually 18 to be precise that have been filed to raise taxes on the sale of um of tobacco products um the reason they filed 18 is

[116:01] because they're basically polling and testing to see which one's going to do best before they land on one that they actually start Gathering signatures on and this is this is kind of typical uh so some are low taxes some are much higher taxes um the the the one with the lowest uh tax proposes a120 tax on a pack of rets and an equivalent amount apply to other tobacco products and vaping products uh the The Proposal with the highest tax would assess a $260 uh tax on the same uh this money would be used for uh tobacco prevention ination with the bulk of it going to Early Child which is a priority for our governor as you know so that is in the works cly not legislation uh but something that if it gets um on the ballot Council certainly could decide to weigh in on uh the next one is allowing uh permanent rental um requirements to be um included

[117:03] in our inclusionary housing um measure um this bill has not yet been introduced I've received promises that it will be introduced this week um it quite simply says um that the inclusion of rental housing permanently of rental Sly um excuse me uh rental property in inclusionary zoning is not a violation of the uh the prohibition on rent control so it makes that very clear um then there is the prohibition on driving with a mobile electronic device unless it is handsfree that is that has passed the Senate that's great news and it's on the way to the house um the committee and I think all of you have raised some questions which I think are great ones first of all um as you know this failed last year because of the concerns that it would provide an excuse for racial profiling well we did confirm that the weights drafted this would be a um a

[118:00] secondary offense so they would have to find a primary offense to pull somebody over that doesn't mean that opposition based on racial profiling is going to go away I think um there is concerned at anything that provides an additional excuse uh could be a concern so that is one reason why this is not going to be an easy one another question I was asked was well what about people Carl we got a question for you here yes sorry can I clarify on that you said it was a secondary defense offense yeah does that mean if I'm driving talking on the phone if I'm not doing anything else wrong they can't pull me over exactly cool thanks uh the second thing is there was a concern about well isn't this kind of uh discriminated against those who can't afford new cars that have built-in audio um and the question question more specifically was asked well can you put your phone on speaker and the answer is yes you can and that would be legal however the moment you touched it you would technically be in violation um so

[119:02] you would of course have to begin the call before you drove and not touch it again to your ended call so that's what technically would be required so you would have that ability um okay so I think with that I have covered all icles I I didn't mention bicycles nor any others that weren't directly related to the council priorities so what I'm leaving out are ones that are in your in your memo that were not exactly things that you had asked for but that are related so what the mayor has brought up is that there's other bills that would help with our distracted driving zero uh Vision zero goal um so happy to take questions about that I also have uh Taylor Taylor Ryme in here who's worked on that who can help us out with any questions um moving on I would like to talk about recommendations that were made or either made by myself made by the committee suggested by the mayor and I have three

[120:01] of them the first one has to do with um well the first two have to do with Transportation legislation the committee was briefed on the fact that there is a bill HB 1151 that would expand the Authority for Regional Transportation Improvement there is already the ability of cities and counties to work together and create a Regional Transportation authority essentially an IGA among all the governments it's considered to be a big obstacle because every member of that group assuming it's contiguous or regardless would have to adopt a individual resolution that's identical um as a way to simplify things and in recognition that a Statewide solution for transportation dollars has been difficult to find find um this bill would say that our Mo in our case Dr Cog would have the ability to through a vote of their board of directors create an

[121:00] RTA describe what the tax will be describe what the money would be used for but they would still have to refer to the voters now unlike what would currently occur each city and county would not have to pass it through a majority it would be the looking at the entirety of all the cities and counties that make it up if that vote was a above 50% that would be that would constitute a passage of this measure um so this is a bill that um the mayor and uh council member Brockett and others have had conversations with at the Metro mayor's caucus at card Municipal League at Dr Cog about the concern that we as we know are looking at the possib of County transportation tax so would be hardpressed to be included in a metrowide tax that may not lead to the projects that we want or perhaps in to

[122:00] the sufficient Investments that we need so the recommendation that is being proposed for you is that we oppose this bill unless it's amended to allow cities or counties to opt out um that's really at the core of it because that way if we're outvoted at Dr Cog let's say Dr Cog you know majority of them say let's create an RTA and we're on the losing side we want to make sure that we have the ability to say no Boulder chooses not to be in in that there are also a couple of other ideas that could be additions to that which is um perhaps also saying that if um if we don't opt out but our voters in Boulder do not support it by majority that we should be effectively considered as as having opted out um and then the last idea is to revise the language to clarify that cedd and RTD could not use our additional investment in transportation

[123:01] to lower their commitment uh that there's already language on that but there's certainly an ability to clarify that um so that is the number one recommendation again that is uh uh HB 1151 and I know the mayor will have more to say on that the second one has to do with Senate Bill 151 this one has to do with the administration of RTD um as you'll recall certainly the ones uh those of you on Council from last year we have a measure we have a position in the policy agenda that says we want greater governance and transparency and functioning of RTD there's there's challenges going there going on there and we need to uh make sure that there is legislation or that there is oversight to help address that um this bill attempts to do some of that it certainly creates more transparency um however it does a couple things that are kind of not necessarily

[124:01] consistent with it it creates an expansion of the board by adding two new appointees uh appointed by the governor one focus on riders with disabilities one focus on Equitable Transportation Planning and then two ex official members uh one one would be for the treasurer and the other one would be for the executive director for C do the reason this is antithetical to what we were asking for is last year we said let's make the board smaller and let's increase their ability to focus and perhaps considered this as a full-time job so this is moving in the opposite direction so we certainly have had some concerns with that the second thing is it also increases liability by basically mirroring what's in federal law in terms of the violations of uh the Americans with Disability Act by saying that the state law would also prohibit prohibit that and uh state courts could actually entertain such lawsuits that's been a a

[125:00] concern uh by many certainly by RTD that this would create um less money for RTD um by increasing the the liability for them so again not exactly in alignment with what we had said in the policy agenda that we would support which is greater governance greater functioning so the good news this was her today in Senate Transportation energy committee it just completed about an hour ago there were nine amendments made there there is no compilation of it so I do not know for sure what was added I know that one thing that they were going to add and I'm pretty positive was added is the creation of a blue ribbon panel of experts from the state and local and National level level who would basically work to do a diagnostic of RTD and make recommendations how how they improve the functioning of the organization it they would also create an accountability committee which would I think it was for nine months would work with RTD and they

[126:00] would make recommendations the RTD uh executive director and the board would not have to take those recommendations but if they chose not to they'd have to explain why these are the kinds of changes that would certainly fall in the category of Greater governance and functioning and all that so so that's very encouraging however because this bill is I don't have a amended version of it you know so it's hard to just to recommend anything for you right now so the recommendation that I like to make and again the mayor I'm sure will weigh in on this is that we have discretion to support it this bill if it is amended to improve rtd's accountability transparency and general functioning um for example through the Blue Ribbon panel and the commission uh um and avoid significant exposure to liability I say significant because I don't know if you know we should draw a hard line and say do not increase liability and avoid expanding of the board um so this is something that we're

[127:02] asking Council to give us discretion so that we can read the bill it's going to be a subject of conversation a continued subject of conversation at Dr Cog CML Metro mayor's caucus us36 MCC um so that that is the second recommendation um the the next topic has to do with process um actually no I I jumped the gun here um the recommendation that was made in your memo on a packet page 334 is to make a change to the policy agenda to essentially allow us to support a a bill that was introduced by Congressman Theus that would allow FEMA to uh study in what situation it makes more sense for them to reimburse infrastructure that actually improves the resilience of projects they have been hamstrung by requiring the same project same infrastructure that had just been

[128:00] devastated and there's has led to to a lot of ironic results and a lot of challenges for the city and the county so we're very thankful for the congressman and with this this provision that's in your packet um uh we'd be uh formally in support of that and perhaps be able to convey that when we go to DC next week the next recommendation is process um as you remember a mayor uh a protm uh Yates had suggested that we take a fresh look in how we approved the policy agenda um I have sent on hotline some changes that I recommended and I just realized I did not bring hard copies with me but I can summarize them um essentially they would do three things it would say the policy agenda has right now a purpose of the policy agenda we would revise that to say uh revisions and use or I I should say adoption and and use of the

[129:01] policy agenda so would clarify there for all councils in in perpetuity how you go about revising it and the first recommendation that the committee has made is to when you get a request for a change to the policy agenda is to send that to your inter government Affairs committee where they could deliberate on the issue the pros and cons and be informed by a staff evaluation recognize that this is not always going to be the case so there is language that allows Council to do whatever they need to do but as a matter of general practice we think it'd be helpful for there to be a more uh robust conversation beyond having to make a decision on the Fly um especially ones that we often uh start just entertaining during public hearing so so that's recommendation number one on process the second one is there was a concern um by the committee that the positions are pretty overwhelming for new council members and that it's not fair sadle them with having their very

[130:01] first meeting to understand these and to approve them and the reason it's been that way is because up until then I wanted to make sure that Council had an ownership and by Council I meant the new Council but um that has certainly created some challenges and so the proposal is have it approved approved in these odd-numbered years when we have new council members in October and in fact haven't always approved in October um in the odd-numbered Years provide an opportunity for the new council members to uh if they choose to serve on the intergovernmental Affairs committee to meet again in December so they can say well thank you very much press Council we'd like to make some changes and then to have a opportunity for Council in January to revisit uh uh the issue of whether there's any amendments to the policy agenda so that was the uh recommendation made by the committee and again the committee will will want to speak towards these issues the last uh proposal was a recognition that this is a very Broad

[131:00] and long policy agenda and it's somewhat it may be unrealistic to expect that all of you are equally committed to all the items so while we ask that an adoption of the policy agenda indicates just that that you support and you commit to supporting when speaking on behalf the city of all the policy positions that you nonetheless if you have reservations or certainly if you have an opposition that's personal that it is appropriate to share that um when you vote for the policy agenda it actually as mayor protm Yates mentioned it actually helps me to make sure that I'm aware of you know what issues Council was fully supportive of what were there might be some concerns it also helps me understand who maybe I turn to for uh for to testify at the capital um so anyway way this is a recommendation made by the committee and I'll let others speak more towards it um let's see uh finally in the process side we do

[132:00] receive recommendations we we get requests for Resolutions on legislative matters on policy matters all the time and by policy I mean intergovernmental policy um this is often done because most people are used to cities that don't have a policy agenda so they thinking that the council doesn't have any other way to convey it support or opposition to a measure had no choice but to adopt a resolution so many times one of you will get a request can you adopt a resolution in support of this bill or an opposition to to this bill um Council of course continues to have that right sometimes it may be something that you really want to elevate in its importance but as a matter of course the committee is recommending that you instead use the policy agenda um and save Council time and to have have the I guess to protect the Integrity of the policy agenda have all your commitments on intergovernmental policy included in the policy agenda um and everything that that that involves so that is the last

[133:01] recommendation um on that one other point um this came up because um the mayor has been as all of us who Ser serve on intergovernmental committees are often asked to vote on bills that the city has not provided Direction on and so the question becomes do we as representatives of the city just sit on our hands and recuse ourselves when we were often asked for our vote on many bills or do we um weigh in anyway and what I had always advise um the mayor and any other council member which includes many of you here who are in this position is to of course if a position is consistent or in you know in opposition to our policy agenda your responsibility is to vote for that if there is no policy agenda position then you have to decide well what my Council like likely think about this you know what do I know about my Council and and it certainly would be in

[134:01] your interest to to represent the council correctly if it's an issue that Council hasn't even wrestled with but is nonetheless important or something that you're being asked to vote on the past practice says been well you Council has uh delegated you as a representative to Rocky Flats Stewardship Council or Dr chicag or MCC or CML NLC all these groups vote ons all the time so the past practice is yes um make the recommendation that you think is appropriate and bring it to council council's attention as soon as possible afterwards um so this isn't really a recommendation so much as this is how it's been done in the past and something that recently came up when the mayor voted on a arbitration bill that some in the CML and Metro mayor's caucus Bill felt like it was undoing the benefits of some construction defect reforms uh when in fact had to do with consumer protections that our Senator fenberg had been proposing uh so he uh he he blocked

[135:04] consensus at the Metro mayor's caucus which can be done when you have five members or more that's choose not to support a recommendation so it's high profile and it's important for you to know it um and I know that he checked in with many of you if not all of you on this because you know didn't want to get ahead of council but it's a perfect example why there should be a expectation by Council for what is done in those situations so this is just an opportunity to reaffirm informally that that's what your representatives are doing finally uh the issue of local encryption on radio communications by the police guess we're talking about scanners here my understanding is that we don't currently encrypt uh cities like Denver have chosen to encrypt um the encryption could be done for a variety of reasons perhaps protect the uh police officer protect the victims protect the um people who called the police maybe were having a mental health

[136:00] crisis and don't want to be stigmatized by something that was potentially embarrassing um what I don't want to get into is a discussion of whether encryption is appropriate or not the city police department has that issue that's that's coming forward and I believe they're they're bringing it forward for Council to consider and if not certainly Council can ow his way in on it the issue with this bill that has come up is hb1 1282 it's not a question about whether City should encrypt or shouldn't encrypt it's a question of whether City councils should retain the right to make that decision the state law would essentially say if you encrypt you need to create an encryption policy and you have to make all those Communications available to the media it doesn't Define what a media means and I think these days you could imagine that media could be the quite broadly uh It also says that um unless you have reasonable um um you can't deny the public these

[137:00] communications if um unless you have an unreasonable I'm sorry I should just read my notes on this one um standards that prevent governmental entity from imposing unreasonable and burdensome limitations on access to radi radio communications my concern with that is who's to say what's reasonable and burdensome again this is essentially a preemption of local Authority currently we have that Authority and this would take it away um yeah so that's all I have on that and I guess I'll just reiterate that because being that it was a front page story I can imagine some people being concerned about it the question is not whether to encrypt or not the question is by opposing this do we want to retain that decision here at the local level and that is the only reason that we're opposing this and of course council could correct me if if that and by the way we do have a policy agenda position to protect our local control but certainly council could choose to do otherwise so that's all I have thank you for your time and as I said I'm available for questions along with tayor any questions

[138:05] Mary so earlier this year we had a request from um several community members for a resolution on Medicare for all and we um at least I responded to to them saying that this seemed like an appropriate um like the state and legislative agenda seem like an appropriate place for that request and so um how would we since we punt it to here how would we address that that's a good question in terms of the actual process I would imagine that if any of you is interested in entertaining a request that you could let me know know and I would add as an agenda agenda item to the intergovernmental Affairs committee uh you certainly could let any member that's on that committee know um or you could bring It Forward well so those are the two best ways because that's a

[139:00] perfect example of something that's highly complex and for us to consider opposing or supporting and how it affects our community hospital different opinions that exist on this um we would want to do some preparations and understand what the politics are what the actual substantive impact is so yeah I guess do that answer your question well sort of I mean it it it tells me what the process would have been had it been in place when that request came um but we punt it to address that particular request tonight so can I do you mind if I chime in Mary please because we did funnel that request to the legislative committee right so the but the form that it ended up taking was uh whether we would add support for a particular Bill and under consideration of the state legislature for a public option and so so that was how we understood the request and Carl do you want to give an update on why why we declined to right position on that

[140:01] bill and I apologize for not understanding uh council member young I I thought you were using it as an example just theoretically yes that was actually an issue that was brought forward I think by council member friend and maybe others so we did discuss this at the committee we had our lobbyist who has quite a bit of knowledge on this um we ultimately at least the committee decided to not get involved at this point that we needed more information and that if anything we would need to know whether our own Community Hospital which is a nonprofit I believe it's one of two might Carl do you want to take a step back and describe the bill because I think probably not everybody's familiar with sure yeah and Carl Carl just I'll interrupt the the um movement that Mary's talking about was Medicare for all so in December we got notebook books that said Medicare for all so it's a specific federal policy that we received a request for what we talked about at the legislative committee is a public option which is different from it's different that's what I'm I'm making the distinction yes they're

[141:01] different things and I don't know Mary that we ran the issue you're talking about to ground I I think and that was what I meant is that somehow that request got funneled into whether or not we should support this particular Bill and that was the scope of what we ended up talking about not the larger question of Medicare for all well so the question would then be is there something based on what you all described here tonight is there anything um on the table with respect to Medicare for all and if there isn't then that request is moot as I understand it from the process described is that well we should probably revisit it Mary I don't think we we addressed it headon in the format that the um folks requested however what what I would ask is what do we have as far as federal policy suggestions for medical right now didn't we support for instance Obamacare um we we didn't take any

[142:02] position on federal health issues um health issues perhaps more broadly but certainly not Health Care uh or insurance or like that so let me ask do we currently have any in the legislative agenda that would um address such a request uh no no that would be one that I would certainly be interested in hearing um council's interest in and again having um an intergovernmental Affairs committee discussion on so maybe that's that's the ask is to consider um an addition of a health related policies Adam if I remember their request um it was specifically for our city council to pass a resolution it didn't have anything to do with trying to combine it with any state level issues it was just about us so we can definitely do

[143:00] something try to do something at the state level but that specific request from that group is just about us right right and so I mean I think it brought up the the existential discussion around resolutions of what should get funneled into the policy agenda discussion so it takes a place there which is more permanent maybe than a resolution because it can be crafted every year or what like um Rachel just brought forward and the folks who are here about immigration is being responsive to changing conditions on the ground right and so we I don't think we came up with a crisp definition for when we would try and funnel something into the because we have policy positions on immigration right now that are in the agenda but this is a request to respond to changes that that have occurred since we put that in the agenda if that makes any sense having you know the the ice teams getting the immigration one yeah I understand the so so the Medicare for all one so when's

[144:01] our next meeting Carl we are looking to schedule one for for May so how about if we make sure to bookmark that one specifically for May and have the legislative committee either say we want to do a federal Healthcare policy position or we don't and then we just have to address that request on Council I think that's and and I think on something like that I don't know if there's a federal Bill pending or not but it would be nice to be able to Target a specific bill as opposed to a general statement of policy I mean I know that their legislative agenda has some general Phil philosophical statements I suppose I could call them but to the extent that there's a specific bill that folks want us to take a position on that staff can can study um that would be helpful as opposed to just a general philosophy that Healthcare is a good thing ra to muddy the water a little bit more on that one as I recall the um constituents really wanted a resolution because they were

[145:01] asking a lot of other city councils for Resolutions and so they wanted to be able to add us to the list of cities um that have signed the exact same language so I think that might be a little bit different than the usual ask because it's we get that ask all the time just FYI um you'll see lots of those where there form resolutions that have been passed by many cities and so again I think the struggle is when do we Elevate something to council discusses it and takes our time and when do we punt something to the subcommittee and hope that it becomes kind of a long lived agenda item so so the proposal was if we take that one up in May and come to a resolution on whether we want to take a position or not to me it seems like if we don't take a position it should come back to council and we decide what we want to do with the resolution request if we do take a position that ends up in the legislative agenda then from then on we just refer people to the legislative agenda okay

[146:00] okay shall we any other questions for Carl so I do have some words to say but I'll wait till after the public hearing about the particular bills so shall we open public hearing do we have anyone signed up I'm not signed up yeah you can come speak and then sign up afterwards hi uh I'm Carolyn binsky I'm with the Rocky Mountain peace and Justice Center and this is the first time I've been here since the new Council so hello thank you Carl for your update it's very informative I wanted to just uh briefly say that um we've always the Peace Center has always supported mobile home tenants and um glad the city has to and so thank you for that and we support strengthening their rights um regarding pesticide use uh the Peace Center is part of a coalition called The Organic land and food

[147:02] Coalition and we support uh the exemption um I mean we support uh removing um State exemption and allowing cities to decide this both actually has been very good under the leadership of Rea abery in regard to these issues so uh you know we'd like a stronger bill but this is a first step to um to at least being able to regulate homeowners use of of pesticides so that we're not being the this this stuff isn't drifting into our homes into our children's lungs and on our lungs also so it's not you know it's not everything but it's a good start uh this is on a personal level driving with a mobile phone seems like a really bad idea and uh I was interested to hear that this bill would not allow for any

[148:01] um enforcement unless someone was doing something else and I I just this is personal we haven't discussed this but it is something worth looking at uh you know why wouldn't you why would you have a law if you're not going to enforce it what's the use uh I wanted to just say that uh in regard to weighing in on bills you know you mentioned with the mayor being able to weigh in on bills I think it's really important to uh really have full knowledge of what's in a bill because sometimes you think it's one thing and it turns out to be something else that happened with the regulation of small cells that was basically allowed these small cell towers to be uh to be preempted based basically by the big telecoms and local governments have no rights now and most of our our local our uh state legislators had no idea of what was in the bill so I think you really have to know what's in it I've got 28

[149:00] seconds um I wanted to say also that uh confidence in government is at an all-time low I'm not saying the city of bolded but just in general you in these polls that are shown so it's really important I think for the city to be as transparent as possible to uh allow citizens to weigh in on issues so that uh you know what people are really thinking and they feel represented thank you so much anyone else want to speak okay with that we will close public comment bring it back to council if it's okay I'd just like to give a teeny bit of color to the Metro mayor's caucus situation um the legislative committee folks have heard this but the the issue with 1151 which is generally I think a good bill it's going to give taxing authority to Dr Cog if a few conditions are met

[150:00] which include a vote of the people within the footprint Our concern among a number of Mayors in the Northwestern region who have been unhappy with the stadium District vote when Boulder did not support the stadium District but we had to pay taxes into it in any case and the um RTD FASTT trcks and we know what's happened with that you know we've we've received a lot less of our money than we've paid in so a group of us have been going to these meetings and speaking about wanting an opt out provision and the opt out provision isn't so much because we want to use it and opt out because we would really like to be part of these Regional Solutions but it gives everyone a seat at the table to really say look if we don't get the transportation Regional Transportation projects that we need to connect us to Brighton or us to Longmont or whatever then we're going to opt out

[151:00] and so Dr Cog will then have to pay close attention when they design the programs which they're going to take out and ask for the taxes for so it really is more of a leverage thing than a desire not to participate um and the the feeling of concern is shared among Lewisville and Lafayette and Longmont as well so that's all been part of the discussion about what will it take to get you guys to be on board with something like 1151 1151 itself may not pass all the way through I think the first Committee hearing was today in fact on it or at least it had previously been scheduled for March 3rd yeah it hasn't occurred yet okay in any case some people are still lobbying for a Statewide solution to the transportation problems and so it's unclear if this is some leverage or what's going to happen with it I have been taking those positions without weighing in with all of counsel in other words saying we want an opt out we want

[152:02] leverage we want to seated at the table and we don't want to have what happened in the past happened to us so I guess one thing I would ask is if you have if any of you have any concerns with me taking that position let me know now because for the rest of the session there will be more communication with the Metro mayor's caucus do you want to talk about Dr Cog relative to this sure thanks for that Sam yeah and and I think myself and um my Boulder County colleagues at Dr Cog have taken a similar position you know about um that we should have the opt out provision if we're going to support that bill um for the reasons that that you state so and Dr itself is kind of queasy enough about the whole idea that it's only monitoring the bill not supporting it right so it's a little unclear whether it would would ever come to pass but I think that opt out provision is important I did hear Carl you mentioned something about like well if our voters didn't pass it we would automatically get opted out it which sounded like less

[153:01] of a good idea because if if only the jurisdictions that voted more than 50% went for it we' have this whole Patchwork right um so so to clarify the recommendation that I was making is that we oppose this bill unless it's amended to have an opt out provision those other two examples of way are ways that we could also address it perhaps um but there weren't ones that I was recommending but I I guess I threw them out there for for all of you to determine whether you wanted to add that to your to your uh your motion well I I guess I would really like us to stick with a an an opt out that we decide to do rather than like a 50% threshold for any jurisdiction to stay in so that that does not sound like the best approach to me but I think it is really important for us to be able to optt out okay good I say the only other idea that got floated frequently enough that Dr Cog responded was the possibility of saying

[154:01] in the statute in 1151 how funds would have to be distributed so if an no that had six counties in it for example um were to vote to tax itself then you could say it's like the tip funding where 75% of the funding returns to the counties for them to decide what to do with and 25% stays in a regional pot that Dr Cog could use and Dr Cog didn't like it many many other people didn't like having that in statute because it ties your hands when you go to design the program so if you guys are okay I think Aaron and I will continue to lobby for the opt out okay super 151 I'll just pass on um we had one of the board of directors for um RTD come to the Metro mayor's Caucus meeting and talk about their um

[155:03] compliance with ADA requirements talk about you know how RTD had been one of the first Transit agencies in the country to really Pioneer this and then to argue strongly against adding correction they were forc to Pioneer it could be that's not the way they said it uh and so it really does seem at the end of the day like increasing liability is bad idea adding board members bad idea you know it all goes in the wrong direction so I I would say that having listened to people who know more about this talk deeply about it it seems like support unless I mean opposed and L amended and who knows if the amendments were right the nine that were done today and actually for this one the recommendation was um support it if amended if okay support if amended okay

[156:01] because it everyone says it's got a lot of good stuff in it that there's a lot of kind of RTD process reform that is positive but that it's got a few errors so if you guys are and we've been asked to weigh in on this so if you're okay I'm just going to accept Carl's guidance okay what was the third thing oh that should be easy supporting Joe's idea to let us rebuild bridges that are more resilient than the ones that were wiped out and then and then process right that was the next thing that we were to talk about so um you know I did I did oppose the um Metro mayor's caucus opposing the arbitration bill and I want to tell you about the details about why and so on but we were able to successfully gather six Mayors um to oppose that and to try

[157:02] and get them oriented to what it was but I did that I did call folks and check in on the legislative committee but fundamentally it didn't get all of council's formal blessing but just to Carl's point about process it's I'm pretty sure I knew where Council was going to be on this and I checked in with some members of the legislative committee sometimes we have to move pretty quickly there would have been no way to pull Council as a whole because we had less than a week to respond so I guess the question relative to me and Aaron in particular during these legislative sessions is are you comfortable with us making calls when we don't have time to come to council this is just a Time to Say say no if you have a problem okay super Carl I think I'm missing one what am I missing uh we talk about the resolutions um with that I think that's it

[158:01] okay so do we need a motion on this one Carl ideally I I'd actually like to capture those positions of about RTD and the uh Dr Cog in the agenda so perhaps the motion could include what was already in your packet staff's recommendation with the addition of the recommendations on the RTD and the Dr Cog bill as presented tonight as well as the process items that the rec that the uh committee has created okay somebody like to make that motion so moved second okay and this is just a show of hands right on okay all in favor any opposed Carl thank you it was a good presentation anything else you need from us nope thank you thanks your next item is the online petitioning update you can

[159:05] go it's okay i' rather have it that way it's not like not touching all the substan go may I go ahead yeah please I'll be presenting on this so This the purpose for this agenda is to is one A continuing process of providing council with an update regarding online petitioning and seek some direction on some of the decisions staff has made regarding online petitioning I also have a short demonstration of where we are in the project so um I want to start off by explaining a little bit about why we think there'll be more petitions coming up um Ju Just So that everybody's on the same that there are three different types of petitions that our Charter allows uh initiatives referenda and recall petitions uh initiatives uh are the ability of the people to to draft laws themselves um referendum allows the

[160:03] people to uh re to overturn a decision by Council to pass an ordinance and recall is the ability of the people to recall an elected official a council member number um so in in the charter amendments that were made in 2018 the numbers for all of these changed as you can see in that third column the previous numbers uh for each differed uh and they were based on different things and so we had a working group that recommended and Council adopted that recommendation that the voters be asked to change them to be consistent so now all of them are based on 10% of the average number of registered V in the cities who voted in the the previous two municipal candidate elections So based on the last two when this was prepared so we don't have 2019 in here this is 2017 2015 the number for each of those would be

[161:00] 3,66 which which represents a reduction from in the initiative number which was 4,166 the referendum number which was 8,332 and the recall number which was 12257 so um because we'll we'll have smaller numbers we expect time question sorry to interrupt of course I I just could have sworn we left the recall number is higher than the other numbers right I mean that that there was some discussion about it I could I could be completely wrong I'll go back and double check I'm pretty sure that we left it either double or 50% more yeah I think it was originally proposed at 10% and then at the last minute we changed it to either 20 or 25% something like yeah and I apologize I did not go back and check I went from the the the memo that was presented to no we we we changed that yeah thanks so um process so the the working group was created by Council on December of 2017 um 2018 Council approved measure 2G

[162:01] for the November ballot which which authorized online petitioning and there were other ballot measures that authorized the other changes and on November 6 2018 uh the ballot measure 2G passed um so on December 11th 2018 we had a study session where we presented a work plan to implement what was called eign uh and then follow through with electronic petitions eign is the system that Denver uses Denver has an electronic petition signing system that that uses an iPad they still use uh signature signature gatherers who will present the voter with the the the registered voter with uh a petition on an iPad just like you would currently present somebody with a piece of paper the advantage to that system is it's hooked directly into the voter registration records so the um the petition gatherer can verify that the person is authorized to sign right there without having to go back and check a signature they put in the information that checks against the voter database and they they they sign right there um so that was the original plan so Steph proceeded with that plan and presented

[163:02] first reading of an ordinance on February 19th and second reading of an ordinance on M March 5th between December 11th and March 5th the clerk in Denver changed and when we first approached this Denver was very anxious to sell their system which they had developed inh housee um the new clerk was less interested in selling their system and they they had other priorities at the time and decided to back away from that so Council decided not to pass the ordinance to authorize us to go forward with eign but to direct staff to go straight to full online petitioning so that was on March 5th on April 23rd uh we presented a the staff presented a proposal for a request for proposal process and the the the quote I have there is from the council minutes that which is a recognition that we're going to work on this it might we're going to try to get ready for April 2020 if not it would be 2021 so um we got we got a proposal from a company called maplight maplight is a not for- proper Corporation interested

[164:01] in voter transparency and and uh more direct democracy they are funded by a grant from uh an individual who is very interested in direct democracy um they offered a free open- source system uh staff decided to proceed with procurement as planned and invited maplight to participate the reason for this decision was to be able to compare map light's proposals with other proposals that were out there this is an important thing for the city to do there are all sorts of issues that we' have we will ultimately have to address here and we wanted to U sort of get out there in the community and see what what um what might be available and and also to allow to invite mapl to participate in the process and they did so on July 8th we issued the RFP we had nine companies iies uh that submitted proposals three were selected as finalists uh one was maplight another was runback there was a third company whose name I don't recall I was not involved in any of the decision-making process in the RFP it was the clerk's office and the staff of the Department of innovation and

[165:00] Technology uh on so we the runback election Services was selected as a final as the prim as as the final uh as the selecte um the the the the primary reason for that was runback has experienced running election software around the country relationship with secretaries of State around the country including Colorado's Secretary of State they have more of a proven track record in doing this than maplight did maplight seems to be a very good company and they are very smart and what they do runbacks seem to be the better choice for what we were doing so uh the contract was negotiations started after we selected them sometime in um September and we we concluded the contract negotiations in December um it took a longer time than I would have hoped this is not uncommon in it procurement it companies tend to take a very hard line in altering their contracts and a lot of them do not have experience although runback does in dealing with governments particularly in governments in Colorado that have

[166:01] restrictions on what we can do for example we cannot agree to a clause that says we be govern by the law of California um that we we cannot agree to a clause that requires us to indemnify them uh but those are very common Clauses in it contracts so we we we spent some time negotiating it we got it right at the same time we have been working to get data from the um the county and the Secretary of State and I I'll provide more information that in a second this is a picture of lynnette's dog that's Hank um when I said I was going to put a put uh puppy in Lynette said put Hank in so so the RFP called for robust secure and easy system for for electronic petitioning we required two- Factor identification using a telephone number we did not require a system that would allow paper and electronic petitioning at the same time and we did not require open an open source system you've heard a lot about open source system and I'll talk about that in the next slide here uh what an open source system is it's it it's the developer makes the

[167:00] source code available to other developers and users without charge so open source open source software can be updated and changed um generally the the software provider does not provide ongoing support for the product um this was important to the city but we did make a choice based on open source or proprietary in the proprietary system The Source comp is owed by the developer and then they can make money by selling it to other people they are interested more interested in providing ongoing support um and our contract with runback provides for uh annual support services and maintenance of the program so paper and electronic so this staff recommended against we did not ask for a system that will handle both at the same time and you've got to so so the the the the workflow that would be required to handle both at the same time would be you'd have an online system for for for handling petitions and at the same time people would be out Gathering paper signatures you'd have to figure a way to duplicate the signatures

[168:01] which we do now by hand although the the chall one of the basic challenges we've had in the last 10 years we have only had four successful petitions so we do not have a lot of these in our history if we get a lot we don't know how to sta for this whether we're going to get one or 10 next year and because we've lowered the numbers it's more likely we will see more than we have in the past which is fine it just presents challenges for Staffing so with the system that we have asked to be designed will only process electronic signatures if someone wants to do a payer petition they can still do that they just will not be able to also get signatures online um we're not clear if there would be a demand to have both the additional cost uh in the absence of a demand is hard to justify so my recommendation would be let's get this implemented if there if it seems to be a barrier not having that extra ability to gather paper signatures um then we can try to we can we can ask run back to add

[169:01] that capability we'd also have to add Staffing because the verification of paper petitions has to be done by hand obviously and then you have to figure you have to have a system that that that um that on an ongoing basis provides you an update of the signatures that the endorsements that have re received online um so our recommendation is to go ahead with one with just the one uh the exclusively so Steve palat has made a couple of recommendations that that so one of which we had considered one we had not talked about what so uh as you'll see when I demonstrate this that we one of the things we've required is two Factor identif authentification which is a very common process you if you get if you want to access your bank account online you generally have to give them a phone number and email address that's tied that's already that they already have they send you a code that you then enter the a similar thing would be done here uh the what Steve has suggested that we use postcards an alternative that is use a postcard that would be sent to the

[170:00] mailing address in the voter registration database that would have the code on it and then the person would then go back in and enter the code after they received the postcard uh couple of challenges with that uh someone has to mail those postcards receive the ones back that uh Bounce from the address and some will um a and the postcard itself would be in a mailbox which isn't very secure so someone could theoretically get in um it's possible to do it uh we the system we've proposed is a little bit more streamlined and we think more effective um Steve has also recommended that we that we have a sort of mock purchase that that someone could could enter a credit card uh for uh like 10 cents and we would use the credit card information to authenticate that person lived at that address um the challenge is that the the credit cards are not in the election data so it's a separate Source um also there are regulations about storing credit card information that are pretty significant and the city does it in a lot of things we'd have to Overlay that into this and so staff does

[171:01] not recommend that as an alternative um so I want to talk a little bit about the voter registration information so the secretary of state has the voter of information for information for the state they provide that to the counties the county clerk and recar is the keeper of that the secretary of state has never provided that information to a city you've heard that Denver has that information Denver is of course a county so that's why Denver has it and Boulder does not Boulder County has it um we have heard from Council Members who've spoken with uh the secretary of state that she does have concerns about security and about where this is leading and so uh she their their Direction has that the city has should work with the county uh the county clerk and recter also has expressed some concern concerns to us but they are they have offered us anou to get the data that we need we are finalizing that we've been to through two drafts I expect that to be finalized shortly so we should we will have I'm confident we will have the data from the that we need from the county when uh we finalize this

[172:02] process so why not just accept map light's offer now I should make it clear maplight has made several offers they made their addition original offer back in I think it was May and then they they responded to the RFP with an offer for about the same about $250,000 about the same that uh run back's offer was yes Mary quick question I was a little confused in the memo about that because the memo said you issued the RFP and then um it said map light didn't respond and then they said then it said that there was a a a meeting with matl or a conversation so I was just it did say it it did I hope it said it did respond they did resp they did respond yes they were part of the RFP process and they were a finalist because there was in earlier in the memo it says that they did not respond to the RFP I hope that doesn't say that but I'm sorry if it says that I I'll look it up because I yeah

[173:03] well regardless of what it says in the memo that's not true they did respond to the me the RFP and they were a finalist uh so they they made the the first offer for a free system the second offer for a system for about $250,000 and then they made a third offer after we closed the RFP now when we closed the RFP oh Mary the thing where they said we said they didn't respond we asked for feedback on the RFP from the people who and they didn't give us any feedback so we did not hear from them that they that they were going to make another offer in as part of the process that might have been it yeah they then came in later after conversations with the community with another free offer for a strip down system that was different than the one that we had laid out in the RFP it had fewer backend uh backend systems to allow the clerk area to be mechanized a lot of more as I read their propo their second their third proposal it was for more of a

[174:00] strip down system um I also have a concern we have heard from community members who have been contacted by Matt BL or have contacted maplight that they should direct Council to circumvent the RFP process and award this to to to mapl light that would be undermining the process that we went through we don't generally allow unsuccessful proposers to come in and make a second offer and then work the political process to get the contract awarded um if runback isn't the the right vendor if you want to do something completely different we should issue another RFP and give everybody a chance to we think RF runback is the right person to do this I we think they're doing a good job um we think the criticisms that that we have heard aren't based on any on on any reality uh and I as again I'm concerned about this the lobbying that's gone on to try to go around a procurement process which would put us in a very difficult position Tom in a proprietary scenario um what is

[175:00] the term that we're leasing the software for uh this is Von Kata who is the project manager uh would you want to just go up there and introduce yourself and uh see if you can answer the question what's the term what's the term of the question can you tell us your name really quick Bonnie tell us your name pardon your name please oh van with a V I'm in it C it okay my question was um what is the term that we're are leasing the software for and are we a Jeopardy after whatever that term is 6 years 10 years of having the provider uh basically say that that if you want to release it for further use uh the rates are tripled um we are a after um the development cycle which will be this year um then we're leasing it for four years that's what we have on contract right now and after four years we're subject to whatever the the market requests will be of of uh of the vendor the expectation

[176:03] is that we can keep renewing it if we're happy with the system and and Tom for you the question was um are the relationships of uh V is important if the secretary of state is not going to give us the data no it's less important okay all right it's more the experience with collection systems that we liked it but that that was a factor when we we were hoping to be able to get it from the Secretary of State okay thank you I want to talk a little bit about Arizona um Arizona is a Statewide system of course it has access as a state to the vehicle and voter registration records are ready they don't need to get it um the residents are identified through their voter registration number driver's license or state non-drivers identification they we spoke with Arizona they urged us to do rigorous testing before implementation they told us the system Can't Fail once it's implemented and they recommended two years from start to finish for uh

[177:01] implementation and testing uh they did not offer or not interested in selling us their system their system is not for online petitions for uh for ordinances or laws it it is only for the signatures required to get candidate on the ballot and then I want to can we switch Debbie to this one now I want to show you where we are on the system this is what the website will look like once it's up and running as you can see so so I just want to point out some it says log in here yeah they made these up so it says log in up here no mes and um but you will not need to log in to see the initiative so if I wanted to see all dogs must be unleashes I can read it uh so anybody will be able to go on and read the various petitions if I want to endorse the petition I will be required to sign in and so this this will prompt me and

[178:00] so this is already filled in so I have I put in all my information click next it I it it tells me I can either get a phone call or a text message with the phone number that is in the the database for the the Boulder County and recorder uh Boulder Clerk and Recorder uh if I do not have a phone number in my records uh I will have to go in it'll it'll give you an error message that says you do not have a phone number please update your records we're going to we the theou with the county gives us daily updates for their data so that once if someone goes in within basically 48 hours they should be able to come in and and and get the uh phone number so request code I would enter the code submit it and then it'll come and ask me for what for to verify my residential address we've got most of the address blocked out uh under the charter someone not only has to be registered to vote in Boulder it has to be a valid residential address so I click here to say yeah

[179:00] that's my address if it's not my address it'll kick me out and say you have to update your address with the the county um and then I I have to certify that this is me and it'll tell me that I've endorsed the petition so going back to that first page sorry ah sorry I messed it up you'll see there's several other things going on here and I'm I'm sorry that we're less than several is the reason why it went away yeah well the petitions will tell anybody who looks you may have seen when you look how many s how many endorsements are already there and how many are needed whether it's open or not so if if a petition has has sufficient number of signatures we will close endorsements and so it it'll say it's sufficient uh

[180:01] there's also an ability for the clerk to that's the other one to lock um out a petition signature so if there's been someone if if there's a suspicion that someone's tinkering with the system um if we get a lot of uh signatures from the same IP address on the same day then the clerk will have the ability to lock it temporarily to investigate and then reopen it so on the screen that I was showing you that that's not up there right now for some reason let me just try this I'm going to unplug and replug see if it there it goes um you can see that this one I've highlighted is closed because it has enough endorsements this one is locked uh for investigation um this was closed because the time period ended and it didn't get enough signatures this one has enough this one uh is would still be open this one has enough and so yeah did you have a question about continue I'll ask at the end well I think can we switch back

[181:00] now thank you well I a question before you leave this then too late well you don't have to you two things one you said that once the number of of of signatures has been reached it closes but most people will overshoot that will it automatically stop it I mean you showed those numbers at 366 will it stop it at 3,66 or can they collect more that would be the plan uh that we could we could always allow them to collect more the reason people overshoot is the signatures are invalidated in this system there will be no signatures invalidated because the only way it gets that number is if the signatures already been validated well yeah but we might think about it maybe a allowing them a little bit of an overage I could see a reason why you know there was allegation of fraud or something like that I'd hate to have a stop at right at the number and then find out one of them was in fact invalid and then that certainly could be done okay we can talk about what that overage should be and I guess the question is why stop at all why not you know I I understand we would stop for time but why stop for number is there any any limitation the system if

[182:00] you need 3,000 you get 30,000 so what no there's no reason okay um the second is I I think this H has the capacity to unsign and those if I signed a petition and then think about it and the next day I decided to I wanted to withdraw my signature can I do that I I don't think so I think we yeah Lynette's shaking her head the reason for that was that you can't do that with paper okay and is well I understand you can't do that with paper but um can't does our law allow you to not you could certainly do that if you wanted to so the law doesn't limit us one way or the other no that's a policy decision for US policy decision okay and we're going to write a law to implement this and we could allow that it'll come back to you it sometime in the future let's te that up for I don't know what the answer is but we should talk about make an intentional decision on that right so uh those are my questions as Council support staff's approach and is there Council interested in redoing the RFP

[183:00] process I have a question before we get into questions um what are the current sunk costs if we were to pull out of run backs uh I I don't know what the answer to that is do you know so sorry he what are the current sunk costs so what do we have to pay them they actually if invoiced us yet it'll probably be about 25,000 they haven't invoiced us yet though they started working in December but they have not invoiced us yet they're supposed to be invoicing us per month but they haven't and a a contract require as a 30-day cancellation Clause so we' we'd have to pay them for any work they did in the 30 days uh after we gave them notice to cancel and it's a monthly contract it's a it's a four-year contract but it has a monthly cancellation provision right but we're paying monthly it's supposed to yeah but it sounds like they have an invoice correct in in exact increments we're paying monthly I just want to understand what our potential liability if we were to pull out is yep so I would

[184:02] say it's less than $100,000 probably in the $50,000 range but it's hard to say they've done an awful lot of work so I'm sort of troubled we haven't seen the invoices yet real quick checking math four years yet $25,000 and so no the $240,000 is for development the contract for the there's a ,000 a year maintenance thing after that but we're paying the monthly to develop yes we're paying the monthly based on what they do in the development up to $240,000 got it yes Rachel so I had a timing question I think some of the um concern from the community is again transparency and if one of the slides I think said December 13th there was a decision made to enter the contract and I think I was at a meeting on the work group on December 14th I want to say it was the very next day and it was presented like well we already signed a contract and I think there had been maybe some commitment to

[185:00] not sign a contract before meeting the work group so I'd like some clarification on that and also at that meeting I don't think you were there but it wasn't um like my sense was that that the contract was long ago signed so the fact that was a day before I think left some discomfort in the community members sure I can explain that um so we we spent months negotiating the contract and we also had it I think it was maybe five days before but I'm not exactly sure because I think that meeting was the 18th and I think we signed the contract on the 13th so but it was shortly before so the question was do we wait and as staff we have been criticized a lot on this project if we waited and delayed the contract we would be accused of delaying further we reviewed the contract and said there's a 30-day out if we just we hear something at the working group that we can't go forward we'll we'll just pull out of the contract delaying further would have just delayed things we wanted to we were trying to at the same time we were meeting with the working group we were

[186:00] trying to schedule our kickoff meeting with runback to start this process and at the time we were still trying to make an April 1 date so we were we were already behind and delaying signing the contract didn't seem like a wise choice and one that we could be criticized for if we didn't go ahead with it so the fact that there was a 30-day out uh I advise Jane to go ahead and sign it so that was not I don't I don't think that was in Adam might remember this I don't think there was any indication that there was a 30-day out when we when we observed that meeting so that would have been I think really helpful for the work group to have heard that we did just sign and we got 30 days to look at it oh so I was in on the planning of that meeting that was supposed to be discussed so I don't know whether it was or not but I as you say I was not there not that I recall yeah sorry not that I recall yeah but that that was the the rationale for signing it one else okay thank you um so shall we address the questions does council

[187:01] support staff's approach Adam oh yeah so I have a a few things here and I generally don't like going back on previous council's work but in this case we're not clearly not that far into it um so three things I'll say here are um the transparency piece I have concerns about um I do like open source software in the sense that it is more transparent and we're always trying to look for more transparency in this government I worked for an open source company for eight years and it is not a great way to make money but it is a great way to be Innovative and constantly improving um in terms of leadership our community we're supposed to be leaders in the nation in certain things and providing an open source means of uh

[188:02] signing petitions that anyone could use I think is absolutely worth considering um again uh with this count and finally the cost aspect this is why I asked about the sun costs obviously I want if a cheaper option is presented I think it's also worth entertaining uh it's unfortunate that we're already potentially $50 to $100,000 into a different option but um again what is the cost of leadership and transparency so those are those are the three things I'm not sure runbacks prop um map light's proposal is cheaper sure because the when you cut off the backend processing you have to hire staff to do that so so and that I'm just not analyze that because it came in after the RFP we we so just and I'm not saying it is cheaper I'm just saying there's still a

[189:00] potential out there y okay those are my pieces Aaron well and I do feel like we're on the right track here I I think the um I think with something like this right which would be the first online petitioning system for um ordinances or referenda right in in the country Arizona has something similar but not exactly the same I think um anytime you're dealing with online systems and elections you want to be uh careful move slowly and include lots of security so the uh two-factor authentication I've heard some criticism about that but as a software industry professional um that is definitely a industry standard and I think it's important to include that level of security and to be to be very um very careful about how we implement it so I would have loved to have seen it uh done for this year uh but I think uh having it take a little bit longer but doing it the right way with again plenty of security is is reasonable and so I

[190:02] and if it were open source I think that'd be great um but the fact that I think having the RFP based uh primarily around the city of Boulders needs was a reasonable thing to do and so personally I would not um revisit that decision Rachel so I had a question if we were to go back what would that do to our timing I assume right now we're best case scenario of 2021 if we were to restart the RFP it seems like there's a lot of momentum and people want to do it now and it looks like a great system that I would like to sign on for so what what would that do to timing it's hard to say Rachel it you'd hope that we could still make 2021 it would be hard I mean we' be we be basically going back to square r one it's March if we drafted another RFP and could get it done in say 30 days get it out by April um the the tough thing is is negotiating the contract with a successful vendor hopefully that could be done quicker um you still then have

[191:00] to in the RFP we asked everybody for a timeline to get us to April 1st but that that depended on an October start date and since we didn't get the contract signed until December we did not have an October start date it's possible that we would still be able to make 2021 if we if we did did a new process uh there's no guarantees I think it's much more likely that we'll make 2021 if we use the system we've got in place now um and two more things um if we did cancel this contract does that impact sort of our credibility with negotiating with future Partners sort of like we talked about with Transportation like when when you have a reputation for turnovers that at all similar here you know the way i' phrase it is I think that we'd have a problem with our procurement process um we do a lot of things like this we do a lot of rfps and people count on the fact that when they they make a proposal the rules are set they obey by the rules and the the we select the best vendor um to then have a different vendor come in by

[192:01] talking to the community and get a different RFP and maybe get selected that would be challenging for us can I call on that um but if the RFP was different then it's a different for an RFP so in that sense if we change our minds then it's US changing our minds not us doing the same exact thing over again just information gathering here and then the the last point I want to make is um a little bit uncomfortable but I noticed you had a slide up there and you mentioned Steve pomerance emailed us basically these things and uh as somebody who reached out to council quite a bit as a regular old nobody um you know we don't get our own slides and I'm a little a little bit uncomfortable with EXC council members and the equity issues that would be presented if there are um you know considered to be sort of vaulted to that level so I would just ask that we be um considerate as a council and a staff that um no matter

[193:00] who you are you know we should be listening the same and uh nobody should get sort of preferential treatment I could not agree more thank you Bob I'm um first of all defer to our it experts on staff and on councel and uh support aon's position I think I I haven't heard a compelling reason to go backwards to to walk away from this $50 to $100,000 a reopen RFP process and to risk um taking 2021 off the table so I don't see any reason not to go forward so I agree with Aaron Mark unlike Bob I'm a world-renowned it expert H uh but in this case I also must defer I I'm just not sure what benefit we would be getting by starting this all over again um and uh I too support Aaron's comment [Music] mayby I'll jump on that ship

[194:03] okay Mary yeah I I concur with um the p Ron and I agree with Aaron one thing I I do have a question about is the inability to have both paper and um and online um signatures possible so my question is was there any consideration or or has Denver completely taken off the table their eign process to be able to buy something like like that what I'm thinking is that that um instead of having paper paper you could have their iPad and have the signature Gathering through iPads that would then be verified against the database so you'd essentially have the iPad posing as

[195:01] paper but would have the ability to instantly check um and then check again maybe just keep checking so that you're verifying you're duping um as you go with the iPad so um Denver took that off the table because at the time they were in the middle of an election and they had a lot to do so their election was in like April or May call the May election so while we were talking to them talking about this they were they were very busy so we have not Revisited after Council took that off the table it would require melding two systems under this proposal people could still go to the library and sit down with someone and go through the petitions with them I mean it would be available on any computer accessing the internet so there would still be an ability to do essentially that or have some have a laptop of their own and do it um and there's no reason why you

[196:01] couldn't do it on an iPad I mean it's it's it's it so someone could still use this system on an iPad and walk around and ask people to to to sign in there okay well that sounds reasonable yeah I hadn't considered that option so so I got three I got um Bob Rachel and Adam and I was just going to add to that Mary I people obviously collect signatures all over the place but I know one of the popular places to collect petition signatures is on the Pearl Street Mall and of course we have free Wi-Fi so I would think that that somebody armed with the tablet and our free Wi-Fi and the mall would would have access to be able to sign up through this system although one of the things I love about this system is it'll give people the ability to actually read the petitions uh you know when I when I I get asked for Signature if I sign if I I actually I make a practice of not signning but if I were to sign I generally don't have a chance to read about and think about or research the petition and we've had instances in Boulder where like an oil company was talking about how they're protecting the environment uh you you

[197:00] can sell almost anything if with a three minute speech the the the great thing about online petitioning just like online voting you can when you can sit there and research the petition and see and read it and think about it before you sign it and I think ultimately when we get this implemented it will improve our direct democracy by avoiding that so I i' like to encourage people to take the time to do it and I think that's that's what's really neat about this this new system so that's why I'd like to when it comes back to council for ordinance I'd like to suggest that we give people the option to undo the signature because I I'm concerned about situation where somebody is talked into it on on the mall goes home and realiz and reads the petition for the first time realizes oh my God what did I sign give people the opportunity to unsign it's a policy decision from Council but decided tonight but I just want to throw that out there and I don't think that's a big heavy lift for runback to change is it yeah Bonnie saying yes run back might disagree yeah right we we'll just do some it engineering from the Rachel I'm probably going to disagree with Bob on that when the time comes because it

[198:00] seems like you can't change it on paper and it's it's going to be disoriented for counts and things if we allow people to undo it so I'd probably just stick with it um and then I I do not favor going backwards um or stalling this process but I was so and I am so concerned with um just the murkiness of that meeting that was at that I was at and I don't think that we gave our work group the information that they needed to process um the direction and I wish that we would have uh allowed them to have more input um so I I would vote to go back and and reopen that RFP process you or not I would vote to go back and reopen it for transparency and to allow the working group to do their work so the working group ended so we we we had that meeting as a courtesy to let them know where we were uh but we don't actually have an active working group on

[199:01] Election matters and that that working group was formed for a different reason not to do this that was informational for them okay uh well the people who were there were were I think pretty um interested in in weighing in and giving direction and helping and they were pretty informed on it and and especially just the the the timing of having just signed the contract and and you know the work the working group being said we can't undo that which is I think I'm I'm fairly sure is what was said there is is just murky enough for me that that's why I would vote to redo it Adam and then juny yeah I had one quick question again Tom uh and I may need sorry uh your help again what are are the ongoing costs after the initial um delivery of the I think it's there's a $440,000 a year maintenance contract okay so it's not is that correct what licensing class per per

[200:00] perom yeah and please come up and I'm so sorry I don't remember at the top of my head okay I thought was 250k and then I don't want to gu can you speak in the microphone just I don't remember but but I can give you that information as soon as I looked at the contract I can send it to Tom so just to the point then it's not like there's no ongoing cost there's definitely an ongoing cost I remember at least a $40,000 year maintenance cost okay that we budgeted for okay that was my question now I'm going to say my little piece since I appear to be in a pretty small minority here um my only ask is that whoever's sitting here in four years uh look at the contract see what success we've had and since we don't intend to be leaders in the area of Open Source petitioning maybe look and see if someone else has four years from now

[201:01] Jenny hopefully four years from now it will still be you sitting here um but I wanted to ask a few questions because going back to Bob mentioned about undoing and I'm thinking I don't know too much about cyber security in encryption I would like to know for me it would be if I can undo my own un petition would that cause other problems but I think the greater issue for me is the cost and I think as well just as it was said earlier I think moving forward is very important I wonder even if we were to move forward if there's an issue can we go back and solve it rather than starting over again to me I think there's a big issue in starting over because I think it's it's costing and it's time as well yeah I so we have committed to having regular updates to

[202:01] council and I gave you the dates that we did those um we will continue to do that and we'll keep you apprised of where we are I I think that um we we plan to have have uh a functioning system uh sometime like in June that we will begin testing and so there has been a suggestion that we open it up to the community testing I think that our it security folks are not happy with that idea and so we'll have to work through that um because that exposes it to potential hacking when it it's not final so I I think that's but uh we will have something for people to see by June um and then it is is an interative process as in any software development that you can do changes there are costs associated with changes which is why we've tried to keep folks informed to what we're doing just on that Tom having the initial testing be um sort of internal to see organization makes a lot of sense but I would hope to have a period of

[203:00] community test use once it's finalized but before it goes live with the you know actual petition so hopefully we could have a phase like that I think so yes just um on the issue of the open source versus the private just to understand make sure that I understand the ongoing costs um with runbeck it's 40,000 is is the stated um annual cost with OP then that would mean that if something goes wrong you call runbeck and you say we're having this problem and they jump on it and they fix it yes if you encounter something similar with open source software what would happen so we use open source software in the city and generally we have a contract with someone else who maintains it so we either Our IT department does which would it would stretch them or we

[204:00] we have private vendors who will provide software support so it's it's doable it's just not the vendor it wouldn't be the the developer who would do it yeah so red hat for instance had long time they had their releases of Linux but you could also hire them to do the maintenance and the support if you were a corporate entity that needed customization in some way so um anybody else cuz I'm ready to weigh in um if we want to get there um I I am not a software professional however I have run system I've been assisted men for many many many different flavors of computer including both open source and proprietary the most important thing really is that you have people maintaining whatever it is right you can have really lousy open source code where people have abandoned the project and what you've got is is you know something that got partway to where it was supposed to be and then there's great open source code where you've got groups

[205:03] maintaining it and keeping it really wellmaintained and so you know when I was having an exchange about this I went and did some reading and there's links that talk about basically that you need maintenance going on on the open source for it to be good and so I don't I don't think open source or non-open source is the critical thing I think are we going to get what we want out of the the software we're going to get um and it seems to me I mean that demo looked nice enough and it seemed like there was enough flexibility in it um and yeah sure for the first few years that we're using it we're going to want to pay the maintenance contract because we do want to have the ability to either alter things that aren't working or fix things that are broken or whatever so I'm not particularly interested in going backwards on this I do know there was a lot of uh unhappiness by a few folks and you know it's unfortunate if it was not

[206:00] as transparent as it could have been but you know RFP processes once you launch them in the cities that's kind of hands off for the council unless there's something really really wrong um and I don't see any sign that there's something really really wrong here I will make a comment about Steve pom I mean I think the reason he got highlighted is he gave some of the ideas that Tom was addressing just like there were some ideas from other members of the election working group and he was on the election working group and very deeply involved with that so I I feel like Tom did a good job of giving us all the kind of Alternatives we've been hearing about and giving us a chance to speak to them um and so I am very hopeful that we will get there with this for 2021 and so people can use this I think I'll weigh in on whether you should withdraw or not later you know because I'm not really set on that I want to have some time to think about that I will say that counting over the limit is something we should absolutely

[207:00] do I don't know why there should be a cap to be honest I like somebody gets 30,000 signatures when they need 3,000 it's going to speak to the popularity of the measure and stuff so uh I support staff's approach I don't want to redo the RFP process the only thing I could see that would make me want to redo it is if there was a majority on Council who wanted open source right that that was a lay down on the tracks kind of thing and then sure we would go back then but that wasn't a requirement of the contract and I don't think that's what's going to make this successful or not um when you can have open source it's nice and good and positive but to have it in an election system makes me kind of curious because if you would have open source that people could see it would make it somewhat easier to hack potentially so anyway there's my part um I I I do have the costing information okay great thank for runback

[208:02] it's 80,000 perom maplight had proposed year one it would be 58k year 2 it' be 60k and year three would be 62k so map light wasn't free after the initial build either okay so uh this is a matter so we're just giving direction um it sounded to me like there were two members who would potentially be in to redoing the RFP but the balance were not into that um so unless people have an objection I'm going to say that we've kind of set our piece and Tom Jane I think we're continuing forward with this thank you we will move forward I appreciate it great okay okay next you have a discussion regarding direction to the Charter committee Mary would one member of the charter committee like to give us an update on where you are and what you're thinking

[209:03] and may yeah so Charter committee actually met today um and the first discussion we had was uh regarding how to split Council pay and so um we thought we'd bring it back to council and have a discussion but I think it was kind of between what's easiest for staff in terms of logistics but basically taking um and changing the charter to state that the total pay that Council gets will be split into 26 and on occasion 27 payments because that's what happens perom um the other option was to have it paid once a month but Rachel brought up that that might be uh illegal on a level I'm not exactly sure why you can go over that Rachel um or that it might be difficult for those relying on uh the paycheck and so we thought that it might just be best to stick with the um every two weeks or 20

[210:02] it ends up being about 26 paychecks per year uh and then we can get back into that let me just go over the three points the second one uh that we brought up was is the number of board members uh and because we had received a request from the Arts commission that they add two more board members on uh that was a decently long discussion based on if we should add in other boards but I think we settled on just uh changing the charter to allow two more board members for the Arts commission due to the workload that they have because they sit on a number of boards and some of the five member board the five members currently some are having to double up on the boards that they sit on so um we'd be adjusting that and leaving the other boards as is and the final thing we discussed was whether or not to have people um outside of Boulder with close ties be allowed to sit on our boards and commissions and so uh Mary and Rachel were more uh open to that I was not

[211:01] however I'm I'd be interested in like if we were discussing Gun Barrel I have neighbors who use Boulder and literally are on the street next to me that are in the county um but can't be on a board because they're in the county so maybe if we did it by a demographic for those who truly use Boulder um Geographic thank you Geographic um who who truly use Boulder uh I was open to that or possibly certain boards um there was some concern for me like on open space I'm not interested in having someone who doesn't isn't a resident um who didn't pay in with the taxes um to be on a board but Rachel brought up that people do still pay uh s sales tax but that for me is just not enough so that was kind of some of the discussion and then the final thing Mary and I had discussed this last year while sitting on the boards and commission board um but it never kind of went anywhere so this year we seeing as

[212:01] we're on the Char committee we thought it would we'd bring it up again um of having one-year terms for students I think a age is 16 to 18 uh that would serve you know they wouldn't have voting rights but it would allow them to be um get some civic responsibility duties um experience and um maybe do it with a couple trials especially I think the Arts board would really be interested having some younger voices and ideas so just some thoughts and we also thought tab might be a cool one because uh many of them may not have cars and the ability to drive so it'd be interesting to hear their opinions on Mobility so that's kind of the wrap-up uh you two can add anything you want nice recap by memory well done um for the um pay period issue I just wanted to make sure now that we are um getting health insurance and maybe categorized a little

[213:01] bit differently I want to make sure that we don't fall under the category that you know employees have to be paid every 14 days or two weeks I think and so I just didn't know when that changed if that if we went to paying once a month or the way we're doing it now under the charter is there any legal issue there under employment law I don't know yeah I don't FMLA question we'll have to look at it yeah and yes I think it might be wage and Hours Act but I don't know anyways um just something to look at before we decide to pay monthly we don't want to walk into something illegal um and then yeah I would just add that I also I brought this up um at The Retreat as well but if we're expanding our boards and commissions outside of the city and our goal is to make them more diverse I also think it's worth looking at and I don't mean a quota here but looking at other ways that we um can be more intentional about diversification I think we have some language in there that we try and and have boards be gender neutral is that the word no

[214:01] gender balanced gender balanced sorry that's bad BBS not boards it's not even 10 yet I have no excuse um but anyways just do we want to be more intentional and add some language in and and be purposeful rather than or in addition to broadening our borders process question um okay so process question just not to short cut you out I just want to make sure I understand what we're trying to do tonight so um I think what so thanks for the report and I think what you're ask what the charter committee is asking us is do you want us to ask you the charter committee to go out and study the stuff some more work with staff and then bring back some recommendations in the ballot so we're not deciding any about measures tonight or the substantive you know pros and cons of each one of these it's just whether these are the right four things for the charter committee to focus on well there I kind of well I guess the student thing I kind ofal thing three or four three and a half things whether there's any more things we want you to

[215:01] do and whether these are the right things so that's process are we all kind of cool on that just providing Direction yeah I I think we can take things off for sure so and we can give feedback to what we want to know so the way this stage usually goes is what you said except that I think if we know that you know seven people aren't interested in anything at all you just go ahead and take it off to to avoid work that is unproductive and and I don't know I mean we can add on of course but I think these were things that were discussed during um The Retreat that we had all kind of more or less agreed to bring on to look at So Adam yeah my is a follow-up question about the employment status um what is our employment stat your employees are we contract worker no your employees we it's how do we not make a minimum wage then I I I I actually looked this up there's actually a state law that says elected officials are Exempted from the minimum wage oh

[216:01] thank you state law perfect thanks Bob Aaron so question for staff uh the idea of the youth ex ficio member I think is really interesting one do we need any Charter changes or could we just start doing that by policy since they're non voting yeah you could do that by policy you could do it by ordinance yeah Bob so to follow up on on that point um if um one way to bring non-residents into the fold would be to have ex officio non-residents I'm not suing that's what we're going to do but that would be an alternative in other words we could do no change we could figure out a charter change that would allow non-res to serve on Boards of commissions or by just simply a council rule we could create non-resident ex official positions is that correct yes okay Jenny thank you I think as um I think maybe the the split pay thing would impact probably me and Adam the

[217:01] most because being a student but I don't rely on that so that's not something that I'm most concerned about and I think my concern is the having people outside of Boulder on boards and I know I should be open to that because I believe in diversity and inclusion but I think it's a hard cell for me I wonder can we have maybe what's the word a compromise were because I think you have to live here for one year can we either lower the amount let's say the person can leave here for three months instead of the whole year and also I agree with people living in Gun Barrel should have access to boards here in Boulder um but yeah I would find it very challenging for me to agree with you don't leave here you I mean even

[218:01] though I'm brand new to the community I did follow the rule and I lived here for at least a year before I ran for Council so I think it would be important for someone to have that Community ties in a way but hey you can sway me but for now I don't necessarily believe that's the right way to go about it and another thing I would like to know if that's something that we're going that's the way we we are going I would want to know clearly what are the benefits and let me know of best practices from other communities where people just walk in and say I'm joining this board and we know that for instance open space is very important can someone someone just phon their cousin from another city and say I want you to join open space or housing so I think to me I would need to know these things I know I'm want inclusion but I want inclusion done the right way thank you great and so I've got Mark and then Mary and I I'll just remind us that what we're trying to do

[219:01] is either take things off or give direction to the Charter um committee on what we want them to do with these ideas all right well I I I share jun's apprehension about this but I would have the committee do a little bit of research show us other communities who've done this how it's worked uh are there limitations on what they have done elsewhere or you know is it open to uh all committees just some committees uh you know we use open space as the example that to me would be troubling to to have nonresidents be setting policy on open space I can't off the top of my head come up with other committees that might also trouble me but I I I would have the the charter committee look at those things um and see what is going on elsewhere great and so I will state that we have already we've essentially picked the one

[220:00] we want to talk about first so let's just stick with this while we're doing that and talk about the what we want the charter committee to do whether it's just drop theide aidea or as you talked about look at Best Practices for other communities so let's stick with this one and then I've got Mary Adam Bob and then Rachel and Aaron no that's essentially what I was going to say tonight we're just trying to figure out whether or not we want to keep this on the table and if we get a majority of people that don't want to move it forward um continue to look into it that's fine too so um that's what this discussion is about uh Adam since I'm on the list this wasn't the one I was going to talk about but I'm glad we have a process now um process or process yes uh I'm fine going ahead with it kind of finding that middle ground um that jun's talking about because in the current form I

[221:01] wouldn't support okay Bob yeah I'm I'm with um with with juny and Mark and Adam on this I I'm fine for the committee to study it um I I I I have a lot of reservations interpretations for the reasons that juny stated um I would urge the committee to look at Best Practices you know do other cities have non-residents um if so do they do as an ex officio non voting or are they truly non-residents and then if if they have non-residents my question would be how do they what boundaries do they pick is it all of their boards or some of their boards is it within the county how do they how do they um how do they measure Nexus and if we can't find any cities that probably tells us something as well Rachel um just pointing out as as we all know from reading the packets for tomorrow and the day after it's just applying to the board it's not as if we're saying you aren't a resident of this city and you get to be on open space if it's a concern we don't have to

[222:00] vote for those individuals that live outside the boundaries it's really just a way to increase the options so I I'm I'm not very troubled if we set and I wouldn't limit it to Gun Barrel you know there's a lot of Boulder County that is is close into Boulder so if that's a way to improve outcomes for boards I don't have concerns and I think that we're not forfeiting our our right to scrutinize the applications Aon yes I I think the the concerns raised by juny and Bob and Mark and others are are are valid but I think it's worth looking into a little bit but I wouldn't be in a rush on this one right like the charter committee tend sorry rich I keep not looking at you because you're most people are here um so uh just trying to be inclusive so the charter commune is often works on things that we then have an intention of putting on the ballot that year and and moving forward on that kind of time frame and and this one well you know maybe let's think about it let's look at Best Practices but I don't I know there's concern in the community about this idea so I don't feel like this is something that we should rush into look at it some more but think about it

[223:01] carefully great and I'll finish this off I would like a clear articulation of the problem that we're trying to solve with this so um Mary you've given me an example of a particular um person who would be very strong on one of our boards who doesn't happen to live here but she works here so I I just like a you know one thing from the charger committee to make this even start being something I'd be interested in would be what problem are we trying to solve and then how is this going to get us there that would be kind of one question that I would would have I'm also in favor of going forward kind of kind of like Aaron described slowly and seeing if we can get information from other cities as well as come up with you know I wouldn't start with the whole shooting match I'd start with one or two well chosen boards because you know when we start talking about planning board and open space you know boards with regulatory power having

[224:01] non-residents in them I think that's going to be a much tougher cell than something where we have trouble filling it and we might you know be able to use somebody who works here to fill it like Boulder Junction for instance you know it would be fine if people who are working in that area would want to be on those boards because we have trouble seating people on those boards anyway so um that does that kind of sum up where we are hand it back to the Charter committee say don't rush and say work this one over okay good and I would suggest process-wise that we handle pay next because I don't don't think that's super complicated Bob yeah the only two I I think this is the intention of the charter committee but let's just be really clear about this no one is proposing a pay increase for this is this is this is I am well as part as this process no one's proposing a pay increase for councel this is just a mechanism to change our pay from a per meeting to a per pay period um and and

[225:03] so I just want to be I know that's your that's theion it's a decoupling it's a decoupling DEC thank you decoupling of of per meeting and and per pay period the charer can can work out whether that's 26 Cycles or once a month or whatever I agree completely we shouldn't screw up this we shouldn't try to create a different parallel system in the city we've got 1400 employees we should just be nine of those 1400 and if that's every two weeks then that's fine the one thing I would suggest the committee is take a look at the fact and we do this with employees we have employees come and go so we have to prate we're just going to figure out what how that pration is going to work because we have people coming on board in November people leave it in November uh and so you're just going have to figure out that that detail and how how you appropriate that okay aoll systems are good at that great and then I've got Adam and then Rachel okay uh my piece on this is I'm fine with whatever the outcome ends up being I think two weeks is great even though two weeks itself is an Antiquated and useless time period

[226:01] for payment technically at these days with technology but um two weeks is great two weeks is is better than a month for um people who aren't very well paid because you have bills to pay and so from an equity standpoint um we want to encourage everybody to be able to run for city council so if we're getting paid once a month at at this abysmally sub subminimum wage payment um it's better to do it more frequently and that's why the the employment law requires you usually to pay every two weeks so I'm not sure we're an exempt class so I'm concerned about that um and then also now that we can be on the City's health insurance at an employee rate like I'm taking City's health insurance and uh my paycheck doesn't cover it so that's part of why it's going to be better to decouple it from the number of meetings and just have it be standard the way that every Adam's giving me a thumbs up I think we may be the two who are on health insurance I'm taking it too right three of us so as am

[227:00] I okay sorry many half of us are on health insurance and and it would be better if we had it it deducted and again that's an equity issue I think yeah I'm there I think every two weeks makes perfect sense um I don't know why we would do anything else uh so anyone disagree okay super so that's pretty clear instruction and just reiterate Bob's point this is not an increase in pay without raising pay darn it sh Council okay so the next question before us is increase Arts commissions and or increase other boards and or give us permission to do that in the future Aaron yeah well just I appreciate the charter committee being responsive to the Arts commission's request here I'm I hear from them that they're really overwhelmed so I think this is really worth exploring and and putting on I think limiting it to Arts makes sense um we don't hear about a specific need in any other boards um and then if you give

[228:01] us the authority you do kind of to raise the number at any time uh it does create a kind of Court packing opportunity for some future Council if they're like well some board isn't doing what we want so we'll just add two members so I think it's probably best to just do the one so I'll give that direction THS up SE lots of Thumbs Up okay so I think everyone's comfortable with that so we'll just do the Arts I I will say I would be comfortable allowing us to make adjustments with very to other boards but under very judicious circumstances so you could only do it at sometime relative to an election or something like that or you would have to take it out but it's not that important I think most of our boards are fine where they are so Arts it is okay um and then the last half issue is ex officio youth it sounds like we can do that ourselves so it doesn't really need to come up here because it's not direction to the Charter committee Adam you want to speak to it yeah I thought it would always had this idea since I

[229:02] started thinking about running for Council but um having a spot for either high school college or grad students specifically that is an ex officio on certain boards that actually most affect them I think that would be a great idea um because we have a really hard time putting anyone like that on a board simply because of their circumstances they're the ones who change even though a lot of people leave our boards uh currently before their fiveyear terms so um finding finding a way to be more inclusive in that sense and finally giving even if it's not a voting voice a voice to members of our community who often can't get on boards I think that would be awesome okay juny I welcome this idea I think it's great and I think it's really inspiring and to give young people the opportunity I remember I mentioned to Jane as well when I first got on Council how can we

[230:02] have more youth involvement and whether we can have interns even who serve here on City C because young people are the future right and that's just a cliche thing to say but it's true so I think that's a great idea having the oneyear period and also we received a few emails last week and there were communi who were members who mentioned that because we the boards are often four to five years that could be part of the reason why people are not applying as much and I'm thinking as well that's something that we may want to think about when it comes to people who come from disadvantage backgrounds and when we're thinking of equity and having some lower um lower requirement when it comes to the number of years that people serve so I think that's a great idea for the young people 16 to 17 you mentioned right and I think as well maybe look to even possibly college students but of

[231:02] course meeting the the year requirement of being a resident thank you anyone else strongly support yeah I strongly support it as well so now there's a pro oh sorry goad I support it as well but I'm I'm a little concerned with how we pick the individuals um you know we I think we need to give some thought as to how that that happens so that it's fair and it doesn't look like uh a patronage appointment of some kind so if we can get fair I I think that would be a great idea although these are going to be non- voting members is that clear yeah okay yeah just the the the appointment itself will be significant it be significant to the students and the young people that we put on the boards and I want to make sure that the process by which we select them um is far-reaching enough and inclusive enough and fair enough so that nobody's unhappy with the result maybe what we could do is um is have it be in parallel

[232:02] to the um appointment of Resident store boards in other words there's application period in January and February maybe have to go through interviews and then the whole Council votes on the on the one or twoe appointment of this of the of the young people so I have a suggestion that we could consider is um to have yoab do the interviewing and the appointing it's a great idea and just add that we um discussed that it should probably be on the Academic Year rather than appointing them at the same time as these so so I would say the question is who do we hand this great idea to to to implement it do we just hand it to yoab and say we're willing to do this work out the details oh that'd be a fine idea delegate okay so so we can let Brandon who's the person that does the liaison with yab we can talk to him about it on the NLC trip and just say Council was interested in this do you want to take

[233:01] it on we should not assign it to them we should just make sure that that's something that they're interested in if they are then we're having a AB dinner in April I'm not sure which of the dates in April so we can talk about it within you know the full larger group and then if there's excitement we can just hand it to them and see what they come back with cool love it Rachel just wondering Jane does that sound like the best idea to you it it does sound like a good idea I particularly like the recommendation that it be school year appointments as opposed to our normal April to March cuz that will be so so hard for them um what what I would say is that if they want to take it on certainly they'll work with the city attorney's office to come up with with or with my office it's fine one of us um to come up with a procedure and then they can bring it back so thanks yeah cool anything else regarding

[234:01] the charter committee um so I guess the next phase will be we we know that a couple petitions have been pulled already right to gather signatures for initiatives for this year there's one approved now for circulation one's approved and we've heard of a couple that may be coming forward so going forward when those come through we usually have the charter committee talk about them I mean we're not going to be able to affect them except as we set the titles or whatever but when is the next meeting of the charter committee April 7th I think April 7th okay good so you've got our marching orders and then anything else you hear about if it's relevant I go ahead yeah I just seem to remember Mary I thought you were saying something to Tom that we might want to revisit while we were having this discussion way earlier in the meeting it was on the pandemic um situation and should we allow in the charter for the council to meet remotely we do have a provision in the code but it probably

[235:01] conflicts with the charter okay that is a really good reminder Adam um probably that's worth looking at then is I we've decided as a group historically no to Callins for Council Members um and we've had good reasons for that but maybe we could set up an emergency provision in the charter that that speaks to conditions under which we'd want to allow that and there would be pretty emergency I think Rachel that sounds great um pandemics seem kind of rare like will that help at all for the coming months or is there anything we can do to carry on with business you know every we're mapped out well into the future and for the whole year like we don't want to get behind if we cancel meetings and yet we have them members of the P public are going to feel like they need to be here because that's how it is you hate to miss a meeting where your issue is up and so I thanks for raising the issue

[236:00] Rachel I mean if it gets to the point where there's like a really CommunityWide quarantine um we I think maybe take that up you know maybe there's something where members of the public can do it via video conference only the nine of us are here and we sit in opposite corners of the room I I don't know but I mean I think you kind of need the full quarantine situation before we get there well yeah I I don't know I I don't know that we're going to get into full quarantine but we may get pretty quickly into a situation where the advice is don't go to you know places where members of the public are congregating and you've got people packed into seats there and that's going to be against the Health advice that we're getting so yeah I don't mind the nine of us you know I hate to put Jane and Tom and Lynette Deb at risk but um and and will we have a way because right now we we've suspended the call-in testimony so I just think those are we could resume those for sure and would we need any to take any action to do that I think I think that was a policy that was

[237:02] just us I mean for for that piece of it I don't think we need a charter change it's for our ability to meet Jennie yeah actually now you brought this up I'm very surprised that we don't have any type of contingency plan emergency contingency plan I mean we live in a world anything can change at any moment and I think it is important whether it's for this Corona virus or anything in the future we should know and then I understand the charter was created you know um but we have to you know move with the time so we have to look at what what meetings really mean in times of emergency and how do we do it differently right so I think that's very important that we look into that even whether you know tomorrow we hear there's you know every every problem has been solved when it comes to Corona

[238:00] virus but we definitely need a contingency plan because we are a government and to not have one is very surprising to me thank you thank you so Tom what what is in the charter around emergencies anything no there's no there's no emergency Provisions in the charter they're all in code we have a section u in the code that deals with emergencies that provides that Council can meet outside the city so it's an ordinance that says that we can meet outside the city okay so maybe Charter committee go sort that out the ordinance is the ordinance in conflict with the charter if it is then fix on um if need be we can interpret the charter you get to interpret the charter you can interpret the charter to say it says you have to meet in public it says that your place of usual meeting you can construe that an emergency to be outside the city I think there's a way to do it but it would be nicer if there were language in the charter that dealt with emergencies yeah well I mean I can imagine okay we have this NLC conference coming up right there's five of us out

[239:01] of pocket in fact we have a quorum in DC um and something really bad happens that needs Council action to to UM Vet it um so you can imagine we would like some Provisions in case something deeply unexpected happens whether it's sudden or whether it's a virus I think this is a whole sounds like okay so you got oh I'm sorry go ahead Aaron so so then I guess there's the we can send it to the Charter committee for work on something for the putting putting on the ballot but then we might just charge CAC that I mean if if there really is a recommendation against holding public meetings but it's not like a quarantine level charge CAC with coming up with creative ways to still conduct our public business while minimizing the risk to the public okay that's a good idea um and as a member of the charter committee um I feel like I'd say yes we need to do something Tom what's your

[240:01] advice on on language so I wonder could we ask you now for something to come to the Charter committee that would help to remedy this and then we can no start drafting something it's my it was my first day at the charter committee today so so to change the charter it has to go to a vote no no I'm just saying when we go to meet the next time at the charter committee could you have some ideas can we can Tom have already given us some ideas for language that we would need to put to a vote to change the charter rather I see I see for for for staff yeah for staff to come with a proposal at the next April 7th meeting doesn't Kathy pdock staff that committee yes she does so I I'll work with Kathy yeah already sent it to Kathy okay so does the charter committee feel like we've given Direction on everything you want okay super next see you South followup yep so this was put on at CAC with the intention of Rachel and I sharing with

[241:01] Council kind of what the next steps of the process are going to be because staff felt like they got really good direction out of the study session and so they're ready to launch a public engagement process leading up to our May 19th meeting I think yes I think it is May 19th yeah so on May 19th we will have the CU South flood issue in front of us again and because at a study session we gave staff some Direction but we didn't ratify anything completely we will figure out between now and then what we need to finally ratify so there's two elements to it there's the technical flood design so it's going to be we said 100 year um and they're going to continue working on that but they're going to go out to the public and have we agreed on three public events one at the end of March two in April which the

[242:00] details of what staff is doing are communicated so how long the Wall is where it ends where the fil will be you know just education about that with one open question which is what is going to happen with the levy so one piece of input I think that staff is going to be looking for from boards so there will be open space RAB and planning will be the three boards that um staff is going to go to as well as these three public events and so the um the point of this uh update is not just to tell you about the process but there's going to be an ask for Council Members as well so we've got the process going to May the flood wall and Technical flood details and then annexation so annexation won't have a decision point in May annexation is going to be an ongoing process but it

[243:00] seems like a time to ask the community how they see the transition from Guiding principles going going into the annexation agreement like what do the public want to see as far as the clarity of what we'll know going into the annexation so in May that won't be decided in may we might make a pretty strong decision on the technical flood design um and the levy as part of that so what what staff offered both Public Works and open space was if you members of council have specific things that you're hopeful that staff will do work on so an example is Upstream options you know if a council member wants to hear about the history of Upstream options you can say staff you know we'd like to make sure that you assemble a coherent package and I think they will for open space Board of Trustees anyway but

[244:01] there's a whole list of things like this that open space has asked for and that Council may want to know about for me the levy is one for instance you know what how much will it take to take it down what will the cost be you know what are the habitat implications of that that's just an example so I will be asking about you know what are the potential upside habitat impacts to getting rid of the levy so if you want staff work done before May to help you answer some questions and you think that will also be useful for the public the sooner you can get that on the table the better um rather than just bringing it up at the May meeting and some of that I or maybe all of it I assume requires an out of five if we want staff to bring us information like depends on how big it is right so I mean I forget what your it's a couple hours is your that's right so I think we can put it out there

[245:02] and on hotline and if staff says this is going to be 10 hours worth of work bring that information back to us so we can do a nod okay but I think some of it won't necessarily be okay just wanted to clarify cuz um I had made an ask and and it had to come for an out of five um and then another um point is just part of what we're trying to to tee up for the public engagement is what questions do they want to weigh in on dur an annexation so what is it that um is going to be important to them that you know so we we can't really ask them to weigh in at this point but what do they want us to be thinking about so in terms of like Fields And Roads and and what the public benefits are going to be there yeah and I think you know there was some back and forth on this at the process subcommittee and we decided to go ahead and do annexation now because if you get too far down the road and things are locked in and you haven't

[246:00] done your public Outreach ahead of time then you end up in a situation where you're accused of not having you know been transparent or upfront so the goal of of asking about annexation here was just to make sure that the public was being brought along with what we're doing and thinking so I want to be clear on on what the process is looking like here so you're saying that at these public Outreach and at the boards to ask also about as as Aaron put it the bridge between um The Guiding principles and annexation so that so that there's public input being gathered at those points yeah and it may not be all boards you know that they'll care about different things relative to the annexation probably but for the public Outreach events to make sure that they have the opportunity to tell us what's

[247:01] important about the bridge and then at the study session that's what we're going have in May right no it's a it's a public meeting it's a public it's a public hearing it's a public hearing okay what if we had a study session in there somewhere so that um because where we would talk about the input that's been gathered from the public and then we have a study session and we talk about it so that when we have the public hearing there's a little more information to the public about what is out there instead of doing it all at the public hearing so my understanding is at the public hearing our decisions will be mostly around flood control and so I like your idea of a study session but I think maybe Downstream of that may meeting no P

[248:00] intendent careful watch the water analogies at least he didn't say and I would also add I know uh that our our timing is so condensed here like we're not going to finish the public sessions I think um I think we're calling them Road shows until maybe late April mid late yeah and so to give staff time to you know a lot of it's going to be like open-ended questions what do you care about during annexation and so they've got to compile all that and I think it would be given that that's just going to be like three weeks before um our public hearing I think staff was already worried about having it ready for that so I don't think we could really fit a steady session in there yeah and and I think we have time you know I don't for annexation to do a study session later yeah okay that was all that was on this was just a little process does anybody have any questions or comments okay super Council agenda committee time change Jane yeah thank you um at The Retreat it

[249:02] was brought up that um CAC would like us to consider moving the CAC meeting which 00 a.m. on Mondays to a later time on Mondays close to being after work so we did a staff poll of the department directors and those who would normally attend cic um and asked them three choices they didn't have a choice of not to move it because I think that would have been their favorite but um their 30 5 or 5:30 and 100% of the survey participants chose 4:30 as the preferred time the themes that came out about their thoughts about it we we just ask them any concerns they might have is the people have personal commitments in particular child care that is very important for them to leave

[250:00] at a particular time to make sure that they can get their kids from child care as well as other family oblig a that they might have soccer practice band concerts whatever it might be um there were people expressed concerns to workflow because what the way that we actually operate right now is that we have the 00 a.m. and things often change with regard to upcoming meetings 00 a.m. we have a staff agenda meeting and go over upcoming agendas and tell people that oh this one moved this one came on off they're asking these particular questions and they're worried that there won't be enough time to change or answer questions between 00 at night and 6 o'clock the next evening so they're just worry about will we be able to meet your expectations in providing correct information and then others raised the

[251:01] idea that the the tab meets on Mondays once a month and having a late CAC meeting could impact the transportation folks um so those are pretty much the main concerns that were expressed question um I've I've I've lost the plot a little bit I can't I can't remember what was the driver for moving to does anybody remember what the driver was to move to the evening was well well I mean it it's just a rough start to not just cuz it's early but you know the earliest 30 and it it just you know there was for those of us that work fulltime it was just a question of this is more difficult to accommodate than it would be at the end how would people feel about so thanks for that I've forgotten the idea the reason um how would people feel about the lunch hour on Monday so that might accommodate work schedules but then also address the concerns that staff raised um you lose a half day but you

[252:02] don't lose a whole day I don't know if that's better Jane than so we didn't ask that um and it's up to you I my problem I guess I'll say with lunch hour is that it's really difficult for you to drag yourselves away from your work show up here at noon now you're going to have to leave work early supposedly come here at noon have CAC and then get yourself back to work so it's it's still going to take it's more disruptive I think yeah I just I just was trying to be yeah okay so M I don't see a big difference between starting at 8 and getting to work at 9:30 and starting work at 8 and leaving to get here at 4:30 so it it

[253:00] doesn't seem like it's making um a big difference in terms of the workday and um I it seems a lot more disruptive in terms of what kind of information can be provided for Council the next day because oftentimes at at cac's we'll ask for we'll ask questions and um and then staff goes off and does it and often times gets it to it to us prior to the council meeting and this would do away with the full8 hours of being able to answer those questions so I have that concern um I also um the CAC minutes you know they arrive at about I don't know in the afternoon sometime on Monday so you're able to read them and catch up and see what's what's changed in the agenda oftentimes on Tuesdays I find

[254:02] myself not able to read all the email that's arriving in in Tuesday afternoon so I probably wouldn't even you know we may not get a chance to even look at the CAC minutes so it moving at it doesn't seem like it makes a big difference in the workday um and um it just seems like it would provide less quality information with very little time um by squeezing the time that they can research issues in Rachel um did we talk about Friday afternoon instead of Monday afternoon for this don't our I mean our lives are already sort of sunk like right maybe that we may there's a happy hour um happy hour well I'm I'm just saying like that that

[255:01] 30 on a Friday rather than Monday afternoon so staff can I don't know how much they're working on it over the weekend though um but yeah sorry they're not working on it over the weekend they're not supposed to be working on the weekend excuse me and just truly a lot of people do take off early on Fridays and that would would limit their ability to do that Adam so as someone currently serving on CAC I agree with Mary that it doesn't personally buy me that much more time 30 in the afternoon and it sounds like the current um benefits don't outweigh or sorry the the future benefits don't outweigh the current negative so um what I would say is though maybe this is something we can address if we ever go to the Thursday thing that's what I was yeah yeah because I was I was going to go there as well I'm personally as a as a morning um

[256:02] as not a morning person as a as very much not a morning person who who also has a lot of people I work with on the East Coast I hate Monday morning cac's but that's kind of me personally so I get the impacts of the staff situation if we were able to find a way to work with council member schedules and do Thursday meetings instead of Tuesday ones it becomes more doable I know that's not doable this year J I wanted to go back to why we were moving and I think it was it had to do with whether it's one or two city council persons um schedule issue and I was wondering can it be what's the word temporary if that would help solve the problem as well because for now my time is not until December and I had already put it on my in my mind that we were going to meet on Monday at 8 in the morning but I'm okay with the change because I will be able to fix my

[257:01] schedule by December but I'm wondering can it be something temporary rather than something per minut so I was one of the proponents of this idea um I and I'm like Aaron it's not so much that I'm not a morning person I just don't like the way that um it starts the week late like I'm coming in really getting able to be organized 00 in the morning on Monday and it it kind of puts me behind um and it takes a little while to catch up then if we have a late Tuesday meeting goodness um but the advantage to the time change was really when combined with Aaron's day change so you know doing Monday 30 to be quite Frank I mean I don't know I understand there impacts to staff but you know Tuesday nights were're keeping people here till all hours of the night so I did I was figuring people could schedule it so I'm willing to let this

[258:01] drop but I I I also think that you know it should be recognized it's suboptimal for the council people some of them who have to serve on this so um I'm fine taking it off the list but I think in the future having a Monday or Tuesday afternoon CAC for a Thursday council meeting would be a great way to go I've got Mark and then juny I think if you package the two of them together You've Got A system that might work rather well giving staff a little more time to respond to CAC um not having 00 Monday uh start to the week um and a Thursday meeting if you package those together I think you might have something that uh uh we could support joury I think I wanted to go back we've talked about this many time how we check each other and we mentioned the tip 10

[259:01] report is that we have to be mindful what will work best for staff because at the end of the day we're all working in this organization together and we have to ensure that we support one another so I think if Jane after you've talked with a lot of your staff and they would agree 30 is the best time and you're willing to drop it as you mentioned I think we should be a best example because right now we are striving to put our best foot forward in the community and we have to show that through leadership and if we have to wake up a slightly a little bit early to show staff that we support them we should do it Adam last thing I'll say um I think we could solve a lot of this and additional issues if we look into making Council a full-time job with full-time pay shut okay on that note does any I think we're done with that subject does anyone

[260:02] have any debrief or other issues they want to bring up okay okay one of the later meetings so far 10:21 still 39 minutes that's good fascinating what do we give too much time to we give too much time to the