May 19, 2020 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] it's okay it's it's just cry I I think we will care I think all of us who are there will carry this with us until our own deaths can is a big thing for friends 24 which covers the event in four languages with several daily broadcasts I usually don't have that much time to see FS when I'm there but amongst the one that I've stuck in my mind in the last few years is blacklands Man by spele it's a striking theme Against Racism in the United States in which a black policeman infiltrates the cockx clan it won the festival Grand Prix in 2018 I'm telling you the wars are coming power power Knights of the clock Clan that's us stal Warth Brothers we're on a roll baby spele was due to be head of of the

[1:00] jury this year he would have been the first black man to hold that position in the festival history but fans like me can be reassured he should be back next year with his president hat so see you [Music] then I'm natal saas and you'll usually find me in news reporting on greases enduring Financial turmoil and protest but also the refugee emergency here on France 24 Natalie savaricas one of the 200 France 24 correspondents around the [Music] world

[2:03] we want accountability more than anyone the words of the world health organizations director General as member states vote for an independent review of the body's covid-19 response this comes as the US president issues an ultimatum to the UN body reforms or lose funding British lowcost Airline EasyJet reveals it's Fallen victim to a Cyber attack putting in Jeopardy the names and travel histories of 9 million customers and credit card details of over 2,000 people and France's scientific Advisory board says the second round of Municipal elections can go ahead Nationwide in June this if strict health and safety measures are put in place those were your world news headlines you're watching France 24 thank you for joining us the US President says the World Health Organization needs to make substantial reforms in the next 30 days or face per permanently losing us funding Donald

[3:02] Trump accuses the organization of being too China Centric the warning comes as the World Health assembly wrapped up its annual conference on the second and final day member states voted unanimously for an independent review of the wh's response to the covid-19 pandemic take a lesson to the director General I thank member states for adopting the resolution which calls for an independent and comprehensive EV valuation of the international response including but not limited to wh's Performance as always wh remains fully committed to transparency accountability and continuous Improvement we want accountability more than anyone the who works to expand Health Services around the world if the US its

[4:02] biggest Financial contributor pulls out its dollars it would be a major blow to the UN body for more on how the organization gets its funding here's France 24's Shelly sitbon the World Health Organization is funded by countries institutions and private donors roughly 20% of its budget comes from flexible funds which include contributions from member states roughly 80% of the organization budget comes from voluntary contributions from either countries or private investors the US is the top donor in both sources it pays 22% of assessed contributions in comparison France pays less than 5% according to estimates the US has paid over the past decade $3.5 billion us to the UN body the World Health Organization has used the money to expand health Services across the world

[5:01] often to region that lack health professionals the organization sends out experts to evaluate risks and publishes guidelines to deal with various epidemics and health issues critics have said it may not be entirely independent with powerful member states trying to influence its actions some citing China others the us as president Donald Trump vows to suspend us funding of the organ ization some say this threatens Health initiatives and could hamper efforts to slow down pandemics the US says it will keep investing in health including in the search of a Corona virus vaccine but through US institutions and Labs it's h called the Trump Death Clock a new billboard on New York's famous Times Square counts the number of lives allegedly lost due to covid-19 by Donald Trump's decisions the film maker behind

[6:00] the project says he wanted to measure the cost in human lives by the president's quote recklessness in handling the pandemic France 24 correspondent Jessica laouri went to take a look I'm here in an eerily empty Time Square and there's a new billboard it's not advertising anything it's the Trump death clock and IT projects the number of allegedly preventable deaths from Corona virus here in the United States its creator Eugene ji a filmmaker says that the clock inspired by the national debt Clock measures the cost of the president's incompetence in human lives it's based on a study by two prominent epidemiologists they say that 60% or so of the deaths from the virus here in the US were entirely preventable if he' closed it a week earlier only about 5600 people would have died and two weeks earlier it would have been in the hundreds so there you go every person over that who dies I guess we can

[7:02] see where the blame lays it's blood on his hands I said it's blood on his hands I can wait to get my roots done in this instance with this disease and with the way things have progressed the majority of it unfortunately rests on our government there was not enough done um when you look at the news reports of people who were notified of the coming Market crashes and cashed in on them versus protect the people that elected them to office I think a lot of that stuff just leaves you with a very nauseating feeling in the pit of your stomach that what matters most is the money I think they've done a fantastic job I think Trump had limited information and we can probably blame China quite a bit but he did everything he could with what he had uh I think the economy the breakdown of the economy may cause more deaths than the virus itself don't forget use your masx please okay together we will fight Corona virus see you as New York City remains shut the

[8:01] rate of infection continues to fall here the Trump Death Clock may now tore other cities in the United States moving next to Argentina where there's been over 8,300 confirmed cases of covid-19 and more than 380 deaths in some of the in some of the worst off neighborhoods of the country to discuss potentially scheduling an update and um a discussion of enforcement around social distance Ing and maske wearing and so it wouldn't be any substance tonight it would just be a potential scheduling item so if there's any discussion or a motion to approve the amended agenda I would entertain anything move to approve it okay so I got Rachel moving Mary seconding um any objections to approving the um amended agenda seeing n that passes unanimous ly

[9:00] and then we're on to open comment let me pull up my list here okay and so for open comment each speaker will get two minutes and we have I believe 13 speakers on my list and we will start with Stephen Hell Followed by saridon Haynes and Patrick Murphy Stephen okay let me just um find him in the list Sam and um allow him to speak bear with me for one moment please okay Stephen you're on the air you may need to unmute yourself okay this stepen um actually Sam your two agenda items were wasn't talk to open comment um might sound a little weird I'm out actually out in The Mask I didn't I thought we were doing the briefing first so got caught um Sten okay You' you muted yourself can you

[10:02] unmute yourself we can't hear you oh there we go sorry about that go okay um so I'm out on the Boulder Creek path um and IID say about a third of the people um bikers hikers Walkers do not have a mask or face covering with them um and then seeing the pictures from EV je Fine park last night I think it's time to start finding this little soft warnings is not working um so youall discuss that later it's maybe time to move to the next phase of enforcement um the other one I was talk about the restaurants I think it's great we're working on opening up restaurants um I think maybe a few suggestions on how to do it is one to make or try to make reservation or suggest reservation only for restaurants

[11:00] and to do staggered reservations so you go online and get a um 220 time slot or 230 time slot um this will allow people not to have to um wait outside a restaurant or the waiting area of a restaurant um and also could give the restaurant you could have 50 55 minutes and they have time to clean um the other thing is changing bouncers from checking IDs and alcohol to checking for mask and maybe temperature so but thanks for taking that on and hopefully we can get them opened up thanks thank you Stephen next I have sidon Hayes Patrick Murphy and Mark gban saridon saridon you're on the air you may need to unmute yourself thank you good evening this is Sarah Don with bedrooms for people a group trying to reform discrimin atory occupancy limits

[12:01] you can sign up for our petition at um and everything that I'm going to say is found on our website bedrooms are forp people.com I've recently been reading the 1999 city of Boulder toolkit for affordable housing the 2000 and the 2010 affordable housing task force recommendations and in all these reports we find that raising occupancy limits is encouraged to meet the city's goals but we haven't done it despite how it will reduce cost for single parents and low-income folks it will expand the choices available to families retirees and Elders searching for ways to live and Boulder affordably and um it will lower barriers for people who want to live together out of a desire for Community sustainability equity and mutual support the more people who live in this city can bike and walk to school um it'll help our um traffic because 20 is plenty more than maybe more directly this effort would

[13:00] make existing unoccupied bedrooms available for habitation so we can make more out of our existing housing stock with no increased construction families are exempt from occupancy limits and while families could share a house according to its taste or needs it means that everybody else impacted by race class and age are disproportionately impacted by overly restrictive occupancy policies this is a major Justice ISS and an opportunity for us to meet long-term goals that we're overdue for thank you thank you Saron Patrick Murphy Mark gband and then ly seagull Patrick you're up Patrick you're on the air my name is Patrick Murphy I live in Boulder the mun has taken too much time too much money provided us with promises with no price tags and no estimates of major costs we need to end it now and let real carbon reduction begin now the

[14:02] two critical votes directly on the mun have been statistically 5050 the last critical vote that gave the mun a $7 million bonus for such good work was approved by a vote of less than 52% to more than 48 and that rhymes with pizzagate we can achieve all our carbon reduction goals energy reliability and resilience much better with Excel than we can with the municip utility our current water utility has not been reliable or resilient and has raised rates as much as 87% because we were not reliable resilient or well-maintained and then there's stranded cost which has been treated as zero and yet analysis according to city manager shows the mun is viable it isn't it's a zombie not dead but not living Corona is killing us making us sick and causing the least of of us to suffer the most in spite of

[15:01] this n the muni has collected over 1,000 signatures in a world that makes democracy and active courage and Patrick you muted there you go unwilling to let us vote without risking Our Lives I've held the arms of the elderly from Frasier Meadows who are struggling with their walkers to push across the grass to our signing table I've seen moms with their kids on bikes show up you need to calibrate the success criteria for petitions and accept something far less than the old criteria perhaps 1,000 or500 signatures let us vote let us stay safe at home let democracy breathe thank you you Patrick Mark gband ly seagull and then Leslie lust Mark your up Mark you're on the air you may need to unmute

[16:02] [Music] for you to see if that helps you should be speaking now okay he might not be ready because he may think Co briefing is going on with the response so we'll go ahead and Skip Mark we'll come back at the end see if he's on L we have Lyn seagull Leslie glom and Evan frck um Lynn Lynn you're on the air and ly there you go yeah I was looking for the unmute but it just came on that instant um yeah um number one the [Music] municipal long after negotiations with Excel are over as far as stranded cost

[17:01] the city of Boulder has been um because we hch Lyn we're having a very hard time hearing you you may want to speak closer to your microphone thank you yeah um because we are out of franchise we've lost undergrounding for many years now we've clearly been wanting to get out of Excel and as a result um stranded CA are less relevant to us and if we go back with Excel now I mean I know Sam that part of the agreement would be we get our undergrounding back but there's there there's just no way that they can do micro grids storage uh solar Plus Storage and transactive energy there's no way that they can do that and if they could anyway we ought to be doing it ourselves because we are an independent entity and we are not beholden to our um shareholders we're beholding to our

[18:01] stakeholders um I wanted to say something about pre-existing housing and the intense um demand for housing with the city and with Co now and I think that there needs to be some kind of supplementation for individuals that are trying to make adus um and ways for them to get people to stay there Airbnb deactivated me so I don't really even though I spent 30,000 in my out building which is not an Adu yet uh nobody's in there and it's wasted space and yet we're building new places all over and those are expensive um and there needs to be a better help in that respect thanks thank you then um we have Leslie glom Evan frck and Eric Bud Leslie Europe as you're live thank you thank you very much Mr

[19:00] Mayor and council members and all for all your work as always very much appreciated I'm responding uh at towards the end of the meeting last week uh we heard from the mayor that mayor Weaver and mayor protm Yates are in discussions with Exel and I just wanted to say thank you to both of them and to the council um I think talking to excel is very important as we worry about addressing the coming climate crisis it's a huge typhoon bearing down on Northern India you may know millions of people being evacuated while they also deal with covid so moving the thinking of the utility industry is very very important I feel like we have two very strong negotiators I also believe that citizens should be very involved that the public process shouldn't be separate from the negotiations if Excel have a relationship with us they should be prepared to sit down with the community that's what most business do is they talk to their customers um but

[20:01] monopolies have gotten out of the habit of talking to their customers and they find it quite something um and I think they need to get over that so I'll be honest I've been around this I've seen this happen we had the 2005 to 2010 franchise negotiations the 20134 XL Boulder working group the 201617 settlement negotiations all of them ended up with words many many words but no actions that were quantifiable and enforcable and so I'm just would like to ask the negotiators to first open up the process embed the citizens in the process don't have a separate process have an embedded process and two make sure that whatever you bring us is quantifiable and enforceable and again thank you for the efforts um it's really important to move their thinking and this is the best way to do

[21:00] it so thank you very much thank you Leslie so now we have Evan frck Eric bud and Devin Reynolds Evan you're up Evan you're on the air you may need to unmute okay I did uh honorable Council I wrote to you earlier today with a rather pessimistic and C cynical view of excel's desire to have s negotiations in the midst of the pandemic I call them pandemic bullies with City budgets strained I believe XL saw an opportunity and after all if EXL has slightly reduced revenues due to the pandemic they will go to the Public Utilities Commission to make up the difference their probably recession proed they were able to pay their investors consistent unreduced deid dividends during the 2008 R reception recession and have only increased them since then I don't think EXL reaching

[22:03] out to Bob Yates is a coincidence I believe they wanted to offer something to their most sympathetic ear on Council so we could gain greater Authority in relation to the issue he probably at times has felt like the lone wolf in his opposition I am not criticizing uh councilman Yates I believe he's been true to his beliefs I basically bring this up because I think that EXL is trying to take advantage of that voters have time and again supported the mun munity our representatives are based upon our Representatives based upon their candidate positions last election were rewarded if they supported the mun I think that we should broaden our negotiating team and add another member who better reflect the voters support for the mun Suzanne Jones our former

[23:02] mayor might be a good choice I think the current mayor can come up with another person I still believe a short negotiation that does not delay our litigation is worth doing thank you very much for your time thank you Evan next we have Eric bud and Devin Reynolds and then Crystal Greg Eric you're up Eric you should be able to Erica there you go I'm on muted now hello my name is Eric bud I live in Boulder I'm with bedrooms are for people and we are working to reform Boulder's discriminatory occupancy limits you can join our list to to sign our petition at bedrooms rfor people.com earlier Sarah Don Haynes talked about the importance of our initiative to improve housing affordability and to protect people in Boulder from eviction due to occupancy laws I want to talk about why this is

[24:00] urgent for weeks Council people Weaver and Young have told us that the issues of affordable housing and eviction are not urgent after the immediate problem of the virus Fades our economic problems may be with us for months or years I reject plan Boulder County's position on our B ballot measure plan Boulder said please don't burden us with this unnecessary distraction I say people facing High rents and unstable housing are not a distraction plan Boulder said none of these initiatives are dealing with an emergency I say likely evictions and their effects are an emergency PL Boulder said let us postpone them and these ballot measures until 2021 when we can have a full public discussion and voting by an informed public I say we're asking for a public process in a public vote in 2020 when voter turnout will be nearing 90% in the year where pandemic threatens the health and safety of our community we're just asking for you to make

[25:00] democracy safe and possible we are requesting that Council put our measure on the ballot with the reduced number of signatures as we lost 38 days due to the stay-at-home orders and the unability unavailability of people now due to social distancing and public health we are requesting the Council Place our measure on the ballot when we reach 50% of the required signatures thank you very much thank you Eric uh next Devin Reynolds Crystal gray and Chelsea castiano Devin hi my name's Devin I'm a PhD student in the Environmental Studies program at CU Boulder um I'm here tonight along with some other folks I've heard to address this uh negotiation that council is having with Excel Energy about a contract um and I'm joining others also in expressing concern about renewing this relationship especially in the proc about the process

[26:02] where this is sounds like closed door meetings um and the lack of democratic process that seems to be happening to me uh I'm so I'm here to ask you all to ensure that the decision-making process around the city's electricity uh and in particular talks with a corporate Monopoly like Excel that's really not concerned about people on the ground um I'm I'd ask you to engage from day one or it sounds like from day two in this case with um people in the community and especially lowincome people people of color and other marginalized groups who are going to be most affected by any rate changes that may occur or uh and most affected by by this sort of essential part of the cost of living in Boulder um so as we know I know you all are committed and part of this these talks is because you

[27:00] are committed to sustainable energy in Boulder um but the International Panel on climate change uh intergovernmental panel sorry has uh has shown that unless we maintain a focus on Justice in our attempts to transition our Energy Systems we're going to end up with lovely sustainable Havens that shelter only the most privileged Among Us um so I hope that we can avoid worsening the climate Injustice that already plagues this world and and do do all of these processes in a way that includes everyone thank you Devin next up we have Crystal gray Chelsea castano and Charlotte Pitts Crystal Europe up hi council members can oh great so thank you very much for facilitating facilitating this public comment it was always my favorite thing

[28:01] listening to public comment when I served on Council from 203 to 2011 so I support your efforts to respond to excel just as I would support you responding to Noah IBM or Ball Brothers it is the role of public officials to respond to your constituents so what I'd like to you you to do is go into the Excel discussions with an understanding of what can and can't be accomplished under a franchise and continued pu regulation no matter who is employed at Excel it is still a regulated investor owned utility here are a few lessons we learned when I was on Council first of all the manager told us in 2004 we'd probably be looking at a franchise during our tenure that was true in 2004 in the state election for the nation's first renewable energy requirement it was passed by state

[29:00] voters Excel opposed it in 2007 Excel asked us to pause discussions with Excel so they could do fart smart grid it failed they said there'd be no costs they went to the Pu and we're stuck with $29 million and finally the straw that broke the camels Back 2010 Excel proposed the wind deal in exchange for a franchise but our finance department said we could not afford it then we put the the municipalization issue on the ballot at passed so your job is to ask questions and listen to comments and thank you very much for hearing the public great thank you Crystal next we have Chelsea Castellano Charlotte pittz and Alana Wilson so Chelsea you're [Music] up Chelsea Castellano Boulder this past week governor polus demonstrated true leadership in the statements he made and the actions he

[30:01] took polus said quote access to our ballot while it's inconvenient for our office holders because as Governor I don't like many of the these initiatives it's not up to us it's about you and the wrer the people to petition something onto the ballot end quote we wholeheartedly support the intent of Po's executive order but we don't yet have guidance on how and when Boulder will implement it time is running out and only you have the power to immediately demonstrate similar leadership and resolve this issue in Boulder when asked how polus feels about his hometown of Boulder declining to allow digital Signature Collection by ballot petitioners his office responded that quote the governor was elected to represent and serve our entire State and he is taking action to safeguard our democracy during this unprecedented pandemic this executive order does not pertain to local ballot measures but the governor encourages local governments to find a way to honor the Constitution right to petition during the pandemic and quote you all were also elected to

[31:02] represent and serve our entire community so you have a responsibility to take Swift action to protect our democracy by quickly finding a way to honor the constitutional right to petition you are not in this alone there are fair and Equitable ways to maintain the intent of our City's rules while adapting for the new health challenges our entire Community faces due to this unprecedented pandemic my friend and fellow organizer will now roduce one of the solutions available to you Sam I think that's the next speaker oh okay great thank you Chelsea and we have Charlotte Fitz and atena Wilson [Music] Charlotte can you hear me we can awesome all right uh good evening Council my name is Charlotte pittz firstly I Thank E each and every one of you for your

[32:01] commitment to the health and safety of our community um in these uncertain and trying times like Chelsea I've been working on the bedrooms R for people campaign the reason why campaigns have extensive time to collect signatures is to ensure that they have a fair opportunity to get their initiative on the ballot well nobody is to blame for covid-19 we believe that to not recognize the time lost is to unfairly eliminate citizens rights to petition and to place measures on the ballot for 6 weeks campaigns could not collect signatures without violating Boulder County's stay-at-home order three campaigns were supposed to be collecting signatures during these weeks but lost time granted to them by law to exercise their right to direct democracy the number of signatures required should therefore be pro-rated to reflect the amount of time a campaign had to safely collect signatures for example if a Campa caign originally had to collect 4,200 signatures in 12 weeks and lost

[33:02] six weeks due to the stay-at-home order city council should lower the standard to 2,100 signatures to match the original ratio of signatures to time this is a fair and pragmatic legislative solution that the city council can implement this is the standard that our secretary of state Jenna grisal proposed as a solution to candidates who are trying to petition onto the Democratic primary ballot for US Senate City Council Members Only Had to collect 25 signatures to place their name on the ballot and you would too be frustrated if you could not collect the requisite signatures due to a pandemic as you all consider Solutions please empathize with organizers and accommodate their right to direct direct democracy thank you so much thank you Charlotte and the last speaker Alena Wilson and then we'll come back to Mark gban Elena hi can you hear me y hi my name is Elena

[34:02] Wilson and I'm also with bedrooms of her people and yes we are working to reform discriminatory occupancy limits um please sign up to sign our petition at bedrooms ourfor people.com we continue to cautiously but committedly in public to collect in-person signatures to get this measure which will help materially address our housing crisis on the ballot we now face a delicate dance of recruiting people to come interact with us while respecting the dejected apologies that reveal folks who would otherwise engage are not comfortable with the paper petition I want to highlight our plight in the context of the relief Governor polus has ordered for State initiatives to provide a safe alternative to in-person petitioning quote because there is a public health emergency that makes normal petition Gathering next to Impossible it was absolutely critical that we honor the right of the People by creating a way that is consistent with our constitutional principle of the right to petition and meets the needs of this public health Health environment end quote I Echo the governor's words as

[35:00] a reminder that you our elected representatives also have the power and I hope feel a responsibility to also help not hinder democracy in these trying times we are here tonight to continue making that ask of you to facilitate ballot access for citizen Le ballot measures while protecting the coexistence of democracy and public health we believe the most Fair option based on different timing of different initiatives as Charlotte described is to prate signature requirements based on time lost due to the stay-at-home order and additionally PR rate to account for ongoing isolation and social distancing thank you very much for your consideration and for your service thank you Elana um that finishes our um open comment but we have one person that was skipped over that's Mark gban Mark if you're on the line you have two minutes Mark you should be able to unmute yourself now if it's working on your computer [Music]

[36:00] I'm going to unmute you try to unmute you manually from this end since it appears you're having some trouble okay Mark it looks to me like you can speak on our end can you try mark this suggests that your microphone is not working [Music] so I'm going to say that we have technical difficulties um Mark if you'd like as always you can send an email to council at bber colorado.gov in fact anybody can if you didn't have enough time during open comment we got cut off the two minutes send us the entirety of what you were hoping to say if it was going to take longer to council at bouldercolorado.gov I'll now turn also on Mark is also on the Callin list for public hearing so between now and then I

[37:02] will try to get him a call-in number so that he can be back into the meeting hopefully for public Hearing in a way that works sounds good so I'll turn now to our staff um city manager and City attorney to see if they have any response to open comment thank you Sam um the first Speaker tonight made some comments about the situation on Boulder Creek and in particular e fine Park I want you and the council and the community to know that we are aware of this situation that our police chief and Parks and Recreation director have been working together to address it um a number of tickets were written today for open container and tomorrow we actually have a meeting scheduled with Jeff Zak to discuss our um upcoming approach to it so there'll be more information to come um after that conversation tomorrow thanks thank you Jane um

[38:00] Tom I just wanted to remind folks that coun the CAC has scheduled a discussion of online petitioning or petitioning and the effect of the governor's order for next week next Tuesday night uh I will note that several speakers they asked for Council to change the number of signatures required you do not have the authority to do that the number of signatures required is set in the charter you cannot change that you could of course put things on your ballot on the ballot as your own measures but you cannot change the number of signatures or the due date for that matter both of those things are in the chart thank you Tom and so we will turn to council I have Aaron's hand up which may be to call Aaron well one uh speaker was talking about the negotiators with Excel I just want to make sure that everybody listening to the meeting knows that there are two negotiators and two folks from Council on the sessions that's Bob Gates as well as Mayor Sam waver so in case anyone wasn't sure based on those comments [Music] thank you Aaron any other comments from

[39:00] [Music] Council okay seeing none I have one as well and it relates to the Excel discussions um there was a report in the paper that discussions had been ongoing since January that's not really the case just to set the level set here Bob and I met with Alice Jackson the CEO of um Excel Colorado also called Public Service Company or fesco um we had that meeting early January first week of January and did not get together again in any format until April 20th and so in the month since April 20th for what it's worth there have been seven total meetings involving some Excel representatives and some Boulder representatives in one format or another so we're meeting about twice a week at the moment um for the last month so that's really kind of the duration um we talked about this last week so um we are starting to engage um for public input

[40:01] and we've received a lot so thank you to everyone who's written us emails and testified tonight um so we started that engagement after three weeks of kind of preliminary discussions to see if there was any they there and any way to have a conversation and so um we will work to engage the public as deeply as we can um in our conversations with um the Excel folks we have put out there and they have been receptive to um when we have public um engagement events that they will be there to at least listen and perhaps to participate as well we haven't lined that completely out but I just want to say to everyone who's listening to this that we have let um the representatives from Excel know that the community is eager to both let them hear the community's opinion and to hear back from Excel as to how they're thinking about things so it's all in process and um we will be meeting pretty

[41:00] intensely in June and July and so we would expect the public engagement and the um requests to hear feedback to be coming kind of frequently over the next two months so that's really all I have to say about that I will just remind everyone that Council can only make one type of decision around these negotiations and that would be to put a franchise agreement and any attendant other agreements that went along with it on the ballot so the council cannot take action to um sign a franchise agreement or to approve one all we can do is um put measures on the ballot so this will be a community vote no matter what happens um I think that's all from me Aaron your hand is still up do you have anything else you want to say okay um so seeing nothing else I think we're ready to move on the next item is your agenda um items a through D are before you this

[42:04] evening very good does anyone have any comments on or questions about the consent agenda let me pull this up make sure here I am not seeing I see Aaron has a hand up I raised a physical hand because I already had a raised hand in the form anyway um just the on the adjustment um to the base for the budget um just will we uh for second reading will we be getting more details about the nature of those expenditures that are included in the the ATB so Aon you definitely can get more detail um what I would suggest is I can have someone from the finance department give you a call and find out exactly what it is that you're interested in so that we can provide a memo to all of council about those items sure that'd be great thank you

[43:00] sure okay anyone else let me pull up my hands here I don't see any other hands regarding the consent agenda um if I would move the consent agenda second okay um Bob moved it Mark Wallock seconded it um Lynette is this roll call no show up hands okay does anyone object to approving the consent agenda as it's in front of us seeing none the consent agenda passes unanimously you have one call up check in this evening it's a use review for 2222 14th Street great and um I would look to council and see if anyone has any desire to call this up you do raise your hand seeing no hands I see no desire by Council to call this up so we will not be calling this one up okay your public hearing tonight is second reading of

[44:01] ordinance 8395 amending section 7458 [Music] speeding good thank you Jane yeah I I have very little to say but to turn it over to Bill Cowan to discuss 20th plenty Bill good evening members of council um we have a brief presentation this evening on uh this item and it's going to be given by Ryan nolles hello can everyone hear me yes well good evening my name is Ryan nolles I'm a transportation planner here at the city of Boulder and I'm just going to briefly go over the 20th plenty project to a lower speed limits to 20 miles an hour on residential streets in our [Music] city if it goes

[45:00] [Music] forward Sarah can you advance the slide oh there we go so uh I just want to touch on why we're doing this project again so uh we know that with higher speeds there is a greater chance of a severe crash and so we're using the speed limit as a tool to address speeding on our residential streets we also recognize that uh reducing speeding improves safety and comfort for people who are walking or biking on our streets and so we want to promote our residential streets as shared spaces so places where people can drive walk bike and also recreate and play uh the transportation master plan which we updated last year as well as our vision zero action plan uh highlighted the 20th plenty project as an important part of our goal to meet

[46:02] Vision zero and so we previously uh discussed the 20s plenty project at the April 21st meeting where we uh had made a uh staff recommendation to do a comprehensive study but at that meeting uh Council had suggested and advised us that we should move forward with the ordinance before you this evening and so we had a first reading on May [Music] 5th can you advance a slide Sarah sorry there we go so uh so the effect of the ordinance will be to lower the default speed limit from 25 mil hour to 20 M hour and this will apply to all local residential streets in the city so if you look at

[47:00] the map it'll be all the streets in purple and then for streets that are a higher classification so arterials and collectors we will continue to address speeding with speed limits on those streets uh by doing Corridor studies as well as speed [Music] studies so ordinance 839 5 uh will amend the boulder Revis code to reduce uh speed limits on any Street which no Street which on sorry on any Street where no speed limit is posted to 20 miles hour so that is the default speed limit and effectively that means all local residential streets in the [Music] city uh if the ordinance is passed this evening uh the 20 M hour speed limits will go into effect on June

[48:00] 18th uh following the meeting we will begin to replace 25 M hour signs with the vision zero 20 M hour signs that you see in the picture on the right we have have approximately 465 of those signs uh the cost of that project will be approximately $65,000 and we will complete it by the end of the summer and I'm happy to answer any questions about the process leading up to this evening um or 20 M hour speed limits in general great thank you very much Ryan I have Adam SW thank tan uh one question regarding the cost in that $65,000 I just don't remember from our last time we were talking about this does that include the cost to actually put the signage up by staff or is that

[49:00] strictly the cost of the signs themselves that costs the labor that staff will um spend replacing that in okay that includes the labor yes great thank you great any other questions from Council [Music] Mary just unmuting myself um yeah I have several questions um the first one is um I just wanted to find out how much Outreach was done to um raise awareness about this um within the community uh yes so we uh had done Outreach last year through the transportation Master Plan update as well as when we created the Safe Streets Boulder report in the vision zero action plan as part of our staff recommendation we had proposed doing additional

[50:02] Community engagement um because we heard pretty loudly from um supporters of the the ordinance change and the 20s plenty project that they were in favor of it but initially when we embarked on the project we were unsure of the level of support CommunityWide um which we discussed on April 21st but um since then I believe uh through emails to you as well as emails to staff we've we've heard support more in favor of the project than than not but we have heard some some uh opposition to the ordinance change Mary we um we also conducted a public hearing at the transportation Advisory Board as well thanks B okay thank you and how flag for you and other council members that Tila is on the line is the tab chair she is scheduled to

[51:00] speak for open or public hearing but she's doing that on her own time so if you have questions for her as tab chair please feel free to ask her I'm going to go ahead and promote her to panelist okay thank you and how long um you said that you hope to have all the signs switched out by end of summer is that correct that's correct I'll take this one Ryan so um we're gonna order the signs as soon as the ordinance is passed should take about three weeks for the signs to arrive and then we anticipate two to three weeks for the installation so um you can do the math we would anticipate uh the signs being up in the middle of the summer and does um if the if the installation of the signs were to be um f rolled out in a kind of a f phased out phased in um manner would that affect the cost it would likely

[52:02] negatively affect the cost we it would probably cost more money for mobilization okay thank you and then um my next question um just a regarding um Vision zero and the the cost of this project has been um said to be $65,000 are there any other Vision zero um projects that would be um affected by doing this first so in other words like are there um some neighborhood traffic mitigation projects that um could possibly have um an effect um that would be more immediate so um complex

[53:00] question when Council very graciously gave the transportation department $700,000 last year and we worked with the transportation Advisory Board to determine how we would spend that we budgeted $100,000 of that to the implementation of this TMP action item so um so so that money has been allocated that that portion of the 700,000 and should this move forward tonight um it it will cost less than that $100,000 and we will repurpose the remaining funding for that um the the transportation and mobility department is of course cutting um tremendous amount of of money we're being asked to cut $4.5 million out of our budget so um any amount of money that we got back

[54:00] we would repurpose to Vision zero or other tasks okay um thank you and so this might be a question for Tom um what does um what would this ordinance apply to all modes of travel limit applies to all vehicles it applies to bicycles um obviously it doesn't apply to pedestrians because only you same bolt can go faster than that but it would apply to bicycles and um and so what so the followup question would be what is and this may be for transportation staff what are the top speeds for ebikes um I'm gonna see if DK is still with us

[55:01] because I know he was here for the excellent do you have the answer to that question DK yeah I do it all depends on the the type of ebike but uh the federally approved or fly regulated type of ebike has a max speed of 20 miles per hour it's about 650 Watts okay so there but there are class 3 ebikes that can go faster but um and they are allowed on on roads but they're not allowed in bike Lanes or multiuse paths so they would be on the roads is what you're saying yes a class three is um legally required to operate on a on a road not not within a bike lane or a um so they have to operate within the travel Lane not in the bike lane and then they also cannot operate on a multi-use path okay but but but the typical the typical ebike that's out there today has a has a the max speed of 20 M hour okay and so if we're doing most of our

[56:00] enforcement uh with um with photo radar um is that and that's the plan well if if you're asking about enforcement on residential streets um what we've uh worked out with our partners and colleagues in the police department is that um we would like more of the police resources the officer resources to be out on the arterial roadways and so we would like photo enforcement resources to be used more in the residential neighborhoods so where the 20 mph hour speed limit would be yes we would expect it would be more photo enforcement than officer enforcement okay um thank you and then my final question is what would happen what will happen to um school zones will the flashing lights and all of that still be required um I think we will so many school zones of course are on streets that would still have a higher speed

[57:00] limit but on streets where the speed limit is 20 and the school zone is 20 we would probably want to take a look at those conditions we would I don't think we would ever stop flashing the school zone because we would want people to be aware that the conditions around a school zone are present but we would um want to consider whether that school zone stays at 20 or also gets lowered okay that's all I have thank you if I could if I could jump in I have a little bit more on Mary's first question which was about the sort of Outreach and and sort of publicity that has happened and I only got added on just a few minutes after that so Ryan covered a lot of what the city itself has done and City staff has done um and thanks Bill for pointing out we did have a public hearing um at tab on April 13th um and setting aside all the work you know six years of work on the last two rounds rounds of vision zero um that went into the TMP updates there's also been I've definitely seen messaging on

[58:01] next door and on Twitter um Citywide um both from the city Communications Department and just sort of General Buzz um Community Cycles has done an outstanding job reaching out to its members um repeatedly um by email sending out action alerts and just sort of raising awareness to that they've also ordered and had to reorder um uh yard signs that you've probably seen throughout the city 20 is plenty yard signs they had to to put in a second order because they ran out um that second order came in just a few days ago I want to say and they is a plan now to distribute those jointly with some City staff with Ryan um in connection with the neighborhood speed U Management program um I believe that that effort is going to begin toward the end of this week or beginning of next week um you also received um a letter from The Pedestrian action committee um that's the continuation of The Pedestrian advisory committee the city council conven to inform the transportation Master Plan update in 2019 um they have since met

[59:00] discussed this um a couple of members of those put in a very extensive oped supporting this change in the in the Daily Camera um Community Cycles super put in an oped as well so there's been quite a lot of um chatter on um and through the Daily Camera as well and uh this came before um the vision zero partnership meeting which is a basically a quarterly meeting um and includes people from city of Boulder Transportation staff uh County Health city county of Boulder Transportation um Colorado do um Boulder PD um you know Highway enforcement in the state a whole bunch of of Statewide and local Regional partners and we specifically discussed um whether we should be doing a study or going straight to the ordinance change um at that Vision at the latest um Vision zero partnership meeting that was in um January or February I'm not sure of the date but um pretty recent so there there's been quite a lot of of community discussion as I said separate

[60:01] and apart from the six years of working toward getting something actually fundamentally changing on our streets through a vision zero um action plan but it there's been quite a lot that we've heard and that's partly why you've been seeing so many emails and and people hearing from the public on this thank you TAA thank you I don't see any other hands up I just would answer Mary brief about the classes of ebikes here here's what it says online ebikes that are pedal assist only at class one have no throttle and have a maximum assisted speed of 20 class two ebikes also have maximum speed of 20 but are throttle assisted class 3 ebikes are pedal assist only no throttle and have a maximum assisted speed of 28 miles hour so for what it's worth um I can imagine a class 3 bike Maybe if they get lucky um tripping the the photo radar um I assume that set it a few miles over 20

[61:01] so anyway for what it's worth that's what internet say anyone else have a question comment okay seeing none I think we're ready to go to um public comment let me pull up my list so I have nine so far Sarah is that right that is correct Tila's first but I'm going to um return her is an attendees so she's testifying the way everybody else will be so just give me a moment please sure and I think this is three minutes per speaker is that correct that is correct Chris can you pull up the timer please okay so while you're doing that our first three speakers are Tila duim Su prant and Jennifer shriber so just let me know when you're ready to go with TAA Tila you're on the air you may need to unmute thank you I was hoping to offer you some perspective tonight on what the public process leading up to this point has looked like and also just mention some

[62:01] of the scale on the cost um and those are both questions that Mary raised I'm really glad that you did I think that those are pretty salian issues but they shouldn't stand in the way of you adopting this ordinance change tonight you've already heard a lot about the data supporting this move about how deadly Motor Vehicles are at fairly modest speeds and how changing speed limits does slow drivers down when you do it systemwide and those facts inform why this is an appropriate response to a persistent public health problem but recognize that this is not some new idea from a handful of noisy residents with a catchy slogan achieving slower steadier vehicle speeds instead of the hurry up and stop travel we've been working on this since in Boulder since at least the 2014 TMP update six years ago and we just doubled down on that approach last year with the latest TMP update enacting action plans that were approved by Council and mentioned this ordinance change Boulder has literally invested months of of Staff personels interacted with thousands of members of the public convening working groups advisory committees neighborhood groups and

[63:00] nonprofits all weighing in on the plan and practically nobody said these streets are perfect just the way they are a couple of years ago as you know we started the neighborhood speed Management program which has been so popular so far we have a wait list dozens of projects long and growing this is all to say that there's a wide un unmet demand for slower neighborhood streets and this ordinance change would address it Citywide equitably everywhere and it does so by adjusting the set point like changing a thermostat of a law already on the books we've done a huge amount of public feedback work for you for years and now it's your turn this is before you tonight because you Council sought responsibility for making decisions for Boulder and you were elected to do just that and I'm guessing that none of you decided to run for office because one morning you woke up and thought gee this place is just perfect I wouldn't change a thing a few people have worried about the $65,000 cost so let me just tell you this in the first week of December alone

[64:01] responding to a single storm Boulder burned through about eight times that amount of money four or 500,000 or more in seven days of just pushing snow out of the way and nobody said boo about that we have a billion dollars worth of Transportation infrastructure to take care of all of our projects are expensive but that's no excuse for not acting to improve our streets I ask you tonight to respect the e of all those who've gotten us to this point as well as acting for the health and safety of the public at large it is preposterous that just weeks ago our streets were deemed at a council meeting too unsafe for humans to share with vehicles but that tonight by failing to act we would ensure that nothing in that changes thank you thank you Tila we have suant Jen Shriver and then Steven hell Sue you're up Sue is using an older version of Zoom so I'm going to have to promote her to

[65:01] panelists for the purpose of her speaking give me a moment just to heads up to the public as we wait for that there is a new Zoom client um update that's come out and pretty soon you're going to get forced to update to their version five so I would just suggest if you intend to be on these calls go ahead and um update because if you don't it'll do it for you're starting in June so anyway okay thank you um thank you Council the most important thing you need to know about 20's plent that saves lives if you are hit by a vehicle going 20 miles per hour you have a 90% chance of surviving at 30 miles per hour that drops to 50% is clear in passing the sorns today you will save lives for many many years to come you can be proud of your role in that outcome to date 73 neighborhoods have gone through the cumbersome task of getting 30% of their neighbors to request speed negation during the three-year neighborhood speed Management program this shows a

[66:01] tremendous demand for lowering speeds among neighborhoods throughout the city across many ages and income levels 20th plenty will actually make a difference a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety showed that even without posting signs there was a considerable decrease in speeding just by lowering the speed limit with the biggest decrease in speeding seen by Vehicles going 10 miles or more over the speed limit Seattle has seen the same thing with reductions of 5 miles hour using just signage they found average speeds dropped 3 to 15% crashes dropped 18 to 39% injury crashes dropped 11 to 39% and high-end speeding dropped 45 to 65% research in the United Kingdom shows reductions in speed in median speed of 1 to 3 miles per hour result from just lowering speed limits without changing the physical design of the streets combined with Target treatments through our neighborhood speed Management program and systematic changes in the design construction standards we should

[67:01] see more pleasant and safer streets as a community we need to ask ourselves is 5 miles per hour worth your life or the life of someone you care about is it worth the life of your fellow citizens neighborhood streets are where kids play and pets roam both darting out into the street and yes sometimes child gets killed are we willing to take that risk just to go five miles faster for a few blocks are we willing to slow down slightly to save lives we would like to thank you for your support of 20 is plenty ordinance change Community Cycles appreciates all the effort you put into keeping our community safe thank you so much thank you sue we have Jennifer Shriver Steven hell and Lyn SLE Jennifer [Music] Europe Jennifer you're live you may need to unmute yep thank you I've got that now good evening city council and thank you very much for your service to our community so I really appreciate this

[68:02] whole discussion I see you've heard from staff and other people you've seen the data and um the traffic mitigation impacts the saving of lives I wanted to also bring forward the environmental benefit um we all know that the city of Boulder has recognized that we are in a climate emergency and impacting our transportation system is a very important and harder to achieve piece of that puzzle um I know Boulder has been working for many years to try to shift modes um and make it more attainable more possible more feasible for people to get have Mobility without driving a car often a single occupancy vehicle and about I'm sure you're all aware about a third of our City's climate emissions

[69:01] are from the Transportation sector largely fossil fuels that we just burn up so ic20 is plenty from that point of view as well as we make 80% of our neighborhood streets in a change that is so widespread so Equitable something that provides greater safety for everybody in our community we're also making an important step toward an infrastructure actually a publicly owned infrastructure that we're all invested in and making that infrastructure actually available for all modes of travel that people can walk people can bike um you may be familiar with a study that was done I believe uh in Portland that showed that about half of their citizens were interested and but concerned about bicycling in particular

[70:00] and that was really about how scary and stressful it is I can tell you on my street since the pandemic I've seen little kids playing in the street we've had basketball and roller skating and bicycling of course and you know people avoiding one another on the sidewalk by using the street it's been beautiful to see our streets reclaim as the public spaces that they are so coming back to this idea of the the climate emergency as we continue to try to solve the climate challenge in front of us making our streets available for everyone all modes of travel this would be a very important step in that direction thank you again for listening thank you for your service thank you Jennifer we have Steven hell L seagull and Mark gban [Music] Stephen there we go okay can you all

[71:01] hear me now yes we can okay um I always following three great presenters so I'll change mine up a little bit um Mary's question about Max speeds of ebikes sort of irked me um as we see cars going down 40 m hour down our street um question is what's the max speed of cars um the European Union has proposed I don't know if it's gotten through putting Governors on cars so when they're on streets that they can't go over the speed limit um really the focus is on cars and slowing them down and this initiative 20 is planing across this the city will help achieve that it might not bring all the car speeds down to 20 mph we see the 85 percentile of cars going down residential streets as well above 30 m hour um so in the future we might have to do more

[72:00] engineering but for the time being and for the cost changing the speed limit across the entire city on residential streets is a really good start um and I thank you all for um pushing this proposal um even though Transportation staff was wanted to do more studies um we've been working on Vision Euro for 6 years um and this really feels like the first big push we've had to achieve it so thank you and uh please vote for option two of 20 is plenty across this um city of Boulder thank you thank you Stephen now we have ly seagull Mark gban and Arana Wilson I can't believe three minutes this is a miracle you cannot say anything in two minutes I'm sorry

[73:03] um I was going to be pretty much for this but I ride my bike really fast when I can write it the letter that I wrote you 20 some pages took me a a week and a half and three nights of no sleep and I didn't get to get out on my bike at all when I do go out on my bike I want to get some heavy exercise and I want to go as fast as I want to go and I have no idea how fast I go and I don't have money for an odometer and I don't want to think that I've got photo radar on me on my bike bikes are a whole lot different than a car on a bike I constantly have a huge visual field and I'm aware of everything much more it's an entirely different situation should not in any way be equated with cars if you somehow go forward with this you need to have a neighborhood con contest

[74:03] for for beautiful uh signs and the people let the neighborhood pay for the signs just like the those um banners on the mall that are fabulous if you get a chance look at all the banners um from the art community and put 20s on a of those and do not spend $65,000 we are in a climate crisis in anep in a pandemic crisis cars aren't going anywhere anyway there aren't any cars anymore the structured parking lots are going to have to be repurposed the surface parking lots that will go far towards our housing crisis which is at an all-time high because nobody's working huh boy um this needs to be an iterative process because I had no idea that I was

[75:00] going to be tracked on my bike with a fod our radar and if I'd have known I'd have had time to think ahead I don't have time between the RAB meetings the planning board meetings the landmarks meetings the the City Council meetings and and following all the issues in town I don't have time there's limited time to read the fine print we need a more iterative process where the Public's invited in and there's a back and forth and people know what is going on um let's see you need to be dealing with things like Alpine Balsam right now this is a solution looking for a problem and there is no problem now we don't have cars anymore remember it's the pandemic thanks done thank you Lan next we have Mark gban Elana Wilson and Anna Seager Mark you're up can you hear me now

[76:01] please can you hear me Dynamite all right so I'd like to say that 20 is plenty seems like the bare minimum that you can do today and I want to remind you that plenty is modifying the miles per hour not what needs to be done in this community to make it safer for pedestrians and bicyclists and to move us more rapidly toward a less Car- Centric future so um also want to remind you all that yes the 2014 TMP was six years ago but there was a two-year process leading through that so we've actually been talking about this for the better part of eight years if not a decade Vision zero that is and not much was done in the 2014 TMP um a lot of things that were on we're just pulled back we we PR played prend with living lab fome University

[77:00] seems like the only thing remaining might be the the angled the backend angled parking on University so when we look at what's happening the ways that other cities in the United States and throughout the world are taking advantage of excess car or excess Street capacity as cars have um been set aside for a little while during the pandemic it's clear that Boulder is no longer a leader anymore in fact I'd say we're falling way behind we're not doing anything with regards to Shared Street and both um Tila the head of TMP and staff is saying that again this is only plenty with regards to to the speed limit on residential streets it's not plenty with regards to what the City should and can be doing especially now with our streets being as quiet as

[78:00] they are um i' challenge you to be even Bolder and to say this is a no-brainer in fact if this doesn't pass it'll just be another embarrassment on the city but take time be bold use this as a start and move quickly to implement shared streets throughout the city thank you thank you Mark we have Alana Wilson Anna Seager and Robert werka Alena you're up hi again Elena Wilson uh thank you very much for supporting this measure I live a block from one of the dozens of yet to be implemented projects that has been nominated for the neighborhood speed Management program and while I wasn't involved in that effort I am grateful to the effort my neighborhood put forth also live next to senior housing and regularly fear for those neighbor safety when they are out walking so I want to share what I found from a British advocacy group 20s pl.org which states that you are seven times less

[79:01] likely to die if hit it 20 miles per hour than 30 miles per hour or 10 times less likely to die if you are over 60 years old they also note that in the distance a 20 m per hour car can stop a 30 m per hour car would still be doing 24 miles per hour I hope I'm as active as my neighbors are in 40 years but in the meantime even I get nervous Crossing the residential streets where I live so I thank you again for supporting this measure which moves us closer to our vision zero goal thank you Elana um next we have Anna Seager and then Robert werka Anna you're up uh hello um thank you for holding this hearing um I would just like to start by saying thank you to Ryan Nos and Bill Cowen they've been very helpful um to me in the past when I have written about my concern for safety as a cyclist here in Boulder um I am calling tonight as a parent who regularly rides with

[80:01] three kids 6 years old 9 years old and 12 years old um and um they have implemented changes to make the traffic light walk signals go before the cars get their green light and that's helped a lot to get us out in the street so the cars see you because otherwise I can't tell you how many times we've almost been hit by car is turning um so I wanted to thank them for that um and since the pandemic has started uh the car the streets have become emptier but um there's more people out and so you're out on the street with other bikers and other people who are walking who are trying to avoid the sidewalks um and cars are going faster um I don't have any data show this but this is a a person who's been riding their bike in Boulder for 10 years I think the lack of traffic has just made people feel like they have a a green light to go as fast as they want um so it's scary for me as

[81:01] a parent to ride my bike with my kids um up and down streets where the there's parking right next to the bike lane so there's no way you can get over um just drivers are distracted they're on their phones and they're going really fast um so I totally support um this uh 20 is 20 measure and I would also encourage Council to take it further and um follow now I would have hoped that Boulder as a environment friendly and um kind of outdoor lifestyle focused City would have taken the lead in uh closing down streets to cars and making them more open to more pedestrians but um if we can't do that I fully support just uh doing the 20s plenty and making the street safer for kids and families to ride their bikes thank you thank you Anna um so I hear from Sarah that we don't know if we have Robert WKA

[82:01] on the line uh Robert are you there there is nobody unaccounted for with a um name that hasn't already spoken and I'm not seeing a Robert werka on the line Robert if you are on the line if you want to um send me a note through the Q&A tool we can call your name he goes by Ted but I don't see a Ted here on their panelists and I don't see a Ted under participant so um we will just go ahead and um close the public hearing and return this to council um I would ask if any council members have questions that they'd like to ask okay I think we've done most of the questions so I think we're open for disc discussion now does anyone want to kick off discussion of the 20's funding measure all right

[83:01] [Music] Rachel hey um I actually had a question I couldn't find the darn hand raise button um so my question was to I guess Mary and Lynn's points about bicycles obviously bikes don't have license plates so I assume that even if they were caught up in the photo radar there wouldn't be a ticket and we're not really worried about ticketing bikes with this initiative can somebody explain that a little bit no we're not really going after bikes and and remember the enforcement starts at 10 miles over the speed limit so a bike would have to be doing more than 30 even to trigger the electronic the the automated cameras thanks great okay hang on one moment try and get this up all right [Music] Aaron great well excuse me I'll um I'll kick off the discussion of that's right

[84:01] just to say I wholly support this um I sent out a hotline last night I'll just touch on a couple of the key points from that we've heard testimony today um about how uh higher speeds uh do cause more severe crashes and more fatalities and there's a lot of um evidence for that and so then the the question is is will uh lowering the speed limit through signage actually reduce speeding and there are multiple studies out there a couple of which I uh included in my hotline post that showed that cities that have uh just uh changed the speed limit by 5 miles hour just with signage have seen a reduction in driving speeds over time so um this measure will reduce speeds and uh based on the published research and uh therefore it means that uh any collisions that those cars are have with pedestrians or cyclus at those lower speeds will be less likely to be severe crashes so I think this is a

[85:01] measure that will improve safety in our city um we've gotten a lot of support for it we've gotten some folks who are skeptical um I think there there is they're skeptical about um you know whe whether this would be effective but I think those studies uh show that it would be um and the other point I just want to make is that uh this is only about your local residential street so this is you know think about in front of your house and as you get to your you know uh arterial or collector Street not too far away so it's like you know one or two or three blocks for most folks uh from their house to the next U biggest street uh which is a very short amount of time to go a slower speed but this is also the the street uh that you're walking yourself you know with your your dogs or your kids or um however you get around or whoever you get around with and so just think about the increased safety that we'll all have for our uh family members and friends in our own neighborhoods um and whether that's worth the trade-off of um a couple of

[86:00] blocks of of driving a little bit slower so wholly support this happy to put a motion on the table too whenever thank you um looking for anyone else who wants to speak um seeing no one I'll go ahead and jump in here as well I think Vision zero is one of the more important things that we're doing in transportation right now it affects everyone and we are trying to make um getting around safer for all modes I think this is a way to do it across the city on streets which are intended to be slow travel for all modes generally speaking um and with a car we've seen the numbers uh about the the outcome difference um if you're hit going 20 versus 30 it's pretty Stark um and there's physics behind why it's that way and we are acknowledging the the um realities of what happens with collisions um and typically if it's a car versus bike or a car versus

[87:00] pedestrian it's pretty bad outcome for the biker pedestrian so I'm going to support this I think it's a good idea I'm glad it was um brought forward I'm glad that we're doing it in the most cost effective way that we can as as we go forward um I don't want this to be seen as a replacement for other things that we need to do um and I'll have some of those that I'll mention in the work plan around Transportation but I do support this um we had tab unanimously support it um it was a election issue um up to people took positions on it and it had an influence on who got elected so with that um I'm going to support this any other council members want to speak otherwise I'm going to call on Aaron for a motion seeing none Aaron FL is yours great well I'll just move that we uh approve the or in front of us uh changing the speed limit on local residential streets to 20 M hour second okay Aaron made a motion Rachel

[88:02] seconded any further [Music] discussion uh Adam yeah I just wanted to say um I I walk in a rural residential street almost every day and those to me are actually some of the most dangerous ones because while you would think people would go nice and slow the width of the street itself the lack of people walking around it um it it actually leads to some of the higher speeds that I've seen in the city on a 25 mile per hour Street and that's even with speed bumps on some of these rural residential streets so I'm looking forward to this um so I can see the effect live and in person on our our our Zone streets very good thank you Adam I've got Mary up [Music] next yeah um I'm going to support this I do think it um it is an important step towards making our city safer um I don't

[89:00] want us to lose sight of the fact that this is this move is most effective when you have other infrastructure changes um there are also streets in our town where um there is such a straight away and they are um used so much by um bikes that um I I do think that the speed of bicycles um specifically ebikes um can be a hazard um and I say this from um watching people um as I ride my bike and getting passed recklessly and um as well as just watching people right down my street um going really really fast and on on ebikes and so I do think that it's it's a concern as I watch um folks riding with three kids on the bicycle

[90:00] and probably going probably not um 30 mil an hour probably more like 25 um but it seems that that could be a hazard so that's why I was asking those questions um and then um the other reason I asked about the the phasing in was because um we are doing this during a time where there will be the perception that we are trying to pass this while people quote unquote quote aren't paying attention so um so I just wanted us to think about being um cautious or maybe not cautious but um making sure that as we do this we're leing neighborhoods know that this is going to be happening and maybe starting with the neighborhoods that have the neighborhood speed mitigation um proposals out there waiting to be um installed and so maybe starting with

[91:00] those neighborhoods and then moving to others but as we do that if we can let people know that this is going to be happening I'm sure they would be delighted to hear that it's happening but I think it's just a small step to um to make sure that people are aware and um know that this is going to be happening um the other thing is um I think about the people that AR aren't coming into Boulder right now because they are Inc commuters and um they will have not been coming into town because perhaps they um were working at home or they had been furloughed and as they start to come in they'll be wondering what happened so they won't be aware and um and so I think about them and um that's why I was asking the questions that I was asking [Music] great thank you Mary I have no other hands up I've already spoken um last call for

[92:00] comments seeing none Lynette is this a show of hands no this is a roll call vote okay very good you mayor Weaver I council member Yates yes young yes rocket I friend yes Joseph yes Nagel hi sleck hi wallik I the motion passes unanimously well thank you all for that it's always good to have a unanimous vote and congratulations to the advocates for 20 as plent and thank you to our staff for such um good work that you've done teeing this up both for tab and for us so good job everyone okay your next item is the response to challenges faced by reopening restaurants very good yeah just really

[93:01] quickly again avette Bowden is going to be presenting this matter avette hi everybody um thank you for having us Council uh a week ago I was with you to let you know that we had already started this initiative by making sure that we had adjusted daily rates in the city owned parking garages and we're going to maintain um the evening pilot 3 for3 to 3 and had increased weit times for curbside to 20 minutes to allow for curbside and yet there are more needs of our restaurant industry and we're thoughtful to that um and if I can ask for the next slide so the restaurant industry has asked for a couple of things that uh are to be considered as we do with all businesses ease and affordability of pickup and delivery which I spoke a little bit about just now but we'll add more to expansion opportunities in anticipation of what we think will be

[94:02] the governor's Direction on social distancing for restaurants uh indoors to allow for alcohol lure expansions if possible and use of the RightWay a clear and Speedy process with Clarity on particular issues they had around pickup and delivery of alcohol beverage continuation um this particular item about pick up a delivery of alcoholic beverages the governor just put out some or the a proposal a couple minutes ago that I've been reading um and so it looks like that will possibly continue but this is um early guidance and not a final rule at this point Clarity on safety related processes especially around customers restaurants are concerned that as they're opening they want to make sure they know what the the rules are once they are serving outside of their building um and and we're waiting for that guidance as well and ongoing promotion support which many of

[95:00] our alliance partners are involved with us on in addition to these considerations as with all Council direction we also considered as staff safety Equity around the city quality of life impacts and costs next slide so I just wanted to mention all the Departments that have been working on this from the recovery team and of course the city attorney's office to members of my department and Community Vitality licensing uh great Partners in Planning and Development Services Public Works Transportation fire the special events team and Communications I'm not alone this evening um there are other people U attending this meeting tonight that will be available at the end of the presentation should you have questions next slide so um there are some things that uh we considered uh alcohol is first uh for

[96:00] many businesses in trying to understand what they can or might want to do uh alcohol licensees usually cover activities within their controlled area in their either leas or owned space on the interior unless they have an existing Paia and it's often fed um there is an existing temporary modification process uh and we are recommending that weend um that use of that process August 30th the state may allow further and we would certainly bring that to your ATT and mon above it does require and I think council member young asked me this last week um review by the state and the city and at this point unless we hear direction from the state otherwise that is still required and so you have this next bullet which is the the posting of a notice for 10 days and there's a particular format to the sign we have even gone so far as to say could the sign you know could the

[97:00] sign be downloaded and you know is it can we provide it in 8 and a half by 11 at the present time we don't know but we'll try and find out um the C the fee from the city is $50 for this temporary modification and for the state it was $300 but they reduced that on Saturday um we were paying attention so that has been reduced to $150 there is also um an implication here once you start to expand Beyond a quote unquote control area around things like common consumption which I will talk about in a couple of minutes um and we're waiting for additional State Direction on how that J with the governor's Direction around Gatherings and events and we're unclear at this time from Boulder County on what is the expectation around masks um and around once you're outside next

[98:02] slide um so what we have uh proposed for your consideration this evening is that applicants will have multiple options and there will be one application package we will have several forms to complete but we will be reviewing everything concurrently the applicant will describe their preference in their expansion option selection and their preference as it relates to alcohol in an expansion be there are required documents um some of which we control some of which we don't um and applicable fees but we've been thoughtful to make it easy to understand and as affordable as possible using existing stud processing we also are recommending some required notice um basically to other business neighbors and residential neighbors next Slide the first thing and something that

[99:01] we have not seen elsewhere in the state of color that I want and are recommending that the city lift all minimum parking requirements as a temporary waiver um through that time period for all retails this will allow us to free up additional SP I am trying to address the audio is that better event I would suggest if you don't mind if you could turn your video off that may help a lot with the audio B I sure will great do that better much better wonderful so we're also recommending um expansion opportunities into private leas hole area uh this will require a landowner authorization but we're um providing applicants with a sample email that they can just attach to their packet signed

[100:01] by the landowner if they don't own their own property this would also be applicable for private adjacent private parking areas U patio space in the frontage of where they are currently located alleys bordering commercial uses and when I say alleys bordering commercial uses we do have a couple alleys in town um that border residential uses so at this point we're not suggesting that but this is a first phase this is not all that we consider this is just what we're looking at as an early phase today in terms of curbside use there are a couple of options you can pop up a Sidewalk Cafe that maintains pedestrian access um we have some more information for that um and then public parking space rentals uh the city has not done this before but if you have parking right outside your business um and you want to you rent that space for this entire period we'll be providing an option for that

[101:02] there are a couple options there you can share the curb side so this is basically holding those spots to restrict for your pickup and delivery use um in existing parking locations or you can pop up a parklet which can be up to 60 ft of the existing spaces per business um to you know to be considered by blockface and I'll have more information on that in just a minute of course we've heard from the community around their interest in other spaces and other options and so um we wanted to share that we were already in conversations on the hill and downtown and subject to State definitions look forward to working with them on another Faith next slide so um we're recommending State allowance through August um you know through August 30th that can certainly be extended by

[102:00] Council the reason we pick that date is because there are a couple of special events that still anticipate being held this year and until we have direction that they're not being held we wanted to think about the impact on the city's infrastructure and previously reserved spaces um so we want to look into that all of this would be revocable based on any superseding federal state county or local order in effect which would nullify those uses we want to have one packet and the ability to submit online we are literally working on that every day um the window of applications assume and I've walk through a timeline in a minute would open next week and we would continue a rolling period of taking applications through June 30th the Departments involved would do a concurrent review and we hope to fulfill those um permits if they're not dealing

[103:00] with alcohol it could be as little as 5 days if they submit something very simple if they are submitting for alcohol the state required notice period drags that out a little bit because of notice um but we you know it is possible and I think council member friend asked me earlier whether or not it could be F you know is it just f days and the answer is yes and then they can wait for their alcohol on top of that um all uses would require proof of insurance with the city as named ensured next [Music] slide so let's talk options um staff is recommending that to get through all of this and respect the many ordinances that and regulations that exist in the city that we um try to work with all of the restaurants on keeping things very simple um and so these are some graphics of things in other communities alleys um

[104:00] use of the right away and what you will see in these you're not seeing flooring or large um quotequote structures that might create uh problems related to water transfer or wind or the like next slide so I wanted to show because I know people are curious Evette what's simple right so we created a couple of examples here for you visually you can see that these have no hard walls that you know uh and they're about a three foot height um for the barrier fencing which is um similar to what we require for alcohol licensure for other things not simple you can see that things start to have things that be difficult to access um when you're talking about emergency vehicles um they're you know difficult to move otherwise and we're in order for us to they create structures um and that creates length of

[105:00] time for review next slide so this is a depiction of things that interested restaurants could be getting together right now uh they will need to know their business license number they'll need to have a description or you know an address and location of the spaces they're talking about and a simple sketch we're not asking for architectural drawings the insurance certificate they could be talking to their insurer now um we have a sample notice that they can provide to the neighborhood association or the district we're applicable there's a letter there's an email they'll need to have signed by their um landlord or land owner uh a description of the barrier and how the materials will be used and then a plan for complying with Amplified Sound and Lighting and I think the governor's note that I just saw a minute

[106:01] ago said that the he is currently considering this goes until no later than 10 p.m nightly next slide so what about other closures um the community has expressed interest in some other things um and I want to reiterate that this is a phase process so we want to be Equitable and allow as many things as possible Citywide first um but we are always looking at these other possibilities there's an existing process for other things like the event Street which was built for this um but we need some direction from the state and the county and youth about special events or Gatherings and how this might conflict um in the past when we have closed uh streets for example even for a special event it required 80% of the businesses on the Block face to agree for as little as two or three

[107:01] days closer so that would be something to think about and then what are the expectations about masks or social distancing um there might be impacts for other businesses uh and we just want to know how would you like us to proceed in that regard next slide so what are the fees like um we provided here these are existing City fees and we just tried to find the speediest most affordable way to do it a RightWay permit is what we're suggesting for use of the RightWay which is um $84.50 thank you Edward staford um and uh we would say just post for 5 days and we'll concurrent ly look at that um and you don't if that's all you're looking for that would be gone in 5 days um for parking space use we're suggesting $100 per impacted space um and we're

[108:02] encouraging people to work with their neighboring businesses every street in Boulder is different and so some have angle parking some have parallel it's it's just very different and so we tried to come up with a simple way to understand that and our happy to help people walk through that the alcohol license I already explained and use of the private parking area let's say you have an adjacent parking lot that's owned by yourself or your landlord could be as little as $845 days so we gave you some examples at the bottom of different things that people might want to do and how much that would actually cost for that entire period I should note that the public parking space number is about 1 of what the general fund revenue is for space um in that area during this

[109:02] time of you know it's about 1 and so I'm happy to answer questions about that next slide so we're expecting the governor to finalize Direction um by Monday um we would then based on whatever he says finalize the application packet also to reflect whatever Direction you give us this evening we'd issue a press release and a web page update right after that hold an industry webinar on the same day um and then open up the application window which again is rolling I want to point out that this rolling period is not we're not waiting till the end of June to approve approve people's applications it would be 5 days to 15 days from when they submit but we would stop taking applications in

[110:01] June um and then we would be reviewing them pretty much every day and so one of the things that we'll want to get your direction on for example is do you want these things to be reviewed by bla or do we have authorization to just move forward and my colleague David gear will have more to share on that we would then come to you again in July with a summary on how many applications we received and for what and um and all of the implications or learnings that we've had over this next slide so again press release webinar U posted notices um we have some additional considerations that we would love to hear from you about tonight um if there's a number of applications on a block face and they don't one conflicts

[111:00] with the other what are your thoughts there an option for sharing spaces with other businesses so because we're recommending lifting this for all retail there will be things in front of other retailers neighboring next door that they may want to share and allow for and so we want to hear your thoughts on that proximity to residences and access retained for emergency Personnel is a consideration and then how do you feel about our recommendation to maintain controls around amplification prohibited smoking and social distancing as well as thoughts on retaining Ada access next slide in a moment David gar will be available to answer your questions about the process by which we're finalizing rules and guidelines especially around the public RightWay and outdoor seating emergency orders and the process for

[112:01] that and then an ability to Monitor and adopt uh changes as the state liquor Regulators might direct because that's really a major portion of both the recommendation and the time frame next slide so our questions for Council tonight are does council support implementation um of this response this first phase imp you know to redress the needs of Boulders restaurant industry impacted by covid and then second do you agree with the initial time frame which can be um expanded or extended and with that I'll end and um I'm going to mute myself which I think will make it easier for everyone and then let us know if you have questions thank you very good thank you Evette um so I will first say thank you to staff for pulling this together so quickly um the last couple months I know have been

[113:00] extremely disruptive not only because lots of new work plan items have come up but also because um there have been challenges with Staffing and with the sheer number of things that we have to deal with so thank you of that and thank you to everyone who supported this effort including at least transportation and um the the attorney's office um and so with that um I have three hands raised I have Bob Rachel and Mark so Bob why don't you pick us off yeah I'll have some comments later but let me start with some questions first I do want to thank you IET and everybody who was involved I know you had to HT a lot of cats between transportation and legal and liquor and Public Safety and lots of other people and then you coordinated um with um Private Industry as well with particularly the chamber and D buer partnership so thanks for pulling this together quickly uh so so so it won't be surprising that we have a few questions and maybe some suggestions later on so I ask my questions first got two or three can we go back to slide um

[114:06] six so it mentions in the middle of the slide um that if we use if if a restaurant uses um the sidewalk they have to maintain five feet of pedestrian access and I'm just wondering I'm let's just use our downtown sidewalks as an example because that's probably the most typical situation how wide are our sidewalks downtown in other words if five feet are maintained for pedestrian access how much space is there for a table L do you want to answer that but I understand our standard is eight is that correct [Music] bill um can you guys hear me yep okay so um I think that the sidewalks in and around the downtown are variable in width um but many of them are fairly wide um some of them as wide as 15 ft um

[115:02] usually when people are applying for permits for um outdoor seating we are trying to maintain 8 feet of of clear distance um and this this is a reduction of that 8 foot down to 5 feet so but is that is that 8T from from the the building to the curb because I know a lot of places we have those like those tree planters too that kind of cut into the sidewalk area yeah it it would be clear of all obstruction so if there was a tree including Planters yep I'm thinking for example the north side of the of the Pearl Street in the um in the 1100 block where the kitchen is is that 8T wide clear space from from the edge of the building or patio to the tree planters is that 8T wide to be honest with you Bob I can't picture what that looks like but if there are if there are tree planners then it would be the area in

[116:01] between the tree planter and the building face that would be the area you could work within and you'd need to keep eight feet of that clear okay I'll come back to that later in comments I'm just or in this case 5T of that clear okay I'll come back in comments I'm just wondering how much space there actually would be in the sidewalk in that case Sim Charles phoh could uh um address what the standard is when we do existing RightWay permits for the sidewalk caes that we have downtown now thanks David I'm looking it up as we speak okay so you can come back to that yeah well why Charles is looking that up I have three questions the second question is it's still on the slide um below that it talks about parklets um and it sounds like if I understood this correctly bet um business owners would have that face onto a street would have three choices they could either ask that their park that their parking spaces in front of their um block face be evacuated they pay some

[117:01] sort of fee to the city for that depending on how many parking spaces there were and they could set up maybe tables in the park L that'd be one choice sounds like other businesses were also restaurants could set up um uh takeaway service so they would have cars kind of coming and going and then there a business next door to that yet that has um maybe just retail and they're not interested in a park L they would just want people to be able to park there so I I guess my concern but maybe you've already addressed it is is whether that those cars pulling in and out of curbside pickup or parking in front of a retail space adjacent to and I think you you had some good examples of simple setups adjacent to where people will be sitting and eating are you are you concerned at all about cars pulling within a few feet of where people are sitting to eat thank you for your question um we have as staff been talking about a minimum setback to avoid conflicts but part of what we know especially in those areas that have a

[118:00] good number of restaurants within a smaller Corridor um we're expecting that they're going to be working together on their block face and with the downtown Boulder partnership or for example the hill the process the staff has developed is trying to consider the entire city so there are locations where you don't have as many restaurants um and there wouldn't necessarily be such a conflict um or even and but we wanted to give these options to people because we have from the beginning of this heard so many um opinions amongst the needs of the retailers and the restaurants about what they desire so our encouragement um is the creation of options that they work together to decide what is best um on their block face let's let's just this might leading up to my final question um let's just assume that not 100% of the businesses on a particular block agree

[119:00] let's say 90% agree or 80% agree um walk us through the reasons why we wouldn't on those very dense blocks again I'm thinking more of downtown because I'm happy that we're we're addressing um uh uh businesses restaurants that are in um strip shopping centers and and they can work with their landlords and to the extent we have to wave requirements that's great but I'm trying to understand on the very very dense downtown streets where there's lots and lots of restaurants per block um can you walk us through the reasons why we wouldn't simply close that street what what would be the the the reasons um that we wouldn't close the street for purposes of safety and um convenience particularly if if if the parking spaces most of all all the parking spaces on that street are close anyway I'm sure exactly why people need to drive on that street but walk us through what um why we would not be able to close a street the city May ultimately decide to do so um thing to consider is that usually in

[120:00] such circumstances we would in have a period of time where people have to agree before that decision is made if there's a certain amount of businesses on a street that decide that and I'm not sure that we have a ton of streets that have you know that kind of identity I think we we all know a couple um I I think that we we just wanted to respect both notice and option and give them the opportunity to say that that's what they wanted as opposed to dictating it a couple of other things to consider um for example there are areas in the downtown where if we are then taking the parking and saying go to the parking deck which you know they may choose to do or hopefully arrive by a bike or how however else they want to um they we are going to be coming out of parking decks and then if the street is closed they will be forced into the adjoining neighborhood something that we

[121:02] wanted to at least appreciate the impact of um and again not make staff not making decisions on behalf of the community but letting the community of businesses that we're trying to help tell us what they think they would like to do there are other areas like the event Street where you don't have as much of a challenge and the infrastructure was built like that and it might very well make sense right away um and I think we just would like to continue as we have been working with our alliance partners and talking about um you know options here and I certainly don't want to answer on behalf of other departments so uh there's that issue as well I also want to remind everybody about the amps work that Community vitality and transportation are doing right now about loading zones as another option as well so there are lots of

[122:01] options and uh if any other respondent would like to answer as well but those are some of the reasons I'll just um add on to one thing that you said ofet and that is about the importance of understanding what the different restaurant owners want out of that curb space I think as we've contemplated this we we know that some restaurant owners will want um additional outdoor seating but other restaurant owners might want um curbside pickup or they might want curbside pickup and outdoor seating um and a road closure will really only be beneficial for outdoor seating so it's important to um consider I think block by block what each of the restaurants uh restaurant owners um how they want to see their abilities

[123:00] improved let me ask a question on that just follow up I'm sorry I'm G to ask three and a half questions um uh how far do you think is a reasonable period distance for a a customer Patron to walk from their car to a restaurant pickup if if a restaurant wants to curbside do you think it's reasonable to expect that the car be able to park right in front of the restaurant or is a block or two a reasonable distance you're asking what I think it is yeah um well I'm not I don't own a restaurant um but if I did I I would probably want them to park as close to my restaurant as possible just as a transportation professional I would say we try and have pick up drop off loading on the same block and do we realize that on busy days on on Pearl Street that people can park in front of the store or the restaurant that they're patronizing oh

[124:00] I'm I'm sure we don't okay very good so next I have on the stack Rachel Mark Aaron and Adam so Rachel Sam before we move forward I have a response for Bob B obstructions in the sidewalk so typically the standard is 88t for Street Furniture that's removed every day we can get down to six feet and then there's a provision that allows it to get down to 5 feet if the distance is measured to some fixed public infrastructure so those things like utility polls parking payment facilities and fire HS thanks Charles thank you Charles um Rachel Mark Aaron Adam and Mary thanks just following up on Bob's last question when we look at andette touched on it as well but when we look at the Ada uh and some people need to park right in front of restaurants how do we um accomplish that or or take that into account when we're looking at

[125:02] this we would desire obviously not to impact Ada spaces if at all possible um and so we would try and work on a block face there was a couple of corns I'm aware of where restaurants have several Ada spots almost across their entire Frontage and this is why we wanted to free up the minimum parking requirement for all retail because there may be spots a little further down for them to consider or things like that and so I think we desired not to impact Ada but certainly um it's always a consideration for everyone and and we'll take whatever Direction you desire so that I have a followup Rachel not to interrupt I just want to call agree on that if that's okay um what's the philosophy on the Pearl Street Mall because obviously you can't drive down the mall to drop off um somebody uh who who needs Assistance or

[126:02] is in a wheelchair and so what's the Ada kind of perspective on walking malls and the fact that probably um it would be a half block or a block that needs to be traversed from getting out of an automobile to even being on the mall I am not aware of the specific design considerations when the mall was put in place um regarding that but we are in constant contact with the downtown Boulder partnership and want to meet the accessibility needs and desires of all of their businesses and customers we'll continue to do so got it thank you Rachel yep okay um so I think I have two questions first of all thanks Evette for the presentation I'm very excited about the prospect of helping businesses and also being able to go out and eat again um so I'm glad we're moving forward with this and also bearing in mind that we

[127:00] are all trying to kind of stick close to home um and so for me the the kind of walkable bikable um shops are in strip malls it's Meadows on the Parkway and Table Mesa as examples so I just wanted to get a little bit of a better understanding of how this will apply to them because you said um one of your slides mentioned um that it was we were only looking at city streets for that slide and the pictures of sort of what was easy or this kind of the the lightweight modifications and then the more serious ones so just wanted to make sure I understood the timing for strip malls which don't have um Street Frontage really um and there's no city streets there and so I assume we would be looking more at converting parking lots um and want to make sure that we're rolling this out equitably so that we are helping um restaurants uh in those um you know not on city streets and in other neighborhoods as readily as we are ones that are downtown and also giving people for whom those are the walkable

[128:00] neighborhoods easy access so can you explain that a little bit more sure thanks sure for your question and again team if I'm not saying something correct feel free to chime in um this is an example the example you raise is an example of private property so it would be applicable in the same time frame and they could get because of the elimination of the minimum parking requirement they could get an email from their landlord and use Frontage in the strip mall if their landlord agrees uh under that option and would it be just the the frontage like that's the sidewalk or would it also spill into the parking lot that is up to them in their landlord if it's private property okay um awesome I think that answers that so they can do it just as quickly as say somebody on Pearl Street yes additional blocks okay great thanks um and then my other question is just Why are we cutting off the applications on June 30th what's the

[129:00] rationale for that so because this is a rolling period and because of when we at least today believe that there would be a return of some special events or the like um we wanted to leave an you know a firm date by which we know what's going to be in existence for the remainder of the summer through the end of thought August um however I mean Council can give us direction today to go further than that and we certainly are listening for that well like I'm just thinking what if um what if somebody gets a license on July 1 and then has to write out the summer without the option I don't know if that's a realistic possibility in today's business climate but I guess I just wonder why why have a cut off date um it can changed it can certainly you know I think we are planning on standing up a team to review these applications and wanted to know roughly how long we're doing that so we're assuming that we we have no idea what this volume will be and so we are

[130:02] assuming that we're going to be meeting every day every other day um and processing as fast as they come in and we just were trying to set some bounds around that makes sense all right thanks call can I call on that real quickly um so EV you mentioned that there one of the reasons was that there are a couple of events that have not yet decided whether or not they will go go forward or not and if you heard that they were not going to go forward how would that change your perspective of this time frame we are assuming that Council might direct us tonight that if the governor disallow special events or gatherings in excess of a certain number of people or um people decide not to have those events that Council will authorize the city manager to extend this

[131:01] period great thank you okay very good um thank you Rachel we have Mark Aaron Adam and Mary so Mark you're up yeah Sam most of uh or many of my remarks are in the nature of comments and I will defer those into we're doing comments uh but I do have one question for IET uh which is what is the nature of the review what are the substance of matter is going to be considered in terms of reviewing an application and determining whether it is accepted or not accepted we would be at a minut so there's the I can't remember what slide it is someone help me um in the list of required documentation um The Lure department will be taking it through a regular temporary modification lens um for the actual parklets let's say or patio or alley use we would just be looking at the drawing to make sure it gives us

[132:00] adequate access to fire hydrants and um other utilities to U making sure the fencing around is 3 feet high um and that they have a location that uh doesn't um prevent uh emergency access and so that's what is temporarily required we'll also be looking to make sure that they have the required insurance with city has named insured the approval of the land owner and that they've provided a notice that's it so I guess my my question my follow-up question then would be uh if you receive an application that has the insurance certificate the consent of the landlord um and notice why would it take 5 to 15 days to determine whether it's um compliant it would it could certainly be done assuming people submit things that are in the pictures or similar to the pictures that are simple in other words no structure no hard flooring things

[133:02] like that I think it could be less um the the 15 days is only as it is on those examples tied to the period around alcohol and which which at this time reflects the 10day notice requirement from the State um but if the governor should choose to wave that um that would be a way to make that shorter as well we do not plan on sitting on these staff has heard you and the community and we are trying to move swiftly okay I will save the the rest of my remarks for later thank you Mark Aaron Adam Mary and juny Aaron you're up so I just have comments I'll just be asked to be placed in the queue for comments sounds good Adam and thanks of that um you mentioned maybe passing this by beverage licensing Authority uh my question was what aspects of this might you be thinking

[134:03] that need to be looked at by them because that's an interesting idea in my mind but I just wanted that teased out a little bit more missan are you on the call to answer that [Music] question I could give it a crack thank you David um I think that the idea in terms of the way the staff is proposing to process the beverage licensing applications that everything will be done administratively and we will not be using the beverage licensing Authority as part of the approval process except when um if there is a significant amount of public opposition that is has been voiced during the 10-day notice period so I think that what what the state did in its temporary rule is they've kind of created you know typically when you issue a beverage liquor license there's

[135:00] a process where you try to figure out what the needs and desires of the neighborhood is that they've substituted a very truncated process for that so that we can hopefully get through it quickly but it also doesn't cut the public out of the conversation thanks for that answer David that makes sense okay thank you Adam we have Mary and juny Mary you're up yeah just a real quick one um these simple um options for putting out tables and stuff they would likely require some Capital expense on behalf of the business owner and since what we're trying to do is help small businesses I'm wondering if there might be a possibility or something that already exists for providing um shortterm assistance loans for people to be able to acquire things like the tables and the chairs and The Umbrellas um and the railings and things

[136:01] like that because even though they're simple they still require some expense thank you for your question Mary the current proposal only because the city doesn't have it uh at the moment um we don't have a source for funding to make such support it is certainly something I've discussed with our alliance partners because we don't want to create a lot of expense for businesses as well um but at the same time I am not aware of a funding source for that um and so I'll leave it at that thank you joury thank you I have two questions questions and the first one I've received um emails from community members who are worried because we're talking about uh opportunities for businesses and they were wondering where

[137:02] they're Boulder who just reopening businesses and I just wanted to hear from you that this this is basically having a process in place and or the reopening of businesses is tentative for the moment is that right that's correct juny um this is at the present time other than the curbside pickup and delivery um we don't have a firm yes from the state or from the county this um process is in response to your suggestion that we be ready and um you all are probably quite aware and the community is aware that our colleagues in Denver who we've also been talking to um have issued a similar process it's not circumventing what the governor says it's getting ready ahead of what the governor says thank you that's great I appreciate that um my next question is uh based on Mark's comment earlier about

[138:02] the substance and I know you mentioned Ada earlier and you and you responded to parking downtown but I'm also wondering when it comes to places that are outside of downtown because you mentioned when you were talking about process and you said here are the requirements and I was wondering if part of that process could include hear me out a parking minimum but just for Ada purposes meaning let's say someone has a restaurant where there's 30 or 40 parking spaces and then they intend to close the parkings for for you know for um so that they can put tables well let's say they usually usually have five parking spaces maybe they could have one or two reserved for Ada purposes I don't know what that would look like whether it would even be safe but I think that might be something

[139:00] for us to consider based on your direction um we'll certainly look at that I think one thing we want to be sure of is um that we're giving businesses an opportunity to also work together you know many businesses working next door to each other know each other's needs and they are relatively complimentary and we think if we give people some general guidelines they're going to be encouraged to have those conversations and see what works best on their either in their strip mall or on their street thank you thank you can I cqu for a second on that um I don't think that we can override the federal um Ada law so if businesses are required to have a certain number of um compliant parking spots I think they're they're going to need to maintain that so I would uh I don't know if that's something that we have to decide but um I I don't think that they can not have the um accessible

[140:01] parking spots just because we're changing some of this some other ones Charles did you want to talk to that yeah if I could add um you know Ada parking could be moved but it couldn't be eliminated so if for some reason they did want to utilize a couple of ADA spaces that were for some reason more Tractive or more convenient they would have to relocate those somewhere else on the [Music] site okay very good thank you Charles and Bob I have a hand up I was going to move to comment so I'll yield anybody who still has questions I have two questions so thank you so then um Aon why don't you go ahead and raise your hand with Bob as well because I know you have comments and Mark um so my question um AET and Company is why are we charging for the use of um public on street parking spaces for use here um it's not an enormous amount but it didn't say what the time period was I believe it's at $100 is that per week is that for the

[141:00] duration that would be duration of the recommended period very good so $100 per space and what's the rationale for charging how how much of the uh Revenue that you would normally get in a normal time from that parking spot has that compared to 100 for two months this is roughly one of the revenue and the revenue is not in the parking districts on Street revenue is revenue to the general fund okay very good so this would maintain for the parking spots we lose which would be a relatively small number it would seem um the on street parking spots we're looking at roughly 20% replacement did I hear that right correct very good thank you then the second question is you you had on one of the slid same slide I think an $84.50 charge for using um parking slots in private lots for setting up tables or

[142:01] expansion of dining so what's the $84.50 going for this is the typical um charge for a RightWay permit and because the review is roughly the same amount of review that was the process we were ending it through so this is the if I might call it the least expensive permit process we found but council could give us Direction on any of these proposals got it thank you for the flexibility there I guess my my real question is on private property why is there a need for a RightWay permit I mean I totally understand on streets the the need for RightWay um permet but in a let's say that there there's a landlord that owns the strip mall and he owns the parking lot and there is Good Rapport between the merchants in the strip mall and the landlord and they come to a private agreement on um what to do as far as you

[143:03] know giving out parking spots or tables is the reason we need to do a RightWay reviews that we can check on handicap spots or ADA compliance or is it some other reason why why is it necessary for the city to be involved in that process David or Charles sure I'll I'll take that one so there would not be a rideway permit required um because it's not in the RightWay um but typically most of our strip malls and um commercial areas you know all of our standards are minimum standards and most people build to minimum standards or even try to build less than our minimum standards so really the the main objective would be just a regulatory review to modify either development approvals or zoning requirements that would might otherwise be um violated by what they're doing um just and to to provide them with the

[144:00] flexibility that they would need to do outoor seating during this time period so it's really just a regulatory review yeah and we wanted to apply the same fee just to be Equitable with what was happening in the right away perfect so that makes perfect sense and I I was curious if we were going to need to to relax those requirements from minimums and so on so that's very helpful thank you okay that is the end of my questions will turn to comments now and I have Bob Adam Rachel Aaron and Mark so Bob take it away um thanks um I'm fully cognizant of when we're doing something new and different that often is easier for staff to to be a little um on the shy side and then like Council uh be bold and take the heat so um I'm going to be bold and take the heat so again I want to appreciate that pulling this together and I think this is a good foundation to build on but I would like to build on it because I don't think it's quite there yet and I do want us to be more bold so I'll I'll make about five or six

[145:00] comments as quickly as I possibly can first I'm a little distress about the 15 business day review I know that only applies to people liquor with alcohol permits but I can't imagine any restaurant's going to apply to do this without alcohol so it really is I know there's been some boasting about the fact that it's only five days but it's actually 15 business days and 15 business days is actually three weeks so that means at best an applicant at the end of May is going to be waiting till mid to late June before they're able to go I understand that there may be a state component there but let's just assume for sake of discussion so we're not discouraging people that the state's going to wave things and I'll get back to that a little bit later on and uh that the review is um solely on us so I would encourage us to skinny 15 business days which is three weeks down to like a day or two that would be my suggestion on that number two and these first two comments really relate to all of the restaurants um Citywide whether they're in um shopping centers or on the streets and then I want to focus a couple of comments about downtown specifically I think that $84.50 charge is kind of

[146:00] nickel and dime the amount that we'll receive in food and beverage tax will will swamp that in in the matter of hours and so um I know that we we look to find the lowest fee we could possibly buy 8 $84.50 um I would suggest zero I don't think we should put any barriers to restaurants um who seek to um in this emergency situation for the next three months who seek to put tables out on parking lots or or streets or in shopping centers I think we should wave all fees and we should expedite that those are two comments generally I want to focus my rest of my comments on downtown I I I have a hard time believing that any downtown restaurant is going to be really excited about um um what what remains of of of the sidewalk after you take the 5et for pedestrians sounds like that's going to generally be 3 feet which I don't think you could put a table 3 feet wide um and still let pedestrians walk by and then with respect to the parking spots I

[147:00] think most of these restaurants downtown have one or two parking spots in front of them which probably means about two or three tables so if I'm a downtown restaurant tour I'm going to have a really hard time getting excited about adding two or three tables um so I think the the proposition for downtown is not bold enough what I suggest is that we simply close the streets on Pearl Street uh at a minimum I'd like to see us to close from 9th to 11th on Pearl Street I'd like to suggest we also look at closing 15 to 17 on Pearl Street I know that presents some challenges with the parking garage I think those are surmountable challenges I have some specific ideas on that how to get cars out onto to Walnut uh we can talk about that later um cities around the country and around the world do this this is not we we're not inventing any anything new here and what they do is is they close the streets they put the pedestrians in the street and they allow the sidewalks and the parking spaces to be used for tables the pedestrians would be fully in the street and they're city after city

[148:00] after City we can look at as examples for this this is not unusual this is not rare this is not weird people have been doing this for decades uh in Europe they've been doing this for centuries of course they didn't have cars back then but this is all very very easy to do um and I would would encourage us to be bold when it comes to downtown where we have high density of restaurants and and if if we're closing the the um the parking spaces or most of the parking spaces on Pearl Street I don't know why car needs to drive on Pearl Street what what what is a car going to do drive past a bunch of people eating I I just don't understand that so if we're going to close parking spaces let's just close the street I think it's unreasonable for um for anyone to expect to be able to park right in front of the businesses of the patronizing whether they're they're patronizing a retail establishment or um if they're doing curbside pickup I think we could um create curbside pickup spaces within a couple hundred yards of every restaurant I don't think that's a a big challenge um the parking spaces are not owned by the businesses they're owned by the city and if you're going downtown if you're

[149:00] driving downtown on a really busy day there's no way you have have any expectation of Hollywood parking right in front of your business so I don't think we should try to preserve that it's is not reasonable at normal times and certainly not reasonable in this circumstance and then finally I'll just close with a quote from the governor because the governor encouraged us to be this is what he said yesterday Colorado is going to wave every Rule and regulation we can including serving beer and wine on the streets but of course it is the cities that control those regulations if cities value having restaurants is really important that they open their sidewalks their parking lots and their streets in the next few weeks to have that capacity because restaurants cannot stay in business at a quarter or half capacity so that's our governor who happens to live here in Boulder at 17th of Walnut and I would encourage us to follow his admonition and to be bold and to to close our streets so that we can open our restaurants that's my comment thank you Bob so we have Adam

[150:00] Rachel Aaron and Mark Adam you're up yeah thanks for that Bob I think a lot of what you said I'm very much in agreeance with um the one thing that I will add from personal experience as someone who has stared at walmut Street for more hours than most people have ever been downtown in total in my life as a bouncer um I'm trying to think about balancing the preservation of access to our parking structures along with opening up more Street space for businesses and in my mind places like um Walmart just to the east or sorry just to the west of Broadway where there is a parking structure that's sort of the perfect area where we could maybe have um a one-way access instead of the two two-way that exists there um and that could also provide the ability for one side of the street still to be used for curbside pickup while the other side of the street is utilized for dining and I

[151:00] think that's a pretty good balance where we're trying to find on an individual street level uh we still want to have parking available and that's what our parking structures are for but also have more space available for the restaurants so um when we're Drilling down into a street by Street basis I think if you look at spaces like walmut Street there that may be one where maybe you cann't shut down completely and still allow um curbside pickup and all that but you could at least make it into a oneway um so that people have the opportunity to dine in more space but still access those parking garages that's my main piece of feedback but I again like a lot of what Bob said Thank you Adam we got Rachel Aaron Mark and Mary Rachel okay um yeah I agree with Bob as well um that was well said um we have great community support for this and I think it's um overall a good thing for us to do so I'm very supportive um and

[152:03] to the extent that we can cut red tape I think that that is um important to do not just now but in general for the city so it's a good opportunity to lean into that notion um and then just wanted to add if we're looking at street closures which I would support um for the restaurants I I don't I don't know that I'd limit it to Pearl Street I imagine that we have some businesses on the hill and maybe some other places who would also feel that they would be well served by by that so um I think that Bob's logic would apply equally there like if if we're um bumping you up right against traffic and you don't have any reason to go down that street in a car because you can't park anywhere why wouldn't we just um close some of those streets too I don't know other than the hill and pearl or downtown where it might be pertinent but I would um for Equity reasons and for just logical reasons I would extend Bob's argument I think that's it thanks Rachel Aon Mark Mary and mirbi

[153:02] Aon Europe yeah Bob thanks very much for that well let me just start by saying um AET and other staff members I just really appreciate all the work that you did on this very quickly and came up with a lot of great ideas and you've really jumped on this and and I really appreciate that um like Rachel mentioned about public support I don't know what's generated that that many emails and in just that quickly in a day or two um that that that was one of the highest rates ever al fresco dining right very popular um so I I I thought Bob said all that very well I agree 100% with what he was saying I'll just throw in a couple of embassies and um and additional things just totally agree on the permit fees that um you know this is this is a a place where we don't have to spend money we can just not collect it and and support our small businesses uh that way um and that you know I hear about how um it may take a little longer because of state requirements on the liquor um

[154:01] issues but it sounded to me like uh that the way Jared paulus and the state are going is that they may well uh relax those requirements so just encourag us to be as quick as possible within the constraints Allowed by the state and you know reach out to the the the bla only if absolutely necessary um and then uh the one thing is about the the dates I thought Rachel had a great question um I think having a little bit larger set of dates uh would make sense so if we allow people to apply for permits you know a little later than suggested and um the this sounds like something that would be worth keeping going through the end of September at least um and I hear that maybe there are a couple couple special events that we want to think about but I'm kind of having a hard time that like if if one or two special events were somewhat impacted uh by a few of these permits I think that's probably uh an impact uh worth um accepting in order to

[155:02] get another month of this um of this program out because of the importance for local restaurants and then just definitely second about Bob and closing the streets I think that's that's a place to be bold um obviously you know if every business on the street said we hate the idea well we don't want to force it on them but my guess is that you know if you talk about that event Street on the hill or if you talk about Pearl uh East and West sides of pearls that um businesses are very likely to be really enthusiastic so I would love to see us um close a few stretches of Road agree with Rachel to look for other opportunities for that around the city as well and thanks so much than Saron Mark Mary nearby mark You're yeah uh I also want to second Bob's comments I urge us to take an maximally aggressive approach on this uh including street closures I think we should be waving every fee that's that could be applicable we should be waving every statute that could be applicable unless

[156:01] it impacts Life Health or safety um whatever has to be waved should be waved um and we need to address the fact that we have an a a a business segment in the restaurant industry that's on the ver of Extinction in many cases and we need to do whatever it is that we can in order to get them back on their feet I agree with Rachel's comment that we should also extend consideration of street closures to at least 13th Street on the hill um if there are other streets that would be uh useful to be considered I would consider them um I would make applications to be a a page with some supporting documents I would try to turn them around within a couple of days at the most um and I would in my optimal view we would be able to get people on uh the streets uh for the Memorial Day Weekend uh which is a major business opportunity which we're going to miss if

[157:00] our timeline extends too far out so um I would do this uh on afterburners because our businesses need help and they need it now so thank you very much very good um thank you Mark and then next we've got Mary and mirbi and juny um Mary so um I would agree with what the comments that have been made so far and um to that I would just add that um and concern for the really small guys that may not have or even the big guys that may not have the the capital for um getting tables and chairs and umbrella and all of that stuff um maybe there are um entities here in the city that have them that aren't using them for example um the university um maybe schools maybe um maybe McGuckin would loan some um and

[158:03] you know and try to get some sales out of it I don't know um but I think that working with the chamber to to find and and see if there are businesses that would loan them and working with the University to maybe um borrow um equipment or um amen for those amenities and then um the other um comment I have is um if we do decide to close the streets which I hope we do is maybe one of the things that we could do is um get that TBO train out for a shuttle um for people to help um move people um especially those who may not be able to make that two or three block [Music] walk great thank you Mary I'm and then juny yeah I just wanted to jump on the wagon and add in my two cents so uh

[159:00] thank you staff that was really wonderful and I appreciate all the work you've done so quickly um I think that the easier we can make it on our small businesses the better and the more successful they are the more taxes come in and then support the city uh which what we're one of the goals we need to focus on so anything we can do to speed up and as Mark I I really agreed with what Mark said and just wanted to thank Bob for stating this so eloquently um I think you really summed it up well and I do um agree with the hill closures and the Pearl Street Mount closures I think it could be a lot of fun and um people will be so antsy to get out and it'll kind of be a new fun experience for everyone so I'm really looking forward to seeing this and doing anything and everything we can to support our small businesses and rest thanks great thank you Mir um juny I just wanted to say as well that I do support closing streets because it's good for safety reasons and for health reasons and also closing Streets On The

[160:01] Hill I think it's a great idea we've been talking about revitalization for a long time that could be the beginning of something great so I think that's a great idea and also closing streets on downtown as well I think closing the entire street is probably best for a safety reason as opposed to closing some parts of it so I do agree with the idea of just closing the the street entirely so I think it's great and also I support the idea of less red tape because I think at this moment red tapes are completely oppressive so I think providing more opportunities for whether it's small businesses or just retailers to have the opportunity and access to more space for their customers will benefit the entire Community not just for taxes purposes but the entire Community whether it's healthwise uh so I think it's a great idea great thank you juny so everyone

[161:01] has spoken at me so I'll bring us home on this um I I wanted to start out with some small things first but at the beginning I want to Echo everyone else's thanks to staff for for doing this I know it's a bit thankless because as Bob said you know um you need to be a little cautious and let um the politicians be the ones that are are pushing you I think you have staff has rightly flagged for us the concern that there may not be unanimous agreement on what we're going to go forward with and so um I I think that's something we need to keep in mind but we can always roll something back so if we were to do for instance street closures and there's Hue and cry on a particular block from the majority of merchants there then we can take that into consideration and and you know adapt and overcome so I would say thank you to staff um but I do also agree with most of what's been said by my fellow

[162:01] council members about being bold so I I would say that I don't understand just like Bob said why we would um have tables on sidewalks with a walkway Pres ably between the tables and the restaurant or on the outside of the tables between the tables and tables which might be in parking spots so having pedestrians on sidewalks where we have tables on sidewalks and tables and parking lots and the cars and the streets on the other side of the tables doesn't make much sense to me at all um if you're going to close the parking lot sorry the parking spaces uh public parking spaces on streets like West Pearl I would think the easiest thing to do would be to give the sidewalk completely over to the restaurant or the retail shop and to give the parking spots completely over and to close the streets and have the um pedestrians going the streets so I'm just redescribing what Bob has described but saying I think it will work better for

[163:00] the pedestrians as well as the restaurants and Retail and the cars are not going to miss that small stretch of Street on either the East or West end of pearl um particularly if the parking spots are all closed off so I've heard agree with Bob and others who have said that if you close off the parking spots in some places there's little use to having a private vehicle go down those streets so um I I want to also call out that I love the fact that there's going to be an update on this scheduled for July 28th so assuming we started um June 30th um with the program July 28th gives us a date maybe we should go faster than that I don't know I will say to Mark Mark I don't think we're going to make Memorial Day Weekend bets this weekend and we will not have even heard from the governor until Memorial Day so I'm afraid Memorial Day is going to pass Us by without having Al presco dining um

[164:00] just because of when it happens to be this year but that being said I still agree that we should move as fast as we can to deal with the applications I think that going to one to two days Bob seems a little aggressive to me um it would be great if we could wave our wand and get there but 15 days down to two days uh I think we may end up with something more realistic at three to five days business-wise um I know every day seems like an eternity for the folks who are are closed so we should minimize that at the same time there will be a rush we have to recognize that there's going to be a rush of applications and the first ones will'll be going through for the very first time and probably coming up with issues we didn't think of so I agree we should try and shorten it from 15 days if we get relief from the governor on the liquor component of it it certainly seems like we could shut that down by half or more um on street

[165:00] closures I think it's almost a no-brainer to do East and West Pearl two blocks on each side both because of the reasons others have said um but I also think that there's a culture of walking on Pearl Street you know and and getting there in some way whether it's by bike or walking or bus or car um but people end up on the periphery of the mall where they enter from and then they come into the mall and then they make their way up and down the mall so adding a couple blocks on each end that have that same kind of Gestalt and behavior that people come to expect I think is something that we'd be able to manage because the core is already there in that way and is functioning extremely well and you know I could imagine that in the long run what might come out of this is something permanent if it works well um I also agree with Rachel's point about the hill and 13th Street um I've long thought ever since we've started that revitalization effort up there that

[166:01] you could make a a micro Pearl Street Mall on the hill which would only be helpful I think for um the shops which are up there and attract people to that location I also think 13th downtown is something we should look at between arapo and Canyon you have the farmers market area do we really need cars to be able to go in there I question that maybe for drop off but generally I'm not sure that we need much more and then you go to Canyon and walnut which are through streets which I don't think you would make it very easy to close there but then you go north of Walnut between walnut and Spruce on 13th and again you really need cars going there or not there's minimal parking spots it's one way we've already got bikes um running the other way wouldn't it be interesting to also close off more of 13th downtown so I'm not saying do it all at once I'm just kind of brainstorming with what other council members have put out there and think that if things go well if we do street closures in a couple spots

[167:02] then we should look at a couple other spots um duration I want to jump in on what Aaron and others have said I think going you know planning right now to go to September 30th and adapting to whatever large events would be accept able um and I am not sure if we did extend that it certainly doesn't seem like June 30th as a cut off would make much sense um I could imagine you don't want to go through all the headache of doing something just to have two or three or four weeks but you know if we're going to September and we have the cut off for the September um uh closures um at June July 30th I think that would work as well so end of the day I think staff has done a really good job of setting us up for Success they've moved really quickly um at something that pretty much just got thrown in their laps all of a sudden I think this is a good plan I think we're ahead of what we're going to hear from the governor on the 25th um and I would ask staff now

[168:02] that you've heard from all of council um if staff has any questions about what you've heard or feedback I think now would be a great time to close out on that thank you Council and uh we really appreciate this feedback we pretty much thought you would say that so it's we appreciate the um Direction and are preparing to do everything that we need to do to support the business community and the alliance Partners um we will be back in touch with you around some of the related costs and discussions we have with our allowance Partners I have a question for David gear David do we need to um have any special author for Jane so that this so that we don't have to come back to council before we do anything or can you help me with [Music] that sure um no I don't think so I think that uh the traffic engineer has the

[169:00] authority to close streets so that we can do that and I think that with respect to changes that are required in the zoning code we'll do that with emergency orders um thanks David and I just want to uh thank all of the Departments that have worked so diligently over these last couple days I appreciate you and let's get to get these things processed and posted thanks everybody um Jane did you have anything else for us hi no I bet thank you so much thank you to all of the staff members and to council for your great guidance as of that said we did expect that this would be the result and it's exciting for the city of older so thanks again to everyone and staff we've got our work cut out for us but we can make it so yes thank very good thank you all for for that thank you for for being so receptive to our feedback I know it gives you more work to do I will say

[170:00] that I I hope that this gives hope to our restaurant industry in town that they can see that um the governor's going to make some changes um to support them um the city is working as hard as we can to support them we want to continue to hear what more we can do um so we hope to hear back from our restaurant tours who have built up such a Vibrant Community um and keep up hope the community definitely supports our local restaurants um obviously that's how we ended up with such a great scene and we will try and preserve every one of those that we can going forward in the face of this challenging time so thank you all thank you yes thank you Sam is this our opportunity for a quick break if we'd like sure I'm happy to do that let's take then a five minute break and be back here at 8:55 that work very good thank

[171:02] [Music] you Jonathan I see you joined the meeting as Jon can I get a full name for you yes Sarah Jonathan Cohen I thought that might be the case let me rename you and I'll Elevate you to panelists for the work plan discussion thank you Sarah [Music] okay Ted werka I'm not sure if you can hear me but I wanted to let you know that we already did the public hearing that you were signed up to speak at and unfortunately you weren't present so the mayor moved on they did vote for that plenty is plenty unanimously you're more

[172:00] than welcome to stay on to the meeting but I didn't want you to be hanging out if you were hoping you were going to be able to speak thank you Sarah I saw your note okay terrific great I'll get you back into listening mode then okay [Music] [Music] for

[173:13] for for I'll turn your

[174:13] mark [Music] [Music] I got three m [Music]

[175:01] [Music] [Music] okay everyone can you hear me it looks like we have the inimitable Heather Bergman here with us to help us get through the next really difficult contentious session that we have coming so lyette want to kick us off sure um there was no action on the call up so you'll move ahead to your work plan discussion very good Jane so thank you very much uh we do have Heather Bergman here and I have a

[176:02] presentation that I'm going to roll through but Heather do you want to start off by saying hello hello Council um I am excited to be with you here tonight and to follow up on our Retreat prioritization conversation of course the universe has changed substantially since you set these priorities earlier this year um and so we'll spend some time today figuring out what you think the current condition means for priorities and see if we can leave our time together tonight with some clarity for you all for staff and of course for the community about what the work plan looks like for the remainder of the year um Jane you want to take it away yeah thank you so much Heather and thank you Council so so as you will recall we had scheduled to have a study session um on the work plan just an update in July July 14th was the date that we had selected and uh the council asked in light of the changing circumstances in our world that we move

[177:01] it up to tonight's night and we are going to continue to reserve July 14th for one of the main topics that has been a council priority which is homelessness and we'll talk about that just in a minute um also I want to say to you which was in the memo that at the time of the retreat in addition to the many Council priorities that we are working on you also created a list of around eight or 10 items that you wanted to revisit in the summer uh those items were in your packet and they included things um like the minimum wage uh diagonal plan Plaza that you spook in all of those items we are here to tell you we need to delay until your retreat in uh January and then we'll be in a much better position to review those but tonight um I'm going to take a quick view of the items that were your top priorities and where they stand and I'm

[178:01] starting out with a very quick Financial briefing uh because we wanted to set that context and the retreat committee Bob and Mary asked that we do that as well so here we go um we're going to just have two slides on it so the first one is the 2020 revenue forecast model and at the meeting that we had at the end of April you saw three different scenarios um of what our budget will look like for 2020 and we had great testimony from rich rich wakin and Brian lowski from the CU lead school to help us understand which of these scenarios we might have of of course we don't know it's a guess but under um the scenarios that we have we have scenario a which is a U-shaped recovery um with a downturn I guess on in the third quarter of around 12% in scenario B we

[179:01] had the swoosh shaped recovery which was a a quick downturn and a very very slow um increase and return to more normal and then in scenario C we had we called the w-shaped recovery and again this was a recovery in which we fear that things could go wrong in the fourth quarter a return of the virus perhaps um economic hardship and at that point the in quarter four we could have um a downturn of as much as 25% so on to the next slide and I wanted to show you what this looks like on the various funds that the city has so of course we spend a lot of time when we talk about these matters looking at the general fund and you can see that we're suggesting that the general fund could be down between 16.7 million and 21 million but I want you to take a look at some of the other funds and just for ease and and quickness I'm going to look at scenario C so the open space of

[180:00] mountain Parks fund could be down as much as almost $6 million um the 25 cent sales tax fund which is Parks and Recreation could be down as much as 1.7 million the recreation activity M fund is an interesting one because under every single scenario they're down almost $4 million this is a fund that is not dependent on sales and use tax revenues for the most part it's dependent on user fees and as we know we haven't been able to operate our recreation centers our camps things like that so that will be about $4 million across the board the transportation fund Bill talked to you a little bit about it earlier tonight and that could range from 4.7 million to $6.5 million over the course of the year and then finally Community culture and safety uh could be down between 1.3 and two million so you can see that all of our different funds are impacted by the downturn in the economy that we're

[181:01] suffering it's not just the general fund and so we wanted you to have that in mind as we move on to quickly go through the um the priorities that you set so on to the next one and the first priority is um adopting the racial Equity plan so this is a um a priority that is on track I guess I would say the one thing that um we're lacking at this point is that we had intended in the fall or in the spring of this year to be doing more inperson Community engagement and that's currently on hold but our proposed racial Equity plan is finished and we wanted to take that out to the community and we are waiting I guess for um an opportunity to do more um to do some inperson Community engagement but that one has been moving along well on to the next slide Boulder electric utility development you heard quite a bit about this last week uh we are in settlement negotiations with Excel Energy and Co

[182:03] has not really had an impact on our progress on this particular priority next one the climate mobilization action plan this is an effort that again we are continuing to work on but similar to the racial Equity plan the imperson community engagement is on hold and that is limiting our ability to execute short-term actions and to develop our broader partnership strategy and Jonathan Cohen is here just as is every advocate for all of the priorities on our staff um you can ask further questions about that next one our financial strategy committee hey we maybe we can check this one off because we did launch it last week and it already had its first meeting um La I guess maybe it was last week that we had our first meeting so things are moving forward on this and we're really pleased that the financial strategy committee exists because it will be able to help

[183:01] us as we move forward planning our our financial future for the next few years so next item um phase two of community benefits Council will recall that we did have an update to the on April 14th just at the beginning of the whole whole covid incident and you asked us to continue working on it which we're doing the covid has impact has been not Apparent at all and we'll be returning to Council in the third quarter for um options for your consideration next item phase two of the use tables and standards revisions again this is in progress and on schedule Co has not had an impact on this um we have weekly meetings with our subcommittee um and we're doing those in June and we're moving toward uh targeted and city-wide public Outreach online um hopefully ramping up with the East Boulder subc Community Plan effort so this one seems to be moving along well

[184:00] next item adopting the East Boulder sub community plan again this one is in progress and on schedule the working group has been doing an amazing job of collaborating via zoom and their work has continued one of the things though that Co has impacted us is that um our city furlows have impacted this work and we are proposing um and you will see this when we come forward with the finances in June that we will reduce our funding we hope for Consultants to support the subc community plan so we're going to be pulling back on some of the funding we had there but we believe that we're moving forward well on this particular item next item um an annexation framework including a plan and schedule for CU South and of course this goes in connection with one I'll talk about later uh which is the South Boulder Creek plan but on this one Co has had a very minimal impact our staff continues to be working with CU um

[185:03] are soliciting feedback from our boards and commissions and you'll be hearing much more about that um in the month of June on June 16th we'll be talking about it we are not going to be bring forward on June 16th a discussion of the annexation framework what we need on the 16th is a decision on the CU on the South Boulder Creek um flood control project but after that our continued engagement with CU Boulder will lead us toward the annexation um negotiations so next item the homelessness strategy um Co has had a significant impact on our homelesses strategy we've had increased costs we've had less ability to communicate with our clients our shelter bed capacity has changed things and um there's been a restructuring of the housing voucher prioritization as I indicated earlier we're going to have an

[186:01] in-depth discussion about all of the work around our homelesses strategy on July 14th and so there's more to come there next the middle income down payment pilot I believe we spoke to council about this earlier um during the beginning of the covid crisis and right now our local lenders are actually overwhelmed with processing um stimulus requests and also our staff has been diverted as well to our covid uh Recovery Center and so this project is on hold at this point um and we will be resuming it as we um start to move forward much later in the year next item manufactured housing strategy we have uh reduced staff availability in in terms of this item but we are continuing to work on an ordinance package and we are hoping to bring that forward to Council in the month of July so while

[187:01] this has experienced some delays we think we still are on a good plane to get this moving forward this year next item um police oversight is absolutely track um the team has been meeting via Zoom since March doing a really great job there uh we are going to be preparing an information packet item on the team's progress and that will be submitted in June and then we are looking for a revised ordinance for later in the fall next item uh this is the one we've all been waiting for on June 16th Council will consider um making a decision for the flood mitigation project on South Boulder Creek and we're currently in the process of engaging the public and getting feedback from our boards and commissions after June we will continue to work on the preliminary zign design permitting and approval process next item um hey 20 is plenty I think we did

[188:03] that tonight so good work Council next item uh micr Mobility items concerning dockless Bike Share E Scooters and discussions about where where bikes can go where pzs should go things like that um that came up near the end of last year and it was highlighted at the council Retreat we have a few items that are coming forward dockless Spike shares I think is coming forward next week for first reading um clearly the pandemic is impacting some of our micr Mobility companies and their ability to provide services but we do have some things scheduled for the next few months and we in fact want to come to council and September on regulations concerning standard and electric bikes so this is continuing but it's a little bit delayed and we be coming much more um for up for discussion I guess I'll say in the fall next item so planning and development

[189:01] services projects and I believe that this one I'm turning over to Charles Pharaoh Charles thanks thanks very much Jane so you'll notice in the packet that for the pnds um city council priority projects we provided you with a number of options so I just wanted to run through those really quickly so that you had a clear idea of what staff was recommending so on community benefit and site review criteria staff recognizes that this has been a really important project to council for the past few years and recommends that the project proceed as scoped and scheduled with completion in late 2020 or early 2021 um similarly with use tables the subcommittee has done extensive work this year and it's nearing completion staff is uh ready to start synthesizing some of those recommendations and start working with the public um and the project is also linked to some of the East Boulder sub Community work which is also underway so we recommend that this one also move forward as scoped and scheduled um East Boulder subc Community

[190:00] Plan um staff's recommending proceeding with an adjusted scope um that uh without consulting services and adjusted schedule to reflect the impacts related to furload staff uh but we do recommend that it continue on um as Jane mentioned CU souths annexation um staff recognizes the importance of this work and understands that Council wants that to continue so we we recommend that that move on as well um and then finally while not one of the council uh priorities um an important item it's worth noting that staff recommends that the uh Boulder Valley comprehensive plan midterm update also move forward on a slightly adjusted schedule that reflects the uh impacts from furload staff so I'm here to answer any questions Carl guer is here to answer any questions and so is Jim Robertson thanks Charles and I believe that is actually our last slide I wanted to go through it really quickly so that you'd get a a good overview of where we are on your projects we have staff members here to answer your questions on every one of them and so I turn it back

[191:02] to the mayor and oh actually today I was gonna say Heather the the mayor does never roll here yeah that's right mayor thoughts um so thanks Jane um so Jane one more just quick clarifying question to set the stage for Council um you indicated specifically that there were furlows that might be impacting contractors on the E East Boulder sub community plan um but otherwise does staff have bandwidth for for more work in addition to what's already on the work plan what you describe the couple of items that you've already talked about this evening um or are the staff that are available to work on Council priorities already fully committed I would say that they're already fully committed okay thank you um so Council we have a we have a couple of of of things to discuss tonight the first thing is um as as Jane indicated I

[192:00] want to see if you have any questions about the current status or trajectory of your priorities um from The Retreat um sounds like many um if not most are are Full Speed Ahead or pretty close couple of um items may be uh slowing down given that that's the case are you satisfied that um things are on target um do you have any suggested revisions um to the work plan um based on what you uh heard tonight or what you know um from other things so um Sam can I start with you do you have a question um or a comment I've got questions and do you have access to the hand raising I as well yeah all right super okay great so a few questions and Jan you can direct who these go to um so one thing that caught my attention about the East Boulder subc Community Plan is a Dr Cog project that was reference called the 55th in Arapaho station um could you

[193:03] remind us of what that is and it sounded like something uh was related to the overall schedule there so if we could go back to the slide in your presentation on the sub community plan that might be helpful so I'm not controlling the slides that someone else is um and yeah Jim Robertson is available to answer that question yes uh thank you Jane um Sam uh what this is is in late 2019 um our Go Boulder team was successful in being awarded it's it's Federal money but it's a program administered by uh Denver Regional Council of governments um $200,000 Grant to support the creation of a so-called station area master plan for 55th and arapo and the key to that the the the reason that particular location is that is a location that Dr Cog has

[194:02] identified um as a uh station in a future bus Rapid Transit line that would run along um uh Arapaho and far Eastward U many miles to the Eastward actually um and so uh we got that Grant I should note it is supported um by um a $40,000 local contribution so in other words we would have to Pony up 4,000 in order to secure the 200,000 I should note one other thing and then I'm happy to answer further questions that that grant that Dr CG Grant can only be spent and we're trying we're absolutely creating sort of a a a wall of China here um to ensure that that money can only be spent on work related to this to the station area master plan we cannot move money from that Grant over into the subc community planning project I'm happy to answer further uh questions if you have any

[195:00] about that I do and and that's great and you know a station there is much needed so I think this is a really good idea generally um do you have a location that 55th inapo identified or is it going to be looking at like the four corners and figuring out which one makes the most sense like what's that project going to be about and how will it tie into the overall sub community plan because the bullet says linked to that so yeah um I think um uh we don't have a particular exact location um there would probably be a um station uh for the westbound on the westbound side which of course would be the the north side of the street and a station um for the eastbound which would be on the south side of the street generally these types of stations are located on the far side of intersections uh in other words the westbound station would be located on the west side of 55th and vice versa for the eastbound

[196:00] station um the relationship to the overall subcommunity plan and this is why we have um essentially co-joined these projects not withstanding the fact that the funding needs to remain isolated within each one um is because this has been identified through the work we've already done on the East Boulder sub community plan as um probably the greatest single opportunity um for um evolution of the East Boulder subc Community uh it is already commercially oriented uh it's a major intersection and there's tremendous opportunity there for uh growth and development and achievement of some of the both subc community plan goals in the city City's overall goals so um that's why we joined these two together great seems very exciting um does anyone else have a cqu or question because I have a couple others of the hands that are up is anyone on this same point Aaron are you on this point I'll just take a yes or no

[197:00] with the head there no juny are you on the same point no two different points okay I'm gonna come back to you then um Sam did you have other questions I do have a few other question questions um middle income down payment assistance it certainly seems like there's a lot of headwinds there um do do we want to just go ahead and declare this kind of off the work plan because it's on hold right now until say 2021 um and reassess at that point because it doesn't look like there's anything here that's coming back this year and while obviously I'm a big fan of of the potential of a program like this it doesn't seem like now is a good time to be uh spending time on it I think the answer is yes okay so so the idea here would be to move this off yes okay thank you um hold on that one Sam I'll make a note to come

[198:01] back and I will um poll Council to see if yall are all on the same page about that um so we'll come back on that question go ahead cool very good um then we've got South Boulder Creek annexation running along I don't know in parallel or on a different track because there's two slides for the annexation and then the the flood mitigation of decision making and and so I'll just point out that for the flood mitigation decision making we are going to hear that June I think 16th just to heads up for everyone reminder that the last of the um board and commissions meeting is the open space Board of Trustees hearing on the 3D and so that will be a big one June 3 and then our hearing um as far as the annexation process itself goes is there a timeline for that so it says we'll return to council for feedback but I don't think we're going to spend too much time there on annexation per se and

[199:03] so I guess my question to staff is what is the timeline on the annexation side for wanting to have our first say session about details of taking the guiding principles um into an annexation agreement so presumably there's a study session at some point and then down the line some kind of public hearing so is there more detail on the annexation piece of the C South project you want me to handle that yes I do because I don't know the answer um thank you um yeah as Sam you correctly pointed out uh the focus on June 16th is really the flood control project uh the one item that Council identified back in February to come back with in June was um at least some further details as to how the principles expressed in the Boulder Valley comprehensive plans guiding principles could begin to be

[200:01] turned into sort of measurable actionable and um accountable um uh terms that would ultimately find their way into an Annex agreement so we will be prepared on June 16th to talk about that but beyond that beyond June 16th the next big step is working towards what we're calling a draft annexation framework that is not an actual annexation agreement but it is a document that would Express most all of the key terms key elements and a proposed resolution for all those key elements in in an ultimate annexation agreement we will be working between June and the end of the year um uh continuing to um have our negotiations with CU there will probably be some additional involvement especially of the planning board perhaps of other boards um and I anticipate I don't have an exact date but I do anticipate we would be returning probably to council towards the end of

[201:01] the year if not if not in early 2021 as we approach this annexation framework great so the next Milestone on the annexation side is roughly end of year and it's more or less a term sheet so the framework sounds like a term sheet to me where you've got all the major items kind of detailed maybe not resolved in any way but you're like here's what we need to get through to do an that's correct and of course I should point out and you know this at least as well as I do Sam um we've always kind of kept the annexation agreement moving alongside the flood control project because um the two are rather inextricably linked and if we want ultimately when we get to the point where we want to execute a flood control project we need to have an annexation agreement ready at that time great and then I only have one more just s your point real quick please go ahead or Heather if it's your choice now so I didn't I didn't quite get a a

[202:03] definitive maybe Target date for when we hope annexation would actually be completed what's our current timeline for that has that been pushed back at all um let's see I'm trying to uh remember and maybe Joe chat Uchi can if he's can help me um we're tying it to the schedule of the flood project in terms of so that they ultimately arrive at a point of finality in other words we're ready to start executing the flood project um I for some reason don't have that at the top of my head right now Joe do you remember so good evening Council Joe Teddy uch utilities director and I'll be honest with you I'm so focused on the intense process that's uh right in front of us here before June that um I don't have the the details committed to memory uh right now but I think we're looking at a a couple year process for the

[203:01] design and permitting and just reiterate what um Jim said that we're in an Ideal World the annexation and the the flood mitigation would uh reach the Finish Line at the same time because we need an annexation agreement in order for construction to start on the on the project yeah thank you Joe um yeah I guess we're both kind of focused on what lies in the in the next weeks and months um I should I've been right there with you so maybe you could just give us like a reminder of sort of what was the previous Target for finalizing an annexation agreement and has are we looking at changing the dates at all um and then just just a second point because Sam had mentioned um osbt hearing coming up for for any listeners and other council members as well there's a pretty big meeting tomorrow for public engagement that people might be interested in on the um flood design so anybody um interested and see you South I don't know if somebody wants to share the information with the public on

[204:02] that y six six o'clock tomorrow it's it's on the beard Boulder uh website you can find information and and people have to register to join and um Jim can you just commit to following up with Council on a what the target date was absolutely thank you sir final question here um it's about Transportation so if we could go look at the um slide where we talk about um bikes and ebikes and um there you go um so my question was as I look at this um the the question I had was at the very last bullet it says discussions about where it is safe and appropriate for different modes to operate the bullet Right Above It says regulation on standard and electric bikes for September I'm a little fuzzy here

[205:00] because it seems to me like we need one big package of Reform around like sidewalks and what can be on sidewalks and when and where and uh so okay what's the idea of separating out standard and electric bikes for September and then different modes whatever is included in that for sometime later so what's the thinking around this one yeah um Bill cow needs to answer this bill bill C is here Sam um sorry for the confusion those two bullets are essentially the same um the discussions about where it's safe and appropriate for different modes to operate rate occur as a part of that September um discussion so the same okay great and so what we're expecting in December is some kind of straw man proposal from Transportation around how to approach kind of all the modes

[206:00] sidewalks and bike Lanes Al together in one package in September yes yeah and and will that lead to an ordinance is this kind of like September's a study session where we're going to be looking at the concepts or September when we're going to be considering an ordinance my understanding is that um first and second reading of ordinance changes both occur in September awesome okay very good that's all my questions thank you thanks Sam juny what do you have for the team yes thank you I have several questions I know that uh Jane just talked about Community engagement and um um I had an issue with my computer I didn't hear everything that she said about that and I know she mentioned something about zoom and she mentioned how it is on hold and when she was talking about equity and I know that we've been using we've done a few chat with councils but what I wanted to ask

[207:03] her if there is an opportunity to use I don't know the internet to engage with people because I understand now it is on hold but are we looking into ways of connecting with community members and still be able to do Engagement online thanks juny I'm hopeful that Sarah Huntley or Amy Kane might be on the call but a thing that I will say to you is that um we are going to be using forms of the internet of course um to engage with people but we have felt that with regard to some of these items in particular the ones that I mentioned were the racial Equity piece and the um the climate action plan that those two we felt like would be more impactful if we could also have in-person meetings and

[208:01] conversations so I'm going to ask hopefully Sarah to comment on that sure thank you evening Council this is Sarah Huntley again the engagement manager for the city thanks for your question juny we are absolutely moving um public engagement to the extent that we possibly can online recognizing that it will be a while before we can safely gather um in groups of any significant number um we are not only hosting the council meetings and many board and commissions online we're also continuing the work of the East Boulder subc Community working group um we have the information session tomorrow night on CU South and South Boulder Creek flood mitigation and the library in particular is also doing a lot of programming online as Jane mentioned we are trying to balance um what we know about best practices in terms of in-person Engagement and the inclusivity that you

[209:01] can achieve in in-person engagement with the need to continue our engagement efforts uh so each um opportunity that comes forward we ask ask staff some pretty close questions about is there a need in fact to do this engagement at this time what's the capacity of staff to support on online forum and what do we think the capacity is of our intended audience members one of the things that we're very mindful of is that people are dealing with a lot of stresses right now and there may be some types of topics that they're more inclined to participate in and others where they would prefer to wait and then of course some of our more sensitive topics we can do online engagement but we know that we're probably going to have to go out to hard to reach populations to make sure that we're getting Equitable participation and um that's really better done in person so we're trying to balance all of these things but we definitely don't want to minimize our commitment to engagement we're just having to be creative about new ways of

[210:01] reaching people okay thank you I have two more questions go ahead for the B for the micromobility I know that on the slides it's mentioned June 2nd and for the E scooter June 2nd as well but I heard um Jane mentioning next week is there something happening with dockless bike next week yeah so I I could have the dates wrong but what I believe is going on is that we're going to have first reading on the doless bike share next week and second reading on June 9th okay so I think my question went back to the same question that Sam asked because to me I was wondering because it's first reading and then second reading and the second reading for East scooter will happen on June 2nd so I'm wondering why are these two disconnected Y and I think that's the same question that Sam just asked as

[211:02] well um yeah so again I apologize if there's any confusion that um I think that the first reading of east of uh The dockless Bike Share actually happened tonight and yeah the and the um second reading occurs in June when we are having the second reading since it's a public hearing and our staff will be there we're also including in that conversation a discussion about the escooter moratorium and some Alternatives that we had come up with after the prior conversation that we had with Council one of which is an ecooter Pilot We want to get some direction about that going into the summer so that we could be prepared when the moratorium is getting close to ending in the fall to be able to implement that pilot if that's council's direction we're gonna try and do both of

[212:01] those things at that meeting thank you so much that's exactly what I was thinking that these two things are so relate they relate to each other and it would make sense to keep them together and I think my last comment or question uh concerning the down payment assistance I wasn't on Council around that time so I understand the priorities were different back then but um I just wanted to say that to me affordable housing is still something that is very important even in this challenging times I don't know if it's a great idea to put it on hold I know it's a lot of money maybe Rec restructuring what it looks like and I would want to know more from other council members whether this is something they would be happy to um put on hold until next year because it is something that is so so important um and I wanted to know why is that

[213:00] the why putting it on hold is the default right now uh Kurt Fern hobber is on on the line and he's going to answer your question juny hello juny um thank you for that question um so there's there's um multiple challenges that we're having right now um one is that our our markets um are um also changing as well um so this was a new um very Innovative program and um it has required lot of input from the um from the finance industry um we're trying something that um we don't think has been done before um and the the finance industry has not been able to be engaged in helping us through this over the last um uh two

[214:02] plus months um we need to um receive their input in in De veloping this Innovative program um there are a number of challenges with with implementing this and um we're also concerned about not implementing it correctly um it's also worth noting um I believe there's 220 affordable units that have been added to the city um in this year um um it's probably the the biggest year we've had in two years um and um we probably have more affordable housing being built right now than we have in in quite some time um however that doesn't make up for the efforts that we need to continue to make

[215:00] around um middle income may I cqu on um on Kurt's answer absolutely um I agree with everything Kurt said and do agree with Sam um that this is probably something we just take off the work plan for this year and and consider at our January Retreat um I think it's really important that we make a distinction between low-income um housing which is what Kurt was referring to the 220 units and middle-income housing uh this is a down payment assistance program so in addition to the fact that our our bank partners are kind of distracted right now and are not able to help us put together this program which has never been done before and is unique and requires a lot of work and thought and participation for our banks there simply probably aren't that many middle- inome families buying houses right now um the number of houses on the market has has decreased significantly as sellers have pulled houses off the market probably because there's not a whole lot of buyers and so even if we had a program that so it's not a it's not a cost issue this this program actually doesn't cost us money it it's just a a um I think even if we had a

[216:01] program that was up and running right now that we probably wouldn't have a whole lot of applications because there's not a whole lot of middle- inome people actually buying houses and seeking down payment assistance so I don't think we're going to miss a whole lot of people if we put this on hold for six months because I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of people in that um cohort to actually help again go ahead I'm sorry may I call I I just was um I have a question for Kurt wondering how um property valuations might affect this program as well and how that would affect the the loans that we would be doing yeah so um I'll also agree with Bob that I think he was also somewhat getting to your to your question the market has changed and it is changing right now and um a program like this where housing values went into a

[217:02] negative direction would significantly impact um people's um willingness to to um engage in such a program okay and and as I said we I'll come back and I'll pull you all um to see if you want to um take this off uh the work plan or not once we hear the additional comments but of course you are free to comment on it um when your hand is up um Junie thanks for your questions Aaron I have you next thanks uh so question for planning staff on the um Community benefit Phase 2 project so read in the memo that you had a few different options that you were considering um some of which were changing the scope and I just want to clarify look like what you're recommending right now is that the scope continue as it was before is that [Music]

[218:00] correct hi Carl buddy uh yes that is correct uh option A includes moving forward with the project as we were okay that that's great to hear because I I I think all the different Alternatives that were potentially to be included in that have some real value so I'm glad to hear that that's what you've settled on so uh that's all I have for questions great thanks Aaron Mary how about you yes um I had a question about the manufactured housing strategy if we could look that slide um or maybe not I think I might be able to do it from memory um I was wondering um what the the ordinance um ordinances that will be brought forward um are and I was also wondering what things would would not be addressed from the strategy so Kur Kurt can you answer that

[219:02] absolutely so there's um three particular areas that we'll be bringing forward um one is um simply a cleanup of the current codes that we have um what we have found um over the last couple of years is that the um the the codes have been difficult to um enforce and um we want to strengthen uh the protections for the residents um in these communities and cleaning up that code will create um clarification um on how we do that the second thing um um deals with communication and the um uh the requirements for owners of um manufactured home communities in how they

[220:00] communicate um um policies um uh the access um for language um and those types of things um the third is the requirement um improving the requirements for leases um and um which includes um how um rent increases are um communicated and um how they are um um shown over time so is the second part of your question is what are we not bringing forward the things that were um so so one of the things that changed last year as we were going through this strategy update is in parallel the state was um as you as you well know making um sign significant strides in um various areas and

[221:00] protections around people living in manufactured home communities um some of those things have slowed down at the state level um as a result of the inbs of of covid and their ability to move legislation forward we will be watching that um to see if they get to um some of the things that they had committed to um if they don't it it could require us to um come back and do some of those things um at a local level um but primarily the the community engagement and a lot of the work um in preparation for these ordinances had been done just prior to covid coming on the scene so we believe that in later July we'll be able to bring this forward to council with um um most of the things that you had asked for thank you

[222:01] Kurt any other questions for staff based on the presentation okay um so Council we have several uh questions uh for you to consider um for the um P&S you have a couple items where they have proposed to you options would love to know um if you support the staff recommendations for Community benefits and for use tables the other suggestion on the table is um to just remove from the work plan the middle income down payment pilot project and defer that uh for a future discussion at your January Retreat um let's start with the middle income because you've already talked a little bit about it um I heard several different reasons for deferring it um among them changing in market and potential utility of the project at this time also the lack of availability um of the banking and Industry Partners to participate in a conversation on account of they doing a bunch of other stuff um covid related um

[223:00] it sounded like Sam you had proposed and and and were supportive of deferring it um Bob I heard that from you as well so Sam I'll come back to you after maybe I hear from a couple other members of council um Aaron what's your thought on this one yeah I mean it seems like what we have to do right now is to defer it um and that's because of the the condition of the financial industry and we need their their help and their support here I will say I actually have a a neighbor who was interested in uh who uh buying a home in the area was really hoping for support from this program recently so I I actually know of one person who's really interested in the program um however I think if you dug into it and talked about how houses losing value might compromise how it work out for us you might well not be so much but just to give folks an idea that there there is interest in the program out there so I look forward to when we can get back to it thanks Ain Mark what's on your mind about this one well I think Sam is right we're simply deferring uh to

[224:02] reality at this point um I I agree with Kurt that um it's important that this project be rolled out and rolled out well it's very Innovative and um it's very important that we execute it correctly when we do roll it out and if the conditions are not appropriate then I just don't think we can go ahead because I I I do not want us to fail on this excellent thanks Mark all right um Sam I see no other hand so I'd love to hear from you and then I will uh poll councel and see where we are yeah I just agree with what else has been said already um this is an important and necessary program approved by the voters you clearly you know has a lot of community uh will behind it and momentum it's just not the right time to be trying to do it you know there's just so much going on with the financial industry right now and so much confusion that even trying to explain it in the current context would would be quite difficult so it's unfortunate um but I

[225:01] think what other council members sub s is Right fantastic okay thank you um so council members if you are um supportive of removing on the middle- income down payment pilot project from the work plan and deferring it for future consideration at your January Retreat I would love it if you would please raise your hand an unraised hand means that you're not supportive oh you're doing visual raising hands okay fantastic um so I see Sam Weaver's hand up I see Rachel's hand I see Aaron's hand I see Bob I see Mark I see juny I see Mir I see Adam I see Mar uh Mary that is a unanimous decision to defer that bad boy um so so that's uh one thing um fantastic again it's an unfortunate situation um but it sounds like um you can Circle back to it and have another chance when the time is perhaps more appropriate um so um Jane is it a good time now to talk about these two uh uh items from P ands and the options and poll Council there that would be great yes so Council if we

[226:03] could start with Community benefits you see in your packet and I'm heard from staff that they have proposed for you a couple of options um and they are recommending um for you the option A which is to continue to work on site benefit uh criteria update and Analysis um and the three primary Community benefits so um would love to take any discussion on that before we hear your perspectives does anyone want to say anything prior to indicating support for the staff recommendation or lack their of so C if you are um um supportive of accepting staff's recommendation on option A for uh Community benefits if you would please raise whatever hand you got digital or otherwise I see Sam Rachel Aaron Bob Mark juny Mary Adam mirb um that's it that's the team right there Council thank you very much and

[227:01] then um similar question related to use tables uh staff has given you several recommendations and again they are commending option A which is to continue the work um with the use table subcommittee and develop recommendations and conduct Outreach as feasible in 2020 council do you have any comments on this one before I ask you what your thoughts are on the recommendation nope okay Council if you would please raise some kind of a hand if you are supportive of the staff recommendation that would be great I see Sam I see Rachel I see Aaron I see juny Mark Bob Mary Adam and mirbi another unanimous um support of the staff recommendation there fantastic so where we had specific questions from staff or from members of council about changes to the work plan we have addressed those um council do you have any other thoughts or questions related to the work plan as you now

[228:00] understand it yep Sam what do you got for me and then I'll come to Aon um I wanted to see if this is an appropriate time to bring up process issues because I do have a comment or two on process but I don't know if uh that feathers in here or not um well we have a whole agenda item on um process stuff related to covid financial updates and then we have some Council items so if it's one of those things Council procedures so if it's one of those we'll come back to it right now I'm on work plan is it process for work plan or process for those other things other things okay let's back to you fantastic Aaron how about you I just wanted to thank uh Jane and staff uh for putting this together you've made this an easy choice for us and particularly uh Planning Development yall have somehow managed to keep almost everything on track it's extraordinary so thank you thank you Ain um Rachel what's on your mind so I'm I'm a little bit confused on the process and when to

[229:00] bring things up um but I had a question on transportation and possibly adding something to the work plan is this the right time know that it's moving Us in the wrong direction because we're trying to kind of thin out what we're doing um but I'm still going to bring it up so and I've talked to several of you about it so thanks for um talking through it with me to those of you that I spoke with um so it's mostly Transportation related but it dovetails with climate issues too um and I would say that covid has inspired a lot of creativity and kind of Rapid Fire transportation and Street use related responses around the world so I'm hoping that we can use this opportunity to gather information and consider current innovations that are going on again around the world through the lenses lenses of vision zero Transportation master plan and climate mobilization action plan I would propose that we have staff um and or tab to evaluate what our peer cities are doing in response to covid and see if there

[230:01] are new ideas that might help us in meeting our vision zero and cmap goals um an example of current Innovation is one of the ideas that we enthusiastically supported tonight letting restaurants and Retail spill out into streets and I think that there are a lot more creative approaches out there and I would just like for us to know what they are and to consider um somewhat systematically whether we would like to um think about employing some of them in Boulder um so I'll stop there for now but that's essentially my ask okay um thank you for that idea before I um see what other members of council think about that I wanted to give um Jane or Bill a chance to ask any clarifying questions or provide any context in response to Rachel's suggestion so Bill go ahead um well I think I think that was there was largely a vision zero focus in that correct me if I'm wrong um I would I would agree with that and so we would

[231:01] have anticipated that that would have been a pretty fundamental aspect of the vision zero engineer position that we had hoped to this year that we've now delayed hiring because of the um Financial impacts um but we are hoping to hire a new principal traffic engineer to take my place and um it would be we would be hopeful that some portion of their job could be um trying to stay on top of state of the practice um actions that are occurring in other communities I mean obviously we don't always agree when something's done in another community that we should do it here but we certainly want to know what they're doing yeah and and the other aspect I thought was um tab could pick it up and sort of um research it and come back to us with um just what's going on and

[232:01] recommendations and things that might fit with our city maybe a little bit less impact on on that position directly but I don't know how it works bill is that a thing that that can be um done once you are St you're fully staffed and or um delegated to tab to give some um some consideration to in the meantime well it's certainly my understanding that Council can seek advice from tab on anything they want so be perfect perfectly appropriate for them to ask Tab for advice yeah cool okay um I'd love to hear other council member thoughts on that and then I will pull you juny are you on this specific point yes I just have a question Rachel I didn't hear you clearly while she left um no I'm I'm here I just have people going behind me so I'm trying to spare them this moment no problem I just wanted to know are you

[233:01] asking for specific uh are you asking for a specific issue that you want um the transportation Department to look into or is it more like General broad just look at what's happening in let's say in another city just like everything that has to do with Transportation or do you have a specific issue in mind like maybe closing residential streets or something like that so I'm just try what's your yeah definitely not um a specific issue just there are like 300 cities I think that are responding to covid with um ideas and different ways to use streets creatively um and so I would just like us to get a systematic understanding of what's going on what are the Innovations happening around the world and I don't I don't really want us to miss out on this time of Rapid Innovation especially as we are such an Innovative city um and we've been um so kind of uh mired in putting out fires that we haven't had a chance to really

[234:01] pan pan out and take a birds ey view of what's going on and so I'm just hoping that we can um te that up I think it's for but I also think there's a lot of um climate impact so I could see our our climate initiatives team also wanting to look at it and just gather data and come back and say wow these students are doing these things this makes sense for Boulder or it doesn't but it's I just don't want us to miss out on on a time of of really cool Innovation around the world because we're an Innovative City so no I don't have a specific and and I because I don't know what's going on I don't have a specific there's just too much and so I don't know what and I'm just hoping to get it of the hands that are up I'll assume that you are on this topic if not if you could drop your hand and then um raise it again we'll come back to you on something else um nearby um so I think this is a cool idea and stuff I guess I would put it to staff um because I know that a lot of the things we brought up originally caused them a lot of time um when they

[235:00] were extremely busy and so with the somewhat possible limit on our monetary funds at the moment um and staff's time with the furlows I guess I would pose it to them and say you know even if it goes to tab I know that staff still has to assist Tab and so that takes the staff memb time to help them do the research and whatnot so is it going to cost us more money to do something like this if so how much and how much staff time would they anticipate and do they even have the ability to do so and that's kind of for me where the buck stops so J you want to tle that now you want to hear from the remainder of of council before we come back to you so I'm not the person that can answer this actually bill is and what he would need to be able to tell us is um what other work is Staff doing that we could set aside in order to take this on yeah and that's tough um I mean

[236:01] having having gone through this budget effort and figured out how to cut $4.5 million out of the budget this year and it's important to understand that in the transportation budget it's so much of the transportation budget is associated with maintaining what we have and um you know taking care of our infrastructure and leveraging uh federal dollars so the vast majority of that $ four and a half million dollars comes out of a much smaller pot of money that is discretionary and and come came at the expense of 20% of our staff and so um do we have staff that don't have things on their plate absolutely not um but we we are hoping to hire a new principal traffic engineer and we do expect that a portion of the that principal Traffic Engineers Position will be involved in Vision

[237:02] zero matters and and trying to stay on top of what other communities are doing so there's some amount of that that could be done by that staff person um otherwise it would be um taking something off the plate and I don't know what yeah I mean I I provided a whole list of things that we are doing as a part of the vision zero program um if you want to look at that and tell me what you don't want us to do then um we could certainly take that off okay let's hear from a couple other members of council and then we'll see if um if there's a will of council even to have you provide a recommendation about what you could take off the plate if they want you to chase this one um Mark what are your thoughts uh I am fine with the tasking tab to look at at a matter like this it's a very general request I would have more trouble if tab is turning to staff and saying Help Us survey the uh the Run of

[238:00] cities and and and determining what they've been doing if it's a project that the tab would accept I would be happy to have them do it but under the current circumstances I would not want to implicate um staff resources on something this General as as juny said if it were a request to analyze closing streets that might have um a little more appeal but but simply taking a survey of what other cities are doing using staff time I I would have a problem with that tab wants to do it I'm fine so perhaps when we come back to PO you I can ask the two separate questions or maybe there's a contingent one I'll I'll noodle on that um while I hear from Aaron thanks uh rich I appreciate you bringing this up so I I would support the idea for sure um you know if it could start with Tab and and if it were possible to interweave it with other Transportation priorities I'm I hear

[239:01] what bill says about how um how busy they are so I'm not ready to tell them to stop doing uh anything else because I think they've got a lot of important things on their plate but if it's something that could be um you know woven in maybe as they hire this new person something like that I think that'd be great thanks Aron um Mary how about you yeah I think this question is for Rachel um I'm trying to understand exactly what your ask is um so are you wanting to have um someone we'll just call it someone right now um look into what different cities are doing in response to CO as Co continues or are you you thinking that in response to covid some things will stick and maybe we should be on top of those um for what might stick and evaluate that

[240:03] is that kind of what you're thinking I I do think that the second is true that some things probably will stick and they would be good to adopt and some habits are going to be harder to adopt um 3 years from now and the cities that um that roll things out um in in a year are probably going to be better position to um be doing it as as a response to covid and and forming habits that help our climate initiatives and our vision zero initiative so just keeping up with what's happening and and what might be recommended for Boulder um you know as an example again just the the restaurants moving outside I don't know where that started first as a response to covid but it's just something that when it came to us it's good that we're getting out in front of it in time to help um and it's going to help um the small businesses and it's going to help our tax base as well so what else is out there um that might be helpful now or in

[241:00] the long run I just don't think we know that answer your question I think it's both okay and Sam how about you I'm a little bit like where Mary is I'm not completely sure I understand the ask but that being said to the extent that I do understand the ask if it lands on Tab and says tab survey the environment survey what other cities are doing on your free time bring it back to tab have some structured discussions around it and then have a summary that Council get i' prefer not to be asking for a recommendation per se but I think what I heard from Rachel and what I could get on board with would be that tab takes responsibility for doing a survey of what they're seeing out there um you know some some of the ideas we've taken a look at one of them we didn't love so much and one of them we did and so I

[242:01] think there will be a lot of things like that where some things might fit Bolder other things might not fit Bolder um but I'm love to pass staff with much work at all I mean some of the vision zero stuff that's going on is critically important to me the definition of where modes can go I mean the last time we touched this was 20 25 years ago we came up with a zoning based set of guidelines which no one understands and can follow and has a lot of implications for people being hurt we have these modes which are coming forward which we cast St with looking at um and where they can operate safely as people continue to innovate is something that I think we need to look at um we're doing 20 is plenty and so I just don't want to take a new vision zero engineer bring them in and then have them go off and take you know half their time or a third of their time looking at what other cities are

[243:00] doing when I think tab probably has the bandwidth to do that themselves and I think there's really pressing Vision zero safety issues that I just wouldn't want to see fall off the plate so if we can set this up in a way that it's totally on Tab and in their free time they go help figure this out and maybe stab in four months or six months when they're not totally tied up with the covid response and and things already on their plate they could help put a report together that we get or at least the presentation but as long as it leans on Tab and tab using their free time and not burdening staff with work I could support it um but if it has much staff implication I'm gonna be hard pressed okay um Bob are you the last thought on this one before I suggested Next Step yeah I just want to introduce the do of reality here um for those of us who have served on City boards and commissions I know um Adam served on the housing

[244:01] Advisory Board and several of you served on the planning board I served on the Parks Board I think it's just unrealistic for us to say oh let's have a board and commission go off and do some stuff on their own time without any staff impact I mean we all know those of us who served on boards and commissions know that staff does 99% of the work and um I just don't think I I agree with the statements before if we could somehow suspend reality and say all right tab is going to go off in their spare time and do this research without probably adequate training and without adequate resources and there'll be no impact on staff whatsoever I suppose if you could could live in that world and believe that sure it's hard to argue against it I don't know if anybody's pulled stab tab to see if they have the time to do this of course council members could go off and do this too if council members really wanted to go off and do research if we're going to be if we're going to do this on an amateur basis and have um nonexperts go off and do research then I would just throw back at us and say well gez why are we throwing this on Five

[245:01] residents in our community who don't have expertise in the area why don't we just do it ourselves um and so if we're going to do something and I'm I'm also a little unclear what it is we should do it right I'm happy to have a discussion about um bumping other things that transportation is working on and do this instead if if if a majority of council feels that this is more important than some of the other things that are on um the Transportation staff's uh work plan that's that's a fine discussion to have but I think we're kidding ourselves if we're going to say hey tab go off and do this and don't Impact Staff whatsoever it it's just not going to happen that way so I'm going to ask you two separate questions and I'll ask you to raise your hand um uh to indicate your support of them the first question I have is Council do you support asking Transportation Advisory Board um to uh research creative ideas that other communities are using um in terms of vision zero Transportation type projects

[246:01] to respond to the unique conditions of covid um with tab member time only no staff in Impact or minimum staff impact if you suggest that maybe we just do something out ahead which is S Tab if they have the bandwidth to do that like may we ask you to do that rather than directing them to do that sort of asking them if they would be willing to do it because I would disagree Bob I think that they are um appointed to that board because they are experts and so they're going to do a better job of of distilling the information than I'm going to do um and and I know that there are some um Advisory board members that I'm friends with who who do a lot of work on their own and pour their hearts into those boards and and would have the bandwidth to do it so I think that if they're willing to do it and they have the expertise and can um keep us moving forward and it doesn't Impact Staff I don't know why we wouldn't say tab would you like to do it um so reframing the question then um based on Rachel's

[247:01] comments there if you support asking tab if they have the interest and bandwidth um um to do this work uh with no staff impact please raise your hand visually or otherwise I see Rachel's hand Aaron Sam Mark juny and Adam that's a majority of council bill can we look to you to follow up with Council and report back how that tab conversation goes um follow up with tab yep ask them if they have bandwidth to do that and then follow with councel yes whatever tab says yes no something I have a meeting with the tab chair tomorrow to go over the agenda and I will discuss jce with her perfect thanks everyone and then just a second question before I turn over Heather if I have a question about um Charter committee step should I hold that for Sam's process Point discussion okay thank you thank you ma'am okay um as several of you have alluded uh the next agenda item is uh these process issues so I want to do one last call I'm sorry

[248:01] had one more Heather I had my hand up and it came down somehow yep One Last Call on anything related to the work plan um Bob what do you got well this is not an expansion of the work plan this is just again um a dose of reality on the work plan um Jane mentioned earlier that um reminded us earlier that we're in settlement discussions with um Excel and and none of us know where that's going to go but um regardless of where it goes uh and particularly if it goes well there's going to be a lot of councel and staff impact there already is a lot of council and staff impact and there's going to be even more I might call on Sarah to talk a little bit about the public engagement but I think we're all going to be asked to participate in public engagement here over the next several weeks as we go out to the community ask them what they would like to see in any arrangement with Excel and then of course there'll be frequent reports by um by the team back to council um seeking advice and guidance from Council and then ultimately if an if an arrangement is pulled together uh probably sometime in

[249:01] July we'll probably have several conversations around that both with Council and also presenting to the community and that's only if an arrangement is is reached so I just want us to all be aware of the fact that there's probably many many hours of Staff me of council meeting time that will be consumed by these public engagements and then these deliberations and Sarah do you want to expand a little bit more about what you're thinking on engagement sure I'm happy to this is Sarah Huntley I'm engagement manager for the city of Boulder we've started to work with uh staff on our Energy Future team as well as um both both Bob and Sam as representatives of Council on what engagement might look like and I would say you're already beginning to see quite a bit of Engagement in the form of council emails which require staff and Council attention and time and dedication um to considering all the points that are being made we know that Council emails is not always satisfying to people who are writing in because they don't get a chance to have a

[250:01] dialogue so we are planning to host a number of um online forums we're unfortunately in this online space for the foreseeable future so we want to have opportunities for community members for business owners and key customers of a potential utility and for others who have not necessarily engaged um on this issue before to share their ideas about which types of conditions and terms would be most important to them for the negotiation team to consider we then intend to have a second phase um probably starting mid June into July where the negotiation team will report back out on where they are and also be able to share with community members who gave their ideas which ideas look like they might be able to move forward and which ideas um maybe are not going to be achievable during this round of negotiations and then of course there will be a series of Council meetings as Bob alluded to considering

[251:02] whether an item should be put on the ballot and then there would be um prior to the adoption of the ordinance some information going out to the community about exactly what they're voting on so it's a three-phased approach one is the idea Gathering and hearing from the community the second is reporting back and trying to be responsive to what we've heard and giving an update on where things stand and then the third would be explaining any potential ballot items prior to the election campaign season in which point the city would have to go dark okay Aaron do you have a question or comment on that separate item thank you on the work though okay fantastic um so anyone have any um other questions for Sarah or Bob do we get that covered for you covered fantastic thank you um all right Aon what you got just I did want to one other thing on the work plan about the um racial Equity framework um

[252:02] I totally get about how there is an in-person component to that that's key um and also that like say reaching some underserved communities uh might really require that in-person Outreach so totally get that we can't finish that item um until things get a little different here but I just want to make sure that we don't put it on complete hold um you know we're talking about other kinds of online engagement that we're doing so I would hope that we could do some keep do some work on moving that forward in the meantime um while understanding that we can't finish it for a while yeah thank you yeah thanks Ain we absolutely agree with you this is a top priority for our organization and for the council and for the community so we're going to do what we can I I do see that Amy Kane is still here and so Amy do you wanna yeah hi guys yeah so this is Amy Kane I'm the equity program

[253:00] manager for the city and we are um exploring some of um the groups that we were reaching out to originally with some of our hard to re reach populations we are circling back with them because we are understanding that some of those groups have been working really hard to do some Zoom training and technology training um so we're checking in to see if we can reschedule some of those events um some folks on the community or on the engagement team are also assisting um with um coming up with some other other opportunities like using uh be herd Boulder um and just really ensuring that we are um keeping the work moving forward and trying to get creative on how we can make sure that we're bringing folks in we did have the opportunity um to meet with the NAACP before right before um we went under um quarantine so we have gotten some good feedback thus far but we also recognize that there's still opportunity to do some further engagement this is a

[254:01] high priority um so we will be looping back thanks for that Amy yeah [Music] um anything else from um Council Last Call on work plan items all right um I'd like to reiterate to staff council's um gratitude expressed um for all the work that you did to prepare for tonight's conversation that did go very very swimmingly and you know y'all always impress me with how you're able to just do all the things and um so well done thank you all um so Council our next agenda item is um just to talk a little bit about some processed things um we sort of have three buckets two are pretty straightforward and one might be a catchall um the first one is related to covid briefings and the timing thereof um the second one is financial updates and the timing thereof and the third one is other stuff um so let's start with uh the covid briefings um Sam or Bob did you w to um talk a little bit

[255:00] about about a recommendation here for Council related to um when and how we fit in uh covid briefings any me miny leadership I got I got muted I didn't expect it never happens um so I'm drunk on power over here man I'll just do it all day so uh I think what we decided was that Co briefing and response were really important for a while 6 eight weeks we really needed to hear what's going on how do we track it what are the methods that we use to make sure that you know we're doing well by our community as far as health and safety I think we're feeling relatively good about that at the moment and we have heard from Jeff Zak and Dr vissers that they feel like that it's getting a bit repetitive at the moment and you know having looked at the numbers I think that we are moving into a different

[256:00] phase now we're changing things so we want to keep track of them to make sure that opening business and opening restaurants is not going to move us in the wrong direction but I think we have all the information we need to watch that um if we do start going the wrong direction I think what I heard um was that we can easily start these back up again so we had them as like a fixed part of every meeting and special meeting for more than a couple months and I don't know that we need them anymore so we decided to take it off for the foreseeable future and bring it back back if we need it so Jane did I get that right Bob did I get that right yes and I think there's a I'll just add to that I think there there was there has been two parts to um that the beginning of meeting session that we've had for the last couple of months one is the briefing from the medical folks and then the other is kind of covid response which has been our catchall which is what is this what is the city going to do about what we just heard and as we

[257:00] saw this evening uh that um could just as easily be handled under matters matters from Council Matters from from the city manager so tonight tonight of course we had a great presentation by AET and her team that was responsive to covid um I think we um are going to talk a little later tonight about the possibility of having the chief and perhaps others present to us about some of the circumstances we see around um non-compliance and social distancing I think um it's going to be on the front page of tomorrow's paper and our community going to expect us to be responsive to that and I know the chief will have some thoughts on that which we won't talk about tonight but we'll talk about next week and so there will always be opportunities to talk about um our response to um covid and the things we'll be doing so I don't think that's going to go away I think it'll just be melded into um to matters as an agenda item okay um Juni are you on this point yes and so I'm not

[258:01] completely yet sold on the no covid update but I do like some of Bob's points of how everything is kind of meshed in and it's not a discussion that will go away but I still think that some type of update would be important whether it's under um matter from the city manager I just think maybe a five minute or 10 minute update is very important whether it's once a month I just don't think we can just completely get rid of any type of covid discussion but then again that's something we can't get away with from because it's part of our everyday life now but I still think some type of update is necessary okay Mark how about you I I agree it does to me it doesn't have to be every week it could be every two or three weeks but I don't think that we are in a position where the where even a

[259:03] brief or a briefer CO presentation is irrelevant to at least to the best of my knowledge we haven't even hit the CDC uh suggestion of 14 days of declining uh cases yet uh and if we haven't met that threshold I'm hardpressed to understand why we wouldn't be a little more concerned with Co updates um and if there are any other patterns of uh infection or incidents that we need to be aware of I'd like to I'd like to hear that from the professionals I'd like to get uh periodic updates as to how they're doing on testing um obtaining testing how it's being allocated out who is eligible for testing there's a lot of material still out there that I think we ought to be hearing again it doesn't have to be every time doesn't have to be for a

[260:01] two-hour presentation but i' I'd like to stay current on where we are on uh on Co response okay Adam so Mark answered one of my questions and that is what sort of form would you like that to take and it sounds like still a professional presentation from probably Jeff Zak um or Dr vissers or both uh I would just note that the briefings we get the time that generally takes longer is the time where we're asking questions the briefings themselves generally aren't more than half an hour so I mean you balance that as you will I understand the need or the desire to have uh briefings on occasion still but you know um I think part of this is where are we trying to take care of City business versus where are we trying to ask questions about the briefing um and I don't have an answer for you but that's the way that I would frame it you are a curious Bunch this is this is for

[261:01] sure um let's hear from Rachel and then from Sam and then from Aon then I'd like to get some clarity and move on to our next topic if we could [Music] Rachel Rachel we can hear you you got an extra magic button let's see if this works can you hear you go y my headphones went dead so I just switch and it's a thing um wondered if maybe we could just get some written updates that we could ask follow-up questions and I think it is a lot of time that we're imposing on Jeff Zak and Dr Visser so I'm sensitive to us continuing on with that you know indefinitely and I think that we could um really winow the amount of time that we're spending on it if we got just their their normal updates in writing and then could ask them questions on hotline maybe and post those to the community on hotline as well okay um Sam can I come back to you last since you

[262:01] start that'd be great thank you sir Aon how about you yeah I'll agree with uh Sam and Bob's proposal um I think it what you're saying makes sense we can bring things up under matters as necessary um and uh I think written updates like Rachel suggested U would be a good good an adequate thing okay and um I gonna let mirb hop in mirb what do you think yeah I'm on board with Sam Bob Rachel and Aaron I think written updates are fine if we need them and we can always ask we need them but I think a little repetitive right and Jane how about you yeah I want to make a comment on some of the suggestions um if we need Jeff Zak to um provide information we cannot do it under Matters from the city manager because we should do it at the beginning of the meeting because he's a guest and we need him to have a firm time when he could make a presentation and we actually

[263:01] never know when Matters from the city manager is going to start because we've got a whole bunch of other stuff that occurs before that so if we need that update it needs to come at the beginning secondly I I feel like it would be inappropriate for us to ask Jeff to write a report for Council about the various things that he might have on his mind what I think I've noticed over the last weeks is that he's Pro providing us with up toate information um every time he shows up and so my preference without having talked to Jeff is for him not to have to write a report but to come in and speak for 10 or 15 minutes about what's going on um I think that would make it easier on him uh when it comes to City staff things and how we're uh planning to reopen buildings or uh react to the situation we certainly can put that under Matters from the city manager

[264:02] thanks thanks Jane all right Sam what do you got so a couple things I certainly agree with Jane that I would not ask do Dr vissers or Jeff Zak to provide anything in writing if they are doing a presentation so so much of their presentation pulls from what's on the website and so the website information's updated every day and um Jeff has been packaging that into a presentation that's clear for us and walking us through it so we can ask questions which is different than on the website because you go on the website if you don't understand it you can't ask anyone question um to the extent that he may be doing presentations to other groups if he wants to send us his presentation but he's done a day or two or three beforehand that would be great because he doesn't have to redo anything and we might get the same basic information in one source so I I'm really sensitive to not asking him to do any more work for us if if we want to have him um once a

[265:01] month or at every regular meeting because if we move in July into meeting study session cycle like we usually do then we could have him at the first one of every month or at every you know real council meeting at the beginning for five or 10 or 15 minutes and then carry our response to the end of the meeting so I I'm comfortable with continuing to Monitor and to make sure to bring these briefings back as we need them but if we'd rather set um first and third week starting in July I could I would be happy with that as well um and so I think you'll guide us home on this Heather I do want to make one more point though um i' I've been tracking the numbers that come off the County website every day and we have had 15 days of decline uh the peak uh the most recent Peak was on the 3 of of May and it

[266:04] hasn't been absolutely straight down Hill since then but within the noise the 5day average has gone down for 15 days of new cases and that's in the face of slightly increased testing not greatly but slightly so I would say that we actually have met the criteria now when we announced the reopening it was early it was after we've been going down for six or seven days but for what it's worth we we have um had pretty good results recently we're down to 5 a average as reported yesterday um was 11 new cases um over the last 5 days per day and that's down from 26 new cases in early May per day so anyway I think that's good news we should be happy about that fantastic um so Council I just want to uh call your attention to the fact that there are five hands up on this topic we have several other topics um related to procedures I do believe

[267:00] that you have an agreement to end so I just want to call your attention to how we're burning our time tonight this is an important topic so I want to make sure you get some clarity on How It Ends but if you be mindful of the brevity of your comments that would be fantastic um Aaron what's on your mind now I just want to pretty much agree with Sam but just to clarify not uh that getting an update under matters would be from staff uh like we did tonight with the vet's great presentation on how we're responding the to the crisis and um that having if if Jeff sa were available once a month maybe that might be helpful um but any written materials would only I would say that we would be calling from publicly available materials uh not asking him to write anything special for us thank you sir um juny how about you yes thank you not to be the dead horse but um I like the idea of the update once a month and the thing about

[268:01] the writing I think to me these updates are not just for city council that's how I I take it that a lot of the discussions that we're having in the public on Council are for the public so if information are coming to us who are lay people and then relaying it to the community it's already diluted so I think having that information coming from the authority himself is the best way to go and I like the idea of the once a month and for five to 15 minutes I think it's a good way to go um but of course it is the will of council thanks Judy Mark um my preference would be Sam's suggestion of first and third uh meeting of the month uh I would make it shorter and I could be 10 15 minutes we don't need as many slides um it doesn't have to be a full half hour presentation and we do not need written reports but I

[269:02] agree very much with what Juni said uh our audience here is not just the council it's the community uh whether we're doing well or not well I think the community has gets an opportunity to hear it in a place that they are that they can easily access and not do research on their own and I think that's an important function um and I would be delighted to have two or three meetings uh over the next couple of months where we are told this is really boring we're doing great the cases are diminishing I can't think of a better briefing uh from anyone on any topic today excellent thanks Mark all right Mary last thought and then I'm going to pull counsel um once a month um with the option to call it off if there really isn't that much news um and I like the idea of um them sending us slides that they have already done with no more

[270:03] effort for um for us and if we get the slides ahead of time we can post them on the hotline um so okay there I am um so I do hear a fair amount of convergence on the concept I'm not sure on the details it does sound like you are in general agreement um that you can remove the co update as a standing agenda item at um at every meeting um if you could nod or give me a thumbs up that that that you support what I just said that would be great I do see all members of council there thank you so much so then the question is what shall you do instead um it sounds like some of you would like more frequent briefings than others the minimum requested is once a month um and maybe once a month us an agenda item knowing that you can um continue to get updates through uh Matters from the city manager or other agenda items in terms of us of a city

[271:01] response you could also if things go terribly arai or want to do a victory lab you could also schedule um an additional update as needed knowing that you have all those other options um as conditions may require um would you please raise your hand if you can live with a monthly um Dependable schedule for covid updates please monthly I see one I see um Sam I see Bob I see Aaron I see Mary I see juny Adam and mirbi so that does look like that's a majority of of council um so um Sam and Bob I assume then you take that to CAC and tend to agendas accordingly sound good y fantastic all right team thank you very much um our next topic is related to um a similar uh concept of a everchanging context and this relates to your financial updates um Jane did you have a recommendation for Council about the frequency of um upon which they might

[272:01] receive uh Financial Revenue updates from you we are going to do the next one as you all know um June 9th I hate to commit the finance department to doing it every single month but um I I do feel like we should have one sometime in July and August and um after that we'll be working on the 2021 budget so I'm going to say that we can do quick ones in July and August depending on how things come forward and then we'll be focusing on the 2021 budget um I cannot promise that rich and Brian will be here every time we have made arrangements with them to come um later in the year as well as on June 9th but I'm not sure that they have been

[273:00] scheduled to come every single month but we can do something June July and August for now is that okay thanks Jane um cancel any questions um related to Jane's proposal okay I'm seeing none if you would please raise your hand in some way if you support Jane's proposal I see uh Sam Rachel Aaron Mary juny Mark Bob mebby and Adam so that sounds like that's going to work out fantastically thank you Jane um all right Council this last item is um sort of a general check-in uh from me as your trusty uh Retreat facilitator related to council procedures um we had a a good conversation about this at The Retreat and then um your your lives got real complicated all of a sudden and my general question for you is how is it going do you feel like you are adhering um to the commitments that you made to one another in terms of uh those Council

[274:00] procedures and protocols do you feel like whoops maybe you're getting a little on the sloppy side as things are a little bit tough um I would just love to hear from anyone who has a specific or generic concern or question or I feel like we could do better related to council procedures um Sam can I start with you you can um you know I have a specific one that I want to bring back up so I think I'd rather hear because the feedback is partly about how meetings are going I'd rather let other council members speak when it comes time to talk about um what we want to do different than I want to speak up okay Mark what's on your mind this is not a comment about what we should do differently I think we're doing pretty well I've always been an advocate for short meetings but we're in a crisis and some meetings are simply going to run longer um and that's just the way the world Works uh I think there's been a high level of cooperation among council members I think uh we've had great response from staff I I just don't have

[275:01] any things I would dramatically want to change at this point other than having covid go away but that's not entirely within our control I will vote twice for that one and I don't even live in Boulder um fantastic other uh perspectives on how things are going Bob yeah I agree with Mark I think things are going generally pretty well I think that um and this is a lot of what I'm about to say is probably really impacted by Co so it's not intended as a criticism of of council or any member of council I think because things have been kind of fast and furious here um with covid and we've had to to react um in real time or pretty nimbly here I think we've we've we've probably in a few instances um let slip some of the rules that we that we have um held dear for many years on this Council um even before any of us joined um you know one of them is the no surprises rule we we we we need to remind ourselves that if we're going to bring up something new and big and exciting uh at a council

[276:01] meeting we should probably let folks know ahead of time if if it's before Monday we can send it in CAC if it's after Monday we can at least do a hotline post um I think we need to to work on sticking to our work plan um I think it was great that we refreshed that now normally we would do that in in the mid point check in in July but because so many things have been disrupted by Co I think was great for Jane and her staff to help reset our expectations about what things we can do the reinder this year and what things we can't and I have to say Jane I'm amazing I'm Amazed by how many things were were not moving off so thank you and your staff for continuing to plug away at 80 or 90% of what was original goal even though we have people who are not working right now even though we've got uh special work we hadn't anticipated so thank you for keeping things more or less on track um and then I just think that um you know one of one of the things that um we we have often as a council cherished is is once we we made a decision on something even if if we're um on the minority side or the majority

[277:02] side of that decision I think we tend to let it alone obviously the facts change significantly um after a vote and there is a dramatic uh there's new information or there's a significant change in facts we can certainly bring that back up but but I do think we need to be careful not to revisit things because they they do take up a lot of time and if if the outcome is not going to be any different than the first or the second go around we should probably be thoughtful about um letting things lie and you know I've been on the losing end of as many votes as anybody on this Council and and I I try to I try to remind myself not to relitigate um battles that I've lost and so I think we just need to REM remind ourselves that um once things are decided they're decided and we should move on to the next thing okay excellent thanks Bob anybody else members of council okay um go ahead Rachel and then [Music]

[278:02] Mary I was just gonna say I had um one suggestion for something we could do differently and I think Sam's going to bring it up probably when he talks is that thumbs up to that Sam great I'm gonna let that go then um I think it's been a I will say a weird time to be a new council member in terms of there's already a lot to learn and then on top of that you learn how to do um online meetings and um deal with the uh unique circumstances of covid so um I'm grateful for some of the the mentorship that I've gotten and um think it's going as well as could be expected excellent thanks Rachel and of it's it's an unbelievably challenging time and um I assume you're being um mentor to each other as Rachel said and then also forgiving when um when you forgets a thing or let something slip um Mary what's on your mind yeah no I I wanted to um agree with

[279:00] Rachel it's been um trying times and it's I can't imagine um coming on Council and then two months later being in this situation so um so I I can um empathize with that difficulty um and um I would also like to agree with Bob that um the no surprises rule is a really important one um because it can um take up a lot of time at a meeting in a time when we don't have a lot of time to spare um so the I think that that um re um committing ourselves to the no surprises rule as well as um when we vote um the votes the vote unless there is a a a material change that is significant and be um the the potential that the vote

[280:03] would actually change so um because again it takes um a lot of time to redate something and if the outcome isn't going to change it just it takes away from time that we could be conducting um the city's business um so yeah thanks Darry Aon yeah great point about the challenges of being a new council member in this time so um kudos to to the four of you who are just getting started these days you you've done a great and fantastic job I'll just say about the um bringing things back up um obviously it's not an abstract statement but something about some concrete things I just mention that um that to the extent that it has happened I think it was with an idea that there were things that were materially different and merry to your

[281:00] point about whether things might be different uh since we can't um because of open meetings laws we can't know how council members all feel about a particular issue unless we talk about it in a meeting there's no way of knowing whether votes would change um in advance so but point taken generally we should not be retiga things over and over again the other thing that's tricky about that one is a significant change or a material change in information made to some degree be in the eye of the beholder and so this might you know just be one of those cases where whenn and doubt out exercise Extreme Caution for all the reasons that have been identified um and uh try to minimize the number of uh doovers uh that you bring into Council for any number of reasons it's confusing to the community it is a a distraction potentially from the other work that you have to do but also appreciating there are cases where that might be the right thing to do so um tread carefully if you would um I do want to reinforce uh that you did agree

[282:01] to no surprises um I will also observe that the the mayor did say called himself out earlier today about I'm about to violate the no surprises rule so um you know public shaming might be the right way to go with that I don't know but we'll talk here Sam a specific suggestion for uh actions on that and then again I I also want to stress that the reason that we do Retreats and that you spend that time which is no small amount of time um for you and for staff and for the community is to set priorities um and where you can to the best of your ability stick to the work plans that come out of those efforts um you honor your own work and the and the careful consideration that you give it to uh the work plan during Retreats again appreciating this is a whole bunch of separate crazy and I think y'all have done an absolutely admirable job of of honoring um the work plan given what you've had to work with so um thank you all for that um so Sam um you have a specific suggestion for change what we might do differently that maybe overlaps

[283:00] with something that's on Rachel's mind as well yeah so before I go there I just want to say that um this council is working pretty well together um you know we're collegial I don't think there's been any any kind of um riffs or ruptures or anything that um we haven't all addressed individually um with each other as we needed to I will also point out that this has got to be the youngest Council by far of any that I've ever observed because when I got on Council we had two members who had been on o north of 15 years give or take maybe north of 14 years um those council members are gone now and so there was always like a reservoir or two of people that you could turn to who could tell you how we got to where we are where the bodies are buried where that extra land the hundreds of Acres of extra land that we bought that I had no idea about until I talked to somebody who had been around from that happened so uh we have to be

[284:01] gentle with ourselves Mary and I are the senior council members that's 6 and A2 years each that is not that much compared to um what we had when I came on Council on Mary came on Council so we have to recognize that this is a young Council not only with for new members but even those of us who are experienced are not that experienced so we're kind of feeling our way and nobody's had to deal with the once every Century pandemic as a council in well a century so um we're we're doing the best we can I feel like everyone is operating in good faith and so I just want to say that I I think given both the youth and the situation that we're doing pretty good and we're definitely doing the best that we can so that said one of the things that I thought was a great idea that Mary had brought forward was that um we would have um someone besides the

[285:00] mayor R the study sessions so we had talked about that and got clear on that we're going to have um rotating leaders of study sessions and then right as we were about to be able to to kick that off Co hit um and so we have made every study session into a regular meeting and so the mayor needs to run those by a charter also probably best to have some consistency through through those when we come back in July I believe Jane the hope is that we will go back back to a every other week study session and if that's the case I would like to resurrect and we should think about how we want to do the idea of having different rotating council members from the study sessions um so that's what I wanted to bring up I don't know that we need to fully resolve it here the idea before had been that it would be the council member who is serving on CAC

[286:00] would be the one that ran you know the rotating council member CAC would be the one that that ran the meetings that left us with two difficulties one was it um the mayor protim wouldn't necessarily get to run the uh study sessions and um now that we've skipped a whole bunch um we've had a council member rotate all the way through with no opportunity to do that so we're going to have to come up with a different way to schedule it I just thought I would throw out there that I think we need to return to that in July if we can and i' invite other council members to give feedback okay and you want that feedback tonight Sam yeah just on whether it's a good idea or not and and maybe a thought on how fantastic juny are you on this point or something else yes okay go ahead please um I just wanted to add because you asked us how we doing what do we think how things are going I just wanted to

[287:00] add sometimes as a community we have discussion about being in different camps and with the challenges of Co I would like to say that you know Mary's been really great as a mentor again because we just talked about people who's been around a long time and there are times we've had a hard discussion on Council and then I'll call Mary the next day although I didn't agree with her the day before I call her and she is kind enough to just walk me through certain processes so at the end of the day even even though sometimes we have discussions that are not happy or that may seem divisive but at the end of the day we still are very cordial and we still help each other out so I really appreciate the fact that Mary has been yeah she's been a very good fellow counsel person she's been very good um when I needed help I reach out and I I really appreciate that because a lot of times community members just assume

[288:01] we're just so far on the other end and I welcome the idea of finding a solution to give opportunities to other council members whether it's I have mine coming in December the study sessions that I'm part of if a council member wants to let's say take a few days or let's say one or two meetings away from me so that they can have that opportunity I'm open to it as well fantastic thank you juny um Rachel is this the item that you wanted to discuss and you have an opinion about it is uh I I think it would be a a nice thing both for council members who don't know how to lead meetings yet for us to have the opportunity and also it would be probably relieving a little bit of Sam's burden who I think is working overdrive as mayor so hopefully we can pick that up in July he's he's giving me a head nut um and I would say maybe we just go alphabetical so like you know whatever the first maybe it's Aaron Brockett so Aaron does the first steady session then whoever's next does the next and and

[289:00] just do it single term like that so that every body gets an equal number okay and then presumably a person could just say no thank you if they weren't interested in that model I would think I mean it looks like Sam has actually moved into council chambers so maybe he is working a little bit too hard um Mark what are your thoughts I think alphabetical could work or we could just go back to the to the beginning starting in July with the first rotating CAC member let them do do a uh study session or two we can do it either way uh and then just move on to the next one until we finally catch up to whoever is actually rotating on CAC at that point in time okay done alphabetically or chronologically I would be fine either way all right Adam what are your thoughts yeah I just want to say I was robbed and uh I want retribution for that

[290:00] so it doesn't matter what way we do it I want on a meeting spot Adam so yeah mirb is offering hers maybe you could there could be some sort of you know bidding process for how much uh you want to pay in terms of cookies or compliments in order to get to the head of the line um it it does sound like you all want to at least those of you who spoken do want to uh uh take up the suggestion that you that you come back to this in July um and that there should be a system I didn't hear a whole lot of strong feeling about what the system ought to be as long as it does yield a meeting for for Adam is that correct I will accept nodding or I will accept a visual thumbs up I think Adam should have all the meetings fantastic Adam will have all the meetings um eron thought yeah well just know I mean if we're um still virtual there is some uh Technical Training that's involved I think with running the meeting and uh looking at whose hands are raised and such like that so I think um everybody

[291:01] would need a little bit of uh training before they're leading a meeting it will give us a little bit of a Slowdown as all of us try to figure out how to pick the next person uh from a technical perspective but that's totally fine yeah and and I will say that that's a good observation eron there were tricks that I had to learn um it took me two or three meetings so I'll be happy when people are coming up for their first study session to tell you kind of the way I've settled and you can get more from Sarah who's had to do even more than I have so it's harder than it looks but once you get the hang of it it's fairly straightforward in the grand scheme of things so Sam you were soliciting uh perspectives do you want me to pull and see if I can get you Clarity on which methodology makes the most sense or do you want to take that up um maybe with CAC I think we'll take it up with CAC and bring it back for matters for five minutes or 10 minutes um I I think the easiest most straightforward way is the

[292:00] alphabetical I think that's going to be pretty simple but we'll bring it back and have a a conversation I don't think we need to settle that now personally great Council if you support um CAC taking this up and bringing it back to you under matters if you please give me some sort of a visual signal I do see signals from all of the people thank you all very much um are there any other suggestions for change in terms of council procedures that you would like to suggest at this time I do not see any fantastic um so a couple things um thing one um I thought when Sam was talking he said you were the young youngest Council I thought he was referring to your chronological age and I had didn't know anyone was running those numbers so I was excited to learn that but now that I know it's just a question of longevity I will also add this a very good-looking Council so thank you all very much for your study Sunshine faces um let's just do a quick review of what you have agreed to in the next steps and then we'll get you out of here um so you have agreed to remove the

[293:00] middle income down payment pilot project off the work plan and for uh conversation that until your next Retreat um you did accept uh staff recommendations um for option A for Community benefits and for the use tables um you have agreed to uh request um that tab if they um have the bandwidth and the interest that they um do some research on their own related to creative ideas that other communities are exploring um in terms of transportation and vision zero and intersecting with CO as a unique opportunity build is going to raise that with with a tab chair and has committed to circling back to you with how that conversation goes um the other agreement that you um or the other action item is that Jim was going to follow up on the timeline related to annexation um on account of they're so focused on the flooding thing they forgot what it was so they'll Circle back to you um I assume by hotline with uh some clarity on that and then um Sam you will take up this question um of how to tackle the uh

[294:02] chairing of the study sessions with CAC and I think those were all the action items that I captured did I miss anything that one of y'all thought you committed to Fantastic um Jane do you need anything else from Council um related to the work plan at this time no I don't thank you though thanks alrighty um I would like to thank Rachel for joining from the 1970s um and uh Mirai for joining from the front lines and I don't know where Adam is joining from but it looks like really spooky um maybe space I don't know what that is and the rest lives SP but that answers all my questions honestly um and then Sam it was literally like a half an hour when I realized that you weren't actually in council chambers and that that's just your fancy background so um I I I feel just you know Vindicated that I finally noticed Council can I add though that

[295:01] sometimes Sam's shirt Blends in with the the background there it's a brown shirt and brown background and so like he's headless it's awesome little and and then he sits back and was kind of doing this right not not headless he's a floating head that's what I Wrong y Bob you have a thought before we hop off before I hop off yeah I think um correct me if I'm wrong Lynette is this your last meeting with us it is yes I want to say something others may want to say something as well um you you joined as clerk at the same time that I think Aaron and I were coming on Council so we've we've grown up together in this role and you've been just absolutely fantastic I can't say enough about what a wonderful Clerk and wonderful person you are um and we've been super well served by you we've been spoiled by you you've always been there for us you're always accurate you're always on top of things you always correct Sam when he's wrong which is really great um so so we're we're gonna really really miss you um we we know this is a great career opportunity for you so we wish you well

[296:01] over in Lafayette and um I I just want to say personally I just really really appreciate everything you've done for us and for this Council and for this community so thank you so much you're here yeah and can I add to that as um as Bob says like Lynette we we did all come on together I don't know how I'm going to be on Council without you I may just have to to resign I I don't know that I'll be capable of it U it's been such a pleasure working together um and so we'll you'll be very dearly missed thank you and so I just wanted to thank you Bob for bringing that up and I I want to thank Lynette again from the bottom of my heart for everything that you've done to get us through all of these meetings these late nights and always with a smile and a great attitude and best of luck to you and and Aaron please don't resign we've lived through one eight person Council we don't want to do that again well maybe I'll stick around a

[297:00] couple more months I just want to jump in thank you Lynette you were probably the first friendly face that uh I knew in the city and it's been a pleasure getting to uh come to every meeting and see you and Heidi and you both will be very dearly missed and we wish you the absolute best of luck and we're so happy for you but we will be very sad to see you go so uh I hope everything works really really well for you and thank you so so much for working so hard for the city for so many years so I will miss you a lot too Lynette and uh hopefully when we get these like outdoor seating tables going you'll come back to Boulder and maybe meet for a margarita you will be missed and I'm running out of people who are gon to laugh at my jokes before meetings willingly so that makes me probably the most sad not that you're leaving but I'm running out of people who will laugh at me so I'm I can't say that much right now I feel like if we pulled the group we could find someone willing to fill the void though I'll I'll laugh at Adam

[298:01] I promise laughing with you we're laughing with you anyone anything for Lynette thank you Lynette God speed best wishes for everything you've done so much for us um it's fantastic that you're making a move that's good for you we're sad to see you go and thank you thanks very much it's been an honor to to be your clerk thanks for everything you've taught me excellent than you Lynette that was great thank you thank you so much Lynette thank you Mark you love you Lynette um Council it's always my pleasure to be with you thank you for including me in your meeting tonight Mr Mayor um thank you for handing off control of your meeting to me for a hot minute there and I hand it back to you sir all right well thank you very much and as always it's wonderful to have Heather here to move us along she keeps us on track and this was a very effective meeting so thanks a bunch for that I think we only have one thing left it's the the surprise that I brought up

[299:01] I don't think it's a really big surprise it just was late breaking and what broke late is that we had a huge Gathering yesterday of I would say more than a hundred people um all within a few inches or less of each other um I'm not sure what the occasion was but we do have um Memorial Day weekend coming up and so we've gotten I don't know half dozen letters so far it was featured on KDVR it was featured on Colorado public radio and as Bob says it will probably be in the paper tomorrow so um we have seen a few of these types of events prior to this I think this is by far the most egregious um and it's going to set a tone for the whole summer because that is a very popular Gathering Place at the West End of eban gine it's right on the border between the city of Boulder and Boulder County um and I just wanted to

[300:00] bring up and we do not need to decide anything tonight but I was going to bring up the subject of do we want to schedule in for next meeting a discussion of how we're going to cope with issues like this as they come up Jane I I'm going to turn to you before we get too deep into it and see if you have anything that you want to say to us but this is going to be a big concern our community is already starting to be aware of it and I think after tomorrow there will be a lot of public awareness and so I was just hoping to get ahead of that so I'll turn to you and then back to council thanks Sam yes the situation that occurred um on Boulder Creek path and in particular evg Fine park is of grave concern um we we did have our police officers out there today they issued 23 citations for alcohol and marijuana violations they also did a lot of Education of

[301:00] folks who were was reported to me were respectful and um started to disperse once the police officers uh incountered them um again we did Issue a lot of tickets so tomorrow our police chief our Parks director and others will be meeting with Jeff Zak to talk about how to handle this situation um certainly the closure of that area is under consideration I don't know what will happen but we want to get Public Health guidance on it before we make that kind of a decision um you know people need to follow the rules and when they don't do it it ruins it for everybody and I'm very worried that that is actually the situation that we have encountered today and will in the coming weeks so we have to be careful and we will be enforcing pretty strictly at this point great and I will turn this

[302:01] back to council just want to bring up one more thing um to make sure that we're all on the same page here in the discussions that we have had with CU over the last week or two um it has become clear and Bob can add to this because Bob was at a meeting that I missed around the subject but it's become clear that CU is very willing to be our our partner in this effort to get people to um respect social distancing maske wearing Gatherings which are small and so so on and so when CU receives a report from our Police Department that they've issued warnings to people who are CU students CU then takes that and follows up with potential disciplinary action there's a letter that goes out to the student letting them know that the University's been contacted by Boulder Police and that they have issued a warning this has caused grounds for potential disciplinary action so the

[303:01] student is contacted by the University and there can follow up depending on the severity in the case of House parties on the hill um not only are the students involved contacted but the owner of the property um where the party was held is also contacted because the university can take action relative to to that house or fraternity depending on what the situation is so just to know CU is our partner in being able to take warnings that are issued by our police even if they don't issue a citation in doing some level of intervention and enforcement so I'll I'll stop there I would put out Jane if it's okay with you and CAC can take this up but my concept was that we would put this on under matters we have two relatively shorter meetings coming up for our next two meetings until we get to the CU South Hearing and so I thought it might be worth a half hour conversation where we heard from Jane maybe hear from the

[304:00] police chief maybe from Park and then digest that and and give them whatever feedback we have so Council thoughts Rachel you got your hand up yeah thanks for bringing this up Sam um so obviously the pictures on the creek today were egregious but I think it's more like at least for me the straw that broke the camel's back I think that um we've been pretty LAX in a lot of areas and um you know if we really believe that people congregating is unsafe we're going to have to do something different and I understand that they were receiving tickets for um marijuana and alcohol use but but the real problem is that they're putting lives in danger because they're staying close together and not wearing masks and so I have not been in favor of aggressive enforcement because I'm not super law in order but I think that these are not ordinary times so I hope that we will have a a robust discussion of things that we can do that will actually um help us have compliance

[305:01] in this summer going forward um on the hill on trails at Walgreens at e g fine like I don't think just thinking about shutting down the the park is is a solution I think that that um it's it's people are taking advantage of us as a city and and they're really um putting us at increased risk and especially for vulnerable people that's upsetting to me thanks thank you Rachel Bob and then Mark B yeah my comment is directed to Jane first of all I'm happy to have a discussion next week I hope that discussion however is more of a report than a seeking of advice and so what I would like to say to Jane and I hope Council agrees with me is the police chief the director of parks the director of open space any of your any of your staff who feel they need to take action immediately should not wait until next Tuesday to get direction from Council if if the chief thinks something needs to happen then she should make that happen and she doesn't have to

[306:00] check in with us you can send us an IP if you on us or an email if you want to alert us but um I you know we don't direct staff and uh and I think it's very important that staff be allowed to do their jobs as they see fit and if if if your Parks director wants to close a park then she should close a park and if your open space director wants to close some Trails because of problems they should close trails and the chief should enforce the law as she sees fit so um I I'm happy to receive a report from them next week but I hope that that they don't wait for direction from us I hope they act as as you and they see fit they have absolutely no intention of waiting for direction okay great thank you Bob thank you Jane for that um sorry about Mark and then Aaron Mark Jane I'm very pleased to hear what you just said I I urge you to take whatever actions are appropriate and you know we' we've spent a lot of time in care uh in the county and in the city trying to balance um the needs for protective actions with people's freedoms and ability to enjoy

[307:03] themselves um what we saw at evg Fine park is is so out of line and so egregious that it it really makes a mockery of the entire structure that we've tried to set up in balancing those interests and I think the time has come to actually do something we've talked about education but perhaps not everybody is educable on this subject um so I think it's it's it's time that we uh we acted thank you Mark um Aon I was just going to Echo what Bob said so Jane I was glad to hear what you said so I look forward to the report next week thank you great thanks everyone so I think I'm just going to take this as direction to go to CAC and at CAC we will um take this up schedule whatever we think is appropriate and I agree that it could be mostly a report and feedback from Council around what we've seen and heard

[308:00] and you know what what occurs over the next week but for sure we'd want to start with a report where we hear from staff about how things are going what steps have been taken what was effective or not um so does anyone object to taking this subject to CAC getting something scheduled okay good seeing no objections I'm going to um say that we will bring that to C any other feedback any other thoughts uh we've got Adam and then I'd turn to staff as well to hear if there's any closing thoughts Adam yeah is this about um anything or are we still on that issue no I think we're done with that issue this is just the debrief the meeting debrief and any other subjects perfect this is where I need to be then um so I was going to request from cic a very short 10 to 15 minute um overview of the timing of the ballot initiative

[309:02] because I've seen some back and forth between Tom and some of the ballot initiatives and I want to make sure that council is very clear on what the timing could mean potentially for us as a city and us as a council and any legal action that might be taken there so that I would request that for next meeting great and Rachel is your comment on this subject if not I want to cqu go ahead and cqu Okay so Adam I agree with that entirely I was going to bring up uh something along those lines next week we will be hearing from the charter committee and so I think that's an appropriate time to do two things to check in with Tom and Tom can give us his interpretation of the difference between the state and the charter the state rules and the charter rules so I think we want to hear that but I also think to the extent that Charter committee um can take a look at this and

[310:00] next week we can talk more about it but to take a look at whether there's a conflict and if there is how we can resolve it or add certainty to it um I think that would require a charter change so Tom maybe you just have that teed up we can talk about it CC and then next week at the charter committee um section of the meeting I think we have an hour set aside currently um we want to I think talk about this too so Adam you rais a good point and so both for this election cycle and for future ones we should touch on that and so Sam CAC scheduled U an update on the effect of the governor's order on our petitioning system and I was going to the memo I'm writing will include uh an explanation for how things work and the timing and the the supposed conflict that one one um president of community keeps raising okay great well I just think we need to run that to ground if that's okay um both so that all Council understands it and if there's any action to be taken we we figure it out so

[311:02] and then Rachel yeah it's good that Tom's right there I was just going to flag that um the charter committee will be coming next week and we added um Per Tom suggestion um looking at a a putting on the ballot uh consideration of adding emergency authorization or emergency powers for City Council in the event of um a declared emergency so Tom I thought maybe you could since nobody else on Council outside the Char committee has been made aware of that I think maybe just send a memo on that to the rest of council so they can consider it before next meeting it'll be in the memo Kathy drafted something so it'll be in the memo that Council gets for the meeting the idea is that we're running up against some things right now that we would that you might want to change such as the number of signatures or the deadlines but you don't have any Authority emergency authority to change the charter so we're going to propose uh your consideration of a ballot measure that would give future councils that

[312:01] right in de clared [Music] emergency okay very good thank you for all of that anything else um if not I'm going to say the meeting is a little later than I think all of us like them to be but we knew that at CAC that this was going to be a big meeting one so thank you all for your your attention and your stamina and uh so the meeting 12 everyone have a good night thank you by Good [Music] Night Live from Paris of [Music]

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