June 9, 2020 — City Council Special Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:06] foreign [Music] [Music]

[1:15] [Music] so Bob just checking in here real quick are you good to go with me you know we were just kind of chatting around it informally while we're waiting for people to gather uh first of all I think because I messed investment I think we should you should call it out with other reasons a timer we'll all be on camera but so I guess okay very good um

[2:02] do we have Adam Rachel Bob Mark Aaron Juni mirabai Mary was having difficulty finding the link I just sent it to her okay very good so we'll wait for Mary that's where we are foreign

[3:00] okay so I think that we have online if it's here I'm ready to start um Debbie are we good to go whenever you are okay very good so I will call to order the special meeting of the Boulder City Council for Tuesday June 9th um Devin could you call the world councilmember Brockett a present friend here Joseph present Nagel here sweat like present Wallach president Weaver Yates here Young present there we have a farm very good thank you all very much so the next time for us to do is to amend the agenda so I'm going to start with some and be pretty straightforward things first is

[4:01] item 1A which is the Declaration for Juneteenth we are going to move back to next week which is closer to the actual date of Juneteenth and then the other items were to add 2B and 5A so 2B is on our consent agenda it is a a alternative first reading for motion 8402 that is just the online parking subject we have another one which includes a police issues as well as online parking so we'll talk about that on the consent agenda and then the other item is to add item 5A which is a legislative update on police reform about issues that the state and federal level regarding um police reform and finally we need a motion to suspend our rules of procedure so we'll do that in a moment but first could I get a motion to change items 1A to B and 5A so moved

[5:04] second you're good is anyone opposed to changing the agenda in that way seen no objections that's unanimous then another point is we need a motion to suspend the council rules and procedure to allow us to vote on call-ups um as item two so to do earlier and we would normally do a call-up um and that's just to allow staff to go home one way or the other so uh I have a motion for that second second is anyone opposed to suspending the rules to be able to vote on a call up okay your none that passes unanimously then the last issue for our schedule is Bob had proposed that we have an eight minute 46 second moment of silence in honor of George Floyd and all the issues

[6:01] that have been highlighted by his um death and I wouldn't ask whether we want to do this at the beginning of the meeting which is now or if Council would prefer to do this at the end of the meeting that was um given to me to ask so if there are thoughts on do it now or do it later or not do it at all I'd be entertain all of this and nearby suggests the end anyone else have any thoughts my hand up seriously there um I'm sorry I don't have that up yet apologies Rachel okay I don't want to jump in um I would really prefer that we do it at the end for a couple reasons um number one community members can drop off the call if they don't want to watch and number two we will have substantively discussed the underlying issues by that point so we can hopefully be showing that we're committed to something Beyond just um

[7:01] minutes of silence that we're going to take real actions so I think that at the end of the meeting after we have made some commitments would make some sense to me anyone else I'm going to agree with with um with I think Rachel makes a really great great points so I'm I'm happy to have us do it at the end and I think um it is important for us to have our discussion around actions um first so thank you Mitchell yeah great point I agree okay so it sounds like then we need to add an item 5A under Matters from the mayor members of council to do a pause for a moment of silence in honor of George Floyd I have a motion to do that is that 5D Sam I'm sorry we are yeah um I thought no free a B and C are Matters from city manager I was going to bring this up under mayor and city council

[8:01] so on my okay is that seven day then maybe so I'm not I'm looking at my script which has Matters from city managers threes let me get the actual I was just looking at the the online agenda and I think at least there Matters from mayor's member of council seven not that it matters terribly much but then make it uh item 7A so can I get immersion for that second any objections okay in that case we will move that down to the first item under matters for mayor and members of council so then I have next on my script the call up check in is that right Debbie uh yes that's correct okay and I on on my official agenda

[9:02] um I have that as after the consent agenda under item three yeah so I think maybe we should do the consent first okay so under consent we have items 2A and 2B um first reading for both um Aaron you got your hand up yeah so I just thought I'd explain um the purpose of what I asked for in this um other item that's on the consent agenda so just I send in a request to CAC on Sunday evening the the original ordinance that was put on the consent agenda addressed two items one was all night parking and one was um obstruction of a police officer and um my request was that we uh table the obstruction of the police officer question and look at how we want to change our regulations about obstruction the holistic

[10:00] along with the other police policies and procedures reviewed we're going to be going through with Chief Harold throughout this year so I'm proposing that we move forward tonight only the new ordinance 8402 for all night parking and leave the obstruction question to a more holistic review of policies and procedures so that's how I'll be voting on The consent agenda I personally would prefer to hear both um I'd like to hear about what we have teed up because my understanding is that the obstruction rules that are being proposed um are better for people police officers are making contact with and also concerns firefighters as well so I'd like to at least hear what staff has to say about that so I'm going to vote for both of them to move forward and then I think we should discuss a little further I just haven't done the brushing up on the obstruction

[11:01] very just a quick question um it's procedural would it be appropriate to ask Chief Harold right now about how that might fit in with something holistic rather than doing it or do we just move it forward and discuss it then and then decide then I was proposing we move it forward discuss it then and decide then but I'm happy to get away well that no that's fine that's fine [Music] great well just in terms of the making it um kind of harder to charge obstruction the effects of this are a little subtle and it does actually include a number of new categories under which someone could be charged with obstruction so I think the impacts could be that it's easier in certain circumstances anyway so I do

[12:01] think it should be part of the larger discussion I'll just leave it there to be clear what we're doing what we're doing is adopting the state law so officers could always charge under the state law so we're not adding any new things that officers couldn't do before we're just taking away anything that was different than the local law okay well I mean my opinion is this is consent if we move them both forward we can have a full discussion at second reading we can hear about what this does or doesn't do so um any other comments on it procedurally in line with errands and um I don't know that we want to adopt a state law that this that maybe the state should be changing um for example it says in there that it's not a defense if the police officer was acting in an illegal Manner and right now I think that's really problematic so I'm just not sure when

[13:00] what to do to not move that forward is it are we voting one way or another right now or or what is so the procedural posture here is straightforward you can if these are first readings to pass they both have one or other has to pass on second reading if you want to just discuss the online parking you should just vote for item 2B if you want to discuss both of them next week you should vote for both of them you should vote for both of them and then decide which one to pass that is this is really just a question of timing not whether you approve on either one of them but if you want to kill the instruction one now don't vote for it and then the only the other one goes forward yeah I mean I I believe that this is worthy of a full discussion Rachel moving it Forward on a first reading for me is not support or not support for either one of these so procedurally speaking this allows us to

[14:00] flesh out the issues you're talking about right now at the hearing about it but first reading is published by title only so it hasn't you know second reading is a big reading and can I jump in real quick or um Tom you said in two weeks we've had that second reading but in two weeks it doesn't look like we have a council meeting so was that oh I must yeah okay all right I just wanted to make sure okay then I've got Bob Mark him here by nearby you just spoke so I was presumably Bob and Mark yeah I'm I'm with Aaron and Rachel I um um I get the fact that this is first reading and um we could talk about it in a second reading I'm a little worried about the Optics here um I don't want to kill it as Tom suggested but I do I would like to defer the discussion until later um unfortunately not everyone in our community understands the distinction between first reading and second reading

[15:01] in any number of times I've seen Daily Camera headlines when we passed something on our first reading by title only that says Boulder dot dot dot um and we didn't do the dot dot dot we didn't even have the second reading yet and so I'm I'm afraid that if we pass this by title only the word out is is that we've passed an instruction of Justice um measure and a time I get the fact that we're trying to align with state law but I just don't think now is the time to be making these types of changes okay anyone else so I would leave it to someone to make a motion I had my hand up uh Sam oh I'm sorry Mark go ahead yeah no I I'm uh I'm supportive of including both of them um as it's not a substantive decision it doesn't preclude any more um uh detailed conversation later and uh I would like to get the ball rolling on

[16:01] this however we end up deciding on it but I think it's appropriate to uh to commence the process so I'm going to vote for inclusion of both okay I see no other hands up he's done I will take a motion can I make a suggestion Sam that we um I don't know how this is going to turn out can I make a motion to pass only B see how it goes if there's a majority then I think we're done if there's not a majority and someone can make a motion to pass a does that make sense sure so I move that we um we pass on first reading um ordinance 8402 by title only that is I'm moving for consent item 2B only a second okay we have a motion to the second all

[17:00] in favor one two three so hold it Mark you're voting in favor of just the parking yeah for that for that on the basis of what Bob indicated yes so what Bob moved and just to make sure we're all clear on what we're voting on Bob moved that we just speak about the online vehicles and not pick up obstructing the consensus we would not subsequently be deciding what to do about a we can't do that but I think um Bob's emotion is to pass the contempt agenda just item 2B okay then my hand is down Okay so we've got Adam Bob Rachel and Aaron that's for all okay so that motion all opposed to passing just be okay I see four opposed um Juni we don't have you as voting

[18:00] um did you vote for one of the two okay did you vote just for 2B which is just the all-night parking yes okay so that passed five to four I didn't see your hand Judy so we will talk about will not pass ordinance 8396 will instead pass motion 84 or what's the final bit 8402 8402 okay so 8402 passes um and that's what we'll be discussing on second reading okay thanks for entertaining my proposal sure okay next we have the call up check-in so um Debbie do you want to take us through that I'll call up tonight you have a concept

[19:01] plan review um for three vacant lots of 47.75 and 4649 spine Road totaling 9.8 Acres with the new residential development with 268 residential units in 10 buildings the development is proposed to include 25 permanently affordable housing or 68 units on the southernmost lot proposed residential units consist of Studio one bedroom two bedroom and three bedroom apartments and I believe this is the Celestial Seasonings and so I don't see any hands up here with somebody like this nearby yeah I'd like to call it up okay so we have a motion to call this up you need discussion do I need to have any right now or no

[20:00] I just have a question for mirabai um so I just wanted to know what outcomes you're looking for out of a concept review uh so I think I just texted you um but there's multiple issues and I'm taking these directly from uh the many many many many people that have reached out to me on this project so it ranges from uh the walkability that it scored the lack of traffic study that has not been done the decreased bus routes that are now happening on spine the number of vacant apartments in the area the carrying capacity of gun barrel that staff themselves have stated is massively over the capacity at the moment um Wildlife concerns density concerns Mass concerns separation of affordable housing concerns to name a few and

[21:00] another big one is the open space not to be confused with capital O capital S however the open space surrounding the development separation of open space so they're I'm sorry so separation of affordable housing or open space I'm sorry separation of affordable housing was pushed to the one it's basically segregated from the rest of the development and so I've heard a number of concerns that it's not mixed in with the development other than being pushed to one side of one end of the development but then there's also concerns about the open space meaning not capital O capital S for you know like open space in Mountain Parks but the open space associated with what a project is required to have within the development area you got Bob and then Aaron thanks for that everybody that was very helpful um I'm not opposed to having a discussion about all the things that mirabai suggested and anything else that

[22:01] council members um would like to talk about I think those are good things and of course concept reviews are for binding feedbacks I think property owners are always appreciative of having that feedback before they spend the money in preparation for site review so I think that that's a great discussion to have either tonight or or if Council would prefer to schedule it at a different time that's fine too um I'm a little bit worried about the time uh call up I think technically requires a public hearing and um I believe that the planning boards public hearing on this was quite lengthy and I'm a little bit worried about the amount of time that it might take to conduct a public hearing um so that's that's my one concern I think a robust discussion all the things that mirabai talked about and anything else people want to discuss is just fine um again tonight or later to provide that feedback to the developer figure out a way to have that discussion without a lengthy public hearing I'm afraid we're going to lose

[23:00] um effectively a full council meeting at a time when we have a lot of other topics coming up including um the discussions around the disabilization which I know are going to probably be take up a fair amount of our time in in July the ballot measures our continuing budget issues or continuing coveted responses I think we just have a lot of work to do over the next couple of months and I'm a little bit worried about losing council meeting on a lengthy public hearing so if we can figure out a way to have the discussion that mirabai suggested without a public hearing I would be supportive if if we must have a public hearing for call up then I guess I'll vote against call it Karen [Music] um thanks for that Bob I I think the as I understand the planning board had a very thorough hearing on this question or occurred a great deal for members of the public and I think that like I had said a lot of that input has been

[24:01] funneled onto us already so what I would propose would be that each of us could give a few sentences about our um what we think about the project and and the direction that's going in and if any changes we might recommend or ask for and do that uh this evening rather than call it up and have a separate hearing since it did get a good good hearing from planning board good job um yeah I went to Bob and Aaron on this one I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time when we're in the middle of a couple of Crisis crisis to [Music] um

[25:05] would be for that reason alone so I I think scheduling is something we can work out I don't think that it means or thing I want to have a you know robust discussion on a police oversight and other issues of racial Equity I don't think this is neither or discussion last week we heard from lots of council members who were opining that we needed to pay more attention to what's going on in Gun Barrel and I think if you ask the people who lived in Gun Barrel this would be one of the things that they would like to see us look at and talk about um I feel like selling things up a concept plan is good because telling things up at site plan review is a very difficult thing to do for developers have some maybe a million dollars into detail planning at that point and so calling up a safe plan review is very fraught and Council tends not to do that

[26:00] now that we can call it content plans so I think we should look at this at the concept level um I don't know that there will be as many people who turn out um concept plan review the night that planning board heard this they also heard the comp plan which had several things around Twin Lakes so I guess for me I think this is the appropriate time to have a look at this project I you know we can try and do in 15 minutes but Aaron suggested but I think we would be much better served to hear in detail about it we don't have staff tonight to make a presentation for example and I want to hear from what the neighbors had to say so nearby I have your hand up an Adam Mark and Bob nearby do you have other things you'd like to comment Tom well so I'll just agree with Sam on that and I will say um as again more representative sample myself being in the number of Gun Barrel area I think it's unprecedented to not have the public speak on an issue that's so big and for those who don't live in this

[27:01] area maybe it's not a concern for you but I can darn well tell you that it's a darn big concern for the residents here for the showing that they made it planning board I think it should be very clear and again after speaking to many of the leaders of the new groups that are forming these are many tax paying residents they're not the county ones that I know many of you want to dismiss these are tax paying older citizens and so giving them their day in court at this level is extremely important especially if we're talking about wanting to be inclusive and having a democracy here to have this represented in this way is just almost appalling to me so I hope he's strongly supporting this for the residency of Adam Mark and Bob Adam you're next yeah I just want to say um as far as time commitments go I realize none of us like extra meetings but if it's a matter of putting something on extra to accomplish this then I'm willing to do that I don't want to shortchange any of

[28:00] the very large topics that we need to be talking about but our job is to do for the community and those police oversight and concept reviews are for the community so in my mind if we're going to do more work then we're going to do more work [Music] [Music] but I am persuaded by like I said um and I agree with what Adam has said this is the consequential project at the moment and if we're going to be serious about providing for Community input we ought to be doing this and we want to be identifying the issues that surround the project and you know give some feedback to the developer before they go and spend money as to what we think is

[29:02] satisfactory and what is not so um again with some reluctance I have been persuaded and I'm going to uh uh support calling it up thank you Mark up I just wanted to clarify um something that that Sam said um playing board was scheduled to take up both this concept plan and the comp plan on the same night but because more than 200 people attended the playing board meeting the and it went very very late on the council plan they were actually not able to get cut to the comp plan that night they had to defer that into another specially scheduled meeting um and so I just wanted to clarify that they were not able to get both things done it it took an entire meeting for them and I think unfortunately that Adam is right I think if um if there's a majority that wants to call this up I think we're going to have to schedule a special meeting because otherwise we're going to have to sacrifice some of the other things that we're I'm trying to

[30:00] tackle during the month of July and I'm afraid that that it would be zero-sum that something would have to go away so if um if there's a majority that wants to call this up I would I would support Adam's suggestion that we schedule a special meeting for them okay very good so um this was close enough that I didn't do a straw poll before we heard from everyone who wanted to speak um Mary yeah I just had um a couple of um things I wanted to say about calling it out up one is that um thereby if um the folks that you spoke with you could have a conversation with them and just ask that they organize in such a way that their testimonies aren't um repeating the same point that they pull

[31:00] time together and and coordinate their testimonies so that each of them is bringing forward different points I think that could be really helpful I've seen that done in the past and um I I don't think that um a hundred people saying the same thing is very helpful but I would appreciate if people pulled their testimonies together and coordinated in such a manner that could be helpful so that's one point and then the other point is I was persuaded by Sam who last week we were talking about how Gun Barrel is often [Music] not given the attention that it needs so for that reason I would call it up and I also just wanted to say that this is not

[32:00] something that we are going to deny and they the property owners have their right to um to develop that property and then the other point I wanted to make is that I would not be in favor at all of moving prairie dogs from that private property onto public property so those are the points that I wanted to make as of now but I would also be okay with having a special meeting to just do this thank you Mary um statement and then I'm going to call the vote yeah I was just saying um but I will I'll ask the residents to do that but I think you know again coming from their side of this that them showing up in mass is trying to get your guys's attention to realize that this is a project that you don't want in their neighborhood and that the scope nest and a ton of the other issues that I already

[33:01] raised don't float real well with them and I don't think that they feel they have any other way of getting your attention other than to show up in this way um so just to give you all a heads up okay very good okay so I think I will call for a vote on this nearby I made a motion to call it up um does anyone want to second that sure okay so we got a second from Mark all in favor of calling of the concept plan raise your hand so I count one two three four five all opposed one two three four okay so on a five four vote we will call up the concept plan for um she Celestial seasoning development okay very good um get into the next item

[34:02] hey um just uh just uh CAC um I could just jump in um Adam suggested and I agreed and I think I agreed that we have a schedule a special meeting for this any other discussion from Council so that CAC can do some calendaring next Monday so I got a chat that reminds us that um we have it scheduled tentatively for the 21st Jane you sent that to me could you tell us how long we have for that as a reminder I don't have it up on my um screen but I believe that we scheduled that for 150 minutes so two and a half hours got it which should probably be enough to get through that and you said that was in July I'm pulling up my July did I get regular meeting in July so July 21st yep I got it here and so it looks like that meeting is currently scheduled for right at four hours with three hours set aside for that concept

[35:01] plan review so Bob to your point we already have a placeholder and at CAC we can talk about whether we want to move it to a special meeting is that good enough you know I I was aware of that I just I had heard some suggestions about having a special meeting I just wanted to see if there was an interest in in holding a special meeting so we could put other things on the July 21st meeting uh Rachel and then Adam um there are some cars driving up and down my street with signs that say defund uh the police and it's I appreciate activism and I'm grateful to people um out there doing good work but it's driving my dogs crazy it's really stressing them out so I'm just going to ask the community to be um kind to my dogs I I have heard your message we will certainly be discussing that tonight so please stop stop driving up and down my block with that sign if you could I don't know if anybody else is having that treatment but it's it's not good for the dogs

[36:00] they've all good look in a moment um Adam yeah I'm also on board for just figuring a special meeting in then it gets to take as long as it takes and we get to fill our regular agenda with items that I think are also going to be very important in the near future um considering where we're at right now as a country as a state as a city okay well I think the way I read this Bob is I heard from at least four council members that a special meeting would be something that could be called for in this circumstance I think C is he has the latitude to add that if he wanted to object to a special meeting let's just let me solicit for that right now anybody who doesn't want a special meeting in July you know it's fine I I mean I think it's going to take a lot longer than 150 minutes so you may need may need a special meeting we have it scheduled for 180 for what it's doing okay yeah okay

[37:02] it may go longer than that too I have not I hope it marries exhortation to nearby it's heard by people and we can talk about how other groups have done that effectively in the past regardless CAC will take that out um thank you all for your input on that and then if we're there's nothing else here and I don't see any hands up I think we're good to continue on okay next on the agenda is Matters from the city manager and the first item is the legislative update on police reform and I believe Carl Castillo is waiting to speak to you yeah yeah good evening council members uh Carl Castillo Chief policy Advisor city manager's office I've been uh asked to provide you an update on Senate Bill 217 which is a major police accountability and Reform Bill that was approved by the

[38:00] state senate today with just one vote short of a unanimous support expected to be heard in the house tomorrow and with that level of support we fully expected to be approved by the end of the week with minimal additional changes your council's intergovernmental Affairs committee was brief on this this morning and they heard some of staff's preliminary concerns and some of the Amendments that have been made since then that have addressed many of these concerns the committee recognized that there may be so uh revisions that may be required perhaps addressed in future years but overall they thought that this was a good and an important measure and for that reason they're recommending to council that the city lend its full support behind it 21 Pages Longs and there are a lot of details so at the risk of oversimplification I want to provide a brief summary of the major parts of the bill beginning with body cameras still

[39:01] requires police officers to have body cameras and to activate them in certain situations it requires footage to be made available publicly within 21 days after a complaint of misconduct is received it creates a permissive reference of misconduct when the cameras were not activated and there's a claim of misconduct it basically suggests that the footage that is missing would have reflected misconduct of the part of the officer it has a section on transparency creating a need for re-reporting by local law enforcement offices office agencies to the state on a variety of things including the use of force that results in death or serious bodily harm the resignation of Peace Officers while under investigation contacts conducted by the peace officer and other things it has a section on racial profiling which

[40:00] requires an objective justification for making stops um it has a section on enforcement in response to protests specifically prohibits projectiles aimed at uh that Target the head the pelvis or the back or that are indiscriminately discharged it also prohibits the deployment of chemical agents without adequate warning in all situations of force it limits uh certain things such as when deadly force can be used and also puts an outright ban on the use of Choke holds it requires officers to intervene to attempt to prevent or to stop other officers who are using excessive force and then finally it creates a new cause of action under state law that subjects peace officers to personal liability in doing so it prevents the application of the so-called qualified immunity for such claims it requires a reasonable

[41:02] attorney fees and costs to be awarded to the prevailing plaintiff and it also prevents full of government indemnification of the officer for claims when the actions were taken without a good faith and reasonable belief that the action was lawful so that in a nutshell is the major components like I said there's many more and for everything I said there's quite a bit of detail and quite a bit of nuance so I would encourage everybody uh to look into those details before making any complete assumptions about what is required uh so that concludes my presentation I have to take any questions about this I guess I'll quickly mention um that there is a bill that has been introduced at the federal level that has to do with police accountability and has to overlap with these matters the committee did not hear about that today what they did ask is for the staff to look into it to review it and to develop a recommendation and to forward that to

[42:01] the committee the committee would then make a recommendation and bring that back to you at a subsequent date when we will have had time to review it and for that matter at that point it will hopefully have been formally introduced in the house so that's all I have at this point great thank you Carl um it seems to me that the ask here is that we ask any questions that we have of Carl um make any comments that we might have um and then the question before council is do you accept the legislative committee's recommendation to support um what's at the state right now so I don't see any hands um I would accept a motion if one would like to make it about um let's support Aaron yeah I'll just go ahead and move there that we as as a council will support

[43:00] that's in uh currently before the legislature second okay so is anyone object to that seeing no evictions such unanimous support um for uh accepting the legislative committee recommendation so Carl I think you're good to go on that great thanks okay yeah um we're on to the next item Debbie do you want to read that sure your next item tonight is the police oversight discussion and I believe that uh Chief Harold and the police oversight committee is going to do some presenting as well right so the first presenter is Amy Kane who is our Equity program manager and she's been leading this initiative and that will be followed by Chief Harold Amy hi thank you so much good evening Council thank you for your continued

[44:00] support of this work and thank you for allowing um the time for us to present the work of the police oversight implementation team as Jane mentioned and you most of you know me my name is Amy Kane and I am the city's Equity program manager I've been supporting um the work of the implementation team and the task force along with my colleague Pam Davis um and um the community members on the implementation team since last year so thank you again I'm here going to do the presentation part and then Pam and I will be available for questions after that if I could get the next slide please so this is the agenda for this evening we're going to provide a little bit of background since some of you weren't participating last year on Council when the police oversight task force was formed and give some more information about ordinance 8361 which was passed

[45:00] last October and then um in the 2020 police oversight implementation team progressed to date which includes reimagined police oversight panel with an independent Police monitor after that we'll talk a little bit about our next steps and then have some questions and then I'm going to turn it over to police chief Harold so she can talk a little bit about her overall plan for police reform next slide please so after the March 1st 2019 incident between Community member Zade Atkinson and ex-officer John Smiley the council hosted a community listening session where the community demanded independent police oversight system be established so before I continue I think it's really important to acknowledge that since March 2019 and long before we had visible evidence with cell phone footage that there have been multiple incidents between police and people of color across the country many of those end in the death of people across our nation

[46:00] during these encounters with police and so the perpetuation of systemic racism in our country needs to be recognized and Boulder is no different in its need for police reform so in April of 2019 city council chartered a community police oversight task force who is tasked with exploring oversight models that would best meet the needs of the city of Boulder and the task force convened their work in May of last year and through their work they focused on four separate four kind of goal areas one was to develop an oversight model for Community complaints that are independent from the police department provide procedural improvements regarding how complaints are filed investigations are monitored and the role that the community plays in reviewing internal investigations they've also wanted to create a system to better analyze the police department Trends and policy so they can make recommendations and enhance the mechanism for community outreach and engagement for the police department and the office of the independent monitor

[47:00] next slide please this is a picture of them working last summer was comprised of 13 community members one representative from the police officers Union one represented from the DA's office and one representative from the public defender's office all of our meetings were facilitated by an outside facilitator Dr Carolyn love and over the course of six months the initial task force contributed over 1500 hours learning about different police oversight models speaking with members of the community hearing from other oversight practitioners including Nick Mitchell of the independent monitor he's the independent monitor for the City and County of Denver as well as researching best practice through the National Association for civilian oversight in law enforcement the initial task force finalized his work with the passing of ordinance 8361 and this created an auditor monitor combination oversight model with an

[48:00] 11-member police oversight panel some key points um that about the ordinance that were also in your memo packet include the future hiring of an independent Police monitor who can accept complaints involving police employees monitor the internal investigations to ensure that there's an objective thorough and high quality investigation and develop recommendations to improve police services and policies the monitor will be hired by and report to me as the equity program manager and be located in the municipal building so it will be separate from the police department professionally the monitor will act as the liaison and provide staff support to the police of the community police oversight panel so their their role is really to help build relationship with the Community Police Department employees and really start to build that trust the ordinance also outlined that it would replace the current Professional Standards review panel or what is known

[49:01] as the psrp it also talks about analyzing data in collaboration with the monitor to make policy program and training recommendations to the police chief the new panel would also provide feedback on the performance of the monitor to ensure that Community has input on the performance of that individual and will also be a forum to gather Community concerns about incident specific police actions and build community relations with the police department and community so one of the things the thing so highlighted in the original ordinance was the request to form an implementation team with a subset of original task force members so they could continue the work with City staff in forming out the details of this process the strengths next slide please sorry about that I too have dogs the strengths of this model include the monitor is independent from but a

[50:00] partner to the police department complaints from community members and police officers can be taken outside of the police department so that gives Better Community Trust and confidence in the process the monitor working in a separate building from the police department makes it more accessible for our community members and the monitor can also make disciplinary action or disciplinary recommendations with a full picture and understanding of repeat complaints and potential corrective actions that may be necessary um this model also offers the opportunity as I mentioned before to make policy recommendations for the police department after they've had the opportunity to really analyze the data and trends so next slide please apologies on January of 2020 the police oversight implementation team began its work and they've been meeting every two weeks to work through the implementation elements of the ordinance there was just one session that we had to miss due to

[51:01] the pandemic but we have maintained meeting via Zoom every like I mentioned every two weeks and so the implementation team is made up of a subset of the original task force members as well as city managers staff from the city manager's office from our police department and also our Innovation and Technology team the committee identified four components where they're really focusing this work and that is the role of the independent monitor so they really worked hard to put together the position description for the independent Police monitor and also designed the interview process for the position um due to the complex nature of this role we've been working with an outside recruiter to help us as we've been hosting a national search for this position the police oversight panel they've also been focusing on that component including the structure of the panel the role and the recruitment opportunities for finding the best community members to participate on that

[52:01] panel they've also been working to go through the complaint investigation review process and identify the touch points with the current Internal Affairs process and how those will weave together in the new model and then they're also looking at different types of community engagement mechanisms to ensure that we are hearing from all voices in the community particularly those who are most hard to reach or have a lack of trust with our police department and the government so the teams identified some issues within the current ordinance and they've been working really hard to look through opportunities for moving forward in addition to Preparing information that will be memorialized in accompanying guidebooks for the independent Police monitor for the police oversight panel and the complaint investigative process next slide please so I want I want to say we've heard from some community members of late really asking

[53:00] why it's taking so long for this implementation process to happen and I just wanted to remind everyone as we discussed last year that communities who Endeavor to implement Community Police oversight models usually require 18 months to two years in order to successfully Implement whichever model best fits their Community there's a lot of talk about best practices and there's no such thing with Community oversight for a best practice it's all dependent on the community which the civilian oversight will be will be happening in so given the level of detail that's required to consider in the complexity of the implementation the implementation team has steadily and strategically been working their way through all elements of the ordinance we started this work in March of 2019 and it's been a long journey with people of vastly different life experiences part of our thoughtful approach to implementation involves continuing to

[54:01] build the understanding across members of our Police Department of the perspectives of our community members of color because this work is steeped in centuries of racial oppression we recognize that this endeavor is more than just changing police policies this is about changing our culture and so for those of us on the team and in our organization who are privileged by our own whiteness we must be challenged to work on ourselves recognize our biases and learn effective ways to move forward as anti-racist and act as allies to people of color so once a revised ordinance is drafted the implementation team wants to allow time for the police Union attorneys to review the ordinance and to ensure that there are no violations with the Police contract before we bring the ordinance the revised ordinance back to you all um in September for reviewing and adoption so next slide with that I would like to invite Council to ask Pam and I if there's any

[55:01] questions that you'd like to have answered [Music] thank you all right start again thank you Amy um much appreciated I had two hands up we'll start with Mary and then Aaron Mary for the presentation Amy and I also want to uh first of all thank you for the reminder that this um is also requires a culture change within the community and for people to begin their own personal Journeys the um is work and it is difficult work and it is work that does not have an end so I encourage folks to um look into how they may begin their own personal Journey um my first question is um you mentioned that the committee has

[56:01] been having some to work through some difficulties with the ordinance and I'm wondering um if they had considered bringing um asking counsel for ordinance changes and um and if they haven't done it why not yeah yeah that's my first question sure so they're really working hard to kind of get down to some of those finite details that weren't in that very initial ordinance and those are what they're going to be bringing back to you in September so if there's feedback that Council has to offer at that point in time that's when they'd like to receive it as well as Community feedback okay so it's so all of the ordinance changes will be covered in the request in September yes correct okay cool [Music] has to do with um one of the functions of the oversight board will be policy recommendations and you mentioned that they will be looking through the data and um and through that making the

[57:01] recommendations and I'm wondering to what extent um will the um board make conduct Outreach to the community and it's a part of the plan absolutely so we're calling it a police oversight panel at this point it could change in the next few weeks or yeah a few weeks um and so yes build relationship with community and reach out to like I mentioned before some of those communities who we don't necessarily hear from um to help inform some of that policy as you are aware Council um allowed for funding for a data scientist so Lee Alvarado Benson has been participating on our implementation team um so she can understand a little bit more moving forward what kind of data is going to be useful for the police department and for the police oversight panel and the independent monitor so

[58:00] they can make policy recommendations um the other asks for the independent Police monitor which won't show up in the ordinance um but we're really looking for a practitioner who has experience in this work such that they are connected with other members of the Nicole Network and other practitioners of Civilian oversight so they can hear and stay up to speed of what some of those policy recommendations are that other communities are are implementing thank you and um so my final question that was a good segue to my final question which is will there be a community um event to similar to the one that for police Chiefs for the community to come meet the candidates through an open house so that's what we're trying um we do have to figure out what that Community engagement process will look like when we do the in-person interviews for the independent Police monitor in a best of circumstances we would just do a

[59:01] lovely open house but with the pandemic we're strategizing what makes the most sense and with the timing will look like so that we can get feedback from the community on that role recognizing that this is a very important critical hire for the organization thank you that's all I have thanks Mary I appreciate it so who is next uh I had Aaron up next I don't see his hand anymore but Aaron do you have any questions I do yeah thanks so much for this Amy and so um so we're gonna work on passing another ordinance in September right so can you walk us through in a little bit more detail the steps that will come after that with a kind of timeline we might expect to get all this up and running please sure Pam do you want to take them I can do it if you don't want to sure I can do my best so um to your question councilmember Brockett it'll there are a couple of dependencies of course finding a successful candidate for the independent Police monitor all we want to make sure

[60:01] we hire the right person that the community wholeheartedly supports um so as you saw in the next steps we would anticipate the ordinance being passed in um that late fall fall time frame and following that it's um you know we need to put in to play a recruitment schedule for the new panel work through the transition between the existing psrp if there's an existing caseload make sure that the Integrity of those cases are preserved before transitioning to a new panel so it's hard to give you a really precise timeline on that because of the level of detail required and the partnership with the police department and transitioning our complaint process I think it's the in an ideal situation following the passage of the ordinance we'd be able to start that recruitment for a new panel within a matter of months after the passage of the ordinance and begin operationalizing the new process but

[61:00] there will be a degree of training in transition to be considered throughout 2021 okay well that's interesting and um about the process of handing off incidents and then reviews that's that's an important thing to to do very cleanly um but I wonder why you say it would be months about appointing um panelists members like why would we not be able to work on appointing a panel fairly quickly after um after passing the ordinance in September perspective I think it's really really to the the the current thinking around the recruitment for the panel involves identifying a selection committee that involves representatives from Community groups I'm just anticipating between the realities of a calendar and and kind of holiday Cycles along with the need to ensure that we are appointing the right representatives from the community group

[62:00] that the the application design is appropriate for the updated system I'm just anticipating there being some time play between when we're truly seeding folks in that new panel and um all of that will kick off upon passage of that final ordinance point is things always take just a little bit longer than we hope and so I think by saying months it's just being realistic that likely after the first of the year is when that panel would get up and running okay all right yeah I hear what you're saying I guess we need to First select people to select the panelists that's a two-step process we've been through something similar right before um but anyway just hope we can you know to the extent possible for you to move along briskly once we get that ordinance passed absolutely and that's the full intention of the team for sure great thank you thanks sister Aaron

[63:02] um yeah thank you for that presentation I understand the process by which the committee will be aggregating data and making policy recommendations will they have any authority to take action on specific complaints uh will they have any uh capacity to to refer to the proper Authority for prosecution if necessary what will be the scope of their abilities to deal with individual complaints do you want me to take that Pam or you want to take it uh if you want to get started we can oh tag team um yeah so that's a great question um so after um so the process works that when a complaint comes in both the independent monitor is aware of the complaint as well as the internal investigation sergeant and they work together in tandem to ensure that that it is a fair and just process of Investigation then that investigation is moved over to

[64:01] the police oversight panel along with a disposition that's been given such that the police oversight panel can then make their recommendation and then that information is taken to the chief for final disciplinary [Music] Community to weigh in on that absolutely thanks yep so you can understand why it's so critical to get the really right people into those roles who can really help do that analysis oh yes thank you well I have no more hands up um here I mean I guess I will um weigh in just briefly with a comment that there's a Need for Speed here there's need for us to act with urgency but also that need for urgency is counterbalanced by getting the right representation group in the police oversight panel and

[65:02] so I think we don't want to shortcut the step where we put a selection panel together in that selection panel kind of goes through a rigorous process of [Music] recruiting and betting the people who will be on the police oversight panel so I share errands concern that we move as quickly as we can but I don't want us to move any more quickly than takes into account receiving the right panel so that's just my feedback I know it's a balancing act and I appreciate both the need for moving quickly as well as the need to make sure that the composition is right so thanks for all your hard work Rachel implementation team it's a lot of hours and a lot of hard work and I've talked to some of them about the the intensity of the work and I'm just really impressed and grateful for the work you

[66:01] all are doing honest thank you for that that's very kind it's an honor honestly to do this work so thank you good I seem to wear hands up so I guess Jane I'll kick it back to you thank you and uh we do have a presentation Now by Chief Mary's Herald in response to some of the requests that you received we discussed at CAC so Chief Harold thank you Jane good evening members of council um I've put together a brief con um PowerPoint slide presentation for this evening I am hoping that everybody received my older Police Department's strategic action plan statement I will now go through each of those steps again but I thought it is important to summarize and then go into a little bit more detail in a couple categories that I'm very passionate about that I think does have an impact

[67:00] if we all want ethical effective and Equitable policing so next slide please I have one warning now um there's a lot of conversation across the country um and it pigeonhole's ideas that there's one pansia that will really impact police reform but my warning is this work is very complex it has to be comprehensive and the work that we're about to talk about and begin in Boulder has to become the fabric of the police department so with that caveat um let me start reviewing these categories because if you look nationally across the country what is being demanded by civil rights attorneys by the community by certain groups nationally fit in each one of these categories and so there are no simple answers but I do think we get to it if we understand the complexities that we

[68:00] need to change policing and so first and foremost we have to look at accountability measures within the department and without the most important thing that we can do in this category is have an internal audit and inspection process that reviews very important policies and procedures throughout the department we also have to become locally accredited that means third-party experts are constantly coming in to our Police Department in ensuring that we have model policies and that we have inspections processes monitoring this on a full-time basis the next section the next category that's extremely important is for the police department to understand its own data sets and so we have to have a robust technology platform that supports our understanding not only of traffic and pedestrian stops but all non-consensual stops with the community and on top of that you have to have a technology platform that supports early warning systems and that simply has a list of

[69:02] at-risk behaviors that police officers that are involved in that triggers the red flag the front line supervisors to stop that behavior before it becomes problematic the next large category again is training we have to incorporate a robust training platform based on new Mission and value statements within the department and one thing that really needs to be said here is that policing engage in all types of training all the time they're on a 24 7 training curriculum but what I'll offer to you is that hardly any of the training police engagement is evidence-based and I'm going to come back to that because it's important for us to understand so we really have to start looking at what training is evidence-based and is actually working and I will argue that policing probably is uh deficient in this category because they're constantly

[70:01] engaging in new training mechanisms but I offer that when we do research these trainings the evidence does not support the money and resources going into these trainings I'll come back to that thought in just a second the other category is recruiting and hiring we have to find better ways to have diverse pools of candidates we have to figure out ways to retain those service driven recruits and we have to eliminate bias criteria every stage of the recruiting process and so at my last assignment we were very successful at identifying where exactly diverse candidates fall out and understanding if there's bias associated with that that is extremely important because once we understand those mechanisms we can decide to eliminate that part of the recruiting strategy now the last

[71:00] last important but often they are overlooked by legislation by people wanting to do the right thing but if you just give me an opportunity to explain this so use of force we most certainly have to be better at investigation protocols and processes and have solid use of force policies and solid citizens complaints protocols we most certainly have to have less lethal Alternatives that we have solid training on as well and then this final category is crime strategy and it is by far nationally for the last 30 years the most overlooked police reform mechanism that cities can adopt to ensure that we don't have these horrible incidents happening over and over again and this is engaging in an ethical crime set crime fighting strategy that involves collaboration with the community and that strategy has

[72:00] to be evidenced by East all of these categories provide transparency and obviously the monitorship becomes extremely important that we work in Partnership to do some of this heavy lifting slide please so the use of force conversation across the country so on on the left hand side of the presentation you need this traditional Force continues way I was trained this is the way police departments are still being trained across the country it's a use of force continuum they have probably been trained in this country for 35 years and unfortunately what this Continuum tells cops and trains cops is as somebody escalates they escalate is the the subject escalates again to escalate the only way to come back down is for the subject to de-escalate and it's been devastating in policing for 30 years so I offer to you that there is a new

[73:03] model of use of force training and thinking and give me one minute to give a quick overview of this training there has not been many Innovations in the last 15 years in policing with the exception of understanding crime data this is most certainly an innovation that we should all be aware of in this country and that we should all jump on this bandwagon as as quickly as possible it's something that I studied at the University of Cincinnati it's evidence-based and it's critical that not only Boulder PD supports this but police agencies across the country and again it's being overlooked nationally and so I offer you this compared to the traditional use of force continuums that's being taught still in this day in almost every Police Department across this country I offer you a model that comes from the United Kingdom and it's interesting in several ways but the most important way is that

[74:01] it is not a it does not go up and down on a Continuum that it's a constant evolving of logic in a circle but it revolves around the sanctity of all human life and you might ask me that sounds like semantics it doesn't make a lot of sense but it's extremely important if you're a police officer let me give you an example my whole career I would sit and roll calls and the police Sergeant would tell me make sure you and your partner go home safe at night make sure you and your partner go home safe at night this is still being said across this country to police officers now if you look at this model and compare it to how SWAT teams are trained in this country there's a similar message that goes to swat officers on every time they go out and the difference is this SWAT commanders in this country say this

[75:00] make sure we will not have one person die during this incident now that might seem nuanced to everybody but think about that the different messaging and the different training that has to accompany that message if you have a whole use of force model that in every Junction of the incident you are concerned about making sure everyone goes home at night well that completely changes the paradigm and so so in the United Kingdom they have a lot of incidents with armed encounters with police but they rarely end up as deadly force situations and there's good reason for that they are not armed but they meet a lot of armed encounters with knives and blunt instruments but they all rely on time distance and this value of we will not allow anybody to die

[76:00] emphasize this more than I am it's extremely important and even though the United Kingdom is gauged and engaged in this type of use of force training and model I offer you they stole this from the United States SWAT teams because the SWAT teams in this country rarely have incidents like the one that you see in Minneapolis they are trained completely differently and I offer they are trained in this model and have been for the last 30 years next slide again um if we're interested in police reform and we're listening to the National calls for reform I do believe that the things that everybody is requesting is simple we must the police must gauge diverse stakeholders and perspectives we must develop meaningful Partnerships and collaboration the lesson need for enforcement and Justice responses police have got to quit depending on traditional responses

[77:00] of enforcement uh the ethical effective and Equitable results and that means that everything that the police engage in has to become evidence-based and so I bring this concept of problemary policing back to you for your support in this crime strategy it has been very successful in cities for some reason I don't understand it is not adopted on a national level it needs to be because it's harm focused it's evidence-based it's collaborative and it does not rely on traditional enforcement mechanisms so with that um I offer to you this that all of these Concepts I commit to you they all have to be done together they all have to be done comprehensive and I need the support of city leaderships city leadership City manager's office in the monitor to these very challenging goals but the

[78:02] Boulder Police Department has the capacity to engage each and every one of these successfully I just need your support to ensure that they all happen because they are all equally important thank you thank you have questions I'll be glad to answer thank you Chief and um we're just getting hands up well people are getting organized as the questions I would just say thank you for the excellent presentation um I think that you will find that you have the support of uh City leadership on making whatever progress we possibly can on the subject it is a matter of and it's Focus right now for a very good reason and we appreciate you being here to help us work on this issue so I have Bob's hand and Rachel's hand up up go ahead uh Chief thanks so much that was an outstanding presentation um and you certainly have my support I don't I can't speak for my colleagues but you have my support everything you talked about I like to think and I do

[79:01] believe that you would be making the same presentation to US during your first weeks on the job as our chief regardless of the um what is happening on the national front so I'm I we are very fortunate to have the right person um in the chief position at this point in time I think these are things that you were planning to do anyway um and so I'm I'm happy that you have the training in the background to achieve things that need to be done um not only in our city but but across the country and I hope that our city can be an example to other communities um as as you develop these changes and reforms and quite frankly different ways of thinking Chief I do have a question for you um this sounds like a a tremendous and ambitious program do you envision reporting back to council and the community on a periodic basis I know this is a lot of work and it's going to take a lot of time but do you envision checking in with with Council on the community periodically as you

[80:01] implement these changes it's the only way this works and I always I always try to present as frequently as possible but I think it's so important that you understand the complexities and the work that's being done especially on the data points and um [Music] I Envision that every two months every three months that I come back and I show you the progress that the police department's made many of these initiatives have begun already unfortunately on some of the stuff it requires people from other parts of the country to come in and train the police department on some of the bigger lifts and so I would have already started this training on the icat model if we weren't in a pandemic But to answer your question directly yes and we can decide what that frequency is and I'm glad to come back it's important

[81:01] very good thank you um Bob we have Rachel Junie Mary and Aaron Rachel and after this right we're just on questions right now is that true correct yeah mostly um thank you to Gerald for that presentation it was very informative my question is we um weeks um where police departments around the country have been um acting like more what you might expect to see in war zones um tear gas and just a very militarized feel to the police departments and I had brought this up yesterday at CAC but I am curious to know what do we possess in Boulder that is um either is it is it 1033 the the Direct Federal repurposing of military equipment but also what what do we have in terms of things like tear gas or

[82:00] things that might make our department feel military-like and also what's in the budget that might be spent this year for those things [Music] to ask for but you know what good I I believe that you know obviously we have um SWAT team capacity at Boulder Police Department obviously we have Patrol rifles obviously we have um tear gas uh pepper ball um but I will offer that I look to these resources not as a military because you know how I feel about the police were never designed as an invading military and I am passionate about that unfortunately though there are situations that happen across the country that if we did not have that equipment I believe you know active

[83:02] shooter situations large events where there's tons of capacity um for really horrible things happening people driving into crowds I think we would be at a complete disadvantage without some of these resources I think the key is is to have policies and procedures on when these would be used and making it very restrictive of when we would need these resources and that I am I would be the ultimate decision maker on when we would need these resources a lot of these weapons that police departments have for the last 15 years been acquiring have been because of situations and communities where you have people that can out gun uh the police department in certain situations so I think that you've seen this um when you have active shooters that

[84:00] actually have thousands and thousands and thousands of automatic rounds in the police departments don't and we can't combat that I think that you've seen that across the country at police departments have to have resources to combat that type of violence and it would be counterproductive for me to say you know in in civil unrest that we would use these types of weapons during crowd control but I do need resources if we would have an incident where our Patrol officers could not respond accordingly if we had active shooter situations like you've seen across the country and so even though I I don't want them part of the police department I think that it it is an absolutely needed resources to combat some of the situations that you see when you have suspects completely have a day's round like in

[85:00] Las Vegas that that suspect could have gone on shooting for probably three to four days and so that's what concerns me is that we would be we could properly respond to those type of incidents quality on that Rachel well yeah I'm just gonna just respond I appreciate that but I I definitely remember in the data Atkinson video footage you know the the officers had some gear and like a lot I think a type of gun that surprised me so it seems that in an innocuous situation just having that stuff available can be detrimental to community members and I would also um like to see you know the response not being sort of an arms War escalation like you know they have it so now we need more like I would rather the guy in Las Vegas not have been able to get his hands on enough volume of um guns and ammunitions so that's a little

[86:01] bit of a separate um discussion but it there needs to be some rational relationship and probably more discussionists I'm sorry um may ask a colloquy question Rachel yes I'm done thank you so my question um would be you mentioned the policies that would need to be in place and does Boulder have those policies on when to use those resources as you call them yes but I would you know I'm in the process of reviewing all of the policies right now Mary and some fall short um some need to be enhanced um and so in working through these policies as as quickly as I can

[87:00] um but we do have policies on civil disturbance we have policies on um you know Firearms we use them when not but I just want you to know that I'll be reviewing all these policies and they will meet the standard of modern policies there's no question about that is that and that's not um and those policies don't come before Council right they're part of the policy book that the the police force has making all of these policies transparent unless they would impede um you know protocols as far as SWAT team stuff um missions but as far as the policies that I talked about today these will all be available to you and the general public and that's the only way we get to the Community Trust is to make sure that everybody everything that we do here at Boulder PD is transparent there would be very few exceptions of

[88:00] um investigative protocols that would not be public thank you great and we've got some more speakers I'm going to ask a college question though and Ms Baker to Jane rather than you Chief um and that is Jane I think it's CSC you answered unequivocally that our Police Department had not taken military surplus equipment through what I think Rachel referred to as the 1033 program is that true that our police department has not taken Surplus military equipment as far as I know it's true you may know that the federal government many years ago like decades ago I came up with the idea that police departments could apply for Used military equipment and my understanding is we have none of it and we've never okay thank you and chief if you learn differently about that over time as you're getting familiar and doing your

[89:01] reviews it might be useful for us to hear if we do have any because I think that's one of the themes is reducing the amount of military equipment being used I think largely trucks and you know armored equipment is is a primary point of concern but I think knowing about anything would be helpful thank you for that um so next we have Junie Mary and Mark Ginny thank you Sam and thank you Chief mares for this presentation but um I have to say that it is very inspirational but it also lack in concrete steps it lacks concrete steps for reform and be honest I I know when Council was talking about having you coming back this week to talk I was not in favor of that and the

[90:00] reason why I was not in favor of having you coming back I thought you wouldn't have time to provide us concrete steps and I think this presentation also shows that as well um and I hope as our conversation here progressed tonight you know we will there's going to be something that the community can get out of this presentation and I wanted to get back to you based on some of the questions that I sent in to CAC Sam is that the right moment to ask some of these questions is I mean your questions are all relevant um to police procedures so I think going down those would be perfectly good right now thank you so much I know you just mentioned during the your presentation you talked about internal Audits and inspections for police review and I sent into a CAC and I uh made the

[91:02] whether it's a request or just a question if it would be possible for Boulder PD to make a pledge not to hire a police officer who has been fired or had had severe disciplinary misconduct and I I want to hear from you whether that's possible or is that something that has to do with the police Union but I want to hear from you yes we yeah that that to me during the recruit process that would eliminate candidates and um I do not think we have issues like that to me at the Boulder Police Department but it's understanding where people drop off to me is is a big issue because that's where you lose diversity but if we had a candidate that had serious problems in the background no I would not be interested in hiring that person and I can tell you I would not hire that person

[92:01] so are you saying that that the Pledge yes okay uh thank you and my next question um you talked about the UK and I lived there actually for about two years and when I was listening to you I said oh you're talking about the UK and you mentioned the fact that you know uh offices not carrying guns in the distance and I did put a question to you I don't know the feasibility of that and I don't even know if it's even safe and what would it require to have some police officers not carry weapons whether it's um I've talked with a few community members actually who discuss who talk with me and mentioned um you know when they see police officers on Pearl Street you know they're carrying weapons and it feels unsafe or even the way police officers interacting with the homeless

[93:00] population carrying [Music] so my question to you to use was not carry weapons um like we discussed um post requires police officers to care weapons state law but I think the the issue you're getting at is can we have working for the police department that don't carry weapons that help in community engagement whether it be domestic violence mental health co-responders domestic violence co-responders homeless Outreach workers Social Service workers yes to all of that um you know obviously we live in a in a society that we have a lot of guns and by post-regulations police officers by definition would have to carry guns but that doesn't um that doesn't dictate to the police department that we can't have other

[94:00] people co-responding with police and I think Boulder does an excellent job with that already with the mental health response teams that we have and but this all goes back to problem solving because we want to take the enforcement options off of the police shoulders and put it on other people that own the problem just as much as anybody else so what you're getting at Uni is everything that I'm passionate about it's shifting responsibility to people in the community that really own the problem more than the police do and so if you're asking in my police department will we have partners that engage in that yes because it this is in my in my world this is where police Falls so short is they take on all of the responsibility and they try to use the tools that they're trained in which

[95:00] is enforcement and then you run afoul of the community because you're not using collaboration and Partnerships with people that are really legally the experts in some of these societal issues so I hope that helps Jeannie yeah one moment I appreciated the answer and the bulk of the answer was very important as far as non-armed responders along with the police I just wondered if you could Define post for us so we don't get lost in the jargon I I believe that's an acronym yeah it's the police officers training and standards it's uh it's the state certification for all police agencies within the state I apologize no no problem and so what you said in your answer is that um peace officers who are certified at the state level which I believe they have to be to be employed in the state they are required to carry a weapon is that correct that

[96:00] is correct okay very good Junie back to you for for the clarify for your explanation because I think it's very helpful for you know people in the community who are non-police officers to understand some of these things and I want I wouldn't have to do with environmental commitments and also just being friendlier in the community to have more police officers in on bikes as opposed to in cars I know this may not be something that is possible right now but I I think to me that would be a a good step forward to look into that direction yeah so obviously the closer police get back to their Roots which is you know um on foot very visible to the community

[97:00] being part of the community the better that we are but if I could put the whole Police Department on bikes and think that that was gonna help any of these major issues well I guess I'd I'd have it all down right I think that the way I look at policing is the way that the fathers that created policy looked at it and that is police really should be looked at as ambassadors and they should be looked at people that are part of the community and that's the way that I frame everything internally is that the community has to look at you and see an ambassador for the city and that is so important and I truly believe I like police officers on foot I like them on bikes I like them on Segways um because it does make the community feel um safer and they feel part of that

[98:00] community so those are really good but unfortunately I don't believe that putting you know 100 cops on bikes is going to get us to the root issues of why this continues to happen in this country no thank you for that um also I've had you know community members reach out as well over the fact that we have some more police cruisers have tinted windows and I don't know if that's a safety issue as to why we have them and if it's not a safety issue what would it take to have more visibility when it comes to those patrol cars yeah so I think uh tinted windows has always been framed as a safety issue um but depending on cost in association with removing it I you know I am not against removing tinted windows but again um I think that makes the community feel

[99:01] better because they can see the police officers um and I'm I'm not opposed to doing that I don't think it's a safety issue for police officers I think you know situational awareness is is much better than tinted windows as long as the costs don't outweigh the good um so yeah I'm not opposed to that okay great no that's great to hear and thank you very much for being honest and franked on that point and I hope that my fellow council members will support you know this type of initiative also my next question to you is um the complaint procedures now I know that to me when I was thinking about it I was just thinking the number five was arbitrary and I was thinking okay how many complaints can someone have um to me I've worked in customer service before and you know even when you get one complaint is a

[100:01] huge deal because I I mean I worked in a grocery store imagine you know just one complaint you know well send corporate coming down and I'm thinking officers you know they they they're there for Public Safety and we hold them to those regards you know they're supposed to be friendly so I know I mentioned five but I wonder what type of policy the city already have uh for to ensure that let's say an officer has you know have how many complaints an officer has to have to be you know to be relegated to a desk officer it's a great question Jenny and here here's here's the answer so this Police Department doesn't have a consistent disciplinary Matrix nor does it have an early warning system and those two things go hand in hand and so the data that is needed to have comparables

[101:00] within the working groups becomes extremely important to understand officer Behavior and so we don't have that Benchmark we don't have that Baseline right but I can tell you that an early warning system a good one that's designed properly will understand those data points we'll understand those benchmarks in red flag behavior when it becomes a pattern and then the disciplinary Matrix will be spelled out Behavior by behavior and it gets to that issue that you see across the country of police officers engaged in a pattern of inappropriate behavior and it's not dealt with and so my commitment is after I understand the data with the officer performance metrics then we can all decide what that looks like because I couldn't tell you right now if it's three if it's five if it's seven what I can tell you though is I'll be very proactive when I see patterns of behavior that are not desirable and I will intervene and we

[102:03] will have resolution in those cases and unfortunately most police departments unless you're a big city they do not have these early warning systems and nor do they have disciplinary Matrix and if you don't have both together that's agreed by everyone then you run a foul of Union rules and other major issues impacting policing but if I do this right and I do it Based on data and I do it based on collaboration I think that we'll get to the issue that you have and unfortunately I don't know what that specific number is just know that I will be watching patterns and Trends with perform officer performance and not only that accommodations that police get I mean we don't even understand that right so we have to understand all the whole picture with officer performance and I'm just not there yet

[103:00] wow thank you I I think that says a lot about the type of uh you know that says a lot the fact that we don't have any type of disciplinary Matrix but again I'm very hopeful over the fact that you will be working on that and and I think it's very important to have these things in place because how do you measure how do you preempt good officer from deviating if you don't have any Matrix so that's that's really um that's something that is concerning that's very concerning as a community and I understand you know a lot of community members are thinking about let it's the military rise the police which is what is in front of you the big things but sometimes it's the little things that matter such as having a disciplinary metrics to ensure that we keep good police officers on the street

[104:00] um and thank you for answering my questions and I know that I had a lot of them and I really appreciate you for doing that um and I know you already mentioned hiring more people of color that's really encouraging and also I did um I asked a question about psychological evaluation and reevaluation for police officers and what I was thinking is that I would imagine most police officers when they go into that field they go in it with good and and the ones who turned you know for lack of better term bad so many different factors whether it's stress or or you know things that happen confrontations so how do we protect these officers and as a layperson I wonder whether we have a system of psychological evaluation to make sure again that the good police officers are being protected in the bad ones are

[105:02] being supported so that they don't turn bad Jenny that's that's such an excellent observation and I can tell you why so how many years ago has this been president Barack Obama's 21st century task force and one of the pillars was officer Wellness and it's overlooked and we have to do a better job with officer wellness and I think Boulder Police Department has a really robust response but it is so overlooked in this country and it's partly because the police have you know historically tried to say you know we're tough we can take this stuff but the truth of the matter is they're not and they suffer just like anybody else that has trauma and it can't be overlooked because again it's a comprehensive package of reform and going back to your other question

[106:00] about disciplinary Matrix is um I want the community to know Boulder Police Department has very low numbers and citizens complaints and and issues with the community which is really good it's just I'm an evidence-based policing person and it's extremely important for me to understand the nuances in the data um and it is not unusual for police departments not to have disciplinary Matrix unless they have been under some type of Reform effort and so I have two times so this is what I know kind of supports the foundation of all of the categories that I presented on so I don't want the community to think that you know we have a a ton of community complaints and issues because this is very low I think it's a very service driven agency that are doing really wonderful work it's important for leaders now to understand the data is is as much as

[107:01] possible thank you thank you I think this is my last substantive question because I know last week you mentioned um you know providing uh doing more data crunching and one of my questions was you know having demographic statistics on arrest and stops on a website whether it's weekly monthly or annually but I know you mentioned that the last time that is something that we are working on and fully support you in the in the work that you do also another thing I I did mention in my email a voucher system for police officers and when I was what I was thinking is that you know I've heard the complaints from community members that you know police officers they don't live here and if you don't live in Boulder you don't care about the people of Boulder in your interactions with with community members may not be um may not be as friendly but I I doubt

[108:01] that but at the same time that's something that a lot of community members are are are grappling with but I've also heard from community members who said we should not be spending the little money that we have on funding uh to house out here in Boulder um and also there's the safety issue so that's you know I've if Council wants to look further into that they can definitely do um but I really appreciate you're taking the time and answering these questions and I hope that as you look further into implementing the reforms that you will be implementing that you know you know utilize some of these correct questions uh in in in favor and also I want I'm not sure if it is to Jane that I should ask this question because we we mentioned uh while we were talking that maybe there is opportunity for

[109:01] um detenting some of the police call windows and I wonder if Jane could answer whether we can um how would we move that process forward one way to do it is every time we replace a vehicle we can make sure that the new vehicle does not have tint and then I would need to ask our Fleet Department to take a look at how much it would cost to remove all of the windows of all of the cars and replace them with untinted Windows and I don't know the cost of that but we could figure it out and you come back to council then you can make a decision about whether or not that's your highest priority or one of your priorities for the police department that's great thank you so much that's questions that I had and I want again to thank Chief Maris for the work that she's doing and yes I you know when I just saw the

[110:01] presentation I did see that you know it was lacking in concrete and it's not because she's not thinking and the idea is that we're thinking together and we will come to those Solutions but those concrete things do take time as well so thank you so much for for your time and thank you for answering my questions thanks Jenny thanks for your support very good thank you I believe that we've got Mary up next and then sorry I've lost my go ahead Mary you for the presentations you've Harold um just three questions and they're fairly short I think um you mentioned the accreditation of the police department and I know I was surprised to hear like last year when the our fire department was accredited and I didn't realize that it wasn't accredited and so um same thing goes for the police and I'm wondering what the process looks like and how long it will take to do that

[111:00] thanks very good question um I think we're in good position I think that it will probably take every bit of a year and a half 18 months to two years um and and there's a lot of there's a lot of policies and procedures that have to be Rewritten reviewed um it's a it's a arduous process so I'm looking I'd be happy with 18 months understanding that it could take every bit of two to two and a half years to accomplish thank you um and then um you also mentioned a change in the mission and I'm wondering what the process and timeline would look like for that as well that's right facilitator to come in understand from the community understand from leadership

[112:00] what should be the mission and it's the foundation of a police department the mission and values and they have to align with the city's Mission but it would be a robust process and actually have really good facilitation to understand what exactly we're trying to do here in the police department and making sure those values are aligned with model practices and so my experience with reform is is that you start with the mission and you start building up energy and also if you don't mind because in the budget this year we have dollars appropriated for the police department to begin its master plan and you may recall that we had those dollars last year but we are carrying them over because we knew we'd have a new police chief and wanted to wait to start the master plan process until she was on board so we are are ready at some point later in this year to get that underway

[113:02] and certainly starting with the mission and values of the police department would be a great way to kick off that Master Plan discussion break and it would certainly involve Community engagement then absolutely great thank you and my final question has to do with data um you mentioned data driven several times evidence-based and spent do you go in and examine the machine bias that may be in the tools that you use with which to examine the data that's a great question and so smarter people than me have um triggering um Flags to tell you and the data may or may not be solid and so I would have to defer that question Mary to maybe the new data

[114:00] scientists on board to be you know to develop um you know codes that they could write for those kind of issues if you're looking at huge data sets then that would be out of my uh my Master's Degree on data science but I'm sure I could come back with a really solid answer for you um and I think it's a good question great thank you yeah I would be interested in that um because if the decisions are based on um on data that's biased then all bets are off so I think it's a really important piece of the puzzle so thank you and Mary this that's another good point because this is why it's always important for a police department to partner with researchers and you know we have the Colorado University right here with academics that should want to partner with the police right now we

[115:00] need academic support and policing to get to the issues that you just brought up and so I have a long history of partnering with doctors across the country and it's very important for to have that type of Talent on your team especially when you're engaging in large term problem-solving projects and so I'll be asking for help in some of those areas when we're engaging in in big projects so we don't run afoul of having bad data sets and so forth thank you that's encouraging thanks Mary and thanks for all the work you're doing very appreciate it and then we have markup thanks Chief a quick comment and two questions first I think that was a terrific presentation I am more confident than ever that you're the right person to lead the Boulder Police Department and I'm highly confident that you'll be able to carry out your mission you certainly have my full support my two questions

[116:00] um you had indicated that there were certain police functions that in effect you would want to divest yourself of and pass on to other departments can you be more specific about what those might be yeah so there's a saying in crime science who really owns the crime and so specifically if you look at certain areas where crime clusters right you will find that opportunities are given to that location that are provided by owners of that location um and so I'm very interested in lovers to get owners of properties to engage not with just the police department but other City resources to ensure that their lack of management at those properties are not providing opportunities for crime and disorder to take place and so this type of policy it's called place-based policing it's

[117:02] evidence-based and it does not rely on traditional mechanisms and there's all you know there's all types of research on the effectiveness of Shifting the responsibility to people that really own crime and so um you know we can train managers we can look at environmental reasons that crime occurs in certain places but I will offer to you that I'm confident that a lot of crime that the police deal with is really from other people providing opportunities for that type of disorder or crime to occur and so it's very it's very important for the community to understand these Concepts and then we don't run afoul of the community when you know the police are expected to enforce this when really it could be somebody else that is contributing to this problem and if they for example if if you know a store redesigns its front so where it's not providing

[118:00] opportunities for people to shoplift well then that's that's everything that we're looking for right you don't have to involve the criminal justice system the store management changes the Dynamics of the store and the police stop going there back and forth repeatedly wasting taxpayers money my second question uh you made reference to the uh the UK model on the use of lethal Force has perhaps stolen from SWAT teams but how do the statistics in uh in England on the use of lethal Force compare to what you see in the U.S it is it is a rare occasion different we're very gun um you know gun-driven Society in America but with the Scottish police and the English police are dealing with is people with blunt weapons and knives they rarely have to use deadly force to get compliance and it's a rare event

[119:01] um to to to have that type of police intervention shootings that we see in this country and there's good reason for it um they're training on these issues are completely opposite of the way we train police officers in this country and people need to pay attention nationally to this model and you know just give an example of the University here is trained in this model so it would be wonderful if we're consistent um with training and I I've used the model at the University of Cincinnati I actually brought researchers in to study this I know it's effective and it's being studied in other cities and so it's extremely important for the national um communication to support this model because I do know it will be impactful [Music] thank you I appreciate it thanks for the defense parade just went by

[120:01] they were at my house about 10 minutes ago very good um so that's everyone who has their handout and I have a few thoughts but before I jump in I thought I would you know we've had questions we've done a round of questions if there's any council members who want to make ah Rachel's hand is that Rachel we have a lot of comments that weren't questions so I was holding back this is the moment okay um so I do want to push back on one thing that um Chief Harold said which is that um the closer we can get police to their roots and then the roots are on bikes or on foot um and you know I teach criminal justice and and everything I um read and teach is that the roots are partly collecting taxes but also primarily uh the police forces were formed to um

[121:00] to hunt down humans who had escaped slavery so the roots of policing are not like happy-go-lucky people who are out um you know coming around in the neighborhood so I think we need to be clear the focus of this conversation is on um a policing system that is rooted in racism and and I don't want us to lose sight and and get in the weeds and focus on things like tinted windows which are absolutely not going to solve systemic racism and we've spent a fair amount of time talking about like sort of random ideas and to me the conversation has to be a whole lot bigger and we're all getting um kind of car bombed I don't know what the right word is but uh by the defund the police um community members who are pushing for that and I think that's the kind of conversation that we should be having as council members what is the broad discussion um and how are we going to dig into police

[122:00] reform given police brutality and systemic racism so I'm a little bit worried that if we individually raise like um issues or ideas that worried me as a constituent and Community member because oftentimes I would observe uh Council coming up with ideas and we're not experts for the most part in this field and so for us to um come up with ideas on what might solve this is going to be a little bit um taking a shot in the dark and I think that what we really need to do is um as as city council we need to take some um ownership of this issue I think that Chief Herald has done a good job of I mean Next Level I think in terms of stepping into this issue and I appreciate it and I'm not at all minimizing that but I don't think it could be one person's discretionary decision to move into police reform I think it needs to come from us and it needs to rest with us whatever that looks like I think

[123:00] it would be helpful for us to coordinate and I don't know where that collaboration might be happening with other cities that are stepping into the hard work you know there are Minneapolis is looking at defunding the police I don't know how far this council is going to be willing to go but what are the cities doing who are really going to uh full court press analyze how do we solve the issues um and I don't think we're going to get there during the city council meeting or with sort of low-lying fruit I think it's going to be such a bigger conversation and so I hope that we will take whatever steps we need to um I hope that there's a work group I would like to be a part of it I do teach in the field and I'm pretty passionate um about this I think that it comes down to largely a culture change and shifting of the power dynamics and imbalances as well as the rooted you know the the racism that is is interwoven into the

[124:02] system so it's not going to be like a periodic check-in checking off the Box this is going to have to be um a a big lift and and um I don't know exactly what we need to do um procedurally to tack this on but um I'll stop there for a moment and look at the other two pages of notes I have here and see if anybody wants to respond to any of that or colloquy I don't know about that I've got Aaron and Adam up next um Aaron what's your thoughts yeah sure um Rachel maybe I'll chime in a little bit and then you can get back to your your two pages of notes um well thank you for that and I would disagree with you on one thing I Juni I really appreciated you bringing up all of those ideas about um you know ways directions we could move in um so I think you know having having some energy and ideas about ways we can move forward I think is

[125:01] foreign absolutely agree with you on the need to approach this kind of systemically and for the council to take ownership of it right so she failed I'm incredibly appreciative of the work that you're doing things and I'm um I'm very happy about the directions that you're moving in but I think this is enough of an issue of local and National and international concerns um that we need to we need to take a a significant role as a governing body as well so you know I I was appreciative uh Chief Earl that you talked about checking in with us on a periodic basis um and I think that's appropriate and um I think also uh for a council to not just listen but maybe weigh in a little bit um about what working from constituents uh maybe uh and and channeling you know being part of that governing body as well I think is important and then to also potentially

[126:03] widen it a little bit you know so that you know Chief Herald you're working on the police policies and procedures but we also have a lot of ordinances and code that you know set up the laws for the community and I would appreciate you know per my earlier point about the holistic approach um you know that I would appreciate the if we could look into kind of how how our uh code around criminal justice is uh functioning well or not so well so I'd like to see us um you know per what Rachel said to to tackle this at a pretty broad level um with a lot of council involvement [Music] can I have a policy on that please yes so hang on I'm going to organize the discussion here a little bit so a list and see people want to call

[127:01] agreement I'll come back to you if that's okay so I just want to check in Mary before I go to you Adam and Juni have been hands up and I just want to check in Adam do you have a follow-up to what Rachel's put out about Brett of the discussion and then I'll go to Jimmy Adam do you have comments on that if Mary has a colleague directly to that I would allow her my pieces a little bit different than Rachel's great and Jeannie do you have a follow-up directly to what Rachel is talking about I did I did um I do take in everything that Rachel said and I agree with her and um I just wanted to add having the questions and the perspective that I had was to again to have us to start thinking about something because at the end of the day to have great ideas but if you don't have any concrete steps that you want to take you just you know you're just selling dreams and we're not in the business of selling dreams or our job is

[128:01] to offer Concrete Solutions and when I put out those questions that's what I was trying to do and um I welcome the opportunity of all council members being involved and taking on these ideas and I did reach out to Rachel actually and she did wanted to collaborate on sending this message to a hotline together so I'm very surprised that tonight that she's she doesn't think that there were such good ideas um but anyway I I I think you know I didn't put them out as something that I I want to do I want us to work at them together and whatever the future holds for all of us as counsel or job is to protect the community and as well what I wanted to say part of all work is not just to get onto the bandwagon of also we have to think that the community level s we also have to think of community safety it's not just looking at it one

[129:01] way and say okay we're just gonna tackle this big issue but it's the little things within the police departments that need to change in order for the big changes to take place so I don't think we should discount the little things Rachel I think we should definitely consider them as part of the work that we're doing okay thank you genius so I'm going to go to Mary next and then come back to Rachel well so my question um was kind of similar to um get out what Juni just said but what you Aaron and Rachel talked about tackling this police reform in a from a broad perspective and you you have to take there's concrete actions that you have to take and it seems to me that that is what Chief Herald outlined is the steps that begin

[130:03] to get at it um so I guess I wanted to understand where your disagreement was with the steps that Chief Herald outlined in terms of um how it does not tackle the broad reform that you want to see it and what is the definition of broad reform if it isn't taking concrete steps to an end point where the outcome is different from what you started okay can I make a check in first and then I just hand up Mark is just going to be a colloquy on what Rachel said I'm just trying to keep this in the queue here um I also want to push back just a little bit on on what Rachel said I think

[131:00] junie's specific proposal some of which I like some of which I like less but I think they're all uh reasonable thoughtful concrete measures that we can take and we have a larger problem here and we'll do the best that we can to get to the larger problems but I'm not going to pass over specific uh areas where we can improve in a very direct and concrete way so I I think junie's proposals are worthy of uh consideration and I would not ignore them for a grander purpose but we'll get to the grant of purpose and due course thank you Mark so I'm gonna go I'm going to go hop back in reverse order if it's okay I'd go to Aaron because Aaron had a response and then to Rachel who I think will have responses and then additional issues so Aaron and then Rachel yeah so Mary thank you for that question I'd just to clarify I I don't disagree with if hell is going at all I think she's

[132:00] going in a very positive direction I brought I just meant um both having Council involved kind of directly you know with with some you know active feedback throughout the process and then also um the the idea of looking at our ordinances and our laws as well as our policies and procedures so that that's the couple kind of broader bits that I'm in but in in no way disagreeing with what she was offering up restrict your infect Rachel Rachel if you have responses and then others Julie and I did talk about this yesterday um and my point is not that any of those ideas are unsavory um it's just that we're I don't think we are the right people to be in the weeds at a council meeting because each of us could have 11 ideas or 12 ideas and it's better if experts are doing that like to the point about you know having police officers live in the community like the data is mixed on whether that improves policing outcomes so I want us to be engaging experts such as

[133:01] we have formed with the police oversight committee and so I think that it is appropriate for community members and council members to be engaging in this but I don't think that if we um kind of throws some things out um as at this level that we are doing the best by the community um and then the notion that we you know will get to the bigger stuff um when will we get to it if that's not the discussion we're having tonight I think that um for me the discussion should be Broad and then staff and experts and again I would hope that we are coordinating with um other communities who are doing this work would be where we would you know vet the ideas and then come up with some really data backed um strategic ways that we can improve policing and so my my specific um concerns to answer your question Mary about maris's proposals none of them are bad I think they're all good proposals

[134:00] my concern is having one person who's in the police department owning that work so it doesn't make sense to me that there's going to be um Maris is unlikely to push for defunding the police say so there's going to be just a broader conversations that require a broader Coalition with different perspectives tackling this so um I don't think it could just be from within the police department I think that we need for this size of an issue to engage a really strong pool of experts one of which obviously is Maris um I I agree that you are a great person to have in this position at this time and I'm grateful to you that you're there and I also feel lucky just to have a seat at this table where we can be talking about this and trying to improve lives but if we you know baby step we are not going to

[135:00] um make the transformation that is needed in policing it's obviously a bigger conversation as well around racism in this country but when it happens in policing due to the power imbalance and the violence that can stem from policing it has a more catastrophic potential outcome so that's why this is such an important thing to dig into um and to get right so I agree with um Marist there's no Panacea there's no magic bullet pardon the choice of words there but we we need to be really wide and again I'm not sure procedurally how we get there but this Council I think needs to weigh in on on how big we're going to think on this issue and what steps we want to take to procedurally get to an active change so again not knocking any particular suggestions just the notion that we would be having this um kind of uh weeds conversation when the issue is ginormous and our job is

[136:00] Paul see and not like specific we're not the experts on this so that's why I think that it should be experts who are making the suggestions Sam can I quote go ahead yep I just wanted to say I appreciate everything that Rachel say and I do agree with some of the things that she said I don't agree with everything but I do agree with some of the things that we that she said and I just wanted to add that I understand you work in criminal justice and you know I just wanted you to know that that oh in books I am one of them I live that life I'm a black woman so you can't just sit here and tell me that I'm just getting into the weeds and I'm looking at little ideas Okay so I think that's offensive and I thought that was rude as a fellow council member and yes you could have called me out on the side I've talked to you yesterday

[137:00] and you didn't reach out about that so we're having this discussion and you just said you you work in criminal justice but I live that life and that's why I'm contributing to this so as much as I can and I would appreciate some support from you as someone who teaches in criminal justice who's also fighting as an ally okay great Rachel do you have anything you'd like to say there because otherwise I've got Adam and Juni um no turn it over again my um concern is not personal against anyone it's the the level of conversation where I think these conversations should be happening very good thank you so Adam you're up next thanks Tim and uh thanks Chief Harold um for the presentation that was great uh what I see here is we do have we're set up better than almost any City that I can think of in terms of the moment in history to make some major changes

[138:00] and here's some things that I can see that have lined us up for that so first of all we've taken on the responsibility to bring racial Equity into our community we all signed on for that declaration so we've already established that is something that is structural in our foundation following that we've hit a point where we had to look at our budget holistically top to bottom both by choice and by necessity from covid-19 and that means looking at every single thing in the budget we've also were at the moment where we're developing a police master plan and I can't think of anything more helpful in this discussion than going through you know not only the budget of the police but what the police will be doing um what their mission is that is the police master plan and on top of that we have a wonderful

[139:02] new police chief who is clearly open to critical thinking and challenging norms and you know um just thinking outside the box in general um and all of those things have aligned into this moment so to me I think there's room for for all of it there's room for every single thing that we're trying to accomplish right now um and that includes All the Small Things I have a small thing myself that I want to contribute because I think it's important um but just looking at this holistically there's no better time and no better opportunity than what we have right now to go top to bottom on this um and I don't think we should be afraid to do that and that's going to take a lot of time and that's going to take a lot of effort from all of us and I totally agree that Council needs to be deeply involved in this process um so as much as I love the fire master

[140:00] plan um they kind of came up with that gave it to us and that was it there wasn't a whole lot of community input it's just hey here are the things and that's it but we don't often have a whole lot of problems with the fire department uh when it comes to committee interaction so uh here is just a phenomenal opportunity in my mind and I really really hope that we all take that challenge and again I'll get to my previous point if this takes extra time if this takes up extra effort on our part that is our job and we are going to do that job great thank you Adam um next I have Adam did you want to tell us the little thing that you had or yeah I would love to I I didn't want to get away from the conversation and steer into individual things again right away if there was more on this I think there will be more but um I'm gonna say that I think we should interleave you know the detail with the

[141:00] the big picture Okay so to the extent that we're on you and this is a good chance for you to say I want you just no I'm gonna go to you next journey I was just asking Adam if he wanted to finish the thought he had started sure so my uh smaller idea is um it has to do with using officers in a private capacity with their PD equipment cars all that this came up as a conversation with bi I think a lot of people have seen it at Whole Foods where it's an off-duty officer who's being hired to be there and I just have a problem with that just because um in my experience when I was working privately as security if I went and used my you know my shirt from the walrus and all my equipment and went to another job and had all that stuff on people would

[142:02] probably be thinking I was representing The Walrus at that time when in fact you know I wasn't and that stuff just gave me sort of extra clap so um I kind of have a personal concern with that aspect of our policing and we can get into that um but you know this showed up with bi um should that be a practice that we allow within the community I have no problem with officers doing whatever they want and they're off duty time but if they look like a Boulder police officer while they're not performing the job of a Boulder police officer then I have a little bit of concern that was my my one thing very good so that's noted Adam and we'll put that in the hopper uh junior up next um I I am done with this subject I I didn't want to add any more I just wanted to say you know I'm sorry that you know

[143:03] this was a very emotional and and and and and it's very personal to me as well because as a black person living here in Boulder and of course I understand that I have certain privileges you know as a council person you know when I'm out in the neighborhood but imagine those people who are not well known in the neighborhood as well so I think you know police reform is very personal to me it's something that I take very seriously and I do believe if any council member here says that having disciplinary Matrix for police officers is not very important and I think that person should definitely reconsider and think about it because I believe having these metrics and those little actions are very important to keep good police officers on the street and these things are very important especially when we're talking about racial profiling and all the other issues that Minority communities face whether it's in Boulder or around the world in the United States so I think

[144:01] these things are very important and we need to talk about them and as a council we need to move forward on these issues but I can understand people have different priorities and don't think of it that way but I do and thank you so we've got Rachel next and then if there's no other hands I'll I'll come in Rachel I appreciate that this is an extraordinarily difficult conversation um and subject and agree and um agree that we should be doing everything we can um as fast as we can to make this better so um again just hoping that we will um get to a point where we are making um where we are engaging so that we can get all of the ideas gathered and then [Music] promote as a council that we are making systemic change so thanks for sharing that Gene

[145:01] thank you Rachel um I I have a few thoughts on on this subject I mean there couldn't be a more important thing for us to take out and you know we launched in a way on our journey for police reform last year and we have worked I think diligently to try and take steps towards a better model of police oversight so in one way we're already moving ahead we've got a train that's moving getting is going to result in in very good things it's going to result in more Community involvement in the management of Citizen Police interaction and I think that would be useful it's also hopefully going to build trust in that there is a appeal system to talk about um police behavior that is perceived to be inappropriate or unfounded and we need to make sure that there is a good

[146:01] system to follow through on those citizens and also to audit the policies of the police department so I think we have had our community bring forward to us a a proposed system which involves citizen oversight of the police department so I think it's important that we have that going on and that we don't derail that with other potential fixes around the policing and the criminal justice system so that very important work I feel needs to continue on and will result in Improvement in the citizens of Boulder's ability to influence police policy as well as to monitor specific individual incidents that may or may not be outside of what we hope for for policing so I think we have one big chunk of work that we do not want to slow down or abandon and we

[147:01] heard from Amy and to Harold about that and so I feel that that's all to the good we want to make sure that's still going on we want to make sure the community understands how we got here and what the schedule is so I think we've done a nice job with that I will also say that this issue of policing is different than many of the city organizations because leap of force is can be used and has been used in our community by the police officers and so it's a it's a very important issue and it's very germane at the moment it's also a wicked problem this is Rachel and others have pointed out it's entangled with structural racism which is an issue that we know is a real problem in our boat community and our society so we can't solve the structural racism

[148:01] problem in their vacuum one of the points at which it intersects with people's lives is policing right and so to the extent that there is racism uh embedded in the police department we need to continue to work to try and reduce it and eliminate it over time Mary's point is well taken these are processes Unfortunately they don't happen overnight sometimes there are aha moments and hopefully the unfortunate police behavior in Minneapolis which resulted in the death of George Floyd is something that we all use as a learning moment where we all look at these policing issues and we say because people lose their lives when police power has been supplied we have to be very serious about how we approach this and we need to make sure that the racism Elements which are tied into

[149:01] bad policing or our knowledge understood and reduced and eliminated and so I think in Wicked problems like climate change like homelessness and like Leasing and and racism and how those intersect Wicked problems require kind of a two-pronged approach you can't just look at the big picture and come down from the top and you can't just look from the bottom up at little things you have to do both at the same time because both are important and that can be very frustrating because when some people want to talk about the big picture others are talking about the details and when some were talking about the details others want to be thinking about the big picture so I think the work that we have to do as a council is to be coherent um and we need to do that with input from our community and so being coherent when we have Wicked problems to cope

[150:01] with um means that we have to be patient and we have to be disinformed it doesn't mean that the urgency isn't there it doesn't mean that we shouldn't have this be a top priority those things are all true but I think that we need to acknowledge these will be tough problems they may be two steps forward and one step back as we're trying to solve them there may be unintended consequences of steps that we do take so I I would just point out that we need to be diligent about it but that like all Wicked problems it's not going to fall easily and it's going to be something that requires as Mary said kind of a lifetime a Continuum of work and every time we get better there's still always another step that we can take to be even better I want to close with with one thought that I want to share we all have different life experiences and one of my life experiences for 15 years was being an active volunteer firefighter for a

[151:00] community just to the west of Boulder and you know I got to see lots of police officers in my time um and some of them were really good some of them were not so good um but I would have to say on the whole most of the police officers that I worked with in a capacity of life-saving and rescue the police officers really showed up and they risked their lives alongside other people who were risking their lives like in went to one specific incident that if it weren't for a sheriff's deputy who waited in the Boulder Creek at two in the morning and attached a chain to a jeep that was lying on top of a person trapped in the creek that person would have died almost certainly and the police officer being there and risking their lives resulted in someone else's life being saved no guns no anything just a person who was sworn to

[152:00] protect who I witnessed do that job and save a life so this issue is complex not just in the policy realm but people are involved and um you know we need to respect I think the fact that that many good police officers would not have done what the officer in Minneapolis did which killed a person and we need to acknowledge that we need to teeth of racism fared it out make sure that our use of force policies preserved life as as the chief said and have the sanctity of human life at the center we need to also realize that the officers who are doing this work need our support they need the right training they need the right Framing and you know as Rachel said if we could get rid of all those those weapons in our society it would be a much easier conversation but we do

[153:00] live in the society that has as many guns as it does people in it so it started to go on for a long time I just want to point out that this is a time for us to be leaders and exhibit leadership and that means acknowledging everybody has a different take on the problem everyone's going to bring different suggestions and perspectives to the situation that we're going to need to have really open ears trying to integrate what we hear from the community and health staff make sure that all of us are oriented to the problem solving that we need to do so thank you chief for your time thank you Amy for the work that you've done um with the racial Equity um programs that we have that we're moving forward on I would invite any other council members to close however they'd like but I thank all of you for thinking hard about this Rachel I'm just concerned that we're closing and we haven't like decided to take any

[154:02] as a council practice steps I don't think so that's been my concern that if we um if we don't commit to owning this at our level that it is discretionary um with the police department and I don't and we haven't even indicated like where we're going so I don't get it uh would you like to lead us there do you have some proposal that you'd like to put out if there's some thank you okay um so I I think it should be added I had initially proposed tacking it on either to our police oversight broadening that part of our work plan too um police reform or some some higher level and hopefully investing the police oversight committee um or group with the ability to think more systematically through these issues

[155:00] and or creating an additional work group where some of us and experts in the community and um staff members and whoever else makes sense could be working through these you know on par with how we work through other big issues I just I think there seems to be to rise the level and I know that it's it's going to come up as part of the master plan reboot so if there's a way to if procedure that I don't care too much how we title it but I don't I don't want to just leave it with no like here's where we're checking in next and here's the procedures and here's how we're going to make sure that we are improving it seems like we need some some um tightness around this so that it is proceeding because this is um an extraordinary challenge an extraordinary issue that I think we need to get all the way around and under and through and come out some hard work in a better place

[156:02] I just wanted to Echo the words of one of the leaders that one of the protests over the weekend um who said do this not because you hate the police but because you love black people and I think that that's how we need to proceed and um and I um would disagree with Rachel that we don't have a plan I think we absolutely have a plan there's so many things going on as Adam pointed out and I just can't think of what else we would take on we've got the budget strategy committee we've got the racial Equity work going on we have um the police oversight board we have the police master plan and I I I I think that that

[157:01] we are taking many many steps and um perhaps the results will take some time to bear fruit but I I think we're taking the right steps okay so Mary's though okay Adam I'm sorry Adam yeah quick question when is the first um hearing by Council of the police master plan when does that process kick off because I think that might be the impetus that we're looking for um and hopefully that's sooner than later change you have an answer for that or I know part of an answer but maybe not exactly what you were hoping um so Maris been with this city maybe seven weeks at the most and is appearing in almost every city council meeting now um what I have been under the view of is

[158:03] that we were going to allow her to get her feet on under her and that later this year around the October time frame so the beginning of the fourth quarter that we would have the master plan kick off and as I indicated before there is funding in order to make that happen so that would be kind of the kickoff of it um probably a good time because we'll also be hearing from the oversight committee at that point as well so that was kind of my goal also I do want to mention that I had a number of conversations with Rachel last week on this topic and as a result of that you all received an email last night from Chief Harold outlining her 13 points of the police department's strategy and so an idea that I had is that perhaps um you know she did this very quickly in

[159:01] response to Rachel's request and we could refine that and bring that back to the city council sometime in July and the council could endorse it it's it's an action plan that if you endorsed it we could put it up on the website it could be the thing that you are promising the community that we're going to get done and then as she comes back with her updates she can address those items and the status on each of them thank you James so come back to Adam and say Adam did that answer your question and do you have any response to that yes that did answer my question um however I agree with Rachel to a point where you know before we get to tackle this full force in October what are we going to do to prevent unnecessary deaths or you know unnecessary Violence by our Police Department

[160:00] suggest that thank you there's two big heavy lifts that I can do relatively quickly I can change our use of force policy to be a model agency having said that I can't bring in the training that I want to because we're in a pandemic but I can change the policy itself and I can train the the staff so I know that we have a robust investigation process I can train that internally the next thing that we can do is work on the crime strategy itself and make sure that we have a coherent strategy moving forward so I can put an inspections policy in

[161:02] relatively quickly and I can have people inspecting the processes all of the this entire action plan probably will take me every bit of two years to accomplish if I do it right and we do it smart the way that everybody here demands evidence-based policies procedures and training I'm just under a strange time in history where there's a pandemic and I can't get outside help to make me well enable the police department to be trained a little bit differently in these big Concepts but I promise you everything that I can do in the meantime I've already started these initiations on just about every one of those action plans but some are going to be much heavier lists than others and so I hope you'll be patient with me

[162:00] because thoughtfulness is so important right now and doing this right and making sure the police understand why we're doing this is equally as important so know that I'm actively engaged in a lot of these steps already some cannot be completed until we can bring outside assistance in and I'll be glad to answer any further questions Adam I appreciate your comments thank you Chief um that's exactly what I want to hear I think the community is just looking for what can be done now and why if it can't be done why can't it be done I think you explained it perfectly so um that's all I was really looking for as we said you know structural change takes time but we wanted to make sure that we're doing everything we can to save life if we can do so much structural change in a short amount of time thank you thank you Adam I have Aaron

[163:02] okay first of all folks I'm having internet problems so I'm going to turn my video off so please bear with me while I do that um So Adam thank you for asking that question and uh Chief thanks for that that excellent response I really appreciate that and and also for putting together that action plan Jane I think your suggestion about um how we kind of you know follow the roadmap of that action plan and create that kind of higher level of council involvement with that um uh I think is a great idea so I think that gets towards my point of um of the council staying more involved and making sure things are moving forward and and the ownership that Rachel was talking about and then you know we you can't do uh everything at once um I I get it I do hear that you're moving aggressively forward on a lot of these items so I appreciate that so I look forward to the next steps thank you

[164:02] great Aaron thank you and I'm gonna Miss home again um in a way I agree with Adam's question and achieve's response that digging into use of force policies you know that's one of the things that I think many of us signed on to with the My Brother's Keeper pledge and I think one of the reasons that that idea of review and use the force policies came to the top of their recommendation list was because that is Adam the intersection between you know an officer on the street and and what they're trained in is the use of force policies from the department and how that's that communicated to the officers so um Rachel I I heard your request about what we're going to do concretely I think Mary and Jane and chief have

[165:00] kind of given you a perspective of what we've got set in place now I think if we want to bring up a a task force or a group to see through a panel to kind of help organize these thoughts and to go maybe Beyond policing um I think that's something that we could bring back and talk about at CC when we might be able to bring that forward what it might look like so I I'm not quite sure specifically what you were putting out there Rachel but I think that's worthy of further conversation from my individual perspective um you know if there's a way to use the energy found in the community right now to help us think through these issues of policing and non-policing I'd be open to it I think maybe we want to work over the next few weeks or perhaps even over the break and um outline specifics of that that

[166:00] thought process I'm not sure we have enough now to promise action but I I don't think anybody on this council is the way I'm interpreting the conversation over the last couple of weeks wants to not solve the big picture problem and all the attendant problems it's just a question of how we organize to do that um I agree with Mary we have a bunch in process there needs to be more I think we should continue the conversation I'm not sure we'll get there tonight um so those are my thoughts I'm going to ask for one final round of comments if anyone has them otherwise I'm gonna say some thank yous new one any other council member have comments just another thing that I forgot to bring up um we also have the racial Equity plan out there in the community um which Amy's doing Amy and the Outreach team are doing work on um so I just wanted to bring that up too because that's been a process for a while as well

[167:01] thank you very much Mary okay well thank you Jane Amy and chief Harold for your input your feedback being willing to answer questions as you know this is a huge focus of our community our state and our nation right now so I know that it's kind of what the city organization in the hot seat I I appreciate your responsiveness um to getting us the the I will call it the written version of the action plan going forward around policing that's very helpful I agree with Jane that if we consider that and commit to it if Council pledges the city um government will be working to that plan we put it on the website will be a static document it'll be something that changes and updates so thank you to everybody all of my fellow council members I know this is a hard conversation and to the community we invite your continued input if it could not be form letters that would be great

[168:00] but if you have specific things you want to volunteer to work you have ideas of what we should be doing as we go forward you know hearing specific feedback on the plans that staff has laid out or feedback on what Rachel's put out there about what kind of group that we could put together that might be helpful with this that would all be great so I want to close by saying thank you these are big heart problems we have to address them because there are a matter of life and death for members of our community so thank you all and I look forward to our next steps okay with that I will turn back to Debbie and see what our next agenda item is Dave yeah and this is something that we have been preparing for for several weeks I'm going to introduce as you well know her Cheryl patelli who is our Chief

[169:02] Financial Officer and Cheryl will be introducing the other members of the team that will be making the presentation so Cheryl thanks Jane I'm not I'm not sure who has the presentation oh thank you thanks for bringing it up um next slide please so thanks again Council and good evening tonight we have with us for our first speakers Rich wobicine Brian Lewandowski and Robert mcnown all three from CU Boulder and uh first of all I just want to thank them for helping us they are going to present to you um the first round of our modeling in our Boulder tax revenue forecast along with a small section on updates to economic conditions since our last meeting and Cara and I will get into the city

[170:01] budget Outlook I'll talk about the April sales tax numbers Carl will get into our our modeling the city has done which is inclusive of all revenue types and then both car and I will discuss budget reduction strategies that we have been working on council member Joseph uh from the financial strategy committee will bring forth their recommendations regarding the 2021 Council budget focus and then at the end we added a really short section in Kurt fernhober director of Housing and human services will be presenting an update on the housing and Human Services budget and really with the point of helping understand how that budget changes from year to year turn it over to Rich Brian and Robert

[171:09] all right well thank you for inviting us to be here tonight and uh as a citizen I thoroughly enjoyed the last discussion I just want to pass that on to the council so moving along on this topic uh as I was as was mentioned there's three of us who'll be involved the presentation tonight I um I'm going to lead off and Brian's going to do the second part of the presentation it's it's not particularly long and we attempted to address the questions we got from Council last week that were raised so hopefully some of those will be answered in the presentation and then when we get to discussion questions about the modeling in particular uh Robert mcnow will be helping to answer the questions for us

[172:01] so if I could have the next slide please so what you know is that quarterly GDP has been erratic to say the least and we had the first quarter revised to minus five percent uh the the forecast that we're using which is underlying what we're doing our projections shows about a minus 30 plus percent for the second quarter on an annualized basis and then a very strong bounce back in the third quarter but this combination of factors and then what carries on after that really creates the so-called swoosh effect in terms of the recovery so when we get to Brian's comments in uh just a few minutes he's going to tell you the assumptions underneath that but this is what the sort of GDP forecast looks like that's underlying that next slide please one thing I really want to highlight or

[173:01] we really want to highlight is we saw this big surge in April in terms of personal income we also saw people saving and not taking not spending a lot on their credit cards or in credit debt which given the circumstances probably good it doesn't help the recovery quite as much but it's obviously good for people to shore up their financial positions but the big highlight here is the green box at the top so the recent personal income went up was because transfer payments the 1200 to 2400 checks the unemployment insurance payments and so on were exceedingly strong that gave the personal income the really big boost when you look at dividends and Proprietors income those are proprietor's Income the smaller dividends is pretty close to the same employee compensation fell as you would

[174:02] expect given the shutdown of so many uh businesses and the loss of so many jobs in such a short period of time the Highlight here is going forward you're not going to see that kind of transfer payment receipts by next year in 2021. the next piece of legislation which is being debated right now I think the president is suggesting now he wants to hold off on putting anything in place until July after the 4th of July but I suspect that will include additional unemployment benefits maybe at a reduced rate federal government unemployment benefits at a reduced rate I certainly think it's going to include some provision for state and local government transfers given the fiscal condition of the states at this point in time next slide please so this is the employment change and just the magnitude you can see we had to

[175:01] totally rescale everything minus uh 22 million and then of course we saw the positive report last week a positive two and a half million these jobs coming back largely in some of the industries that were shut down Manufacturing in particular that retool but also Leisure and hospitality and and you know some some uh accommodations in particular nonetheless we've still seen you know 20 30 million people unemployed in a short period of time and it's going to take a little bit of time the employment to come back and that's part of the sort of swoosh comment you're going to hear more about here shortly from Brian next slide please so this is just a summary of the employment change March and April in Colorado so you can sort of see where those jobs have been lost on the left-hand side the percentage of the

[176:01] jobs lost in that time period the right hand side the actual number of jobs as you can see 75 of the losses on the right hand side were in other services which includes things like tattoo parlors beauty salons um car repair shops all these kinds of personal services retail trade which you're well aware of Arts entertainment and Recreation and then Healthcare and social assistance and then the bottom one in particular accommodations and Food Services that's your leisure and Hospitality sector the health care and social assistance as as doctors offices and other types of things are reopening would expect to see a number of those jobs returning as well as some restaurants reopening as you know we do think there will be additional I keep calling it collateral

[177:00] damage to the government sector certainly to the construction sector in the certain part of the Year certain parts of a business professional and business services are starting to show some weakness and then real estate rental and leasing we're going to have one class of course of real estate the commercial with the retail spaces and the restaurants and so on which is probably going to you know have suffer some impacts so you can see those pieces just as a sort of setting up the now and then the future next slide please so this last I think this is the last slide in the front piece just shows you where Boulder is positioned in terms of unemployment rates the state was 11.7 uh or a little over 11. you can see Boulder is uh below the state average and Boulder is also below um in terms of the Front Range it's one

[178:01] of the lowest on the of the Front Range why is that well one obvious explanation would be our mix of Industries we have proportionately a little bit less in in tourism and Leisure and Hospitality not so much in restaurants but in the tourism and Leisure Hospitality but the other important thing to note here with unemployment numbers is that the unemployment rates are reported by where you live not where you work so to the extent that people who are getting laid off in retail and restaurants are not living in the city of Boulder but are living in uh or living in Boulder County but they're living out of Boulder County and in Westminster or in Denver or some other place they're going to show up in the unemployment rates for another County not the unemployment rates for Boulder County next slide please so with that I'm going to hand it off to my colleague Brian Lewandowski to talk about the boulder revenue forecast

[179:03] Thank you Rich and thank you particularly to the finance department for their collaboration providing valuable data and insight in order for us to really create a robust economic model that hopefully provides helpful guidance to the city regarding Revenue scenarios please Advance the slide so in the call with you in late April on April 28th in fact rich and I discussed various shapes of the recovery people are getting very creative in the letters and shapes they use to describe the potential recovery four of which are displayed for you here v-shaped u-shaped the swoosh and the W recovery our internal insight has leaned towards a w or a swoosh despite some renewed optimism about a v-shaped recovery following the national jobs report last week next slide please our model begins with historic and

[180:00] projected National economic data about gross domestic product about employment about personal income industry growth retail sales inflation Auto Sales construction and many other variables we then relate how the Colorado economy performs in relation to the nation and how the Bulger economy performs in relation to the nation and the state and ultimately how Bolder taxes performs in relation to the national state and local economies we then leverage various forecasts about the national economy also called macroeconomic forecasts or macro forecasts we Source these from Moody's Analytics a forecast that is also leveraged by the Colorado office of State planning and budgeting Colorado legislative Council the Colorado demography office and CDOT we select from a range of Moody's forecast scenarios about the national economy and then this macro forecast ultimately drives our local forecast the Moody's macro forecast includes many

[181:01] assumptions one is that this is going to be a swoosh economic recovery but with no with notable Variations by industry for instance they're projecting that the manufacturing industry may look more like a v-shaped recovery while the Leisure and Hospitality recovery may look more like a swoosh recovery so there's there's variances when we're looking at specific Industries the second major assumption that we looked at is that the GDP Gap remains in place until 2023 meaning that there's excess capacity and labor slack in the market for at least three years we also note that the short-term GDP growth is is very volatile Rich mentioned that the first quarter GDP shrank by five percent uh on an annualized basis the second quarter GDP is expected to decrease 33 the third quarter is expected to increase 16 but I

[182:02] want to emphasize how to read these GDP growth numbers these are annualized numbers meaning that q1 decreased 1.3 percent over Q4 2019 but when this rate is annualized revenue or a GDP rather decreased at a five percent annualized rate so when we annualize it it just is is projecting it out as if it were to grow at that same rate for a whole year so 2 2 may have decreased or may decrease a simple 9.4 from q1 to Q2 but if it continues at this pace then the rate of decline would be minus 33 hence that 33 annualized rate of uh of growth or loss another assumption is that the employment in the bottom this quarter the second quarter of 2020 with the recovery in 2024 this scenario does not assume a second business disruption like the lockdown that we're just now emerging from and it

[183:01] does assume a vaccine in the summer of 2021. of course Moody's also recognizes there are many risks to the macro Outlook including a few that I'll mention one that there could be a second wave of the coronavirus that is is more severe than they are currently expecting um another risk is that there's a lack of government to government stimulus as Rich was mentioning a few moments ago so that would be a lack of federal stimulus to State and local governments and also that we we could see a sharp rise in bankruptcies particularly among small businesses more than um we're sort of currently thinking about it next slide please I think it's helpful to reflect on what uh has happened during past Cycles in particular let's examine the last recession which spanned 18 months from December 2007 to June 2009 so go ahead and Advance please

[184:01] um so looking back at this last event Colorado employment peaked in May 2008 and declined for 20 months before bottoming out in January 2010 and returning to growth ultimately losing 6.6 percent of jobs Statewide older employment declined for 21 months before returning to growth after January of 2010 ultimately ultimately losing 6.8 percent of jobs so our Bolder job loss was longer by one month and it was a little bit deeper than what we saw Statewide Colorado personal income and Boulder personal income peaked in the second quarter of 2008 and declined for the next five quarters before hitting the trough in Q3 of 2009 6.7 percent lower for Colorado and 10.5 percent lower from Boulder so again it was a little bit deeper in Boulder older sales taxes followed a similar path on a 12-month rolling sum Boulders

[185:01] sales taxes peaked in April 2008 and reached bottom in November of 2009 dropping 9.3 percent so I have a quick question yes I may um your graphs here that show them job losses and recoveries does the same hold true as what you said previously that the job losses show up in other counties if the people do not live in the county so the job losses show up where the job resides so if we see job losses at Boulder institutions those job losses show up in the Bolder data but unemployment is based on a household survey so that's based on where people live the location where they live not the location of where they work okay so the job losses in the lower left-hand graph then is job losses

[186:04] is job losses so even a year after the official end of the recession as employment and personal income started regrowing as you can see in these charts Colorado employment personal income older employment Bolder personal income and Boulder taxes were below their peaks so not until personal income recovery did we see a recovery in sales taxes which then impacts the this this decrease in in personal income and employment ultimately impacts consumption which impacts retail sales taxable sales and taxes so this is this is a really important Point as we look forward at the projections so please Advance one so now let's look at what we're facing today going to advance another one please our model has Colorado's economy stagnating slightly longer than the nation before recovering so we are

[187:02] projecting nine quarters with personal income below the peak with a q1 2021 deficit so that's you know a year from now uh 21.6 billion below the high water mark from Q4 of 2019 as federal unemployment backfills go away and does the job market remains uh depressed so go ahead and advance as Rich showed you earlier in this presentation personal income is comprised of dividends interest and rent transfer payments proprietor income and wage and salary income the wage and salary income specifically is projected to follow a similar pattern in the states down 7.5 billion um a smaller amount than personal income because we're looking at just the the wage and salary piece of personal income please advance of course this is driven by the fall in employment that we projected reaching bottom this month uh here in June but

[188:01] taking until late 2022 to rebound to the prior recession Peak which is slightly faster than the National Employment recovery that we're looking at but a q1 2021 may still show a deficit of six percent so that's again taking a look at about a year from now we're still projecting this employment deficit please advance which is why we still see an estimated deficit of 4.7 percent for Boulder personal income in q1 2021 so I think there's sort of this um this this thought process where it goes um if if we've we've been under lockdown if businesses have been shut down uh like what we've currently seen over the past two or three months then this should really be the worst of it and we should be on this uh this path to recovery but um the story that I've just told you is really showing you how this deficit in employment and income lead to

[189:00] an economic deficit that lasts until about the first quarter of 2021 before we actually start marching towards a recovery please advance which leads us to Total taxes the summation of sales taxes Auto use taxes construction use taxes other use taxes and property taxes which is what we were charged with helping you all forecast we provided a low medium and high estimate for the tax revenue streams our medium estimate for taxes calls for 7.4 percent decline for calendar year 2020 followed by a modest decline in 2021 before recovering and again that 2021 decline is really led by the first quarter Revenue surpasses the prior peak in 2023 as the employment and income gaps close the upper bound optimistically shows a 0.8 percent decrease for 2020 full year with recovery of Revenue in 2021 for all

[190:01] this pessimistic or low scenario opens Boulders revenue recovery on a path beyond the forecast Horizon that we looked at now let's look at a couple of specific Revenue sources please advance this is a slide that I showed you in late April but then I could only reflect on March data when we looked at this in April now we can view national retail sales by category for the months of March and April overall retail sales fell by 23 percent in two months this is a record decrease with Grocery and liquor sales leading with over 10 percent growth and losses across all all of the other categories the worst being in clothing stores which were down about 90 percent furniture stores down above 67 percent Electronics 65 and restaurants and bars down 50 in just two months next slide please data that we received from the city staff showed grocery sales taxes increasing 75 from February to March and

[191:00] 89 year-over-year well all other retail sales decreased 7.6 percent year over year uh I'm sorry for from February to March illustrating a similar pattern to what I just showed you for national retail sales so a very different magnitude so given the volatility in some of these categories we model grocery store sales separate from all other retail netting a loss of retail sales taxes overall of 13.1 percent for 2020 so that's our 2020 forecast is minus 13.1 we see a hangover in grocery sales following the sector's extraordinary growth in 2020. grocery sales decreased from 2020 to 2021 in our forecast before returning to growth but aside from this anomaly in in grocery sales in 2020 it's more or less a trend growth from 2019 to 2021. all other retail sales return to growth

[192:00] in 2022 in our model but um they still remain below Peak for the Horizon so it's start they start to grow from from a much smaller base and it's on a slower path uh to recovery next slide please next we looked at construction activity as an indicator for construction use taxes along with other driving indicators for construction in 2019 the thing the construction in Boulder County was down five percent compared to 2018 and for the first four months of 2020 the value of construction in Boulder County was down 33 percent year over year compared to the first four months of 2019. so as we look forward nationally and Statewide the construction Outlook is down to the kova 19 pandemic which does for Boulder we we end up projecting a decrease in construction use taxes for the city of Boulder please advance

[193:01] um of course this this trajectory uh for a construction use taxes may change based on just a few projects that can get permitted so if we saw a couple of large residential or commercial projects come online that could change this construction use tax trajectory next slide please and I'm going to end by talking about property and taxes in Colorado most property including residential and Commercial is assessed every two years hence the assessed value from 2019 essentially designates the taxable value of your home in 2020 and 2021. change in property taxes and the office assessment years then are largely based on transactions or sales hence what we get here looks like a step function in how property taxes grows next slide please the great impending risk to property taxes is a Gallagher Amendment and there's been a couple of really good articles about this uh recently in the

[194:00] Colorado sun and the Denver Post that explains this pretty well this amendment was adopted by Colorado voters in 1982 and it intends to split the property tax burden between residential and Commercial properties for residential it's fixed at 45 percent of the burden and for commercial it's fixed at 55 percent of the president residential growth and appreciation has outpaced commercial growth and appreciation in Colorado requiring adjustments to the assessment ratio to keep this property tax split in check so for commercial properties the assessment ratio is 29 meaning that a million dollar commercial property has a two hundred ninety thousand dollar taxable value a million times 29 percent Residential Properties are currently assessed in 7.15 meaning that a million dollar residential property has a 71 500 taxable value based on the city general fund Mill Ave 9.948 Mills the commercial building owner under this scenario I

[195:02] described the Widow the city of Boulder near the 2900 while the residential homeowner would owe the city of Boulder 711 in addition to the uh the the the County property taxes School District in Special Districts it has been suggested that the residential assessment ratio could drop to 5.88 if that were the case a million dollar residential property would then net Boulder 585 versus 711 which would be a decrease to that Homeowner of 18 roll this up for all of the Residential Properties in Boulder and it yields a decrease of about 4 million for Boulder on average per year over the the the years from 2022 to 2025. then think about what this means for other local taxing jurisdictions like Boulder Valley School District which includes homes not only in the city of Boulder of course but all of Boulder Valley and bpsds Levy is 48.359 nearly

[196:03] five times the rate for the city of Boulder General funds so that starts to multiply it then in your head what that would mean by for the Boulder Valley School District and for our Special Districts within the the region next slide please I just want to end with a couple of comments I want to remind you that we build our models using time series data and track how the local economy performs in relation to the regional state and National economies our forecasts may be too higher too low reflecting uncertainty in the economy but that's why we provide you with a range with our most likely estimate we're updating the forecast monthly to reflect the most current economic situation and we're working closely with City staff I have to say that City staff has the additional benefit of institutional knowledge that can help refine our economic Outlook we're also looking at other refinements to improve our model including

[197:01] forecasting a more dis at a More disaggregated Level I already mentioned how we we forecast Grocery and all other retail sales separately we're looking at ways to further disaggregate those revenue streams to see if we can come up with even a a better forecast um I'm going to stop there go ahead and Advance one slide and if you all have the time Robert mcnown rich and I are happy to take some of your questions [Music] famous you're on mute um so I don't have any hands up right now questions um mark [Music] if you're talking you're muted my apologies how do these forecasts compare to the forecast you made in your

[198:02] last presentation to us my recollection was you projected a trough of about 15 unemployment um rising to eight percent by the end of the year in 2020 are these consistent with that have they changed for the worst change for the better well I would say on the sort of national macro going to the first part of your question the main numbers and the unemployment numbers associated with that were a little bit of a surprise but I was talking eight nine percent by the end of the year and I think most most of the forecasts now are saying it's probably going to be still at 10 by the end of the year 9 or 10 so I think they're pretty consistent in that respect um in terms of the other types of recovery by sector I think that's still pretty much unknowns at this point okay thank you

[199:01] thanks Mark Mary thank you for that presentation um so there's been um a lot of talk about how this event has affected disproportionately people of lower income and there's also a lot of conversation out there about remedying that um that issue and and doing so via things like minimum wage and um paid sick leave so any of your models show the recovery if such policies were implemented and if so um how well minimum wage is already built into it at both

[200:01] National and state level the unpaid sick leave is um I'm sorry paid SEC leave is one of those policies that it's not clearer at all it's going to actually happen now because of the massive deficits that the state government in particular uh is is looking at it at this point uh I I do think you're raising a very um valid question though not only are is this group of lower income strategy disruportionately affected but the recovery of those jobs in the way they used to be may be much much more difficult and there may be I think more Progressive attempts to do retraining and other types of things to help those people get get back into the labor force at better paying with better paying jobs

[201:00] the unemployment rate for people with a high school diploma or less is over double what it does for college graduates even right now in this you know sort of catastrophic time so it's having a very very strong impact on less educated and lower income folks and so you um you said that the minimum wage is already in place and you're referring to the federal minimum wage well the state has a minimum wage that's much higher than the federal minimum wage correct um yeah the 11 minimum wage but if um like say Boulder County were to implement oh so a minimum wage that is I shouldn't call it minimum wage I should call it living wage yeah I think I think the states is Brian's going to help me on this but I think the states is at 12 Now isn't it you know so the state's up to 12. the question is would you go to 15 or a number larger than that and I think that's a very legitimate question you know what does it take to live on

[202:02] um but no the model doesn't incorporate increases beyond what we know in legislation so all the models are business as usual recovery uh uh I guess that's a fair statement yeah businesses yeah as if anything as usual right now Adam yeah thanks Mary for bringing up the minimum wage um unfortunately that was one of the things that dropped off when covet hit um because of small businesses not being able to bear that but that's another topic I'd love to bring back as soon as possible because we could get more resiliency for individuals if they were paid higher and hopefully a living wage which is about 15 in this County um my specific question was have you have you looked at any statistics about office space usage and what the long-term impact on office

[203:02] space might be considering that we may get a shift to a work from home culture more permanently than we anticipated much faster because of this event um so I'm just wondering because for long-term planning of the city I think that's a really important aspect where we could maybe be looking more at housing options instead of office space options in the future so and that's a good um so we've been following this sort of the short run there's the long run question which I think you're asking structural change kind of question but the short run we've been asking and conversing a lot and confidentially with different real estate companies and Rental and so on who tell us that actually residential is holding up I know this isn't your question but I'm just going to say that residential is holding up just fine uh industrial warehouse space is doing great and office space and uh and Retail

[204:02] are struggling and they're starting to fall behind on payments especially of course the retail and they say they have been approached by some companies about downsizing their space to go to your point specifically but they also say there are some companies that are approaching them on increasing their space because their people are in too close together at this point in time so when they bring them back to have them socially distanced going into the future they need to put more cubicles in or space them out more and so so far that's it that's an inconclusive at this we don't we don't know which way it's going but your point is well taken if more people are working from home I think it it suggests a couple of things one is what you know the office space thing the second thing is you better ramp up the Telecom system big time um so you know yeah thanks for that I knew

[205:00] you probably wouldn't have a long-term answer but that's definitely as you're looking at things something that I think is important to answer um for for many cities not just our own right um yeah that's that was my only question thank you sure okay so that's the last hand up our last uh final question um thank you again for the presentation I'm Richard and Brian it's very helpful on fails to try and figure out where we fit the macro Trends um on retail New York City has seen a trend of retail storefronts not having their rental rates drop even as the rates are high enough that retailers are being driven out of business and they look at various remedies for that do you have any thoughts on if retail continues to be down as we go through a recession

[206:01] period is there the likelihood that we'll end up with a lot of empty storefronts and you know are there ways that the government can help with that or is that just something where High land values keep storefronts vacant for a long time so I think Brian has thoughts on this but I I do think you're going to see I mean you saw the announcement in today's paper about three restaurants to start with I I do think it's going to be very difficult for businesses to operate particularly restaurants to operate uh with half capacity or less those it's a low margin business to start with and so when you're talking about fewer people in the restaurant and lower volume it's going to be tough so we'll we'll see how that sort of bears out but I do think that's going to lead to more storefront issues we have seen by the way like you probably have read or heard Starbucks

[207:01] for every one of their locations in the country is telling the landlords we're cutting the amount we're paying you take it or leave it so they're pushing the issue onto the landlords one sort of policy that's come up is some sort of a rent reduction for a period of time at least I've heard this proposed where it was a combination of the landlord giving up some of the rent and also some of it being property taxes from the community now we're not in any particular shape to be giving up property taxes with the budget issues so I don't know but it's it's one of those things where it's shared suffering if you will in terms of who's helping to support the businesses both the government and the and the real Realtors or Finance people that are behind the real estate so we'll see if any of those things come forward otherwise I think they're going to be looking at a lot of storefronts that are going to have you

[208:00] know take a while to fill is that what they'd prefer or would they prefer to help those businesses continue on and and not have to refill everything over time and especially true with retail of course with the shift to all of the e-commerce that's occurring at the same time thank you Richard um there you've got your hands still up electronically are you good okay so I think we have no hands up I will kick it back to Shane to see how you want to proceed here Cheryl I think it's Cheryl yeah it is thank you so next slide please start the conversation and hide some April sales tax and other Revenue results to you just as a reminder sales tax and use tax um represents 48 of total City Revenue

[209:00] excluding utilities and just a point I I want to reiterate that was just brought up by Rich and Brian's presentation um we obviously have seen a pretty big decline uh because of the closures related to covid but as we move into the 2021 budget they are predicting a decline over our 2020 sales and use tax amounts and a lot of that as they stated relates to the the Fallen personal income so um tonight we're focusing more on 2020 but as we come to you um with the budget we will be discussing the 2021 projections slide so April sales and use tax data as a reminder our revenue reports are on a cash basis which means we only include the amounts in our report if they're actually paid so we do have people who

[210:02] file uh but don't pay those amounts would not be included in our report you will see April and it is our first full month of closure and to date we we believe we've processed most of our returns for April they were due May 20th but we still get stragglers coming in so what you see tonight might be slightly different than what you see in the revenue report which will come out in about a week or so um when we provided some information last month on delinquencies I'm happy to report the February and March uh delinquency numbers have improved um many businesses were waiting uh to see what was happening with Federal stimulus money and also been working with the city on some extensions and payment programs we also sent out statements to all of our businesses on May 1st and they've been working with

[211:00] them um to get uh have them remit some pass-through collections and then if you look at our April number that's our most updated we did receive 91 of our expected filings which um given the situation is is positive in my opinion and of the businesses that filed 1.9 have not paid which amounts to about a hundred and sixty thousand dollars in taxes and like I mentioned last month most of that uh those that have filed and not paid are in eating places in general retail which of course we know are the uh categories that are experiencing severe business interruptions because of covid next slide so this slide and I apologize it's really busy but I also think it's a really important slide with a lot of

[212:00] good information for you um the again the darker the red the steeper the decline and similarly the darker the grain the um better the increase uh over the previous time period so our first column on this provides you what percentage of total sales each category is for our sales tax collections 2018 and 2019 columns represent year over year so 2019 is over the entire year 2018. and then the next four columns M over M represents month over month so these are just for that particular month they are not year to date and um as you can see in April that's where we see our steep decline due to covid we were down 35 percent month over month in April

[213:00] it was slightly better than what we had projected and provided to you last month we had projected a 45 decrease we saw better than expected activity and computer related business sector uh this represents large corporate Sellers and sellers of software and online streaming services so Boulder is unique we do tax online software sales so if you imagine people are sitting at home either through doing work or personal it's not that surprising now that we think of it that those categories are that category increase the way that it did we also saw a performance from our projections in food stores and transportation and utilities and I'll explain a little of that on the next slide and then our final column oh sorry Chris our final column is year to date April so that's uh the first four months of

[214:02] the year compared to the first four months cumulatively of last year and we're down seven percent we certainly do expect this to continue on a downward Trend as we get more months of sales tax data um in the system next slide so we're going to show three of our largest categories first is eating places which represents 16 of our sales and use tax revenue and I do want to point out that these charts um are year-to-date numbers um rather than month-to-month numbers but what you can see as we mentioned last month in February there is a decline in eating places and you might wonder why because uh kovid did not have all the closures in February it really relates to those delinquencies that we talked about February taxes are we're

[215:00] due March 20th so similarly you see a steep decline moving on between both delinquencies but more so the closures related to covid in March and April for eating places next slide General retail is 22.5 of our sales and use tax revenue uh March came up stronger than what we thought a lot of that related to the stock up buying that we just uh discussed but also we had a strong showing from our online retailers remitting voluntarily to us so that was good news as far as April although we did get our online retailers submitting uh it did not offset the Steep declines that we saw in our brick and mortar stores here in town next slide food stores represents 15 of total sales

[216:00] and use tax again these perform better than what we had expected one thing to note with food stores that they do include liquor stores which have continued to show very strong performance during the pandemic so um we we hope to see the continuation of strong uh showing in food stores but like Rich mentioned uh next year it may be a little bit different of a picture because of all of the stocking up that has taken place next slide one more please Chris thanks so our next category I want to talk about is accommodations in short-term rental tax and as we all suspected uh this has taken a complete nosedive we did talk to the convention in visitors bureau last week and found out that their estimates

[217:00] have been revised down to show an additional 554 thousand dollar decrease from 2019 amounts so their model now shows a drop of 4.3 million in hotel accommodation taxes for 2020 and we did include this new revised amount in our forecast that Cara will talk about soon so we uh council member Yates and I both discussed a little bit about the CVB and what they're doing to deal with their shortfall they do receive 20 of this Revenue so that equates to about 862 000 drop for them and they're making strategic uh decisions and adjusting their work plan operations and Staffing levels for this year next slide so this slide shows just some of our

[218:00] other major Revenue sources that have been impacted by covid last month I showed you march revenue and that was down anywhere from 30 to 90 percent as you can see April is down anywhere from 22 to 100 percent one thing I want to note again is the highway users tax fund the collections from the states do lag and the transportation department is estimating up to a 70 decrease during the closure so that will certainly have a significant impact on Transportation so again we used all of this information and and information that we received from Rich and his team to put in our new modeling which car is going to go over next thank you Cheryl and good evening

[219:01] Council car Skinner Assistant Director of Finance uh next slide so as Cheryl indicated we are incorporating into our revenue forecast models um the output or the results from cu's economic econometric model and we have also been Consulting not only with the CVB with regard to Accommodations Tax but also many of our departments who are closest to these different types of taxes and fees so we've Incorporated all of that into our Revenue model next slide so this slide um before we get into our new modeling results we wanted to put before you um the results of cu's retail sales tax forecast against what we presented to you back in April and um I appreciate that Brian went quickly

[220:00] through his forecast slides but I'll probably add a little bit of commentary to to their forecast as I understand it as we've been conversing over the last week so the three um bars in yellow are cu's estimates for 2020 retail sales tax and the medium is actually their most likely result and then the high and the low are the bounds of that result so they are less probable but they are potential so the medium is the most likely and that Medium you'll see is right next to scenario a as we presented back in April so they are quite similar I think there's about a one percent difference there and then they're low which means low revenue is a little bit higher than our scenario B in scenario C that we presented back in April also so a little bit more optimistic than what we were thinking at that point

[221:01] what their High bound has done is sort of you know reintroduced a more optimistic potential than what we had back in April next slide so now we're going to show the um Revenue shortfall estimates as we did last month or back in April next slide so this is similar to what we presented and this is potential Revenue shortfall by source so again we have the same six sources down the left and a column and retail sales taxes across the top and we've lined these up with the CU modeling and so the um First Column is the most optimistic and what they're calling High meaning High Revenue which then translates to a lower or smaller shortfall then the Shaded blue again the most

[222:00] likely and again similar to our scenario a is the medium revenue revenue level or medium shortfall and then the column to the right is the most pessimistic or the low Revenue which results in the greatest shortfall um so we did we applied a lot of their assumptions to these other Revenue lines um but I do want to draw your attention to the third line down the Parks and Recreation fees you'll notice that that's the same number across and that was based upon discussions with Parks and Rec and they think that is their best estimate um you'll note that that is a substantial decrease of 43 percent and then the lowest line as um Cheryl mentioned Accommodations Tax we have inserted the updated forecast from the convention Visitors Bureau of that decline of 4.3 million which is a 49 decrease and we have that

[223:00] consistently across the three scenarios um so big picture in the most up for those that we modeled a range the declines are between six and ten percent to the most pessimistic the declines are between 16 and 19 percent so a pretty wide range of a 10 but I think that that reflects the uncertainty of the situation next slide so this again is similar to a slide we showed last month and this is the potential Revenue shortfall by fund and again the funds in the left-hand column are those funds that are our largest funds that are impacted uh by covid and again the same three columns um and we just do want to note that the medium which is similar to what we presented in

[224:02] April uh to scenario a the total across These funds is 32.6 million that's very close to what we were presenting in April which was 31.9 Million the most pessimistic the column on the right across all these funds the decline would be 42 million which is just slightly less than 41.1 that we showed last month but again so that range from 32 to 42 is similar to the range that we had last month so I think the big picture story is that it hasn't the Outlook hasn't changed substantially between last month and this month what has changed is this sort of reintroduction of this potential high or most optimistic where the total decline would be about 25 million dollars [Music]

[225:01] next slide so facing that those potential budget shortfalls the city has put in place a number of budget balancing actions and we're going to talk about those quickly next slide and before we discuss the budget balancing actions we thought we'd provide a little bit of context with regard to the budgets of these funds that are most impacted and so for the general fund in the governmental Capital fund which is funded by the general fund and for open space in Mountain Parks the majority of those budgets are for operating Personnel expenditures which is abbreviated here with PE and then the next largest budgeted category of expenditures is operating non-personnel expenditures or npe and then they each have about seven percent for Capital and that really reflects

[226:02] reflects the services and programs and the Personnel needed to provide those services Transportation you'll notice has more Capital but it is still only one-third and um and a lot of operating npe and PE [Music] and then next slide and then the parks and recreation department has two funds that are significantly impacted the 25 cent sales tax fund and then the recreation activity fund that we sort of refer to as the RAF you'll notice on for the raft more than two-thirds of that fund is budgeted for personnel expenditures so Parks and Recreation has really taken a systems approach and considered all funding sources when prioritizing operations and making their reductions so that's sort of the context of of the budgets and composition of the budgets as we move into looking toward budget reductions

[227:00] next slide so preliminary totally total balancing actions by fund um you'll see the funds down the left column and then the First Column is this non-personnel and capital and you'll notice that um across all funds the total of the savings is nearly 19 million and it is 67 or two-thirds of the total savings that we've identified so far are non-personnel and capital related the next column over is personnel expense savings and that's 9.5 million and 33 percent and then of course the total is 20 about 28.4 million dollars so I'm going to talk a little bit more about these non-personnel and capital um actions and then Cheryl is going to come back on and talk to you about the Personnel reductions next slide

[228:03] so npe budget balancing actions and this this slide actually should probably say npe and capital um so of the total npe and capital reductions of nearly 19 million we did look first to capital of what we could defer and we did identify approximately 6.3 million dollars of capital projects that we could defer um that is a third of the total npe in Capital Savings together and just to go down these um one by one to give you an idea of the types of projects that we deferred the first is the Alpine Balsam Hospital deconstruction and um we are currently only planning to defer 1.6 million dollars of that budget uh the exterior deconstruction is best done at the same time as the flood mitigation

[229:00] construction along Balsam which is currently scheduled to happen in 2021 so it made sense to defer that budget for deferring the purchase of the incident command vehicle there are a number of City facility projects that we're deferring to City buildings as well as the tea house and bimoka we are deferring the general fund portion of the on-street pay station replacement project so we've just reduced the scope so that the general fund is not contributing to that project in fewer taste stations will be replaced Boulder parks and rec has deferred their Flatirons Golf Course Pro Shop and concessions renovation as well as delaying their Master Plan update uh transportation department has deferred a number of projects and the types of projects that they're deferring are listed there the next item it's titled

[230:00] um charge Broadband expenses to cop proceeds and what this is is the general fund had Advanced funding for the Broadband project and had some broadbed project management expenses budgeted in 2020 and when the bids came in for the project they came in below estimates and so there is a capacity within the cop proceeds to cover those costs so there's savings there to the general fund um the next line item is actually part of uh atv1 is a reduction and it's a reduction because the original 2020 budget had a nearly four hundred thousand dollar general fund loan to the local power municipalization project and the team has revised the project plan so that loan is no longer needed and then the last grouping is you know virtually every Department identified

[231:01] savings that it could generate through work plan changes or because there are Staffing changes um the reality that there are lowest service levels in part or largely due to the fact that we have closed facilities canceled events and canceled projects and so this large last category we're going to show you um some examples of the types of reductions that departments made on the next slide [Music] so this is um to give you a flavor of the types of things that departments have identified for each of these departments they've identified many more in addition to these but these are a sampling you'll notice the first three for climate initiatives Community vitality and Facilities those all very clearly relate to changes in service levels or realities associated with the closures so there's reduced demand for

[232:03] um Boulder counties Pace advising service so there's a little savings There community Vitality expects we will get a credit for the Eco Pass Program during this period of time where fair when fairs were suspended um because we have closed buildings we are realizing savings from those buildings being closed the next one financed we're happy to say we had a very successful implementation of our gen tax sales tax software and because of that we can release some contingency that we had for the project um a couple lines down housing and Human Services has done a yeoman's work and really work to re-prioritized their Human Services fund and Health Equity Fund to really focus on basic needs of the community and so this is one of the the changes that they made you'll hear later from

[233:01] Kurt fernhuber regarding his budget um but they've done a lot of good work there and I don't need to go through each and every one of these I can I can give you a little time to gaze at them but just a lot of work by the Departments to identify uh non-personnel operating expense savings and then this list alone uh totals up to two million dollars and of course there are many more that add up to that total sum on the previous slide but with that I'll turn it back over to Cheryl who's going to present on the Personnel expense actions thanks Cara next slide please so I just want to start off by recognizing that um Personnel reductions are certainly much more difficult thing than when we're talking about non-personnel it impacts our staff who

[234:01] really are our most important asset to the city so um unfortunately when you look at those charts that Cara showed at the beginning of her reduction presentation many of our funds have over 50 percent of their budget in Personnel so when we're looking to fill a gap as large as what we are anticipating um we do need to look to Staffing when we do that so so the first slide is really our reductions by the numbers and I want to start off on the left hand side in blue and that's our standard employees and that's compared to the right hand side in Gray which are numbers related to our non-standard employees now when I talk about non-standard I mean our seasonal employees are temporary in our interns and we see most of these employees in

[235:00] parks and rec and osmp as they have summer programs that that require us to hire seasonal and temporary employees but I'll start by the numbers in on the left hand column first standard as you saw in riches and Rich and Brian's forecast we've realized that the impact to sales tax and other revenues quite frankly is not just going to be in 2020 it's going to be long long term they're predicting a two to three year recovery from covid so when we start thinking long term we really need to look at ongoing costs and um we made the decision to do some layoffs and terminations effective June 1st and that's the 56th number on the left for our standard employees and of that 56 seven are fixed term employees

[236:00] and these employees were set to have their positions expire at the end of the year we moved it up to June 1st the second item is the furlough that we talked about last month and right now we really have two phases of furlough the first phase is what we presented last month which was from April 20th to June 29th and the numbers below 51 employees were furloughed from April 20th to June 29th and those 51 will be returning back to work I'm assuming they haven't found other uh jobs on June 29th we then have had 33 employees actually return early from their furlough this is because buildings have opened some programs have started back up again and then the next category which is 33 as well are employees that were furloughed in the first phase of April

[237:02] 20th that are being extended through September 20th and the reason these employees are being extended is because they're in areas where we still have building uh closures we still have services that aren't being provided but we do anticipate that um these uh services and buildings will be open as the year progresses so we certainly did not want to consider these employees for layoff and then finally the fourth category of four employees this really is our phase two round of furloughs and these employees started their furlough on June 1st and will be furloughed through September 20th and we will be reviewing uh these furloughs at the end of August once we have more financial information and we know more information and then the Third category is vacancy

[238:01] hold so we have 103 throughout the city and these are positions that are open right now that we're just not going to fill for the end of the year I do want to point out both furloughs and vacancy holds are really one-time cuts to employees so as we look forward into 2021 um these savings this year would not go to next year unless we decided to do something additional with some of those in the right hand column again is our non-standard uh seasonal temporary or intern and we did terminate 68 of our non-standard staff and we furloughed 472 again a lot of those were in parks and rec and osmp and Library I will say though of the 472 that we furloughed we have already called back 77 with an

[239:00] additional 68 coming back before the end of June so um what we're finding is that when we call some of these uh employees back they they they actually don't come back for different personal circumstances whether it's getting another job or some other reason next slide please so here's our labor reductions by department and I apologize again it's pretty small but what I think it really shows is that cuts were really taken across every Department in one form or another there's not one Department that hasn't felt any pain from the covid situation also as you can see parks and Library are definitely the most impacted due to the closures and program cancellations next next slide

[240:00] so on this side we really quantify what are the reductions that were taken the top category is our standard staff and the bottom chart is our non-standard staff and I will say if you compare this to a car I presented earlier we actually budget non-standard in our non-personnel so that's um that's why the 9.4 will align with what Cara indicated as Personnel savings but you'll see we have four categories here I've talked already about layoff furloughs and vacancy holds I will talk about holiday furloughs in a couple slides later but we have over 10 million dollars of Staffing reduction savings through the actions that we have taken so far this year Cheryl Mary yes please I just wanted to pause here

[241:01] and extend my heartfelt sympathy and gratitude to all the employees that have been terminated and furloughed it's it's an immense sacrifice for the greater good and I just want to thank them for their service and my heart goes out and I just want to say thank you thanks Mary I think that's on behalf of all the city council thank you I totally agree next slide so we wanted to um provide some data regarding the racial Equity breakdown of the reductions that we have made and we have three columns the First Column is The

[242:01] pre-reduction Benchmark so this is before all of the covid reductions hit what our employee base look like and I will say the breakdown of this and the percentage is almost change on a daily basis we have people leaving the organization coming into the organization and this data was as of June 1st so I kind of want to caveat that the second category is layoffs and terminations this does not include furloughs it is only the layoffs and terminations that we've made and then the third category is what we look like after the layoffs and termination so it's basically the pre-reduction minus the layoffs in terminations are there any specific questions on this slide no okay next slide please [Music]

[243:00] so I talked about what we're calling the Holiday furlough and this is a furlough that impacts all current city staff except for emergency personnel and fire police and osmp so think of those folks that wear uniforms uh those people will all be exempt from this for obvious reasons um another thing I want to really point out about our plan for the extended I'm sorry the the holiday closures and holiday furloughs is we are not allowing employees to take vacation days during these furloughs the point of the furlough really is a budget reduction strategy we also also want to point out that the furlough days that we're indicating here are days that the city will be closed so um it's similar to to a holiday certainly

[244:02] there are operations that are 24 7 that will continue on if we have a big snowstorm on Thanksgiving we still will have plows out um similar to any holiday but all other city services will be closed um just like any other holiday and what we tried to do we actually uh want to thank the city of Denver as we've tried to base our model on their model we tried to base these furlough days based on holiday weekends really for a couple um a couple of reasons first of all a lot of employees are taking off or would like to take off a longer weekend and second um we find that the workload and the public interaction tends to decline a little bit around holidays so that's a big reason another thing I want to point out about the furloughs is we really tried to be intentional in space to

[245:02] furloughs out so that there's not one pay period where an employee would have more than one day without pay so that's why these are spaced out the way that they are we definitely don't want to put undo harm any more than the furlough itself on on the staff so again this is the list of our days and totals to six total unpaid days for all staff except Personnel um in fire police and lsnp next slide so really uh right now before we get into the last two parts of our presentation we just wanted to pause for questions that you might have on anything that car and I have presented this evening [Music]

[246:00] anyone have any questions okay I don't see any Cheryl so I think you can go on I do just want to say this is a very comprehensive presentation going all the way from macro down to exactly what we're doing within the organization so very helpful and thank you very much thank you so the next section I'm going to turn it over to council member uh Joseph to talk about the 2021 recommended Council budget Focus uh brought to you by the financial strategy committee thank you so much for the previous presentation it was a very comprehensive again as was mentioned by Sam so whether it is the city staff city council or the Strategic committee we are looking holistically at the 2020 budget so as a reminder the city provide

[247:00] many valuable programs the services to community members with limited resources it is important to acknowledge which programs and services are essential important helpful or considered amnes especially in the time of the coronavirus or you know the current time that we're living in with Public Safety as the number one priority it is also important to prioritize use of funds that address the most basic needs and health of the community utilizing dedicated funds in accordance with those requirements also we follow Public Health guidelines which will limit the community access to facilities and programs and we'll read the city Staffing levels will continue to focus on advancing racial Equity by making long-term strategy decisions that do not negatively impact but uplift communities

[248:01] of color and other historically marginalized groups who also make data we will make data informed decisions that consider service level impacts and stated Matrix we will we also recognize the city is largely a service organization and our employees are our greatest assets and providing those services so the city will preserve investment in employee training in Workforce Development our proposed 2021 Council budget Focus any any council member questions [Music] great seeing none I think we can go on with the presentation Howard director of Housing and Human

[249:01] Services um you can go to the next slide so um over the past few days you've received a number of emails um about the uh the reduction of the housing Human Services budget over the last three years the information in that email was correct however it's not the full story um and so I want to I've got three three slides here that I wanted to explain and and give a little more detail that I think would be helpful for you as well as the community so there I'm going to separate for a minute um the housing budget from the Human Services budget but the housing budget receives a great deal of its income from uh cash and Lou uh payments from developers as well as commercial linkage fees on the graph down at the left you'll see

[250:03] how it sort of goes all over the place the amount of include cash and lieu that we receive from year to year you can see that it goes all the way from a million to to 11 million within you know a 12-month span it has been going down over the last um three years this year we're halfway through the year and we have collected a hundred and five thousand dollars in cash and lieu linkage fees um as you're well aware those linkage fee amounts have been going up um a bit each year 2019 was a pretty spectacularly spectacular year um 2020 um were down a bit from that

[251:01] um but again we're we're halfway through the year next slide so this is just sort of show the the Investments that we've made um in housing um since 2010 um there's been really good progress over the last few years um almost 1500 units of affordable affordable housing have been added to the city um you can see we went from 5.6 percent uh we're currently uh 8.3 percent um will probably be closer to 8.5 percent or higher by the end of the year and that's all moving towards our um our 15 goal in in 2035 which U.S Council adopted next slide so let's go along uh year by year I

[252:01] think this will be helpful in particularly for the for the individuals that emailed you over the last few days so the top line is our housing budget you can see in 2015 it was 28 million went down to 21 in 2016. um and then in 2020 it's it's 29 million and the caveat there is that that includes um our adjustment to base um which is currently in process right now so that the it's important for for the public to know that you know for the housing portion of our budget we typically budget relatively conservatively and then we adjust it as we go through the year based on how the income is coming in and based on opportunities we have to invest in affordable housing projects so the um

[253:00] the budget number that was quoted in the email and was about 20 21 million that number was correct but it didn't take into account um the ATB which is currently in process that puts us relatively even um with last year the Human Services budget over those years you can see has gone up um pretty significantly and in large part that's based on the sugary beverage tax that is a new fund that started coming in in 2018 and has certainly grown and it's been a great fun to support a lot of our lower income households and families in support of of healthy services um below that you'll see housing expenditures and Human Services expenditures

[254:00] um so you'll see that um our our investments in housing went up quite a bit in in 2017 it's it's they've been very strong over the last three years currently we've put in 4.8 million dollars into affordable housing developments or projects that will certainly go up between now um in the in the in the end of the year however we will be monitoring um our our cash and loot income and other income to ensure that we're staying within the um the you know the cash flow that we have at the time Human Services expenditures you'll see that those have grown over the year um or over the years and this year halfway through the year we're pretty much on targets

[255:00] and then um the last curtain Chris can I interrupt I'm sorry I just have a quick question I'm looking at the 2019 line on the column and you've got the Human Services budget of 18.5 and Human Services expenditure of about 13.4 so where's the missing 5 million is that all distributed by the Health Equity Fund or what's the Gap there um so that's part of that's that will be a carryover to the next year um and as the health a lot of that is the the Health Equity Fund um we budgeted that relatively low because the tax had not been implemented yet so um it's taken us until this time to actually recognize how much income comes in from that tax so that allows us in particular we've got um so in in 2020 we're expecting to

[256:01] you'll see there's a big increase in the budget there uh from 18 to 23 million so it was our expectation 2020 to be spending more of that fund um than in the previous year okay great and I've got a question from Mark as well yeah just a definitional question Kurt housing expenditures is that essentially brick and mortar expenditures um are you referring to the housing budget well the housing expanded your line 22. yes okay yep so the High um the majority of it is yes um and then um there's also um I've been there for the salaries of staff that work on these projects and various admin costs and that sort of thing that go along with the work that we do um but certainly more than typically more than 80 percent to ninety percent

[257:01] of of those funds are going towards uh brick and mortar thanks Thank you Kirk go ahead so I'm almost done here um the last two lines um shows in numbers what you saw in a graph when I started um the uh the cash and loop payments that come in each year um and then the linkage fees so um it's uh you know part of the story here is that um our income for housing Human Services but particularly housing varies quite a bit from year to year and it requires um the implementation of adjustments to base through the year to really optimize those resources so that's the end of my um my three slides there to really sort

[258:01] of answer the questions that were brought up in those emails thank you Kurt um we have a question from Mary just a real quick one Kurt um thank you for the presentation and for the efforts in putting it together I recall that there is a dedicated Human Services fund that comes from sales tax is that correct that's correct and where does that show up show up in in this is in in the Human Services budget that's correct yes okay and so that would be like um up until 2018 it would be the 8.2 8.5 and 10.9 million uh or it's um yeah that's about that's correct yes for the for the most part that's correct yes majority of that great thank you yep I've got Aaron

[259:03] thanks for that Kurt to provide some context for those numbers uh so my question is so you see how we've been been doing well in the last few years how are we going to protect These funds and these services for you know the folks who are in the most need in our community you know through this downturn yeah that's that's a great question Aaron um so um as we've gone through this budgeting process um we've um really prioritize what we would see as the the critical needs in our community and so we've um sort of the filter that we've used um in in redefining our budget for for uh for this year we've targeted food security um rent and housing security child care

[260:01] support uh homeless services and health and health and mental health services so things that are outside of that are where we really made our cuts um and so we've had to redistribute funds to be able to continue to support those and actually create additional resources as needed you know one example I could give is you know rent supports um we gave out our bread support to effa early our second payment early this year and ensuring that we we still have resources to support that further in the year so we've really gone through a prioritization process to enable the critical Services remain thanks for that so you know we saw in an

[261:02] earlier slide that there have been cuts to the city budget really across the board but what I'm hearing from you is that we're prioritizing um you know keeping as much as possible those surface services for for folks of lower income or marginalized communities absolutely that's correct that's great to hear it thank you so I don't see any more questions and thank you Kurt very much for that um I'm going to look at your budget um Cheryl I think we're ready for the last bit so we just have one more slide um next slide please and I also want to thank Chris for um working the slides for us this evening so next steps we are coming back to you in July and August to provide updates um on our assumptions and sales tax these will be shorter updates rich and Brian will not be here in July

[262:01] or August but they will be back in September for our 2021 budget study session and then of course we have our budget hearings in October um later this year next slide I think that's it so if there are any other questions we'd be happy to answer [Music] anyone else have any questions for Cheryl before we move on okay so I didn't see any questions um Jane I think I'm going to turn to you and Cheryl and ask what would you like from Council we've got the update what kind of input would you like from us I guess from my point of view I this was intended for you to see where we're going that we've done to reduce the budget and to show you that indeed we are achieving

[263:01] the goal that we set for ourselves which is to keep a balanced budget for this year so our questions to you are are you okay with the direction that we have shown you is there anything else that we can do or any concerns that you have about how we're moving forward with 2020. you're good thank you um alternative Council and look for raised hands I have some thoughts but I'd be happy to hear from anyone else who wants to weigh in on where we're going okay so mark yeah um Jane I I really appreciate what what you guys have been doing um this is obviously a very very difficult process it's a heart-wrenching process in some ways and um you know it's obviously not enjoyable for anybody I think you've taken a

[264:00] balanced approach between looking at the postponing Capital Improvements and you know unfortunately making some Personnel reductions I think you've spread the pain around in a fairly Equitable manner I think you've kept your eye on the ball with respect to equity considerations um I guess the only question I would have for you is um if we have a significant additional downturn will you be prepared for that as well the answer to that is that's why we're coming back to back to you Timber and onward because we want to keep our finger on the pulse of our sales tax receipts and all of the income that we've got and we're going to be super careful to make sure that we're staying within bounds if a time comes where we're seeing that we're ending up with one of the less favorable scenarios we will be meeting internally with our

[265:02] executive budget team to make further recommendations for cuts and and you'll see what those are so we're we're really paying close attention this year to this yeah I think you've done a great job in a very difficult situation I appreciate it yeah many thanks to Cheryl and Cara for their hard work yes absolutely thank you all great and I see no other hands up so I'll jump in here and echo part of what Mark said um the presentation was super thorough super comprehensive pretty much all we could ask for um going from 100 000 foot down to a thousand foot level I want to Echo Mary's regrets at the employees that were losing it is bad for them um it's a setback for the city um to lose them uh I appreciate their service very much as Mary said um and report to the day when we can

[266:02] either hire them back or somebody to do their jobs um but today's not that day now's not that time we're still in a cutting and recovery mode just for a little bit of context if we had 20 preserves and we look at our general fund budget the the loss that we are experiencing in revenues that we expect would completely wipe out our reserves if we're not able to make cuts um and and so this is a Monumental hit to the city budget you can't be overstated it is very impressive that staff has been able to make this bring together the package that they have to kind of stabilize our financial ship without having to dig deeply into those Reserves because his staff has rightly pointed out we could still have a flood or a fire in the middle of all of this so um kudos to staff for all the hard work

[267:01] that you've done to get us where we are um and Jane I think your plan is right um to to update this once a month or once every six weeks to make sure that we are not missing any of the trends that staff has seen on the revenue side as well as how we're looking ahead to the 2021 budget I know that we have heard from some members of the community that um it's unfortunate that we're not making 2020 adjustments relative to policing and that we're putting it off till 2021 but I would remind the community that we're heading into the 2021 budget cycle right now and we've just made our adjustments the base on the 2020 cycle so this is the time for us to be having that conversation um it is a difficult conversation to be having in light of where we are with the overall budget however the 2021 budget has long been teed up by this Council as

[268:01] one in which we're going to try and bring Equity to the Forefront and look at things in holistic Manner and the coronavirus has kind of forced our hand in the sense that we are going to now prioritize everything as on a scale of one to four as a journey told us and so that that um prioritization is going to be a big uh kind of tell on where we're going to end up with the 2021 budget so again thanks to all of Staff it's super hard work as Mark said you've done a great job um telling us why you're doing the things you're doing and and moving rapidly to make sure that we do not have to deplete our reserves with that Mary has a comment so I I want to Echo my thanks to finance staff and to Jane for all the work you've done on this front and I

[269:00] also want to just um you know as as Sam was saying the the 2021 budget is going to really be looked at through the the four categories that Juni outlined um as our and our priorities that were outlined by her as well and it's going to require not just the sacrifice of the employees that we spoke about earlier this evening but it's going to require a sacrifice from all of us and I'm just to ask the community to understand that there will be cuts and services things that we have enjoyed will not be available and I would just ask that it's part of what we all have to give up in order to make sure that those that need to be taken care of are and if

[270:04] you can't go swimming swim every day or you can't play tennis every day whatever it's a very small price to pay and so I would just ask the community to keep that in mind that we're all going to have to sacrifice things and um to just understand that thank you thank you Mary um I believe that brings us to the end of our agenda with the exception of the minutes of silence Jane I just want to check in or Debbie is there anything that we've left out before we move on to that subject I don't believe there is thank you okay very good so I'm going to turn to Junie and see Junie if you want to say something before Bob beats us into our

[271:02] minutes of silence thank you Sam um thank you for the opportunity to reflect on on this this moment and also relay some feedback on this moment of silence and you know I just wanted to put into context as these thoughts were thought of long before this meeting started and I would like to add some more context to this moment of silence because some community members have asked me to be more courageous and speak more firmly on on you know what's going on around the country and also in Boulder be the only black member of this Council but I'm by no means speaking to all the varied experiences of all black people in Boulder or in the United States um so as you reflect on those eight minutes please remember that black lives

[272:00] matter not just as a hashtag and you know as I'm reflecting as well with all of you you know when I was attending the marches on Saturday those were some of the worst that were echoed by the speakers and also the protesters that black lives matter not just as the hashtag black lives matter not after they die black life matters because they're human beings black people and all people of color in Boulder are asking us to stand for their rights while they are alive instead of commemorating their deaths and finally Alliance require more than just showing up at events itching in for empathy reaching out to get the work done through consultation with the communities we're advocating for and whether we are at work or in the community those who seek to be allies must refrain from silencing minority voices to amplify their own so I think

[273:00] those were some of the words that I tick tick back and reflect on during the marches during the weekend thank you thank you Jenny um thank you very much that was very very powerful and um gives us a lot to think about as we as we reflect here um so today um was the day that George Floyd's family hosted a private memorial service in Houston and and laid him to rest um as members of the Boulder City Council we would like to join Mr Floyd's family and others across the country who have taken time today to not only acknowledge his tragic death but also to honor his life and the gifts he shared with with others um so let's pause for the next eight minutes and 46 seconds in silence in honor the Life of George Floyd

[274:08] okay foreign

[275:05] thank you foreign

[276:16] previous ly thank you

[278:07] foreign

[279:16] foreign

[280:24] thank you foreign [Music]

[281:09] [Music] foreign

[282:53] thank you thank you all it's a no further comments

[283:01] or business I'm going to gravel this meeting of the Boulder City Council close thank you all for your time