April 28, 2020 — City Council Special Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] [Music] thank you everybody else I can see that how does she do that you have magic creative profile picture I'm happy to walk you through it Bob um offline if you'd like if we all did that with with the community still see at least their picture and then it would look like if they're an attendee they don't see anything when you turn off your video okay that's that's the concern there were a couple times last week where to

[1:00] attendees it looked as if there were only a few council members even in the meeting let's win this it's it's after six it's 602 so why don't we go ahead and get started and you know I don't think it's the worst thing in the world if uh Barry wants to turn her camera off to eat um we'll get this figured out as we move forward um so is it okay to start do we have let's see Mark is here Sam Adam yeah I think we're five six Rachel seven in the nearby okay so we we have a quorum so I'm gonna gavel the meeting to order um I'm gonna check to see if we're on TV okay yep you're good to go okay great so gavel the meaning to order this is the Boulder City council meeting special city council meeting of April 28 2020. um a few quick reminders before we start

[2:01] the roll um we would like for council members to keep their cameras on unless they're eating or there's another reason um that they can't do that generally the public would like to see all of us we've gotten several requests about that there's no open comment for special meetings so there's no open comment tonight there are no public hearings scheduled so um there will be no public hearings tonight either so the public will not be addressing Council this evening at the next uh council meeting there will be open comment and there will be a public hearing as well so for next Tuesday's meeting March 5th sign up is going to be required for both open comment and for public hearings the sign up for both begins at six o'clock this Thursday April 30th so you can begin signing up anytime between Thursday April 30th and for open comment which is at the

[3:01] beginning of the meeting sign up ends Monday May 4th at 2 pm that's standard and then for public hearings we're going to extend the sign up period until Tuesday May 5th the day of the meeting and sign ups will close at 5 pm um sign up links and instructions more detail are available at the city website bouldercolorado.gov city council and then participate in City Council meetings so if you would like to sign up and you're not quite sure how you can either send an email to council Boulder colorado.gov and the appropriate staff will pick that up or you can go to the link that I just mentioned um Lynette would you like to call the roll sure will council member Brockett present friend here Joseph here Nagel yes present Wallach president

[4:02] Weaver here Yates here young present mayor we have a quorum very good and then I think the next thing we would like is a motion um to approve the amended agenda to add item 3A which is to introduce and adopt emergency ordinance 8397 authorizing the city manager to acquire the use of personal protective equipment second second so we have a motion in two seconds I'll give it to mark for the second just because I heard him first um anyone so this is a show of hands so if anyone objects to adding this um to uh mending the agenda please let me know that you object hearing no objection the motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously

[5:00] okay very good and then um Sarah Huntley would you like to walk us through with the format for the meeting tonight is going to be and any of the details we need to understand sure I'm happy to welcome mayor members of council as well as several City staff members and invited guests um as Sam mentioned there is no open comment or public hearing today so we're not going to go over the specifics of how people will be called upon for those aspects but I did want to quickly Orient you to a couple of things in this platform as you know we moved up to a zoom webinar platform so we have two different categories of speakers everybody who's on the screen currently is a panelist this means that you can mute and unmute yourselves and turn your video on and off as you need to to participate in the conversation we also have several attendees which this evening include a couple of members of the media as well as some staff members who simply wanted to be on the call in case you have a question for them but they're not

[6:00] scheduled to speak so we're leaving them in attendee mode and they can raise their hand and signal for me if they would like to provide counsel with any additional information Council as you may recall adopted some rules last week related to how it's going to hold its public meetings and I'm just going to quickly show those rules and quickly go over them so everybody has common expectations about how these meetings will be conducted bear with me for one moment please while I share my screen foreign so as Council discussed last week the purpose of these rules and guidelines are really to try to strike a balance between meaningful transparent engagement which we know we all want in our community with some of the online security issues that we've already encountered as a city with zoom so the first several rules were officially approved by Council last week so I'll

[7:01] just quickly say that the meeting has been called to conduct City business activities that disrupt display or otherwise interfere with this meeting are prohibited time for speaking or asking questions will be limited people will be recognized by in this case the mayor and no person shall speak for longer than the time allotted each person shall register at the meeting using that person's real name so as Sam mentioned starting next week we will require registration for both open comment and public hearing we're asking people to give us a real name and an email address occasionally someone will come into a meeting with a telephone number or a name associated with a device if I'm able to Rouse to that person in chat or using text messaging I will ask them for a full name just to address the pseudonym concern foreign will be permitted except for City officials employees and invited speakers all others will participate by voice only the person presiding at the meeting shall enforce these rules by muting anyone who violates any rule I believe

[8:01] council did indicate that the presiding officer could also direct staff to hit mute if it's easier the last two guidelines we put in here are specific to this kind of meeting so we're asking that we use the chat functionality for individuals to communicate with the host we've also talked about the possibility of council members in this meeting letting the mayor know that they wish to speak using the chat button we also will be using the Q a function instead of chat so if attendees need to reach me they're welcome to use q a at the bottom of their page and only the hosts and individuals designed by the host will be permitted to share their screen during the meeting so that's those are the protocols for this meeting um and I think that's all I had to share with you at this point in time I'm returning us to the main meeting room so everybody can see folks and I can hand back to the mayor very good thank you for that Sarah and

[9:01] we look forward to seeing how this will work next week when we have two different flavors of public comment um the first presenter tonight will be Jeff zayak who is on the call right now um Jeff is the Boulder County Public Health director and has been been doing amazing work for all of us so Jeff it's your turn Shane and thank you mayor and council members I always appreciate being able to present here at Council so thank you for allowing me to do that what I wanted to do tonight is talk a little bit more about what we're seeing in terms of our data with beaches and hospitalization and but before we before we get into that I wanted to touch on something else too I've been getting a lot of questions about why we extended the order and what that really means for people in Boulder County so I wanted to talk some about that tonight and and what we see in terms of the coming weeks and I wanted

[10:00] to just remind people of a few things that I have mentioned in the past and that's how well people adhere um to the orders that are in place and the orders as we go forward whether it's I didn't or orders or pieces of orders themselves that stay in place it's going to have a significant influence on our overall numbers of cases and hospitalizations and again uh just reminders about the characteristics of the buyers that are really concerning to us is that it can be spread when people are asymptomatically can dress a little bit longer than initially had been thought so mass for the general public are an important tool along with hand washing not touching your face sanitizing surfaces especially as we are out in areas where we could be contaminated and the the purpose is to really make sure that with masks we are preventing the spread of someone who may or may not know that they're positive to somebody else that's around them so the mask itself is not to protect yourself as a

[11:02] cotton mask I mean I'm talking about General mask recommendations from the governor but it's to protect others from you so the mass stops the droplet from being prevented or I'm sorry from being spread and it's just really important to reaffirm that so it needs to be everybody's wearing masks when they're out in the public and they don't have the ability it's easily social distance from each other and that's again um stick feet apart so I just wanted to make sure that I was reviewing that again um in terms of again why we moved forward with an extension in Boulder County so I know I've mentioned this multiple times um or at least a couple times in the past presentations but we had a regional group um and also a Statewide group that looked at the national coronavirus response plan from the American Enterprise Institute as well as a host of other national road maps as well as local plans at the state level and the

[12:02] key component in moving forward were really four different things the first one was we need to make sure we have a sustained reduction in cases and reductions in hospitalizations and the reason that that's important is because we know that if we are to lift borders when we have a significantly increasing number of cases or if we had increasing hospitalizations we're only setting ourselves up for failures to spread the disease more that means that the disease is not under control yet we also want to make sure that we are able to test people with all covid-19 symptoms and we are we are in pretty good shape in that perspective from Boulder County but as I've mentioned to all of you before we know that we don't have the ability to have comprehensive testing yet um in the state or in the county I do have some good news that we are moving in that direction so we did meet with the State Health Department this week

[13:01] and we have the we are we are seeing some expanded testing ability as we move forward um and and we do see that that's going to continue um based on the conversation that we have with the state so even though we're not quite there right now we do see the ability to expand testing time sorry those are my dogs in the background I apologize um but we do see the ability to continue to move forward with expanded testing um as we move into these next weeks but that's a very positive thing that was a new development this week that we were not aware of last week um the other thing that we want to make sure that we have the ability to do is to make sure that we're staffed up so we know that going forward when we start to lift orders we start to have expanded testing that we're going to see more positives and in order to control the spread of the disease we know we have to have enough staff to be able to do isolation and quarantine to be able to do contact UM tracing and follow-ups on people that were exposed to those folks and we want

[14:00] to make sure that they are that they are that they are staying and supported and where they're at so the disease doesn't spread further so those are really critical pieces for us as we move forward and luckily again in Boulder County we're doing pretty well we will be up to 26 F by May 8th which is a really important Target for us in a worst case scenario there's projections of needing up to 60 staff but the good news is is that we've been working with Boulder County and others to pull in Staffing and set up a structure that allows us to scale up and scale down on the number of cases so we're actively working towards that and by May 8th we believe that we will have that in place in a position that makes us pretty confident moving forward we also want to be careful because we know that we're moving from a position of where we were at a 75 percent surge capacity or I'm sorry social distancing capacity with the existing orders in place and with the lifting of those orders from the

[15:00] governors moving to a safer at home standpoint we are going to go from a 75 percent down to a 60 to 65 percent social distancing which means that it's going to be really important that we actually do have those things in place because as we open things up more we know we're going to have people um getting out moving around and there's going to be more chance that people can spread the disease so no matter what scenario we're in moving forward we know until we have a vaccine or until we have a treatment social distancing um and where we don't have an easy ability to social distance that masking is going to be very important so it's just want to make sure that I keep saying that each week because it's really important to remember that as we move forward it really comes down to all of us and how well we follow those recommendations and how well we follow Those portions of the orders in terms of how long we can continue to move forward with a with a little bit more of a a

[16:00] back to normal environment I know it's not gonna anytime soon ever be normal and we just know that that's that's going to be up to us to continue to move that forward the other thing that I want to say is that it's been this has been awful as everybody that's watching this knows that everybody's listening to this knows our our unemployment rates have skyrocketed many people have had to been furloughed we know that we have both substance abuse and mental health issues we've had suicides across the state um our businesses have closed up for good in some cases we have people struggling with social isolation and it's really a no-win situation as I've mentioned before these are extremely difficult times and I want people to hear that none of that is being taken granted and it's it is just an awful place to be and it's this this virus is going to leave scars on all of us for years to come so now I'm gonna I'll

[17:00] shift over to talking more about the slides here that are with me for one second so I can get my slides up and if we can go to the next slide so again I'm going to flip through some of these quick and I'll spend a little more time on some of them but this is our current counts as of today so a total of 531 cases in Boulder County um and unfortunately we have still a high number of folks deceased and that my heart goes out to every single one of those those families that are having to deal with that these are awful numbers for us in Boulder County when we look at other diseases and other things that cause fatality these are horrible numbers to deal with and we know it um we're also tracking our hospitalizations closely as I'll get to here in a second but our case rate is still staying fairly flat and I'll I'll show you what that looks like in a little more detail as we get to a couple slides in front of us so next slide please this is our total number of cases per

[18:01] day and we switched to this because we were hearing from the community it's really hard to interpret on that graph that we previously showed what does the new cases look like each day so putting it in a bar graph like this has made it easier for people to interpret and see what our cases look like per day in the anomaly that I want to describe here is that really high bar that you see there and that is just based on um there was the the data that was getting entered into the system was delayed so that high Spike that you're seeing um that a couple weeks ago there is is only because we've had a delay I'm sorry not a couple weeks ago a week ago um is only because there was a delay in cases being entered so that wasn't that is not reflective of the actual new cases that we saw that day so I just want to make sure people know that and the next slide we can look a little more at what that average um with the long-term care facilities looks like so what you're seeing here is in the orange colored graphs you're

[19:00] seeing the total number of long-term care facilities and this is what is has caused us the most concern because our hospitalization rates as you've seen me present in the last weeks have been fairly stable across the Metro region or at least for Boulder County specifically but what we are concerned about is the number of long-term care facilities that are seeing spread of the disease and the reason that that's important is because we know that if somebody in a long-term care facility ends up in the hospital that because of the older population they're much more likely to be on a ventilator and they're much more likely to be in a in a in an ICU bed for a longer period of time and that's what's concerning they also have in general a little bit longer length of stays than we see with other hospitalizations based on the data I've I've collected with our hospitals so we don't want our long-term care facilities to have significant surges that then end up pushing our

[20:00] hospitals into lawn care or into surges for ICU beds for ventilators or for bed capacity so we were watching that closely I know Jane's seen this because I've shared this with the administrators group but we have a whole structure in place to support our long-term care facilities we've been working with them for some time now and we're spending a fair Fairly large amount of time with them just making sure they have what they need we're supporting them with PPE they also received a shipment of PPE this week which was great from the federal government there is a strike team at the state that has been put together that's about two weeks old now that's also working with our long-term care facilities so we're working diligently to make sure that we don't see spread into facilities that don't currently have cases and that we're doing everything that we can to help support these facilities with spread of the disease in the existing places that we see it next slide please this is that five-day average number of new cases so you can see that this line

[21:00] graph goes up and down um and that we have a slow but steady still increasing caseload again when we expand testing we will expect that this will jump up some so we know that's going to happen you've heard the governor say that as he's done his press conferences so when we when we have more comprehensive testing and more comprehensive testing in Boulder County as I think I mentioned but I'm not sure earlier is is about 500 tests per day and right now we're around about a hundred tests per day so we are going to work on significantly expanding that testing and we we are seeing from the state that we will have the ability to keep growing that number but we're also going to see this number grow at the same time because we're going to identify new people and what we want to do though is on the next slide is we want to be able to see I'm sorry go one more from that yep what we want to be able to see is that we have less people that are

[22:00] spreading the disease at the community level there could still we could still see people spreading the disease um on a one-on-one basis so we may still see um uh people who have are spreading it in families we know that that is one way that the disease is spread somebody comes home that's positive they try to be isolated in a home that's not always possible but we don't want to see is continued Community spread and I'm sorry can you go to the next life for me I should have pushed you one more there we go um and this this orange bar that you're seeing is the community spread that we're currently seeing we want to be able to see that number drop and we we expect though that we're going to see some more one one-to-one spread just because we could still see spread happening among families so um as long as we are increasing our staff we are keeping up with the new testing that we're doing and we're able to isolate do K contacts make sure that we're doing voluntary quarantine and supports for those people

[23:01] um we we would hope to see that this graph will continue to reduce in terms of community spread and again we expect to see that over the over the coming weeks to continue to build capacity in that direction uh if you can go back one slide sorry I should just flip these around a little I want to just highlight here that we're we're still seeing our our highest fatality rates in the older population with underlying conditions again another reason why we want to make sure that we are focusing on long-term care facilities and making sure that we're reducing the spread of the disease in those facilities to the maximum extent possible those still remain the highest number of deaths overall for us come from our our long-term care facility so we will we will continue to focus on that as we move into the weeks ahead so go ahead two two slides ahead this is our data um by race and what we see again this is we are still uh

[24:00] unfortunately seeing in the weeks that we collect data since we first started looking at this that there are disparities in terms of who's impacted by this disease we are working diligently I mean we will be doing this going forward with the Colorado Department of Public Health and environment they've put together some goals and objectives to work on across the region to help reduce these numbers moving forward and thank you to City staff who have already reached out to Susan motiko who you heard from last week here and to our Health Equity coordinator Sheila Davis who will be developing some more strategies about how we reach out specifically to increase testing um in our in our latinx population as well as helping support strategies that would reduce the exposures of this population which we know is is not uh is not is is definitely some Equity issues right now next slide please I mean this is just the the rates per 100

[25:00] 000 Per County and Boulder County continues to be lower um in rates and which is good news for us I'm going to go through these fairly quickly most of these are just because you can't really read all the numbers it's just to illustrate the trend that Boulder County in general is doing pretty well along uh the Front Range metro area and Boulder counties in red I think in all of these next slides next slide this is the data that I've showed you in the past multiple times it's the hospitalization rate that we see across the metro and again you can see that Boulder County has stayed pretty flat in terms of hospitalizations along with a few other counties and this is exactly what we want to keep seeing as we move forward into into increased testing and increase contact investigations as we move forward next slide uh again this is just the rate of mortality rates across the region we are not quite as good here we are in third and ours is bumping up a little bit

[26:01] um we we know that some of this is coming from our long-term care facilities um and we we will want to make sure that we are seeing that go down as we move forward next slide please this is the state um hospitalizations and what we're looking at here is patients in the blue line patients who are currently hospitalized for covid-19 and the green line which is down here on the bottom patients that are discharged from the hospital so the blue and the green lines are what the governor is using to say that this is the difference between the N for the state in terms of capacity of beds and what that capacity currently looks like but you can see again the trend here is that we have flattening across the top and that's exactly what we want to continue to see as we move forward into these next weeks moving forward uh next slide please um this is my last slide and it's just

[27:01] again a snapshot of some of the things that we are looking at with our hospitals again I know you can't see I will try to fix this for uh future slides just so people actually can see the titles but the whole idea here is just to let people know that we are tracking um our ICU bed availability we are tracking medical and surge bed availability we are tracking ventilators in use PPE and use across our hospitals uh and long-term care facilities as in the county as we move forward so just a snapshot to let people know that we are tracking these things these will be important indicators for us as we move forward into any stage for the next several months we we are pretty certain again because we know that it's going to take until we have a vaccine in place to really see a major change that these will be things that we're just going to have to continue tracking for months ahead and keep a close eye on in addition to all of this we're working on surveillance systems to try to think about how do we find indicators in our

[28:00] community that we don't have to wait for a hospitalization to show up uh one of the things we have to remember is that when somebody is exposed to this disease there's an incubation period that's up to 14 days so somebody may be exposed in the community they're waiting up to 14 days to show any symptoms some of those people we know won't show symptoms as I have reported earlier but for the people that do that incubation period is for up to 14 days then they typically will talk to their doctor if they're not feeling well their doctor will say if you're meeting the testing criteria I'm going to send you to a testing facility that can take a couple of days up to several days and then you have to wait for your test to come back and then there's another period of time until people are sick enough that they end up showing up in the hospital so we don't want only to use those kind of indicators because there is there is you know can be two plus weeks of lag time before we start to see those things showing up so we're we're trying to look at other things like

[29:00] um uh thinking about our people with covet symptoms reporting into their Physician's office frequently do what are we seeing in our 9-1-1 calls we have the ability to get some of that data so we're talking about those kind of indicators across our community with our partners so that we can start to think about what are some of the early indications we can look for in addition to some of the things that I've just showed you um so though I would I know there's going to be a lot of questions and there have been about what does it mean for us moving forward in the next three weeks and what I am hearing from Folks at the state is again similar to what I've already said we're in a 60 to 65 social distancing scenario with a safer at home approach um Boulder County will will very likely unless we see something significant happen in these next two weeks very likely be in that same scenario where we're in safer at home and what we'll need to do is be really cautious and be watching closely are the social

[30:00] distancing guidelines that we've been working on with businesses and with people in our communities this last week and this next week are those going to be sufficient at making sure that we're preventing the spread of this disease it's going to be extremely important for all of us to be diligent about following those things it's going to be extremely diligent and important for people to really take seriously where you can't create six feet of distance please do mask because masks can reduce the spread of the disease those pieces are going to determine how well well and for how long we can stay in these different scenarios so I always just want to make sure I'm emphasizing that with everybody that's listening on this call because so much of this really does come down to how we all follow these guidelines moving forward and a lot of information as always that I'm putting out there I'm I'm going to stop and see if I have any questions from any of you and thank you again very good thank you so much Jeff for being here it's always important for us

[31:01] in the community to hear from you um I do have three people with questions I have Mary and then Mark and then Rachel so Mary go ahead as always Jeff thank you very much for the presentation um in this slide with the disaggregated data um by race and ethnicity um you mentioned that you're developing goals and objectives and strategies for addressing those disparities um could you mentioned to us what they are I will do my best to to recall those I think I know most of them and and these these goals have been established between cdphe and some of the regional Partners but it's to look at making sure that data is accessible and transparent so we've done that uh you know that the governor has done that and it can be used more readily in decision making if we're not looking at that data it's pretty hard to make decisions on it so

[32:02] that was one of the goals and I'm pretty sure that we're all across the entire State now I'm at a place where that data is more readily transparent I know the state has been talking about working with and coordinating with Logistics around specific strategies that could be put in place to reduce these exposures so not just access to better testing but trying to do more detailed data work and looking at what do we know about our case investigations in these communities what's happening how is spread occurring I mean how can we help support not just from a local government but from a a regional approach as well as a city approach how can we help stop the spread of this disease in those populations by looking at more details about what's actually happening in those populations the other one that I had already mentioned is the increased access to testing I mean care services so so as we

[33:02] start to expand testing and we will start expanding Community testing more moving forward so we want to make sure that we are reaching out to our latinx populations and that we are making sure that they have the information they need need to get tested in our communities and they feel safe doing that so that's another example the other one I think there was two more but I'm only I might only remember one more um the there is I know a conversation specifically about thinking about what does it look like in communities of color to make policy recommendations that would help make sure that not only are we addressing things from covid that we know are occurring but obviously as you all know many of these things are grounded in Social determinants of health so it's a it's an opportunity for us to see again the social determinants of Health matter and when we see it impacting populations

[34:00] in our diseases as well it reinforces the importance for those policy recommendations and decisions to go forward so that's that's what I remember um from seeing and I can make sure Mary that I follow up with an email to you just so I'm not forgetting anything specific thank you Josh I appreciate that right and we've got Mark Rachel and Adam so Mark okay first um a quick comment to Sarah I find I am only able to unmute at this point by holding down my space bar if you could in chat tell me how I can correct that that would be greatly appreciated uh Jeff I have two questions for you um can you go into any more detail as to what specifically has changed to anticipate uh an increase in testing availability um that's question one and question two um as we begin to cautiously open up Society my understanding was that the CDC guidelines were looking for 14 days of

[35:01] decline either in new cases or hospitalization rates or whatever their metric is um are we meeting any of those metrics now to be considering uh more liberality in in terms of opening up our economy those are great questions the first one was the the is what's changed in terms of testing and I don't know I could that I can answer that at the state level because I am not sure I know there's been a huge Focus uh Sarah tunberg I think is her name I can't remember if that's how you pronounce it um has been working really diligently with Kyle Brown on the testing group to try to find supplies there is still I would not venture to say that the supply chain at the state level is broken free for testing by any means but they have been able to make testing more available not just to Boulder County but they have reached out now to other counties like you probably saw Larimer did a community

[36:00] testing I think it was a week or so ago they've reached out to other communities across the state because they so I don't know what has created that resource at the state level but they have said that even though the supply chain is shaky at this point they anticipate that they will be able to keep providing us with additional tests moving forward obviously this has been a gigantic Focus that you've seen with the governor's office because we know that if we don't want the disease to spread that we have to increase our testing and I know that was one of the key reasons why they obviously put so much focus on that group Under The Innovation task force so I think it's working I don't know exactly what it looks like moving forward but I'm hearing that we will continue to get increased numbers of tests question I think you asked about was the indicators and the 14 days of decreasing cases and we do we are not meeting that

[37:00] indicator as you can see from the last graph that we saw and I think the part of this for us is the reality that we have really significant and huge impacts in our community and if we can develop the capacity to do the contact tracing slow the disease um via that and and seeing increased seeing where our positives actually lie in our community with increased testing and then go slow and make sure that we have really good social distancing and masking in place then we are going to be watching to see if that actually works where this is I know I don't have to say this to all of you but this is an incredibly delicate balance um that has such significant impacts on the health side and on on the personal health side for people who are isolated right now and not able to get back to work so it is a very difficult balance we don't want to open it up so much so fast that if that we are risking a surge going forward and that's why we decided

[38:01] to extend this for another week because we have the ability to make sure we have Staffing in place which we will for sure um and we are increasing our testing even though it won't be to our 500 Mark um we will have increased testing and most most of all again just to emphasize masking and social distancing requirements that have really been thought about and again we're working with our businesses and our Community Partners uh and folks not just across the region but across the state uh to develop those and make sure that those are really well um understood by everybody as we go into transitioning on May from a uh from an order into more of a safer at home mode yeah thank you and I do not envy you your The Balancing Act you have to uh comply with thanks okay next step asking a couple questions on long-term Health Care Facilities that I asked last week um we're getting some emails saying you

[39:01] know this place or that place has a new case and want you guys to know and then sometimes after that there's been a death reported and I don't want that information to land with city council and not get deposited with whoever needs it so I'm just trying to figure out how are we communicating with each other um because in one situation I did write back to the constituent and asked you know did anybody get back to you and nobody had and then so I'm a little bit concerned about us receiving information and how we can check that that information is is in uh the Health Department's hands says absolutely the certification there would be helpful yeah absolutely and maybe the best way for me to facilitate this is through Jane So if whoever you're hearing from gets it to Jane and then Jane can send it to Rachel arnt who's our lead in this area and then they have and like I said we have an entire incident command Branch built around long-term care facilities we have Liaisons with each facility so we can

[40:00] definitely link back to every facility um and I don't know Jane if that works with you but I can make sure that Jane has Rachel's contact information and if you filter information in that way we can make sure it gets to the right place thanks Jeff that will work I'll forward to you if it comes to me and I assume everybody else will but mostly they're coming to council okay okay it's number one number two on facilities is I've gotten some complaints um from constituents that you know if a roommate was sick they were still with covid they were still rooming with people who were not sick and wanted to make sure that we had we were not continuing that practice in the county um and also wanted to make sure that daily people who are in especially Memory Care Facilities um are getting like O2 and temperature checks daily and I think we did get some follow-up information on that today but I didn't I couldn't find it readily in there whether those two things were being done and I will have to check on the second one of my I believe that is one of the requirements in the checklist for the

[41:02] long-term care facilities and for memory care facilities um and I know for sure that there is requirements um in the governor's executive order a week ago that requires all of these facilities to identify um and secure isolation areas so that there is no mixing and it reduces the spread of the disease that's the reason that order was put in place and we are working diligently again with every facility to help support them in coming up with those plans awesome thanks um my next topic is I think that you received some emails on signature Gathering we made a decision as a council last week not to do online petitioning and there was some discussion of um how people could gather signatures given that they're not going to do them um remotely or online so I don't know if you've spoken directly to whether or not it's allowable to gather signatures either in public places or door-to-door right now under either the stay home or

[42:01] safer at home order um or whether you would say that is a safe practice so I don't know the answer to that but I did get that and I pushed it directly to my legal team who is led by Kate Haywood she's incredible with the county attorney's office into Lane Draeger who's our community mitigation person who's talking about the guidelines with businesses so I'm happy to follow up on that with you Rachel and if you want me to send it back I don't know who you want me to send it back to but I can double check and then follow up on that that'd be great thanks and then um third General topic is on masks which we're going to consider tonight um and I assume that there is evidence or data to support the wearing masks is helpful in preventing the spread of the virus so just kind of wanted to get that on the record and if so if that applies only inside or also outside in places like trails so um and I think you have probably heard Dr visitors address the trails and

[43:00] I can uh I can rehash that a little bit too in a second but yes there is evidence that demonstrates that masks reduce the spread of the disease and reduce droplet spread there is if you look at the studies that are out there they range in terms of how much that reduction happens but it is they absolutely reduce the spread of droplets and the disease so we do see that as an absolute strategy moving forward we think it's critically important again especially in any places where we where it's hard to maintain that six feet so Trails specifically um as an example and again I think Dr Visser has addressed this I believe it was a UK study that was out that talked about when you're exercising um you actually exhale you're exhaling more droplets out and if you're running as an example or you're biking you are trailing those droplets behind you 2 and those droplets can travel a further distance I think it's up to 27 feet but

[44:00] I can't remember exactly it's it is a further distance though for sure and that the droplets Trail mostly behind you but a little bit to the side of you uh that's why I think Dr Visser said when he was here that um if you're running next to each other in your social distance next to each other you're actually better off than if you're running behind the person on the side so we so people it's I know it is not intuitive um but to wear a mask when you're exercising on a trail where you're likely to run into some spots where you're not going to have six feet of distance between the two of you is important to do um and I know people don't like it um when I say that I've received a lot of comments back but it is important um especially when we're exercising to try to make sure if we can't maintain that six foot social distancing that we are wearing masks that's very helpful thank you um and just last thing is we're going to look at this tonight is I guess I wonder why not they why wouldn't the county be putting in a mask um requirement as opposed to the city

[45:01] because I I think that um it's important that everybody in the county be protected and not just um City residents so I wondered if you could speak to that yes I I can tell you that we are definitely looking at that and we are looking at it across the region um I I know you've heard me say this and you've seen it play out we we've really tried to make sure that especially Broomfield Boulder um Jefferson County our three Tri-County areas in Denver are working together because we know that we are going to have people sharing our borders people are going to cross our borders um even though they're not supposed to drive more than 10 miles with a current um order uh that that we are going to have that happen so we are evaluating that and we um we will make a decision this week at some point how we'll move forward okay thanks very much that's all I have right and then Adam hey Jeff thank you um my question is about the last slide you had with the sort of uh measurements of how we're

[46:00] doing um and the question is are elective surgeries allowed again in our Hospitals now and how is that sort of corresponding with the um the yellow that we're in for surgical beds availability so um if they I have to there is guidance on it and I don't want to misstate it so what I'll tell you is that I'll send it to you you could post it on the website if you want um but I don't want to misstate it there is guidance to hospitals on elective surgeries and I don't remember all of what's included in that guidance I can tell you that our hospitals are actually in a very good even though we're on the yellow in that we're in a very good place unless we were to see some kind of horrible spike in long-term care facilities over the next several weeks um then we might we will keep watching that and making sure that we're not getting into a place where where we're going to have a surge that's going to put our hospitals in a bad place I can tell you that as much as I'm watching

[47:01] this our hospitals are way more more diligent than I am about what's happening in each of their hospitals we've also agreed with the hospitals and they have supported each other that they if they started to reach surge in one hospital that the other hospitals would back them up and support each other so that was an agreement that was reached and just a reminder again that in by mid-may we will have Saint Anthony's North which is a facility that's set up to help decompress our hospitals for that population that will be in place and we would be able to to use if necessary but I'm not anticipating that we would get have to get to that point thank you Jeff great and Jeff I have one question for you you mentioned to Rachel that you would be making and you think the group of counties would be making a decision this week potentially about masking and when you and I and James of yesterday

[48:00] afternoon you indicated that the order from asking would probably be directed at sometime around May 8th when we're going to change potentially from stay at home the safer at home so if you still expect that sometime around May 8th would be when the counties would put an order in place around masking yeah so um so that would be my My Hope and what I'm a little hesitant about as you can probably imagine is getting from in front of all my partners that we're talking with across the other counties um so I don't want to imply that I'm making a decision for all of them um but I would anticipate that we would have guidance out or in order out before it's like ahead of time um that they know what's coming that we have been able to provide that information to them so that would be my goal uh personally yes absolutely okay great thank you and then I have Bob the question

[49:00] yeah Jeff thanks for that just a follow-up to Sam's question would you have any objection if the city um put in place a masking order uh this week um for indoor masking I know that may be a few days or maybe a week or a week and a half before the county does but do you have any objection if the city of Boulder does that no I would support that thank you [Music] great okay that's everyone who had a hand raised are there any other questions for Jeff at all okay seeing none Jeff again thank you so much I know that you're taking a lot of criticism from folks who are impatient with the current situation which is totally understandable the current situation is difficult for everyone and um I appreciate you doing The Balancing Act that you described it's hard and it's necessary and um I think our council is completely behind you in the work you're doing to protect uh life safety in old accounting so

[50:03] thank you for your hard work thank you okay and then I have a note here but I'm going to check is Rob bisser's on the call right now I I don't believe so Sam so I know that's not on the call thanks Sarah you know one of Jeff's slides did present information about Hospital capacity which is looking like it's mostly in the green level two items were in the yellow but I think that what Rob would be reporting right now is that we're in good condition here in the city of Boulder but he's not on the call so great very good um I guess I'll ask one last question then of Jeff Jeff do you have any reason to believe that we have any issues are looming for Boulder Community Health uh no I don't not based on the data I'm seeing and obviously

[51:01] um that would be Dr visitors would need to confirm that but we've been in close contact and I know that he's reached out to me if he's seen things that he's concerned about um or I've reached out to him so I I don't anticipate that but I think he would need to confirm that very good well we'll wait till next week um for him to confirm it and um in the meantime if you hear anything that you think we need to know we'd appreciate hearing about it if for some reason Dr visitors doesn't contact us directly so again thank you Jeff and Rachel has her hand up Rachel real quick question then since Dr visitors isn't coming uh um Jeff do you happen to have any updates on the antibody testing that they were like doing a trial at what else I do not um and uh so I don't I have not heard what kind of results they're seeing but I am interested in that as well um and I will I'm happy to follow up with him and just see what he's finding

[52:00] from his antibody testing and then happy to report it back to Jane and she could share cool thank you okay great well I see no more hands up and thank you again Jeff for all of your time and and for keeping us up to date every week so Council yes great that brings us Jane I believe to the coveted response yes yes and in past weeks we've had quite a long presentation by different staff about issues that have come up during the week that we wanted to report to you we do not have that this week instead um I know that you as the mayor have asked that the we work with the city attorney's office to think about having a an order that would require face coverings for persons indoors at all establishments and so um Tom Carr's working hard with that information so Tom has a presentation

[53:00] for you tonight great I do uh excuse me Tom and mayor Mark Wallach had a problem with his um connection so he's left the meeting and is going to be rejoining in just a second should we hold off until he comes back in I I don't think we need to um let's go ahead let's go ahead with the presentation and we can catch them up during the discussion okay I'll watch for him to come in and I'll let him in as soon as he is available thank you okay can we go to the next slide I wanted to give you a little bit of background on where we are in the state right now on requirements for masks there have been a couple of developments uh just recently last Wednesday the state department of cdphe issued a an order requiring that all employees Inc critical businesses wear masks and that

[54:01] includes grocery stores and construction sites and other critical businesses that have been allowed to remain open under the the state's stay-at-home order uh yet yesterday the state issued another order of the safer at home order allowing for some uh additional businesses to open now that order as I understand it has been Limited in its effect in Boulder County so the I don't believe these businesses will be opening in Boulder County yet but these businesses these other businesses the field service personal services and then um Healthcare Services other health services are allowed to open but they all if they're allowed to open and when they're under the state order both employees and customers will be required to wear masks and these are things like Real Estate Services personal training uh non-essential Medical Services um things like that next slide please so uh as you know Jane has the authority

[55:01] to issue an emergency order under the boulder Revised Code and but the boulder revised code is laid out in a way that there are specific Powers enumerated although they're they're styled in the code AS examples my view is that we pretty much should stick closely to the language of that uh because we are really doing extraordinary things when we have when Jane issues one of these orders so this is a proposed emergency order um and it I will read it um no I won't read it but basically what it does is it prohibits anyone from operating a business that doesn't require employees vendors and customers to wear non-medical face coverings the state water that was issued last Thursday which is public health Public Health order 2026 uses that language non-medical face coverage and the idea is you don't want people going out and buying n95 masks or other medical face masks that would um then deprive the

[56:00] people who really need them of those masks um and then there's a Proviso that says that employees who do not come in contact about not required to wear such face coverings um the second the the language in the second sense that I have an italics no person shall enter or remain in any public accommodation without wearing a non-medical face covering um that's that language is intended to allow us to either charge the business or charge the individual so um under under the current state of the the cities of emergency ordinance there isn't specific power for the city manager to require a person to wear personal protective uh equipment and so I will get to a minute and we've got a better on the agenda later for Council to consider an ordinance to add that language to the emergency powers um there's a the third sentence is to make it clear that although we're requiring non-medical face masks if you have a medical face mask you can still wear it and some people do and we

[57:01] wouldn't want to say no you can't wear that and can dispute over having to cite someone and then the definition of public accommodation where this would apply is any business engage in any sales in the general public or any place that offers Services facilities privileges or advantages to the general public and that language is derived from the city's civil rights ordinance and chapter and title 12 of the boulder Revised Code so it's language that we're familiar with and we've applied before uh can we go to the next slide please if you go back to the previous slide um so the the second sentence um it seems like there might be an additional piece there that we want to consider in a person's jail um sorry the third sentence no no I'm sorry apologies last sentence of the first Clause provided however that employers who do not come into contact with the public are not required to wear such face coverings provided they can maintain adequate social distancing or something like that got it

[58:02] thank you so this is the language of the proposed emergency ordinance which you'll consider later this evening Bob suggested that that rather than we use the for the so there's in all these things where the city manager issues an order she makes a finding about the reason for the order and so this will would require members of the public to wear or use personal protective equipment if there would be a substantial danger rather than an imminent danger that life health safety or welfare goes might be seriously comprised in the absence of use in such protective equipment I think that's a really good change and so I would suggest that when we get to the ordinance later that you adopt that change next slide please uh and then this is the definition of personal protective equipment and Sam was kind enough to remind me that in the examples I had not included face coverings and since we're talking about face coverings we probably should include it as one of the examples so I've added it uh this this is attended as a broad definition of personal protective equipment now there's no

[59:00] reason why Jane would need to order anybody to wear um all of these things in this particular emergency but the idea of the emergency ordinance is to give the authority that might be needed in a different kind of emergency and say a biological uh issue where we're dealing with Safeway that was out was we go out would be to wear full body covers full body suits uh and you don't want to be drafting these in in a kind of time emergency so I thought we would be broad but of course the order would just be limited to the order that I I've uh described earlier the face coverings and that's the end of my presentation very good thank you Tom I appreciate that um and the quick drafting um since this came out fairly quickly Jane would you like to say anything actually yeah Jane would you like to say anything uh about what Tom put up and then we have Bob with a uh hand raised thanks um I really appreciate the work that Tom did and I feel like it is the kind of order that is appropriate under

[60:01] the current circumstances so I'll gladly sign it if Council um continues to move forward with it the issue that I want to raise for all of you is the issue of enforcement and I want to say to you that our Police Department should not be the group that is charged with enforcing this ordinance there are going to be many many people in our community that need to learn more about face coverings and we need to rely on the businesses which are also cited in this order as not being able to allow people in without a face covering and so therefore I I want you to know that it will not be a high priority of the police department to cite people for a violation of this instead this is going to be an education effort so you need to know that up front because we just simply do not have the resources to handle enforcing the people

[61:02] that won't be wearing face coverings Bob thanks for that Gene and my question really was a follow-up to that so thanks thanks for saying that this is probably a question for Tom Tom um if we get if Jane if we pass the ordinance and enable Gene to then issue the order and Jane issues the order and if we get um frequent complaints that a particular business is not uh requiring um either customers or employees but let's just say customers uh to wear face masks and we get some complaints about that and I take Jane's point about limited police capacity is your office is the legal office in a position where you could um issue write a letter or make a phone call and indicate to a business that we received a number of complaints and that they need to comply with the order yes we'd be happy to do that okay and then if if that um I have to believe that I would work you know somewhere between 90

[62:00] and 100 of the time but let's just say it didn't let's say you you sent a letter or made a phone call and reminded them of the order um and then we continued to receive complaints what would you see as a next step for escalation is this something that your office would be involved in or code enforcement what would what would be sort of sort of going to an officer in a in a in a blue uniform but is there an interim step that you could take sure I would then seek to arrange a meeting with management of the company um and their lawyers and talk frankly about the risks and the the ordinance does give the city Management Authority to shut down a business now I'd hate to shut down a business but if a business is creating more risk for the community to benefit providing I would ask the city manager to consider that uh that that would be the ultimate sanction um I I you know in addition to I wanted to add also James mentioned the lack of resources every time an officer has to contact a person they're putting that officer is putting himself or herself at risk and I would imagine everyone would

[63:02] like to preserve our police force as best as possible and not put them at risk for things that are not really worth that risk for them are you okay with that kind of escalation that Tom lay down yes right very good and I have Rachel's hand up thanks I'm not sure where we are in the process here or if this is the right time to ask the question but I'm wondering why we're not looking at trails in the order or much in this discussion is that a question for janeertown now or to discuss with Council later knowing that we were going to be talking about face coverings that we add the trails to it and I contacted Dan Burke to find out his views on it and he is asking that we do not add trails to it because of the the pro things that our

[64:03] Rangers will encounter um similar to the to the police we don't want to put them in danger and what our Rangers have been experiencing on the trails has been quite a bit of negative behavior both from people not following the social distancing rules and then other people harassing the Rangers for not making other people follow the social distancing rules so it's been a very difficult time for our Rangers and if they are going to be encountering people all over the time all over the place sort of telling and complaining about other people that is going to make their work so much more difficult so we're asking that not including the trails at this time so I I hear that and would not want to make anyone's job harder

[65:01] and I think that right now we are um because it's it feels voluntary there's so much like anger and vitriol on the trails because people are so mad that other people aren't wearing masks and we're sort of policing each other and there's so much anger I feel like out especially on on trails and so by making it mandatory and you know we know with voice in sight not everybody does it but at least if that's the expectation um and um Jeff sayak said that it is uh it will improve the outcomes and should stop the spread of the virus I guess I don't understand if we're committing to um this is the right thing to do then why wouldn't it be the right thing to do on Trails as much as in stores because travel trails and the danger Outdoors is my understanding and I I think that you're concerned

[66:00] about anger will actually increase if we make it mandatory on trails okay uh is that Judy point that basically it's just for businesses so if I'm walking down the street and I don't have a mask on I would not be stopped by the police basically but soon as I'm about to enter the store I need to put a little beautiful mask in order to purchase whatever I come to purchase yes right [Music] right I remember a few weeks back um Bob asked about whether we had put on our website if we could put on our website where people can uh find out where they can find masks so if there are any organizations around town

[67:01] who are offering masks so I'm wondering if we have that on our website or someplace where people can just like or is it the police department they can call who can they call if they don't have a mask and they want a free mask Sarah might know the answer to that so my understanding is that Communications put that up on the website and I actually saw them send out a social media push regarding that today thank you okay Adam swetlick yeah a quick follow-up to Rachel um I'm just wondering what the current status that especially the most popular trailheads is in terms of signage you know if we're not going to say you must wear a mask are we saying just below you must wear a mask at trailheads or anything along those lines so I know that we do have signs up I don't know exactly what they say because I've been staying at home and I have not

[68:00] been on the trails I don't know if Dan Burke is on this call or not and could tell us the answer to that but I don't know if not he can just follow up um oh he is there he is hi Dan hi Adam hello Council uh Dan Burke director Open Space Mountain parks yes our signage for both social distancing and mass are fairly similar as you know you cannot say a lot in a sign you do it more towards pictures so it's not saying whether this is guidance or an order it's pretty much saying you know stay six feet apart wear face coverings so there's not much difference between guidance and an order in terms of how we're trying to communicate um those issues out on open space and we are continually adding locations where we're having signs so uh face coverings has become almost as ubiquitous as the social distancing all of our variable messaging boards um around the system the electronic

[69:00] roadside boards all um you know wear masks social distancing those two messages are sort of going side by side with what our Communications is all about and again it doesn't really matter that much whether it's guidance uh whether it's from the city or whether it's environment in terms of what we're communicating okay that's great thank you Dan yeah okay Mary my question is for Maris so Maris I noticed when the conversation was going on regarding um anger at the Trails um that you were nodding your head and so I was curious to know um what you were thinking what the nod was about well um actually I've been out to the trailheads and I've talked to some of Dan's Rangers and it really puts the Rangers in a very awkward situation because some of the youth are they get

[70:01] very agitated and angry and I think that to put them in that position where there's conflict and aggravation would not be uh probably what Dan would want or or myself so that's just my take of just being out there and viewing and talking to some of his Rangers while I was out there so again conflict with people in uniform I don't think is what we want thank you if that's helpful Mary thanks Maris okay so I see no more hands up so I'm going to propose that we take this in a couple chunks um the first chunk is do we want an order um indoors as has been proposed by Tom let me start with that and then we can have if it's okay with Council a brief discussion about the trails issue and Outdoors and then I would like to move

[71:00] into a little bit more about enforcement I think Bob asked a pertinent question we heard good answers from Tom and Jane I just want to put a bow on that and I guess one bit of context before we kind of dive in is that one of the ideas of doing something now is that May 8th maybe we have a county order but we want to set a culture of mask wearing the extent that we can now with our critical businesses both customers and employees are wearing face coverings so that when we do whenever move into a safer at home and begin to open our retail stores for people to go inside that will be a much much broader cross-section of businesses and so the idea of doing it now is to get a culture going and then when we do make the change to more opening of different kinds of businesses that people are you know aware of the way to behave as a customer rather than having to learn that as the

[72:01] business is open so anyway that's context does council have any objections Mary has a comment I have I actually have um a process question um I have a question about the ordinance change itself and so for do I wait to ask that later or should I ask it now when's the appropriate time well let's ask it now because I I was proposing that we start with the ordinance and orders proposed by Tom so a must Council objects to starting there this would be a good time to ask that question is there any objection to okay I got some thumbs up so we're going to start then with the order and ordinance as proposed by Tom so go ahead Mary yeah um so Tom my question is about um

[73:00] the page um that has the underscored language uh personal protective equipment it's at the top of the page and it says uh personal protective equipment equipment means worn equipment warrant to minimize exposure to hazards that can cause serious injuries and illnesses would it why isn't it illnesses or injuries or injuries or illnesses um to me it seems that it would cause why isn't it poor I guess is my question I'm sorry I'm just getting to the language I apologize um it's a PDF page 21 2. you're right it can be or I think and works there as well but or probably is

[74:01] better okay so we can amend that to ore thank you I see no more hands up any more questions any comments on the idea of moving forward with this ordinance to give Jane city manager additional power and then the proposed order comments so I see Bob um I know we'll talk about open space in a second but uh with respect to customers indoors I'm in favor of the ordinance giving Jane The Authority um to require Grace coverings indoors um and that I would um ask Council to instruct Jane to issue that order uh then I've got Mark Wallach sorry here I have to unmute

[75:00] um I am also strongly in favor of giving Jane that Authority um and with respect to uh requiring businesses to uh in effect compel or compel customers to wear masks I think it's appropriate to put the onus on the businesses I think most of them will um be be compliant with the order um I don't think we're going to have to resort too often to letters from Tom um although I think letters from Tom when necessary will more than do the trick and uh I think it's a good thing to go to do I'm in favor in Your Mark I've got Aaron with the hand raised and then Rachel you don't hear me yes yes barely yeah thanks for bringing this forward I think you know for those of us who go about just our minimum amount in the community to me it feels like the riskiest Point uh right now is

[76:02] when you do need to go inside say a grocery store um and you it's impossible to always maintain six feet of distance from other people and so what we heard from Jeff was that we can minimize Community spread if we if everyone has a mask on those situations so I think it's a good next step for public health and to prevent additional spread in the community thank you Aaron Rachel I just wonder have we thought through um exemptions or whether we needed to tighten anything one thing that I would visualize is that people will say I've already had it I'm immune I don't have to wear a mask or things like that like are there are there safeguards that need to be built in or do we need to think about you know are there exemptions like that if you had I don't I don't know that immunity is full or that we wouldn't want people to wear masks but just wondered if we needed to talk through any additional safeguards so one of the nice things about the order is that Jane has the the whole emergency order process gives Jane flexibility to

[77:02] adapt to changing circumstances aspirins of order that they passed last night exempts children under two and I don't know what the science is on that and I can't imagine anybody complaining that a child under two wasn't wearing a mask and if I had a child under two I'd make sure their face was covered so I'm not I I didn't include that but there may be other things as a science evolves and we learn more things it's pretty easy for Jane to alter these orders and address situations like that uh and I I I I hesitate to think about trying to figure out whether someone actually is immune because I'm not even sure the science is there to say that someone who's had the disease uh can't spread it right now yeah no I wouldn't I wouldn't probably make that an exemption but I'm guessing that'll be the first thing that people are saying and I think you're overroding running point though Rachel is an excellent one and I think that's the sort of the nature of the emergency order process is Jane is able to alter the orders with by just a signature

[78:01] thank you I've got Adam and then Mark again yeah I'm supportive of this as well and to follow up on Rachel's point I think the only one I've heard is if someone has a breathing issue that may um you know a mask May prevent them from breathing in a way that keeps them alive so um that may be the one that we focus on to start with if we do any okay Mark and above yeah I also want to respond to what Rachel said I think we're going to need to carve out a few exemptions I think it when we get to the point where we're opening up restaurants uh you really can't eat pizza if you're sitting in a restaurant with a mask on um we're going to have to figure out something a little better for that kind of situation so I think restaurants an area we need to think about pretty carefully great and then Bob and then I'll go I was going to make a motion but if people have other questions uh just

[79:00] adopting the ordinance now go ahead and make the motion and we can speak to it so okay A Move that we adopt by emergency measure by emergency measure ordinance 8397 amending section 2-2.5-7 power is able to Revised Code 1981 to authorize the city manager to require the use of personal protective equipment and setting forth related details as amended during the course of this discussion second okay so either Aaron or Marquette II or your choice Lynette um Bob you want to speak to this I've already spoken I think this is the right thing to do um I think some some good points have been raised as far as exceptions those can be taken up by Jane upon advice from Jeff zayak I think what we're doing tonight is authorizing Jane to issue orders and she can amend those from time to time it's the right thing to do and I do agree with an earlier statement by Sam that um it's right to do this now by count we're probably talking less than 100 establishments that are open right now

[80:01] we're right now at grocery stores and pharmacies and marijuana and and and liquor and some hardware stores it's going to get quite a bit more complicated um when all the retail opens up and restaurants open up and so on so forth so I think Sam was absolutely right to say that getting people in the habit of wearing masks indoors um now when there's relatively a few of them is a good idea um and when the order um is lifted to allow some of these other establishments people will be in that habit and I was very heartened by the fact that Jeff zayak um indicated that ultimately the county or other counties May issue this order but he had no objection to us um uh getting out in front and I think it's the right thing to do and maybe it'll nudge some of those counties to move forward and I thought what Tom laid out as far as enforcement works so I would be firmly in favor of this very good and I'm going to jump in here and say I also favored this quite a bit um the other cities in the county are

[81:01] watching us to see what we do I've been in touch with the mayors of of Longmont Lewisville Lafayette and Superior I believe Jane's been in touch with many of their city managers as well I know that Lewisville is looking at moving forward they may not get it done this week but they they may uh ask for an ordinance be available for them next week um so I I believe it's not only the right thing to do it will eventually be a county order and so this is us just getting ahead of the county order um cities have been kind of leading on some of these um steps that have been taken Aspen has done the assembly Glenwood Springs has done that Wheat Ridge has done it so it's not like we're alone in Colorado and thinking about the importance of this I want to emphasize that these are base coverings and not masks the distinction being that a bandana Works um they're the Center for Disease Control on their website has got

[82:01] instructions for adipose solo mask and how to make a mask that doesn't require sewing from a t-shirt so this is a low or no cost kind of impact on customers and it's something that um if they do create a mask so that they can go into businesses it will be something that they can wash and reuse time and again so it's not a one-time use one and done so I I think this is a really positive step forward um I hope Jane uses her power and places an order in place pretty quickly if we approve the ordinance and so I think that's all I've got to say about it we have a few more things to discuss going forward but I guess on Staffing to the extent that we can get this done with uh the the attorney's office and Licensing Personnel that's great it would also seem to me that if needed if there were

[83:00] a reason that somebody needed to lay eyes on the situation to resolve the facts of the matter it might be appropriate to use code enforcement to do that I don't think it would happen very often but it's just putting out there that you know code enforcement is not a armed law enforcement officer the folks who work there and so it seems to me we need to call on them this would be a pretty high priority because it's health and safety so with that I'm done and it looks like Mary has a comment uh yeah and I just want to agree with everything that's been said um but one thing I wanted to ask um staff is actually something that Sam hadn't mentioned to me earlier today um which was the use of um our app um it's our inquire Bolder not Inspire Boulder inquire Boulder um to track

[84:01] um calls about certain businesses um so that if it that would be an easier way to keep data perhaps um so it's a question can we use that and um would it be useful um but you know I agree with everything that's been said and I'll just add one more thing that it does make going out and conducting um daily activities that more closely resemble our life as it used to be possible in a safe Manner and the more that we do comply with wearing the face coverings the more quickly that we might be able to return to our activities um in a more normal manner so um I completely support this and Jane would you like to respond to the inquiry about the question

[85:08] and of course we are going to be keeping data so we'll just figure out the best way to keep that data thank you great and I bet Junior next I just wanted to add I do support giving Jane the power to uh and uh enforce this um order and also this ordinance and also I just wanted to comment I know she already mentioned that you know we will not spend a lot of our time enforcing it and I just wanted to say that that enforcement is not a priority but when we do decide to enforce that as Mark mentioned that is mostly the responsibility of businesses and if we ever have to deal with regular community community members that we use the same gradation that you know that was mentioned by Bob Yates earlier so if

[86:00] someone if this is their first time you find them without a mask Maybe you know you might give them a warning and the second time then you know you move on with the process as opposed to just you know hitting someone with a fine right away even though it's quoting it's code enforcement I'm gonna jump in and say I completely agree with you Juni um we would definitely start off with warnings as opposed to any kind of citation and you know and I I have to say I kind of regret saying well we're not going to enforce it we aren't going to enforce it and so I do feel like if a police officer runs into a situation in which someone is egregiously violating it that officer will talk to the person give them a warning that kind of a thing it's just that we're not going to be having the police marching into grocery stores trying to find people that are violating so I hope that's helpful great and Marist did you want to comment

[87:00] on that no I just uh I concur with uh Jane I think it's really important that the police would be used as a uh not a last resort but most certainly aggravated cases or egregious cases and if if it got to that point I'm sure there would be a disorderly conduct or other criminal elements present great great thank you and you know I think education is the most important next step for us um I think we need to work with our partners at the chamber to make sure that we're getting out to both the essential businesses that are currently open you know this idea we have businesses in town which have been doing this already which is businesses can refuse service or cause and given that we're going to probably have an order in place here shortly I think it would because um to turn people away if they are not wearing a mask I want to be a customer of a business um one one of the things that the current businesses which are

[88:01] enforcing you must have a mass to shop in the store they also have mass to hand out so whether it's face coverings whether it's Mass I think one thing that we might want to encourage businesses to do and maybe help purchasing would be face coverings whether they are masks that attached behind the ear whether they're bandanas you know which just go around the face whatever I think another part of our education needs to be what is an inexpensive way for the business to assist customers who may arrive without a mask but who still want to shop in the store how can the businesses help make that possible so okay so I think that wraps this up um Bob has made a motion um there has been a second and that's to change the um not the ordinance changes which allowed the city manager to require PPE so

[89:01] um uh is this a Lynette is this a roll call or okay great yep um we start with council member Joseph yes Nagel yeah sweatlick yes Wallach yes Weaver all right Yates yes young yes rocket bye friend yes the motion passes unanimously and that's with the Amendments correct yes yes it hasn't been this was added to the agenda as item 3A I believe can we just have you did United have altered the agenda to have voted on it here we did alter the agenda I believe

[90:01] but I think it was it's it was supposed to be later in the agenda the way you altered it I see okay um put it on it now so if no one objects to the alteration agenda I think we're fine I just wanted that thumbs up thank you okay the next um subject we're going to move on to is discussion of whether James order should just be indoors as we have discussed so far or whether it should involve Trails or outdoor locations Rachel so I will give a little pitch for what I think it should also involve involve trails UCM brought up for you know setting the stage for long-term compliance now in stores um I think that that same logic applies to Trails um Jeff zayak did say that it is important to wear masks on trails and it does save lives or protect lives um so I would send that strong message I would require masks on Trails even

[91:03] understanding that Jane's point that enforcement is going to be difficult and put people in a difficult situation I would um still at least have the rule in place that it is required and I would turn people back at busy trailheads if they don't have masks um that seems like um something that we should be able to do and in terms of the conflict for Rangers um I am absolutely not trying to be insensitive to that but I think the reality is we already have conflict it's just occurring between individual Trail users rather than an individual and a ranger and I don't think that's necessarily a better place to put the conflict um and we are probably creating a little bit of a conflict or some conflict points for the stores where they're going to have to enforce the masks and I think that we shouldn't really decline to do that for our own areas as well but if we're saying masks save lives they save lives in stores they save lives on Trails we should have the standard

[92:03] applied to where we need to enforce it as well great Mark Wallach I agree entirely with what Rachel just said um nobody wants to be turned back at a trail nobody wants there to be conflict but this is not a requirement to shovel your walk this is a requirement to keep other people safe our professionals have indicated that this is a beneficial thing to do and will enhance Public Safety and I am in support of it and uh in support of what Rachel has uh proposed hey any other comments okay I will uh Adam [Music] yeah I just wanted to say too that shoveling your walk is for Public Safety

[93:00] as well so I wouldn't discount that in any way while we're having this discussion you should definitely shovel your walk no dispute there okay so I think one of the things that Jane said is a consideration here which is that um transmission is documented at a much higher rate indoors than Outdoors so there's that circumstance um there's no doubt that wearing a mask has to be better than not wearing a mask on Trails there's plenty of cases um I've been on the trails a lot there are many cases where there's just not six feet between people on the trails and that's packed um I I think that if we do have a majority that wants chained to issue an order like that I would have it be a separate order um so that we have one order for indoors one order for outdoors and we can alter them based on experience kind of separately so um I don't know if we're going to end up there yet or not but I would suggest

[94:01] that if we do that there be a second order pertaining to the outdoors because we don't know for sure what the counting is going to come up with and if the county comes up with an order that's just indoors and we decide to follow their Direction and let ours lapse then be outdoors is a separate question for us to address Bob yeah I guess I'm um a little first of all I don't I don't disagree with anything that that others said um Mark and and Adam and Rachel I think would be great if we could have an order for outdoors as well here's the two things I'm a little bit worried about one is um I I don't like issuing an order or having a rule or a law that we know we can't enforce and I think with respect to the indoor I think we we do have a plan for enforcement um it's a finite number of businesses uh Tom's team and others can if if their report's a violation can move against those businesses we know we have a

[95:00] responsible party if people aren't willing wearing masks on Trails there's really no way to identify them because by the time the report comes out from the uh unhappy resident who is wearing a mask that person is long gone and so it makes me a little uncomfortable to issue an order or have a rule that we know um we can't enforce the trails are very porous there's lots of ways to get on them we don't have Rangers in every Trailhead and and um and so I'm a little concerned about that and because of that I'm a little bit worried that because people will know that we can't info course Very practically an order around open space that it might dilute the order we're trying to get in place with respect to stores because if people know that they can flaunt the open space order then they may be tempted to flaunt the store order as well so my preference would be um to put this reorder in place um see how that works um see what the county does over the

[96:01] next week or week and a half with respect to um their own order if they make an on open space that's great uh if we have positive experience on stores and we feel in a week or two that we have some ability to enforce on open space I'd be prefer to move forward then rather than doing that now knowing that we probably can't really enforce it and risking um uh disregard or disrespect of the insta order which is the real prize here hey I've got Mark and then Adam well a couple of things I I share your concern Bob but this would not be the first statue that we've passed that relies upon the Good Will of our citizenry to comply with it and we're about to implement 20 is plenty um and we're not going to have speed traps on residential streets where we're going to be relying upon our residents to do the right thing and I would say the same thing here and as Rachel

[97:00] pointed out when I we don't want the the areas of conflict to occur on the trail but we do have Rangers who can turn some people back if they're not wearing masks at the chapel head doesn't mean they can't go somewhere else and sneak in but it sends a symbol that this is the behavior we're asking people to comply with and I think most people will do the right thing so I I remain in favor of it thanks Adam and then Aaron yeah um I also sort of and where Mark is at in that you know we don't enforce jaywalking uh on a daily basis I don't think so um I I couldn't you know it's good think about the timing a little bit more for sure so we're not throwing too much all at once but I think it probably should be sooner than two weeks if we're going to do this just because this is a health and safety consequence we have going on so

[98:00] um yeah I'm up for a little bit more discussion but I'm leaning towards doing it as well Aaron so follow the question with for Dan heard at least through Jane before about your concerns about making a rule such as this folks have mentioned Rangers turning people away at trailheads if there's uh if you're not wearing masks does the ranger Forrest Gump have the capacity sort of the number of people and amount of time to to do that kind of proactive enforcement essential yeah so the reality out on our system right now is pretty much half of our staff that is out on the system trying to do education work around compliance is from our education and Outreach staff they do not have the authority to issue tickets we do have about four or five Rangers on any given day that would be out on the system we tend to reserve their role as

[99:00] they respond to emergencies they so typically they wouldn't be standing in front of a Trailhead uh for any length of time because they're they're busy getting called out constantly so it would be education and Outreach staff that would typically be somebody that would be sort of helping to provide education work at a Trailhead area of of a of a particular trailer and they would not have the authority to either issue a ticket or to send somebody away but they would just be doing the education type of type of thing the other couple of things I just want to make Council aware of is that 90 of our system is out out in the county and a number of those areas especially our well-used areas like Marshall Reservoir area is adjoining County lands and County trails and so often what you have is you have County trails that didn't then turn into City open space Trails without a Trailhead or anything you're just suddenly on

[100:01] city-owned lands or city managed versus County and there's also the aspect of a lot of our Greenways a lot of our multi-use Trails which are more commuter Trails or a lot of pay Trails those turned in in into Department of Transportation managed trails and then open space and then bark back into Transportation so there's that Matrix too I know most of us are probably thinking the mountain backdrop area which is joining our neighborhood Shanahan Ranch and those type of areas but when you look at most of our system which is out intermingling with County lands it it you know it would get a little bit confusing for if we don't do this in a regional perspective without with the county open space or with Jefferson County open space in the South uh you know there would be uh challenges for uh knowing what the consistency is in terms of what is a requirement versus guidance in this particular case

[101:00] but whatever Council with we'll do our best to do our job obviously sure and is there some ability to kind of up our level of signage on this topic um you know in at the trailheads because I the I guess the last time I was at was at Boulder Valley Ranch about a week ago and there was a sign there about masks recommended it was one sign it was there but you know I don't know that everybody necessarily saw it is that could we do you think there's some room to up our signage level yeah every in fact every week news signs we're putting out 12 what are called more interchangeable signs uh permanent things that we could change out signage at 12 of our highest used locations those are just starting to go online right now so our science staff uh are we're constantly doing that so that's certainly an option something is happening thanks for that I I guess I'd I'd uh you know listen to the to the folks you know

[102:01] to Dan and his uh group that are out out there and hearing from them they feel like uh this actually could make problems worse to add the requirement so I I guess I I would uh vote and also particularly given I think James stated a very succinctly earlier which is that the the danger of transmission is much higher indoors than it is um Outdoors so I I would go more in the direction of upping our signage game um and uh maybe instructing education staff uh the Outreach staff to maybe have a focus on that for compliance purposes you know that if we have a better signage and the education folks okay they're not empowered to turn people away but they could say hey people you know we really are very strongly encouraging mask use so if you have them please put them on and if you don't please go get one and I have a power great question Dan so say we were to put an order in place um what would change about how your staff

[103:02] is addressing the public I mean I could see one thing being that rather the mass suggested you could just say Mass required or just simply wear a mask which you could you could do now um it doesn't even speak to whether it's recommended or required but say an order we're in place by Jane that said face coverings required on all when you're in public basically which would include open space What would your staff do differently in that case well in terms of the enforcement element with our Rangers how we're where our state it pretty much is right now based on a lot of visitation happening is that we're enforcing egregious behaviors were typically wouldn't be going in and tapping on someone's shoulder having them turn around if they're not having a mask you know doing enforcement so right now our mode of operation is is egregious Behavior looking turning to

[104:00] enforcement and I would imagine in terms of mask wearing it would have to it would probably have to fall into that level of category for our Rangers to sort of take the time to then go through the citation and and all the requirements that go along with actually issuing a citation so uh I would say it would be on par with all of our other rules and regs right now which we're looking at egregious Behavior got it and I guess the reason I ask it is because when we were talking about indoor um enforcement we have said that we would try and do that without law enforcement Personnel a view the Rangers is similar to law enforcement personnel and that they're um you know basically that's what they are and so if we were going to buy that same principle which is that we're not going to use your your Ranger Personnel because they're doing you know patrolling for rescues and more important violations or higher higher

[105:00] intensity violations would you not then be using your education staff in kind of the same way that you are to be telling people that they need to wear masks because they come on the trails yeah I think that summarizes it pretty well yes okay so I'm just going to say it one more time so that I understand if we were if team were to put an order in place which involved Outdoors um that it would still involve your educational staff doing Outreach um mostly that's correct and is there a reason you can't do that now in the absence of an order um uh face covering social distancing and some of our natural resource protection uh messaging is part of a canned sort of repertoire of of what we are currently putting out there we could certainly just uh such as uh Aaron alluded to we could up our ante if you will on signage in

[106:01] terms of trying to emphasis do more emphasis on the uh face coverings certainly we could make that more of our more of the repertoire but but it would primarily land within our education and Outreach staff and and the messaging very good I've got Rachel in the Mary Richard um yeah thanks um so part of what I was wondering about I think has been answered but how would this be different than in enforcing voice in sight like our Rangers how are tickets given for that like for dogs who are off leash when they're supposed to be on leash say in the lower parts of trails and things like that it seems like it's sort of just if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time you may get a ticket but yeah every every situation is a judgment uh for our Rangers of of where they how they want to treat that situation whether it's education or whether they

[107:02] would go to the route of of enforcement in that case so um I think how you're you're framing this question Rachel is it probably wouldn't be that different to how we would enforce any of our rules and regulations so you know if somebody were told that you know if we did have a rule in place that you were required to have a mask on and someone was told you got to go home and they said no I'm going to go on my hike that might turn into egregious behavior and net a ticket if there's a ranger there I guess part of what I'm wondering is a lot of us follow rules and laws because we do that that's our Baseline so if we don't have the rule we can't say you can't come here without a mask because that's not really the rule whereas if we have it um there will be people who are going to follow it because that is the rule and also because there's a threat that you might be there at the wrong time and get a ticket so I understand we don't necessarily want to

[108:00] uh jump into full enforcement and I I wouldn't want to do that either but at least having it in place gives us the option and encourages people to be compliant with the behavior especially if they were told by the Education team you can't do that without a mask and and when you if you do that when you come down if there's a ranger here you're going to get a ticket I mean that is theoretically possible stay radically possible yes um all right thanks I got married [Music] so um I'm with Aaron and um and Sam and I think um Sam the the colloquy that Sam had with um Dan kind of crystallized it for me in terms of with or without an outdoor order what would happen out in the field would be the same

[109:01] um and um the idea of upping the anti-on signage and education I think would probably work a lot better than having the order without upping the anti-education um so that's kind of where I've landed great and then we've got Juni and then nearby CUNY thank you well I think this is a very tough discussion for me so it's hard for me to I know the hard part is safety protecting people but at the same time I'm still slightly worried about enforcement that isn't unenforceable so to me it's very strange as well um but my question to them because to me when we say more signage I'm thinking more

[110:00] money and I'm thinking uh just an ordinance doesn't cost any money except probably Tom working on it which might be costly in a way so I was wondering if the issue is Manpower as far as uh presence out on the system yes because power because you mentioned signage and I'm thinking okay that's gonna cost money so what is the real issue as to why you don't think passing an ordinance that you know that would require people to wear a mask on open space so I'm really trying to get to the root cause of why we can't [Music] well um and just in terms of uh the the

[111:00] ability to ask for us to have more people out on our system that would all whatever would be even if we get to the stage where we get more of our volunteer naturalists out on the system we're talking purely education pretty much we're confined with how many Rangers we could possibly have out on the system at one time which is four to five at any given time so that capacity stays pretty set from where it is so any other um presence on the system for us would be in an education capacity and we are already have trained all of our education Outreach staff instead of being out on programming they're they're all now pretty much out on the system out on our trailheads doing that sort of visit visitor interactions we've already changed how they work currently right now under the covet situation so we're pretty Max already maxing out all of our education and Outreach staff so then and we are we are repurposing several

[112:01] individuals instead of working remotely to get trained to be out on our system so it's adding a couple more the next level up for us would be bringing back our volunteers and of course we don't want to bring back our volunteers until you know we feel we could be done in a safe Manner and all of that which you know still might be a few weeks out uh but volunteers would be the next opportunity for us to sort of provide that volunteer naturalist sort of messaging type of thing in terms of human power out on our system um to complement the signage so another question that I had for you because the question would be since we've been doing the education how has things improved because if things have improved substantially and there's no issue then there's no problem to solve but if there is a problem then we should address it do you see what I mean so has has has has your in education

[113:02] improve things for the better yes and but I would you know in full transparency where we're seeing the most Improvement is with social distancing so right now in fact our human's Dimension staff is trying to put some science behind the anecdotal information and we're seeing that on weekdays from a social distancing standpoint we're starting to get about 80 compliance on the weekends it falls down to 60 because we have a lot of newcomers there are a lot of people that are coming out of the system that have are first-time visitors to our open space who may not sort of know what's what the expectations are so on the weekday weekends that level of compliance falls off when it comes to face coverings we are well below social distancing in terms of compliance um we have a number of our neighborhoods that are not visited by visitors or company first-time people coming onto our system at the neighborhood level we're starting to get really strong

[114:00] compliance on both social distancing and with face coverings but when you go to a place like Chautauqua and some of those where you start get a mix of of neighborhood visitors who use that area all the time time and then newcomers or people who might be infrequent visitors our compliance numbers go down thank you great you're nearby yeah so I just wanted to thank Steph and Dan and everyone for this information um obviously it's a hard call but I think that just to give my two cents I'm going to fall in on the side of um supporting the requests from staff that's about it for me great and um nearby just to make sure I understand when you say supporting the request from staff you will not support um doing this as an order but we'll support doing it as additional assignments and education is that correct correct

[115:00] okay okay um so Bob yeah I may not have been clear before too so I'm with where mirabai is and um Aaron and Mary and I think you are Sam and maybe maybe Junius as well but but I'm I'm in favor of not extending an order to outside yet I like the suggestion of of increasing education increasing signages Karen suggested but um to to hold off on an outside order until we have a little bit more experience adopt the inside order now and then let's revisit this in a week or so okay I don't see any other hands up um yes Bob I am there but I would want Dan to um to be willing to put signage up that pretty much says that we want people to wear masks on open space so not even suggested just say you know the city of Boulder policy is that we have base

[116:00] coverings when we're in public um and we would like you to wear a mask on open space is that something that you could do we'll definitely be uh uh doing that looking at what enhancements we can do from that communication standpoint as well as what were voice messages are on our system and I will be checking in with our regional Partners to see what our regional Partners may be thinking in the weeks ahead in terms of face coverings and of course we may have more information from the county coming out soon too okay very good I've got Mark and the Mary uh if it is possible I'd like to check in again in a couple of weeks uh since there's no obviously no majority to put out an order today and and see how our policies are working and see what level of compliance we're getting and we can adjust at that time they're getting married um I wanted to just go back and address juni's concern regarding the cost of signage so is it a big expense Dan

[117:02] well I mean in the grand scheme of things of of a department it's a small number I I could already tell you that we've already busted our yearly budget for signage this year but um that is something that um we would not let the expense of good signage not happen because of because of that issue um so it is it is an expense we've already exceeded our signage budget allotment for the year but um we are seeing good effects are like I said from a social distancing our signage has had a pretty good effect and so you know I think that trumps uh busting the signed budget for the year well I think Council would probably agree to let you have our dinner budget so [Music] um

[118:02] I'm going to agree with Mark's suggestion that we do um not let this slide for very long um I seem to recall I can't remember it's it's two weeks out or three weeks out but coming up pretty soon we have a pretty light council meeting and so I'm going to suggest that CAC take out Mark's suggestion and put a concrete data out there and let's schedule you know 30 or 45 minutes with Dan on the on on the line I had a future council meeting a couple weeks out and let's revisit that Dan can report on what he's seen and whether this increase signage in education is working or whether we still have a problem and and maybe we read as it where we're at by then we'll have a couple weeks under our belt with us with the store order uh we'll go with probably what the county is going to do so I think we'll be a little smarter in a couple weeks but let's just let's not let it slide and say we'll do this in a few weeks and not do it let's put it on the calendar and definitely do it great and I'll jump in I agree with you Mark um I think I do want to check in in a couple weeks I think that's a very

[119:00] good idea as Bob said um and I guess Junie one one thought that I have is signs May cost a certain amount of money um but if we were to hire another Ranger um there's the training the salary and you know the overhead that goes along with that so I would guess that the cost of one additional Ranger for a year would be a lot more than signage at the trailheads so that's just a thought and then I've got Rachel while Dan is front and center one other question um from the governor's order um the I think it's gonna be safer at home order it says we're only supposed to recreate within 10 miles of home is that going to have an impact or is that something that we need to discuss it seems like we're still getting a lot of visitors yeah yeah I mean just based on the weekend versus weekday we know we're getting visitors in from the outside we're we have not we don't have a good way of tracking that type of information so it's anecdotal but we

[120:01] know we have a lot of uh first or newcomers to our system especially on the weekends especially at places like Chautauqua whether they're whether they're out of compliance with with the state order it's that would be anecdotal but I would say that we do see people coming in from the outside for sure okay great um one other thing I'll put out there before we close this off I don't think there's a majority to do an order right now it doesn't look like um it does seem like everyone would like to see this in a couple weeks one of the things the governor announced when he did safer at home was that there are new digital tracking tools um so a division of Google is working with the state to be able to use anonymized cell phone data to look at where people are clustering so where individuals are not maintaining social distancing in large numbers I assume the trailheads would be one of those so one

[121:01] thing I would suggest is to make sure that um are the parks and our open space Department hook up with the state in a week or two once they've rolled this digital platform Out and because I think you know that's where we can see Rachel's point where there are really big failures of social distancing because that's where mask wearing becomes the most important so anyway just a heads up that's supposed to be coming out here any day now Aaron but I don't disagree with you Sam but just wanted to offer just a quick caution I know some people have raised some privacy concerns over the the cell phone data just to be clear we're not saying that we would be monitoring anyone's cell phones this is strictly aggregated data uh completely stripped of any personal information that just shows where where um you know people may be clustering absolutely it is anonymizing so there's no personally identifiable information that's a good point Aaron thank you

[122:00] okay um anything else on the topic of Outdoors order okay I think the last thing I had on this was is there anything else we need to touch on on enforcement I think we heard pretty good answers from Bob and Jane with any other council member like to bring anything up on enforcement for the indoor order okay seeing none I'm gonna do something um where I think that we're going to get to the point after May 8th we're going to be opening um additional businesses to having people come inside other cities and even us um in our long-term care facilities have checklists that go out so um it would be great if we start thinking about if businesses that are going to be opening up that have not previously been opened um since we've gone to stay at home if we have some kind of one-page checklist for them to be able to go over

[123:00] um and see what we hope that they'll be doing as far as social distancing as far as mask wearing as far as having masks available for potential customers who arrive without one I think it would be great if we could work with the chamber and see if we could come up with a short simple non-burdensome checklist to be able to open businesses so that we're sure that they know um what the city guidelines are or having the public come in so that doesn't need to be decided now I just wanted to put that out there because it will be something that when they thumbs up and we're talking about this um how to how do we make sure that businesses are aware of um what the guidelines are that's my only comment on enforcement if we're done with this I think Jane have we given you everything you need for an indoor order yes you have thank you very much for great conversation and we definitely will report back on the open

[124:00] space issues in a couple of weeks according to what CAC scheduled so then then we're ready for the next item on the agenda which is really what we had planned for tonight which is our financial strategy and I guess Chris could you pull up the presentation yeah Sam I had a question before we left the covet briefing just because I had a general question okay go for it um and this is for Jane um I got a note from a member of the husband Advisory board that Hab and the human relations uh commission would not be meeting in any near term due to staffing issues and you don't have to answer this now or anything but I was just wondering if we could get an update as Council on to when they might start meeting again or when we'll have the adequate amount of staff for them to meet again because I think there are a lot of important issues that they could be looking at

[125:01] right now sure we'll have the HHS staff provide information on this later this week okay thank you you're welcome I'm sorry Jane to interrupt I've got Rachel with her hand up thanks yeah I thought maybe we have a little any other Copic question this moment as well and my question relates back to something I asked Jeff stack about which is I'm confused about what we've told people to do for Signature Gathering it seems like we've said kind of and I don't know if this should come up later just start waving your hands and I'll sit back but if it's not going to come up later I think it's something that we need to hit on um on the one hand we sort of said you can't gather signatures online and then on the other hand I think I'm hearing you also can't gather them in real life so I want to for us to take a couple minutes and clarify what we are telling the community who are working hard on

[126:00] these petitions I don't know who that's too I don't know who it's true either what's your who would you like to direct that to um I guess co-counselors and Jane if you have thoughts Jane or Tom um it it it felt like at the end of last week that we said um go ahead and set up tables and um go forth and knock on doors and collect signatures and then it also feels like we're hearing you're going to get the police called on you if you knock on doors and that's perhaps not uh an exception to the stay home order right now so I think if I were a petition signature gatherer I wouldn't know what to do and I think it's um it's our job to to clarify that so I have no Clarity to provide for it um the stay-at-home order is and people should be staying at home just like we said before the police are

[127:01] not out there after folks and so if someone were able to figure out a way in which they could provide a safe way of getting people to sign then we I don't think we would stop them from doing that I've I've heard that at least one petition gatherer has created some sort of a protocol for doing that and I I don't think the police are going to shut them down but the city is not providing guidance on this issue it's it's the rule is to follow the stay-at-home home order so again I think it would be um helpful for us as a council because we and and I didn't agree with the go go set up a table in a park because I think they're that is asking people to risk their lives and and possibly spread

[128:01] the virus so um I I think that was um I'm not sure if that was the will of the majority of council but I think it's it's confusing and um again I think we owe it to people to clarify as maybe as a council and I appreciate your input Jane and so to be clear the council only acts by as you know by motion ordinance or resolution and there was no motion um the only motion was to to was to pass on first reading the proposed ordinance and that failed um the the orders are still in effect and the last thing anybody wants people to do is to risk their lives in other people's lives in any way so the the I'm not sure what Guidance the city can give there are the the public health folks have issued orders that say stay at home don't do unnecessary outdoor activities um we've seen the signature Gathering has a certain level of risk and I and I understand the frustration of some folks and but I'm not sure what other guidance

[129:02] counsel could give and there's a suggestion here that if we want to open this up again it looks like a subject that we've already discussed once um it seems like we should send it to CAC and schedule it because we have a long night yet tonight I think we'll probably be here well after 11 so and we have people waiting so Rachel if it's okay with you we'll take this as a CAC item okay can I just yeah you're going to go ahead sorry yeah just that um uh it would be great to get the kind of hear back from uh County Public Health about their official opinion on that and uh if their opinion is that people shouldn't be collecting signatures then I would support um Rachel's desire to bring that back up again okay CAC will head on the docket thanks

[130:01] okay Jane I think you're ready to go with the next item yes so the next item is the financial update and the lead presenter on this will be Cheryl patelli but also presenting will be rich wobbikand and um I think Brian Lewandowski from the University of Colorado yes on the list and then event Bowden will be presenting information about the business survey and finally Kara Skinner will be talking to us about um the major part of our financial presentation so Cheryl I'm going to turn it over to you thanks Jane and and thank you uh good good evening Council and thanks for going over the agenda Jane so I'm just going to turn it over to Rich and Brian um from the business research division of Cu to give us their presentation on a covid economic update well thank you Cheryl and thank you

[131:00] Council for inviting us to be here tonight I'm rich wavekin at the lead School of Business and you know a number of you through the years uh co-presenting with me tonight is Brian Lewandowski the executive director of the business research Division and we have been doing unfortunately a lot of work in this area over the last month and a half as these unexpected economic events have come forward and obviously impacting revenue streams and and employment and all sorts of things that we wish weren't there so if we move on to the next slide we can sort of work our way through this the points of our discussion here tonight we have about I think about 30 slides I'm going to take you through the first 10 or 12 and then Brian's going to take over um obviously we've had this exponential growth in domestic cases of covid the economy was on a strong footing prior to that on its you know sort of potential

[132:02] GDP path the economic data really lags and so we're looking at data trying to make sense out of it right now um when we know we've seen you know fairly dramatic impacts and we're going to show you some of that in the slides that we present um we think the cares act and uh and the second round last week of the SBA Loans are going to help mitigate the impact not eliminate it but help mitigate it uh select Industries are bearing the initial brunt which you know and you're seeing here locally so we're trying to gonna try to tie this not just to Colorado but to the local Boulder County economy as we go forward we were on a you know Colorado we were on a fantastic footing going into this pre-crisis all we were talking about was we couldn't find enough employees and and how low the unemployment rate was and how think quickly things have

[133:03] changed uh where as a state Overexposed to some of the downturn and that's showing up in some of the initial data in terms of how dramatically our unemployment rate has shifted in just a short time period at the state level but we're also well positioned in other areas in Boulder County would be certainly part of that City in Boulder and the Boulder County in terms of well-positioned in other areas so as we move to the next slide we can talk a little bit about my concept here of just saying we were on the path we were very close to the GDP growth rate that we anticipated for the economy what we would call potential GDP if you look at the very end of the black line on this particular graphic you can see before sort of right on the line people may have been hoping we would have had three or four percent GDP growth but the reality was is for the economy at full

[134:03] employment we're really talking talking much more about a two to a two and a half percent GDP growth rate now all of a sudden we've fallen off the wagon first quarter GDP we'll we'll be seeing some of those numbers shortly first quarter GDP is going to show we think a slight negative but still we had a couple of months of a pretty strong economic growth in the first quarter the second quarter is going to be um I think it's fair to say brutal um know somewhere around minus 25 or minus 30 percent GDP growth and then we see a bounce back up in uh third quarter and then as you can see in our graphic on the right hand side a little bit of a um a dip down so really while we're talking about here and I think what's in the background of the national forecast which influences the state forecast which obviously influence was Bolder as

[135:01] well in terms of the recovery is you know what kind of recovery is it um is it a U-shaped recovery I know you're hearing these things and reading them and you've read all of this uh is that a Nike Swoosh kind of recovery which we've been talking about with your uh staff with your staff um I think we're leaning a little bit more towards the fact that it's probably going to wind up being something like a w in the sense that there will be a second wave no matter how well we do everything we're trying to do there will be a little bit of a bounce back effect in terms of covid which is certainly you know at some point we'll slow the economy down a little bit again but overall we think the second piece of the W is much smaller than the first piece and we do go on to you know reasonable amount of economic health as we go forward so if we move to the next slide if you would

[136:01] um you can see this incredibly dramatic loss of jobs that we just saw in the last monthly jobs report the next one's going to be every bit is bad or Worse coming out here here very shortly and what you're really seeing is a very quick movement down compared to say the 2008 economic downturn we lose the jobs very quickly and then at least in our view you can see the the blow up in the upper right hand corner depending on the type of recovery we get back to sort of the same employment level uh two years out 27 months out of some number like that as opposed to the 2008 downturn well we didn't get back you know for 16 months or more five years or more to get back to the same level of employment so it's it's a it's different if you will than than either actually the other two

[137:00] recessions you see on this graphic in terms of the amount of time it takes to recover the employment laws it's quite a bit shorter even though it's so dramatic um the time to recovery because of the infrastructure still being in place and particularly the financial system still being in place enables a more rapid economic recovery if you can move to the next slide please the initial jobless claims this is at the national level you'll see us live for Colorado and a little bit but you can see uh the dramatic ramp up in the initial unemployment claims through the 11th we had continuing claims of over 15 million with 4 million additional last week so we're gonna quickly go over 20 million unemployed in terms of continuing claims and it probably means we're going to hit an unemployment rate somewhere up in the 15 percent range in the second quarter

[138:00] nationally but by the end of the year as I'm sort of suggesting that number I should slow it slightly here if people don't follow this all the time but that number nationally has started this whole thing at three and a half percent uh it's and it's on its way up to as I'm suggesting 15 maybe you know in that range by the end of the year I think you could be talking eight percent by the end of next year you're talking a number that's back down in uh you know six percent range or five something so you're talking about uh a recovery as as businesses open back up but again it's going to be how quickly your business is going to open back up how um willing are people going to be to comply and I would say I have to be fair after I've listened to the last hour plus of your discussion when I thought it was very thoughtful so I I commend you um it's not just the business is

[139:00] complying it's the people walking in the store um one of the stores I shop in slight digression instituted a mask policy for customers coming in and the customers coming in got irate with the store owners and I think that that's something that you know we have to sort of keep in mind as we go forward here people need to sort of get in the game here too businesses certainly do but but the customers need to get in the game too to see this sort of recovery next slide please so one of the ways we're going to be measuring this is the things that are more like high frequency indicators things that happen more quickly or anticipate the future leading indicators as we call them in in economics and we've had to rely more on this because the this drop-off was so dramatic you know fundamentally a government shutdown of the economy which we've never done before so when you you see the government you know the effect of the

[140:01] government shutdown you you all of a sudden you're the things that you've relied on the economic data you rely on which lags a month or two months becomes you know less effective so one thing of course we've been looking at is consumer confidence how confident is the consumer that they're going to come back in the game you can see on the right hand side the index done by the University of Michigan um dramatic drop off there the one on the left hand side this is as of yesterday came out today the number today is down at 80. so it's it's going to have the same sort of dramatic drop off but one encouraging thing is actually the six month out number went up from last month's reading so consumers at least seem to think that this is dramatic but maybe you know not long lasting and and as you know consumers um 70 percent of the economy in terms of consumption patterns so it's really important that they get back in the game

[141:01] if they have the ability to get back in the game and that's going to help again businesses survive and and tax structures survive in government revenue flow survive and all of the things that we're we know are important next slide please so our own business confidence index which was done and um in March and released in the beginning of April showed a dramatic drop-off again to a level lower than 2009 and when we were in the prolonged recession however uh also indicated a bump up for six months out so um people thought businesses thought it's really bad right now but it's we're less pessimistic about the future in terms of the six month out scenario so I think a lot of this is indicative of times will be a little bit better but we just don't know how fast that's going to happen next next slide please

[142:02] so this is what's projected for 2020 and we're going to tie this together with Colorado and and to Boulder here as the presentation goes on so just bear with me if you would for a couple of minutes so you can see the big job losses are in accommodations and Food Services a big part of of course the Leisure and hospitality industry uh which is important to Boulder uh is hugely important to Colorado uh more important to Colorado than frankly Boulder or Boulder County but retail trade some impact on manufacturing with facilities being shuttered and then in transportation and utilities obviously big impact particularly air transportation and in the case of Colorado DIA being a very important piece of our overall economic picture so you can sort of see the different areas that are impacted everything impacted in terms of job loss nobody has a job game in 2020

[143:03] but some Industries have a substantially bigger drop loss and again Brian's going to tie that directly back to Colorado and to Boulder here a little bit later in the presentation next slide please so as we look at Colorado we can move to the next slide so this is the point of Colorado being in a particularly Strong place going into this you can see the one year three year five year and ten year uh numbers in terms of where we are where Colorado is in terms of its overall ranking and the numbers are extremely strong and frankly you know we finished and in terms of uh per capita personal income growth sixth in the last year personal income growth sixth in the last year we had you know very very strong 2019 income income growth numbers

[144:00] what started to happen even prior to uh and we're seeing this in the data now because it's lagged a little bit we started to see a little bit of impact that the state level from the oil and gas industry Fallout in 2000 and in uh sort of the February and the earlier part and then of course that got hugely compounded in March with what's happened with the Corona and the unemployment rate you see down there starred we just put the most recent one in there so we fell from number three nationally a 2.5 percent to number 31 we're below the average for the state with the unemployment numbers we've racked up over the last several weeks and and again that's going to be getting even worse so all of this pretends if we move to the next slide please before I hand off to Brian all of this portends um difficult fiscal situation last week

[145:01] Brian and I spoke to the Democratic Senate and House committee members on a call and kind of made out what we saw coming in terms of job growth and so on which you'll see here in the next few slides we also had a meeting two weeks ago of the governor's rest of Revenue estimating advisory committee they're of course going to come out with their budget forecast for the state in uh the second week of May um but they're going to be looking at extremely large uh deficits in in terms or Revenue shortfalls over the next three year period much larger than they mentioned in the in the mark when they came out in March these these numbers are going to go up fairly dramatically and I think there's going to be a pretty big issue about whether or not uh how easy it will be for them to borrow from the federal government or law or get loans from the federal

[146:02] government I think all of that is something that's going to take a lot of analysis operating under the taxpayer Bill of Rights so with that and with this slide up there I'm going to hand off to Brian and again thank you for inviting us tonight and we'll be here for Q a uh once Bryant finishes thanks Rich and thanks Council and Cara and Cheryl for the invitation to speak this evening so rich really set up the the national macroeconomic environment and now I'm going to zoom in more to Colorado older metropolitan area and when I can related to the city of Boulder so this is showing Colorado job as claims and what you can see here is that we've really had to rescale the entire chart because we went from this sort of steady state of really low initial claims to a record Spike to a record level of initial unemployment claims in Colorado

[147:02] and when we take a look at the spike that started happening around March 21st the the week of March 21st and and if you sum up these last five weeks what you can see here is that we've had over 300 000 initial jobless claims in Colorado and we'd actually have to go back a full three years in order to match what we've seen in just five weeks in the state and of course you're an initial claim once and then you move over to be a continued claim and that's why we see kind of this this week delay in the increase in continued jobless claims in Colorado but a couple points here is that if if we divide the total claims over the last five weeks by total employment what we see is the jobless claims amount to about 10.7 percent of Colorado employment and that's important because as Rich mentioned the a lot of the data that we look at leg and so unemployment

[148:01] right now we did see it increase to four and a half percent in Colorado uh compared to 4.4 nationally and that's really the first time in a very long time that we've been above the national rate for unemployment um but when we zoom in and take a look at claims by County I think it's also interesting to see that Boulder County is 53rd lowest in the state as a percentage of jobless claims to Total employment and particularly if we take a look at the urban counties Boulder County has the lowest rate among the urban counties and it's still not low and still much higher than it has been in a long time but there's there's some some attribute in Boulder County that's causing us to outperform the rest of the state I think it's also important to note Behind These numbers we see a spike in tourism expect to see a spike given some of the

[149:00] the lockdown orders on industry we see a spike in retail we see a spike in healthcare which I'll talk about in a moment and we see a spike in other services and then a smaller magnitude over other Industries we also see a plurality of initial claims among people ages 25 to 34 and we also see more women than men filing initial claims slide so um as we were walking into 2020 uh the story that we were telling is that we expected Colorado to add jobs at a slower rate we expected Colorado to add the fewest number of jobs since 2011. at the slowest Pace that we had seen since a Great Recession so certainly our story walking into this year was growing but slowing and now we have radically changed our Outlook we've been running our economic model pretty much weekly and the the way we do this

[150:01] is we run different scenarios so we we start with sort of a baseline economic expectation and then we look at more positive say more optimistic and more pessimistic views of the economy and now we're projecting a loss of about 160 000 jobs in Colorado this year which notably is greater than what we saw during the Great Recession but um different from the Great Recession if if we had the 2021 number up here we expect job growth to resume in 2021. but you can see in the upper right hand of this chart is the the w-shaped recovery that rich was describing earlier we think things will get a little bit better and then there's sort of this expectation that things will retrench a little bit as we go through as Garden stop economy that parallels a start and stop covid flare-up as as some of the conventional wisdom is right now so please advance

[151:00] um when we take a look at where the job losses have been similar to what I was mentioning about initial claims we sort of have this front line of the economic crisis and the front line of the other things so this represents about 26 percent of Colorado employment these four Industries do so it's a significant employer in the state and I think the other notable thing here is that these tend to be our lowest paying jobs in the state so these tend to be our minimum wage jobs or just above minimum wage they also tend to be many of our part-time jobs they they tend to be jobs that don't provide a lot of employee benefits so we describe many of these jobs or many of these employees at our uh as our most high risk or our most vulnerable employees in the state flip side of this is our above average paying Industries tend to be things like professional and Technical Services you know things like software development research and development engineering

[152:01] type Services these are high skill high paid high high Highly Educated jobs that Colorado performs very well and we recruit a lot of these jobs to Colorado a lot of these people to Colorado and this is also one of Boulder's comparative advantages these jobs have held up very well so far and they also lend better to working from home this this could be say one bit of Silver Lining that we have in our economy so please advance so I I described the front line of the economic crisis his retail tourism um Rich mentioned mining Statewide oil and gas is under a lot of pressure right now with the extremely low uh oil commodity prices that we have other services are also what we describe on the front line of the economic crisis but then secondary to this I also want to mention health care because on one hand Healthcare is on the front line of

[153:00] the the Health crisis but then we also have a huge swath of health care workers like General Practitioners dentists orthodontists who are pretty idle right now like like many people in the economy because their offices are by and large closed we also see governments on kind of the second wave of the economic crisis and of course that's because of the severe decrease that we're seeing in public revenues particularly sales and use taxes at the local level and at the state level sales and use as well as this anticipation of a decrease in income taxes but that's not to say that any of these industries are overly protected we we expect some sort of loss across almost every industry here so please advance uh very little of this data is is burying out the the true impact of the economic crisis right now so initial job as claims are and we finally could see

[154:01] one month of jobs impact by industry when the March numbers came out uh and so this is one month job change for Colorado both in percent terms and in absolute jobs but there's there's um an underbelly to this that you should understand as well this data is really represented by a survey of employers nationally and it's a statistically significant survey so it is fairly representative but the survey period ends on the 12th day of the month so think back to the 12th day of March and what was going on Colorado wasn't under lockdown orders yet we had seen some school closures but not in Mass yet the Statewide school closures hadn't come about this ski resorts were enclosed yet um we hadn't seen bars and restaurants closed yet and uh so what we really expect is that this is only showing part of the story and when we get the April data this is going to look much much

[155:01] worse so go ahead and Advance please I also want to remind you just taking a look at how the boulder metropolitan area has performed compared to the state of Colorado and the U.S since 2004 and particularly if we take a look back at the last recession what happened the U.S lost from Peak to trough we saw the U.S shed about 6.3 percent of employment we saw Colorado perform a little bit worse where we lost 6.6 percent of our jobs interestingly we recovered faster than the nation and we ended up having the third best employment recovery in the nation behind Utah and Texas but the the boulder MSA we we ended up getting hit a little bit harder here we ended up losing 6.8 percent of our jobs from Peak to trot and um while we were in in sync with the state and recovery for a while we've we've underperformed a little bit

[156:01] compared to the states and part of that is just kind of a capacity issue within Boulder if we compare Boulder to the National economy it is still very much outperformed the nation next slide please okay so rich showed you an image that looked at um potential job losses by industry in 2020 and what we did is just a a simple comparison of older Industries lost a similar percentage so taking a a respective percentage off each of Boulders Industries and um what's interesting here is if we tallied up all of these industry losses we outperform the nation a little bit not vastly but we're we're interestingly a little bit less concentrated in retail employment than the nation and that's both in terms of jobs and in GDP we're just a little under retail

[157:01] here um and we're slightly over retailed in Boulder County in things like hotels well I I should say in the tourism sector so that's both on the entertainment side the restaurant side and and the hotel side I have all put together but some of the strongest areas nationally are the information sector and that's also a space that Boulder performs very well in um the finance and insurance and real estate sectors those are areas where Boulder has a higher than average concentration and you can see here where the losses are more minimal so Boulder has some strengths going into this and we also have some weaknesses as we walk into this so please advance but also remember that Boulder is a higher than average paying community and the state is well the state is 11th highest in the nation at about 62

[158:01] thousand dollars per job Boulder is even higher at 73 000 but if if we equate this to job losses that would mean for every 13 000 jobs that are lost in the county that's a billion dollars plus in uh in income and therefore a billion dollars that's lost in consumption ability so that kind of starts to equate it to the kind of risk that exists as Jobs start to go away so please advance I showed you the um the risk profile of that Frontline impact on the state when we zoom into Boulder County we have a similar percentage so these four Industries other services retail uh tourism sectors they represent about a quarter of Boulder's total employment and again a lower percentage of wages which is perhaps

[159:00] a blessing on one side because that's less total income that's lost but occurs on the other side because those are many of our most business Industries where where does Boulder have a sort of a competitive Advantage when it comes to our industry composition we know that Boulder has a lot of professional and Technical Services so again these this is r d uh this is software development this is engineering this is accounting and then our information sector which includes software publishing and Manufacturing which often surprises people we we have a a high concentration of high-tech manufacturing think of Aerospace manufacturing they also have a high concentration of food and beverage manufacturing think of our natural and organics food sectors and then you can see where some of those tourism and government sectors government especially when it comes to the federal Labs that's where we start to see an over concentration of that activity so there

[160:00] you start to see where where we could be Overexposed to some areas and maybe underexposed that could buffer us a little bit as we start to come out of this next slide please so let's talk about tourism for a moment we know that tourism industry has been hit very hard I put this slide up here because I I want to point out that um for some communities in Colorado like our ski communities so think of 15 Summit in Eagle counties for these communities tourism represents about 40 percent of employment within those communities so this is their primary industry and when the tourism industry gets hit during recessions it's it has a very outsized impact on those Resort communities but for a place like Boulder or Broomfield for Boulder it's about 12 percent of our total employment for Broomfield it's nine percent of total employment for Denver it's about 12

[161:00] percent it's so um our Front Range communities are much more Diversified um but interestingly over 80 percent of the tourism jobs are along the Metropolitan Front Range so this is just a huge jobs-based along the Front Range I I tell you this because no one really is unscathed from a downturn even just in the tourism industry next slide please and this is showing you sort of this historical perspective of what happens to the tourism industry during recessions it's fairly predictable that tourism loses because nationally the jobs go away if if some disposable personal income goes away we see a decrease in visitation to Colorado we see a decrease in spending in the the tourism industry um but when we take a look at how Boulder's tourism industry has performed

[162:01] during past recessions we also see that it was negatively impacted but it has outperformed so um restaurants are part of of the tourism industry uh we when we think about restaurants and we think about the recovery we think the the restaurant recovery will happen faster along the Metropolitan Front Range because um those those restaurants are serving much more of a local population base as well as tourists but more of our local residents whereas our Mountain Resort communities are really dependent on Outsiders coming into the community so they're they're going to be more dependent on a not only a Colorado recovery but a National Recovery or perhaps a global recovery to uh to really see their industry recover next slide please and then the retail sector so um again mentioning that there's there's there's only a few economic metrics we can

[163:01] really point to as evidence of the crisis that we're walking into right now we can take a look at national retail sales as as one of those data points we saw a record one month decrease in national retail sales 8.7 percent decline month over month and 6.2 percent year over year next slide please what's interesting here is when we take a look at the the decline and the growth by retail sub sector you can see the areas that are outperforming in the areas that are underperforming so if any of you have gone to a Costco or to a grocery store in the past month you you can really relate to the the type of panic buying that has happened in our grocery stores and our liquor stores and this really shows up in the federal retail data so we saw about a 26 percent increase uh month over month in grocery

[164:00] store sales um and then we saw a little bit of an increase in health and personal care stores so think of more of like your your Walgreens type stores and then building materials so Home Depots and Lowe's have actually done sort of okay um but then on the very downside we've seen sharp decreases in restaurants and bars because they're not open we've seen a sharp decrease in furniture stores and we saw the sharpest decrease in clothing stores so we we've kind of loosely said you know people are buying a lot of groceries but they're not buying a lot of yoga pants and that's that's really what this is kind of bearing out next slide please so we don't have this sort of early indicator for um for Colorado so this is Statewide retail sales uh we just got the March retail report that is really reflecting on February sales and we still saw a really strong year-over-year growth 6.9 year-over-year we saw a decrease in use

[165:00] taxes which is not related to covid used taxes have been on a decline for probably about 10 months now but what I described when talking about Colorado state sales and use taxes is just reminding people that Colorado has a very disaggregated tax structure we focus on the the two or three billion dollar shortfall at the state level a lot of this driven will be driven by sales taxes as well as income taxes but also remember that because of this disaggregated structure local communities actually collect the majority of retail sales taxes within the state and that's why we're starting to see it bear out with our municipalities and cities like Boulder like Broomfield or others who are facing budget crises next slide please and and um your uh City staff will discuss City sales and use taxes more in a moment

[166:01] um but we we don't really have ample data to talk about the covet impact on the city of Boulder uh retail uh sales and use taxes but we we had already seen a decrease in collections in January and February year over year and we think this will very much be exacerbated by the covet pandemic next slide please um and just describing the the mix of your tax collections here and relating that to what we saw nationally the the red um the the red narrative here is really focusing on the largest decreases that we saw at the national level so our restaurants General retail Home Furnishings Automotive Sales those are the components where we saw the sharpest decrease as well as clothing stores next slide I'm just gonna wrap up by talking a little bit about real estate

[167:01] um so Statewide we saw a decrease in the value of construction for residential for commercial buildings and and also for infrastructure in in 2019 we saw a similar Trend in Boulder County and and we've seen this continue in 2020 we have data through March that shows uh about a 30 percent decrease overall in the value of construction and I think we can also relate to this when we take a look at the construction use taxes for the city of Boulder there's a there's a there's a decrease in 2019 and we're seeing a continued decrease in 2020. so this this isn't anything that's very different from the state but this is showing you kind of the the the detail behind some of those tax collection numbers we're just seeing a decrease in activity in general next slide please um but when we take a look at prices from the Boulder area Realtor

[168:00] Association we can see that there's still been upward momentum in uh Boulder housing prices and relating this back to the Great Recession there is a very uh subtle decrease in the median home price in 2009 I think it was about four or five percent so it wasn't the sort of steep fall that we saw in other communities it's hard to really understand what that will mean during this pandemic especially because we know that universities nationally are being very negatively impacted and there's a lot of questions about what that means for freshman enrollment or for attrition and what that goodbye extension mean for residential rentals in Boulder or on the hill come this fall but that historical perspective shows us that Boulder tends to outperform the state and the national housing market next slide please and then lastly thinking about assess

[169:01] property values and what that means for property taxes ultimately we again we saw a very subtle impact during the Great Recession I think assess property values in Boulder County were down maybe about uh three percent or so and residential was down about one percent um so we part of that was the the luck of the assessment cycle which happens every two years the the the assessment cycle didn't hit the trough of the last recession um the the assessment came right before the last recession and we think that that is similar in this case where we will hit we will miss the trough of the recession during this assessment cycle so perhaps assess property values will hold up okay side please um we're watching many of these other metrics we're working with the boulder chamber and the boulder Economic Council in their coved 19 economic recovery and response and

[170:02] tracking economic variables for them so they can stay tuned to kind of present day where we are where we have been and we want to provide some insight on where we can be going and then lastly next slide um just to reiterate that like uh Rich mentioned with the nation and with with um Colorado Boulder was on a fairly strong economic footing heading into the covid-19 pandemic and um we while we certainly have some areas of risk within our Boulder economy we also have some areas of strength that we think could buffer us a little bit from the negative shock from the pandemic so I apologize for going a little bit long but we are welcome to take any of your questions if you have any for us thank you great and I want to say thank you to both Richard and Brian for being here this was a really good presentation to

[171:01] give us some context both nationally and then how older County fits into this and then the city of Boulder on top of that so thank you very much for your time and your patience and what we had our discussion of the covet issues um I have a question here from Mary Young thank you both I'd like to Echo um the gratitude that Sam shared with you I have a couple of questions for um rich and um the first one has to do with at the very beginning of your presentation you um talked about the confidence um index um and the the consumer confidence and consumer sentiment and um I was curious to see what constitutes those um indices and

[172:01] um and how they relate to this current situation so when it comes there are Cox's for about our indices for both business and for consumers but specifically on the consumer side questions are asked about how do you feel about your job how do you feel about your income and and there's questions that are focused on now and into the future so how do you feel about the present situation how do you feel about the future situation you know for recall when I was saying it but I was talking about they're extremely pessimistic about the current situation but they're feeling a little bit better about the future situation and then they ask us a set of questions about they ask about interest rates and inflation and stuff but as relates to what we're talking about here they ask people if they're going to go out and buy if they're going to go out and consume again and particularly Big Ticket items automobiles

[173:02] um what we call durable goods durable consumer goods things that people would spend a little bit more money on home furnishings one of the things Brian's Brian mentioned spend a little bit more money on but it's a bigger ticket item and they could hold off if you know they don't need to replace their couch they don't need to replace their carpeting they don't need to replace their car they can repair it whatever it might be or bicycle in the case of Boulder so when we're looking at those confidence indexes we want to know if they're going to get back in the game and again the reason it's so important for the US and Colorado too is because consumers are such a huge portion of GDP and when consumers spend money we have retail sales tax at the state level and at the local level that's an extremely important flow to fund government in Colorado and other parts of the country but in Colorado

[174:00] so we're really wondering if the consumers will get back and what makes it interesting this time more than anything I've seen in my lifetime is that you have not only the economic you know like we had 2008 2009 are people getting their economic confidence back you also have the psychological confidence the thing you were what you were talking about the first two hours of your meeting tonight are people going to be willing to go back into stores what will set up uh um what parameters do we need to put in place that people are confident that they're going to be safe going back into a retail store going back into a restaurant and so on so we those are the things that are you know we've never faced that before um you can say you know the earlier outbreak of covet in the 19

[175:00] you know 20 years ago or whatever it was but it wasn't anywhere near this level so we've never really faced that before we don't know what it's going to take and we particularly don't know what it's going to take amongst older folks like me for us to go back and spend money and be in those retail environments and and that's a critical side piece for Boulder I think because we do have a lot of wealthier older people and if they're not comfortable you know you know I'm buying pick up at the curb right now but but am I going to really jump back into the restaurant you know so just things to think about things that make Boulder different and Brian and I wanted to hopefully have a conversation with you about that what makes Boulder a little different but there is the broader just sort of when's the economy recover so thank you for your question yeah and so just a little bit of to dig a Little Deeper when these questions are asked how they feel about their jobs now

[176:01] how do they feel about their jobs in the future who are they asking are they asking a broad spectrum of folks who who yeah so so there's it's a statistically sound sample it's Nationwide um the the one we subscribe to is the consumer confidence survey which is done by a very reputable firm out of New York the conference Board of Think Tank in New York City but the University of Michigan does one too that's the other one that we we showed on the graphic and they do a nationwide sample it's it's not huge but it's a direct phone call to the house and a discussion with the people in the house you know how do you feel about your employment do you think you're going back all those kinds of things and because it's done very consistently and both of the surveys do multiple sampling per month so it's not

[177:00] even just one sample per month and it's been done the same systematic way over a long period of time I think they're sampling techniques or not people don't criticize their sampling techniques in normal times we would say they've been say it this way but in normal times we'd say that's good supplemental information but right now because we don't have enough real-time information on the economy we're relying more on these competent surveys to sort of see where we're going in the future how quickly consumers and also businesses like our business confidence index are going to jump back into the game okay thank you um and my second question had to do with um you know you showed your bar graphs of the industries who's impacted basically in the number of jobs per industry and um the the the highest job losses were

[178:03] um in the accommodations and and um Hotel industry tourism industry um but the lease and Rental section was hardly impacted so how is it that when all of these people lose their jobs the lease and retail industry is fairly untouched how is that possible well because you still need people to show the places that are empty if they actually wind up losing their homes their rental properties or have to move out so that that particular sector are the people in the sort of Finance field who help fill rental properties and so on so they don't really lose their jobs the more vacancies that are sitting out there in an apartment complex the more you need those people to help try to fill those places so you'd expect some

[179:00] loss there because those businesses are going to be suffering that own the properties and they're going to be tightening their you know cost controls if you will but you wouldn't expect them to lay off all of their rental staff when they have a lot of properties to fill so you know it's a maybe an unfortunate byproduct and and to highlight what Brian was saying the people impacted by this are by far the most vulnerable people in our economy by far so this is you know they're not likely to have savings they're not for a lot of savings um so this is what makes this particularly um I don't want to just say problematic painful in in my view um you're the people who are losing their jobs are the people who can't afford to lose their jobs and the people at the higher end of the spectrum who are working from home and and and can

[180:00] afford to work a little bit less maybe are not the people being as heavily impacted so this is a tough one to watch you know from the outside I think I might add to that too that um when we take a look at those job estimates nationally and relate them to Boulder we're looking at the the covered employees so these are people who are working for a firm and um a lot of the the real estate people that we think about the the um the agents are self-employed so we're not even describing this whole Suite of self self-employed individuals within the economy and that represents another 25 or so jobs of jobs in the Colorado economy so yeah that's partially why that real estate rental and leasing slice looks so small yeah um because of the lack of self-employed in that number yeah it's showing the people yeah that's helpful yeah it's

[181:01] showing people who are renting the properties it's not showing Realtors the vast majority of Realtors would be in the category Brian just described to you self-employed they work for Re Max but they're actually a sole proprietor working for Re Max so they don't show up as covered employment yeah okay thank you that's all I have thank you great Mark Wallach yeah first thank you for that presentation it was fascinating um I was struck by the fact that you seem to have a very optimistic sense of the recovery by the end of the year effectively projecting cutting the unemployment rate in half from 15 or so to eight percent um does that projection take into account the possibility that there's a Resurgence of uh covet in the third or fourth quarter um and if not what do you think that might look like and secondly though do your projections

[182:01] take into account the possible long-term structural impacts on a number of businesses such as sports events entertainment uh restaurants hotels Etc so this is an interesting question and you might be able to answer it better than I'm going to so about it we do have a w as Brian mentioned in the recovery so we see it going up and going down a little bit so is eight percent too low maybe maybe it's not it's nine at the end of the year and it you know Works its way down you want my honest opinion I don't think we don't for people like me we don't see recovery until we see a vaccine I love the travel and I you know I I travel a lot you can see Hawaii behind me um but um am I going to be jumping in an airplane with United

[183:00] until I know that I'm gonna get out the other end and I'm going to be okay so I think for a certain group of consumers and I think this group this group as I was highlighting earlier live in Boulder a number of them you're going to be talking about a little bit longer path to Recovery in terms of them economic recovery in terms of them participating as heavily in the economy um but all that said the physical infrastructure is in place and the economy was on pretty good footing going into this as we highlighted so we don't see it as a five-year recovery you know the quote jobless recoveries of 2001 and 2008 we see this more as a a shorter term recovery once we figure out the pandemic and you have a sense of the impact if we have another stay-at-home order in November just because there's a Resurgence yeah so I don't so

[184:02] we didn't put a stay in home order into the forecast we did put a bump up and expecting more cases but I think at the end of the day don't laugh at me when I say these things because I'm jumbled on this stuff too at the end of the day we think that that who the power is that be at all levels they're trying to balance uh the economic system with the health care System and we think with more testing in place and these other things that the likelihood of sort of more massive shutdowns later in the year aren't going to happen that said I think we'll be potentially for example watching football games with nobody in the stands uh I don't think you're going to see that part of the economy recover until 2021 and again I think that's

[185:00] honestly vaccine related when we ran our Baseline scenario we did describe it as W and we we do expect that this fall there will be some starts and stops within the economy um I mean so much of this is educated guesswork when you think about the trajectory right now because um how how will States reopen we're getting more guidance on that um how will consumers behave as we're coming out of this you pose a question um that we've thought about too is when will people be comfortable standing shoulder to shoulder again at a concert at Red Rocks when will people be comfortable sitting three feet away at a restaurant table again and there's so many unknowns about how consumers will behave but then thinking further on down the line um what what does a possible increase in in covid-19 rates look like this winter

[186:03] later on what does a vaccine look like and how effective is it so um that's that's why we end up running alternative scenarios so some of our more pessimistic scenarios that we run take a look at a multi-year recession which helps community entities say stress tests their own budgets because not only can you see what our Baseline expectation is you can you can see what a more pessimistic protracted slump is on the economy um and and when I say that uh our our job losses are this year and we start adding next year yeah we we are optimistic that we start adding jobs back next year but we think it's uh about 36 months or so before we recover jobs lost under a baseline scenario so that shows you that the path to recovery is still a ways away before we're just

[187:00] back to where we were in say February and um the the optimistic side though of that is that if that were to happen if it's three years before we get back to par that's a faster recovery than the Great Recession and for Colorado that's even a faster recovery than the 2000 2001 recession which had a very protracted uh recovery uh on this state in particular thank you great top of course I want to thank rich and Brian This was um Illuminating it wasn't um it wasn't happy news but it was news that we needed to hear so thank you so much for being here and sharing this with us and I I hope that our staff will invite you guys back and maybe two or three months when your crystal ball becomes a little bit more clear and you'll have more data and and can look into the second half of the year with with more Precision but my comment was actually not so much a question for for Rich and Brian it was just uh to share with my Council colleagues um on the hospitality industry here in

[188:00] Boulder uh Richard Brian both touched up on the significant impact I'm the council liaison to the boulder Convention of visitors bureau and we had some pretty tough board meetings over the last couple of weeks and I think council members received a letter from Marianne Mahoney um indicating that the board has made a decision to um furlough or lay off most of the CBB staff conventional business girl staff and to um reduce or eliminate most of the plans spending this year on things like advertising and websites and all the things that the CBB does to encourage group sales and conventions and visitors to Boulder and the reason for that of course is is there there are no not many visitors coming and so it didn't make sense to spend a lot of money on those things and more importantly Marianne wanted to keep her powder dry that she wanted to to take the the the cash in the reserves that she has and be prepared for um when the economy does start to turn whether it's later this year early next year so that she and she could re-engage

[189:01] her staff and have the funds available to really um push hard to repair the damage that we're seeing right now I think it's a wise move um and uh you'll see her and her team spring back into action once it makes sense to um to start spending money and bring visitors back to Boulder so Bob if I'm a related but unrelated um one of the things Brian um has been focusing on when he's been we've been doing these presentations is we feel better about um the restaurant situation my comments aside we feel better about the restaurant situation because it's in the Front Range it's driven so much by local people actually going to the restaurants as opposed to just totally relying on tourists as we see more of for example in Summit County so we're we're hopeful at least that the restaurant industry will recover Sans uh

[190:01] the tourism piece but the tourism piece is really going to rely on both the covet recovery and the National Recovery because people coming to Colorado are for conventions and so on are extremely important for the Colorado economy in terms of that sort of Revenue stream we painfully cancel the conference we had scheduled at the Boulderado in September last week because University budgets are decimated and we didn't know that these University people could actually come here in September even if there was no covet no Corona because budgets are so bad right now and and I would highlight that is a side piece if if we don't have and I don't don't offend I hope I don't offend anybody but if we don't have football games and we don't have or don't have crowds at football games that impacts Boulder

[191:00] um you know it is part of people who are staying in those hotel rooms and um we don't have parents coming here if we don't have a residential campus in the fall we don't get the parents weekend and all of that stuff so this is sort of the outside and I'm not saying it's all about CU by any means but but CU does have an impact on that sector and it's important to sort of like keep that all in in context I guess great so I don't have anyone else on the stack so this is your last chance to ask a question your hands rich and Brian thank you so much for your time it's been very Illuminating kind of depressing but we do appreciate um your your time your information and we may ask you back again in three months or four months to hear how things have shaped up and and how that's affected your forecast so again thank

[192:02] you and Jane do you want to move us on thank you many thanks of course to Rich and Brian so the next part of the presentation is that Bowden and Jennifer pincino who will be talking about the business impact survey so good evening council members um I'm actually really appreciative to follow that great presentation with a little bit more of additional nuancing on what's Happening um as in our community with our business stakeholders I want to start by thanking you Council for the question of um please tell us a little bit more about what the experiences are about Boulder's businesses next slide um when I visited with you on March 31st and was telling you about the work of the boulder business

[193:00] response and Recovery team I shared with you the results of an earlier survey by the boulder chamber and you ask that we go a little bit deeper and understand what's going on with our own businesses um with tremendous support from Jennifer pensino on our team uh the rest of community Vitality all of our partners and thank you so much to the responding businesses I'm here to share those uh results with you this evening we should a confidential online survey with a very tight fine print so that we can get back to you and just like you heard from our CU colleagues the turnaround is reflective of what happened in March so there are things that I'm going to talk about tonight that have undoubtedly changed we did offer the survey in English and Spanish and tried to get a big reach and with the help of our partners we're able to get a response rate of 23 percent there was a broad range of businesses that represented all kinds of sizes

[194:00] ownership and industries across uh and throughout Boulder I do want to point out that just now you heard a presentation that talked about the number of sole Proprietors in our city which are significant 33 of our respondents are sole Proprietors 62 are those small businesses Boulder is known for between 2 and 49 employees and five percent of businesses or non-profits with 50 or more employees next slide foreign so you saw some of the national Trends some of the Colorado Trends uh literally almost every business that responded to the survey said that covid-19 has impacted their business with 79 reporting that the impact has been significant those smaller businesses between 2 and 49 employees have experienced the greatest impact

[195:01] um you know and whether they are much larger than the large businesses in town and sole Proprietors and that's because uh they had that immediate impact of closure in many respects but they were also on very tight margins and as we'll discuss in large part are leasing their business operation facilities countries with the most impact don't differ from what our colleagues shared with you retail restaurants and bars personal services so your hair salon your esthetician Fitness hospitality and certainly our non-profit sectors um and you can see that in the data that's been provided next slide you asked us to dig a Little Deeper on not just assuming that there would be Financial impacts but what are those financial impacts uh many businesses reported negative impacts certainly immediately for canceled orders and decreased sales and this was almost across every industry

[196:02] um yes they did Express concerns about difficulty in paying their rent and a lot of concern um for their employees and not that wasn't just concern about being able to pay employees it was literal concern for their Workforce so um that that sense of vulnerability in the smaller businesses you heard about they're also you know you're hearing about vulnerable workforces but you're also in very tight margins in some of these sectors and they're really feeling it for employees that are basically part of their family the industries uh reporting most um experience and lost Revenue where the non-gross free retail certainly hospitality um repair and maintenance and arts and entertainment and then certainly they expected these impacts um to be impactful financially um as the health order persists so the

[197:00] longer this goes on and the more uncertainty there is the more difficult it is to rebound um next slide we've been talking about employment and we've been talking about unemployment and certainly at the federal level uh with our colleagues at the state level and locally everybody's doing what we can to support individuals and their families nearly 80 percent of businesses um reported that they made Staffing changes directly due to covet 19. this includes 44 of businesses who furloughed or laid off employees and most of those small businesses really were inclined to furlough more than to make a layoff decision now this was early reports right and since then and especially since people have gone in and applied for unemployment which is a spike you saw in the last presentation this may have changed and will continue to change and evolve over time

[198:01] at the time that we took the survey I know we were somewhat relieved to hear that most expected these changes to be temporary um but this was weeks ago and as things uh continue we are um continuing to hear that there is a commitment to having safe operations across all entities but it is more difficult to see how they can rebound they're steadfast and those who have tried to stay open uh probably can adapt a little bit more easily than those who had completely shuttered and furloughed employees Industries reporting the highest rate of furloughs again restaurants and bars retail non-grocery outdoor products and personal services I want to put a pin on the topic of restaurants and bars for a minute and the Reliance on tourism we did a very extensive retail study over the past year and a half which we've shared with you this is something to watch I don't believe that it is equal in the local

[199:04] purchasing of restaurants and bars and some of our Reliance on tourism and or the workforce that is coming in every day in a 60 percent in commuting Workforce that is something to watch um I think we may be more reliant on those workers than we can currently say and that is information that we'll have to watch as people retool their businesses next slide so you know one of the things that we like to watch as well is what's the unemployment rate and you saw this kind of flipped upside down in the last presentation but this is an interesting thing from 2000 to now and you can see the um Tech bust and you can see the Great Recession but um it should not go unnoticed that we have despite the largest portion of this are those who have been furloughed or impacted

[200:00] um recently and we'll be watching this over time as well next slide [Music] so operations was another thing we wanted to look at 60 of businesses reported that they have tried to continue operations again this was weeks ago uh and this with about 25 percent who had significantly reduced those operations so these are folks that have completely tried to yield to curbside try and figure out how to sell online um trying to you know figure out other ways virtual training from our fitness Community any way to kind of keep their folks around and or keep their businesses relevant we believe this ritual way and the ability to retool is a significant component of the work that the business uh community and our alliance Partners have to Aid in and I'll talk about that when I get to next steps industry's most impacted again in

[201:01] those reduced operations closing temporarily we're talking about the personal services your hair salons nail salons Etc Fitness retail that's non-brosery restaurants and bars hospitality and non-profits um such a different segment in both the traditional non-profits some of whom are doing quite well if they serve basic needs and they people really are yielding into them we appreciate that but your non-profits and your art sectors and other types of non-profits environmental sectors really hurting next slide so we asked about the assistance that they needed and what is actually needed and in in some of this it was an interesting response 85 percent of businesses surveyed that they do need assistance um financial help was first in mind right the fixed expenses don't go away um so across all business types there

[202:00] was a cry for that Industries most likely to need that financial assistance again I'm starting with restaurants and bars Fitness retail personal services um and you know these fixed expenses we have tried to navigate all of the interests associated with that across all sectors including the banking industry and the real estate industry but it's something to continue to watch next slide so what are the implications of these findings and again um I didn't point out but I want to explain a little bit about who folks are that fill this out we were careful to issue this in English and Spanish I do want to point out that seven percent of our respondents reported that they were a minority owned business um 40 women-owned business which was a large portion of personal services um and fitness uh folks and you know that's something to really look at to see if the data has significantly

[203:00] shifted these are tend to be much much smaller businesses that are not on our early list of things that may reopen and or if they reopen they need a lot more predictability and we'll talk about that in just a second uh the impacts vary by business size industry and other factors we're going to need a lot of different approaches and frankly a lot of our partners to help address the evolving needs of these businesses most of them did say that they are really satisfied [Music] um that we've been giving them the information in as many ways as possible as often as we could [Music] um it's this was very difficult to roll out quickly especially because we don't control all the programs but without the partners I just don't think we'd be able to report that kind of response to you tonight um most businesses do expect closures staff reductions to be temporary that was weeks ago um we'll continue to monitor this the

[204:00] more predictability and Clarity we can bring to all business sectors in the weeks to come very much to what the mayor was saying earlier um is going to be task one in this next stage and they expected challenges to increase if this goes beyond May um and I don't I think I'm understating that um while Financial impacts are top of mind at the time that we asked uh there is an increasing need we think around technical assistance understanding what they're going to need wanting to keep customers and staff safe next slide so what's the role of the city and our partner organizations we don't think we're jumping from response to recovery there's a space that we're in or entering into around stabilization um and you heard some of that in the W but I think it goes beyond the W and for some time um we're going to to look at strategies and phasing of recovery that reduces the

[205:00] possibility of wide scale recurrence uh there are many of the things that you've already been discussing but also helps people retool business things that frankly may not be a role or best suited for the city and we will meet our partners um to help in and great research from our University partner as well we think we're in a space of um people seeing where they are with their basic needs which my colleague Kurt fernhawber and housing and Human Services is doing such an outstanding job with and all of my colleagues around the city who perform basic services for the city but as we return by industry there's going to be more people teleworking that's less people going out to lunch that's less people staying in town or buying theater tickets afterward um this is going to be phase reopening there are gaps in aid over the past uh in the federal program and we know that and we are watching for any supply chain disruption um as we look to the weeks to come do

[206:01] are people are businesses able to get masks are they able to get hand sanitizer how does that affect the stability of them even wanting to open which should be a very thoughtful decision retooling work you know those who have figured out how to work from home it's not looking so bad for some people um and so we need to think about the long-term impacts on that not just on your street level retail this is going to affect whether or not people want as much Office Space and are they co-working now are they coming in only for meetings what does that do to the rest of the economy um the necessary response to any reoccurrence is very difficult to absorb for folks with tight margins and I cannot say enough about those margins for your smallest businesses and then beyond that to a phase in measured recovery attracting retaining and potentially retraining a Workforce for the employment opportunities we will

[207:00] have not what we had but what we will have and that's something we'll all be involved in income stabilization and that goes to the consumer confidence that was addressed in the prior presentation affordability concerns across the board and then the gradual return of a different kind of retail which was already in flux as my colleague Sarah Williamson shared um a week ago and tourism returned and what that might look like by the way let me put in a pitch right now for staycations this next slide so what's the next steps like we I cannot say enough about how much Boulder loves our small businesses um this is the time to help all businesses and to think about ourselves as both consumers and workers we're going to continuously collaborate with the alliance to support businesses in this economic recovery

[208:00] we'll continue to give you covid-19 updates as you ask for particular issues staff and our partners will continue to provide information and resources earlier the mayor asked whether or not there was going to be sort of things in the window and protocol we are actually having those meetings right now um and I actually have an update to the next slide in a second we'll be tracking and Reporting on economic metrics in partnership with the university and with the finance department I would imagine that all of this will come under Cheryl's umbrella in just a minute and in the fall we'll be doing the boulder business survey which goes to primary employers and will give us a sense of not just what's happening at street level retail but what's happening with our primary employers and other segments as well that we really need to watch to create that consumerism of the future next slide this is my last slide and this is just giving you a little bit more information

[209:00] the first bullet is the one that has changed so ensuring businesses have continuous awareness of reopening guidance from the county and Public Health on many many things to Lane Zach and summer at the county who are working with us you know on speed dial every day and to give that guidance I said potentially hosting industry-specific webinars I can tell you this evening that there is one this Thursday to give feedback on the initial guidance by industry and then next Tuesday there are eight by industry those will be posted as soon as we get the details on the city's webpage we will be trying to do those in English and Spanish industry specific and as soon as we get that information uh we'll get it posted to the city's website uh we'll also be aiding businesses in strategy Development Across all of our alliance partners and looking at our alliance partner roles as we shift from

[210:01] response uh to this stabilization segment to recovery retooling work and helping people with business models and continued application navigation those of you by the way who applied for PPP or idle loans if you already have an application in queue and have not been rejected or have not heard my friend Sharon King at sbdc you know as EDC yes says do not reapply that will complicate your process however if you haven't applied get to the bank the list is on the website including those who are taking new customers modeling for anticipated recovery period duration I agree it's going to be longer than a year reviewing gaps in available support Arts non-profit organizations including 501c6 important Partners contractors and the like providing input as we will continue to do on the in on

[211:00] the characteristics of the stimulus packages that are being considered um I'm pleased to report that the grant program is in full match we have issued the city's uh challenge amount and there's um four hundred thousand dollars to be deployed we do have 530 000 in requests so there'll be some decision making at the Community Foundation but we appreciate Jeff and his team in the chamber for their support and then coordinating recovery across all departments in the city as part of the city's larger recovery team that's moving from response to recovery just a plug there at the bottom for uh business resources webpage and with that I think the next slide is just whether or not you have questions so thank you for your attention thank you so much for all the work you've been doing and for in the business Community for participating at such a high level it's really important

[212:00] for us to hear what challenges are we may be able to guess some of them but there's a whole lot that we're not going to be able to guess from the bias so thank you Yvette thank you chamber and thank you to the business Community who I know has gone through a very tough time so I have some hands here I've got Mark Aaron and Mary so Mark go ahead yeah that was I thought that was an outstanding presentation thank you it was very comprehensive um my only question at this point is the key data at the moment seems to be April and May and perhaps June to see the impact on the business Community um how are you going to be able to update what you've got today and on what time frame in order to get us a more real-time picture of the uh of what's happening to our business sector so I think we're uh Cheryl with Cheryl's help and the rest of the recovery team um we're going to be watching sales

[213:02] taxes right so that's going to be one level of indicator the unemployment data that the county is able to provide is also going to give us ongoing information should Council desire and and you know we want to be careful with our businesses right now they they have somewhat of survey fatigue yeah and what they really are Desiring is a path forward and so we have um time set aside over the next couple weeks um to be really listening hard out there in the community as these guidelines for reopening um occur I'm personally going to be watching vacancy rates we have a situation on the hill in the double digit vacancies that and you know a lot of that is eateries on the hill um with very tight margins and now a campus that is completely empty this is a crisis uh you know I I think in the hotel

[214:02] industry Marianne knows absolutely what she's doing and I trust her implicitly um but I think it's about leaning into our partners the chamber is going to um lead with our lead School colleagues at the University a lot of conversation and um as Council should direct their portions not the whole thing but there are portions of this survey that we may want to repeat after let's say six months to see whether or not there's a return there are also great Partners who are watching the ground right so downtown build a partnership um you know our Hill partners and the business Community up on the hill um Boyd from mace Rich who at 29th Street Mall and now we're on speed dial so I think my job in my Department's job right now is to not only help reinforce our support in the city with our

[215:00] colleagues across the city but to be working with our partners in the work that they know how to do better than we do and to be a good partner with the county and the state to be as consistent as we can with our neighboring cities and bring as much Clarity and predictability and ease to the business Community as we can I hope I answered your question yes you did thank you thank you [Music] apologies Aaron and then Mary Aaron go ahead great Yvette thank you so much for the presentation and all the work that you've been doing out in the community I've heard from folks they really appreciate the work that you're doing so thanks for that and seems like we have some great Partnerships going on with groups like The the chamber and the Community Foundation downtown Boulders it's great to see all those happening um a couple questions for you so it is really good to hear that that small business Relief Fund is getting into gear and those grants will go out soon

[216:00] sounds like there's a little bit of a gap do we have any ability to you know assist with closing that Gap because it didn't sound sounded like it was the amount of money we have as close to the need but not quite there one of the things I want to thank you for that question and and feedback thank you I appreciate the community members who've trusted me in talking to me as well um does honestly um my department has completely exhausted you know we don't have an economic recovery or an economic development budget in the city and so with all of the many many things to balance in the city's priorities um I do not believe the city's in the position to close that Gap I am also completely trusting my partners um to let us know um the veracity of that need I have no doubt there's need um but I think we also need to think about what's next and I am personally

[217:01] concerned about the PPE for businesses as they real and I am concerned about getting them guidance and signs and things that they will need to be able to communicate with their customers and be safe as they open and and so I want to be thoughtful in in when I ask for resources and how we come forward to you but thank you for your question and I'll talk about that with our partners okay yeah thanks for that and I uh I know that we're hoping to get a distribution at the local level of some of the cares act funding that's coming in through the state and I don't know when that decision is going to be made but it seems like one of the potential ways that we might be able to use that funding when it comes if it if it comes to us would be for um I think of like rent relief for small businesses as well as for folks residential leases as well so just kind of put that out there to be thinking about if that does come our way um so one uh one other question for you

[218:03] um so as people come back to work you know one of the things that may be necessary is you talked about retooling right and part of that retooling may be a physical retooling in terms of the spaces that people use whether that's subdividing or reconfiguring or things like that I this is maybe less a question for you but are we thinking about how we can expedite um getting people the approvals and permits that they they would need you know when they they come back and they say gosh you know what I really need to do is just a small little project you know making sure that we can help our small businesses in a quick fashion when it comes to that so I'm going to answer that question and I'm really happy that you asked it I had a great conversation yesterday with Marianne wiedemann who is our acting planning and development services director and she's been working with her teams on building permits to really speed up our ability to get those out the door and we have a goal of by

[219:01] the end of May trying to catch up with all of the the backlogs that we've had over the years but she's also working with her team to figure out ways in which they can overcome some of these small barriers that we put in place over the years for getting permits and I know that she and Yvette have had conversations about this and that um into certain individual projects have gotten consideration to get rid of small barriers in their way so we are trying really hard to use this crisis as a silver lining for improving our processes in planning and development services thanks for that Jane that's exciting so I really appreciate that Marianne and you all are working at that and I certainly support it very much and there's any way we can help at the council level let us know thank you

[220:02] Mary thank you Yvette and I want to Echo everybody's um gratitude for everything that you do and to all our partners um my question um has to do with drilling down a little bit more into a comment that you made early on in the presentation regarding um it was about the the workers in the restaurant industry and a comment that you made about being more reliable than we might think on that particular set of workers could you just drill down a little bit more in that comment because I didn't quite understand sure and some of this is anecdotal um you'll recall that we did do what we believe is a statistically significant retail study and we have a whole section in that study about restaurants and then that was followed about two months later

[221:00] by the convention and visitors bureau to study about Reliance on tourism so the two pieces of data there which I'm happy to break out for Council separately are around how Reliant some of our food and beverage industry is on non-resident or non-local Shoppers or consumers and um while a good portion we benefit from great um food and beverage and great retailers but many of them both in their responses to the retail study as well as in their responses to the tourism study told them they cannot survive without the in commuting Workforce and non-residents which we are assuming includes a fair amount of visitors so this goes to the issue of if there are no students that are coming into town if there is no faculty we have a 60 in commuting

[222:01] Workforce they are feeding literally and figuratively food and beverage um and if that is not there we may be more Reliant than we think we don't know but it would be one thing that I want to look at following the presentation before us as a Nuance that makes Boulder a little bit different these aren't necessarily tourists that are coming from out of state just for graduation or football game it's the in commuters that are working in an office that go out to lunch that we need to think about as purchasers in those restaurants and bars and so you may see that people do not open right away because everybody's not back at the office until the offices are back at 75 100 or whatever The New Normal will be they may choose that it is just too risky to open

[223:00] thank you for that um and then um I have just a real simple question regarding um there are folks that may need assistance in trying to apply for unemployment and the PPP um where where do they go for that assistance if they need it so two points that I want to raise there so for the financing many of our financial institution partners are prepared to support folks in application processes the sbdc has also retained several people who are multilingual and or able to provide that additional assistance for workers who want to apply for unemployment Kurt's team has done a beautiful job on their website of providing that access and I want to give a shout out to Aaron Jones at County for Workforce Boulder County and Colorado connect Colorado who has a great job

[224:01] website and is doing seminars and access points to help people navigate the process toward receiving unemployment benefits so they would go to the the city website um under well this is available on the city website the svdc or the camera okay great um and then just my final question is um so this afternoon at the um the racial Equity guiding Coalition we learned about rapid response Equity tool and I was just wondering I I would presume that the city is using this and um but my question has to do with um our partners um using it as well and and um yeah and how how how far into the community is that going

[225:01] so okay I think if you have a different answer please chime in but the the rep the rapid response Equity tool is for our internal organization to be okay um and so we have not deployed it out to the rest of the community okay great thank you and that's all I have I would just like to add one thing um absolutely not changing here to that Jane gave you but I do want to say that it is my responsibility and our team's responsibility and it has been completely embraced that um things like working with our partners including the Latino chamber and all of our partner organizations this has taken very seriously and we don't have a conversation that doesn't include the importance of making sure that we're being accessible to them and meeting everyone's needs thank you

[226:00] you're very good I don't think there are more hands up here so if anyone has any questions for Yvette Now's the Time to ask if not thank you so much for your presentation we look forward to hearing more from you as things develop with the business community and um don't hesitate to let CAC know if you have updates that you'd like to give us so thank you thank you so much thanks for your attention now Sam yes Aaron could I put in a request for a five minute break before we finish up sure that'd be fine just to time check it is now 10 till 10. we have three hours left so um just a heads up for where we are so I'd be happy to take a five minute break um let's come back at 9 48 let's come back at 9 53 in that case thanks very much foreign

[227:12] [Music] [Music]

[231:22] gonna make you watch me shove it in my face [Music] foreign

[232:14] [Music] Shane are we ready yes I think we are the most important people to be ready are Cheryl patelli and Cara Skinner so they will be presenting the financial Outlook Cheryl thanks Jane and Chris I don't see I the presentation just left the screen I don't know if that's just mine no it's not on mine either [Music] I guess while Chris is getting the presentation up I just want to start by saying thank you to my amazing staff they've been working really really hard to get all of this information for you especially our sales tax staff and our

[233:01] Auditors who are helping them um just just to remind you we are on a new system sales tax system and this is the first time we've processed quarterly returns so they've done amazing work so thank you to my staff and we don't I guess another piece of information we don't anticipate that our presentation will go the full hours uh three hours so just there next slide please so this is just a background reminder of when we have come to council we came to council for a fiscal update on March 31st and April 14th and at both those meetings we gave preliminary estimates of our 2020 budget Gap we talked about some of the budget actions we had taken at that time and we also shared with you uh 2019 you're in Revenue next slide

[234:03] just a reminder our budget for 2020 was 284 million and that excludes our utility funds we do anticipate about 70 of our Revenue being impacted negatively by covid certainly the biggest dollar amount will be on sales and use tax which makes up 48 of um our total revenue collection also development taxes fees and fines accommodation or hotel motel tax and admission taxes we don't anticipate much impact on property taxes and I'll talk a little bit more about property taxes later in the presentation next slide so as Rich mentioned in his presentation consumer spending does account for 70 of the economy and it has fallen significantly

[235:01] um he showed the most recent uh consumer confidence index which went down 34 in just two months so people are worried people have either lost their jobs or they're worried about whether they're going to have a job in the future and that certainly affects their spending in Boulder of course both event and um and um I'm sorry Ann Rich talked about the tourism hotels and restaurants how heavily Boulder will be impacted by those sectors next slide so this is the 2020 sales and use tax budget 137 million of which 81 is retail sales tax for the city on the next slide I'm going to show you 2019 results and one thing I want to point out you'll notice that the 2019 results are about 4 million more than what we budgeted in 2020 and the reason is related to

[236:02] construction use tax and business use tax both of these are very volatile tax sources so how we budget for them we have a base budget that's based on historical amounts and we also inflate that for or we increase that for inflation so in 2019 we had a really good year for construction and business juice tax and those came in considerably over our base budget next slide foreign so here are our 2019 numbers for sales and use tax and I just kind of want to go over how to read this slide um for instance for the general fund we collected 66 million which represents 47 of all of our sales and use tax revenue but I think even the more important number to understand is what percentage of Revenue does sales and tax use tax represent for that particular fund so

[237:01] for the general fund it's 45 of all of the revenue collected but um if you look at Transportation the parks and rec and open space you'll see that it'll be anywhere from 75 to 96 so the majority if not all of the revenue collected in those funds come from sales and use tax which is we can see depending on the economy it's very it can be it can swing very quickly and certainly the decrease that we will be seeing will very much affect um all funds but certainly the ones that are most reliant on sales and use tax next slide so before I get into the March uh data that we have to date on sales and use tax I wanted to just provide a little information our revenue reports that you see on the web every month are on a cash

[238:01] basis so what that means is unless we actually collect the sales tax money um it won't be on the report so in some instances we do have people who file but they don't actually um pay us for the sales tax so just a bit of piece of information March we see as a really a mixed month of activity and probably not indicative of what we're going to see in April and the coming months as you know the first 10 days in March or more were really business as usual people were spending most likely similarly to how they were spending in January and February then we had that big stock up period where people went to the store they bought a bunch of toilet paper they bought food in a lot of cases hoarding was going on so we certainly expect certain sectors such as grocery to see higher sales routine receipts once the stock up

[239:02] started in March and then we had 10 days of um closures and just to note again during closures the food stores of the grocery stores are still open so we did expect that some stocking up was still occurring in March Cheryl I'm sorry to interrupt Bob has a question okay go ahead Bob yeah so I didn't want to take you back but could you go back one slide to 54. [Music] um thanks uh the bottom numbers reflect what percentage of each of those departments or funds receive their money from sales and use tax can you speak to um so for example 75 of Transportation gets this money from sales and use tax can you speak to how much of those taxes and those funds are dedicated taxes um so for these particular ones on the left they're all dedicated taxes for those purposes so so for transportation for example

[240:00] yeah the general fund's the only one that's not dedicated I got it okay thank you very much thank you so um again [Music] that we have not um so why that's important for the data that I'm showing you tonight is because after we process more Returns the numbers will most like will not most likely the numbers will look better than what you're seeing tonight so when we do send out this uh revenue report for March in in another week or two um the the numbers and the percentages should look a little bit better so uh delinquencies I want to talk about delinquencies because a lot of times when we think about sales tax we we really just in our minds say well how much are our sales going to be down but also an important part to remember are the delinquencies and how how many people just aren't paying their sales

[241:01] tax or even filing through February which was collected March 20th so it the collections were when the covet Crisis began approximately 92 percent of our expected filers had actually filed with the city which is great um and of the businesses that filed eight percent of the businesses did not pay on time so this means like I mentioned before they put the information into the system but they did not submit their sales tax uh Revenue to us which again um as you recall they're collecting sales tax revenue from their customers on behalf of the city um um to submit to us because we need it for all of our services so that eight percent in February uh represented approximately 1.6 million dollars in taxes that we did not

[242:00] um receive in March today again we still are getting returns trickling in I failed to mention a little earlier we actually had 800 000 worth of Returns come in just today it was too late to to uh change this presentation so it just goes to show that we are getting some filings trickling in but as of a few days ago about 75 percent of our expected filers have filed and of those businesses that filed eight percent and it's not a mistake it's actually the same percentage as February eight percent have not paid so that's about 1.4 million dollars in taxes what we're seeing as far as those followers who file but haven't paid are in the industries that we would expect so General retail eating places um apparel stores all of those industries that are really suffering

[243:00] next slide so here's our Trends by industry and I just want to um explain uh the cop or the rows here uh 2018 and 2019 are uh total years so when you look at the 2019 we're comparing that entire year to 2018 whereas the year-to-date amounts on the two right columns are comparing the same period to the prior year so year to date March represents three months to date compared to the first three months to date in 2019. we also included um in the First Column the percentage of total sales so you can see how Reliant we are in Boulder on each of these sectors and of course the the more green something is the better it is red is a significant decline we do get a question in the subcommittee

[244:02] um well actually first I want to point out if you look at the bolded uh sectors eating places food stores General retail and all other they account for about 68 of our sales tax revenue so the majority of our sales tax revenue and the subcommittee did kind of want to understand um do you think the increase that we're seeing in food stores with the stock stocking up um will kind of offset some of the other areas so I do have some preliminary March data on that food stores increased 13.3 percent as you can see which is about six hundred thousand dollars however if you add eating places General retail and all other together just those three categories in total um they declined 1.8 million so comparing the 600 to the 1.8 um clearly the increase in food stores

[245:01] will not be enough to cover the decreases in all of the other categories next slide so the next three slides are just a little bit more information about our top three categories or the categories that bring in the most uh City Revenue the first is eating places and just to note the y-axis uh represents the percentage change over that time period the prior year so it's very similar to the chart that I just showed you but eating places represent about 16 of sales and use tax revenue for the city you will notice in February the eating places are down and you might not think that that would have happened but again those February returns were due March 20th so we feel that part of this decline has to do with that delinquency rate that I was talking about

[246:01] but certainly in March you'll see that uh percentage plummet as people started to uh restaurants close down people um although they were going uh curbside they the amount of people going obviously is nowhere in comparison next slide so we've got General retail which represents 22 and a half percent of our total sales tax collections we were doing pretty well through February and again things just dropped off in March next slide here's that uh kind of silver lining in all of our sales tax numbers food stores up 13.3 percent in March we do believe in February that decline related we had two stores closed we had Lucky's closed in February and Liquor Mart in uh

[247:03] January so we think that might have led to some of that decline that we see in February I will say I think compared to some of the surrounding cities around us our food stores are not up as much as what we would have thought they might have been again the numbers are preliminary but I also feel that some of that relates to the fact that we just don't have the big box stores like some of the other communities have next slide so here's historical taxable retail um sales and what it shows is our on the y-axis is his uh I'm sorry taxable sales and just just to make sure you understand that does not represent how much money the city is collecting that's actually how how many taxable sales we are collecting on and the reason why we use that access rather than City collections

[248:00] is because we have throughout the years change tax rates so using taxable sales allows us to have an apple to Apple's comparison over the years but I think the really important thing to point out here the top line is the Orange Line represents actual collections or I'm sorry actual sales where is that blue line isn't just adjusted for inflation and we did use the Denver Lakewood Aurora um CPI when we calculated this but even before covid you'll see that pretty much for 20 years we have not really gained anything in our taxable sales if you put covid into the equation we're actually lower than where we were 20 years ago um Brian and Rich uh and the finance team will be working together in May on the forecast for taxable sales for 20 21

[249:02] to 24 and we will be bringing this information to you when we come back in June thank you next slide one more Chris thank you so moving on to just a few other Revenue sources that you might be interested in the first is accommodations and short-term rental revenue and clearly in March we saw a huge decline we have been working with the convention and visitors bureau and their model shows a 3.4 million dollar drop in Ho just Hotel accommodation taxes in 2020 that does not include short-term rental taxes and as Bob talked about the letter you received and um the financial hardships now upon the CVB uh just just a reminder that they received 20

[250:00] of our accommodations tax revenue so so that's a drop of 680 000 estimated just for them alone next slide this is other Revenue that we collect and we wanted to point out that for March our declines are anywhere from 30 to 90 percent so this is just this uh covet issue as I mentioned in the first slide doesn't just affect sales and use tax it affects so many of the city's revenues just a couple items to note on this slide if you look at admissions tax you'll see year-to-date is down 1.4 percent because we are on that cash basis we did receive a large back payment in January for the prior year so if we back that payment out of our 2020 numbers we're actually down 23 year-to-date and

[251:00] admissions tax and we really don't see this recovering too quickly giving given all the closures and all the social distancing requirements that we see will be in place for quite some time also for the highway users tax fund that's the last row here for transportation there is a lag and when we get this money from the state and transportation is expecting that this Revenue will be down 70 percent during the shutdown due to the fact that less people are driving and therefore um purchasing um much less gas next slide so property taxes and um Bill and Rick or I'm sorry Brian and Rich talked about property taxes a little bit but as far as uh the city's budget property taxes represent 25 percent of general fund um Revenue so it's significant and it

[252:00] really is a stabilizing force or we see it as one in the Years 2020 and 2021 in an important part of our diversification um of revenues a lot of communities are not fortunate enough to have this Revenue Source a lot of communities are much more reliant on sales tax the thing that's uh with property tax when we when we think about sales tax for instance we see a huge as soon as the economy turns so does sales tax property tax lags and usually it lags a few years actually so similarly when the economy starts coming back up um sales tax is the first to see increases followed by property tax in our modeling we are including a one percent decrease in property tax just to be conservative and really this relates to any possible delinquencies that we may see here

[253:01] um due to covid uh the subcommittee also wanted a little bit more information on delinquencies so we contacted the boulder County's Treasurer's Office last week and just so you know right now because the full tax payments aren't due until April 30th they really don't have a lot of information and we hope to provide you with more concrete information in June but um so far they're seeing overall collections similar to last year with the exception of um they're seeing a Slowdown in business personal property tax collection and collections related to mobile homes the disbursements that they make so that's they collect money from from folks and then they disperse it to all the entities like the cities and the schools from January to April disbursements are actually higher than last year and that's likely due to increased property values

[254:01] so when you think about delinquency rates um really I want to give the highest rate during the Great Recession the highest rate of delinquency on taxes was 0.48 so it's less than one percent you might wonder well why is that and it really has to do with the tax sale that happens in the fall so um let's say I don't pay my property taxes in the fall there's what's called a tax sale where um either individuals or entities come in and they buy the liens on these um these tax liens and then they are giving they give debtors three years to have the opportunity to pay back their taxes and where these folks make their money is they charge interest and and uh pretty or higher interest rates on these uh tax liens

[255:00] so that's uh where they why they actually buy the tax liens but after three years if the debtor hasn't paid it back they do have the opportunity to file with the treasurer's office and actually take ownership of the property but most of the the taxes get paid by the debtors at some point during that three-year period it's a long story short to get to the point the reason why the delinquency rate is so low is because um taxes are purchased by these individuals and entities at the end of the year so we don't see huge um delinquency rates I will say although delinquencies do not hurt the hurt cash flow if we're used to getting this money in May time frame through the end of the summer and now we're getting it later in the year it's certainly

[256:01] something we in finance have been working on our cash flow models as well next slide I think that's all you have to hear from me for a while um I'm gonna stop because I actually have Joel Wagner on the phone and um he's here for any questions that you may have regarding sales uh sales sales tax okay great thank you Cheryl for that and Joel thanks for being on the phone um I'm not seeing any hands so if anyone has questions for Jill Now's the Time so Bob has a hand up go ahead Bob yeah Cheryl you mentioned in your presentation that there were some late filings or non-filings at the end of uh margin again you saw an increase in that in um in April okay um because these vendors are holding money and trust that

[257:00] is owned by is actually paid by their customers and is owed to the city and the school district in the county is there a is there like a a penalty or an interest charge if someone pays either fails to pay or pays late [Music] and interest on late payments they are I do want to say that we do try to work with the businesses because um given their situation on the penalty part of that we definitely collect um the interest great thank you thank you anyone else with questions may as well go ahead and oh there it goes uh Carl will be presenting uh the nephew right Council it is late uh I'll try to move through these slides pretty quickly but I do have some important things to talk about so I want to thank Cheryl for talking

[258:01] about our actual Revenue to date and what we have learned um particularly with regard to sales and use tax and those other Revenue sources through 2020. um we are very focused right now on 2020 Revenue forecasts as she mentioned we're going to be working with CU on those um 2021 and Beyond forecasts but because this has been such a shock to our Revenue we've been very focused on this 2020 Revenue impact and trying to respond to that we did put these uh caveats on this slide and it's um we just don't want to diminish this thinking that this is really an unprecedented event as rich and Brian mentioned we have never really had sort of a forced shutdown of businesses in the retail sector um huge sections of the retail sector so this is something we have never seen before and we don't really have an

[259:01] experience to lean on we have very little data as Mark as March came in it became even more evident that we think that was very much a mixed month and we don't know how much information we can glean from it in terms of how uh dramatic the effect is going to be in April where it was closures for the whole month so we still have very little data we will know much more when we get the returns in May that are for April Collections and then just again tremendous uncertainty we don't have a crystal ball we're trying to just um put some models out there that can help inform some decisions some order of magnitude but we'll be updating these monthly and um we'll try to do our best at modeling different Futures but with the future is still unknown so just wanted to get that out there

[260:01] um back in March we did present three scenarios to you um the consensus was scenarios one and two where maybe too optimistic and scenario three was most realistic but maybe not pessimistic enough I just wanted to show that since then um we've really refined our modeling um we've we've built sort of different models that make it easier for us to modify our assumptions which we think is really important particularly in this uncertain time we think we will be modifying those assumptions as we move along through the year we've had more opportunity to consult with departments and get their expert um input with regard to revenues that they are closest to uh next slide please we'll talk more about these models that we've been working on and we are modeling Revenue by months and that's something we haven't done before and we thought it was really important since we think that there's really two key uh

[261:01] time periods this time period where we're actually shut down where most of our retail stores or many of our retail stores including our restaurants are closed um and we're calling that the shutdown period and we are now assuming in the models a 10-week shutdown period we think that's a little bit conservative maybe now not based upon discussions about reopening but we do understand it's going to be a slow phased approach to opening and there will still be social distancing requirements that remain and that there still is this fear particularly amongst certain populations so we think that it's an okay assumption to model that shutdown period at 10 weeks um we did decrease many Revenue lines during this shutdown period by various assumed percentages and that is in large part working with departments um to get to those percentage rates

[262:01] for retail sales tax we did assume that it decreases 45 during shutdown and that was derived from an analysis that we did by looking at specific Industries similar to that slide that Cheryl had earlier in the presentation that was very colorful so for example eating places Home Furnishings apparel we assumed that those would decline between 75 and 80 percent during shutdown General retail declining 50 percent we do have food stores during shutdown being up five percent Which is less than what you saw for March we we think March was a lot of stock up behavior and that while we do think food stores will still be up when compared to the prior year we think it'll be a more modest increase simply more um because people aren't going out to eat they're eating all their meals at home they will still be shopping at Food

[263:01] Stores more than they normally would but um but we we are not forecasting that it will be up as strongly as it was in March um and then again other Revenue lines based upon consultation and discussions and Analysis between 10 down during shutdown and some all the way to 100 percent then the other key period that um we're talking about that will be on the subsequent slides is this recovery period um but we want to also just note some of the changes from our March 31st assumptions and in March we talked about shutdown period being two months or eight weeks so we've made that a little bit longer and again we've consulted with departments um we're also a little bit more pessimistic regarding the length of impact to restaurants and Retail and a little bit slower recovery and then we've changed this recovery period in the assumptions that we have around it

[264:00] to really match um current economists thinking so if we go to the next slide and Rich and um Brian talked about these different shaped recoveries so I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about what those shapes look like I think that you have probably been reading about them as well but basically we have we are presenting three different shaped recoveries the first is scenario a which is a U-shaped recovery this is most similar to our scenario three that was presented in March um and it's you know reach retail shops all been the virus doesn't linger long into the year cut consumers do go back but they don't rush back um so that's the u-shaped recovery the swoosh shaped recovery or the Nike Swoosh is much slower the the virus lingers people don't

[265:02] um go back to retail quickly they don't go back to restaurants quickly there's impacts to incomes there's impacts to business closures that result in a much slower recovery and then there's scenario C which is that W shaped recovery um which we see some recovery in the third quarter but then the virus returns and possible restrictions again and so we see it dip back down so we did want to note that we have assumptions here in terms of um the decline in Revenue in 2020 versus what we've received in 2019 for each of those quarters we we have ranges for each quarter so you'll see for the scenario a U-shaped recovery for quarter three we have a range from minus 10 to minus 14 and for quarter for a range of minus four to minus eight we are modeling however only the

[266:03] midpoints for this presentation but we just wanted to convey that we don't have confidence you know we don't have strict confidence in those midpoints we realize that this is a very imperfect imperfect exercise and there's a range of assumptions that we should be considering um so what you will see on the subsequent slides are the results for those midpoint assumption rates um we did I do want to know with the subcommittee we did discuss a possible scenario D and um what that was was really sort of a w shaped recovery but then also sort of has a swoosh effect in that it takes longer to recover once we come out of the second dip of the W and we and we will discuss that certainly as we move into 2021 forecasts we just felt like since we're

[267:02] talking about 2020 tonight that it was less impactful to what we're showing tonight but we will definitely be considering that next slide so the modeling results we can move on okay so this table [Music] um shows you the potential Revenue shortfall by source and so again these are the major Revenue sources and the results for scenarios a b and c based upon that midpoint of the Assumption range for each um so you'll see that for retail sales tax the most optimistic is the scenario a or the u-shaped recovery this is just slightly more pessimistic than the scenario three we presented last month um scenarios B and C are more significantly pessimistic

[268:02] um and then you can see the results for all of these other [Music] Revenue sources as well we do want to say these numbers are shocking they are dire um again we want to sort of be prepared if this is the reality we we want to keep the idea out there that we could be wrong we will be wrong a these numbers will not be the numbers we do know that for a fact um but it could be a better future than we are forecasting here but if it is not if it is not a better future than what we're forecasting here this is what we anticipate the impact could be next slide so this is um same but this is the potential Revenue short Fall by fund so here you'll see on the top line the general fund which of course is the fund

[269:01] that we use to provide um many essential city services and city services for which we have no dedicated funds um and it is the largest fund so the impact to the general fund ranges from uh 16.7 million dollars less than what we have budgeted to 21.1 million dollars less than we have budgeted so I I should have probably made that point clear earlier that what we are doing is forecasting what we anticipate our actual Revenue might be in 2020 in comparing that to our budget because that's what we had built our spending plans on so we're going to have to modify those spending plans based upon these revised Revenue forecasts and you'll see that this not only impacts the general fund but these are the uh four of these other funds are those sales tax dependent funds because

[270:01] sales tax is such a major Revenue source and um we do feel that we'll be significantly impacted the other fund that is on here is the recreation activity fund you'll see that that number is the same across all three scenarios that's a number that we worked on with the Parks and Rec Department um and that's their best estimate right now based upon what they see the impacts are with the shutdown and what they anticipate possible future scenarios are for their programs and services for the remainder of 2020. give you a moment to digest a little more but we could go to the next slide so we did just want to put this slide here and it's not intended for people to do a lot of mental math but we just wanted to recognize that um

[271:00] there's depending on what the real um decreases to revenue are during shutdown and during the third quarter in the fourth quarter um if you change that assumption slightly then they'll be in commensurate dollar impact and so we just sort of put those together for people to take a look at next slide so that was the end of the forecast sort of section so I don't know if we want to see if there's any questions here before Cheryl goes on to some budget balancing actions so any questions for this section I don't see any so Cheryl if you want to go on to the next section then be fine actually I believe Cara I believe you're presenting the first two and then I'm doing the other ones

[272:01] oh or I can either way sorry we didn't get our um all good so before we go on to budget balancing actions um we have you all I believe received the results as did we of a survey that CML did and they conducted this survey between April 3rd and April 10th um so we just want to sort of keep that in mind that was still somewhat relatively relatively early um maybe three weeks into the crisis but as a result of that they did hear from the local governments across the state that average general fund expenditure reduction of 21 so that's a pretty significant expectation across local governments of how much their general fund revenue is going to be impacted I will say that I

[273:02] do believe some smaller entities are probably going to have the really much bigger hits and bigger entities on a percentage basis might be less but it's probably a variety and then these uh Colorado Municipal officials are and we wanted to underline the r we don't know how strictly that question was asked when it was asked um if they are implementing the following cost saving strategies when asked that week of April 3rd to April 10th but at that time 73 delaying capital projects 66 reducing operating delaying equipment purchases hiring freezes and then uh furloughs and layoffs or less but I also think that that's probably um related to that time period there have been many announcements about furloughs across the Front Range since that time

[274:01] Loveland Aurora Broomfield Boulder Lakewood um so I think that more of those announcements came later in the month it certainly shows that we are not as rich and Brian have indicated also you know this is a problem that all governments at all levels across the country are wrestling with right now next slide and then this was another National League of cities survey and they put out a one-page infographic based upon their survey and on that infographic they had information particularly uh by municipalities with specific population ranges and for the range that Boulder is in 98 rev anticipate Revenue shortfall 63 anticipate having to cut Public Services 55 were for will furlough and 36 percent will lay off

[275:00] employees so I think um it looks like most municipalities are having to face um many tough choices and with that I will turn it over to Sharon thanks Cara next slide Chris so this is just a summary slide of what we at the city have done today the next two slides after this um we'll go into a little bit more detail on these capital and operating projects that we're talking about but what I wanted to point out on this slide is when we talk about what we did um immediately um this was in the early days and through really now of looking at what areas of our budget could we cut we always knew that we needed to go back and do more of a strategic look at our budget our services that we provide and really work to do this methodically and

[276:02] that's really the work that we're doing in May and June but just wanted you to know when you see these numbers they will only grow given what we've shown for the revenue for cast regarding the furloughs we all know Carl spoke about the furloughs we were a we did pay many of our non-essential and those employees who were unable to work at home or their program just wasn't being provided to this to the community we did pay them for um um a little over a month and at the time we realized this was not financially sustainable so that's really what led to the furloughs um of our uh some non-essential positions of many positions that were unable to work at home in many positions that were associated with those programs um that that didn't exist a lot of which were seasonal and temporary

[277:02] um employees next slide so Cheryl before you go on to the next slide I just wanted to ask a question the giraffe presentation that you sent out had bigger negative numbers than once in a year um a couple million dollars so um what was the difference between uh the math and where you are now I think you I can answer that um that was caught because we um we did have somebody do a double check on all the numbers in the slides today and that was a mistake that I will say I made when I was updating these figures with when we added one of the projects to the general fund um and you might not want all these details but I added the dollar value to the general fund and then I added it to the

[278:01] all funds impact but then I erroneously also added it to the other funds impact so it was a double counting of a 1.6 million dollars but when we had the staff double check all the numbers today they caught that and fixed that so that's why we always have people double check and we were working really fast and I apologize that it didn't get caught before the early release no problem at all I was just curious yeah so here's um this slide with a little bit more detail on the general fund and what I want to point out for Capital and operating projects these are not all of the projects that we are um delaying at this point these just are examples of some of them so as we move forward in a few slides I'll talk about our future

[279:00] strategic reductions that we're going to be working on but certainly as we move forward and get more information about our revenues in the coming months we're going to have to re-look at some of these capital projects that we've delayed and really think about is it a delay or at some point does it become something that we might consider canceling all together we're certainly not at that point yet we're still looking at at it from delay but just um just so you realize that some of the work that we'll be doing in the coming months so um next slide please this is the same slide for all of the other funds so I'm just I just want to give you a few seconds here to look at some of the capital and operating projects that we are delaying for 2020.

[280:02] next slide so when we move Ed this month and in into June and quite frankly Beyond as more information comes we're really going to take a um a strategic look at both our one-time and ongoing reductions and the tool that we're going to use to help us get through this is the budgeting for Community resilience which Cara is going to speak to next but we do have four classifications of services and programs essential important helpful and amenity that we're going to go through and and kind of put programs in which classification we think they are certainly something that's amenity is something that might be uh much easier to cut than something that's important clearly something essential we're also going to look when we look at it we're going to ask questions about the impact to the service delivery of

[281:01] regarding level of service who's impacted do we have certain standards like fire um that we must abide by but the important thing to note here is that we may have a service that we consider essential but we may determine that the level of service that we're providing there is higher than what we really need it to be that we can lower that level of service with little impact and therefore cut costs and even the essential categories um the next thing we'll be looking at also is our four-phase reopening that we will be following so there are programs out there that the city will most likely not be providing in 2020 in uh perhaps even in early 2021 um and that's because it's for vulnerable populations so for example the senior programs are one that we're really going to have to look at when should those programs uh reopen

[282:03] we'll be incorporating our racial Equity instrument into our decision making so when the Departments do consider the potential reductions they will use a four question racial Equity instrument to assess the impact on communities of color and then certainly another um important factor is the revenue impact so um there's clearly a lot of our programs we either get funding for or they generate a revenue and we're really going to have to look at the revenue that's generated so if we have let's let's say a program that's a hundred percent uh Revenue supported um if we cut the program we're really not moving the needle there's no net effect on the city's budget so we'll consider uh revenue and the cost recovery when we consider what types of reductions we're going to be

[283:00] recommending and then all of this work that we're going to be doing in May and June certainly will help inform the 2021 budget process as well um it's not like to me they're almost one in the same in a lot of ways because of that projection that the economic recovery is going to take two to three years next slide actually I think that's it um so I'll take any questions that you might have regarding our actions to date or our future plans on the budget balancing um moving forward I have Mark Bullock um thanks for that presentation uh very Grim but uh thank you um in terms of of fulfilling the gap between the 15 million dollars of savings you've identified to date and

[284:02] the possible 30 to 40 million dollars we may need um to what extent can that difference be made up by the deferral of capital expenditure projects I mean that's seems to me to be the most Target Rich possibility for closing the Gap without laying off people and and cutting valuable service programs especially for our underprivileged community um how much potential is there in simply deferring capital expenditure programs for a year or two years um it's not that we're not going to do them we're just not going to do them now can we close that Gap largely from that category so and that is some of the information that we're working to get from departments unfortunately I don't have an answer tonight about the the totality I think when we first asked um similar to a lot of what you've heard today when we first asked folks for this

[285:01] information um I don't think anybody really thought that the closures and the um economic recovery would would be as bad as what's being projected right now so many of the Departments are going back and looking at these projects also just to note um many of them were under contract right now so we're trying to work through what are the contractual obligations that we have in some cases for some of these projects so that's the type of information that we're going to be working harder to get in may but certainly um I think you know a lot of the areas that we see these projects we have a lot in utilities and unfortunately or fortunately for utilities um that's not an area where a lot of the revenue decline is at so I don't know if Cara has anything else to add on that

[286:01] do you have a sense of when you'll be able to give us a better picture [Music] [Music] scheduled update okay thank you great and then I've got Adam and Aaron Adam [Music] yeah thank you um this is actually a question for Jane I figured it was the best place to ask it though um so when we first did the furloughs you mentioned that you were going to be looking at uh potential cuts to management pay in order to maybe you know provide some additional money to keep a few jobs I was just wondering when um we might get an update on that sure I can give you an update now we have taken a look ago I sent out some information on the equity lens that we provided in making some of our decisions

[287:01] and what we learned is that more information we have three bargaining units in the city and those bargaining unit units have contracts with the city that prevent us from lowering their wages which we really wouldn't want to do anyway so there are those situations some people in bargaining units then would be working full-time and getting paid their regular pay then there are employees that are working extra and those would be the management non-union employees and so they would be the only ones available whose pay we could reduce and so it would create an inequitable situation in our organization and so that's one of the reasons why we made the decision not to cut uh management non-union pay the other reason is that the impact of it would be very devastating to the morale

[288:00] of people that are working harder than they otherwise would have and the amount of money saved would not have been significant so we made a decision at this point not to do that thanks for the update you're welcome my bad Aaron no worries so thank you for that helpful albeit um Grimm our presentation so um a question I really appreciated that you were using the racial Equity tool um to evaluate the impact of budget cuts so I think that's really important so it's great to hear about that um are we also looking at um well we also incorporate kind of looking at the impact on other underprivileged

[289:01] communities like folks who are lower income or in our mobile home parks for example to make sure that we're minimizing uh the impact of some of our other marginalized and underprivileged communities one word answer I love it thank you for that and the other thing is I know that um appreciate the the work you're doing on looking at minimizing expenses going forward you know I know often when we undertake a project um we utilize Consultants on projects which is often fairly expensive and you know they often provide Great Value but I wonder if that's one of the things that we might look at is to rely a little bit more on our internal folks um you know so that we would maybe not have to reduce staff expenses as much but not look quite as much as we have in the past outside Consultants yeah we are looking at consultant contracts and

[290:01] um thinking about reducing some of them when we do that it may not what it may result in is that we'll be still maybe doing the work but not to the level that we would otherwise be able to do it and we'll talk a little bit about that on May 12th when we discuss our work plan okay thank you that's all I have great I see no other hands I don't have any questions at the moment so Cheryl and Kara you're going to move on if you'd like okay thank you so this next section um is really diving a little bit into this budgeting for Community resilience project and this project was one that began in late 2018 and the organization did a lot of work throughout 2019. it was funded through the cdbg disaster recovery program and the goal was to

[291:00] build greater resilience through more robust rigorous systems for Budget decision making and Service delivery model decisions um so with that next slide uh there were really four major recommendations that came out of the report and the first was to um consider the sustainability plus resilience framework and is it um is it a good framework or a sufficient framework for resource allocation decisions and and maybe the answer is yes and if so how can we use it better and uh more clearly tie budget decision making to the sustainability plus resilience framework and if it if we need to enhance it in some way to help with that resource allocation we should do that work the second is with regard to Department outcomes and key performance indicators and that was that departments should

[292:00] work more to develop some more measurable outcomes and then once those measurable outcomes are identified identify key performance indicators and be collecting the data so that we could more we could measure more clearly our progress toward the outcomes third was regarding collaboration and that we should better recognize the value of collaboration across the organization and cross-department planning and um and that that would really enhance our decision making and we would see value in terms of um leveraging departments working together more on similar issues and then the last is the recommendation that we're really moving forward with very quickly uh particularly with the covet economic crisis and that is to to classify our programs and services According to some agreed upon definitions and the four uh

[293:02] definitions are essential important helpful and amenity and we're going to go through these on the next four slides so next slide so the definitions that were put forward by the consultants and then the organization has had some discussion regarding these definitions as well for essential essential programs our program services or facilities and supporting functions that are critical to health and safety could not be cut without a significant or immediate impact or risk of impact to the cities or the community's basic operations and functioning or are legally mandated by federal or state law or by City Charter or they are solely provided by the city um so that's the definition of essential uh we have some examples here we have six examples for each of the four

[294:00] definitions we just want to note that um the organization and Council will be having discussions about where specific services and programs fit and uh the results of those discussions may be different from what is on the slide so while these examples are here for essential after we have further conversations um they may be different or they may move to a different category so next slide so important is defined as program services or facilities or supporting functions that are valued by the community and valued such that they are created by legislative action by the city council and they could not be cut without some impact or risk of impact the cities are communities basic operations and functioning and again we have six [Music] um examples or potential examples for this

[295:02] category next slide so the next category is helpful and again it's those programs Services facilities and supporting functions that enhance programs or facilities in ways that Advance desired Community Values and they could be cut without significant or immediate impact to basic operations and functioning and again these are some examples next slide and the last is amenity in those may or may not be duplicative of service services that are being offered by another government agency or a

[296:01] non-governmental organization so they may be duplicative so of services that are provided by the private sector even um they may serve limited purposes or specialized interests and they could be more efficient if provided by a non-governmental organization even if not already and then again there are six examples for potential examples so again we think it's really important Cheryl went over all of the different things that we're considering as we do our strategic exercise in May of looking at possible reductions this is one of the things that departments are doing is is looking at these definitions and classifying their services or their potential impacted services and programs according to these four definitions and and allowing those classifications to inform what they might recommend

[297:01] in addition to all of those other considerations that Cheryl went through next slide so this is the console question section um that sort of encompasses much of Cheryl in my presentation with regard to how we're estimating revenues including including sales tax the approach to bridging budget grad gaps and then if Council agrees with the budgeting for Community resilience definition great thank you so much Karen and Cheryl um as people have said this is not the best news that we've heard at a council meeting but it's really important that we get this good information and we look ahead to how we're going to adapt to the new world with a lot less revenues

[298:01] coming in so I would invite Council to respond to the questions that staff has asked us you know hands up um okay here we have Mark and then Bob so mark um as you formulate plans for service reductions can you provide us with the category in which each program has been placed by your analysis whether or not they're essential or or amenities just so we know what what category they've Fallen foreign answer also but yes I believe that is Our intention that's a piece of information that departments are being asked as they prepare their budget reduction proposals okay thank you and I will say can I just add on that we do

[299:00] um looking forward um we do see this as part assuming uh Mary our council member Mary young is going to be presenting on the financial strategy subcommittee's work next and their recommendations we do see this as part of what they do looking forward is looking at services and programs and kind of determining priorities of of those so that's another part of that to come thank you our viewer unmuted okay I put my hand up I think yeah I called upon you I'm sorry I'm sorry um I guess I just want to make more of an observation there was a lot of numbers um thrown at it for the last two or three hours and I guess I just wanted to kind of I'll summarize it the best I could

[300:01] um using 280 million dollars is a round number for our non-utility budget um the the forecast uh that we got four weeks ago which of course had very little information and so you guys did the best you could was there a shortfall you know worst case situation would be about 10 of that or 28 million dollars out of 280. we we've seen now tonight um based upon advice from rich in a few more weeks of experience that that 28 million or 10 shortfall is now um forecasted to be probably in the zip code of 40 million dollars um we'll get more information in coming weeks and months I'm sure but just to put that in perspective I think uh a month ago we were looking at one out of ten dollars or one out of ten programs or one out of ten whatever you want to call it and now we're looking at one out of seven so I think that's just as we look at we as we think about the budget for this year I think we need to be um considering that one out of seven dollars that we were otherwise going to spend for City programs or city services

[301:02] will no longer be uh available to us I think the staff has done a good job of putting together a reduction plan we have a lot more work to do on that um we could all hope that that that in retrospect has turned out to be too pessimistic and that it wasn't 107 but um I have no critique to offer I'm on why it wouldn't be one out of seven it seems like it's very realistic um and consistent with what um Brian and Rich told us and they're real smart guys and so I just think that I want to put that in perspective that that one out of seven dollars looks like we'll go away this year and we'll have to um make some pretty uh significant adjustments this year great thank you Bob and I see no one else with the hand up so I'm going to speak here um I agree with Bob my numbers match with his it's about 15 cut that we're going to be looking at um that's pretty rough and it's going to be difficult and so you know I I a broad staff for

[302:03] having quickly done the first estimate and now a second estimate and I think that you know the first question you have any questions no but I do want to say um thank you to staff and I think you've done a very good job and I think bracketing with scenarios is a very good way to go um I mean Bob's 40 million is the middle scenario which is pretty pretty rough right now um but but I appreciate that and I appreciate that you will look at running the W with the swoosh in the 2021 past rich and Company um I want to say that I do really agree with the service category definitions um we are in a situation where we are going to have to do uh economic triage we're going to be doing triage on our budget within the city and we're going to be watching and helping as the entire Community is doing triage on how we move forward and so we will have

[303:00] um direct control over what we do with our budget and that's council's job and staff's job and then now everyone else in the community every other business in the community and every household is likely to be doing some form of economic triage as well so we should understand that this is a community activity it is no fun to participate in triage um because you end up ruling that some things cannot go forward and so that's gonna disappoint people to the disappoint staff and Council but these are tough decisions we're going to have to make so I appreciate staff doing such a good job team that up for us um and look forward to hearing what Marianne finance committee have to say so I see no other hands so I think Mary you're going to take this next section if I'm not mistaken foreign

[304:01] yes I'm just kind of teeing up my presentation here so first of all I I too want to thank staff for the amazing job they've done and agree with um with Bob and uh Sam's analogy of triaging I think um council is going to be um looking down the sites of some really difficult decisions and um you know our community is very accustomed to having very high levels of services that um some are simply going to go away and um and we're going to have to stick by these four definitions however difficult it might be and however much pressure we might feel from some community members because of the high level of service people have become accustomed to so I

[305:01] [Music] yeah I I don't look forward to it but it is a necessary um exercise if we're going to get through this um so um there's the subcommittee that was um tasked with with coming up with the study on the financial strategy was um Juni and Bob and myself and um we met pretty much um next slide please so we met every other week um since January this is middle of January and um for about an hour and 45 minutes usually um which went really quickly um we talked about the we did a deep dive into the revenue and and tried to understand all of that we had

[306:01] um the library districting discussion which was teed up to actually have us have that discussion with a memo that we provided feedback on but of course that was put on hold and instead we held canceled that meeting and instead had a an Emergency meeting the previous Monday um we talked about the budgeting process um and um the and then determine what the ongoing committee structure might look like um based on other um cities and what they've done so I just I want to just remind us all that this started um or precipitated partially because of how um Council was seeing Master plans coming um to us and we would accept the master plans at Vision levels which would then

[307:01] add to the unfunded needs that the city had which just kept ballooning and ballooning the unfunded needs that were not really prioritized or done the master plans themselves accepted in the context of the budget process so that was that was uh what precipitated this and we were fortuitous in that there were some other um some other work that was going on such as the the project that uh Cheryl and Cara win over which was the budgeting for resilience so um we there were a couple of topics that we didn't get to um discuss um one of them the the racial Equity instrument and budgeting

[308:01] um was not really delayed it was sort of um turned into the rapid response tool that Cheryl spoke about and um we covered in our guiding Coalition meeting this afternoon which is a set of about four or five questions that is the first cut at doing the the whole um racial Equity assessment tool that that is going to be continued to work on as part of this committee's work um and then the financial planning tool which was the the four categories that came out of the the budgeting for resilience next slide please so the final recommendations are to explore the implementation of a two-year budget cycle and one of the reasons that

[309:00] we talked about this and um Bob and Juni please feel free to jump in um and um elaborate or correct me we were talking about how the council is basically on a two-year term and um a couple of years ago we looked at instead of having a large Retreat every year that we would just have a large Retreat when a new Council came on board and have a much smaller Retreat midterm and so it made sense to align the budget cycle with that kind of um term as well so that's and and then staff looked at several other cities that and I think it was in the memo what other cities do and there are a couple other ones of Fort Collins I believe is one that comes to mind that is about is

[310:01] very comparable to Boulder that is on a tier budget cycle um and then um to develop the community find goals to guide the resource allocation and this is like the broad Community goals and also the council goals all rolled up into one um classifying the services according to the four definitions that were just covered um and then defining triggers for the service reductions which is unfortunately um what we find ourselves doing now and um and in a way this it was fortuitous that this was already um being planned but unfortunate that we have to do it um put it in practice so soon um and then also look at creating perhaps creating a financial strategy um subcommittee with with a draft

[311:01] charity Charter which was also included in the memo um next slide please so the the standing Financial strategy committee so this these are the duties that have been outlined in the charter um to review and make recommendations with a lens of aligning with Council and Community goals and priorities um the annual budget priorities um Financial policies that align with those priorities and then short-term and long-term financial planning the composition would is proposed to be two council members that are appointed for two-year terms and one's a council member appointed to a one-year term and the thinking behind that is that um we would have some sort of a succession kind of

[312:00] um function to this this type of appointment so that we would have a council member that has been on for a while when that's been on for about a middle amount of time and a newer councilman so that's the thinking behind that and that the meetings would be once a month more or less depending on how they're needed so um next slide is just does council have any questions on the committee and Bob and Juni please feel free to add to whatever I missed well you did a great job Mary the only thing I would I would observe is um we we Council appointed this committee at the beginning of the year and we were always scheduled to present our recommendations to you guys at the end of April and um covet came along um I don't think our recommendations today would have been any different if

[313:02] covet had not come along I think um we were pretty far along actually in our thinking when things started getting a little bit weird um and I think the only thing that's really changed um between what we would have presented had there not been a situation and now is is um I think we would have tried to we would have had a harder job trying to persuade you of these things because a lot of our concerns were hypothetical um our concerns are no longer hypothetical they're very real and um so I'm glad that that um I also had the foresight to get started on this a few months ago before we knew we had a crisis and I think we're going to have the opportunity to put these tools um into use immediately great Adam yeah just a quick question I was wondering was there any talk of you know alternatives for Revenue raising stuff along those lines um just saying this is great work but um

[314:03] I don't see opportunities for shifting or Revenue anywhere else I guess is what I'm getting at I'll take that first and others may have we actually did um talk at length actually early on our committee um time together in January and February about a couple things Adam right on that point one was um our um heavy Reliance on sales tax in relation to other things and of course you saw that earlier this evening how um how that Reliance on a relatively volatile Source can be dangerous um and um there have been a couple of Blue Ribbon commissions appointed by the city over the last many years who have made that same observation we've made that observation I think it's pretty obvious that um it's a dangerous place to be and I think that's one of the things that this committee if Council

[315:01] wants to appoint a committee going forward would be looking at is how do we um how do we rebalance our um our over Reliance on volatile sources and have a um a uh a a situation where revenue is less vulnerable to impacts like we're seeing right now the second is the committee observed um probably an over dedication of taxes to Dedicated taxes um tend to win a develop box but the problem with dedicated taxes as we are seeing right now is it deprives on the staff of nimbledus and so when we have a crisis whether it's economic or health or or whatever the cause is natural disaster and you want to shift money from one place that maybe is a little lower down in that four-part stack that's maybe an amenity or a you know kind of a nice to have um if the tax is dedicated and the voters have told us it can only be spent on that purpose the staff doesn't have the flexibility to move

[316:01] um things from from one category to the other to to get funding back up to those very very important essential services and so I think rebalancing um between um or over Reliance on volatile sources and a re-examination of the wisdom of um a significant amount of our taxes being dedicated are two of the things that the um this committee would be working on recommending to Council in the near term thanks so much for that Bob that's that's awesome um and thank you all for your work especially doing it mid crisis to get it done in a fast manner that's awesome so can't thank you enough for that okay I see no more hands and so um we can either have this conversation now or there's one more slide that Cheryl has um so Aaron I can wait till Cheryl slide is over yeah so Cheryl I just think it would be

[317:01] helpful if you'd throw that last slide up to give us kind of context and schedule and then uh committee um Genie and Mary if it's okay with you we would answer your question once we've seen the last slide here sounds good and I just want just on Christmas check for guiding us through we're on slide number 91. so thank you Chris um so next steps um like we mentioned we will be doing a few things in May one is working with the departments on these proposed budget cuts we also are going to be working more with Rich and Brian on um more specific Revenue scenarios and forecasting we see this at least for the next several months as a monthly update of our scenarios until we know more information [Music] uh and then we will be receiving April's

[318:00] Tax Returns on May 20th it usually takes a few weeks to process those returns just to remind you that is the First full month of closures we're very interested in what those uh numbers are going to look like we'll be coming back to you on June 9th to give you more information on sales tax like we did today and also more information on any changes to our scenario modeling as well as um what types of additional measures we will be taking to close that budget Gap and then of course we can't forget that we're also in the middle of 2021 budget season it's already started for the city and like I mentioned before the work that we're doing for 2020 will really help us um prepare for 2021 because as I Envision much of our budget Gap closing in 2020 to be one-time sources I think

[319:01] we need to look um at more ongoing um cuts moving forward into 2021. and that's all I had today thank you uh very much for your time Cheryl let me ask you a question here um what is so say we appointed Financial strategy subcommittee um how would they integrate with your next steps would they be involved with each step along the way would it be updates once a month what's your you know in the current crisis we're in as well as moving into 2021 budgeting how would you envision using a subcommittee so I definitely would Envision them probably needing more often if it's a month over the next few months certainly I think reviewing our recommended Cuts providing feedback on them as well as what's been really helpful to us as

[320:00] staff is we've been giving our presentations to the subcommittee first for input so in hopes of providing all of Council in the community a better presentation so we certainly would want to use them for that and also as we evaluate kind of some of the assumptions we're making for our Revenue moving into 2021 it would be helpful to have the committee chime in on that as well in the next month or two okay great and I've got Rachel's hand up did Aaron already get to go I'm sorry I didn't see Aaron before you um go ahead I might I might be uh my I don't know my brain's half off at this point um I'm just trying to figure out what it is that we're being asked to weigh in on tonight like I don't think we're being asked to weigh in on whether we want to move to a um a two-year budget cycle right it's

[321:01] just whether we want to stand up a new subcommittee is that accurate that is accurate and um really that's the only question on the table is whether you want to stand up this committee and then we'll come back to you in the next few weeks um regarding a decision as to who's going to be on that committee so we're not asking even for that tonight because it's certainly it's getting really late I agree um which is why I'm now like imagining that Aaron Brackett speaks when he didn't apparently um and then my so my only question would be is everything so urgent right now that we want uh more to come to the whole Council and wait a month or two to stand this up it sounds like maybe that would not be useful to staff but I think it's something for us to think about thanks okay thank you Rachel Aaron and the mark there yeah things Rachel you're not hallucinating I I had intended to be in the queue but this it all works out so

[322:01] um yeah so I just want to say thank you so much to to Bob and and Juni and Mary for doing this work um it's really useful and important so I'm I'm happy to support uh moving forward with a financial strategy committee I do want to offer a little bit of word caution though we we often really Empower our committees to do all the heavy lifting and then you know we don't necessarily do exactly what they say but um but generally you know more or less go with their recommendations but kind of what Rachel alluded to the uh the changes to our finances in the next few months are going to be very difficult but also an uh set of incredibly important decisions so I think that in the in the short term as this committee gets going I hear Cheryl talking about how useful that they uh um that group would be to run ideas by and present and give initial feedback and things like that but I would want to make sure to reserve

[323:01] um the you know final decisions to about what kinds of cuts to make to the full Council uh without the financial subcommittee feeling like uh they had been wasting work so I just want to get that thought out there [Music] okay and then you have that Mark um yeah I want to agree with Aaron's last point I think that's that's rather important um in terms of what we do with the committee I don't know that there's a burning need to decide it tonight but I think ultimately we can't afford not to have such a committee and whether it's tonight or next time I would be very supportive of going forward with it great I don't see any other hand so I'll weigh in here I think it's uh quite important to do a committee like this I and all of our subcommittees bring the their recommendations to council for final ratification I think we're going to be hearing from staff along the way as well

[324:00] um you know I don't think this is going to be into June before we're going to hear updates on our finances from staff so I I would suggest that we stand up the committee tonight um I'm even willing to to appoint to people that are currently on it um if we don't want to do appointments tonight then we can wait but I really do think we should signal the staff that we want to have this subcommittee I mean it was an important idea to do all along you know even before covert came along with coveted I feel like we need people who are like joined into hip with staff as staff learns things in the subcommittee learns some and the subcommittee can do some initial work at with staff at things like you know doing the categorization and we will see it as Council and we will disagree with some of what um subcommittee does and sap and can agree with a whole bunch of what they do I think so

[325:00] I guess I'm I'm uh full voted in favor of at least making a decision tonight about whether we want such a submitting nearby thanks Sam and thank you staff for this it was really wonderful I appreciate how on top of it you are and thanks to council for working on it so diligently um I would be in agreement with Sam and I also agree with Aaron's last point so if I don't know if we want to appoint them tonight but I definitely think we should at least ended up anyone else have anything to say so Karen I just I agree with like approving the idea of the committee I would probably wait to actually appoint them since it's 11 30 and um maybe we get a little bit more time to think about exactly how to proceed next okay and that's fine

[326:01] um if we go ahead and do it tonight then we'll just at CAC figure out um which of the next few meetings that we want to make the appointments at um as Bob said I think we have one that's pretty light coming up might be the one in two weeks so anyway CSC can deal with that um is there I've got Aaron you spoke right um so I've got Bob next unless Aaron you have something else okay I I was just gonna say what Aaron said I I um I don't think we need to appoint anything tonight uh it sounds like there's a a common view that we should have this committee and CAC can figure out when we have a few minutes um at a meeting and then sometime in the next two or three weeks to make that appointment I also think it's it's good to not do do things right away because um we want to give people an opportunity to raise their hands to serve on the committee if they'd like and so I think let's um let's Peg a date um and then let's um send a general solicitation to all council members and

[327:01] see who would like to serve very very good um so let me ask is there anyone who would objects oh sorry Mary your own apologies no worries I just did it right before you started speaking um I wanted to agree with Aaron's Point as well I I don't think this committee [Music] um um should or would um make all the decisions it's something that it's recommendations that we would bring to the whole Council and um as Sam said we'll disagree on some stuff and we'll just we'll agree on um a lot of other stuff so I um yeah I just wanted to agree with Aaron on that yeah great and I do too for what it's worth I you know at this point I was trying to make was Council always has the final decision and on on these kinds of points where they're going to be difficult Cuts

[328:00] if it should be no other way um I I view the committee as helping organize the work for staff the council has to do so we can do it efficiently um so then let me ask what I was going to ask is there anyone on Council who objects to standing up this committee tonight and then making appointments in a week or two okay so can I have a motion to stand up a financial advisory committee so I moved second okay any objections hearing done that's a unanimous vote in favor of a financial strategy committee okay um I'll I'll say thank you as well express my gratitude to staff I know that you've been working very hard that you have not had a lot of time to um do kind of the the normal thorough

[329:00] job that you would do and so you put this together very thoroughly but in a very rapid time frame and uh I'm sure that all Council appreciates being able to get the visibility we've gone from one set of scenarios to a second set in the course of three weeks or four weeks and so that's very rapid um and thank you for also bringing in the outside folks to speak to us um it is painful I'll say again but it's good to have accurate information and good projections for um looking at what we're going to need to do um so if there's any other council members who have any comments Now's the Time to make them I'm going to turn it over to Jane proposing remarks as you know their Council people of Jane I'm not sure I prepared closing remarks but we'll thank all of you for your great attention tonight um our staff did an amazing job and so did the committee and put making us

[330:01] ready for this presentation this evening so thank you so much for that and we are anxious to get going again with making some decisions uh with regard to our budget so we really appreciate this time very good thank you Jane thank you staff um I'll turn back to council is there any other feedback meeting you brief anything we want to any of you want to say before we adjourn so thank you all for hanging in there we predicted 11 30 it is 11 32 so um thank you all um this meeting is adjourned thanks everyone have a good night not at all right good night foreign

[331:09] [Music]