July 21, 2020 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:13] okay great so welcome everyone to the Boulder City council meeting of uh Tuesday July 21st 2020 um Debbie would you please call the role council member Brockett present friend here Joseph present Mel here stick present wallik present Weaver here Yates here young present mayor we have a quorum very good thank you very much and I have a few announcements that will come a bit later um but I would like to

[1:00] welcome uh to the Boulder City council meeting our Congressman Joe ngus to talk to us a little bit about the house select committee on the climate crisis and anything else you'd like to welcome Joe oh well good evening great to see you mayor Weaver and uh and such wonderful wonderful to be able to see all of U all of you on the council and I hope you all are doing well uh it's a little bit different than the last time I I was before the council obviously the circumstances dictating that this meeting be held virtually although of course course if it weren't being held virtually I'm not sure that I'd be able to attend since I'm here in Washington DC as we speak today I wish I was back home with all of you but I want to say thank you of course for giving me the opportunity to to say a few words and uh to visit with you all about some of the important issues that our community is facing together I of course would be remiss if I didn't say thank you to each and every one of you for your service of course mayor Weaver but to all of your colleagues um for everything that you're doing to keep our our community safe and and continue to push forward on so many

[2:00] shared priorities that I know we have in common um we of course uh find ourselves at a very interesting time a challenging time for a number of different reasons um obviously the covid-19 pandemic has presented some very unique challenges for our community our state and our country I'm very grateful for the partnership with the city council and your wonderful staff uh at the city manager's office and who have worked really well with with our district team count since a councilman Grano former councilwoman Grano who's now our director of community Affairs and of course our district director Sally Anderson in addressing some of the the acute needs that our community has had over the course of the last gosh five months since this pandemic uh began as you all know Congress has taken a number of important steps in the in that time frame to address both the public health emergency and also the resulting economic Fallout that we've all experienced uh again grateful to you all for your partnership and and also for making very clear your priorities and the priorities of the city and your constituents um so that uh as I'm here in Washington I can ensure to fight for

[3:02] their interests and and to make sure that those interests are really aligned the cares act which we passed gosh gu back twoth two and a half months ago now was a giant step in my view in the right direction in providing an economic Lifeline to many of our constituents in Boulder the city Boulder broader Boulder County Community but we all know that it did not go far enough and there remains a real acute and pronounced need for Congress to step forward and provide some needed economic relief and also in my view to address the the the vacuum of national leadership in terms of providing a comprehensive testing strategy and and what uh we all believe is necessary to ultimately get on the other side of this pandemic the good news is that as you all may know we passed a bill called the heroes act about two months ago in the House of Representatives that would provide for roughly three trillion dollars worth of economic stimulus spending in a variety of different ways one area that was particularly important to me and again grateful to Mayor Weaver as well as mayor Troxel and and for Collins for

[4:00] their shared partnership was fighting to make sure that we included local government stabilization funds I we because we know that uh cities like the city of Boulder were ultimately left out in large part under the cares act as you all know because of a problematic population limit that was adopted in that bill uh we fought against that population limit we introduced the bill to essentially repeal it and to instead allocate more than $250 billion towards our state and local governments and in particular to all local governments uh those includ including under 500,000 in my congressional district is by way of background as you all know while it also while it includes Boulder County it also includes nine other counties um many many cities in virtually every County in my district and certainly every city in my district has a population of less than 500,000 city of Boulder City of Fort Collins city of Loveland Bale uh Breen Ridge and on and on so that effort is certainly an important one to my constituents and I know to the people of Boulder and I am reasonably optimistic

[5:00] that the bill that will M materialize out of negotiations that are currently underway between the Senate and the house and the president specifically secretary minuchin that it will include some outlay for local government funding and I'm certainly going to be pushing it is a red line for me personally to make sure that that's part of this next stimulus package in addition to a number of other important Provisions which I'm happy to answer any questions you all might have about in addition to of course focusing on covid-19 the Congress is very busy at work legislating on any number of other important priorities and I I thought I would just share two that would be of interest to the council first uh infrastructure remains a important priority for me and for the house Democratic caucus we just passed a Omnibus Bill called hr2 moving America Act two weeks ago the last time I was in DC I just arrived here a few days ago for this next iteration of the session and that bill would include significant funding for modernizing our infrastructure rebuilding crumbling

[6:00] roads and bridges including EV infrastructure and there's a lot in that bill that I I'm happy to share with you all in Greater detail but suffice to say it would go a long way towards addressing some of the the unique challenges that we've had in the Boulder County and US 36 Corridor and then of course the principal uh reason or rather the matter that I wanted to talk to you all about was climate change and the work that we're doing in the Congress uh to address the planetary crisis that we find ourselves in as you all know I was appointed to the select on the climate crisis 18 months ago by the speaker when the committee was first impanel as this Congress adjourned into or excuse me was brought into session and we've spent the better part of the last year and a half conducting hearings across the country including in Boulder as you all know I'm very grateful for your leadership and helping us bring the select committee to Boulder Colorado actually I should say while we've heard from experts across the country the only field hearing that the select committee held on an official basis was in Boulder col

[7:00] and one can glean that from the uh the report itself which was released just two and a half weeks ago on the steps of the capital so the culmination of all of our work was the release of a National Climate road map that provides some very ambitious goals for us to achieve to truly move the needle in the fight against climate change and I'm proud that it includes a number of ideas that came directly from folks in Boulder and you know I know you all heard me say this before but I get to spend a lot of my time here in Washington bragging about the work that's done in Boulder in particular as it relates to the environment and of course that's no accident it's because the city has been a leader whether it was you know with respect to the municipalization effort and and of course regenerative agriculture which I've been proud to be able to kind of push to emulate some of the programs that the city and the county uh are administering on a joint basis at the national level so anyway a lot of uh a lot to unpack in the National Climate road map I would encourage everyone to go read it it's 500 plus Pages something in it for everybody um but my hope now is that you know we can convert those great ideas

[8:02] into actual legislation and have those bills begin to move through the Congress so the real work in some respects begins now so um again I'm so grateful to you all for your partnership I'm looking forward to hearing from you if you have any questions proposals ideas things you'd like us to work on I know perhaps the question that's on top of mine for each and every one of you is when will Congress get this next stimulus Bill accomplished and um that of course remains to be seen I will say that we are working very hard and I anticipate that by the end of this month and certainly by the first week of August at the latest we should have a bill that ultimately gets to the president's desk that addresses some of the challenges presented by covid-19 in terms of whether that's a$1 trillion dollar bill or a three trillion dollar bill again that all will be part of the negotiations over the course of the next 10 days which is why I'm so eager to hear from you all uh as we uh engage in that process so thanks again for giving me the opportunity to say a few words mayor Weaver andal back to you thank you so much congressman I mean all of us are

[9:00] are very pleased to have your your staunch advocacy on our behalf and all cities behalf and all all County's behalf as we look at different ways to alleviate the crisis we're going through as far as the pandemic so and that's not even to mention the great work you've done on the select committee which is very meaningful to us it was great to be there at that field hearing and to see mayor Suzanne Jones be able to represent some of the efforts that are going on and some of the concerns of our community so thank you very much for all of your hard work I would invite any council members who would like to ask you a question or a comment on what you said to raise your hand in the box and I will recognize you I am seeing no hands so going once going twice there we go Mark wallik Congressman thank you for that presentation um what are the practical prospects of the um uh infrastructure Bill uh in light of the Senate's usual

[10:03] or calcr on these matters uh that's a great question councilman I wish I had a better answer um unfortunately I I I am not as confident about the prospects of the infastructure bill ultimately being enacted into law certainly not as confident as I am with respect to the stimulus Bill and which is a shame because again I think that the bill that we passed in the house in addition to being just a very good bill with a lot of uh you know meaning meaningful and well-crafted Provisions it also provides a real great blueprint from which and road map from which we could negotiate with obviously the Republicans in the Senate were they willing to uh move forward uh on infrastructure but unfortunately that that just does not seem to be the case as of uh as of today so that may change and and may be that in the next two weeks as these discussions uh you know continue with respect to the stimulus bill that perhaps there's some component of that bill that includes infrastructure funding but even if that were the the

[11:00] case it certainly would not be on the scale that was outlined in the the infrastructure bill that we passed two weeks ago maybe next Congress yeah certainly and you know I should also say we're still you know continuing to put our uh you know foot to the gas in terms of the various grant opportunities that exist in like and given the likelihood given the the fact that the infrastructure bill is unlikely to move this Congress and the 116th in Congress I think the the reality is that our efforts are probably best spent continuing to pursue the tiger grants uh and the build grants that are administered by do and of course we've had some level of success in the past with both of those programs and and I know the city of Boulder is invested in in one of those grants as we speak as part of a collaborative in Border counties thank you great thank thank you Congressman Aaron Brockett well thanks so much uh Congressman for coming really appreciate it just wanted to thank you for your advocacy on behalf of Us and other smaller cities in the district for the next round round of stimulus so

[12:00] hopefully that can be successful and then just also to thank you for your leadership I know the house has passed a number of innovative and Forward Thinking bills over the last 18 months and you know hopefully in a few months that that Log Jam can get broken and we can start seeing some real change get accomplish so thank you for everything you've done great and seeing no more hands I will thank you again Congressman on behalf myself and all my colleagues we we really admire the work you're doing and let us know how we support you any way we can so thanks very much no thank you mayor Weaver and again thank you to each and every one of you I I uh you know being in Congress is nothing compared to serving on the Boulder City Council you all have very tough jobs so I I uh I am grateful to you for your leadership and your service uh in addressing some of these very tough uh challenging issues so look forward to the partnership take care very good thanks very much Congressman the go um we'll turn now to a few announcements before we move into the main part of the meeting uh the first announcement I

[13:01] would like to make is on behalf of the Boulder Public Library and the boulder Library foundation and those two organizations will begin their one book one Boulder CommunityWide reading and conversation around a JMA L's book and I'm sorry for butchering the author's name and the book is titled so you want to talk about race and the kickoff for this will be Wednesday July 29th at 6 pm that kickoff event will feature Colorado poet ESU Jango and online book discussions as part of this program will be held with Congressman Joon nus and our city councilors uh juny Joseph and Mary young and these are a few of the many programs that will be offered throughout the summer and into the fall the author um will read from her book and take Community questions live online on November 5th at 6 pm so if you would like to find out more about these events

[14:02] or register for one of the book talks you can go to Boulder library.org that's b u l d r l i b r a r y.org and you'll find the information and the registration there um we'd encourage everyone to read this book and join in on this important CommunityWide conversation so that is that I I do want to mention that as we go into this meeting one of the items to be discussed towards the end is a status update on the negotiations with Excel um regarding a potential settlement of the the mun effort that's going on that will be a short um discussion tonight uh it will be an update um we had originally scheduled that for 60 minutes we have since cut it down to Shorter so for anyone who might be here to hear details of a potential settlement I don't think that will come out tonight so I just wanted to give a heads up for anyone who

[15:01] might be attending for that purpose and then um once we get into open comment I will have Sarah give instructions so I think we're ready for open comment but I want to look to Debbie and Tanya and make sure that I've got us teed up correctly you did well mayor thank you first time first time for everything okay Sarah if you'd like to talk about this format and uh how public participation will go sure I'm happy to thank you good evening Council this is Sarah Huntley I'm the engagement manager for the city and I'm also acting as your Zoom Host this evening we have a number of people who are in the attendees list to speak tonight we have 20 people signed up for open comment which is the limit we have in our randomized list and then we have two people for public hearing will

[16:00] signed up for public hearing number two so for folks who are in the audience waiting to speak the way this will work is we're in a zoom webinar format which means that when it's your turn to speak the mayor will call your name we're going to go down the order of the list the lists have been posted on the city website um if you are interested in seeing where you are on the list if you don't already know that you will be calling names and when I call your when the mayor calls your name I will toggle on a switch that allows you to unmute yourself we'll be doing testimony tonight by Audio Only and in fact I'm going to go over a few of our quick rules because we have a number of people participating from the public tonight who are not um typically in this meeting so I just want to make sure everybody understands what the rules are for the evening if you don't mind I'm going to share my screen okay so these rules have been created to try to strike a balance between meaningful transparent engagement and also online security

[17:00] unfortunately in the zoom setting we've had some unfortunate incidents that have been really disruptive to the meeting and often offensive in the content so we're just trying to strike a balance here the meeting tonight's been called to conduct the business of the city of Boulder activities that disrupt delay or otherwise interfere with the meeting are prohibited just as is the case when we're in person the time for speaking and asking questions may be limited before each um before open comment in each public hearing the mayor will announce how much time in individuals have and our presentation um host will put up a timer so that you can keep track of your time while you're speaking each person shall register to speak at the meeting using that your real name I notice several people have come in with first names if you do have the ability on your computer to rename yourself we would appreciate if you would add your last name otherwise we'll do the best we can to call on People based on first names in in matching up with people who are on the list um we are not allowed to have have anybody who's using the pseudonym speak at the

[18:05] meeting okay no video will be permitted except for City officials employees and invited speakers or presenters so as I said before you'll be participating by voice only we are recording this and you'll be able everybody will be able to hear your testimony the person presiding at this meeting which is Sam Weaver will enforce these rules by muting anyone who violates any rule or he may instruct me to do so um for tonight the chat function is only available for panelists we do have the Q&A on the Q&A is a way for you to speak to me only as the host panelists are not looking at it so there's no point in giving commentary or asking questions about the content of what they're discussing but if I can help you understand how it's going to work when I toggle you on for example or questions you might have about the format of the meeting um or the zoom platform I'm happy to help with that and only the hosts and individuals

[19:01] designated by the host will be permitted to share their screen during this meeting okay so that's all of the formal rules I do want to um tell individuals I see several attendees raising their hands so I know the raise hand function is available to you we don't have the ability to stop and ask you what your question is in this meeting so if you have a question about the platform or the me meeting itself please feel free to communicate with me in the Q&A and as soon as I'm done helping with this part of the meting I will get to your questions and answer them as quickly as I can um we do have one individual who's on the phone Sam um and I have communicated with them by text to try to get a name but I can't tell you for sure if it's somebody who's on our list because Channel 8 is still experiencing technical difficulties we have we are making the link available the zoom link for people to watch meeting even if they aren't scheduled to speak so it's really

[20:02] important that we be clear about who's on the list and calling names that are on the list other people have joined us I just want to make clear to them that if they're not on the list they're more than welcome to listen to the meeting and watch the meeting we're really glad to make an alternative um format available given that we're having some technical difficulties but you will not be called on to speak so raising your hand doesn't really help you in terms of getting acknowledged by Council so that's where we are this evening um are there any questions by members of council about how we're going to proceed Ain I see your I see your hand up Aon is that current okay um why don't we let Aon up yeah um well I guess I'm just a little concerned that uh we're not broadcasting yet as I imagine that folks who are speaking public comment are hoping that um everyone attending the meeting will hear their comment as well as Council so I'm a little concerned about starting that before we're

[21:00] actually broadcasting I have concerns about broadcasting as well um I'm not in council chambers Chris do you have an update for us sure yeah um we now have the video up there resolving the an audio issue right now of getting audio out to TV so the image is up uh we're just working on solving audio now should ask people to do charades Maybe or can sorry I mean if people can see channel8 could we at least put up a you know indicator there that you can go and join the zoom meeting with the link so they could at least get a written message from us to I have asked that they that they post the link to be able to watch the meeting through Zoom okay um so we have a pretty long meeting tonight and so I just want to

[22:03] confirm that this this whole meeting is being recorded bya Zoom correct Chris that is correct Sam Okay so we've had these technical difficulties in the past and have had trouble resolving them so I don't know how long it will take SO waiting too long is going to put us pretty far behind Bob I see your hands raised I was just going make a suggestion in response to aon's Observation perhaps upon motion of council we can rearrange our agenda and take care of a couple of things while we're waiting to see if the sound can be resolved for example we could I think take on the consent agenda pretty quickly I'm I'm going to guess that there's probably not a whole lot of people are going to speak to us about the three items in the consent agenda and perhaps even the call up checkin um so I'm just throwing that out there as a suggestion so we can get some business taken care of while we're waiting for this get fixed I think that's a very

[23:00] good idea I'd be happy to rearrange the order does anyone have any objection to that okay hearing none then I guess t or Debbie I'll turn it over to you at the um consent agenda do we need a motion to rearrange the agenda or Tom can we just kind do that on the fly a motion would be nice yeah we I move that we um we postpone open comment until after we address items number three and four second any objections okay seeing none the motion carries unanimously okay mayor you have uh next on the agenda then is the consent consent agenda items a through C very good um is are there any comments or questions regarding any of the items on the content agenda or any

[24:04] discussion okay seeing none is there a motion move the consent agenda second okay Bob moved it Rachel seconded any objection to passing the consent agenda okay seeing none that passes unanimously okay next we have um item 4 a which is the call up on 1727 and 1737 Pearl Street very good is there a any staff presentation or staff comment nothing this evening mayor okay um so any any council members interested in calling this up or do any council member have comments I'm pulling up the hands here okay Aaron I see you

[25:02] and then Mary yeah no I'm I'm not interested in in calling it up but I I did just want to uh pass along a request from a Community member that I thought was was worth considering that it was um some you know former member of planning board who um asked if there could be a check-in with uh Community interested community members uh at the right before Tech docs got finalized uh not that we would be giving them veto Authority or approval Authority but just um another set of eyes just to confirm that the tech docs conformed to what the site review approval consisted of so if staff would be willing to just do a quick check-in um I thought that would be worth considering we'd be happy too great thanks so unless council members object me Mary yeah I support that um that suggestion ain's suggestion and I have no interest in colle it up as well however I would like to suggest that the

[26:02] applicant consider um setting back the top floor from the alley the north wall from the alley that was the one thing um that there seemed to be some support for on planning board um that I think was a good suggestion and would be um a a little accommodating to the people that leave live adjacent or across the alley so that's all I have very good Adam yep just want to say I agree with both Aon and Mary to give it a little more weight uh very good and all weigh in as there's no more hands I also agree with that I believe another concern um which goes along with the tech docs concern is the solar shading um component of that so I think to the extent that uh staff can keep the neighbors informed about

[27:00] what the solar analysis shows um I agree with what others have said I wanted to add that that's part of the concern that I think the tech dos are are supposed to address the tech dos request so great seeing no interest in calling that up I guess then the next question is is there any interest in calling up the um uh landmarks or 600 First Street okay seeing none I think that takes us to the end of item four and Sam uh we do have audio uh out so our live stream is now working fully um so uh if you'd like to return back to open comment uh we can do that now very good unless there's any objection from Council I will open open comment good

[28:01] timing perfect timing okay very good um open comment tonight there are 20 people as Sarah said and the first three are William gretz Victoria Harvey and Vadim greyboys and we'll start with William gretz I'm not seeing William gret in this meeting so I suggest we move on to the second person and William is here perhaps you can indicate to me in the Q&A what name he's under um it's got to be William Gritz um we'll go we'll go with that very good I think the next person up is Victoria Harvey yes indeed Victoria joria you're on the air you'll need to unmute there okay now can you hear me am I good yes oh wonderful thank you as the congressman said uh and it made me think about it thank you for your service I don't think you have an

[29:01] easy job and it it takes you guys to run the city so I'm Victoria Harvey I live at 4729 spine Road I own a condo in Powder Horn and Gun Barrel both the County planning board and the city council have unanimously voted and identified a gun barrel subc community plan as one of the top priorities of planning Barrel sub community plan should be approved before moving ahead with the curn proposal in front of Celestial Seasonings specific to this project the incredible density and failure to comply with open PL open space requirements there is not enough parking no bike pass into Boulder and Gun Barrel shopping from there not nearly enough required Green Space for this type of project it is a two- mile walk to the store so this location is very card pendant co-opting light

[30:02] industrial zoning here is not taking it is not taking a vacant light industrial B building and reconfiguring it for residential space that would be creative and exciting this is filling a space from edge to edge with three stories of apartments with Co with Co excuse me we cannot predict the future need we may lose some businesses and jobs if we wait to see the gun barrel sub community plan and get past this unknown outcome of covid we may avoid what in the future will look like a mistake important to remind you also we Gun Barrel are the affording affordable housing part a boulder some of it was built even before you started counting the affordability housing we have great diversity in our neighborhoods um we invite you to get to know us better and vote to save what we

[31:03] have good about us thank you okay Sam I see Li gretz have joined us by telephone I've been able to rename him and if you'd like to call on him next Sam can you hear me sorry apologies has to happen right so um would you like to call William gretz now or after Mr greyboys I think we can go ahead and call him since he was first on the list very good so William gretz and then after William we have adem greyboys and church hiide William you are on the air okay um I'm

[32:00] calling yes uh I'm calling against two against one ballot initiative and I'm calling for initiative um the I'm sorry there's a time delay on Channel 8 so I'm just going to have to talk uh the bedrooms of people initiative is libertarian issues and it's not doesn't really fit in with Boulder it allows 7 by 10 bedrooms uh the gutting out of rental houses for dormatory style Apartments it offers absolutely no protection whatsoever against the landlord drastically raising their rent while raising the density of their rental property I would like to support fully the no eviction without representation and in general Gideon versus Rain r decision for all civil

[33:00] cases which would be a genuine Progressive cause and totally transform the judicial system and resolve a lot of inequity in the fact that you don't get a lawyer in the Civil Justice System unless you have the money Lely I don't think B Mr Boulders should be put on the ballot unless they gather their required signatures and it would be anti-democratic not to regardless of anything Tom carded I'm sorry there's a 30 second delay on this audio so on channel eight between the live and the phone on zo it may be easier for you to Simply watch in listen in the zoom meeting no I had to step away from the room because it was throwing me off but uh

[34:00] I'm I can still hear the TV anyway that's largely it so I'll see you to the next speaker right thank you Mr gretz next we have Bim grey boys Trish Hyde and Thomas Wells v h and Thomas Wells [Music] v hi uh my name is viin gbo and I'm an organizer with bedrooms are for people I am shocked and dismayed to hear that the council is even considering not putting bedrooms are for people and our mayor our choice on the ballot despite those petitions having collected the amount of signatures by the deadline specified by the city these petitioners are grassroot organizers and depended on the city for correct information it's incredibly unethical to give them wrong information encourage them to collect signatures during a pandemic and only after they've risked their lives and done the work tell them that the deadline has already passed and refus to put them on the

[35:01] ballot due to this technicality it's not fair to Boulder voters either as I'm sure the people risking their lives to sign the petition expected that their signature would lead to it being placed on the ballot and it's not fair to the tax paays of Boulder because not putting this petition on the bout while providing the petitioners with incorrect information will surely invite a lawsuit one which the city is likely to lose I don't think it's a good use of taxpayer money my money to suppress the will of Boulder voters and then have to pay legal fees and settlement costs as a result I don't know what you expect to accomplish by not putting these petitions on the ballot if they don't go on the ballot in 2020 they will definitely be on the ballot in 2021 plus the petitioners will have a bunch of money from their lawsuit settlement with the city to promote their initiatives plus you will all look bad for wasting City money on suppressing democracy and then losing a lawsuit over it I think it's in everyone's best interest for these petitions to to go on the ballot if you think they're a bad idea you can

[36:00] campaign against them but don't suppress them Boulder voters are smart enough to make the right decision thank you thank you Bim and then next we have Trish Hyde Thomas Wells and Theodore kig uh [Music] Trish hello um my name is Trish Hyde and I'm an organizer with bedrooms are for people I grew up in Boulder and am currently living with my parents in part because I can't afford to live in Boulder on my own due to high rent prices and restrictive housing policies these policies not only hurt natives like me but also lowincome people people of color and other disenfranchised people who may want to move to Boulder the homogeneous racial and socio-economic Community created by restrictive housing policies like this drove me out of Boulder for college to seek more diversity and equity and I know that I'm not alone in this growing up in Boulder I was told that Boulder was an inclusive

[37:00] City a progressive City for everyone discriminatory housing policies like these are a direct contradiction of the values that we claim to hold in Boulder despite what Mr gats May believe however if for whatever reason you don't agree with this proposal and don't see the hypocrisy in continuing to uphold discriminatory housing policies you still have a duty to put this measure on the ballot I'm shocked at the embarrassing mishandling of this on the part of the city why should B citizens pay the price for your mistake Not only was inaccurate information given about when the deadline for signatures was but the correct information was not given until after volunteers had already put their health at risk to gather signatures in a pandemic I urge you to put this initiative on the ballot as a step towards a more Equitable and diverse Boulder which is more in line with the values that we claim to hold Boulder voters deserve to have their voices heard and to decide on these measures eles thank you thank you Trish um next we have

[38:03] Thomas Wells Theodore kig and terara ialo um [Music] Thomas hello can you hear me yes I was just curious before I get started that I can't see all of the council member videos and I'm not sure if that's on my side or the other I showed up to speak in front of council and while you can't see me I was hoping I could see you um I'll get started function of fact that we are sharing the screen to show the time clock I'm afraid Thomas I see um my name is Thomas Wells and I'm an organizer with bedrooms are for people I'm speaking because I want my voice to be heard I want you to hear the collective voice of the thousands of Boulder residents who have risked Co exposure by signing our petition they very clearly expressed their desire for this proposed Charter amendment to be on the ballot this fall not wrapped up in some public process spread over the next 5 years some SES aren't even sure they

[39:01] will vote for the measure but they neveress agree it is worthy of putting on the ballot these support direct democracy and I hope you will too judging by your emails of late I can see you're still unsure whether we have appropriately navigated the city's time traveling petition policies so as to be certified but I ask you to pause and consider something else have we not fulfilled the purpose of both the state and city requirements in plain terms both describe similar process one get appr language of the measure two within a reasonable period of time gather enough signatures to demonstrate sufficient interest from the registered voters return set signatures with enough time before the election for the city to verify them and complete the necessary paperwork can you honestly say that we haven't completed those steps can you look me in the eyes and say no Thomas we don't believe enough residents want to vote on this measure if not and I don't know how you

[40:01] could on a zoom call so you can't look me in the eyes I ask use your power to place this measure on the ballot as written without amendments I ask you to minimize your legal risk respect the wishes of the citizens and do not our right to vote thank you Thomas next we have Theodore kig terara EPO and Steve Whitaker Theodore good evening Council my name is Ted kig and I'm an organizer with bedrooms are for people thank you for the work you do for our city I lived in Golder for eight years I first became interested in occupancy when I was in graduate student government at CU When enforcement of the existing limits was being increased in 2015 after investigating various responses I helped organize an Initiative for the ballot in 2016 our proposed measure of this year is very similar to the 2016 proposal before settling on language in 2016 a

[41:00] colleague and I reached out to and attempted to meet with every council person at the time with mixed success we also engaged with as many local organizations as would meet with us we attempted as best we could to survey residents of the city and met with any who reached out to us to follow up our proposed Charter solution was and has been crafted to reflect not only a bare majority but a large majority of those who we were able to communicate with and was crafted not to reflect the views of our organizers but rather those of the city door to- door canvasing while collecting signatures in 2016 largely confirmed our initial findings that a large majority of the city was likely to back such a measure in 2016 it was suggested that occupancy might be tackled in 2017 or 2018 but that other issues already filled council's docket at the time and we understood this indeed but a number of uh City bodies have recommended examining the occupancy limit since at least the 1990s most

[42:01] recently in 2015 the city has failed to act on any of these repeated recommendations nor did our 2016 effort shake the city from the inaction in the intervening four years the time is long past due that this go to the voters our signatures gathered today to make clear that voters are ready to contemplate change to the occupancy limits and find our solution worthy of consideration I urge you to allow bedrooms are for people the to be placed on the ballot thank you for your time thank you Ted next we have terao Steve Whitaker and Shan rup [Music] Terra hi can everyone hear me yes perfect my name is Tara IO and I'm an organizer with bedrooms are for people I'm also an Environmental Studies PhD student at CU a proud and active member of this community and a renter in the city of Boulder I help my department

[43:00] recruit prospective students to our grad programs every single student I have talk to who considers CU has mentioned lack of affordable housing as a deterrent for coming to Boulder I know grad students who have registered for domestic Partnerships to get around occupancy limits who choose to commute daily from Denver or who live in constant fear that they could be evicted at a moment's notice furthermore I also know of essential workers tenure track faculty members and staff many of whom have young families who choose to live outside of Boulder because of a lack of affordable housing options when I moved to Boulder I was in awe of the city and thought that at the end of my program I would like to stay but after dealing with the horrendous housing policy which is discriminatory which deters any growth of the community and which opposes the right to Affordable and legal housing I'm not sure I want to stay anymore I do not want to live in Community where the right to Affordable and legal housing is questioned I do not

[44:01] want to live in a community where our elected officials sit idle while volunteers like myself risk covid infection to ensure that the people of our community are heard I do not want to live in a community where apathy and foot dragging gets in the way of progress and most importantly I do not want to live in a community where discrimination is poorly masked as environmentalism or protection of neighborhood character adding the right to affordable housing to the Charter is absolutely essential to protecting our most vulnerable residents and to making Boulder a more just Equitable anti-racist and safe place to live thank you for your time thank you Tara um next we have Steve Whitaker Sean rup and Sharon procopio um Steve thank you mayor mayor and members of council I want to thank you first for

[45:02] all you do for all of us in these unusual times you have a lot of decisions to make on a wide variety of important issues I see no reason to pile on to those issues the extraordinarily complex issue of returning to franchise under Excel this is not urgent without a franchise agreement we will continue to get our electricity just as we have been however the wrong decision now could undo a decade of work and over $20 million in investment it is July 21st and the community are still in the dark on what the results of the negotiation look like we will need plenty of time for analysis debate Community participation and renegotiation before anything is ready for the ballot there just is not enough time for that this year Additionally the voters have been

[46:02] promised a final vote on municipalization after the total costs for acquisition are known those costs remain unknown any decision now on returning to franchise is premature I have played close attention to the positions of council members on the issue of municipalization prior to last year's election I am not aware of any of you campaigning for a return turn to franchise this year yet members of City staff have been tasked with participating in A hurried negotiation with Excel I do not think this is the intent of of council to rush to a franchise agreement no matter what I individual members of the council to speak up tonight on where you stand on rushing this negotiation if you not support a hasty process you need to make it clear to the city manager that there is is no urgent deadline for a franchise decision it is

[47:01] more important that this be done right than quickly thank you thank you Steve next we have Sean rup Sharon procopio and Sean Collins Sean [Music] rup hi my name is Sean rup and I'm an organizer with bedrooms are for people I moved to Boulder for grad school at CU about five years ago the only way I could afford to live here was to live in an over occupied house and work in a restaurant nearly full-time while in school and working in the lab when I graduated a few years ago I moved into yet another over occupied house but at least that time I was able to afford to only have three roommates rather than six now that I can afford to rent legally in Boulder I finally feel comfortable getting more involved in the community without fear of being evicted I'm also at a point in my life that starting a family is becoming a

[48:01] priority however I'll be paying off those student loans for years to come and living in Boulder for the last five years means that I haven't been able to save anywhere close to enough money to buy a home here I hear concerns that our proposal will price families out of Boulder but that is exactly what the current occupancy limit does community members like me who are renters in Boulder cannot afford to stay here plenty of friends I've made in Boulder have recently started families and purchased homes but not a single one of them is still living in Boulder these are the families who are being priced out and it's happening in part because of housing policies such as occupancy limits removing this occupancy limit is an important first step toward making Boulder more accessible and Equitable and it would provide more affordable options for both renters and homeowners thousands of bits have signed in support of this measure and we deserve to be able to vote on it in

[49:02] November thank you thank you Shan next we have Sharon procopio Shan Collins and saridon Haynes Sharon Hi everyone can you hear me all right yes can great my name is Sharon procopio I live at 4954 10th Street in Boulder uh and I'm an organizer and supporter of bedrooms are for people I'm here as a 15-year resident of Boulder over the years I've lived in basements of friends houses when I first moved here much like many I've lived in rental homes I've purchased a home as a newlywed and started a family I've also lived on people's couches and in furnished rental rentals as a newly divorced single parent and now I live in my own town home with my partner and and child um so I speak as a homeowner and a family member in support of this measure being the ballot in 2020 I do believe this belongs in the charter I think

[50:00] that's where individual rights and property rights should be as those are not items you want to see easily Modified by changing councils or exterior factors if the goal is to provide Equitable housing opportunities for all as a single divorce parent I'd like to remind people that we forget how divorce can impact housing affordability as well it's even for people making enough to meet make ends meet to live here as a married couple If your circumstances change and for many us they will you're now dealing with some percentage more people every year looking for housing than for that reason alone and in many of those cases having more creative housing occupancy op options is the only way to remain here in the city of Boulder and be able to co-parent as a blended family that's what I'm currently doing now so removing occupancy limits only serves to help everyone in my opinion besides raising my family here I also work locally as a civil engineering project manager and I've worked on affordable housing projects and know there's a lot of shortages for people who need it developing new housing takes time effort

[51:01] and money and updating our occupancy requirements is an easy way to provide more immediate housing opportunities without all the costs instantly I just want to say that I support this measure and I think that allowing people to share houses re reduces other burdens of cost like food utilities and transportation so I'd like to see this on the ballot to vote for it thank you Sharon next we have Sean Collins sidon Haynes and Sarah Campbell Sean hello Council I'd like to talk to you about the study that you have all received and trust that you have all read evidence that curtailing proactive policing can reduce major crime published in the very prestigious journal Nature human behavior which looked at the effects of nypd's work slowdown in response to the firing of the officer who murdered Eric Garner in 2014 NYPD wanted to show the city what would happen if they stayed in their squad car and only responded to emergency calls the result a 3 to 6%

[52:01] drop in civilian reports of Major Crimes such as burgly felony assault and Grand arseny I know the ingrained assumption is that we need police to keep us safe but proponents of that idea never seemed to include the violence done by police such as Boulder PD officer Wayan lolai attacking a disabled black man for filming him regardless of whether you think what Sammy Lawrence did was quote against the rules and it wasn't he was ft away in what world does tackling him damaging his walking Aid and putting him in a cage with a ransom on his head count as safety or how about ticketing my friend Steven for more money than he has to his name during a pandemic for the crime of smoking marijuana to calm his flashbacks it's legal for me to smoke marijuana it's legal for you all to smoke marijuana but because this man doesn't have a home in a city with $750 a month rooms safety looks like taking all of the money away from a homeless man and then some antisocial Behavior I.E crimes can largely be attributed to inequality and

[53:01] Trauma so why are we paying thugs arms armed with Glocks and AR-15s to take poor people's money away from them and to traumatize them defund Boulder PD by 50% and you'll have more than enough money to keep severe weather shelter open as well as getting a lot of the folks BPD deals with off the streets by redirecting those funds into the housing first homelessness strategy Berkeley a similar siiz City to to us just committed to do the very same thing also this isn't Sean Collins he just gave me his spot we're not supposed to do that but you don't play by the rules so why should we thank you person who may or may not be Sean next we have Sarah Don Haynes Sarah Campbell and Samantha Regan [Music] Saron hello thank you my name is Sarah Don Haynes I'm an organizer with bedrooms are for people a 20year renter lifetime color I've been listening to environmental leaders for the last 15 years saying

[54:00] climate change means we need to live differently and to have a livable planet there's also research published today in Colorado Sun that furthers that point and I've chosen a lifestyle that's most sustainable shared housing I didn't have kids I live where I work I put the little money I have into local farms and our community but then the charter and Elite Boulder i' say no don't do sustainability like that as an anti-racist I have looked at how to share wealth and resources so that those who have been historically oppressed can live with the Privileges and joys that I've been given and that's why our Charter amendment that would decriminalize people who want we want to build Justice Equity diversity and inclusion with is critical for the city but then again the opposition says no not like that just like they told T Kaepernick and Dr Reverend Martin Luther King Jr in the fight for civil rights finally it's incredibly offensive to hear someone say wait until next year we I have put my life on the line to collect signatures that you mandated in

[55:01] the pandemic and collectively we have spent over 1,200 hours to participate in the Democratic process that the city staff and Council put forth we've earned the right to be on the ballot and agree with the city attorney's advice to councel and refer the petition to the ballot as is it is currently written thanks thank you Sarah Don next we have Sarah Campbell Samantha Reagan and Sam corick [Music] Sarah hi my name is Sarah Campbell and I'm an organizer with bedrooms are for people I received my PhD in physics from CU in 2017 throughout graduate school I lived in an over occupied house with classmates who quickly became my family with one person in each bedroom we are able to affordably live close to work and bike home after those 5 a.m. nights in the lab my housemates were my main support network after my father died of

[56:02] a drug overdose and my mother was overcome by mental health issues the current occupancy laws do not prevent over occupancy they create a class of citizens who live without being on a lease without rental history or tenants rights the city should address the legitimate issues of nuisance complaints street parking and affordability for families rather than using occupancy limits as a catchall to coers low-income residents into good behavior though my classmates and I volunteered in local schools and cared about our community we avoided interacting with our neighbors and we were nervous about being reported when we participated in the Colorado caucus after living without a rental history it can be difficult to get back on a lease or purchase a home not everyone has parents not everyone has parents who can or will co-sign a lease or a mortgage

[57:01] application because housing is a basic human right our initiative would protect our most vulnerable citizens I believe it deserves to go in the city Charter the 6,000 citizens who risk their health to sign our petition in person during a pandemic agree now my husband and I own a home in Boulder we would like to rent our extra bedrooms which would both create more affordable housing and help us save Monies to be foster parents when we are older I hope that direct democracy does not fail here due to the City attorney changing the deadline after that deadline had already passed thank you thank you Sarah next we have Samantha Regan Sam corick and Ryan Seldon Samantha hi I'm Samantha and I'm an organizer with bedrooms are for people I moved to Boulder two years ago with my partner 5 years and finding housing was

[58:01] difficult from the get-go anyone who's rented in Boulder knows that one of the first things a listing usually States is no couples this was baffling to me at first until I realized that occupancy limits aren't even high enough to let one person live in each bedroom of most units let alone two in a bedroom unless you're married of course so even though my partner and I wanted to share a room bed closet and car we had to decide between a having to rent two rooms which we couldn't afford B living alone which we didn't want to do or c one of us not being on the lease in other words living illegally in the shadows and hopes that we wouldn't be evicted and fined Boulders Antiquated occupancy laws silence our electorate leading to a chilling effect on our representative democracy which explains how and why we still have these laws that are so harmful to thousands living illegally makes you less likely to vote engage with your elected officials have a voice on issues that affect you and less likely to feel you have a stake in our community instead of baking muffins for new people who move into my neighborhood I try to look like a guest as I come and go from my home and avert eye contact when I take out the recycling and an effort to be invisible I still have out

[59:00] of state license plates because I'm nervous about registering my card and my address and leaving a paper trail proving how long I've lived over occupied registering to vote presented a similar dilemma I decided the benefits outweigh the risk though not without Research into if I could become a confidential voter so that my registration data wouldn't be publicly available and used against me speaking tonight presented a similar dilemma do I speak up in hopes of bringing change or stay quiet in the shadows for sharing a room with my partner of seven years like many we have talked numerous times about getting a domestic partnership to count as related and live legally there's a fear of speaking out because of the consequences so it's incredibly hard to make change in this sphere despite this bedrooms are for people with on track to meet the high threshold originally given by the city to demonstrate broad Community Support please allow the voters to decide in a year when we're expected to have 90% voter turnout thank you thank you Samantha next we have Sam corick Ryan Seldon and Ru Rango Sam hi my name is Sam corick and I'm an organizer with bedrooms are for people

[60:00] I'm a recent 2020 graduate of CU Boulder have been able to live on the hill and thanks to scholarships I have received my first time renting in Boulder I lived in an over occupied house with six roommates and I wasn't even on the official lease if I had known how much of my savings I would have been spending on rent in Boulder I probably would not have ended up coming to see you the occupancy limits not only make it harder for current students to find affordable housing but turn away smart young and diverse individuals from attending CU because they can't afford to live here in a time when CU is trying to attract a more diverse student body this is one of the most unnecessary obstacles to that goal the lack of affordable housing options for students not only turns away potential students but it leads to a Congregation of students over occupying homes in areas like the hill which is currently happening like I once was these illegal living situations are unstable ERS become more at risk of eviction without legal representation and deal with bad

[61:00] landlords and rundown housing with no other options to turn to more often these occupancy limits are unlawfully used as a defense in an attempt to evict students for playing music too loud parking on the street in front of a neighbor's house or just for being a college student it is just another example of a boulder law to discriminate against the students living in Boulder giving a class of Boulder residents the power to evict whomever solely on a complaint is dangerous anti- renter anti-student position that Boulder cannot sustain I am asking the city council to take the first and easiest step in helping students obtain affordable housing in Boulder by placing bedrooms are for Boulder on the ballot bedrooms are for people on the ballot thank you thank you Sam next we have Ryan Seldon ruy arango and Rose Goodman Ryan hello uh my name is Ryan Seldin and I'm an organizer with bedrooms are for people

[62:00] please put bedrooms are for people on the ballot we follow the city's guidance we've risked our lives in the face of pandemic to gather the required number of signatures how can you kill our measure when we follow the information we're given by the City by changing the date to one that had already passed hold up your end and put bedrooms are for people on the ballot keeping our measure from the ballot will open the city to a Justified lawsuit we're damaged by acting in Reliance on information the city has since revised since the city represented as fact that we needed 4,48 signatures by the date of August 5 in official Communications including the 2020 initiatives approved for circulation list still published on the Municipal elections web page we ried on that representation to voting significant resources to meeting those benchmarks then in changing the deadline to one pass the city would kill our measure without recourse wasting the time effort resources and risk we put into collecting those signatures this lawsuit would be a losing proposition for the city in a massive way of taxpayer dollars it has already been said that the issue is one that should be decided by the voters save Boulder

[63:02] the money and let the voters decide it's win-win put bedrooms are for people on the B housing is a human right and it belongs in the charter not subject to sudden shifts due to code changes the current zoning laws are so unreasonably strict and so selectively enforced that much of the boulder population lives at risk of eviction just to be able to afford uh housing selective enforcement breeds discrimination disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable Among Us in protecting the right to housing we need to put this human right on the charter put bedrooms are for people on the ballot thanks thank you Ryan next we have Rory arango Rose Goodman and Rebecca D Michelle Roy hey everyone my name is uh ruy I'm a resident here in the city of Boulder I'm also the campaign chair for the citizen l initiative no eviction without representation that we all going to get to vote on this

[64:00] November and I'm here tonight to share with you a little something that a 67y old man with empyema who lost his job due to covid told me outside eviction Court after he had been evicted he had a question for me and it was this I have a Social Security check coming next week do you think I should spend that on rent or food and medicine I don't know what to do that dilemma is going to be experienced by hell of a lot of people here in Boulder unless something is done about evictions on a state level the governor's protections extensions on evictions expires on August 11th after that we're going to see a goddamn tsunami of evictions that affect our friends loved ones our neighbors Council you have a line to the governor I implore you crank on him do something we need more

[65:02] eviction protections and moratorium would be ideal otherwise a lot of people in this city are going to be faced with that same dilemma do I pay my rent or do I buy food while I got you here in regards to bedrooms are for people for God's sakes just put it on the ballot and let people decide damn thank you thank you R um last we have three speakers Rose Goodman Rebecca Delle and Rebecca Davies Rose hi my name is Rose Goodman and I'm a resident of Boulder in Gun Barrel area I vote in City elections and I pay city taxes I would like to quickly um express my concern around two issues that I'm hoping that I can be heard um first of all regarding the possible development to Celestial Seasonings area is just not it does not make any sense one if you've been over here it is way too

[66:01] crowded already it would make no sense to put in more residential housing there are no resources like a bike path or any closed store that you could walk to additionally there's ridiculous traffic already and the measurements that are being made that the city planning board is consider is considering accurate is during a pandemic which I don't think like represents the um traffic conditions that will be normally happening um the community in the area doesn't feel like the city planning board is taking our opinions very seriously many people in the area do not support this and I actually have not spoken to a single person within this community in gun barl that supports this development but the city planning board is not taking any of our opinions very seriously the other issue that I'd like to address is the environment I think it's ridiculous that an intelligent eco-friendly place like boulders wanting to kill the ecosystem especially when there are other places that have just empty buildings sitting there and there

[67:00] are so many apartments that are completely empty we're also in a pandemic where people might end up um moving or having to change locations due to their job and it would be really challenging to start building right now I think we need more time and we need to make this decision later on additionally I think it's ridiculous to have someone on the planning board um reject an opinion and be horrible and hostile and rude and disrespectful to someone who is just expressing their concern I have been a witness to this happening by one of the community by one of the people on the planning board and I think it's ridiculous to have those people be there whenever other people are just trying to be heard and it's disrespectful and I don't find it acceptable thank you thank you Rose last two are Rebecca dumelle and Rebecca Davies Rebecca to Michelle [Music]

[68:09] Sarah could you let us know Rebecca is [Music] in yeah I'm having a I'm having a technical difficulty here um recognizing Rebecca bear with me for one moment please [Music] sure [Music] hello hello Rebecca we can hear you awesome my name is Rebecca Dell I'm a longtime listener firsttime caller and an organizer for bedrooms are for people whether you're a grad student making ends meet a service worker or young professional saving up to start your family single parents tripling up to share child responsibilities or retirees living on a fixed income and need for companionship this Common Sense change

[69:01] will help you but we're not here tonight because of the merits 21 years ago the 1999 Boulder healthing toolkit outlined occupancy limits as an area that should be reviewed it was again recommended in the 2010 2011 affordable housing task force in 2014 the city declined allowing up the senior citizens to live together more recently the housing Advisory Board was banned from even discussing occupancy limits the normal process has failed the people and the people cannot trust the city to correct this discriminatory rule via regulations without another 20 years or more of delay we're here tonight because residents believe anti-discrimination to be part of over Charter we are here tonight because the city gave petitioners and you councel the wrong dates and signature targets we are here tonight because the city attorney publicly stated that the city would honor the August 5th date guidance we

[70:00] are here tonight because thousands of people want to exercise their right to direct democracy it is now your responsibility to defend the people's rights regardless of the merits on whether you agree with them I call on each of you to uphold direct democracy by placing the positions directly on the V without changes and without delay thank you thank you Rebecca and finally we have Rebecca Davies hi my name is Rebecca Davies and I'm an organizer with bedrooms are for people although many people have spoken in support of our campaign tonight I want to acknowledge that more than 50 additional supporters registered to speak but were not selected this evening bedrooms are for people thanks them we also want to thank the more than 6,000 voters who have signed our petition already either through visiting our tables or requesting that we come to them via our petition delivery service

[71:01] we appreciate their commitment to Bringing housing choice to our community and taking action to solve a problem that cannot wait another year for a solution governor polus recently acknowledged that restrictive occupancy laws constrain housing when he asked cities to lift their limits in response to the tremendous economic losses coloradans have suffered in the pandemic and just last week Den Unity planners released recommendations for raising Denver's occupancy limits explaining that overly restrictive limits quote perpetuate inequity end quote and do not reflect how families of all shapes and sizes share homes today but Boulders archaic occupancy law isn't the only Injustice on display tonight we are simultaneously dealing with a ballot initiative process that has been twisted and Tangled by inaccurate information delivered by the city to petitioners on numerous occasions information that City Council Members never found reason to doubt nor

[72:02] did our campaign at least one of these injustices can be corrected immediately city council can place our measure on the ballot as it is written then voters can decide for themselves if they want to end housing discrimination in Boulder as Penfield Tate II Boulder's first and only black mayor said the measure of a great City and a great country is not the of its Green Belt but how it treats its people thank you for your time thank you Rebecca and with that I will bring um this back to staff and see if there's any response from the city manager or City attorney no response nothing for me very good and I'll bring it to council if there's any questions or comments about uh the open comment [Music] let me have a look here real quick

[73:01] Aaron yeah so uh a couple of folks brought up the uh development uh proposal for the celestial seasoning site which we're hearing next week uh we're talking about that concept plan um I just wanted to check in with our our legal folks I got an invitation from some neighbors to come and talk to them and look at the um look at the site with them just want to make sure that we're allowed to do that so long as we disclose uh contact like that uh so concept plans are not quasi judicial they're legislative in nature so you do not have to disclose it if if it comes back for site review uh I would disclose that you had been done a site visit okay thanks for clarifying that very good anyone else seeing no one I will turn it over to you [Music] Debbie okay now we move on to public hearings your first public hearing tonight is um oh it's the increase to the Arts

[74:03] commission from five members to seven and I will be presenting this um and just take a second to get control over the presentation here we go so um this is relatively straightforward the charter provides that boards and commissions shall have five members with some exceptions the exceptions being uh certain identified commissions and any commission Comm uh created after I think 2019 U the council wanted the flexibility to say f to have have more members or fewer I guess U but the council was concerned about affecting existing commissions um so the AR

[75:02] commission doesn't qualify for the an exemption over the last few years the Arts Comm the work of the AR Arts commission has increased dramatically with Council providing additional funding over which they have control and which they have to distribute uh in the their annual letter to council last year the Arts commission requested an increase from five to seven members to do that we'll need to change the charter I'm sorry there you go so there are a couple of new Provisions that we're suggesting uh section 135 would uh set the number of at of members at the commission at seven um it it just mimics the language in some other [Music] sections section 136 uh provid provides that uh the existing commission will continue as it exists today all existing members would continue their service

[76:01] under their existing terms um in March 2021 next year if it passes uh Council will add two additional members one for a three-year term and one for a five-year term the rationale being you don't want um Council to be appointing three in any one year and there'll be a two-year separation between the years when council's appoints two this is the method used for the planning board and I believe the housing Advisory Board so this is the the charter language council is charged with um drafting the ballot the ballot title this is the proposed ballot title uh it's in the [Music] memo does council uh before Council questions Kathleen McCormack the chair of the Arts commission is here and I'd like Council to uh give her a few minutes to present her views you bet thank you very much Tom

[77:05] that uh good evening um can everyone hear me yes great thank you uh thank you for considering the boulder Arts commission's request to add two more perent seats we are very grateful to the uh great support Council has provided including your increased financial support in the last couple of years the five appoint Ed Boulder Arts commission members agree that two additional Commissioners would help us do our job more effectively and would broaden representation of the arts and culture Community we ask that you approve this change which would translate into a more inclusive and hopefully more diverse Arts commission first and background the success of Boulders arts and culture brants program includes generating almost $70 million in annual economic activity supporting 1,800 fulltime jobs and producing 4.6 million in government revenues according to a 2017 study by

[78:02] Americans for the arts arts commission spends many hours typically over six to eight months a year reviewing scoring and awarding grants to dozens of large and small arts and culture organizations and dozens of individual artists there numerous categories including grants for SE for sorry for General operating support Arts ation Community projects professional development and Equity commission is grateful to the additional grants panel members from the arts and culture Community who have served with us over the past four years weed for additional panelists every year in response to requests from the community to have more representation to improve the equity and reliability of the tight MTH involved in getting a grant additional Grant panelists do the heavy lifting with us of determining which artists and organization will

[79:00] organizations will be awarded grants but they get little of the glory as it were of being appointed to five-year terms as Commissioners clear from previous years that with only five Commissioners voting that a single commissioner could have an outsized influence on the final scores that's probably due to the small numbers we use during scoring and also to the fact that the between applications can be very small down to the 100th of a point final scoring of Grants is a little like the Olympics if a commissioner was absent from a meeting or recused herself from voting for an applicant that also had a huge impact on these tight scores we've experienced that having more panelists scoring Arts grants has provided greater Assurance a reality check that representing the values of the community We Believe more Commissioners would provide the continual year-round benefit of wider representation from different

[80:00] perspectives within within the arts and culture Community additional Commissioners also would have a better grasp throughout the year and year-to year on the records of arts and culture organizations that receive grants especially the multi-year general operating support grants currently awarded to 37 organizations Commissioners also will lighten the load for the current five commissioners in duties such as serving on public art panels art Summits workshops inter interdepartmental committees and as leaon to all the organizations that receive General operating funds currently each commissioner is developing liaison relationships with between five and eight organizations which includes checking in during covid about how those organizations are doing regarding budgets staff and programming it's up picture now now but we believe it's important to reach out to maintain our sense of Community Arts commission members also

[81:01] serve on three boards the dairy Arts Center the boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and the bould convention and visitors bureau again for your consideration we hope you decide that two more Arts commission members will help Leverage The creativity and inspiration that our arts and culture nonprofits venues and professional artists spark in our community right thank you very much Kathleen thank you Tom for the presentation so I guess I would start with Council questions to any council members have questions for Tom or [Music] Kathleen okay seeing none then I think we can move on to public comment for this item we have two people signed up for public comment they are uh Lynn seagull and Mark gband so if you're ready Sarah we can start with L

[82:02] seagull okay with me for one moment Lynn you're live you can unmute and speak hey Cathleen so glad that you're working on this um love to see your face I really don't need to see something with a big giant two minutes 53 seconds in front of me it could be shrunk to a little thing on the side and if Zoom can't do that maybe some other vendor can I support the Arts yeah Nob brainer bye Den thank you Lyn and then is Mark gelband in the [Music] meeting I am not seeing Mark in the meeting okay um if he shows up later we can let him say his piece but with that I will

[83:02] close the public hearing and bring it back to council um so who would like to start okay Aaron yes thank you one second uh crazy dogs um yeah so I really appreciate the Arts commission bring this forward and um and it's really gratifying uh for once to be able to um satisfy a board or commission request we get those great letters every year with lists of all kinds of great ideas and so many of them are worthy of attention uh but often um don't get taken up so U appreciate Council for being willing to put this forward the Arts commission works extremely hard um I've served alongside boards with a number of them including Kathleen um so Kathleen thanks for being here and sharing those thoughts but I think this is just an easy way to make our Arts

[84:02] Community uh even more thriving um and successful and to uh support a board that does great work so really glad we're doing this and happy you put a motion on the table when it's ready thank you Aon Mary well I was going to put a motion on the table so I will second it if Aon wants to make the motion Mary you go for it um I I move that we adopt ordinance 8405 submitting to the registered electors of the city of Boulder at the municipal coordinated election to be held on Tuesday November 3rd 2020 the question of adding new sections 135 and 136 to the Boulder City Charter increasing the number of members to the boulder Arts commission to seven and providing for appointment terms of office and addressing vacancies setting forth the ballot title specifying the form of the ballot and other election procedures and setting forth related details second very good is there any Council

[85:03] discussion seeing none I'll turn to Debbie and mention this is a roll call [Music] vote council member [Music] young yes rocket [Music] Hi friend [Music] Joseph yes Nel stick yes wallik hi Weaver I Yates make it unanimous yes y motion passes nine very good thank you all all right your next public hearing is uh consideration of a motion to adopt

[86:00] ordinance 8406 submitting to the registered electors of the city of Boulder at a special Municipal coordinated election to be held on Tuesday November 3rd 2020 the question of amending Charter section 12 to allow the city council under specific emergency conditions to suspend the operation of certain Charter provision and setting forth related details I will be presenting this one as well um this one be came from the charter committee at my my request uh as we've gone and I'm stalling as I'm trying to get the PowerPoint to move forward it'll go forward in a second as uh we've gone forward in the during the covid-19 pandemic there have been many times where I've looked at the charter and thought thought it would be great if council could change that um the most obvious things had to do with the ballot measures but there have been many others

[87:06] um there it is um so [Music] sorry um so we've I the Council instructed me to I go and look at the charter and identify specific Provisions that I would recommend the have the authority to alter during an emergency so the ordinance is drafted would limit would allow Council to suspend 19 specific Charter Provisions Jour an emergency only one declared by the president or the governor one declared by the city manager of the council would not count unless it had been also declared by the president or the governor that leaves the that that avoids the possibility of council giving itself the power to do this uh or the city manager doing that uh it would require a vote of two-thirds of the council member present uh it would be it would the the the ordinance and the charter provision would say it had to be the minimum effect necessary to conduct the business of the city the uh

[88:01] suspension could be no more than for 60 days uh it could be revie renewed by a two-thirds vote of those present and it could not extend beyond the end of the emergency is declared by the president or the governor these are the 19 Provisions uh they are all laid out in the memo I have each provision in the PowerPoint uh and I'm happy to display anyone a council member would would like to see in specific or answer any questions about specific Provisions but I was not going to take council's time going through each one individually uh mostly they relate to time limitations that would be uh problematic if uh we council could not meet it all or boards and commissions for that matter uh there is also the one uh addressing free water um I think it would it would have been very helpful during this crisis for Council to have this power um it would be helpful I believe in the future for Council to have this

[89:01] power this is the ballot language again the council is charged with uh drafting the ballot title uh this is the proposed ballot Title by staff but it's U council's Authority Council questions very good thank you Tom for that um I see Bob's hand thanks Tom Tom you're right that most of these almost all of these actually relate to time and so I get how um an emergency might cause us to not be able to do things within a Time particular time frame like preparing our budget or swearing to new council members and so on so forth of the 19 there's one however that um stood out at me as not really time related and that was 30 Charter section 38a um which really relates to how many um signatures must be on a um on a petition uh for a valot measure and um I was struggling a little bit with what

[90:00] how that could be how that would work um because the time extensions are all pretty logical and they'd be limited by the length of time of the emergency but would would Council if Council had the right to change section 38a would Council have the right to lower the number of signatures on a petition and if so when the emergency ended how how would would would the number go back up or would it be down permanently I'm just trying to understand among the 19 not really time oriented and I'm trying to understand how it would actually work mechanically great question Boba this was this arose in my thinking about how Count Council struggled with the initiatives that were proposed this year and the difficulty that people had collecting signatures um there were some folks who suggested that we should reduce the number of signatures um because of the pandemic uh and I advised that that wasn't possible that's why I included this you're absolutely correct it does not deal with time and Council can eliminate if you like and if if you if it would be

[91:00] helpful I can project that section so that folks can see it um well let's um hear from other people and then if there is an interest by others to um delve into this further maybe we can put it up how how we do that and I should add Bob as you know but maybe council's members are not aware we we propose ballot measures but these are truly councils and it's not unusual for us to go through many drafts to get something that really reflects the will of the council so council members should feel free to add subtract or change this in any way they think appropriate yeah that was the only comment I had is that that one just wasn't wasn't a time oriented one and I was just wasn't sure how it would actually work thanks very good I have Rachel and then Mark Rachel thanks just a quick question um do do counties declare emergencies is it all helpful to have a a county capacity to declare an emergency if were more local or would that always come from the state that's a great question I wasn't able to find a list of County emergencies I was able to find a list of

[92:00] state and National emergencies that affected Boulder County um so your objective and not giving us the power to declare emergency and then do some Sinister changing of rules under that emergency right would be the the guard rail you're trying to put up but if the county did it yeah the other thing that noticed about these emergencies is they were pretty all-encompassing uh and some that so so I don't think that there was a situation where uh the city or county would have declared emergency where the president or the governor hadn't uh I have a list of them all the ones I could find going back some years in the memo I I did not bring it tonight but U so wasn't greatly concerned that we would be missing much is there any harm in adding County to the state and federal declared emergencies no thanks okay Mark and then Mary Mark yeah I have some comments that I'll sa for later um but I do have a question I think in your memo you listed 11

[93:01] different um sort of events of emergency since the year 2000 is that the correct count um I can check well it's rough um in any of those did we have a problem fulfilling any of the functions of government that are being addressed in the emergency Powers ordinance in other words has there ever been a time when we could not do any of the things that we are in a position to alter as a result of this measure Mark I have been worried in this crisis about the some of the things that we've been forced to do that could be read to violate the charter uh we suspended meetings of boards and commissions yet the charter says that they shall meet monthly um there is some language about meeting the council meetings that could be read to prohibit uh virtual meetings um I would feel much

[94:00] more comfortable if Council had the power to fix some of these things um during and we haven't faced some of the other deadlines that could have Arisen during this um the the flood emergency was much shorter uh and did not affect us in the same long-term way uh if Council or boards had been required to meet at the municipal building during the day of the flooding that would have been impossible if that had continued for longer it would have those are the only two I've experienced personally well actually there was the second flood uh but that wasn't that didn't really interfere with our operations at all um so the answer is to a limited extent yes but uh I take your point that we're trying to predict the future and that's not possible have other comments later when we get to the comments portion thank you juny

[95:00] no so Jim's hand is gone um raise it again if you have any questions I have one question Tom um I seem to recall going through the charter and seeing a provision where the mayor can take control of the police which I think is very outdated is is that in fact in the charter and is it I don't see it in any of the changing you have listed here yeah it yes it is in the charter I did not include that because it would seem to me that it's in there for emergency purposes and to be able to suspend the dur emergency would not be appropriate if you'd like we could draft an amendment to take it out um which I'd be happy to do and it's isn't that heavy left uh but it's I don't know that it's appropriate to consider suspending an eer a power that really is only appropriate an emergency um and I'll wait on other council members if they want to wait end it just seemed as the mayor that I don't have any particular um skill or ability to make a determination of what the

[96:02] police force should do it it just seemed like a anachronistic kind of uh emergency power that was in the charter I I certainly would agree that if Council nominated somebody from Council to do that in the event of the passing of the top staff maybe that could be approp but I I I'm not comfortable with it in there I'd just be happy to hear what other council members have to say um if people want to think about it and weigh in later we do have a public hearing if there are no further Council questions okay seeing no council questions Sarah I think we're ready to go to the public hearing for this item and from uh what I understand there are three speakers ly seagull Peter Meer and Mark

[97:01] gban that's correct okay so we'll start we'll start with Lenn that was Peter mayor um I don't want any police state in Boulder so whatever you need to do for that um like the threat going on in Portland and major other cities ities so um I just personally don't trust this council at all especially until our City attorney and our um and our city manager are out of here um and I've run for Council before so it's not like I wouldn't like to do the work myself but I I just I just don't I don't hear a lot of response like you had 88 people that wanted bedrooms are for people and you didn't have a word to say to them people that have gone into a lot of trouble you know I probably would even vote against it because I wanted it to be stronger

[98:01] you know 300 feet per um bedroom and per person um different parameters but yeah I I don't I don't trust this council at all to um to be able to lift any restrictions um no way um you can't even clean up your websites I C you know for the last month I've gotten a couple nights of sleep total trying to do all the list logistics for this these virtual meetings um you know you don't have the respect to put me up on a video window I can't see you know the people that are that you know the the other people can't see we can't see each other we're all disaggregated from each other and nobody seems to care about that stuff you want to just move forward with an an electric um car uh

[99:00] parking space for 1727 Pearl and a third story so that they can Elevate the property value here and so we can have more homelessness when you have no plan for the homeless people this winter um and we've got major evictions coming up you know this is all about development you know with this city council I don't trust you as far as I could throw you so no way sorry maybe you can live up to a better higher ideal in the future Dan thank you Len um Peter Meer and Mark gban Peter hi can you hear me yes great good evening council members tonight I'm speaking on behalf of the plan Boulder board plan Boulder prefaces this statement with the following in the

[100:01] Decades of advocating for issues involving the city of Boulder plan Boulder has focused on the specific issue and never on the personality but in this case the issue is Tom Carr plan Boulder has reviewed the memo prescribing ordinance 8406 to allow city council to suspend certain Charter Provisions under specified emerc Mercy conditions we are very cautious about allowing any suspension of Charter provisions and given plan Boulder's recent experience with having the certification of our Charter Amendment initiative illegally rejected by the city clerk and Tom Carr we have lost all confidence in his legal advice and the advice being provided to the city Boulder City Council we will not support ordinance 8406 as long as Tom Carr is City attorney and making rulings on our election process particularly during an emergency we respectfully request Mr Carr be removed from all duties pertaining to city election matters effective

[101:00] immediately he has shown that he cannot be trusted to do his job or to guide others promptly or fairly he has shown that he is unable and unwilling to follow the State Constitution and to treat citizens equally and fairly he has shown complete ignorance to Charter section 137 which unequivocally States the Constitution governs the charter petition process without exception Mr Carr's failures are of great significance to the citizens of Boulder and impact our constitutionally guaranteed right to petition the government we firmly believe that Boulder should no longer accept Mr Carr's Authority in any election matters or during this emergency thank you very much thank you Peter and finally we have Mark gband uh Sarah is Mark in thee [Music] meeting I am not seeing him in the meeting this evening okay very good like the last

[102:01] hearing um if he shows up before this item is done we'll allow him to speak with that said I would bring the um issue back to council um so I think there are two open issues maybe we need to weigh in on one was the one that Bob raised about um signature uh thresholds for ini referenda and recall and one is the issue that I raised about whether we want to have the mayor be able to take over the police force in an emergency so I would invite Council comments on either of those or other subjects Arc my comments are are probably a little more General um there are two different kinds of Provisions that are being addressed um in the proposed uh Ordinance one are are sort of ministerial um the date on which we have to have a budget I can see having more

[103:00] flexibility for that or if the clerk has to perform a particular function and as a result of emergency is unable to do so um I can certainly understand some greater flexibility uh with respect to that um I will say that I am extremely reluctant to tamper with with uh our electoral processes and leave that to the discretion of not this Council but any Council um and I'm not sure that that's that's an appropriate thing to do um I can support those Provisions that are characterized by what I described earlier you know changing a a deadline for a city agency that happens to be embedded in the in the charter or functions that are performed by one individual and he or she is unable to do so in a timely fashion but uh when it comes to our electoral processes I I am I'm extremely cautious about it and I

[104:02] don't think we've given it a lot of consideration in terms of what those implications might be so I certainly don't want to act on that at the moment uh with respect to your um request on your police Powers um uh I don't know that they've ever been exercised by anyone I I I'm really indifferent I don't think any any mayor of the city would do that except under the direst of circumstances um I don't think that would be a you know done for a political purpose and so I'm happy to have it in if you're uncomfortable I'm happy to have it out um but I do put my focus on the election requirements uh which are established and should be firm especially that we have not had an incident where we could not per form previously thanks thank you Mark Adam I saw your hand up did you take it down or

[105:01] would you like to speak since uh Bob had more to say I wanted to hear him first okay um Bob you're up well thanks Adam um I'm gonna agree with Mark uh first of all I'm agnostic on the police one um if if people want to um carve that out that's fine I could go either way on that I think and Tom cor me if I'm wrong that um the the two provisions of the 19 that relate to elect cor process are sections 38a and 39 I'd already raised 38a 38a which really relates to numbers of signatures and again I I struggle a little bit with how that would be changed of course council could always put a measure on the ballot if they felt um and we're interestingly enough going to talk about that in a few minutes here so council could always put a measure on the ballot I'm I'm I'm with Mark I'm not sure that um adjusting our electoral process something that we want to give to Future councils not withstanding an emergency um again we always have the power to um put things on the ballot if um if if

[106:01] that's the will of council and that doesn't even require two-thirds vote um and I think the other one is 39 that also wasat electoral process has dates now that has dates both for petitioners and for the administrators um on the clerk's side so I I hesitated to bring up 39 but I do agree with Mark uh 39 the first sentence of 39 directs the petitioners or provides a deadline for the petitioners the rest of it is ministerial so I would um at least throw the first sentence of 39 into to Mark's um list of electoral things that we probably shouldn't um adjust um but I could be persuaded to throw all of 39 out um but at least at least the first sentence should come out um so I'm I'm with Mark on that if there are others Tom that you think relate to the electoral process do let us know but those are the two that I could identify thank you Bob um next I've got Rachel and juny and then we can come back to Adam if he wants to speak Rachel um okay so first on the uh police

[107:03] Powers um could that be broadened to like Council can take over police powers and it wouldn't be so much pressure on the mayor position would be a little more Equitable so that might be a question to Tom or to anybody would that solve it a little bit for your angle Sam yeah I mean if if I think what would solve it from my angle would be that if Council designated the mayor or some other council member to take over the police that would would give me a lot more Comfort because I think having a quorum of council make that decision is more appropriate especially in an emergency than just a single person yeah so I'm supportive of that it sounds like a um something Savvy to look at um so that's on that and then to me the bigger issue here overall in looking at this change is I think we got caught off

[108:00] guard in 2020 with pandemic and we didn't have all the tools that we wished we had um and and that was true for the um elections process in part and I could see a scenario if the pandemic had been more deadly where significant population Decline and um holding holding to 8,000 signatures say in a year when um we lost a lot of people might not make sense so I don't know that it hurts us to have a super majority of council take into account the realities of whatever is going on and in a really um narrow narrow way with really good guard rails be able to say what do we need to do to help the public and best benefit our community in this year when we couldn't anticipate X Y and Z so I struggle with um with specifying I I said that the first time we talked about it I wouldn't specify we can change these 12 things I

[109:01] would say with a super majority in in um in a declared state of emergency Council you know cannot touch these maybe things that are sacran and off limits but anything else with um a rational Nexus we could change if we needed to because I don't think it's about like us trying to again be like Sinister and take over power it's us trying to help the community and that would be what I'd be trying to affect in in putting this on the ballot does the community want us to have the power to to change something that's helpful in the event of of an unforeseen catastrophe and and we don't know what we don't know yet because the next one's not going to be the same as the flood or the same as this if it were we would anticipate and change it so I'd be may I cqu with you on that so in effect you're articulating a vision of even broader Council power in the event of an emergency okay I just wanted to understand that

[110:01] thanks right thank you Rachel I've got juny Adam Mary and Aaron [Music] juny thank you I just have some questions about section five paragraph 3 and I wanted to know relating to terms of council members to me I'm wondering why is that an emergency or why should that be part of an emergency sure when I was [Music] think third Tuesday in November um you'd be violating the charter and so in an emergency the prior council could reschedule that meeting or um defer uh some defer to some other ability to have attend um this this basically removes the power 00 a.m. on the

[111:00] third Tuesday in November and if the council could prior to that or or at that time we would have no government in the city or at least only half of a government so that was the idea there yeah I for me I think some of the the free water I understand I think that's important but I think some of them are slightly Broad and overreaching so I'm not sure if I can support all of it as is and I think as a council I can tell that we are slightly more conservative when we think of you know when we think of our own governor and you know when he announced even when we think of petitioning we have not followed suit so I think I'm not sure if given more power in terms of emergency is really the way

[112:02] we're going about it is the most effective way and I'm wondering if it would be possible to say something along the line that we would go um for instance if it is a you know a a national emergency and our governor made an announcement would we follow suit as well as a city as opposed to just say that oh we give broad powers to the council because that essentially doesn't mean anything because as a council we do have a lot of power and to change things and we can see even with the ballot measures we've not really uh we have not been the most Progressive on those ideas so I'm trying to figure out whether that will really make a difference or we just making changes to make changes thank you juny um I've got Adam Mary and Aaron next

[113:00] Adam Tom one of my questions is uh could we essentially make any of these changes on the Fly given the emergency like as Council what would it take to essentially have these powers does it have to be a ballot initiative yes just want to make sure so if if you that that's one of the things we' run up against in this emergency the the code gives the city manager broad authority to change ordinances and as you know she's exercised that Authority in a limited capacity during this crisis um you don't have the authority to change the charter and my worry has been that there are times when I wish that you did um and that this this list is sort of my wish list again it uh Council asked me to go through the charter and I did I don't pretend that it's perfect uh if Council wants to remove or add um that's your that's your prerogative and you should do this you you you will own this ordinance if it goes on the ballot

[114:01] so you should make whatever change appropriate thanks Tom uh I I guess my two well my biggest hangup is also in the election related materials so if we are moving forward in this direction I might want to look at those either again now or at a different time um those are my biggest Hang-Ups Sam to your question yeah I'm happy to remove it or um make it different as far as Council being the you know as a body appointing someone for um control of the police uh I don't know if we slide that in here as well or what but that's where I'm at with that issue as well no if you're interested in doing that I'll draft a first reading ordinance for next meeting and you can consider it then you've got you still have time good thank you and Tom when you say you draft a first reading ordinance um would it not be included as

[115:02] part of this kind of as an Omnibus because I think if we're going to put a sweeping Charter change on the ballot related to emergency that one would fit in here yeah I'd want to think about that a little the charter requires that Charter amendments be limited to a single subject the single subject here is emergency Powers I guess you could squeeze that in as a limiting emergency Powers but I it makes me a little bit uncomfortable I'd want to talk to other lawyers in my office and uh if Council wants to defer action on this until um for two weeks and we can consider amending it that way that's fine we could do that thank you um Mary and then [Music] Aaron so um I agree with Adam and his suggestion to um instead of removing the or or or appointing the entire Council to take over the police to give Council the authority to as a body appoint

[116:01] someone to lead the police in an emergency because um obviously it's it's not an inherent um um talent I guess or or skill of council to um manage a police department so I think that that that might be the way to go um I wanted to um address the electoral process um and agree with Mark and um changing any of that I think one of the things that we need to remember as we proceed with these emergency Powers is that they are not for this Council they are for councils in the future um this Council has a certain um personality I guess you could say okay um past councils that I've been on have each had their own personality that may behave in a manner that would be quite different from this Council and future

[117:01] councils may um do so as well so I think that what we have to do is consider that there could be a nefarious Council that there could be um the desire to user power um so um on that note I think that the the electoral process I think could be um I would be skeptical of tampering with that um with respect to um I want to just comment on Rachel's suggestion of um an emergency as being called by the County Commissioners um I think that is also could potentially be RI for abuse because there are only three Commissioners and um and in Boulder County the Commissioners tend to be very likeminded and it would be easy to get two votes out of three on

[118:02] something so that you could convince them to declare an emergency um again I'm not thinking about this Council I'm thinking about scenarios in the future um perhaps a much darker future I don't know um but um so that's my comment on that and then to um providing broader Council Powers um to change the charter I I would be really skeptical of that for the same reasons that I've just um articulated thank you Mary Aaron Aaron you're [Music] muted is that better y thanks for that Mary about um future council's that that point you know that we have to think about um many many different people many of whom we do not know over many many years so it's an important point I just

[119:02] with respect to this question about taking control of the police I want to ask a question of what is the you know the city manager of course is um supervises the police through the police chief and what is the succession um process for the city manager if there's someone is incapacitated I I'm checking right now Aaron but I believe the council appoints the successor so and what would there be an automatic to like again thinking about some really terrible emergency um and and you know it's the city manager who can make the emergency orders and he or she is incapacitated what happens like the next day is there an automatic thing no I'm looking every every year in December um this city manager actually forwards to council um delegation of authority um so right now the delegation of authority

[120:01] from Jane is to myself as Deputy city manager and then Chris meschuk as Deputy city city manager thereafter and then there's additional names that are listed and so that is updated annually great is is that codified an ordinance or is that a kind of internal policy I believe you pass it I don't think you pass it as an ordinance or I just mean that the fact that there is a line of succession like how that how the process works is that codified an ordinance anywhere yeah eron it's in um title two of the boulder Revised Code section 2- 2.5 is the emergency Provisions in the code and that's where that line of succession and the annual renewal is defined okay great yeah I mean if you if we could get just a real quick pointer to that um after this meeting sometime I think that would be good to look at as well just to make sure that's in the right order personally I Sam I appreciate you bringing up the question about the

[121:00] taking the police over I would absolutely change that um and I don't know that that the city council needs to have the ability to take over the police I mean if there's a good line of succession through the city manager um it seems like keeping the sort of um administrative having that be an administrative function rather than a um a legislative one makes sense to me so I I would definitely like to change that and and I would probably vote for just striking it entirely rather than replacing it with some other variant of it um as for the rest of it uh I'm I'm fine uh with the ordinance as written um you know I think I I think it's it's helpful potentially uh to vary any of these things in uh future emergencies that we cannot even contemplate they might all bring their own unique challenges that that we're not imagining right now so I think having some flexibility around that is is helpful um including the Electoral ones um you know

[122:02] if just imagine like being able to set a different threshold allows a council to be more content neutral than um requiring them to place an initiative on the ballot themselves which we're running into issues with that um this year ourselves so I I would go for all of that personally that's all thank you I have juny and then Mark juny call could I cqu on what Aon just said [Music] um and again I just forgot what I was gonna say because I was looking at too many things at once so um come back to me okay uh juny you're up next and then Mark and then Mary once the thought has [Music] return I I just had a comment uh about the discussion with the police chief or police powers and my question had to do what is the role of

[123:02] the mayor in mayor protm because at least my understanding and I would imagine some community members are wondering isn't that also you know the mayor and mayor protm part of their role is also representing Council in certain meetings whether it's with the city manager uh when it comes to discussing such issues if we're not available so I'm wondering if having that delegation is really necessary so that was my question to Tom or even to Sam since you've been around and you you are in the rule as well Tom do you want to start juny if you could mute your microphone thank you I'm not sure that the mayor protm steps in for the mayor in this circumstance I'm just checking I need a second okay well then I will address jun's question to me um yeah the mayor sometimes is the one or the mayor prend

[124:01] depending are are the ones who have conversations first but I would not want to make a decision quickly for the mayor to take over the the police force just because like Mary said you know I don't have particular skills at that I would not imagine that that's going to be a a reason that people elect the mayor regardless how the mayor's elected so I I would prefer that we stick with the succession that Tanya described about going down through the staff if Council felt the need to do something along this line perhaps it's helpful to have the provision so that Council can do it but I I'm more with Aaron you know my opinion is to strike the provision entirely because I think it's archaic I think it was for a different time and then have the succession of the city manager be the one who is in charge now if Council has a real problem with whoever is a city manager or their

[125:01] successor we can always get rid of them I mean the council has the authority to hire and fire and so if there is a a big problem that I can't anticipate at the moment Council has recourse even if it's an administrative employee who has taken over oversight of the police force so again just to be short about it I I concur with Aaron that I would be happy to strike that provision because I think Council has other other ways to to affect that can I cqu super quick on that Sam sure and councel hire or fire in act well I guess fire in this instance an acting city manager not the one that has been hired given the succession question believe the succession only applies during an emergency um and that's a that's a ordinance the council appoints and can hire and fire the city manager and the city the if there's a vacancy of the city manager the council appoints the acting city manager um so

[126:02] the the the the city manager succession is limited to if the city manager is unable to perform during a disaster emergency that's why and I do have an answer to jun's question yes the acting mayor that the mayor Pro 10 takes over the mayor's duties if the mayor is disabled or unable to perform his or her duties so and that's in the same section it's like two sentences after the section about police power so it's intended to cover that okay good um go ahead jie go ahead uh just to add I do agree with Aaron when it comes to the succession line I mean if something already work and there is not a real reason to change it especially knowing that our body is more I mean we are on the ground and we here are community members but nonetheless it's more political and to already have a system that is Administrative that works is very important especially in

[127:00] time of emergency where you need things to work um so I think to me I think that's the right way to go about it but I just wanted to know more about you know where where the mayor and mayor protm fit within that process itself thank you very good thank you JY um Mark and then Mary Mark yeah uh two points one I think Aaron has convinced me uh that the administrative succession is preferable and we should just strike the other um so I would go along with that uh Second I I do note that all of these Provisions U or none of these Provisions that we're looking at uh address what I think uh is the greatest issue in the in a time of Calamity which is none of them really provide economic flexibility um to either uh staff or counsel uh in terms of uh meeting the needs of a of of that

[128:00] kind of uh situation if we had 5,000 people who were not um able to eat and there was no food I would want to have the flexibility to be able to um spend money even from dedicated tax sources to meet that need uh and none of these Provisions sort of deal with that level of economic flexibility we discussed it very briefly at the financial strategies U meeting um but I would urge us at some point to look at that uh to see if there is anything there that would provide what I think is really practical uh flexibility in terms of of an emergency uh as opposed to all of this you know administrative and and uh um you know date uh compliance sort of uh provisions because we don't have that at the moment and if our budget was strained and we had no ability to help our people um what would we do so it's something I

[129:02] would like to look at as we go a little further down the line so the challenge their Mark is that the the the dedicated funds are dedicated by the voters and the ballot measures assessing the taxes that they're not in the charter they're in those ballot measures um so I I can't I haven't thought of way where you could go back and retroactively change a ballot measure and then you also have the bonding issue General a lot of the funds well not all much of the funds are dedicated to pay um particular Bond issues I understand but I I I will tell you then frankly that if I had 5,000 people to feed I would I would feed them and and accept the lawsuit because those are the greater those are the real needs in an emergency context um not just when you deliver a petition so so the only way I think you could do that would be at the time you pass a ballot measure to impose a tax to

[130:00] allow for emergency language to put emergency language in there for emergency use of the funds um that would protect you but I don't know I I I I'm happy to think about it but I can't think of a way of doing it retroactively I said I would I would happily accept the lawsuit if I got people Fed so that's just that's my view okay thank you Mark Mary um so I want to yeah agree with Mark on that situation of um economic um flexibility and I if there's a creative way that we can come up with to address this I think that would be a really important thing to do because um that is really where um the rubber meets the road so to the car metaphor um so the point I was going to make um when I spaced out was that um

[131:00] one of the things with respect to the electoral process and having the ability to decrease the threshold for signatures again reminding people that this is not for this Council it would be for future councils it would not be for these particular initi initiatives that are before us I mean they could be initiatives that um the people that are completely different from what we're seeing now um that would do things that are far more nefarious and there were a nefarious Council um and um and then and then what a a council would lower the threshold and to what would the council lower the threshold too so that's my question is is how would the the signature threshold be set um would it be um I mean it it can't be completely arbitrary because that was something that came up earlier this year when we

[132:00] were talking about that um which was kind of moot because we couldn't do it because it's in the charter um but 50% that's completely arbitrary um so that would need to be addressed and would that be addressed in a subsequent ordinance or how would that happen well that that's your choice Mary you could put some U guard rails around the power if you chose to to leave it in there or you could leave it to whatever Council was exercising the power to do it by ordinance okay all right um and the um and then again um I agree with um ain's proposal of um it it appears we have an administrative succession um plan so that we can probably the the thing to do would be to just strike the the police

[133:01] power from the charter um that's all I have thanks Mary Aaron Mark juny and Bob Aaron oh no okay so there's some hands still up uh Bob I think I saw you come in recently thanks um I'll I'll touch on three things real quick first I I want to try to answer Mary's question which I think is a great question I'm reading from the ordinance the draft ordinance um in at the end of section three it says Council suspension or alteration shall be to the minimum effect necessary to address the emergency or to conduct the business and Affairs of the city during the emergency um that's about the only guidance that we have here in the ordinance so I'm actually agreeing with Mary that that um this does that's not helpful um because I don't know what that means to the minimum effect does that mean if if the petitioners are on the last day and they've run out of time and they're a

[134:01] little bit short is that the lower number I I I I I don't know I think we're leaving it to Future councils to kind of do whatever they want to do so I continue to be uncomfortable with that part so I'm just I'm agreeing with Mark's Mark's comment which kicked us all off and I'm answering Mary's question with a non-answer which is which is there's not a whole lot of guidance here um second um on the on the point that Aaron made about police I I agree with that um with one kind of caveat Tom doesn't know it sounded like if we could put this in this ordinance to refer to the community I think if we can tuck this into this ordinance to refer to the community I think Aaron solution is a good one which is simply to strike it all together what I think I'd be a little bit reluctant to do is to have a standalone ballot measure on just that point that seems kind of weird weird so while it's something that we should probably clean up if we can tuck it in as a as an overall cleanup that would be great if we're talking about passing a separate ordinance and having

[135:00] a separate ballot measure you know to to W just relating to this police thing I'm not sure it's important enough to have a separate ballot measure on so that's my only qualification to what Aon proposed and and Tom will let us know if you can fit it in here or if it's got to be separate and then finally I have a guess kind of a question for Mark um so Mark um I was I was agreeing with you with respect to electoral changes I don't think that we should make electoral changes the question then becomes what does that mean because um I think that 38a which is the number of signatures on a petition is clearly electoral 39 or at least the first sentence of 39 section 39 of the charter which is the date of delivery for that petition is clearly electoral but then we've got a whole bunch of stuff that's kind of electoral and kind of administrative and and and maybe it would be helpful uh if there's a majority who agree with Mark I certainly do to to to talk about what we what we're saying and maybe Tom you

[136:00] could put up that part of the memo you did that a nice little table that um listed the 19 I don't if you can put that up on the screen and have us flip through to to to talk about what is electoral and what's not so for example the day of swearing in or the uh uh process for petitioning to be on the the ballot to be run for Council that kind I'm not some of these things are kind of in a gray area of kind of electoral and kind of not petion I think is easy but the rest of them are a little fuzzy to me and maybe Mark you could walk through with Tom and at least declare what you think is electoral and and we can agree or disagree with You Chris can you put the the uh presentation back up please yep I'm working on it now for you yeah thank you you want the PowerPoint back up right yes sir the emergency one [Music]

[137:02] [Music] you want me to flip to a specific slide um or I can I just requested control but if you uh if you could go to slide uh 12 there you are so this is the first one that I would consider an election provision as as would I I'm sorry which section number is it 22 22 okay there I see it it should be displayed now on your screen I would I would agree that that's a an election decision it's not it's not administrative in any way it's substantive and my concern was that the uh for some reason the election could not be held on a Tuesday the same Tuesday in November because of something preventing the election from being held I mean I just go ahead Tom no go ahead I was just

[138:02] gonna ask to expensive slide Sam if you have a comment I have a quick comment which is this does seem like a timing issue to me a time issue so it does affect an election for sure um but it would have to be under a state of emergency I could easily see when we'd have to move an election so it's a kind of thing where I think that minimum effect necessary may actually be useful um because moving it say six months past the end of an emergency would clearly be able to be challenged in court so at any rate this seems like Sam if I can cqu with you on that I I think you make a good point I I think if you uh restricted it on a temporal basis you know not more than 15 days or 10 days or 30 days um there might be something that I could support there um obviously I don't want to just have unlimited discretion to move an election to a time

[139:00] when I when when the the sitting Council thinks it might be more convenient for their particular purposes um so on the concept of the minimum necessary if if you capped it and said you know but no more than than 15 days I could probably live with that great and I think what you're saying if if I heard you right is 15 or 30 days whatever the number is after the end of a state of emergency that we would have the election no I would I would actually do it from the the date of the scheduled election well I think the challenge with that could be that your emergency could still be going on let's let's picture something like a big explosion a much more acute pandemic that was killing people people more quickly than this one um or some kind of nuclear attack so I can imagine a situation where 15 days

[140:00] wouldn't be enough and so I I could see a guard rail where you would want to have certain amount of time after the end of an emergency if an election has been put off but I I wouldn't I don't think some hard number is going to give the flexibility needed depending on what the emergency is well I I I don't agree with you but this is a a a question of risk allocation and um if you say 30 days after the end of the emergency and the emergency lasts for a year and a half um what then um I prefer to give a future Council some degree of flexibility um but not not unlimited flexibility at some point you have to hold the election um I call two of you let me just finish my thought in the event of nuclear war I think elections will be our least worry at the time um but my my point is that um an emergency should postpone certain

[141:02] functions in a very limited way but I'm very uncomfortable with saying well the emergency is still here um and it's and it's now next February uh and it's too bad we couldn't have an election for you and we're going to continue in office that is that's problematic to me I was just going to observe that at least the way the ordinance is right now again section three says but shall in no event extend beyond the end of the declared emergency so I think it is self-solving I mean um Mark you may not like that um but I but I don't think that we need to say um Sam to your recommendation that it be X number of days after the end of the mer emergency because the ordinance already says that it automatically ends at upon the ending of the emergency okay um so I have a question with on along the same lines of

[142:00] this same conversation um what would happen now if the election could not be held I don't know Mary that's one of the things that's troubled me um the count we arguably we wouldn't have a government like we'd have only five council members or four council members um because the other Council would end um and I would suppose that Council has the authority to create a special election I'm not sure you can elect council members at a special election so there are limitations on replacing vacancies although I think you could I'd have to think this through um these are the sort of things told me about during this emergency yeah and so I think I think that the fact that what would Happ happen now that we really don't know I think is and this is was probably your thought process was um is a is a clue as to how

[143:00] we might handle this so um clearly if we only had five council members or four council members you really you wouldn't have a government so um it definitely needs to be addressed then um m M go ahead raise an issue Mary I I also want to point out that with um mailin voting um and the ease of voting it becomes more and more difficult to project a scenario where we can actually not hold an election um you know things but it it becomes it becomes a little harder for me to imagine a scenario in which the election is not going to be held um I mean let's let us remember that um the current federal Administration is on the move to um diminish our Postal Service so um so

[144:03] there's that there is that um I I mean so let's move on from this I I think one meta issue I'm going to raise here is there's enough neat in in the substance of what's being put out here and there are enough concerns that I'm not sure that we're going to get this approved through second reading so one possibility I'm just putting it out there as a process thought is that we could continue second reading we go through we continue to talk about these issues I think they're important um but I think the election one as an example um I I would definitely want more detail about both you know postponing an election and when that postponement would end um I I do disagree with Mark that you know we could just have an election because there you know the the peak of the emergency might be on um the

[145:00] Tuesday the first Tuesday in November right so you know to me it is Impractical to believe that we could always Force an election because there's a lot of scenarios you could come up with where you're going to have diminished your electorate to the point that the election a proor election being held on the right date is that better than it full full election being held a month later so I guess my My overall point is I think there's a whole bunch here I don't know if we'll get through it all tonight um I'm sure that Tom doesn't like to hear this but the idea would be if we can give Tom enough guidance about what we want further information on as well as you know additional issues like the police power one I think that we can make progress tonight but maybe we shouldn't have an objective of having a up or down vote tonight I would agree with that and Sam I'm fine with that that's not unusual in ballot measures I'm happy to bring it back as many times as you like um this is actually a fairly easy ballot for us um so we're happy do it this is

[146:03] the next section um a petition of nomination shall be completed and filed in the office of city clerk not earlier than 91 days nor later than 71 days for election this is for nominations for council members and the obvious concern was that that period might be uh impossible during an emergency again I I am a little troubled because it it's tinkering with the apparatus of our elections again if we wanted to create a a small temporal um guide rail that would let us have a little bit of flexibility you know at the end of the day um I fear the risk of abuse of these Provisions more more than I fear the risk that we will be unable to conduct our business and function as a government that's just my uh predilection and know you know

[147:01] don't know that anybody else will share it but I look at provisions and and my first instinct is to look at their capacity for being abused um improperly and so when this is the mechanisms of of the election I would be happy to build in a little bit of flex ibility on it but not in an unlimited way where we just wave this requirement and then four months later we say all right time for you know time for the petitions now second I I just have a question I just want to ask one question first of Sarah if that's okay and then I'll come back to you Rachel Sarah um are the hands up current because I've got juny and erens I think erens is new juny are you wanting to speak as well okay great so Rachel back to you I'm just wondering um it seems like we have a lot of questions and stuff to work through is this something we could take back to the Charter subcommittee

[148:01] and work through some of the Kinks and and have heard all this feedback and then bring something back after we chat with Tom online offline offline that's my question so Tom do you have thoughts on that I'm fine with that I'd love the input so would the charter committee and this question is directed to the members of the charter committee would you be able to get a meeting together in the next week or two I can I won't be free until Tuesday of next week um yeah that would be hard for me and I think I could do it um same as mayab it not until Tuesday of next week until at least Tuesday I'd have to look at my calendar okay so are you three the the

[149:01] membership of the charter committee right now so why don't we do this um Rachel I think it's a great idea if the three of you could coordinate um when your schedules would work and see if you can get at least one staff person there to work with you um I think that'd be a good idea so is that good will you the three of you take it offline and see if you can have a meeting to work this over I think that would be great um I would like more direction from the full Council as to which sections to focus on sure we'll do that now juny and then Aaron junor thank you Sam and I think that's where I wanted to go and because we're talking about Direction and I think I wanted to go back to a point that Mark made about the financial uh when it comes to the budget

[150:01] committee me and Mark and Mary are part of the same committee and I know that um Mark brought forward the idea of giving more leeway in order for you know for CD for staff and the city manager to be able to make decisions when it comes to um to find es especially now we have you know community members who are coming forward and especially in time of covid you know we have people with more needs in the community and if we we we need the budget to be malleable and adaptable to the current situation or to the current time that we are in so I think the idea of uh extending the emergency Powers within the financial Realm of the CD I think that would be important and maybe that's something I don't know what that would look like because I think Mary mentioned something earlier when it comes to the election and the ballot measures what would be the threshold what are the guard rails

[151:02] and the floors and the ceilings and I think that's very important as well because when you give Powers you wonder where is that power going to extend how far will that power extend so I think those are very important questions and I think it's very important that we answer these first before we just give power to Future Council I know Mary said it's future Council but if this uh this ballot measure were to pass in this November I think it would actually give us this current Council some power as well right wouldn't we say that Sam yes because we would still be on Council so I think that's something that we also have to think about that as a steward right as good Steward uh so I think what I would like to see for me um maybe threshold threshold is that even possible if we were to say as Mary said um instead of someone having to um going out there and look for um to

[152:01] get right now let's say it's 4,000 uh signatures would it be okay to have 3,000 but even if it's 3,000 is that even something that is good is that even feasible so I think all these are very important question is it even necessary to answer these questions because what if it's a bigger emergency where it's not even possible to get 3,000 signatures so I think it's it's um you know these changes are important but at the same time they open like a whole different can of worms so I would like to see the threshold thing uh added and also I think going back what to Adam's question earlier when he asked Tom can we make some of those changes without making some can we make some of these emergency changes without making changes to the Charter and if we can we should

[153:00] really consider that we should consider not putting some things as valid measure changes to the Charter instead have something that is more organic so to me that's where I stand I think all these different ideas all those different section to the Charter needs to go back and have a deeper analysis because I think the way that they are right now is just not I I I don't think it's responsible way of just going at it because it they there's too many holes you know to them right now to just agree to them thank you thank you Aaron yes I definitely support having the committee going off and working on this and it sounds like we just need to give them a little bit of direction so they know sort of the areas they're working in so juny thanks for giving them those comments I thought those were good for me personally I just say that there's that question of guard rails you know like um like for signatures for example not allowing people to reduce it

[154:01] down to one required signature maybe it's 50% something like that so maybe the committee could just think about um maybe there are some guardrails that we might want to think about putting on some of them the other one i' would say is as as we've talked about this like um it's troubling me that that there's the ability for the mayor to take over the police so I I would really hope that we could address and Sam by the way this is not you personally I'm not troubled about you being I'm sure you wouldn't do that but in general um so if there is a way I mean that would that is about emergency Powers so Tom it seems like that there'd be a decent argument for a single subject there although I defer to your expertise um but I would like to see that addressed um in this if at all possible I think we would I would take that back and talk to other lawyers and see if they agree that it's emergency I think the the single subject rule is Broad enough to probably Encompass it I just haven't thought about it and I'm always reluctant to make a firm recommendation on Fair okay so I will ask Council there's

[155:00] no hands up um one way that we could do this is any any remaining comments that we'd like the committee to hear if that's the direction we're headed I think now would be a time to make sure that those are out anything that gets forgotten tonight or occurs later could be emailed to the members of the charter committee I I'm going to make a general statement is my opinion that one of the key protections here is that there has to be a state or federal emergency and it is never unless there's a desperate involved there's really not much advantage to having a state of emergency people want to get out from under them typically so you want to declare it you want to use the emergency powers to get done what needs to be done you want to be out of it so and and we're not the ones that influence very very strongly whether the governor or the president declares a state of emergency so I think there's some at least support for it

[156:00] being a real emergency before we would go down this pathway um and so the only other comment I'll make is I agree with Bob about and Mark about their real hesitation about messing with electoral limits so the timelines I think we should be very willing to adapt to the situation because you know the flood of of 2013 had it happened at the wrong time would have essentially wiped out the ability to run an election that was meaningful um at least for the people who aren't doing mailing so so I guess I I would say I'm happy that the charter committee will pick this up I am fine with most of the is they were called ministerial adjustments the ones that are substantive on uh petitions and so on I have more questions about and that would be my feedback so if others would like to weigh in I don't have any hands up but I'm looking for

[157:01] them okay seeing none I will propose that we can continue this item and that uh we have the committee weigh in and get advice to Tom and and the legal department and bring it back hopefully still this cycle anything that can be agreed on I maybe we should look at this cycle anything that the charter committee can't get concurrence on could potentially wait and be taken up later so our deadline I think is the election deadlines yeah so I think there are two or three more Council meetings by then so I would ask the council continue this till August 4th with the discretion of CAC to reschedule based on the recommendation from the charter committee good people agree if I could have MO to continue this item to August 4th that'd be great mov moved there you go we'll give we'll give Rachel the motion and Bob the second so

[158:01] um okay any objections to the continuation very good seeing none um I think we're done with this item for tonight and Debbie back to you we're going to move on to Mayors from the city man or Matters from the city manager um we have item 6A which is the process for the municipal building name change thank you Debbie and I would like to um introduce Taylor Raymond who all of you know um Taylor will be providing a brief um overview of renaming of the municipal building this was an item that Council had raised during um the January Retreat and we're coming back to council with next steps Taylor thank you good evening Council can everyone hear me yes excellent so hi my name is Taylor Ryman my pronouns are she her hers and following that discussion your next item is quite a bit lighter in fact I'm

[159:00] pretty excited to be bringing this item to you it's something you discussed at the retreat in January renaming the municipal building after Penfield Tate II Boulder's first and only African-American mayor I've had the pleasure of researching Tate II and even speaking with some of his family he was an impressive person with a legacy in the community that everyone I think can be proud to commemorate I'm honored to be here sharing it with everybody tonight this is also directly aligned with council's commitment to honor acknowledge and memorialized people of color and Boulder which was laid out in the council's racial Equity resolution passed last December next slide please tonight we'll cover the municipal building offer a brief history of Penfield Tate II go over the fisal impact of renaming layout next steps and um have time for questions at the end next slide please the municipal building is a structure likely most of us are familiar with it's considered Boulder's primary

[160:01] convening place for local officials elected leaders and the public in addition to hosting the city's Administration the building is typically a very Lively location especially since it resides right next to the Boulder Creek path which offers numerous exercise and Recreation opportunities now that we've talked a bit about the building I'd like to give you guys some information about the proposed namesake of the building next slide please staff has discussed the renam project with Tate's living relatives in the area who have responded in support and excitement over the proposal his son Penfield Tate III lives in Denver and his two doll daughters Paula and Tate and Gail Tate still live in Boulder actually Penfield II has an active and decorated past in the city of Boulder beginning in 1968 where he received a law degree from the University of Colorado law school after that he operated a private practice focused on labor and employment law civil rights discrimination claims

[161:01] in the federal courts represented and advised businesses on Personnel employment issues government law issues family law and litigation matters in 1971 he became Boulders top vot getter and first African-American to serve on Council and a few years later he earned the position as the city's first and only African-American mayor next slide please this next slide has a little bit more history um fenfield Tate II was a man who stood up for the rights and protections of minorities at a time when not many would he championed a controversial human rights ordinance protecting people from discrimination based on sexual orientation and unfortunately he received lots of negative backlash from this uh even faced a recall election which he survived uh but it only ultimately lost him reelection and his political career in fact in talking to tapate theii his son um he recounts

[162:01] stories of receiving hate mail at the time when he was a kid in Boulder and even getting teased at school for it so um it would be great to honor their family and their struggle in in this process uh in 1977 Tate was Nam T Tate II was named to a seven-year term on the Colorado Housing Finance Authority next slide please the fiscal impact of naming the building ranges from approximately 11,000 to $20,000 the quote was based on replacing the building's three signs with three naming combination options Penfield Tate the second Municipal Building Penfield Tate the second city hall or Penfield Tate the second building additionally some staff time will be needed to change the building's name in the City's online systems next slide please so um this is kind of the layout

[163:01] of the process and um should Council approve us to move forward the next steps will be uh filling out the commemorative naming application doing the community engagement process and we've identified in preliminary conversations that that process would exist exist on the inform level with some consultation with the community after that the application and summary stakeholder feedback would be sent to the city manager's office so that the naming committee could provide in an initial review the naming committee would be comprised of members from the city manager's office the city attorney's office and a representative from the facility to be named after the naming committee provides their initial recommendation the city manager would review that and make her own decision to approve or deny with Council having the final decision to approve or deny next slide please so just to lay out preliminarily um the engagement

[164:01] strategy that we talked about uh again would exist on the informed level with some consultation it would exist in a two to three window of Engagement beginning in August August is typically a good time to be engaging it Boulder it's when folks are coming back for school and from vacations um to we would be collecting feedback through behold Boulder and Council emails and we'd also be engaging the city's racial Equity email list serve to reach more members of the community we would work with some of our local Partners including out Boulder counter out Boulder County and the NAACP and then tentatively we'd return to council with an update in October next slide please and with that I will take any questions from Council very good thank you Taylor for that thorough presentation I have a question from Adam and then Rachel

[165:00] Adam yeah this is a question about the financing aspect um given that this is pretty cool project and that the community might be interested in participating in some way is there possibility for call for donations or things along those lines so that it doesn't have to come out of uh General funds um or that someone might even be willing to do the work you know pro bono that's a great question that's not something we had considered but I'll let Tanya jump in if you'd like to yeah thanks Taylor um so that is something that we could absolutely um consider and also the action of renaming does not require us to immediately change the signs on the building so we could phase that in if so chosen to do so we could still move forward with the renaming okay very good thank you thank you Tanya uh Rachel and then juny

[166:00] Rachel um first Taylor great job thanks for that presentation um and second something we talked about at CAC and Jane suggested that we bring up here in the context of this conversation um so Tanya I don't know if you're prepared to speak to that are you giving me a slight nod or do you know where I'm going with this sorry nodding my head and looking down at Taylor's box on the screen um Taylor actually is prepared to speak to that Rachel okay so I will I didn't want to put anybody on the spot um but we talked about maybe looking holistically at other Parks or buildings or places that are named for people um by the city to make sure that um those we don't have any um buildings or Parks say named for um somebody who was over racist or something like that um so just wanted to check in on on where we might go with that and what the process would look like Taylor do you want to start absolutely yeah and thanks for

[167:00] bringing this up Rachel so first off there are three formal naming policies in the city and they're listed here um with a brief summary of them uh I also have an inventory of facilities we have a little over 250 Al together so you bring up a good question and it's reflective of a larger movement to revisit namesakes and determine if those names are associated with a negative past or not in anticipation of this staff has started some preliminary Research into other facility names they're looking into what facilities are named in the city doing research to find out if any of the namesakes have a negative past and discussing what criteria we would use to identify a facility that needs renaming ultimately um this is being pursued as time allows as an unscheduled work plan item and if Council would like it fully explored they need to have a discussion about formally adding it to their work plan and to go back to that inventory list that I mentioned the 250 names that includes like fire station one and

[168:01] things like that so we'd have to dig a little bit deeper and figure out what names are actually named after things such as for example the carnegi library thank you for that and I guess I would also add like is this an opportunity for us to see if we have um named broadly named things equitably like I would I would predict that there are um more buildings named after perhaps white men I don't know for sure if that's true but I wouldn't be surprised if we found that so if that's part of it um I think that would be helpful information too and and do we need then a KN of five to say go forth and get the information if that was the will um that would be a KN of five I would um say that we would still need to balance it within Staffing Resources and um given current Staffing Resources we we would report back to council what would be the appropriate timeline to um get you back that type

[169:02] of significant effort so we'd want to further scope it out okay so I have a comment from juny are we ready for that Rachel or do you w to ask for not or well could I make a comment could I make a comment um before we we ask for the nod um given that we have these very um staff um staff has been greatly reduced and um the workload because of the pandemic is very high I would like to um recommend that we wait until Retreat time that might be a better time and we'll have um a better idea of where we're at with a whole bunch of things okay thank you Mary

[170:03] juny yes I don't disagree with Mary's comments um I just wanted to add I had brought this idea to Sam as well a few months ago when I know this discussion about the renaming the building after um our mayor Penfield Tate and I thought you know Mary brought this idea forward so I I've had I received an email from a Community member as well so that's not my personal idea but um the Community member was thinking oh it would be great to have my street renamed after a civil rights leader or you know someone who was some a member of the Boulder Community that is from the a bipo from the um black indigenous and people of color and so that because again when we talk of diversity we're not just talking of diversity of just you know having

[171:02] people here but also in symbolism in a way which is it's very symbolic to have a street and a building renamed but those things are very important as well especially uh as we've seen over the last couple of months with with the stat stes that are all over the country so I think that's very important and I know Taylor just mentioned the engagement strategy that she's working on I wonder whether we could incorporate within that strategy and finding out how receptive community members would be in and renaming streets and which streets would they be interested in renaming so I don't know if town what do you think or if other council member wants to add to my point if they'd understand so I think um in response specifically to that we could add a

[172:02] couple questions um to um call out some of that information that could be a good data point as far as where to start juny and that wouldn't be a significant staff ad to do that great [Music] Aaron yeah I think that sounds like a good idea and I I'm perfectly happy to to ask um staff to start to look into this understanding that it may be very slow just because of work plan items so you know not without any expectation that you're done in a month or two months or what have you but just say hey can you put this on the you know if if you have time and if you're so busy these days you just don't have any time then we can uh come back at the retreat and put it formally on the work plan um but maybe just give you I would be happy to give a commission to say as as time

[173:00] allows yeah and let me ask a question around that Aon um T you you and Taylor presented this as a more or less um as as time allows that you would make progress on it so it seems to me like we've got two issues here one is the renaming of the municipal build and another is the other components um of review of Street games Park GES and other building names so H how would you tackle that as far as if we didn't say get on it right now or didn't try and reshuffle priorities what what would your approach be so tonight it would be great to get nod from counil to continue to moveing moving forward with the renaming of the municipal building in the timeline that that Taylor had outlined um then number two because we do have some efforts um occurring within um certain departments such as Parks and Recreation or and open space um looking

[174:00] at some renaming we would um can completely encourage the Departments to continue on that work um and we could add this item as a discussion item for uh The Retreat for an update on what what the progress has been great well my sense from what I've heard so far is that's that's a super good answer and I think you know we can have a vote if we need to about the renaming of the tape building and hear from you at the retreat if not before about any progress that's been made on the other issues um if there's anyone who disagrees with that summary um please feel free to raise your hand okay um I I would like to add one small Koda to to this um settler Park name is already under discussion as part of the tribal consultation work that's going on so just for the community and Council to know um that is in the hands

[175:02] of our partners as far as um working out a process and then hearing from the partners what their thoughts are about a potential different name than settler Park so I just wanted to put that out there to some small extent um this is our already underway Sam can I just add to that um actually a name was hoped to be brought forward this year however with tribal consultation um being cancelled um due to covid that's on hold until next year conversation with um our tribal part Partners great thank you and I don't see a motion in here do we need a motion as far as the renaming or is that underway and this is an update this is an up dat and to just ensure that there's no areas of concern with us moving forward got it okay thank you any council members want to have a last word

[176:01] here okay seeing none I think that we are in great shape thank you Mary for suggesting this and staff for picking it up uh Taylor that was a great job on the presentation and the research that you did so it seems like we've got full Council support for for proceeding with Taylor's plan as well as um as can be handled the renaming of streets and parks and buildings so thank you Council thank you Taylor thank you Tanya okay very good with that back to Debbie okay we move on to Matters from the city attorney and the first item is um discussion of ballot measure items great thank you Debbie and thank you um Louise for being here before we get started with the staff presentation Bob has something he'd like to say and I would like to frame up kind of the the order of um steps for tonight's

[177:02] discussion so Bob why don't you start yeah I just before you frame that up Sam and and um I wanted to um call to the attention of the community and maybe even some council members the fact that the city today this afternoon received a letter from a lawyer um hired by the bedrooms for um or for people initiative threatening to sue us if we do not if Council does not put their ballot measure on their measure on the ballot um I find that quite unfortunate um that we've come to this point where where lawsuits are being threatened and it's a it's quite a reputable and large firm so I believe their threat is credible um people don't usually make those threats unless they're going to follow through on them and one of the unfortunate um impacts of receiving a letter like that from a lawyer is um when people know they're going to be sued they tend to

[178:01] shut down um I know I will and others on this Council may as well that's quite regrettable because as evidenced by tonight and um our last several months together we we tend to like to have robust and open and free flowing discussions exchanges of ideas thoughts we try to persuade each other um and um I'm fearful that that normal exchange of ideas in discussion and persuasion won't be able to happen tonight because we are now under threat of lawsuit we've been told if we don't take a certain action which is in our soulle and absolute discretion we will be sued and I for one will be very circumspect about what I say tonight and that's unfortunate because my Council colleagues will not have the benefit of my Council and the community will not have the benefit of understanding why I'm

[179:00] going to vote or make um statements or decisions the way I will I suspect other council members will be similarly stifled in their Communications we may have a very um abrupt and circumspect um discussion tonight it's everyone is entitled to access to the courts anyone can hire a lawyer and threaten a lawsuit but is quite regrettable that we've reached this stage where a group of people feels that the best way to persuade Council to do what they want is to threaten to sue them and I don't think that's a very good tactical move and it's going to cause me to be very cautious about what I say from here on out about this particular matter so I I just wanted to let the community know that we now have been threatened by a lawsuit and to the extent that council members say less or are cautious in what they say that's the reason thanks great thank you before I call on

[180:01] mirb Aaron on this I would just like to turn to Tom if it's okay and and ask for some clarification about people's personal legal exposure for expressing their opinion on matters before Council like this so is there any any thoughts you want to share with us before we launch into more of this Tom and you're on mute Louise correct me if I'm wrong you're you're a bigger expert on this than me but there there's generally legislative immunity for um statements made during the course of legislative proceedings and you can't be sued for those things personally in this case I would not expect a lawsuit to be to name you personally except they would name you if at all what your in your official capacities not in your personal Capac um I wouldn't expect any personal exposure uh my guess is the lawsuit wouldn't even seek damages because I'm not sure what damages they would have the lawsuit would seek an injunction placing the matter on the ballot um

[181:00] we've done this before this is this would not be the first time we've been sued over a ballot measure uh either to keep it on put on the ballot or keep it off um we have some familiarity with this it's not something that's unexpected um nevertheless uh I have on many occasions seen statements that I've made or council members have made quoted in complaints so uh to the extent that you um that you uh that you feel constrained that might be appropriate but not based on person okay great thank you Tom um and before I start calling down the list of raised hands um and I will I think the intention here as far as the order would be I can talk about framing we were going to hear the memo and go into discussion and I'll talk about the structure of the discussion later but the idea next would would be after a little bit of of discussion about structure um that we would move on and

[182:01] hear from uh Lis Toro about the issue so I have three hands up I have mebby Aaron and Mark meby um before we get into this um due to the legal issue and and you one of the questions I had was what Sam asked so thank you for that information um but based on what Bob said I just wanted to ask if everyone who put in um a petition initiative or Charter change um where they were trying to get signatures for my understanding they all receiv received something from the city that said we St strongly recommend that you seek legal counsel to help you understand your responsibility to comply with election law did did everyone who put in a petition did they receive ceed this warning basically well that's in the guidelines that the city published and okay whenever I communicated with a ballot committee I urge them to get independent legal counsel okay so everyone was fair

[183:02] warned about this that put in an initiative that's my yes thank you okay Karen and then Mark yeah well so I'm certainly not thrilled to get a a letter from a law firm threatening legal action um but I think we can still actually have a discussion about the substance of the matter uh I think it's it's always good for us to to watch what we say and and our tone and such and so I think we can still have a discussion I'll note that um while this is the first um official letter from a law firm that we've received there has been talk from other community members of lawsuits uh before this um about one out if we take one course of or another so it's been my understanding for a while now that these questions might end up with one lawsuit or another so I hope we can still have a discussion that's certainly true thank you Aon

[184:02] Mark Mark you're [Music] muted sorry about that Tom um I assume in whatever capacity we are named uh the city will offer a defense with the R name personally or as council members I was going to make a joke but this isn't funny so no yes we would defend you or maybe everybody but me that was what I was gonna say but I thought n let's not go there it's too thanks okay uh it's nice to have a little levity here um and Lise before we start your um presentation I just thought that I would say that I've spoken with council members to get their back on how to structure our discussion and here's what I'm I think I've synthesized from everyone and if there's an issue with the the order I'm going to put out please raise it now so that we

[185:01] don't get halfway down and have a problem but we would go with the the presentation from the city attorney's office then I thought in order to address the principles that we want to make decisions by um we'll learn that there are multiple interpretations of uh the the situation in front of us so I thought first we would we would pick the interpretation at least talk about that Council would like to adopt as far as evaluating whether petitions in front of us go directly onto the the ballot and that will be dependent on what what we pick as our principles for evaluation so then after we have that full discussion and then how those principles apply to the ballots in front of us the initiatives in front of us then we could talk about um if any of them are not likely to end up on the ballot because of the requirements for dates and

[186:00] signatures would we um want to refer any of them and I thought that would be an opportunity without making a decision for council members to talk about their thoughts on um criteria they might use for referring or not referring measures to the ballot and then finally if we get through that and there's time and will of counil left that we could talk about if um some of these don't either make it on the ballot or don't pass are there um steps that we'd like to take as a council based on what we've learned from the petitioning process relative to the subject matter of each of the measures so that was what I put out there as a framing for this um it seemed like just a way to organize the discussion um and so I don't see any hands up if this is not the way that you would like to proceed Now's the Time to speak otherwise I'd be happy to turn it over to Louise for the staff presentation okay I don't see anyone

[187:01] while we're setting that up I I want to make clear that I'm responsible for everything that comes out of my office I've asked Luis do the presentation because frankly he's smarter than me and he understands this stuff better uh so but if you if there's if there's fault if there's there's people who are upset uh please be upset at me Louis's is here as an expert on this area who's helping to give you the best information he can um uh but the responsibility is mine so Lis would you want to go ahead uh yeah thanks Tom and you know since I do the city's civil litigation you know I'm used to people being mad at me so I have kind of a thick skin so that's fine so let's go ahead U discuss the the issues before us could we move on to the next slide please so yeah here is the background there was amendments to the Charter in both 2017 and 2018 and there were also amendments to the election code uh this was New Territory for us the U to to interpret and apply these guidelines in the uh against the backdrop of of state

[188:02] law and there haven't been any U you know the city's been sued before on ballot initiatives but not under the the changes that have been made in in 2017 and 2018 and of course we're in a a hotly political environment so people have had an incentive to get creative and uh otherwise strongly advocate for their position that things should or should not be on the ballot so that's kind of how we got here uh if we could move to the next slide please uh you I'm not going to dwell on the chronology too much but just the um the dates the 8th the 6th the January 8 March 6 March 23 and then late June are the dates that the or actually yeah June 18 are the dates that the various uh in May one I see May or our choice so those those are really the most important dates of when um various initiatives were proposed I'd also flag the May 24th

[189:02] date which is when um a constituents raised the argument that this should be considered a uh a special election under state law and as we'll see therefore would require over 8,000 signatures to get on the ballot so uh we'll we'll address those issues but I this is just uh yet another reminder of of how we got here so uh if we could move along please to the next slide so we have three possible interpretations here one of them is what was set forth in our initial guidelines one of them is that the city Charter governs this issue U exclusively and the other is that it's governed by state law pretty much without reference to the Charter so we'll go through each of the three so we can move to the next slide please so the the initial guidelines you know this is a significant portion where you know we kind of flag that that there's a potential conflict between the

[190:00] the charter and and the U the state statute regarding home rule cities Charter amendments so we have decided that uh to basically take the the most Pro democracy and pro petitioner interpretation which was to give more time for um for Charter amendments and follow the state guidelines and basically error on the side of of whichever was more favorable to petitioners so that was really an attempt to um enshrine the right to petition and uh put it forcefully so if we can move to the next slide please so here's what the guidelines have uh told people that the that the the requir was for 5% of the registered electors on the date of the filing of the statement of intent and that if it was a special election it would have to be 10% but the uh interpretation was also that a November

[191:00] election is a regular election which is how it's defined at the state level uh as we'll see there's a different definition of that in the Municipal elections code but the uh the guidance here was based on the assumption that this is a a u a regular election and not a special election so if we could move on I've been told puppies are a good thing to put in these uh presentation so here's here's some uh while we have the puppies up I want to talk a little bit about home rule and what this the you know Colorado is a state that has always U since our the early days of the state has has really encouraged municipalities to set up their own structures um you know what's what's good for Boulder is not necessarily good for Colorado Springs and and cities have a lot of uh leeway to do things differently and and that's uh we'll see how that plays out in in these next few slides so if we could please move

[192:01] along so here the the determination that the charter controls or the is based on the statement among among other things the ba the statement of intent from the legislature when they enacted Title 31 and Title 31 is regarding municipalities in general so it isn't just Charter amendments it's all sorts of things it's the way municipalities conduct elections it's all um all sorts of of potential restrictions on home R municipalities and it uh the statement of intent is that all of Title 31 should not apply when it's superseded by a charter or ordinance passed pursuant to that Charter so this is really the language that the U the the charter control interpretation hinges on that to the extent there's contrary state law in Title 31 the legisl the legislature has specifically indicated that it interprets its own authority not to extend to uh U preventing cities from

[193:02] home rule cities from devising their own methods for amending the charter uh could we move to the next slide please so this is Charter section 37 which was the subject of a ballot initiative actually was referred by the city council to the ballot in 2017 and it's as you'll see it added the language Charter amendments and it added the term legislative to modify ordinances uh and it defines a charter Amendment as a form of of initiative so the term initiative as it's used in the charter includes all of this Charter amendments and and legislative orders and ordinances and other legislative me uh measures the the playing language of the charter does not make a distinction among uh the different kinds of initiatives as far as as up as defining them as Initiative for purposes of of other sections of the charter so if we

[194:00] could move on to the next one uh this is also this is something that's been in our code for a long time uh it used to say uh that well basically this is in the election code U and it says the the in the bolded part that's the most important that no statute of the state purporting to regulate in any way the exercise of the initiative which remember includes Charter initiatives per Charter section 37 uh nothing shall govern except for criminal provisions of state law that prohibit fraud or deception in the circulation or signing of initiative of a referendum petitions or specting affidavits concerning said petitions you know you may recall that that came up in connection with the discussion about electronic signature Gathering during the pandemic that there would need to be a change to this language because the state law that we have Incorporated through this provision does say that

[195:00] circulators have to verify that the affidavit was signed in their presence so that was what would need to be changed to allow electronic signatures and that didn't happen but we have seen this provision U fairly recently in in the U the council's U deliver op ation and I and I should also mention that it used to say U that uh it added Charter amendments as it it also mentioned Charter amendments as something that was governed by state law and that was removed presumably at the same time I believe it was at the same time as section 37 was amended to include Charter amendments as part of what are considered initiatives so if we could move along to the next slide please so this is where the deadline comes the charter section 39 says that the petition needs to be U submitted by 150 calendar days and that's where the June 5th deadline comes comes from uh next slide

[196:01] please now we're getting to the interpretation that state state law controls and the article 20 section N I should when I when the puppies were up I was talking about article 20 section 6 which is the part that reserves home rule power power to home rule municipalities and specifically identifies Municipal elections as an area of local concern that the the municipality is is um permitted to legislate on and and this provision says the general assembly shall provide by Statute procedures under which the registered electors May adopt amend or appeal a home Rule Charter now the going back to the Charter controls interpretation the fact that title 30 one in in uh has the express language that the legislature did not intend to um infringe on a home rule City's right to create its own Charter Amendment says to me that the legislature took a look at the same you

[197:01] know we've heard some talk about potential constitutional conflicts that that uh to the extent those may exist my read is that the office of legislative legal services but it advises the legislature came to the view that home r municipalities do have the authority to create measures to amend their own Charter and rather than create litigation they put the the language of Title 31 to say that it's not intended to apply to uh to Municipal uh Charters when the city has enacted its own legislation but for the The View that state law controls this is interpreted as saying that the general assembly statutes uh are expected to uh um control how a city or town May amend its Charter could we move to the next slide please so this is back to Title 31 this is in section [Music]

[198:00] 31222 and that that's the and it refers to section nine of article 20 of the State Constitution that we were just looking at that they're intending to provide statutory procedures to facilitate the adoption amendment of home rule Charters and that it should be deliberately construed to effectuate that result the next slide please now here's where the the conflict if there is one exists that 312 210 says that uh the petition you you only get 90 days to circulate the petition from the date of the filing of the statement of intents um and that's you know that going back to the guidelines interpretation we were choosing the more favorable one for petitioners in the event of of conflict but this this would be one of those State Provisions that's arguably in Conflict uh could we move to the next slide please and then this is the the um this

[199:02] is the part where we get into special versus um um Regular elections and you know maybe counterintuitively the U statute defines the the regular election as the odd number year election uh on one level that's maybe more intuitive to you all on city council because that's when you run for office so you know that's a municipal general election and strictly speaking if we're following state law then this is a special election and and there the the council would be asked to pass an ordinance that technically calls a special election to be held concurrently with the uh National General election and then we enter into a uh agreement with the Boulder County Clerk for uh um a combined election and the county clerk helps us with making sure the right ballots get to the right voters and so forth so th this says

[200:02] that if it's a special election which the statute would Define this November election as being then you would need 10% of the registered electors which is about 8,000 signatures as opposed to the roughly 4,000 that um that we had the um advise were necessary based on the the um viewing this as a general election which is what it you know it's commonly understood to be uh could we move to the next slide now oh well this is the definition I was just talking about so I guess I should have put this slide up but the uh it's the you know if we follow the state law the definition of regul of regular election is the odd number year and then any other election we can move on to the next one please then this is the definition of special election which is any election called by the governing body of any municipality or initiated by petition to be held at a time other than the regular election so any time and that would

[201:02] include this November's election would be considered a special election by Statute uh could we move to the next slide please so this is a summary of of the U different outcomes based on the three different interpretations if the charter controls then everybody should have had the same deadline and the same number of signatures um which would have been and this is the line Charter controls June 5th for everybody and they would need only 3337 signatures because there's no difference there would be no difference between a legislative ordinance and a charter but by the definition of section 37 um and then the statement of in the uh excuse me I'm sorry we do the if the state law controls it's the 8,096 signatures and then here's would be the deadlines um I guess you're not seeing my cursor but it's June 20 it would be June 21st for bedrooms July 30th for our mayor our choice and August

[202:01] 5th which is a last possible day for the citizens conditions for CU South and then finally if the the guidelines control then it's which is what we told people 4,048 signatures by August 5th so that's that was the um the guidelines that were posted on the websites the that that that view of harmonizing the state and the U um Charter provision so then just one last thing I I knew there was there's been a comment or a suggestion that section 137 of the charter um conflicts with or override section 37 of the charter and and section 37 which we looked at a few slides ago says that um Charter initiatives are initiatives they're subject to the same u rules as other initiatives and section 137 says amendments to the chter shall be conducted in accordance with article 20 but going back to what I I said about

[203:00] Article 2 Section 9 and how it says the legislature U May adopt rules and then when or procedures and then when the legislature did that they specifically said that their they inter interpreted their Authority as not uh for biding cities from uh um providing for their own Provisions in the charter so you know and article 20 includes section six which puts um you know vast power into the hands of a of a home rule city city council to basically legislate on any subjects um as long as it doesn't contradict with state law on a matter of Statewide or or mixed concern and then basically whatever you want on a matter of local concern and that's something that the council has has exercised from time to time in you know many different contexts which uh we won't get into now but I believe that's the end of the presentation so we can move to the next slide I think it's time for Council questions I'm happy to answer them or

[204:00] yes thank you Louise for the presentation it was comprehensive um yeah so Council questions now I've got Bob's hand up pleas thanks so much that was really really great and really helpful could could you back up one slide could you pick the the second to last slide back up I can't but whoever's controlling the slides yes one before that please before please yes great as I understand it from this um um and from your your comment earlier that the the question of whether this is a special election or general election could have bearing on the number of signatures is that right because under at least under state law the number of sign would be um 8,000 if this was a special election and 4,000 if this was a general election is that right yeah if state law controls that's what it says yes okay and you were very helpful in in

[205:00] providing um the the state statute that defined special elections and general elections um isn't um that very similar language maybe even more clear language actually in our Charter I would say that the language in our Charter is different I don't have that up here but it it refers to special Municipal elections and general Municipal elections but then that language doesn't tie into any other provision it's some kind I don't know if it at some point it did but the way section 37 reads now initiatives are initiatives and our Charter doesn't make any distinction based on whether it's a special municipal election or a general municipal election I'm sorry I wasn't referring to um section 37 I was referring to section 22 let me just read it for you sure uh and for Council section 22 of the Boulder City Charter reads a regular municipal election shall be held in the city of Boulder on the same Tuesday in November of every odd year it's me odd-numbered year as the state ballot election and odd-numbered

[206:02] years and shall be known as the regular municipal election all other Municipal elections shall be known as special Municipal elections so that sounds to me pretty consistent with state law that odds on the on the Tuesday in November are are General and everything else is special would you agree with that sure I just I'm just saying that under other provisions of the charter that particular distinction doesn't apply to um uh Charter or other ordinances it's the same whether it's a special election or a general election okay that seems to be the the definitional section so that's why I was just focusing on that okay thanks Luis that's all I had could I could I cqu because I'm not really understanding how language in the charter wouldn't apply to other places of the charter could you explain that to me

[207:02] please and you know I've been comprehensively studied the charter to see if those terms come up somewhere else but they don't come up in section 37 and when you have legislation by you know I'm sure you all know when when legislation is and Charter amendments are done by the voters sometimes you get less than perfectly coherent results but the you know section 37 and all the provisions that relate to U initiatives don't make any distinction regarding um special versus General and if I could add in 2017 they removed the provision in the charter that allowed for uh having an initiative on a special election if you got more signatures that there used to be such a provision in the charter but it was removed in 2017 so so you know sometimes a provision gets removed and there's language that used to be pertinent to it and then it's no longer pertinent

[208:00] because that provision got removed and that would seem to be this situation thank you [Music] juny thank you Sam I just wanted to ask one question and also some clarification so this is not the first year we've had ballot petitions I know this is the first year we're dealing with covid so is it right for me to infer that somehow we have been doing this without really [Music] considering the charter rules and that's just a comment because that's what it sound to me and you can clarify that for community members who are listening because from what I'm hearing is that those petitions have been getting on the

[209:00] ballot with no go ahead Tom the charter was changed in 2017 and 2018 we haven't had a peti since [Music] the this is the first time we've had to deal with these Charter Visions thank you and my other question is I think for me hearing this discussion and you're talking about you know bedrooms and mayor which is the two ballot petitions that are I guess we doing June 5th or or doing August 5th depending but my question is if we were to move the goalpost to a higher threshold what happened to the ones that have already made it on the ballot because we know that um newer the no eviction have already made it on the ballot so does that mean that they're no longer on the ballot and yeah so I'm just not sure because that seems very

[210:02] unstable for me to understand if we move the gopost what will happen to the ones that are already on the ballot um nothing will happen to the ones that are already on the ballot and here's the reason it's the the the no evictions without representation is a legislative ordinance it's not a charter Amendment so this issue about state law only uh applies in the charter context so the the instruction given to newer was that they needed 3,337 signatures and that they uh needed to do that by June 5th and they did that now there's a there's another provision that gives what we're calling an amendment period some people call it the Cure period but that's not really an accurate term because it's not about curing signatures it's about submitting new signature so in that kind of overtime they reach the threshold so they're in and then there's no question about that because it's not a charter Amendment great um so I see no other

[211:00] questions so I'm going to ask one or two so on slide 18 in your presentation which is a great summary slide thank you for having this here I have a bit of a question about why the guideline controls as 4048 and the charter control has 3337 what I'm really asking for is what was the rationale because I understood the rationale fundamentally to be we're going to pick the rules favor the petitioners but it would seem like the charter controls would favor the petitioner More Than This guideline number so how did the guideline number come to be what it was it's it was because state law says that in a general election you only need 5% of the Reg voter so that came out to be 4,048 uh whereas if it was so that was based on The View that this is a general election let me ask a question again because I don't think I was clear um if our Charter can control everything about

[212:01] our amendment process amending the charter right that's an assertion for Charter controls then why wouldn't the charter signature limits apply to either a legislative ordinance change or Charter change so it seems like the guidelines control number 4048 is 5% of the registered voters in Boulder but that's not in the charter that's in state law is that correct that is correct so I don't understand the rationale or why the state law was used to set the the signature threshold in our guidelines when in fact you could make the argument that the charter controls number 3337 should have been what's in the guidelines so it seems like there was some thinking that state law applied in some way to the um Charter Amendment measures that's what I understand and

[213:02] that the the belief that that was more favorable to petitioners is that you get more time under the state provision see if state law controls for in all three of these uh situations they get more time to collect the signatures whereas if under the strict Charter controls then it's all it's all due on June 5th so U but you but you only need 3337 so the charter controls view um it would be 3337 for everybody and it would be due on June five for everybody okay so I I still don't quite follow the we'll have more time if you use the state because if you use everything in the state law you would have 90 days after the statement of intent to collect signatures or you'd have 90 days before the election whichever comes first do I understand that correctly yes that's why

[214:00] the um the the citizens conditions would be on August 5 under the state law controls view because um they would have they would have filed with less than the the full amount of time Sam can I take your question sure so the guidelines were an attempt to meld state law and the charter um that there was a view that um and this was the view of the working group that the state law controlled and then the guidelines were an attempt to mitigate that somewhat by applying the 180 day limitation in the C in the city's Charter in favor of petitioners and also the belief that this is not a special election under the boulder code um so so it it was those uh I I I think it was a good faith attempt I think that it perhaps is it is defensible and I think the the one of the lawyers in our office firmly believes that that's the right interpretation of the law I'm not sure I agree any longer uh having you know as

[215:02] as we said this is our first time applying these we've done our best um as we've gone through this process and we've gotten really close scrutiny on everything that we've said um we've taken a different View and the the guidelines were good faith attempt to do the best that they could at the time um I'm I'm not sure that they're correct but I mean the purpose for us to be here for tonight is that it's ultimately council's decision on what the charter means and you can choose any one of those three thank you Tom um I have some more may cqu on on the question of of um numbers here if the charter controls what percentage of the registered electors is that 3337 uh it's the average let me get the correct the exact language here but it's uh let's see I have it it's 10% of the voters in the last the average of

[216:00] the voters in the last two Municipal elections thank you right so it's actual voters it's so the the the clerk gets the numbers from the Boulder County Commissioner of excuse me the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder of how many people voted in the last two El averages that and then divides it by 10 okay so the the difference and that is 5% of those of the average it's 10% of the average 10% of the average 10% of the average voters in the last two election whereas the guidelines and the state law numbers are of registered voters so that's the difference okay got it got it so so Mary to explain a little bit you may recall that the federal government at some point restricted localities stripping voter roles and so because Boulder has a a transient student population our voter roles started to

[217:01] grow enormously and so the 10 we used to require 10% of the registered voters in Boulder but that number started getting very big which was one of the impetus for the 2018 working group to see if they could change that number and they came up with the 10% of the average number of Voters as more reflective of a reasonable number that wasn't going to constantly go up okay so I have I have one other question and then um I'll see so Bob your hand is up I'm gonna ask my other question and then come to you are you coling Bob I kind of am if you don't mind Sam sure go ahead Tom Tom you mentioned when you're answering uh Sam's last question that the guidelines were some were kind of a I guess a meld of of Charter and state law controls you mentioned the August 5th was 180 days 180 days from from what oh no the it's not 180 days the

[218:01] charter says you have 180 days to gather signatures state law says you can only gather for 90 days after the statement of intent so there was a conflict there and the guidelines resolved it by relying on the charters 180 day limit to give people more time okay and then the second col so sorry Sam um Sor I'm still struggling with the special election versus a general election because the guideline control the 4,000 signatures seems to come from a read of state law um that um that this is a that the even year election is a general election I'm struggling a little bit what how this is a general election I read previously section 22 of our Charter which seem to indicate this is a general election or excuse me this even year is a special election state law which you you previously said in your presentation would indicate and then finally um the charter controls that you were just talking to Mary about the 3,300 um uh that's that's the average of the last two general elections is that correct General Municipal elections I

[219:01] think it says Municipal elections okay does it say Municipal elections so I think AR aren't we acknowledging doesn't our Charter Plus the state law plus what we just the math we just did all point to the fact that we acknowledge that odd your elections are General and even your elections are special Bob that's that's definitely my reading of state law and our Charter as well isn't it I'm not sure Bob there's a long history to our Charter and I wouldn't necessarily go there I when we used to consider extra signatures for special elections we considered them other than November elections but as Lise noted there's nothing that I know in our Charter that applies those ter those definitional terms so if we're g if we're going to rely on state law I would use the definitions in state law and I think that the reference in the guidelines to November elections being General the equivalent of general

[220:00] elections is probably inaccurate and which is why I would suggest that if you're going to use state law you should use state law all along and state law clearly defines an eveny year election as a special election okay thanks Tom sorry sorry Sam no no that's fine we're answering B my last question is about the role of the election working group and their advice which led to the Charter amendments that were approved um I believe in 2018 there are some passages that seem to express clearly the consensus intent of that group um and it seems like like the whole idea of whether Charter Amendment petitions are initiatives is stated in one part of the boulder Revised Code and and probably in the charter as well if I'm remembering correctly but the the clear legislative

[221:02] intent for those changes as supported by the election working group is detailed to say that Charter amendments are governed by state law says it clearly and it says it three times in their working group report so I'd be curious both how that clear intent was translated into the charter amendments that were passed and how legislative intent has an impact on the interpretation of Charter right well the amendment that made that added Charter initiatives to section 37 was passed in 2017 so the it was not based at all on the elections working group so that to the extent that they assumed that um it was that state law still governed I think that that that U was not in accord with what section 37 says and I went back and looked that uh this Council passed ordinance number 8195 in uh 2017

[222:02] and that's where it was proposed to add uh Charter amendments and the the purpose at that time was stated to to clarify that initiatives include Charter initiatives and also to clarify that uh uh ordinances have to be legislative in nature and they can't be administrative which is another issue that that is lurking with uh in the with the citizens conditions on CU South initiative we're not really talking about that tonight but the 2017 amendments are the ones that added the language about Charter amendments so the 2018 Amendment didn't uh didn't change section 37 at all so to the extent that the working group wanted to uh clarify that they believed state law controlled Charter initiatives then there should have been a a change to section 37 proposed and there wasn't so I think that we need to look at the 2017 uh ballot which is when ordinance 8195 was was passed by the

[223:00] electorate so I I hear that but I also know that the 2018 um work was done in specific to review and clean up everything um that was both existing before and to bring it into to new levels of of you know like how many um signatures would be required to qualify something automatically for the ballot it would seem like and and Tom I'll just ask you because I know you were part of this didn't that working group receive legal advice yes they did um there was um something of a dispute between my office and that group um they criticized our memos they did not want us to disagree with them they had Jeff Wilson as their legal adviser um the okay I don't know can I also add add to your question so the general rule

[224:01] is that you don't look to legislative intent unless a statute is ambiguous I I think I don't believe that it's ambiguous but if you decide that the language is ambiguous you can rely on that legislative history to say state law controls there's no question in my mind that working group believe that state law controlled um but they could be wrong and I also I'm G I'm a little sensitive about the cleanup the objection to the two the primary objection in my view to the 2017 uh Provisions were that the 2017 Provisions provided a lot of clarity what they said was a city manager shall adopt rules for all of the the deadlines and um there were people who didn't like that and it's in my view it's bad practice to put hard deadlines in the charter um it it it really limit your flexibility uh that's what we tried to fix in 2017 the working group overcame that and put deadlines hard deadlines in and we're we're struggling to figure out what those real those mean today so I I I I I kind of object to calling it a cleanup it was a political dispute in my

[225:00] view yeah whatever it's called the the there was enough impetus to pass the 2018 measure absolutely based on the work that came out of the election working group city council okay well that's all my questions let me pop back over here I don't see any hands up so if if there are no questions I think it might be time to move into the discussion phase so um anybody Mary has Mary you're muted I have one more question and just in in Lis in your presentation you perhaps alluded to the a you made a statement that made me conclude that an initiative as defined in the charter

[226:01] is defined in the same manner in in the state in state law is that correct uh I would say did I hear that uh that's not really what I was trying to communicate what really what I was trying to communicate is that the 2017 amendment to uh chapter 37 was intended to clarify that Charter initiatives are initia Charter Amendment initiatives are initiatives and are subject to the same uh time constraints and Signature Collection or signature numbers as as other initiatives so you know state law defines the initiative very generally and and the um the state constitution does say that the power of the initiative is reserved to the people in home R municipalities but that you know that doesn't really bear here because you know we we do have the you know we are allowing the people to to uh you know to to initiate the charter changes so that's the um you know the I don't

[227:01] think the state constitutional definition of initiative uh is particularly helpful I think that it would include Charter initiatives but the the moreon point is section 37 that specifically includes Charter amendments as as initiatives Mark you're up and then I have another question to follow up on that go ahead Mark yeah this will just be a question comments later um Tom I'm also looking at the report from the uh the working group which is very clear and very unambiguous and was contained in a staff memo uh that was presented to the council was attach to staff memo okay at that time when they made made these comments did you respond to them in writing and say no you're wrong no I mean that was their View and we were asked to convey their View and we did believe me there there were there were many back and forth between David gear

[228:00] and that group over what we could put in memos they insisted that they controlled their memos and they wanted to control ours we deferred to them as a working group thank you Rachel yeah just a quick question on um the the disclaimer like seek legal advice Tom that was in the I guess the work group or the workbook that petitioners would have received the guidelines the guidelines um are those the same kind of guidelines that um we received when we were running for city council and that disclaimer also impact in in guidelines or or workbooks that we would have received I don't know I don't know what you received so I can't comment I don't know that either I'm sorry that's okay just like in general we we also got a workbook and you know it was very specific with like number signatures and dates and um it seemed pretty reliable coming from the

[229:00] city that that would mean something so I just wondered if if we got the same likea get you know check you know learn State and Charter law on your own before you rely on what we're telling you one of my sorrows we always try try to give the best advice we can and one of my sorrows is that I I didn't think of all of this when we were publishing the guidelines but of course that was back in January and there were a lot of other things going it's always easy to look back and say GE I wish I'd done it differently and I do um and so I I you know I can't turn back the clock um and we're trying to do the best we can and yeah we probably put those disclaimers in uh for things like Council election since those Provisions haven't changed in years we're pretty sure about all of those deadlines as I said the well we we had some new stuff that like we were learning and I think it was different for people that were running again um some some uh contribution limits and things so like we were yeah I was in pretty close uh conversation with Diane like is am I am

[230:01] I reading this right so that's why I was wondering like is it pretty similar to how a petitioner would would feel relying on the city the working group did change the financing stuff in the in the code as well [Music] so um Tom L thanks for all that explanation but just be clear that the the next steps are really entirely up to us kind of from a legislative perspective right that we can we can choose our our own um uh we can make our own choice about what we feel is the best Next Step because we have it within our power to place or not Place initiatives on the ballot yes and I've always said it's council's prerogative to say what the charter means and that's what ordinances are so it's also if you want to tell us that we're wrong in our interpretation uh we will honor that and defend it because it's your choice you don't have to but if that's what council wants to do that's it's it's completely

[231:00] appropriate sure so it's really it's our discretion but you did your recommendation was that we should go ahead and put those two initiatives on on the ballot so correct I believe that that's fair but it's a legislative decision for you okay thank you and I a final question here back to section 37 Louise um you we've read the first sentence a few times um and it it more or less I'm going to boil it down says that trer amendments legislative ordinances franchises and privileges our legislative ordinance and other legislative measures those are initiatives right that's what the first sentence says the second sentence however says a petition So it's talking about how the petition's order a petition meeting the requirements here and after provided and requesting the council to pass and here's the list the legislative ordinance resolution order or vote all four of those terms being

[232:00] here and after included in the term measure baren set forth are designated shall be turned termed an initiative petition and shall be acted upon as here and after provided reason I want to call out the specifics of both of the those sentences is the second sentence doesn't mention Charter amendments when it talks about petition requirements whereas the first sentence mentions Charter amendments and talks about those being initiative but the next sentence doesn't use the word initiative except in terms of what those four things are shall be termed an initiative petition so I'm curious what your thoughts are on how to balance the contradiction between the first sentence and the second sentence well I don't think there's a contradiction and here's why it's that council do if you look at what that section actually says and I think you quoted it correctly it says a petition that that requests the

[233:00] council to pass a legislative ordinance resolution order or vote and those four things being called a measure which is a different term those are things that Council has the authority to pass Council doesn't have the authority to pass a charter initiative so it it would be the problem would be if it did include the language of Charter initiative then it would then we would be suggesting that council could pass a charter initiative which it cannot do so that's how there's not a contradiction between those sentences that the the second part is discussing um petitions that the charter or that the the council could adopt like the council could have adopted the no eviction without representation ordinance uh or initiative as an ordinance if you had wanted to under that provision but you could not pass uh you you could not make any of the proposed Charter initiatives uh you could not pass those

[234:00] into the charter so that's why there's different language there and it defines them as a measure can ially on that for just a second sure if the charter controls Charter amendments could we amend the charter to provide that council could pass Charter amendments uh interesting question that the um you I don't think that would you know I think there's a political limit that that would never pass I me you in order to that's not the question well you would have to get that you you could not pass an ordinance that says that you would have to go to the voters and say amend the charter to give the council power to enact Charter amendments yeah and we could do that I think there's a provision article 20 of the Constitution that says it has to be by vote of the people yeah I think so too we'd have to take that on that Mark okay so so I want to stop right here before I go to Mary Mary I see so if the charter is silent or unclear on

[235:02] the subject do you then defer to the state uh I would say no if if the if the if the ordinance occupies the field then um you know there's other parts like we say in the in the election code that we adopt the municipal election code uh to the extent it doesn't contradict our Charter and initiative so we've we've affirmatively adopted that and put it into our um ordinances but the you know I by you know by you know I kind of want to avoid analogies to the campaign Finance Arena but I'll I'll make one now which is that if you're a city like Colorado Springs and you decide to enact a a a campaign fin ordinance that doesn't include any contribution limits that doesn't mean you import contribution limits from state law it means you don't have any contribution limits so the reason I asked the question then is because Tom referred to article 20 of the State Constitution as

[236:01] something that would be referred to um I forget the what we're talking about at the moment but if there was a like you said it had to be a vote of the people um because it says so in the Colorado Constitution which is talking about Charter amendments so if it would be a natural thing to do to refer to the Colorado Constitution when talking about Charter amendments and the requirement of who passes them then wouldn't that mean that you're moving to the Colorado Constitution to settle a question oh absolutely the Constitution always controls I mean the question is under the Constitution does state law or the charter control and and so the the constitution in article 20 section 6 makes it clear that the city has has the authority to adopt its own procedures to amend the charter it says that so the the but it also says that you can't you can't increase the number of signatures more than 10% of the registered voters

[237:02] so that's an actually a hard cap in the Constitution and the state law has gone to that cap uh we we could always go lower so the Constitution yes always provides a firm uh boundary for what the city can do because all the City's power derives from article 20 which creates the power for home Ru cities to have home Ru Authority I would just add that in the you know talking about um that you know article I'm just going to reiterate the article 20 section 9 says the legislature can enact Provisions for um how municipalities enact um Charter changes but then the statute says you know basically when the legislature exercised that Authority they said we're not proring to exercise this to the extent that a home rule city does something differently okay Mary so um so I'm looking

[238:00] to my city attorneys for for clarity here and I just don't seem to be getting any clearer on any of this um so if I were um a petitioner and well if I were on city council um and I wanted real Clarity and just beyond the shadow of a doubt I'm just clear and this is clear and there's no question as to when the deadlines are how many signatures are needed special versus regular where would I go so so Mary the the fault for us is we probably should have brought an ordinance to you last year that said this is how you interpret that and I've recommended that you do that this year and I'll bring it back

[239:00] after the election I would guess so that's where the clarity would come from but but but right now right now where where would I go the The Challenge is that you have to interpret the charter the state and the state law and the Constitution and that's a matter of opinion there is nothing firm anybody has ever said that'll decide that for you and we've done our best to give our best opinion but it's it's open to question and we will probably get sued and a judge will tell us um when the folks for um citizens uh citizens conditions for CU South um challenged and asked for a hearing I was anxious to get before a judge to have a judge tell me what the rules are because that would be best but we're not there and so we're all just giving advice and legal advice is advice and what I said and I'll say it again is there are three possible interpretations that I see council could choose either one of them and we will go

[240:01] with it or Council can just rely on what we've told you which is I believe Lis and I both believe that the charter controls is the best interpretation but that doesn't mean that it's binding that's just Our advice well I'm still Charter controls I'm still it doesn't provide Clarity based on all the places that you have to go to in the charter to to try and gain some clarity um so if I wanted Clarity at this moment in the absence of an ordinance would [Music] it would going to section 20 of the State Constitution be the place to gain that Clarity and since we have that ability to choose

[241:00] from those three options that you presented then given that going to the state constitution is an option is that a place where I could just be clear so I think you mean state law not the Constitution because the constition yeah state law so if you choose state law state law in my view is fairly clear okay than defines the number of signatures it defines the the the deadlines very clearly okay thank you [Music] Aaron well I was just going to see Sam if maybe we can move to the to the discussion sure yeah I'm happy too I I that was my last question anyone else have any questions so I see another question mark Mark I can't hear you not a question I was queuing up for comments okay great so uh before we get there so mark your first in line for that I just

[242:01] want to reiterate um the thought about how to do this is first to pick between the three interpretations that we've been offered um or defer if we don't want to um do so and then once we're done with that we'll move on to what that means for each of the the petitions that we've received so that's a proposal everyone seemed to have bought into that uh in previous conversation so if we get started there I think we can focus our conversation around which of these three possible interpretations we want to use going forward so from here I have Mark Aaron and Bob Mark um okay um Tom I I absolutely credit you with a good faith effort to uh work through this morass uh but as anyone who had the unhappy experience of reading my hotline post will attest I could not disagree

[243:00] with you more uh in your conclusions um it seems to me that the section nine of article 20 states that the registered electors are vested with the power to adopt amend and repeal home rule ch ERS um section n directs the general assembly to provide by Statute procedures for their Amendment um and our uh own Charter in section 137 says we are following uh article 20 of the constitution in terms of our Charter Amendment procedures um I also give some degree of weight to the to the absolute Clarity of the campaign Finance working group um in their expressions of uh how clear it is to them that Charter amendments are controlled by the state um they say it as Sam pointed out several times uh they note that this

[244:01] process is governed by state law and a timetable set by the state the city has limited ability to change any aspect of how Charter amendments go to the ballot if that was an OB cable statement then I would have expected there to be a contrary memorandum challenging that that statement but I don't recall that there is one and so for me as a matter of of interpretation I I am hardpressed to see why state law should not be controlling um Charter Amendment processes has nothing to do with other initiatives but I think Charter amendments are governed by the Constitution and the um the statutes related to that everything else to me I'm sorry appears to be trying to make the best of a bad situation and and not really succeeding I assume you saw my response to your outline I I did um what I from that is for instance that

[245:01] in section 137 where we say we're going to follow article 20 your position seems to be that's what our section 137 says we're kicking it to the Constitution and the Constitution is a entally saying do whatever you want that's not how I interpret it the constitution in article 20 section 6 said provides that the the people of the of the home rule cities have the ability to decide how to amend their charters of course they do that's a matter of fact but what the what what this the legislature is doing and the Constitution is doing is telling you how you may amend those Charters and that's that's my I I've read it too and then that's my uh that's my view Tom I respect your view I disagree I I think the Constitution couldn't be clearer and I me we can disagree I don't think SE article 20 section 9 says what you think it says I think it's it's it provides for procedures and then the the uh legislature has made it clear that they don't intend for those procedures to overcome Charters and local

[246:01] ordinances just as a matter of of curiosity what does Denver do I don't know what does Colorado Springs do well you know it's interesting that you bring up Denver you I did used to live there and the the as a lot of you know their elections are not even in the fall they're in the spring following the general election and that's by Charter so you know no one has come into Denver and said uh you're not allowed to have your elections in may they have to be in November now they're they're talking about amending their Charter to to have the the mayoral and city council elections be in November but right now they're in May with a runoff in June well that's a different issue uh they have the authority to do that the charter amendment process is is really not what you're referring to there I'm not familiar with what Denver says about that Springs expressly follows um adopt state law which they wouldn't need to do a state law was imposed but it does and their Charter

[247:01] says that they follow the state law procedures so so so Mark you you made your point I think I've got you down here is supporting that state law governs of the three potential interpretations is that where you want to go with that that's that's where I'm going right and then we've got Aaron Bob Rachel and Mir by Aaron yeah so Mary's question was an excellent one about Clarity and I think fundamentally we do not have clarity about um exactly what the uh appropriate or the 100% correct legal interpretation is we've uh have a number of lawyers on City staff and in the community who have differing opinions on this so I I I think uh for us to try to resolve the 100% legal legally correct answer um is not going to work out so where I go to instead is that we have the authority um as the city council to place or not place these ballot initiatives um on the

[248:02] ballot and I Look to kind of fundamental fairness and good governance here um the city gave uh these petitioners guidelines um they're clearly stated and the petitioners did their best to comply with those guidelines and this is of course happened in the middle of a pandemic and um you know they came to us and and said well gosh could we do electronic signatures instead to get us through the pandemic and majority of council decided they didn't want to do that and nevertheless folks went out using the guidance the city gave and collected signatures in person um spent months doing it and um so I feel like if they clear the threshold um uh the signature thresholds uh by the date given to to them by the city kind of we should say well the buck stops here um the the city uh the city attorney's office gave you instructions and if you

[249:03] complied with those instructions and met those thresholds then we as the governing body of the city will take responsibility for that and without weighing in on the content of the measures um say you know we'll go ahead and put you on the ballot so um that's what I advocate for us to do is say if you get the if you make those thresholds and and comply with the guidelines uh let's do that and then my goodness we got to get this cleared up and let's let's work on an ordinance ASAP after after the end of this year to to make it sure that we never get in this situation again May cway on that um I'll Reserve most of my comments here but I would just observe that um that before Aaron just talked like voices were getting a little bit elevated and hated you know us discussing this amongst ourselves attorneys to attorneys you know I think there are six attorneys on this phone call um not being able to agree and and sort of vehemently arguing with each other's interpretations of the law is

[250:01] pretty telling to me that we can't as a group agree in this small setting and I don't know how we could possibly have expected petitioners even those that consulted attorneys to to easily interpret um what we were asking them to do um and so I agree with Aon that it makes sense that we not try and and interpret a law that is are conflicting um interpretations of the charter and the state statutes and and we could put that aside and fix it and and decide this on um more of a a grounds of the city having Integrity around its word the same way that that I would have wanted to be able to trust the city when I was running for office that what was in the handbook and that those baites meant something and even if I was to talk to an attorney if it was um a confusing interpretation I could go back and say I trust the city to have given me um a modum of understandable and good

[251:02] advice um and and I don't mean that overly critical I understand it's complicated but we have a a a chance here to not try and make an interpretation that's difficult and and do something different Bob Rachel Mir by Adam Bob yeah I want to um those are great um arguments by eron and Rachel for um potentially putting these measures on the ballot ourselves and we're going to get to that but we're not there yet I think I want to get us back to the question that Sam asked and that Mark answered and I want to answer the question too which is um which is which which um law applies to treor amendments we'll get eventually to the Equitable argument about what whether we should put these on or not um could could somebody put the slides back up again I actually have a question and then I'll answer Sam's question can you go all the way to the front where the the um the timeline is I think it was like the second or

[252:01] third yeah there thank you perfect perfect perfect um so this is a question for Tom Lise and then I'll answer the question that Sam posed um so these guidelines were offered sounds like to the guidelines sound like there were some sort of hybrid or blend of state law and Charter law and and and I'm not really sure how they came to be but any event it sounds like the guidelines were provided with the caveat go go check with your own loyer um and then I understand it from uh from your chronology and and in separate discussions with Tom that on April 20th um the city attorney's office off met at least with the bedrooms folks uh the eviction folks are not relevant here because they're not Charter Amendment um and I believe on that date Tom correct me if I'm wrong you advised the bedroom folks that there uh was a possibility that rather than the guidelines applying state law would apply and then and this

[253:01] is a compound question you can answer it all together and then it looks like on May 18th the clerk's office advised both uh Charter uh committees um that the state law applied and in fact um I believe that one of the leaders of the Charter One of the charter committees is quoted in the Daily Camera on May 18th as saying oh my gosh I can't believe that the deadline is June 21 which would be the state law deadline of course as we just talked about so that was a compound question but it it sounds to me like um while you may have initially provided guidelines to um the petitioners which may have been wrong we'll talk about that in a second it sounded like as early as April 20th and then C clearly on on May 18th you told them that state law might apply and they might want to govern themselves accordingly is that correct Tom yeah on April 20th I met with bedrooms or for people you may

[254:01] recall that I made a presentation to Council on April 21st on potential electronic signatures so I reached out to them to to the the then existing committees to get their input on the electronic signature proposal that I was bringing forward and during that discussion uh I mentioned to bedrooms for people that a Comm a Community member had raised the 90day deadline and advised them that it would be good if they could get their signatures into June by June 21st to avoid any controversy and then the clerk reiterated that on May 18th the clerk sent out an email to the Charter the then existing Charter petitions that committees that there was a 90-day deadline issue that they should consider that 90-day deadline would be under state law is that right yes so if we interpreted if if we interpreted um the um the governing law for Charter amendments as state law as Mark has suggested um that would be at least consistent with advice you provided to them before that deadline arrived is that correct yes okay you you didn't

[255:00] advise either of those petitioners that the charter applied did you I mean you had the guidelines which your initial advice and then on April 20th and again on May 18th you said ah but state law might apply but you didn't tell them that June 5th was their deadline in the charter would apply did you no we did not okay so that was never advice given to them no okay okay so if if if if if it matters to us what advice was given it sounds like we're we're down to if it matters to us and it matters to me um it's the the guidelines for state law and for all the persuasive reasons that Mark made and I'm not going to repeat here I believe it is state law I've looked at this independently I'm not I'm a lawyer but I'm a Colorado lawyer but I can read this stuff and I can understand this stuff and I think Mark makes a very persuasive argument that state law applies and I'm I'm delighted to know to find out that you told the petitioners on April 20th or at least one of the petitioners on April 20th and then both of the petitioners on May 18th before the state deadline applied passed as a matter of fact for one of the

[256:00] petitioners that that state deadline still hasn't passed I think they have until July 30th according to your chart that um state law might apply and that they should govern themselves accordingly so I'm glad that you did that you should give yourself credit for that and I think clearly state law does apply the guidelines make no sense to me whatsoever um I could see an argument for Charter um but I think it's a weak argument um and that would be bad news quite frankly for at least one of the petitioners um and so I I I don't see I don't see the logic of the charter applying you never told them the charter would apply and in fact having the charter apply would would not be advantageous to um some of our petitioners here so for all of those reasons and for the very compelling and and elegant um argument that Mark rais I believe that state law applies and that's um to the extent that the community is looking for us to interpret um the the amendments to the Charter I would say the state law applies not only for this year but for future years and I also think that's the safest course of action it appears to be what other cities up and down the Front

[257:00] Range are doing there's not going to be an argument about that um it's regrettable that there was confusion at the very very beginning um but but you corrected yourself and you told them the state law might apply and I think that was correct correct correcting advice and that's where I'm at can I just a clarifying question um to something a point that Bob just made Tom I thought I remembered after that 90day sort of state law Kur fuffle erupted in April or May you saying either to us or I don't know somewhere that I would have been aware of it that um you still believe that August 5th was the right date and that we would have a strong sort of legal defense if we certified petitioners who filed by August 5th so I'm a little bit confused that it it sounds like we're making the point that we gave clear instruction do it by June 25th but I thought you said something about we're still good to go on August 5th and we'll defend that so so I we've certainly evolved in our understanding of this as we as we've dug into it um I told them on April 20th that there was a

[258:02] risk if they didn't get it in by June 21st that's clear I also said that the guidelines said August 5th and that we would honor those and but as as I've thought about that I don't know that we can force it onto the ballot I think the risks of us getting sued by forcing it onto the ballot under the guidelines when I can't articulate a good defense board is higher than following either state law or the charter and I'm not suggesting that you certify it if that's not legally defensible I just wanted to clarify it sounded like we were saying City very very clearly said on May 21st you're done June 21st but I think that my my recollection is you also said But August 5th is what we're going to go with and I think that even in a presentation to council great oh um so I said I ended up making most of my points I think previously but I I do think um one additional point I'd like to make is I saw somewhere today that what we're doing here is being

[259:00] described as Kafkaesque like deadlines and then moving and then the goal posts move a little bit and and the only other place in my career that I've encountered that terminology was when I was um learning the immigration court systems and it was so focused on dotting your eyes and crossing your tees and sort of ways to stop Asylum Seekers from you know getting the humanitarian Aid that they were seeking and I think that there is something really doesn't sit right with me for us to be saying well you know turned out it was June 5th and youall should have known that and and that is not really um accomplishing the spirit of what I think direct democracy is about um um my interpretation of it is we want people to get a certain number of signatures to show that they have community support and so we're not putting stuff on the ballot that nobody's going to vote for and that isn't you know past some modom um a vetting and I think here uh that was

[260:01] very clearly done and for us to um honor that doesn't seem very risky it's just giving people the chance to vote on it um I think that we we do a disservice to the community when we um don't stand by our word and I I I do understand it was a complicated year um but it it it doesn't SM it doesn't pass my gut test to have screwed up in this fashion and not try and make it right for people and I do think um as a final Point um that it some have said well a couple things first of all we also said go go collect signatures during the pandemic like we said to people yeah you know we said in in late may I think sure go collect signatures and if we had a sense that it was June 5th then we wouldn't have said that so it's pretty clear that we didn't know what we were talking about when we were telling people um to go gather signatures and so I just I I don't think

[261:00] it's a a good thing for us to um to to go down that road when we have a a simple chance to um let the voters vote so that that's the way that I would go with it and and because I would do that I don't think we have to decide on whether it's state law or Charter law and I guess I also question is that something that we would typically do like we as council members would make a legal determination as an attorney that makes me a little bit like uncomfortable that that especially half of us are not attorneys and we're going to be making this legal determination that seems a little bit odd to me those are my main points Tom that's okay go ahead do you have any thoughts you want to share Tom it's clearly the council's ability to interpret the charter and it's your duty and that's what legislators do the state legislature interprets the Constitution you interpret the charter implement it so what you say is the

[262:02] law okay thank you and and we're quite split on on the law so it it feels murkier to me to make that decision when when there's an off-ramp that's really viable okay good nearby and then Adam those are who I have yeah I'll just make it simple um I really appreciate um how eloquently um Mark and Bob voiced exactly how I was feeling so I um I'm on board with following state law Adam so I agree that state law is what makes the most sense but that does not preclude us from looking at the situation this year seeing that there were different ideas given about what is supposed to be accurate and then making a decision for ourselves how to change that but going forward I would highly

[263:02] suggest we follow state law because it seems the clearest of all the choices um and I will talk more about what to do with the initiatives themselves later but for me stay makes sense thank you Adam Mary yeah um thanks Bob for asking for this timeline and it's very helpful that um to hear that the petitioners were told that state law May apply um I think a prudent person would have said okay state law applies these are this is my best chance and um and have gone with that um so as far as answering the question on the table I I agree that state law would apply and I think that going forward we

[264:00] should just adopt that and make that abundantly clear in our Charter um if it isn't already so I think state law applies and then um we'll take up the next topic thank you Mary [Music] juny Sam is this the moment we're just giving out comments I think in this one we if there's a majority who wants to use one of these or another we can then use it to apply and advise our legal department that we want that to be the standard if we put things on afterwards everybody we have a conversation about what to put on um part of that will potentially depend on what we direct the attorneys to do as far as our interpretation so we're interpreting Charter we're giving direction to staff at this point and then there will be a second phase where we talk about do we want to refer amendments yeah I think I mean this is a

[265:04] very hard discussion again it's not easy um because I think no matter where you stand it's it's valid where whether you think you know whether you agree or disagree on on where things should stand but I think to me it's an idea it's more about fairness and also I really think part of our job is customer service I know that that may not be the right term but I think that we represent the city and community members and our neighbors are our customers I that may not be the right word but that's how I see it and I think we serve at their behest and if a petition already got 6,300 vote signatures and another one

[266:03] got maybe 4,000 5,000 and they've met the previous guideline that was sent out to them I think it's only fair that we do the right thing so I think it would be right to um to use the the controlling guideline that's why I saw in one of the slides that said it was 4,48 um so to me again I think it goes back to what Aaron said about a governance issue and there is the idea of good governance and bad governance and I think or behavior at as of today as of right now lean toward bad governance as opposed to good governance because I know there is human error in everything that we do we're not perfect and you know whatever you know whatever communication

[267:02] we put out before it was wrong we gave people the wrong ideas the wrong threshold so we were wrong but we can make it right and I think maybe tonight would be the opportunity to walk across to where we can make it right by doing the right thing which is putting these petitions on the ballot because at the end of the day from my understanding is not that they would um it's it's not an endorsement of yes or no and it's not that they will be voted on by the community and I think for some of of us who are fearful that these petitions might get on is that we don't know that for sure you know this is a this you know most people cannot go out there and vote although we get mail and ballots and Boulder but so you know the landscape is different than what we usually know in a typical presidential

[268:02] election so I think to me the right thing to do would be to allow it on the ballot but I you know I I'm I'm one of those people who I listen to both side of the sto of of of an issue and I can understand where other people are coming from but for me I think putting them on the ballot is the right customer service thing to do uh for our community members and our neighbors great thank you juny Adam I have your hands still up do you have anything else to say yeah I have a question kind of for the three council members um who kind of jumped ahead to the next question we still have to make a decision on how to interpret this at some point and it sounds like six of us have made a decision on how to interpret it going forward but um I haven't heard from you three and I'd love to hear what your thoughts are just what do you think is right going forward even if this particular situation didn't go correctly because I

[269:03] think I just am interested in your thoughts on that thank you Aon yeah Adam thanks for asking that I mean I I I'm not sure I mean that was that was what I started with is that I really don't feel like it's clear and so I I feel like it needs it needs for us to sit down um with this and uh the text to potential ordinances to clarify this for future years so I think it needs its own work plan item I think it needs to be looked at very clearly very carefully and clearly and come up with an ordinance to provide Clarity for next year but I'm not sure the lots of lawyers think are are disagreeing vehemently on this and I'm really not sure I also thought that our our that we had previously said we were going to pick this up in like September and and look at it and draft something that made it very clear I I think that where we are leaving it it leaves us open to lawsuits so I'm not sure it matters like

[270:01] what I think because I think it needs to be clear for the people who are using it um and and so I also don't think we have to get into it tonight so i' just rather us like clean it up and and make it user friendly going forward but thank you for asking okay so I'll weigh in here and I'll cut to the chase I think in in this uh situation I think we have to defer to state law on this I don't I don't understand the rationale um for the guidelines because they seem to be as was said a hybrid and I'm not sure that you can operate that way to me it seems like either the charter controls or the state law controls I I'm not compelled by the charter controls arguments I I'm in particular interested in what the election working group said because they did dig into it okay that was not just a casual you know once over I believe that

[271:01] they were convened for nine months or some relatively long period of time and they had legal advice and multiple of them are attorneys themselves and they say extremely clearly what their understanding was at that time I I didn't see a Minority Report from that so it seems like in the absence of a Minority Report I would assume that everyone who is in that group either agreed in consensus or or didn't think it was important enough to disagree so as far as how I intend to to look at this I mean whether it's all Charter or All State um the the all Charter means everything's out um at least by by virtue of what the the signature levels and dates are if it's all state and we have three different situations and that's a reason one reason I think we should look at this is because you know it does set some different deadlines for

[272:01] each of the three um proposed Charter amendments um so without getting into refer referral questions I think for me interpreting the the um laws in front of us I think it's state law controls Charter amendments um I could go on I don't know that there's a reason to go any further than that because we have um a a consensus 63 um that we would use state law um and what that would do is set if we wanted to do that it would set deadlines for two of the three that are still in the future our mayor our choice would be due by the 30th citizens conditions would be due by the fifth and bedrooms has missed its deadline so under either strict interpretation bedrooms has missed the deadline there's a proposal by Aaron which is a referral

[273:00] proposal so I think talk about that next but so that's my position as one council member um I would offer that I'd love to hear from other people if you disagree with the chart that we have about what interpretation means what as far as the the remaining um the charter amendments that are in front of us so is there any disagreement that if six of us support state that what we see in front of us from the staff is the way we' interpret that going forward all right I'm seeing no disagreement so I I think that's clear it's clear that a majority of council supports the interpretation that the state law controls now and that that has the implications found on slide 18 if we're done with that which seems to me we are and anyone can tell me if you don't agree I it's time to move on to

[274:03] and I I think if we agree that the state law controls decisions tonight about referring Charter amendments are no more than us saying what we think and how we might look at it going forward because if state law controls two of these still have deadlines in the future so I don't know that it's worth talking about whether we would refer them because they may hit the ballot thresholds also of state law controls I believe um the signature level that um has been put on slide 18 is the correct signature level which is 8096 so there we have a summary if people disagree with that summary now would be a good time to speak up otherwise I'd be happy to move on to the question of referring the charter amendments Mark yeah um and this just a question and and uh I guess it will depend on

[275:00] everybody's appetite for doing so um so as two of the three are still live um does it make sense for to separate this conversation and deal with the equities of putting them on uh by Council resolution all at once after we have the results or are we going to do that tonight you know it's will of council I had framed it up this way as a desire to signal to the community and the people involved with each of these initiatives um how we would each look at the the question of referral I'm happy to defer that conversation to later that is Will of council my my only thought on it is is that it's this is a complicated question it's got a lot of elements to it and it could be another two hours by itself and uh uh it might be more productive to

[276:01] approach it when we know all of the facts for all of the resolutions or Charter amendments um and when we're fresher okay again that's everybody's you know Aon and Rachel Aaron yeah well I mean Sam I think you you stated clearly a majority opinion so I won't disagree that the majority agreed on that but anyway um but I think it it's um from a practical perspective that if Council says that the state law controls and that if you clear that threshold then you've cleared that threshold and uh congratulations it's not really realistic because um those days are what's that's 2 weeks I think and um 8,000 signatures and the citizens conditions hasn't gotten started yet and our mayor our choice I think we're shooting for the 4,000 and I don't think the 8,000 is a feasible threshold so I think it's a little disingenuous to say

[277:01] that it's an unsettled question um just because the dates are a little bit in the future I I'm your argument if I can state it back so I make sure I understood it your position here is we can go ahead and have the conversation about referral assuming that perhaps none of them will make the state thresholds is that right yeah I mean I think so because I think it's extremely likely outcome um so I mean there's you could allow for the possibility that one of them makes it but it does seem exceedingly unlikely from a practical practical practical perspective that's I Rachel I was going to make pretty much the same point I don't I don't see anybody getting to 8,000 signatures so why don't we have the discussion tonight and the only um benefit I could see to holding off the discussion for a very short menu our our agendas are packed so uh

[278:02] unlikely to squeeze in next week's say but I think that there was a a lot of interest in a public hearing or to have more voices heard on this so that would be the only benef I would see to delaying a week is so that more people could be heard nonetheless I I still favor having conversation tonight because I don't think anybody's going to get to 8,000 signatures ask you a quick clarifying question about that next week would be before either of the deadlines uh if we follow state law next week would be before either of the deadlines so would it make more sense to do it after the deadlines have have pass in my opinion no because I think if we're not going to Refirm people probably want the option to stop Gathering signatures in a pandemic like if they're not going to get to 8,000 maybe they don't want to go gather so I still think there's benefit to us giving

[279:00] direction okay that's fair so I've got two indicating they'd like to do this tonight one saying later Bob yeah I'm actually gonna agree with with um Aon and Rachel Mark I I appreciate your um you're you're keeping your eye on the clock and the fact that 40 we still have another topic to tackle but I I I was actually the person who asked that this be put on for tonight and and My Hope was that we could provide guidance I I understand that now that we've selected state law um the question is a little bit hypothetical for two of the three um and we can condition you know our our our our expression and we're not taking a vote tonight anyway I don't think um um on the assumption that they may not be certified but if they're certified obviously they become removed but I think out of out of fairness we should indicate um um whether whether we're inclined to put these things on the ballot if if for no other reasons is we have to provide instruction to our staff to to prepare a first reading and a second reading and we're going to be

[280:01] into August pretty quick here so I think if there is an appetite to put some or all of them on the ballot then we should say that now and our staff could prepare first reading for August 4th if there's not an appetite then we should just declare that now and and uh folks will do what what they wish on that so I'm actually in agreement that we should try to we should try to uh declare that now and see if there's a if there's a majority one way or the other on each of these three Mark I see your hand again I just to say that I yield um although I I would request at some point a three minute break um but uh I yield to uh the consensus okay um unless someone else takes the position that we should do this later and not tonight I'm going to assume that we're going to move forward with tonight I I feel that's the right thing to do um for a couple of reasons so I'm happy to take a break we haven't had one if we want to take a five minute

[281:02] break and reconvene get a thumbs down if somebody doesn't want that all right so it seems like five minutes is good we'll be back here at 10 47 thanks

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[286:09] e [Music] okay can you all hear me yep okay super um I think we're all coming back now one two three four five six 7 seven and there's Mary is eight [Music] so uh waiting for Aaron I'm back awesome thank you

[287:00] Aon okay so we are on to the second phase which is talking about how each of us would look at referring ing one two or three of these initiatives to the ballot as a um Council measure so I will open the floor for discussion if anybody wants to get us started okay Arin well I just I already made my case on this so I just sort sort of want to restate what I said before just copy and paste to get us started okay so when you say copy and paste let's make sure I can repeat it for everyone um if one two or three of these hits the signature threshold of the guidelines which is 448 valid signatures so the numbers we've heard so

[288:00] far are probably raw signatures but the number of valid signatures um and by August 5th delivered by August 5th then they would be on the ballot uh because Council would take a measure to refer any of those that hit those qualifications to the ballot and if they're short on the number of signatures from the guidelines um then we don't refer them is that correct Aon that's correct that I I would say let's make good the the guidelines with the guidance that was given in the guidelines and if people meet those guidelines then we put them on the ballot and if they don't uh then we don't very good okay so that's Aaron's opinion anybody else want to go so Rachel and then Bob I'll go um I also laid out my case I think earlier um I

[289:00] will say something that's probably a little bit surprising but I think that um the C South petition if if we're going to look at that one in the the same vein um I think maybe because deadlines are sort of um arbitrary if we're referring to the ballot right we don't have to stick to August 5th so I might give them an extra seven days or something to make up for um us having said don't gather signatures so I agree with Aaron and if we're looking at the C South petition then I would build in a couple extra days to um make that Equitable for them um also I think that there's some concern that the um mayor's initiative has some some um flaws in it that Council maybe would like to remedy so I think that was one we could look at maybe making a few changes to and not putting it on as is um and then the bedrooms one I would

[290:00] put on um as is if they got the signatures uh by the date indicated and also wanted to leave us a little bit of room to discuss the the governor saying that we should suspend occupancy rules anyhow during covid so that was suggested at CAC that we would talk about that tonight as well I think that um demonstrates sort of the urgency of people needing bedrooms and I I don't think we should be getting into the content of the ballot initiatives tonight but I I still want us to um at least touch on on how we if and how we would respond to Governor Po's strong recommendation that cities suspend um occupancy rules which is the exact topic of one of our ballot measures that's that's kick if you want to if you want to talk about that tonight I would suggest now's the best time because I'm pretty sure we're not going to get to the third measure tonight given the time so if you have something that needs said tonight I

[291:00] think now would be a good time to do it well I so I had just asked like what is the process if we did want to suspend um occupancy limits um knowing that people are are teetering on the edge of homelessness and wanting to help ensure that that doesn't Beall more people than necessary in our city right now uh I I understand that people are very concerned that we need to have guard rails in place um if we change occupancy rules um but I just wondered when I haven't been on Council so I don't know how often it is that that the governor of our state says Hey cities please do that so this something we usually discuss or I just wanted to raise it because we haven't talked about it yet would you like to raise it for another evening because if we want it to be tonight I I don't know how long the meeting will go it's an so I had I had emailed CAC and asked for discussion and at CAC it

[292:01] was stated that it would be tonight as part of this discussion so doesn't matter to me this is just where it got uh lodged uh so Tom if you want to answer the question I think it's we would pass an ordinance suspending the occupancy limit is in Title Nine I think it's section 57 um there I I would propose if you want to do that we'll draft an ordinance suspending it um I there's also as I I think I said at cic there's a provision for grandfathered occupancy that sort of makes occupancy a little crazy and Bolder uh want to make sure that the suspension didn't create a grandfathered right uh and then you could have a discussion over what the suspension meant whether it was an absolute suspension whether it was one bedroom per person whether it applied to International building codes there's lots of options to do this we've had these conversations in the past so I'm happy whatever you want me to do I we can bring back an ordinance

[293:01] and you can have a public hearing and discuss it you know it's my thought that as as we're going around here assuming that everyone's going to want to weigh in one way or another on whether we want to refer we can also weigh in on whether we want to direct Tom to prepare an ordinance um suspending occupancy so Rachel I take it that's a yes from you you'd like to have Tom prepare an ordinance or no I actually asked staff for more information and um really the procedure and um an analysis of whether that I assume that Governor polus made that recommendation for a Reas reason that the the data shows that that helps people to not become homeless and if that is indeed the data then yes I would support it but I feel like I'd like more information um and that this Council would benefit from information so that's actually what I was asking for so I'm that's possible um I I spoke with Chris uh and uh Jane

[294:00] about this and the planning Department's um plate is pretty full and so the way we have gotten things done in the past when the planning Department didn't have the capacity was to just do it as a public process and if you want to do that that's the only feasible way I could see of doing that this year without rearranging the planning Department's work plan um they're they're like everyone a little bit underst staffed right now and uh with completely full plates so uh if you want re deep research on it that I don't have the capacity to do that that's the planning department and then you'd have to make some choices on priorities for that if however you want have a community conversation about implementing it and doing it by ordinance we've done that sort of thing in the past and I'm happy to work on that and I guess that is a yes for me file me as a yes thank you okay so question question um I guess my first piece of

[295:01] information that I would like to see is the governor's order to um to make that suspension um and and I guess I'm a little confused by it because one of the things that we hear about um about the spread of covid is that people living in tight situations can't um self-isolate um especially referring to um communities that are living in tight quarters so I'm a little confused by that um to to um encourage people to live in tighter quarters when that seems to be one of the causes of the spread of the disease so I'm I'm I'm confused by it so I would like to understand it better so if the governor's order could be sent out um I think that would be a great place to start for me um I did send it in my

[296:00] hotline post I links to what his it wasn't an order yeah it wasn't an executive order but it was a recommendation um so it's in a hotline post I sent a week or two ago um and then in terms of I think the covid spread it's a my understanding is it's a question of like is it more dangerous to be living on the streets and also you know it's unrelated people still you know we all have families essentially and I think it's it's it's just a different household makeup and they're all following the same rules as as the rest of us are in terms of social distancing and avoiding the virus well so I guess I would just like the the governor's um order sent um to us okay I'll get it out right away great so B Bob Mark Mary and Aaron Bob I'll take that up first and then I have a question for Aaron because I wanted to make sure I understood what Erin said and then I'm G to reserve um the answer to the

[297:00] question you asked until a little bit later Sam um I guess like Mary I'd like to understand a little bit more before we made a decision on on passing ordinances around on enforcement it's also a little unclear to me and and perhaps staff without doing too much work can can bottom this out or somebody can reach out to the governor's office it's a little unclear to me whether that was intended for families or for everybody um because I because you know I think we all know that to the extent that there is over occupancy or violation of the occupancy rules it tends to be students and I don't know if if the governor was saying hey let's let's have lots more students live in a house or if he was signaling that because of Co and loss of jobs and in that maybe families could double families could double up so it be helpful for me to understand what he was getting at was he talking about everybody and he wants lots more students on the hill to be in in in close quarters in a house as Mary was concerned about or was he talking about families doubling up because I think that's a very different proposition it would be helpful for me to understand what he was getting at there um before

[298:02] we kind of passed an ordinance suspending all enforcement um Erin I have a question for you I wasn't I'm sorry didn't quite understand what you were recommending were you saying that you wanted to put all there's three um Charter petitions um bedrooms mayor and CU South were you advocating for putting all three on no I was advocating for putting any measure on that met the criteria and the guidelines for dates and signatures so if you get the whatever 4,000 odd signatures by August 5th that um we would place you on the Bal that case and recognizing that the the the one that pertains to se South is very late right now so it' be like I said before incredibly hard for they them to do that but you know I'd be open to like what Rachel said about if they got a little extra time but it's it'd be tough it's a very short time frame but but anyway fundamentally if you meet the uh signature and date uh date set in the

[299:02] guidelines that we would put you on the ball in that case thanks for that clarification and just to be clear when when you um the 4,000 which was kind of a number that probably wasn't a real number but um apparently was given to to some people you mean 4,000 net of any signatures that are tossed out is that right correct yeah validated signatures okay great thanks for that clarification I'm gonna um yield Sam on the um the question that's on the table I'd like to hear what some my colleague say sure Mark Mary and then back to Aaron Mark um first I I would agree with uh Rachel that we I'd like to get some more information um I'd like to get an understanding of what our what Boulder's potential uh eviction problem looks like um especially in light of the fact that you we've got 1,400 um affordable units at Boulder housing partners and they are evicting no one that may be reducing the threat to some of our uh

[300:02] lower income people but I'd like to know um I'd also like us to understand what ha As I understood that the governor's um request it was a 30-day um request that could be renewed and what happens on the 30th day if it's not renewed are we then going to be throwing people out of uh the over occupancies that will then exist um so I there's more we need to know and I'd like to know it um so I'm I'm certainly in favor of of getting as much information as we can um with respect to the question that that we're addressing um my uh Instinct well we've received a lot of emails to the effect that we should not um be looking at the content of uh the charter amendments uh when we make the decision as to whether to put them on the ballot or not um I'm going to

[301:01] take issue with that it seems to me that if I being asked as an act of discretion to to do this um it's not inappro apprpriate for me to comment on that and I've got many comments I'll just share a couple of them um one I think they're are very substantial structural problems with the the mayoral initiative uh I am very concerned about the bedroom initiative being a charter Amendment and this is our Constitution and the charter and the bedroom initiative is basically a zoning ordinance um I I just don't think it belongs uh in the charter um and past that I I have other concerns not going to bore everybody with them right now um I think there's a very good chance that we'll get some unpleasant unintended consequences from that uh as I read it you could have four unrelated people in a 500 foot Adu I don't think that's what people intended there's a there's a big issue here about

[302:02] occupancy that we ought to turn our attention to um I'm sorry we're not being given the opportunity to do that as part of the work plan that we being put to it uh as a an up or down proposition on a charter Amendment um so if I'm asked about it I'm I'm I'm disinclined at the moment possibly persuadable but disinclined thank you Mark Mary um I want to hear more discussion before I weigh in okay uh maybe that everyone's there um Adam uh so I'm I'm thinking that uh following the original guidance is probably the most fair thing to do in this instance so if you like Aaron and Rachel have said if you hit the certain amount of signatures that was originally given um despite the attempts to fix or leave

[303:02] open the door that that could be the wrong information you know you got to you got to trust the city uh when the city tells you something otherwise what's the point of being the city so uh to me I think in this particular instance even though I think the state guidance is the correct one we didn't give the right guidance to begin with and Council never took it upon themselves to clear up that guidance thems ourselves along the way so given that um to me I think it's a reasonable thing to follow the original guidance if you get the right amount of certified signatures the 404 um within the original deadline I think that's pretty fair um to put it on the ballot and also I will add um I I think it's also fair to give um the latest petition the South poer one a little extra time given that they've been in

[304:00] sort of a limbo for at least a week now can ask a question um can we do that can we just random ly say you get 10 more days you get five more days you get can can we just do that you can put anything you want on the ballot up until September 1st but we're not talking about putting something on the ballot we're talking about giving more people more time to collect signatures As I understood the proposal it was giving more time colle signatures as a metric for whether or not you're going to put it on the ballot yourself that's correct I I made the suggestion and that's what I was thinking was that if they lost a couple of days due to Tom's um recommendation that it would be fair as we consider whether to put them on the ballot to make up those days and then we can decide whether to refer at the end of that period okay and Rachel I've got your hand up next after Adam I just wanted to

[305:02] respond to somebody said like it's not really appropriate to put land use things in the charter and I mean I think if we didn't have land use things in the charter we wouldn't have the issues that we're discussing right now like between the blue line and the height limit um and open space that are all essentially land use or zoning issues that's what compresses our land and makes people want to have the opportunity to to live in more bedrooms so I would push back on on the notion that the charter is not a spot where you can get into um how to use land or how not to use land I think we we've had um petitions that are are very concrete on how you can't use land and this is one that is how you can use land and you can use it to house humans I think we've mostly looked at at land from um not a very human perspective and this is sort of a a human rights um effort or an effort to get some human

[306:01] rights and and recognition of of how we struggle in this town um for sort of everyday people into to the Charter so I think it's perfectly fine for this to be uh something that would be considered for the charter and and furthermore it's not really it's not really for me to say because I didn't create the petition it's it got 6,000 signatures and it followed our rules and apparently our rules do say you can apply to have a charter change so I don't know why we would say can't do that because they could have like essentially but for bad advice and but for covid and if we'd had electronic signatures in place as we want to they'd already be on the ballot so like I I I I struggle again like just on a gut check gut level check like why are we putting up extra barriers um when when they're doing something that's perfectly legal and valid thanks okay we have no other hands up um

[307:00] this is the chance for others to weigh in if nobody else wants to weigh in I'll say my thoughts and we can leave it there um anybody else want to speak um yeah um I just want to come back to the dates because that's kind of what's troubling me um you know on April 20th our city attorney's office told um one of the charter folks um what the alternative date was that was three months ago and um they made a decision um to follow guidelines they had been given a few weeks earlier as opposed to the new information and and they've had three months to well they had I guess two months after that in which to meet the June 21st deadline so I'm I'm struggling a little bit with the Prejudice that they suffered especially since they were

[308:00] told relatively early and similarly with the mayoral petition they were told 17 days at they pulled a petition on May one and 17 days later they were told what the date was and that date still hasn't come yet so they've got a lot of time so I'm I'm struggling with with the um the Prejudice or the bias or the negative impact since they were put on notice pretty early in their respective processes um what I would suggest that we do is um place um both these things before us for further consideration on the bedroom one I think it's been said by a few people I agree with them that there um is the potential for unintended consequences um that really haven't been considered um the um uh there is a question about whether something like this should go in the charter as opposed to be an ordinance um and I'd like to see um a

[309:02] discussion by Council and the community over the next few months um I'd be in favor of having a a working group appointed um of diverse people who can consider the pros and cons of increasing occupancy there may be parts of town that it's really going to be great for and other parts of town that that there may be some um impacts I'm thinking particularly around the hill um and so I I think that this is worthy of a more lengthy discussion I think it is our not only our prerogative or Our obligation to look at the substance of these things when we're being asked to exercise our discretion if um these measures have been put on um pursuant to applicable law with the right number of signatures by the right date then we wouldn't have we wouldn't be having this discussion but but that seems to not have happened with respect to at least one of them and it may not happen with respect to the other two but but that doesn't mean they're not worthy of further consideration and discussion especially

[310:01] when seemingly we haven't confirmed the numbers yet but seemingly thousands of people have expressed an interest in in this topic um so I think we should take these top topics up um so with so I'll break them down with respect to the bedroom one um if there's not a majority on Council to refer this to the um to the ballot um I think at a minimum we should right away not waiting until next year necessarily um form a working group um and ask uh Jan if she can staff this up and have a discussion um in the community about whether we should change occupancy and if so how and where and and why um the mayor um um one is I think is flawed um it's an interesting proposition and it does have to be a charter amendment that that unlike the bedroom one that doesn't which doesn't have to be a charter Amendment the mayor one if if we were to take up rank Choice voting director elect the mayor would have to be a charter provision there's no no way around that because the method

[311:01] for selecting the mayor and and for voting is in the charter so we'd have to amend that um unfortunately I think there are a number of um conf internal conflicts in the charter Amendment that's before us and I think some of it just quite frankly doesn't work so I think that one needs to be worked over um I I've actually started talking with them and and um and I'm working with them to see if there's some fixes I think other council members have expressed an interest in in joining in that process I don't know if those fixes can be made in time for this to be referred to the ballot this year um I'm willing to try that I'm willing to work with them I am working with them to try to to fix that because that does have to be a charter Amendment unlike the other one and um and i' be happy to bring that back to Council in a couple of weeks and see if the if the the fixes were adequate for you know Council to put this on this year and and if if if there's not a majority in Council that wants to put it on this year that work won't be wasted because that U

[312:00] proposition could presumably be brought back next year perhaps even as a account Council referral perhaps we could take that to the Charter committee next year and ask the charter committee and Council if they would put it on the ballot themselves and if not then the petitioners can can petition uh using the electronic petitioning so that that's I think how I would address that one and I do agree that um it's unfortunate that the the third Charter Amendment the one related to this CU was given different advice from the first two and I think we should be consistent here so I think I heard a majority of us say that state law should apply so I think state law should apply for them as well which which I believe means that they have until August 5th um that have get 8,000 signatures um I would not be opposed to the the proposition that was raised that that they'd be given extra days obviously we can't change the charter I I don't know what that means as far as threshold and I'm I do have the same concern on that one as I do on the um the bedroom one I I'm not sure regardless of how we might feel about

[313:00] occupancy or on SE South annexation Provisions I don't think that either one of those things belong the charter there they're both worthy of discussion they may ultimately result in in ordinance or other Decisions by Council but I don't think either one of those um goes in the charter um so even if if they were given a few extra days and they got a few thousand signatures if they fell short of 8,000 signatures I'm not sure I'd be Keen about putting on on a charter Amendment for that but I am Keen about continuing the discussion in fact we will have a continued discussion about CU South annexation that's on our work plan and we will have that discussion so I think there will be plenty of opport for in community engagement around that topic so I guess that's kind of where I'm at um not inclined to refer the bedroom um measure for the reasons I've stated not inclined to to refer the CU South one for the reasons I stated and I'm willing to try to to um improve the the mayoral one and bring back back to council and see if there's

[314:00] a council appetite referred this year or if there's a preference to do that next year thank you Bob I've got Aaron and juny Aaron um okay well thanks for those thoughts Bob I just want to point out in terms of the dates I think the just to clarify the um the city told them that there was a possibility that the June date would apply not that the June date absolutely did apply and they also said that they were going to continue to uh recommend or or um accept the signatures through August 5th so and like they I think gave to us in our own presentation so I it's not like that that the city changed the guidance it's that they uh um made an announcement that there was some chance um that June 5th might end up being relevant just wanted to clarify that great thank you juny me Sam yes juny sorry thank you I

[315:02] just have a question and I think um it's about the proposition that you know if we so my comments still stand when it comes to the original guideline of 4,000 August 5th but I'm wondering because I think it was mentioned that uh the C South would get extra days and I was wondering what would that look like because I'm thinking because at this moment right now it's very very hard to be fair and to me my idea of fairness would be to give them the same amount of time that was given to every other petition because the other petitions had months to collect their 8,000 signatures so to give CU South one day or two days to me I just don't think that's really uh a solution so I'm wondering if we were to

[316:02] do that if if we're able to give extra days can we give like 30 to 60 days as opposed to two extra days because there's no way well I don't know but I just think it would be very very hard to collect 8,000 signatures within a couple of days I'm gonna cqu on that real quick they didn't file until late June like everybody else is working on this back in November December coming up with their petitions I think they came up with a petition after we voted on June 16th and it was a reaction to that vote so they put themselves in that short timeline not us um and I don't think we can extend it by like 30 days because we would have to refer to the ballot before like September 1st or something so I was just trying to be fair like we costing a couple days and um going back and forth but um they really didn't file in a timely way to get 8,000 signatures in even an ordinary

[317:03] year okay anyone else I'm happy to put my thoughts out there and bring us home um it's not determinative of course not everyone has a weit in um to me I I'm kind of in the same position that we have to look at the content if we're going to refer Charter Amendment with our discretion so um for me land use in the charger doesn't work um and more to the point with bedrooms thing zoning in the charter is even worse than land use um because it's even more prescriptive and detailed and so from my standpoint I couldn't in good conscience refer either the CU South um which is both you know it's about annexation and it's partly administrative or the bedrooms unless they get the signature thresholds that are required of them I

[318:00] do agree with Bob that I I would be happy to you know there's obvious interest in this um I would be perfectly happy to launch something as a work effort to talk about ordinance changes which could affect the same thing because everything's essentially in title line around this and so um because the charter is a bad place to be cobbling together things which aren't really constitutional or or um overarching in nature that two of them I couldn't possibly do unless they get their their signature requirements the mayor one um it does have to be Charter so that's the appropriate place for it um rank Choice voting is a great interesting idea and um if Bob and others can help create a a better formulation one thing I would say about that is it will need to speak to

[319:00] what method of rank Choice voting because there are many different things which are rank choice I also say that um while that one was was filed pretty late itself um it also um could have used some homework around what the county clerk thinks who has to manage the election as well as what the Secretary of State thinks and when I was talking with others about this thinking about how a ballot would look like say seven people want to run for mayor um and we're going to do rank choice where you rank all seven there's seven different bubbles that people have to fill in each bubble next to each name 1 through seven um and that's just for one if it's Council election it's even more whatever the number running for Council are and that many bubbles so I think there's some work that needs to be done I find rank Choice voting very interesting I find it probably a better way to do than win or take all but it does need some

[320:01] design need to look at how different systems of rank Choice have worked in different places what the results have been what adjustment other folks have made as they've started these so fundamentally each of these has a certain amount of appeal the Su South I think can be handled through the C South process and the annexation is going to be a big long legislative lift um on on that front so that's kind of where I am I think it's important to to kind of tell people how we're feeling um you know this is is not clear what's going to happen with these so I'm just trying to let let people know my thoughts so that they can make whatever plans they'd like around that I got Mary next so I want to start and I'm I'm a little confused as to what thresholds were talking about here I thought what where we when we started out what we were trying to do um

[321:01] by determining the underlying um governing um principles around initiatives and um and Charter amendments that's part of what we were trying to determine what the thresholds for signatures are so I'm a little confused right now about what thresholds we're talking about um and so that's a question um if C can I take a crack at that Mary just to to say what I think eron said um I I think eron's talking about referred amendments if they hit the thresholds and the guidelines Aon is that correct essentially that your proposals would refer it that that's right and and Mary just that that first step of determining what we felt like the controlling law was that that just wasn't something that I felt was

[322:00] terribly relevant to the discussion so I'm feeling like we should live up to the guidelines that the city gave the petitioners and that those would be the thresholds that we would look so what you're saying Aaron if I'm understanding correctly is if they hit um the thresholds in the guidelines um then Council will refer them to the ballot that's correct yep that's my proposal if they get that 4,000 odd verified signatures by August 5th that we would refer them to them okay okay which means that um the city clerk's office wouldn't have to do the signature [Music] verification is that is that what you're intending as well uh I mean I am thinking about validating the signatures I mean I'm open to discussion on that but I'm I'm the the original guidelines were 4,000 odd validated signatures not gross signatures so I would be thinking

[323:00] about following that process still in in which case based on your proposal um because we would still be referring them to the ballot the the validated s the the threshold of validated signatures doesn't really have to follow any clear law it just needs to follow what we determine is the threshold for us to put it on the ballot is that that's right yeah that essentially I'm proposing that we as a council uh set as a um as criteria for us putting on the ballot that they met the original guidelines okay okay cool um thank you for that Clarity sure I'm really wanting Clarity tonight um [Music] so I agree with um pretty much what what Bob and and Sam have said about the the

[324:01] measures regarding um the CU South it does seem like an administrative um issue that [Music] really doesn't belong in an initiative um and so so that's I I agree with with Bob and Sam there on the on the mayor one I do think that it's trying to accomplish too many things and that the homework wasn't um done I think I do just in general I think that if you're going to put a a charter Amendment out there a petition for Charter Amendment out there you really need to do your homework and you need to consider it very deeply and um and something that I'd like to do in the future is that if people are required to go out and get legal advice

[325:02] as per our um this our qualifier at the beginning of of the the documents that are in the website then there should be [Music] um a a place a resource that people could go to to perhaps get pro bono help um because that is that is kind of a uh a burden that that gets put on people if they want to bring an initiative forward so that's that's just an aside um so I think that that I I like Bob's idea that it could be worked on and maybe it comes forward this year maybe it gets put forth by the charter committee maybe um they they collect signatures next year um I like the idea of rank Choice vot voting um as um Sam said there's different flavors of it and

[326:03] I spoke with Molly Fitz Jered Gerald the um the county clerk and she said well you know we'd have to talk about which flavor they want to do and is it what they're proposing is it what we are prepared to do at the county and I think that talking to them talking to um as Sam said the Secretary of State and I would add to that the the League of Women Voters which has done a lot of research on this so um there's some homework to be done there and um so I myself um as a member of the charter committee would be be willing to bring it to the whole Council and refer rank Choice voting um to to the ballot and I see those two things as separate issues the the mayor election that could go to a vote um or to a petition the um bedrooms one I I do want

[327:02] to understand I I agree that if we're going to refer it I think that it has to be something that um that works and maybe it's legislative [Music] um I want to understand the unintended consequences because I do think that without putting some sort of an affordability um cap on it or an affordability restriction on it somehow similar to how the adus were done um I I think you would just have escalating room costs um I mean that's just that's just what's going to happen um the other thing is like I would like to understand the the benefit in terms of how many um homes Beyond three bedrooms houses Beyond three bedrooms are the are

[328:00] rentals right now and so that would kind of give us an indication of um the impact and I also think based on on the conversation that we had for the I think it was the um the large houses large Lots what where the conversation went was well the situation on the hill is different from the situation up in North Boulder which is different from the situation out in East Boulder so it wasn't like you can just make the call based on um one rule so I do like the idea of having a community discussion about it um and and having that come back to council for um some sort of legislative action um so that's kind of where I'm at thank you Mary

[329:03] mby um rough issues and I think it's hard because there's things I would support and things I wouldn't support but um I think just to be clean and fair um I'm personally just not going to vote to have any of them go on to the ballot so mine's pretty simple uh I do think we're as I said we're I would follow State and I think we need to get this cleaned up um but trying to pick and choose and giving dates and extending dates I I'm I'm just for keeping things very simple so won't be supporting any of them going to the ballot Rachel um I appreciate mir's clear lines there that um it's consistent and um I appreciate that uh I I just wondered can we go through each and and have a resolution because it sounds like we're in different spots for each and I think it would be helpful to the community

[330:00] members to know if they go and collect signatures is that going to be meaningful because again um I've I've long been sensitive to sending people out in a pandemic to to gather signatures and so for the um for all three I think it it would be helpful to have uh as marbi just did clean lines on what our our directions are to the community as a a majority at this point okay would you like to start you're I think go ahead you're was that to me yeah yeah would you like to kick us off sure um so I would uh refer bedrooms to the ballot because I think that they've already collected their signatures and that is what is most Equitable given the current circumstances um I'm fine with us working with mayor's initiative um at the charter committee level we already are scheduling a meeting so maybe we could

[331:01] um tweak it and bring it back pretty quickly um on the C South one um the only question I have is I don't think that they got the same flaw information UPF front that the other two initiatives did I think that they were told out of the gate 8,000 signatures so I would like to clarify if we were going to give them um direction that we would look at signatures gathered and I don't know that there is a majority interest in that and and I'd also I'm a little bit confused as to if it's administrative does that mean it cannot go on the ballot like is that a legal hard stop so um would hope to get that clarified and then nail down the number that we were asking for them to gather if there's majority support for that clear as mud enough anyone else eron well I mean it sounded like there there was not um majority support for

[332:02] putting on the ballot I think I counted four four of us who were willing to do that um I did um which I find disappointing but it is what it is um so I did hear some interest in um maybe um doing some work on these questions as an acknowledgement of the level of community support that these initiatives have demonstrated at least the ones that have been out there Gathering signatures um as I understand they've gotten four plus thousand or six plus thousand depending on the ballot measure so um i' hope that at least is a backup that we would take that seriously and um sounds like maybe there was some interest in looking at whether there was a version of the our mayor's our choice that maybe could be considered um so be great if if people were if people were willing to take that up I think that'd be great to pursue and on the um occupancy question I know there's uh

[333:02] been a proposal to to try to undertake this as a work plan item so if if there's not majority support for putting on the ballot um I I think it would be good for us to take the interest in the community seriously and take some steps going forward on those okay very good um so I don't see any other hands up I guess for what it's worth it sounded to me like most folks laid out kind of pro or con for for me I wouldn't refer any of them the way they are now I'll keep open this face that the mayor fixs could be could be good enough in time I I'm skeptical because it's a complicated subject and even if it does just apply to the mayor election it creates all kinds of complexities that probably need to be looked into to make sure that we don't end up here again next year or the year after that so I I would hope we

[334:02] would take the time on that one the other two I've said I've said why in the past I don't you know I will agree with much of what Mary said about the bedrooms thing I don't think it guarantees affordability at all um if you're in a situation where the um demand curve is inflexible because you've got a ton of demand um for the the good in this case you know places to live um it's going to cost as much because landlords are going to say I charge by the room I have nothing the room I'm going to charge more everybody's now going to be on the lease so I think there's a reason to work it over in a process to make sure that both it's affordable and that um you know it's going to have different impacts in different parts of the city and that we consider that and we consider how that works I will say most college towns have um occupancy limits it is a feature that

[335:01] is extremely common in college towns um and they range from 2 to five typically maybe there's a few that are six but um there it may be a blunt tool but it is a tool that is used in college towns all over the country um so anyway there's mine Adam thanks Sam um yeah I agree that we should definitely look as closely as we can at all these um maybe the save South Boulder since that's already on the work plan that does apply but uh I just want to sort of vent a little bit about my disappointment in having punted the occupancy thing to this point when we've been asking or at least has an Advisory Board asked several years ago to try to get this out there in the open and legislate it um you know to me it's a failure of public process when we don't

[336:00] tackle the hard issues because then we reach these really weird points when the fight gets only bigger and bigger and you know even more is on the line over time rather than having the community discussion so I would just urge Council to utilize the boards that we have to get some of the bigger issues out there and try to tackle them early on so we don't end up in these situations in the future that's all I wanted to say thank you Adam Mark I think there's some good substance to what Adam is saying um and I would want to address these issues um you know there there's it it's probably time to take a look at occupancy limits um with the sensitivity that different parts of the community are going to be impacted differently and to understand what any alterations would look like and I I think that's that would be a very worthy subject for consideration and uh you know going forward research so I would

[337:00] very much uh be in favor of doing that yeah um thanks Adam and I I I think that the the working group approach could be very helpful because it could establish goals like one of the goals that has been articulated by by the bedrooms folks is that they want affordable places to live um I think that their measure would not accomplish that for the reasons that I've already stated um landlords will want to make more money and they will just raise um the rent um they'll be able to make more money so it it won't necessarily um provide that affordability but if we had the community discussion and that was part of the goal then I'm pretty certain that we could come up with something that we could all

[338:03] agree on and and maybe it wouldn't be the same on the Hill as it would be um in North Boulder as it would be downtown but um but I think that would be part of the conversation and um and the goals would be really really important to establish upfront um so that's that's just all I had to say I am seeing no more hands um we have touched on each of the three buckets so um if it's okay I want to ask Tom a question or two um Tom if you're still around one of the um questions I want to ask just formality is we had six council members who were more inclined to use the state rules and we had three that

[339:01] were inclined to use the signatures gathered as a guide line to have Council refer things to the ballot is there enough Clarity in that to govern how each of the um measures are are treated by the city going forward yes I think so the it yeah what what I I take that is we will communicate to the um to to the CU South folks tomorrow that they can be well I'll ask the clerk to certify that to begin collecting signatures with a notation that we still think it's administrative legislative and probably shouldn't be on the ballot um we will um ask the clerk to count the signatures if they submit them and we'll report to council how many signatures we get okay very good and um I guess the only the only question I have

[340:01] for um for you about counting is it seems like there might be an impetus for one of these which might hit The One S threshold for the guidelines um are you going to have the clerk certify signatures for all three petitions that would be my recommendation I'm not sure the clerk has the capacity but we'll try okay that's the reason I ask if we're going to end up in a place where referal is the way that something gets to the ballot of these three um it would seem like if the the number turned in was below the threshold that that counting would be an exercise and futility because if the raw number is below then the certified number is going to be below that so I

[341:00] guess all I'm trying to ask and maybe staff can come back to to us with this um before they start counting is which ones do we want to certify because that is a laborious process and um if it's worthwhile so I just put that out there I I don't think we have to resolve it tonight but do we want these certified maybe we do in the case of a lawsuit maybe there's a a a value to it that's why I was asking the question yeah well so Sam for the June 5th deadline we decided to count all the signatures even if they hadn't they didn't have enough to meet the the the total because we had that 10-day period where they could submit additional signatures for the August 5th deadline there is no additional period That's the deadline state law says 90 days before so if you take that there's no so if they don't submit by the deadline August 5th um then they don't submit enough signatures I don't see a reason to count them but if they submit more than 4, 48 signatures then I would recommend that

[342:01] we count them and see if they're there okay good enough um and so we will be treating these with deadlines that are per the state law deadlines as far as what you tell to the petitioners correct I thought we were going to use the guidelines deadline the August 5th deadline that's what Aaron suggested uh for the matter of whether to refer something yes um as far as what gets on by qualification of enough Val signatures I thought the state law controlling means that we were after 96 for not for referral but just for being on the ballot that's correct I'm sorry I misunderstood your question Sam council's direct apply state law and state law is 8096 and 90 days to gather signatures great okay so I think all the action remains around the potential for

[343:02] referral um that's my summary I we've got various opinions about referring and not referring there's also some conversation around I'm taking up these matters because of the obvious public interest um that could result in potential Charter Amendment proposals if the mayor slash um uh rank Choice voting doesn't get on um it may still um and then if the the bedrooms petition doesn't get on for the election there seem to be a pretty healthy appetite we doing something in the work plan on that one and what I think I heard was most people saying that if the CU South doesn't hit the signature amounts then um there is a a ongoing process around the annexation so um we've gotten through all that we lay set out to do with this conversation

[344:01] Rachel did have one other point I want to flag which is a conversation about the governor's executive order um so I believe that a first step is to get a copy of that to everyone Rachel has sent it out on hotline but Mary requested that we all get a copy so if we could get a copy of that order that would be helpful Rachel was there anything else on that I mean I think Council will take it up later but is there anything else you want to put out there about that uh no I think I said it all earlier okay so the request then oh okay do you mind if I just add add something in there that just Rachel I appreciate bring that up you know that um various various communities around the country are looking at uh pausing you know eviction uh evictions in one form or another and so one uh shape that this could take would be to um not enforce on over occupancy during the kind of pandemic crisis so something

[345:01] that if so if we can come back and talk about this I think that'd be good okay Mary and Aaron was that your comment your hands up do you want to come back and that was it yeah okay great Mary yeah just a comment um regarding um the charter committee meeting that we're g to try and have which was regarding the emergency powers and looking at that um when I said that um I would be happy to have the charter committee take a look at our mayor um our choice I was intending it to be next year when we start to look at ballot measures for next year because I do think it's a complex um proposal that um both of them actually rank Choice voting and and our mayor our choice and I think they need to be separated um they're complex enough that I don't

[346:00] think we could knock it off in a one-hour meeting um next week um but um certainly look at it next year as we start to look at ballot measures very good I think that's everyone no uh yep that's everyone so Tom I'll turn to staff Tanya are there other questions you have for us not for me thank you so for me sorry to interrupt again here but um well it just that I I thought we uh might have a crack at the the uh mayoral question this year so I Mary I hear that um you're saying that but I'm I'm not sure what the majority opinion on Council was I thought it was worth giving it a try so the way I heard the majority opinion was let's wait and see what the potential proposed changes would be

[347:02] um for a referred measure um if if that's correct then I think like for me I'd be willing to consider I I had more people um a majority who said that they would want to take a look at whatever would come out of potential fixes so I and sorry are we looking for the the initiative um petitioners to bring those forward or what what what are we thinking about from a process perspective I I don't have an answer for you Bob might or someone else on Council Bob I know you've been working with those folks some but Ju Just for a few days so I don't want to over overstate that um really just since Friday um they sat down with Sam and I and suggested some changes spent a little bit of time with them I'll ask them um I think time is of the essence here and so I would I'll I'll suggest to them that they take on board whatever revisions that um make

[348:03] sense or that maybe council members offer if individual council members want to make suggestions to them and that they should bring something back to us pretty quick I would say within the next week or so because if we're going to consider putting that down the ballot this year I think you have to have a first reading probably by you know the fourth of August I would think certainly no later than the 18th of August um so I'll leave I'll leave the timing to them but I I think if if they're going to make some revisions they should give it their best shot sometime in the next week or so and then send that to council and and perhaps CAC can if they do that CAC can schedule it for brief discussion and council members can then decide whether they think the the revisions were sufficient to put it on or or or whether as Mary suggested um it should be um it should be deferred to next year and to the Charter committee okay makes sense thanks CH it may just be that it's almost midnight but so I'm confused like if I am on that petition do I go out and

[349:01] collect more signatures or are we saying you don't need to bother with that because we'll look at putting you on ballot like just from a a customer service standpoint what what are we telling the mayor's petitioners we never tell anybody to do anything um and that this is where think I think we got a little sideways with telling people to go out and collect SE in Co we're not telling anyone to do anything um their deadline as we determined earlier tonight is July 30th they can do as they wish between now and July 30th maybe look like signatures maybe they won't maybe they think incremental signatures will strengthen their position or maybe they're willing to roll the dice with Council on a referral that's their decision I don't think we are telling them to do anything or not do anything other than I think there was there seemed to be some council members who signaled a willingness to look at the revised petition if they brought it Forward pretty quickly I guess maybe stated differently do we care how many signatures they have when we're looking at that referral like are we saying we like enough of that

[350:01] that we're going to look at referring that there I I mean I don't I don't know that we can answer that as a group I think that's an individual decision by council members for me for instance the number of signatures is less important for a referral question than what's in the measure if it has for me I'm just speaking for myself if it has too many things in the measure I'll be less interested because I agree with Mary that it should be two different parts I have no idea what's going to come back but whatever comes back uh I don't know for me but the signature amounts are going to be determined about what I think about it if you want more clear answers everyone else will have to weigh in on that can I ask a followup Sam please thank you um Tom I just have a question about the referral I don't know if you mentioned that earlier

[351:01] so someone is collecting signature right now let's say it's the mayor one or even bedrooms or for people I think bedrooms or for people are they're very strong they already have 6,300 signatures so um but my question is whether it's July 30th or August 5th the referral process what is that deadline that last day is it before the petition deadline or after it and because I think that's very important because if it's after then a petitioner will know okay I did not meet the deadline that would I guess grant me automatic access to the ballot so now I can refer to council or is it it's a choice either or you don't get to decide whether you have the two options so it depends on the measure bedrooms are for people if you apply

[352:00] state law they were required to file 8,96 signatures by June 21st so they can't meet that deadline they could file the signatures they have now and uh ask councel to refer it the deadline for referring for Council is September 1st so you they would have time to submit signatures and then you would have to you would make your independent decision on whether it or referred for our mayor our choice the deadline is July 30th if they submit 8,96 dead signatures by July 30th under your interpretational law they have to go on the ballot there's no question uh if they submit less later counc can make an independent determination by September 1st on whether or not to go forward and then for the um the the CU South their deadline is is August 5th for 8,96 signatures if they submit less Council can make its determination to refer by September 1st thank you okay so I think we don't have any more hands up there's a few remaining

[353:00] but I think each person has spoken um so we're getting close to midnight I I should have and we'll do this 00 I should have asked for a motion to extend the meeting apologies for letting that slip by um so is there anything else besides the update on Excel that we want to to do now okay great uh I think we're ready Tom for or Debbie actually for moving on J move do you extend the meeting now sure I move to extend the meeting second all in favor any anyone object seeing none okay uh Tom okay thank you uh this was originally extended to be a much longer presentation um but we have not

[354:00] made the progress I had hoped by this point uh so this is going to be a very brief overview of where we are right now I'm hoping I intend for the next presentation to take an hour and um describe where we actually are in the negotiations so uh at my La I my last presentation was June 16th uh between April 20th and June 19th there were 15 meetings uh since then we we have 10 more schedule through total schedule through Friday uh which a total of 25 meetings Bob Sam and Alice have been at seven of those 25 meetings uh there have also been one to three meetings a week internally uh and then uh we started two meetings a week on May 25th uh We've scheduled three meetings there's three meetings scheduled this week um the we still we we got the community input we're trying what we're trying to do is to take the community input and translate that into positions that we can work out with Excel um these were

[355:00] some of the main topics we got from the community and we are still focusing on the key goals uh the the key elements the carbon goals distribution system planning to help Implement those goals undergrounding uh information sharing the right to terminate the franchise after five years and preservation of legal engineering status to extents possible so that if we do terminate we can still uh proceed with condemnation and that is my report thank you any questions from Council great seeing none is there anything else we should touch on before we journ the meeting okay seeing none this meeting is adjourned thank you all very much