October 6, 2020 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

[5:28] for [Music] item of business is to um amend the

[6:00] agenda CAC proposed yesterday that we move item what was originally item 1 C relating to uh business um continuation in covid to matters under the city manager and that reorganizes other items under section one 1f what was formly 1f would go to 1 c and 1 C would go to 1D do I have a motion to amend the agenda don't moved second Second Great anyone opposed great thank you uh just to preview what we will be doing now under section one we're going to start with a public health briefing from Jeff Zak and then move on to a CU update regarding covid from the uh CU Administration uh a brief discussion regarding uh uh returning to in Council in person Council meetings and then we have a few declarations so with that Jane I'm going to turn it over to you to introduce Jeff Zack

[7:00] thank you Bob so our first presenter tonight is Jeff Zak who's the executive director of Boulder County Public Health Jeff it's yours thank you and I just wondering if you have slides or you need me to run them from my end thank you so much well thank you Jane thanks thanks council members appreciate as always being back here so what I'm going to do is cover uh in the last time that I talked to you we were not quite in the middle of what was a significant outbreak so I'm going to cover where we are relative to that outbreak as we go through here talk about some of the next steps um the partnership between the city of Boulder CU and Boulder County and some of the work that we're doing to assure that we keep the numbers down that you're going to see this is definitely uh some positive data trends that we're seeing right now next slide so this is just total cases as you

[8:01] can see we're up to 4,600 cases unfortunately we have one more person who's deceased from the last time that I presented to you again majority of our deceased folks are coming in uh long-term care facilities it's still impacting our oldest population I'm going to talk a little bit more about that as well when I get to hospitalizations next slide please this is our a little bit blurry graph sorry about that but this is the 7-Day moving average of cases in the metro area and what you can see from that obvious Spike right there um is that we had a significant surge it was Associated we know with 18 to 22 year old CU students um we were able to work in partnership with the university with the city of Boulder and others to stop that uh disease spread and to bring it back down we are now heading back down um to where we getting closer to where we were prior to that outbreak um and again I'll be talking a little bit more

[9:00] about what we're going to do to try to hold those numbers down but we are in the right direction here very steep climb very steep descend obviously a lot of resources associated with that response next slide this is going to show you a common pattern that is occurring or Trend that's occurring across the state right now um it's uh you can see the Three Peaks we are seeing some generalized spread across the state across multiple age groups I'm going to talk about that a little bit more but we know that a portion of that is coming from lower social distancing that's been occurring over the last several weeks and there's a graph that I'll talk about with that as well next slide uh this is the number of Boulder County residents and CU Affiliated residents that had newly reported cases um or who were probable and you can see that in the light blue is the CU cases in the dark blue is our cases in Boulder County um I'm showing just over a little

[10:01] bit over the last uh month and a half here uh so you can see the climb in the trend we were at a Peak at 10280 182 cases um and then a decline downward from that um with very few cases now coming through from students and this is a place uh to say how much I appreciate that uh that students are taking taking this really seriously um and are responding appropriately um we are seeing and we know that we couldn't do this without the partnership of all those Partners both the city of Boulder um the University of Colorado Boulder County as well as cdph but also uh as you've heard me talk about before this really does come down to individual behaviors and uh we can't be everywhere all the time so what this is demonstrating to us is that we are seeing individual Behavior change and that is indicated in some of the the data that we're tracking on a more frequent basis like looking at activity

[11:00] on the hill uh the number of referrals that are going into disciplinary uh at the University some of those kinds of things so I just want to um just say that how important it is that we continue this trend and that we adjust behaviors because behaviors are what's going to drive the outcomes here next slide uh this is our our five-day average number of new cases among Boulder County residents just a another way to look at it you can see pretty clear really high Spike much higher than anything we had anywhere previously in the entire disease outbreak next slide uh this is this just illustrates again the 18 to 22 year old category and the significance this is a trend in two-e cumulative incidents in Boulder County by age group the majority of the cases that we're seeing are absolutely driven by the 18 to 22 year old population and what you're not seeing on here here but um when we broke it out

[12:01] previously uh was by CU versus nonc students um who are in the 18 to 22 year old category uh clearly the trend is absolutely within CU students in that category specifically so that is where our focus and our efforts have been in terms of working to reduce those rates next slide please uh this is the total number of tests in Boulder County this is uh we have as I'd mentioned before very significant capacity in Boulder County um to do testing and there's been a lot of testing that's been done as you can see we're we're up to 1600 even prior to bringing in the two Community test sites that we were operating uh about three weeks ago or four weeks ago when we brought those in we still had capacity in our community to be able to run tests what those test sites did was they brought in free and easy testing for the community uh currently we're still

[13:00] operating one of those test sites it's the drive up test site and this is in Partnership again with city folks so I want to take time here to say thank you to all uh city of Boulder folks who are participating on this and helping us make sure we can use that site and keep it available um and but that Ty that site is a free testing site um it's easy access uh and um it's open to the community in addition we closed down uh the walkup site and that has now been transferred to the University of col Colorado um and they are running tests for both uh off-campus and oncampus students at this point I think Pat is presenting tonight from the University I'm sure he'll have more to say about that next slide please this is the five-day rolling average of our percent positivity and I'm going to talk about this specifically because data has been such a big question so this is a five-day rolling average this is what I've been presenting to you uh from each week that I come when you look at cdp's website

[14:02] which I know many people are at the dial and the framework for the metrics which I will cover a little bit more at the end what you're going to see on their website is a different positivity rate than here because they're calculating a 14-day positivity rate the reason we've been using five and I've been reporting five to you is because it gives us we don't have to we see the trends more quickly than waiting 14 days but we're still tracking on our web website the actual indicators uh again that I'll show you from the dial a little bit later in the presentation the the message here is that positivity rate is consistently coming down that's exactly what we want to see um in the in the drive up testing site our numbers have been consistently low in terms of positivity rate uh the numbers in the walkup site when we had them were higher um and that's because the majority of the CU students that were using the walkup site were or the majority of the students being tested we're using that walkup site as a testing site but this

[15:01] is a good trend for us to see and it's what we want to continue to see in the county uh next slide please uh this is the total number of residents who are probable or considered probable or or have tested positive across Boulder County um we decided to switch to this the rates were becoming confusing for people in terms of they're seeing different numbers so I wanted to make sure that we were putting total numbers and you can the total numbers of folks as it's distributed across um our municipalities and unincorporated County next slide this is uh the graph of our um Boulder County residents who tested positive are considered probable or or who were hospitalized and deceased by race in Hispanic origin I've talked about this data each time I've come to you um we still see a significant disparity here uh that we know needs to be uh improved

[16:01] as we move uh as we move forward in the county I can talk at the end I'll do a little bit of a summary more on some of the things that we're doing relative to this population as we have hired positions and are making some progress next slide please this graph is uh Boulder County residents who've tested positive are considered probable by age hospitalization ICU status and outcome and what you can see here is that the as we've seen previously our highest impacts are going to be in our oldest population um and we know that's been consistent we are starting to learn more data um about impacts on anybody who's been hospitalized there was a recent article in the New York Times that came out that is that is identifying more negative outcomes in terms of chronic diseases that uh that are likely to occur in anybody who's been hospitalized so we will continue to learn more information as we go forward um that's what's

[17:02] challenging with this disease it's novel as you all know um and as we move forward we'll learn more about the disease and learn more about what kind of impacts it has across age groups uh the again the the large proportion here uh is going to be in the 18 to 22 and in that 10 to 19 if you took out the 18 and 19 year olds you would see that bar graph on the left- hand side drop significantly um because of the majority of those folks in that category in the 18 and 19 year olds uh are driving are driving that left graph next slide please this is our hospitalization of positive covid folks in our County and we are still stable in terms of our County we are we're not at risk of um capacity issues with our hospitals but you are seeing here an up an up swing in the trend I'm going to show you another slide in a second that's looking at State data that's

[18:00] seeing similar Trends we need to keep an eye on this um I don't have the data specific to Boulder County for this but if you go to the next slide what what I did see from today's presentation with the State Health Department is the majority of the cases that we're seeing in this increased hospitalizations at a state level are coming in our older age categories and that is not good news um and when I say the majority large percentage so between 20 and 30% are in the 70 and above category uh and that's exactly what we want to prevent uh as we're moving forward we want to protect that population because we know that we are going to see more acute and severe outcomes in that population so unfortunately that is not where we want to we don't want to see any hospitalizations increase and we certainly don't want to see it in that population um so I'll talk in another couple slides here about diligence and the import importance of uh continuing

[19:00] social distancing as we move into this fall time period next slide this is the graph that I was where I'm going to talk more about the social distancing so what we heard um from the State Health Department on on the call today was that what we're seeing in terms of actual social distancing is more around uh that mid to lower 50% range and what this graph demonstrates is these are social distancing um categor so when we were at stay-at-home early on we were between 75 and 80% social distancing so if you look at these numbers on the right hand side over here where it says September 28th projection 59% social distancing it's a green line This is the projection of current hospitalizations under that scenario um with the social distancing at 66% uh then our projections are much flatter and this is the actually

[20:00] observed what we're seeing in Colorado of hospitalizations so you can see that our projections for social distancing and our based on the actual is even lower than this 59% what we heard was that uh is that basically from prior to Labor Day through the month of September that we're just seeing more people who are gathering a little less diligence to making sure that we're maintaining social distancing that we're using masking washing hands and we need to make sure that picks back up if we want to keep these Trends on a positive on a positive projection so that's a message for everybody who's listening we've done such a great job here in Boulder County we've kept our numbers low um and we want to continue to keep them low and not see hospitalizations increase um not see surges like we just saw um and and maintain uh good social distancing here so we can stay where we are on that dial that I'll talk about at the end next

[21:01] slide this is the dial and I just took a snapshot of the top three things that are tracked so if you go to Colorado's uh homepage and you just type in a Dial covid Dial it will come up uh with this chart and an explanation of how things are categorized so basically the the State Health Department monitors three different things across each of the counties in in the state of Colorado the number of new cases um and the associated incidence of those new cases over a two-e period of time the percent positivity rate which I just talked to you about on the slides and they look at are we in a stable or declining hospitalization at the local level and based on where the measures are for each of these things you're then categorized into that level and then you have Associated measures or requirements that go along with that level which I'll show you in the next slide in a second I want to talk about where we are right now

[22:00] though in Boulder County so when we were at the height of the outbreak with the university we were over here um and stay at home and we are with the trend that we have now which is decreasing our incidence rate we are falling into the safer level three as long as our incidence uh continues to decline and and and again behaviors the behaviors follow what's happening right now and we keep our numbers down we will soon be back to safer level at two over here and it won't affect us but it's going to be really important that we continue to focus on that and pay attention to it all of us um because we are seeing some of the generalized spread that's outside of just the university outbreak that we've had we all need to be diligent in order to stay in this level um we are obviously under 10% we do have a bit of increasing hospitalizations right now but this is calculated over a 14-day period so um we'll be watching that and

[23:00] making sure we're paying attention to it next slide I'm I think I missed one slide but what I wanted to ju basically um if you're in safer level one I'm sorry can you go back one slide I can illustrate it from just looking at this if you're in safer level one you have businesses GA um faith-based Gatherings uh gatherings in general have less restrictive uh less restrictions in that category than if you're all the way over in safer level three so you see significant changes depending on which level you're in in terms of what kind of expectations and requirements apply to a whole host to categories that range from higher education K through 12 schooling Gatherings um uh faith-based uh organizations businesses it goes through a whole series of categories and for each of those levels there is an

[24:01] Associated level of category so if we switch from one level to the next it's a pretty big deal for our entire Community because if we move from safer level two as an example where we are right now to safer level three then it has restrictions on businesses to reduce capacity as one example um and that has we know a direct economic impact on our community not only does it have a direct economic impact on the community but when we increase restrictions it has social impacts it has Behavioral Health impacts including substance abuse and mental health issues that we know are correlated so we want to do everything we can to not only maintain the level that we're in but also keep increasing our levels down towards protect our neighbor which is where our numbers are going to be the best and we're going to have the least restrictions so that's our goal uh we'll keep working on that but I wanted to let folks know uh where we are at this point and then the last

[25:00] slide uh sorry La next to last slide um this is the protect our neighbors metrics I've been sharing this with you each time that I've presented and right now um as of October 6th we're meeting these measures on the leftand side we're partially meeting the measures on the right hand side um and these will improve as uh these measures on the right hand side that are partially met will improve as we continue to finish up and close out case investigations and contact tracing associated with the university outbreak the one that we're not currently meeting is the stable or declining covid-19 hospitalizations um which you saw from the graph which is increasing uh over the last over this last week you can uh track this yourself this is our website at the bottom we do we are reporting on protect our neighbor we're also reporting on the state uh dial which I just showed you uh the example of in the last slide as well so you could track both of those things yourselves as well next

[26:03] slide and I think this is our last slide um so just wanted to talk about what kinds of things we're doing in Boulder County to uh not only stop the spread of the disease reduce the number of cases but also assure that we're maintaining uh those cases at a low level um and improving them over time uh uh we we had a mitigation plan that we submitted to the Department of Public Health and environment um that again was in partnership with the city of Boulder with the University of Colorado with Boulder County um to demonstrate what we what we are doing right now documenting what we are doing right now to stop the spread of the disease we have also um put orders in place that I'm I'm sure most of you are probably aware of there's two focuses in the order one is a stay-at-home order for identified number of properties uh in the city of Boulder the other one is limits on Gatherings for the 18 to 22 year olds

[27:02] and um the and the City of course uh thank you to the the city of Boulder for looking at the 10 pm last call which is an important and effective uh mechanism for reducing the spread of the disease as well uh we are continuing to work with all of our partners to identify strategies and these would be ongoing strategies that we can keep in place between the University the city and Boulder County Public Health to assure that we're keeping our numbers down so it's looking at incidence rates in that category of spread that we were talking about in 18 to 22 year olds it's measuring the behaviors that we can see happening um so for instance that's things like the number of um uh you know parties on the hill or illegal Gatherings that we're seeing that are outside what's already included in the orders or what's outsid it what would be in the safer level of two order if we were back to that category so we have a whole series of things and strategies

[28:01] that we've been tracking um we are adding to that we will send those strategies on to the Colorado Department of Public Health and environment on Wednesday of this week uh to make sure that they're supportive of that and we will uh then we will Implement those and keep those moving into the fall we know that the fall is going to be a challenge we know that we are already seeing increasing um social distance or decreasing social distancing as I'm mentioned before we are going into a flu season um we are moving into a time period where we where we going to have holidays so we want to really pay attention and be diligent about making sure that we're we're really sticking to the social distancing this disease can't spread if we maintain that six feet if we if we reduce Gatherings keep our Gatherings smaller make sure we're masking and social dis distancing during those gatherings um and following the existing orders that are in place are

[29:01] also really important all of that information is on our website about those orders we we are looking at amending those orders on Thursday morning we'll have information on our website about the amendments to those orders and we'll be doing a ton of Outreach directly related to those um and then the last thing is of course um handwashing and just you good personal hygiene those are things that are going to stop the spread of this disease and as we go into especially this holiday these holiday Seasons it's going to be important for us to stay diligent about this and keep focusing on it and I think that's my last slide great thanks Jeff uh questions for Jeff Zak I have Adam first thank you Jeff um I have two quick questions the first do you know if the large amount of cases from CU students came from Super spreader like events or was it just a bunch of individuals that happen to come in contact with another at such a a high rate and you're muted just so you know thank

[30:02] you I don't know if I can answer for sure the super spreader what I can tell you is we know where the majority of these cases are coming from and they're coming from large Gatherings so um I that I I I'd have to ask our epie folks if that related to five people that were super spreaders in that in those events or if it is just an in a high incidence rate among this population in general but we do know that where it's coming from is Gatherings that's the majority of what we're finding in terms of uh the way that this disease is spread and that goes for both on campus and off-campus so we know that we we have very little spread as an example directly on campus among classes as an example the cases that we're seeing um ncu students are primarily being brought onto campus from off-campus um parties and Gatherings that are occurring thanks for that and my second question um has to do with the slide um broken down by race and uh my question

[31:02] being it would seem that with such a large number of cases coming from CU and CU being predominantly white that you would see the number of cases sort of increase in that metric um at least by my back of the napkin math and I really don't want to lose the the fact that you know our latinx community is suffering at a disproportionate rate so I I'm just kind of surprised that we didn't see that movement and the data is is the data most recent for that um for for the race slide or um do you expect to see a change yeah the data uh this is this is very timely so the data was updated today and it includes 78% of known race and ethnicity uh for all contacts and case investigations they're definitely was an issue between what is called the Red Cap system and Cedars which are the two data systems that are used to enter

[32:00] data and it wasn't until just this last week that we were able to get the redcap data into the cedar system data so that it was updating more frequently we also had a delay um as I understand it from uh when we were in the height of the investigations of collecting all the in demographic information that was necessary in order to be able to have a complete data set gotcha so yeah my my concern going forward is just to make sure that if if the cas is amongst white members of the data group especially CU students increases that we don't lose the important idea that it's the latinx population that's being disproportionately affected absolutely I would love to comment on that a little more because I realize I didn't share um the information that we're that that we're working on and I don't know if it's appropriate for me to do that right now gotcha thank you Jeff um we have Rachel then

[33:02] Mark okay hi Jeff thanks for another great presentation um couple questions you said that c is doing testing at their former um city or CommunityWide walk up testing center but that's now limited just to see you students or Affiliates it sounds like did I hear that correctly if that that is correct that is my understanding and again I think uh I think Pat maybe he's not okay on here but uh he could confirm that more more on that later and then for the other site which is drive-thru did you specify how long that's likely to stay in place so uh I'm sorry I don't know the exact date I and I wonder if Jane knows it because she's been in these meetings with me um and I can tell you that it's it's for the next couple weeks I believe um and maybe Jane could validate for me I do I do know um the plan currently and we finalized it today is that it would stay open at this point

[34:00] through October 18th um okay so I guess this can be a lead in into my next question um we had a a um exposure I guess uh 10 14 days ago and so used the the drive up for family members and it was really easy and um facilitated I think people being willing to go in and get tested because was simple and free so I would really encourage the city to extend that as long as possible I'm sure that there's a not insubstantial cost um but it it's it's helpful anyway with that exposure um I wondered I didn't notice much robust contact tracing so I was wondering if you could tell me what's happening there I was I guess I was sort of surprised that we didn't um receive phone calls and I it just it just made me a little bit worried about how how robustly we are contract contact tracing

[35:01] when cases are escalating or with every case I'm goingon to give you a I'm going to give you a high level um because I'm not an epidemiologist but I'll give you a high level and then Rachel what I would ask you to do is just shoot me an email and I can make sure I get a followup for you but the way that contact tracing is is determined is based on time of exposure and likelihood of a close exposure so um more than 15 minutes within six feet there some other caveats around that but in general that's how that's defined and then for each person who is defined as a close contact to the to the positive case there should be a followup with that person to do a series of questions that then determines whether we do a referral to testing for that person or we refer them to quarantine as an example so um that's in general how that works and if you just shoot me an email with um the question that you have I can make sure that we do a followup directly from one of our epidemiologists to you um I mean

[36:01] I don't personally need a followup because I I tested and um we're now outside the window but I um I would think by the criteria that you just specified there would have been some followup and there wasn't so I'm flagging that I it made me nervous that I didn't see contact tracing where I would have expected to um a couple more questions you said that the long-term outcomes are notably poorer for people who've been hospit hospitalized um and that's specifically um more older adults it sounds like and I'm wondering does that uh if somebody has a really poor outcome and dies a month or two or six months later is that person being counted as a covid death so if I don't know I I don't want to venture a guess at that what I can do is do a followup to make sure I get it accurate I'll I can send a message back to Jane and we can push it back to all of Council on that that would be great thanks um you what is what is the current

[37:00] allowance for number of people allowed to gather outside who are not 18 to 22 how many people can get together in a yard we are under safer level two which I believe is 10 but I don't want to misstate that what I would tell you to do is to go to our website or go to the covid website that one I talked about covid dial the 19 it'll show the restrictions and the on gathering on all those different categories but I do believe it is 10 this point and I I could look it up that's okay I'm just wondering obviously we're getting into Colder Weather where people will want to move inside so it it seems more advisable to stay outside um so I I'm wondering what the numers of people who can get together outside and like if I visualize a a Pearl Street eery it seems like it's probably more than 10 in some amount of space so I wonder how that works and and also if you have recommendations I my instinct would be that it's better to have people um eating outside and and promoting that

[38:02] but wondering um you had mentioned that there were no cases of outdoor transmission or one case I think from yoga in in Boulder wanted to make sure that that was still true and that you don't have any different advice on being outside I definitely definitely would not change the advice on being outside I don't have uh the most recent I can ask that question and do a follow-up as well just to make sure that uh we don't have other cases in general I can tell you for sure it's much safer to be outside the virus dissipates much more easily when you're indoors that's when we need to focus most on the spread of that virus thanks and and so I don't know if the if the uh Statewide takes into account outdoor or indoor for 10 people but it seems like that could be a distinction at least from the county that we could draw we would rather people um be able to meet with with other people outside and so maybe there could be Lar larger numbers allowed outside partly I think we're already doing that to some degree yeah and what

[39:01] I would tell people is that we need to follow the existing orders so the best thing to do is to go to the website the orders are on there it'll tell you all those situations if there's any questions we also have our our call center on there you can call the call center directly and ask those questions um but I would want to make sure that people are following what's what's in the orders right now that are that are out there hey folks I'm going to jump in here Rachel if you don't mind um I'm going to cut off these SL questioning because we're running about 15 minutes behind we got about five and a half hours more to go on our agenda so if we got followup questions maybe post them on hotline to Jeff and Jeff can respond there mark and Aon if you can ask some really quick questions and let's move on to see you very very quick um just to follow up on one of Rachel's questions I I was a little unclear from the slide do we merely have the capacity for contact tracing or are we actually conducting it and in in the appropriate cases so we we thank you for the

[40:00] question we definitely do have capacity for contact tracing um we I think everyone is probably aware that we set up the agreement with the university so they are contact tracing um they are doing some investigations Boulder County Public Health is doing investigations and we definitely have the state doing investigations so between our three organizations we've been able to readily do our contact tracing when we were at the height of that outbreak we were challenged to be able to handle all those at once um but we we readily readily can handle that at this point my my last question is um from one of your slides the five day average positivity rate now seems to be down around 3 4% um uh how close then are we getting to safer level one so our incidence rate is what's keeping us out of that as well as as our potential increase in hospitalizations that you just saw on that graph so if

[41:01] our incidence rate comes down to the measures in that chart um that I that I showed you a couple slides ago and our hospitalizations stabilize and they don't increase and our positivity rate remains in the safer at home level one then we would we would request certification to move to that level but we're not there yet got it all right thank you eron take us home yeah Jeff thanks for all that quick question I've really appreciated the drive up and the walkup sites I think those have been very handy for folks but now that the walkup site is closed what are the options for people who want to get tested who don't have access to a vehicle um that's a good question we have it is not going to be free and as easy but there is other access points within the city and if you go to our website our testing on our website at Boulder County Public Health there is a testing link and it shows the location of other test sites there is some in the city of Boulder um so take a look at

[42:01] that website it'll tell you what times are open it'll tell you if there's any requirements associated with that site that kind of thing so still available not quite as convenient but still available yes okay thank you great thanks Jeff we appreciate it Jee you might stick around in case there are some questions that come out of Patrick's presentation Chan I want to turn it back to you to introduce our um our friends from CEO well just very briefly here's my new friend Patrick o roor from CU we've been in many meetings together in the last two weeks Patrick it's you you're on mute that I hope that the covid crisis doesn't go on for too much longer but by the end of it I'm going to remember to take myself off mute when I start talking um the wanted to start by first thanking the council for giving us the opportunity to update you um our

[43:00] relationship with the city is vitally important um and wanted to also thank you and Sarah for making the opportunity to do the community briefings available we did one last week Mary young was the person who led the introduction to it and we had over 200 community members attend we want to be in close contact with the community because we recognize that we're part of the community um our students are here they come to patronize the businesses in the city and we share a common goal which is we want the city to thrive we want the county to thrive and we want the businesses within them to do well um so having those opportunities to engage are important as Jane mentioned a minute ago we've been working collaboratively with the city and the county um in the joint command structure that's been set up that that's been a really important development that's given us the ability to be able

[44:00] to collaborate on issues that are affecting CU and the community um we've been able to look at it through the lenses of compliance enforcement containment um and really having all of the subject matter experts come in one of the things we recognized over the last week is that as Jeff mentioned a few moments ago some of our Data Systems weren't very well to each other and that's led to some confusion we've got data groups now that are working to be able to align that data and to be able to get better alignment and better information out on where exactly we stand so those have been valuable Partnerships both with the county and I wanted to thank Jane and Chris and Sarah and chief Harold for their participation in that joint command structure it's been really valuable the Boulder Police have been an important partner as we've been thinking about enforcement and one

[45:00] of the things that I think that Jeff mentioned a few minutes ago is that we've really seen a change in behaviors last weekend Boulder Police did not refer a single case to our student disciplinary process based upon violations of Public Health orders or large Gatherings which means that we're moving in the right direction um I'm pleased with the Partnerships that we have and the way that we're working together to try to be able to address the crisis some of the things that I wanted to share with you is really related is following up on the testing that Jeff was talking about a few moments like the county we're also seeing a downward trend on our positivity rate for the confirmatory PCR Ty test last week we had 63 cases that confirmed got confirmed through PCR tests that was down from 254 the prior week and on our surveillance testing which is something

[46:00] that reaches a large number of students what we look at most closely there is our positivity rate after having a period of time where that positivity rate was significantly above 5% that it's trended steadily downward and on the surveillance testing we're currently seeing rates for the past week consistently at 2% or lower and today was actually the first time that we were below 1% on our positivity rate for surveillance what that shows us is that even though the measures that were taken were difficult and it's been a challenge for our students that we're actually breaking the The Chain of Infection one of the things that when Jeff was talking a few moments ago about the positivity rates on the dial um a few weeks ago we would have been at the point where cases that were largely being coming from the CU student population would have had us at close to 500 rates per 100,000 people in the county as of today that rate has

[47:01] been cut in half um and it's not enough we need to continue to have it trending downward but that if we continue on this trend we hope to be able to share in the common goal of having the county remain in that level two safer at home or ultimately as Jeff described a few moments ago in response to Mark's question we'd love to be able to get to the point where we were able to get to safer at home level one that means um a couple of things that I really want to thank our students who have over the last few weeks really demonstrated that they can be a positive force in being able to affect the change of the disease um when they refrain from the type of gatherings that Jeff was talking about we end up in a situation where we do have good mechanisms on campus whether or not it's the social distancing and M asking in the classroom environment whether it's being able to provide for our students through

[48:01] isolation and quarantine um to be able to maintain a safe campus environment but it's really due to the work of the students who have been doing an awful lot to try to be able to move the Chain of Infection down that we're making this type of progress and I think before when I talked to you I really wanted to send the message of that we appreciate everything that the council has done and that the Community has done to not view CU students as being the enemy um Co is a common enemy for all of us and we need to be in a position where we're taking the right measures to be able to do that um and I'm really pleased that our students are are latching on to the challenge as we move forward what we really want to do in partnership with the county is to make them feel like they're in more control of their ability to to be able to have social interaction through Gatherings to be able to not

[49:00] have the possibility of being placed into stay-at-home orders by engaging in the right type of behaviors and what we want to do is be really transparent with them about the goals that we need to reach in terms of the number of cases that exist in the county and the positivity rates that we need to achieve if we do that and we Empower them and we give them incentives to be able to to get to those goals we think we're going to continue to make progress and I'm really hopeful that we're on a positive trend Jeff mentioned and I know there's been some questions about testing capability when the walkup testing site that had been located on Pleasant Street was stood down we have opened up two surveillance for test testing sites um for our off-campus students and for faculty and staff those are located both at the UMC on the main campus and in the seek building on the East Campus we have the ability to administer up to 600 surveillance test daili through those

[50:00] sites um which we increased our capacity by 3,000 tests a week as we've talked about from the beginning one of our goals from the initiation was to continue to ramp up our surveillance testing and to have that available for off-campus students one of the things that we're going to work on over the next few days with Boulder County Public Health is trying to come up with the right strategies to be able to get those off-campus students who might be most at risk into a regular surveillance testing program right now we're still ramping up that capacity and we did see actually some decline in the number of surveillance tests that we were running last week that's due to a couple of reasons first is that there were a good number of students and you may have seen a Denver Post article that referred to this who have left the community and have checked out of the residence halls or otherwise gone home one once they have left the campus they're no longer required to complete surveillance

[51:00] testing unfortunately we're also in a situation where we've had a fair number of students who have tested positive and once you test positive you're not going to be tested again for a period of 90 days because that's not an effective testing mechanism but we really do want to make sure that we're using that testing capacity wisely and that we're doing it well one of the other things that we've been asked about before when we talked about is the testing that's available for our Frontline staff since we last met we've ramped that up significantly as well last week we tested over 800 of our Frontline staff the week before that we tested more than 500 and in that testing of our Frontline staff we've had zero positive cases that have come back um from the 900 and so odd tests that we've run since beginning to ramp up that testing program for those Frontline employees so we're very gratified by that we think it shows that the protocols that we' put in place to

[52:00] be able to for our employees when they come to campus are working and that we're keeping them safe and that we're doing that as responsibly as we can we are continuing to keep our enforcement posture on we had tried for a period of time to rely almost exclusively on educational interventions but when we saw the type of behaviors that were concerning and driving the the case rates up we moved to an enforcement posture where we've been issuing interim suspensions for students who engage in the type of conduct like hosting large Gatherings or otherwise not being compliant with isolation and quarantine orders we had 27 students who were on interim suspensions and we placed more than 60 students on probation many of those cases are still being adjudicated because we have to give due process to people as they go through but one of the things we saw is that when we did go to

[53:00] a greater enforcement posture and the consequences of that type of misconduct became very clear we not only saw a drop in the type of Conduct in the community that gave us concern we also saw a drop in that type of Conduct in the residence halls and on campuses so the strategies combining seem to be having an effect we do want to get to the point where we have better data and I apologize already traded an email with Mary young we had some miscommunication on what I understood to be some of the availability of our data related to race and ethnicity as Jeff talked about a few moments ago we're in the process of being able to upload data into those systems so that that can be incorporated into County data some of our systems redcap and Cedars weren't communicating well with each other and so we've been in a position where we've been able to reconcile that but we still have work to go and we want to make sure that as Adam

[54:01] was referring to earlier that when our student case data comes up we're able to provide as accurate of information as possible so that the county has a full picture of not just how this type of disease is affecting the CU population um but that how it's affecting the county generally and so getting that data reconciled is is one of our highest priorities I don't think that we're ever going to have perfect knowledge of this because when the contact tracers contact people they give them the option to be able to disclose race and ethnicity and not all of the people respond but when we do get that information it's now being loaded into Cedars and that Cedars information will be uploaded to the county so it can be combined into the countywide reporting so I think we're making progress there but it's been frustrating and I appreciate your understanding and patience we're really committed to being

[55:01] able to make sure we're returning safely um after having coming through this period of time one of the things we're in conversations about right now is that we went into remote status for instruction over the last few weeks um we believe that if the numbers are continuing to head in the right direction that we could resume in-person instruction in the in the days and weeks to come um as Jeff described it really hasn't been the classroom environments that has led to spread of disease we're still not aware from either the county or our own contact tracing of any cases that are related to classroom infection people are wearing masks in the classroom social distancing using the right type of ventilation systems that allow for that complete interchange of air a couple times of hours what we really need to do is continue to work on the behavioral issues that are occurring off campus and in the community because

[56:00] as Jeff described most of what we saw were cases that were occurring off campus being brought back into the campus and on into the residence Halls we want to make sure that we're creating the right environment where that doesn't occur again um so that's going to be one of our major focuses over the upcoming week and then fairly shortly we're going to have to work with the county and work internally to be able to say what did we learn from the past experience and how are we going to make sure that as the winter comes and as next semester rolls around that we've learned from the experiences that we've had this time so far my assessment is we actually did a really good job about thinking about the physical environment about thinking about PPE social distancing what we would do for for testing what we would do for um the ability to contact Trace what we we didn't do as good of a job of and what we really need to learn from is how we can incentivize and create the right type of Behavioral

[57:01] expectations for our student population if we create the right physical environment but we haven't dealt with the human factors as well as we should have then we're at risk again and so really what our Focus needs to be is not just thinking about the environmental factors but thinking about the human factors and how we can positively impact how the students are engaging with each other and how engaging with the community because that gives us the best opportunity to continue their educational experiences have the cityan county continue to be able to operate without a risk of community spread and without a significant impact on the business environment it's been really uh good partnership over the last few weeks with the city and the county really appreciate that appreciate the support of the council and finally wanted to take a moment to thank Jane I understand this may be the last time I get to interact with her at the city council

[58:01] meeting uh before she retires but her leadership and partnership with the campus for so many years has been really vital to our success in the relationship with the community and we're really sad that you're you're going but awfully happy that you get the chance to do what you want to do thank you Patrick I appreciate it Patrick thank you I think we all agree with that um any questions for Patrick Adam very short um and Patrick you may not be the person to answer this but I'd love a followup I know CU has plans to start Athletics again um are there plans to hold these events outside of Boulder County if uh if they would not fall in line with the current County Health orders or what is sort of the you know

[59:00] what what's sort of the plan there yeah the Pack 12 has a Downs to a return to competition um and what we will have to do is look at whether or not that's possible to be able to conduct those within the county we are in a situation where I'm I'm extraordinarily proud of our athletics department um they have put what I think are second to no one's protocols in place to be able to protect the student athletes in the practice environment but obviously when it gets to the point where there are games um that would be something we'd have to make sure fit within the event guidelines that are permissible um we know that for example Denver's hosted Denver the Denver Bronco games and if we had to to move out of the county I think that would be possible um but we need to um work with the county on that what we do know is the instructions from the Pack 12 have been that none of the schools will be in

[60:03] a position where they will host fans for the games um so if it is being hosted it would only be amongst the participants great thank you I don't see any other hands Final Call for questions for Patrick or for Jeff okay Patrick and Jeff thank you so much for your briefing um if you don't mind we would invite you to come back to our first meeting in November and give us what I hope will be um good news more good news um our first meeting in November is actually the week after the election so November 10th and we hope um to have you back and and U share with us some more then thank you so much thank you thank you I really appreciate the opportunity to come and talk to you again great thanks guys J I'm going to turn it back to you on the next item on our agenda is um discussion about returning to in Council um inperson

[61:02] Council meetings the last time we talked about this topic a couple of weeks ago or a couple months ago we um we said that we knew that we would probably doing video Council meetings at least through the end of October this being the beginning October we thought we checking with staff on recommendations and then Mary and I have a question of councel relating to the January Retreat so I'll turn it to you first Jane super thanks so much Bob and council members um yes indeed we had uh said through the end of October we would be doing virtual meetings and it's this is a perfect time to make this presentation right after Jeff and Patrick because as we indicated earlier Boulder County is still currently in safer at home level two which means there are limitations to group size and occupiable space and other capacity requirements so that we can limit the potential spread of the disease and so with the County's current status with all the mitigation efforts

[62:00] that we're working with our partners to keep the case counts low we think it's prudent to remain in our current operating status which is a virtual meeting uh for All City operations including virtual only city council and board meetings through the end of the year um we know that the safer at home level one and protect our neighbors will allow ultimately for increased group size but we don't know of course when Boulder County will be able to move into either of those so our recommendation will be to continue our current practice through the end of the year thanks Jane any questions of Jane on that recommendation okay in the second part of this discussion I'm going to turn over to Mary Mary and I serve on the retreat committee this year we do have our Council uh Retreat U scheduled for the evening of January 22nd the morning of January 23rd which is only a few weeks after the time frame that time frame that Jane just mentioned hi Jane's dog um I

[63:03] recognize your dog spk we been spending too much time on Zoom together um and Mary do you want to talk a little bit about uh about the thinking around the retreat and and the question we have for Council yeah um we've been discussing whether or not we wanted to do um at least part of the retreat um in person and um and so right now what we've got is a Friday night and a Saturday morning and what we had discussed as possibly doing one of those pieces um in person in the um council chambers and so that it can be televised and and basically be open to the public as um because it can the cameras are there and we have all those facilities so um we wanted to OS to the council um your comfort level um

[64:00] or I guess PLL the council for your comfort level in doing at least part of the retreat um in person one thing that I will say is that the in-person meeting would um would be physically distan as well as having masks on um through the entire of um that portion of the retreat so um what is council's desire in terms of doing part of the retreat in person um in the council chambers distanced and [Music] massed Mark [Music] thoughts um I would love to but I would say my level at the moment is a little bit low um and my discomfort at having to communicate through a mask is relatively high so I'm I'm uh a little bit

[65:02] skeptical thanks Erin yeah I agree with Mark uh we know the risk levels of transmission or hire indoors um and then when you think about the difficulty of communicating through a mask I think the cons outweigh the pros would be my thought Rachel thoughts um yeah I guess I it would be lovely to see all of you in person of course um but I guess I don't know what the the big Pros would be and I think we would probably be um requiring some staff to come in as well and that puts them at risk and so that's the part that I would be probably least comfortable with I don't know what we would get out of being in person that is worth risking anybody especially outside of ourselves great other thoughts Adam I would just defer to the Judgment of the council members that are probably going to be most impacted if something

[66:00] were to happen so um I appreciate their feedback and I would follow through on their uh their judgment great all way in here too um when when Mary and I met with our facilitator Heather Bergman a couple days ago she did observe that if we were to meet in person we would because of the configuration of the Council Office um or Cil Chambers we would be close enough that we would probably have to wear a mask and her observation is while it's always nice to meet in person um she's facilitated some meetings in person with Mason and she says she's found it suboptimal because it's very difficult to read people's expression without seeing their their mouths and so she said to the extent that you guys want to express yourselves and read each other's Expressions um you're you're probably might it might be counterintuitive but you're probably better off off on video with mass off than sitting six feet apart with mass on so that was just her advice to us so I

[67:02] think she's pretty consistent with what you guys are saying anybody um have a strong desire to meet a person sounds like not so that's um that's a decision and and Mary and I will take that back we need to check back with council members to make sure that everyone's available on those dates so those are tenative dates the 22nd and 23rd we'll work with the clerk's office is to make sure now that we all know that we're going to be online uh and people can participate from wherever if they're available we'll just double check to make sure that people are available mirbi I see your hands up so I won't be in town um so unfortunately I can't make those dates those are standing dates where I'm always out of date um so you guys can go on without me and that's totally fine but I I can't do those dates thanks thanks for that and I think it's kind of important that we're all um together for the retreat so let's um we'll work with the clerk's office to see if we can uh pull folks and find um

[68:03] days that work for everybody especially since we now know that we'll be online or on the on the video great thanks M by anybody else sorry I pushed the wrong button there moving on to a couple declarations uh first declaration is going to be um presented by Rachel Rachel you're up thanks Bob um it's actually myself and council member Mark wallik we're going to read this together um it is a declaration honoring H The Life and Legacy of Supreme Court Justice with Vader Ginsburg and Mark actually had the enviable experience of being one of her students so we're co-reading this together um enviable well enviable for those of us who didn't get that up close um okay here we go Supreme Court Justice and civil rights

[69:01] icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on September 18th 2020 as we grieve her loss we reflect on the extraordinary Life and Legacy of Justice Ginsburg whose six decade career helped shape law and culture in the United States and his passion for justice equality and democracy inspired a pop culture fan base unlike anything our nation's highest court had ever seen ginsburg's talent and ambition drove her to excel in many Arenas she was first in her class at both Cornell's and undergraduate and at Columbia Law School in 1972 Ginsburg began teaching at her al-ma ma Columbia University law school eventually making history as the first woman to receive tenure also in 1971 Ginsburg founded the American civil liberties Liberties unions women's rights project which works to ensure that women enjoy the benef benefits of full equality and participation in every sphere of our society Ginsburg knew about

[70:02] discrimination firsthand as a student her law school dean had the audacity to reproach Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her peer female classmates for taking educational spots away from qualified males she struggled to find employment after graduation law firms and judges refused to hire her simply because she was a woman and upon finally being hired as a law school professor she was told that she would earn less than her male colleagues since she had a husband who earned a good income when Ruth Bader guinsburg argued to the Supreme Court that quote a gender line helps to keep women not on a pedestal but in a cage unquote she knew of what she spoke and she prevailed Ginsburg argued six discrimination cases before The Supreme Court on behalf of the ACLU winning all but one ginsb ginsburg's outstanding legal work catapulted her to the top of our field the federal Judiciary President

[71:00] Jimmy Carter appointed her to the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia in 1980 and 13 years later President Bill Clinton appointed her to the Supreme Court in 1993 she was only the second woman to be appointed to our highest court and the first Jewish female Justice on the bench Ginsburg became well known for issuing powerful and impassioned opinions some of which inspired future legislation over her 27 years on the Supreme Court Justice ginsburg's sharp mind and ability to build consensus brought the country forward through several Landmark court cases court case decisions regarding issues of civil rights equal pay contraceptives and voting rights Ginsburg is known the world over for the collars she wore with her judicial robe and their telegraphing ability to throw shade or announce approval the descents her descent colar for shadowed were equally celebrated the world over RBG was unflinching in her descents and through them she inspired and offered hope to Millions finally

[72:02] it's notable that while sometimes single-handedly bending the Arc of the moral Universe towards Justice Ruth cred Bader Ginsburg was also carrying out one of the greatest love stories of our time she and her husband Marty met in college and RBG said of their marriage quote if you have a caring life partner you help the other person when that person needs it I had a life partner who thought my work was as important as his and I think that made all the difference for me unquote tonight we honor a brilliant jurist a loving mother and wife an epic Trailblazer for women's rights and a cherished role model we the city council of the city of Boulder hereby honor The Life and Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg a champion for change whose constitutional V Vision has improved the lives of so many and will continue to shape the fabric of our community for years years to come and we leave you with these words from her fight for the things that you care about but do it in a way that will lead others

[73:00] to join you thank you and thanks for Co reading Mark well many thanks to both of you Rachel and Mark that was um very well done and very touching and very appropriate and uh I know that you've spoken for for all of council and and City staff and and our community in in those uh those elegant words so thank you so much for that we're moving on now to another declaration and um this one probably deserves a little bit of background um there's been a um a program for over 10 years here in Colorado called Colorado companies to watch we're going to hear a little bit more about what that entails but it's been around since about 2009 and Boulder um always um 50 50 companies are identified each year throughout the state of Colorado as young and growing companies um and Boulder has always punched above its weight and um earned far more than our our fair share of those Award winners and we're very proud of each of those U Award winners over

[74:01] the last 10 or 11 years and normally what we do when these announcements are made right around this time of year is we have an isol reception for the boulder based companies that win the award and we call them up to our Council Das and each one of them says a couple of words about what their company is all about what they're doing um obviously in the co World um that's not possible so we're going to try to do the next best thing um right now and we we will have a gathering a reception for uh uh these Boulder Award winners when um when situations allow hopefully in the spring so I'm with that I'm going to turn it over to V Bowen who is going to um um share with us um a little bit about Colorado companies to watch and who the award winners are from Boulder for 2020 that thank you Bob and thank you members of council I believe that we have a slide and I have a couple of friends joining me this evening very quickly I know this uh all of council will join us

[75:01] in being proud of Colorado companies to watch that are honored here in Boulder today it's a unique program that does recognize second stage companies that are small businesses between 6 to 99 employees that have passed the startup phase and are an important area of growth in their evolution second stage companies help fuel our economy by creating employment opportunities generating revenue and de developing Innovative product and services the program is very competitive over a thousand employees were nominated this year and only 50 were chosen based on success and strong potential for growth exceptional entrepreneurial leadership Innovative products processes and economic impact and Community enrichment as well as a positive corporate culture So speaking about positive POS um the city of Boulder is always proud to partner with Boulder chamber and the boulder Economic Council to participate

[76:01] in the Colorado companies to watch program as Community Partners and with that I'm going to turn it over to my partner John Tor from the boulder chamber thank you Vette and it's just a pleasure to be with everybody uh I even if remotely um uh thank you uh mayor proam Yates and members of city council um you know before I offer my remarks about the car of companies to watch I did want to take this opportunity to introduce to all of you our new becc executive director and our associate vice president for economic Vitality Scott Sternberg who um has joined us and is now in his first month he's uh no longer wet behind the ears and so I just uh welcome him to our team as part of the partnership with the city of Boulder and advancing our City's economic Vitality so welome welcome Scott thank you John and uh thank you mayor Pro Council it's a pleasure to be

[77:00] on board I look forward to working with the economic and Community Vitality team to develop Boulders businesses uh such as the ones that are going to be honored this evening so thank you very much it's glad to be I'm glad to be here that's right and so as AET said uh everything we do to advance our economic Vitality is a partnership with the city of Boulders economic Vitality team and and this callor companies watch to watch award is one example of that uh every year as a vet mentioned uh we seek out the highly successful second stage businesses and might be interesting for you to know that um of those businesses that as uh again was mentioned they're uh companies with 6 to 99 employe employees um that's about 2,000 businesses in Boulder which represents roughly about about a third of our businesses in our community um and interestingly too they are tending to be

[78:00] primary businesses which are the businesses that bring dollars into our community and help to support um all of our local community um this year in partnership with um the city staff team we nominated over a hundred primary of these businesses and I just think that's a reflection of just what dynamic business activity we have in our community um of the 50 that won the award Statewide 15 were from call um from Boulder so that's a a great tribute to our community um it also is just a reflection of the diversity of industries that are represented in our community the the award winners um and the entrepreneur and uh Innovation Spirit that's alive here so I'm just excited to honor these companies as Colorado companies to watch winners and again thank the uh City staff team as well as Council for their partnership in

[79:00] wck in this type of a recognition for our business community and with that I I hand it back I believe to Mayor protm bobes event um do we um want to mention um maybe a sentence or so about each of these companies that are Award winners I know you've got a little bit um of of detail about each one of them normally they would speak for themselves but because we can't do that tonight I wonder if you would uh maybe a sentence or so about each one of them I'm happy to do that and I can't see it but I think there is a slide that has the logos of all these companies is that up so you can go forward two slides to the ones with the logos please so congratulations to this year's honores um we look forward to learning more about your growth and success I will just list a few things about each one Boulder industry is a certified B

[80:00] Corp that developed an Innovative and sustainable way to use waste tires uh to create non-petroleum based carbon black which is used to reinforce Rubber products and as a color pigment bonus Lee has developed recognition and reward software that enables companies to keep employees engaged and motivated super important at this time bold engineering studio is an engineering design and product development firm that helps clients in diverse Industries research design develop and Test new products caliber MRI worked with nist to design a device that increases the Precision of Medical Imaging equipment the company manufactures devices used by research institutions clinics and hospitals throughout the world ecovessel is a family based business in Boulder that designed and makes highquality insulated bottles in drink wear enzoic is a cyber security company

[81:00] that specializes in helping clients direct compromised login detect compromised login credentials mbio Diagnostics develops and manufactures highly sensitive Medical Diagnostic equipment that provides lab quality results in minutes virtually anywhere mcdev T Taco Supply was started by two Boulder brothers and has grown from a single taco truck to now opening a restaurant and is building a catering businesses MD scripts has developed a variety of online tools for clinical medication management the company has been on Inc 5000 fastest growth companies list mfb fertility developed prove the only FDA cleared atome test to measure ovulation outside analytics helps connect people to the outdoors with online interactive maps and tools they

[82:00] developed stess was created by a former CU student and his advisor who developed Innovative technology that enhances network connectivity verx air systems designed and make high performance fuel cells that improve Energy Efficiency and reduces em and Wana brand makes medical and recreational Cannabis products I know Council will join us in congratulating all of these honores and just to make it official let me read a very brief declaration um Boulder Colorado companies to watch month the Colorado the governor of Colorado initiated a annual Colorado companies to watch award program in 2009 to recognize second stage companies with high potential for future growth from more than 1,000 nominations only 50 companies from throughout the state are selected for the award each year and 14 of of the companies uh for Colorado companies to watch in 2020 are from

[83:00] Boulder we're quite proud of that you just heard the the names of the companies and a brief description of them from IET uh we want to recognize that these 14 companies in Boulder support the local economy and the state economy by providing important goods and services and by employing nearly 500 individuals the boulder economy benefits from the expenditures these companies make in the local community and the wages they pay the city of Boulder benefits from The Innovation and the entrepreneurial Spirit of these companies and their involvement in our community therefore the city council of the city of Boulder Colorado declares October 2020 Boulder Colorado companies to watch month thank you so much for everybody okay um we're going to deviate from the agenda before we get to open comment thank you for those who are waiting to speak an open comment just a few few more minutes and we'll we'll get to you but we have a um an unanticipated interruption in our agenda and I'm going to turn it over to Ryan um to um to

[84:03] manage a special speaker who's on the line for an important message Ryan thank you um we have uh promoted Robert uh to panelist ro so Robert you'll be able to unmute yourself here great I think we're unmuted hi Mom just wanted to wish you a happy birthday you want to say happy birthday hi Grammy happy birthday love you happy Birthday say happy birthday Eugene no happy birthday and we wanted a chance to say how much we we appreciate everything you've done um you know after hearing that that lovely message about Ruth Bader Ginsberg um I wanted to share what a what a model you've been for me at the end of your career here especially in the challenges of leadership with Co done a great job so I personally really appreciate it and just wanted to say happy birthday thank you Robert thank you Shere thank you

[85:02] kids birthday present a city council meeting on my birthday great love you Mom love you too honey bye happy birthday Jane thanks for joining us for your last birthday with the city council yeah wow that was a surprise thank you many more to come thanks a lot everybody happy birthday Jane thank you that was so sweet it was really sweet okay okay let's get we're back on track yay um let's get on to open comment thank you everybody for um being patient for open comment we actually have um a few withdrawals so we're at 17 folks for open comment just a reminder open comment is an opportunity for people to speak about topics that are on their mind that are not um subjects of public hearings tonight we have two

[86:00] public hearings tonight one on the 2021 budget and one on our um our federal and state policy agenda we'll be having public hearings on those later on uh and people have signed up for those separately um everything else is fair game uh you have two minutes and we're going to start I'm going to read off three people please be on on deck and ready to go uh so I'm going to read people three people in advance we're going to start with Marcos aspia followed by Katherine heg and deid Doone Marcos you're [Music] up can you hear me we can hear you my name is Marosa I want to say first that unsheltered or homeless people living in Boulder are community members of this city words like transient Outsiders rapists and the derogatory meth heads are the primary words used by the city as well as police chief and Council member supported hate group saf or Bolder to justify the harm and harassment of unhoused neighbors there are human beings who have conversations stories and wisdom to share talents

[87:01] passions and the right to live without getting swept each week the use of the word transient is peculiar since myself most of you and most homeowners in Boulder are not from here Council listen you are all colonizers who came or whose families came to this land to extract resources the city has no right to criminalize unsheltered people simply because they are not quote from here most of you aren't even from Boulder Bob Adam Mark Mary juny Sam Rachel Aaron so shelters somebody has already died from exposure to the cold this year in Boulder the shelters are extremely inaccessible even before the cuts in the upcoming budget Jane Bram you told me that the one reason people don't want to use Boulder shelter because they cannot use meth there indicating that the city workers and cops only interactions with homeless people are to harass them or evict them you never speak with them to hear about how people are kicked out of the shelter for having a broken leg or possessing legal marijuana or for being differently abled Boulder must permanently end the police L violent sweeps of our unhoused neighbors encampments these sweeps are against CDC

[88:02] guidelines for covid-19 safety Jane you boast about the hundreds of sweeps the police and serpro conduct but the same people are being displaced over and over again which is dangerous for Community spread of covid and more importantly is Terrorism to the physical and mental healths of unhoused neighbors but there are still thousands of people in Boulder and between 400 and 900 estimated unhoused people who must and endure the violence the city must cease the enforcement of the camping ban and remove the six-month residency requirement from the coordinated entry screening finally increase the number of beds in The Shelter Systems from the expected 140 ninefold end of comment thank you Marcus Katherine then deid then Evan rabbitz Katherine hi there I want to thank city council Jane bigan Chief Harold Police Department for actually enforcing the camping ban to the extent that you can I very much oppose any camping

[89:04] sanctioned and unsanctioned because it is unsafe for everybody people who are just trying to survive we know this through the National Coalition for the homeless through the Department of Justice studies people are much more vulnerable men and women and children unhoused so we thank you for supporting that we also urge you not to support an a sanctioned uh cment down the road in favor of our permanent Supportive Housing we already have in place we're building more affordable housing now Housing Voucher Lottery comes up here soon through uh in a couple weeks through housing Partners we want Rob the robust Services we already have in place and we want more of them for mental health services substance abuse we so appreciate the robust Services Boulder already has in place we don't think

[90:02] sanctioned encampments are going to make people much safer than where they are now we also walk our neighborhoods our public spaces dirty needles trash Hazmat material everywhere we spent $200,000 on serve pro last year in the first half of this year cleaning up encampments because they need hazmat apparatus that money could go to more services for long-term permanent changes for people I appreciate I know this is a difficult uh an issue Nationwide I appreciate your time and thinking about this for more long-term Solutions but absolutely no camping thank you so much thank you Katherine we have D Doone uh Evan rabbitz and Jessica Benjamin

[91:01] de you're able to speak you'll just need to unmute [Music] yourself D we can hear you can you unmute de let's do this um we we're not hearing you um and I'm going to skip over you and come back in a couple of uh uh spots and see if we can get you unmuted um so um let's pass on toid for now and go to Evan rabbits and Jessica Benjamin and then we'll come back to D Evan good evening can you hear me he me yes Evan in the boulder weekly

[92:00] story titled advancing democracy two weeks ago mayor Weaver referred to direct democracy as quote a beast you would think someone who enjoys our open space and slow growth our views largely unimpeded by tall buildings and maybe our pioneering gay rights and publicly financed election campaigns would appreciate these gifts of direct democracy instead Sam is mouthing the right-wing Canard that government by the people means tyranny of the majority let's look at facts while ballot initiatives have been used to limit gay and abortion rights somewhat it was the legislators of all 50 states who made sodomy and abortion felonies and incarcerated thousands for many decades it was Representatives who put Japanese

[93:00] Americans in concentration camps during World War II it was Congress who persecuted socialists and their friends during the McCarthy era it was Representatives who started the drug war and continue to put hundreds of thousands of people in prison so-called representative democracy gave up us Perpetual Wars and trillions of dollars in debt it was Representatives that gave us Guantanamo and Abu gra and normalized torture throughout the world direct democracy has been the the solution to the drug war and many other ills caused by Representatives no we have almost no tyranny of the majority here we have massive tyranny by tiny minorities that threaten all humanity and life on Earth thank you thank you Evan Jessica Benjamin and then we'll go back and try to pick up D

[94:01] Jessica can you hear me yes we can go Ahad Jessica hello Council and happy birthday Jane my name is Jessica Benjamin and I live in South Boulder I am the owner and producer of first bite the Boulder County Restaurant Week I have been working intimately with over 30 of our restaurants since and have witnessed their creativity and resourcefulness in action our restaurants are doing everything that they can to deep diners safe and their staff safe while also maximizing their ability to stay open the current restrictions of 50% capacity are not changing anytime soon and the summer boost of Revenue is over since the university moved to online learning our restaurants have seen an average of 20% loss in Revenue this came sooner than expected but the realities of winter business will be be much Starker there is not a one-size fits-all solution for winter outdoor dining we need to allow restaurants to operate with whatever

[95:00] resources are available some restaurants have parking lots others have alleys some only the parking spaces in front some have M foot traffic but most do not what outdoor dining does guarantee for all businesses is to create jobs on average an expanded patio section provides four to six full-time jobs per restaurant which is around 10 to 20 % of the industry's workforce if parklets are allowed in some places we need to accept them everywhere find a balance on West End so that the outdoor dining and curbside pickup is accessible welcome the single occupancy dining options such as igloos Bubbles and Yurts allow restaurants to AR tents and park trailers diners want to be able to dine out safely and comfortably in the restaurants are working feverishly to make this happen the Colorado Restaurant Association recently defined these regulations in extreme clear detail so please don't don't add regulation and red tape to their already overfilled plates let's support our small business owners maintain jobs and give Boulders vibrancy a chance to survive the winter

[96:01] please extend all outdoor dining expansion permits and allow restaurants to Define what survival will look like to them thank you for your time thank you Jessica we're gonna come back to De and see if we can get deid on the line after that's Christopher centenno and um Susan Peterson DAV are you there it does look like DAV has left the meeting I recommend we move toward the end of the list and see if they come back um and move on to Chris sounds good uh Christopher cenno and Susan Peterson and Leslie glustrom Christopher Chris yes uh thank you uh Mr Yates so uh can you hear me okay yep I'm the guy who had a transient serial felon break into my home a couple years back and I'd first like to congrat congratulate the city council on reformatting the coordinated entry program to focus on locals uh so I think you've done a great job with that I

[97:00] understand that you're going to be talking about a supervised Campground uh which I really think would be a disaster uh we already have HSBC data showing that Boulder is already facing a build it and they will come scenario uh and you were provided that information during your July study session pre pandemic 83% of our homeless that were screened by coordinate entry were new to Boulder and 71% of those were from Denver uh we have countless service resistant transients camping by the creek crime is out of control in our little town uh next door is filled with report after report of out of control transients or Petty thefts a supervised homeless Campground just makes this much worse by inviting more transients and you may have noticed that there's a change.org petition that gives you more than 6,000 reasons I think that has

[98:00] about 6,400 signatures right now to vote no uh these are not activists instead they're just rank and file Boulder rites working to pay the bills uh so my final question tonight for you uh would be the serial felon who terrorized my family would he be allowed to stay in that camp grain or I'm sorry that Campground and the question would be how would you know and the answer is there's really no way to know so thank you so much for your time thank you Chris we have um Susan Peterson Leslie glustrom and Paul cing Su good evening Council my name is Susan Peterson and I'm a member of Empower our future a coalition of citizens businesses and environmental groups concerned about about the impact on our climate of the way we produce electricity our number one contributor to climate change within the next week or so you

[99:01] will be receiving a copy of a financial study on the feasibility of exercising our option for a locally owned 100% renewably sourced electric utility this study was completed over the last few weeks by well-qualified members of Empower our future including scientists engineers mathematicians and business Executives the study reveals a locally owned electric utility with rates the same or less than Excel would produce an impressive positive cash flow after both five and 10 years of implementation even with conservative assumptions and significant stranded costs the study uses the city's Financial forecast tool simply updated to reflect current values including current Bond rates which are about half or less of what the city's 2018 forecast used and current Renewable Energy prices which are 8 to 15% below the rates used

[100:01] in 2018 as per our recent RFP responses our analysis shows that we can be free from Excel and enjoy much cleaner electricity at the same cost or less as if we we had stayed with Excel we can own our own Electric System and use the additional cash flow to benefit the community of Boulder in the most Equitable way for all it pains me that city council did not take the time to do a similar analysis before putting this franchise agreement on the ballot but I'm hopeful that those of you who have not yet made up your minds will read the report and given the updated evidence choose to endorse a no vote on 2C thank you Susan Leslie glustrom Paul clain and uh Ryan Harwood Leslie good evening Council lesie glustrom and I live in Boulder and happy birthday chane it was awesome see your son and grandchildren that was great uh so I

[101:01] didn't know I was gonna be following right after Susan but in the same vein if if we really want to do what best for Boulder let's slow down understood that the virus has made your lives all of our Lives quite upset and miserable and the budget and all but please just take a breath and slow down and do a few things and the first thing I'd ask is that you actually read carefully The Memo from staff on the RFP we have two providers ready to bring Boulder 100% renewable electricity it's below the prices that we had in 2018 and those prices were well below excel's prices so any thoughts that somehow going back into XL is going to save the community money doesn't make a lot of sense there are also alternative financing proposals one up to $300 million to get the whole thing done so and as Susan mentioned we have much lower Bond rates so the first thing is to just kind of take a breath this is a really big decision let's not rush into it if you're really serious about money

[102:01] please the arguments don't add up respectfully to Mayor proam Yates his arguments don't add up so uh the second thing is to read the report that Susan talked about and to really consider we could have 100% renewable electricity at a much lower cost it's not just the modeling Susan talked about these are real biders they have you know to quote have significant project development and operational experience and recognize that if we go back into Excel we're going to pay Monopoly prices for 70% renewable then we're going to pay big expenses on top of that then on top of that we're going to have pu expenses it's really a very very expensive option the last thing I'd ask you to do if you have questions please speak to Senator ceve fenberg or representative Edie hooton both of whom are strong opponents of to see and ask them why they are they have a lot of experience thanks so much Council thank you Leslie Paul colan uh

[103:00] Ryan Harwood and Jessica bookart Paul hi can you hear me now yes we can Paul great good evening council members my name is Paul colan I live in South Boulder October 1st the world economic Forum posted a story titled just how much is the earth heating up they stated that August 20120 was 2.14 degrees Centigrade hotter than the average since 1880 and it was only the second hottest August on record British scientists last week published their findings that just between 1994 and 2017 28 trillion tons of ice have melted disappeared from the face of the Earth a study published Monday in the journal Nature climate change reported that the reduction in the mixing of ocean layers is piling up warm water near the surface

[104:02] while cutting back on circulation thus decreasing the ocean's ability to absorb heat you know it's not that the writing is on the wall the writing is also in the headlines on the front pages of many newspapers and new sites we need systemic change not just changing light bulbs and recycling refrigerators electric cars electric buses electric trucks electric houses electric Office Buildings electric factories clean energy is a foundation for reaching our climate goals this is no time for an 80% solution because of the cumulative nature of carbon in the atmosphere 80% Solutions are actually failures that continue to increase carbon in the atmosphere and increase the damage from climate change 80% % Solutions make climate change worse those of you who have not already done so please endorse no on 2C and tonight dear council members please pass

[105:02] a council resolution urging a no on 2C vote thank you thank you Paul Ryan Harwood Jessica brard and Riley manusa Ryan hello Council uh before I get to my main point I'd like to bring out that kathern HJ and Chris Anno who just spoke are part of a group called safer Boulder who just had their chat logs released where they were talking about attacking homeless people now to my main point I'd like to voice my opposition against the police oversight board at the last meeting where it was discussed there was a lot of discussion about the review board maintaining its quote unquote Independence in order to give both police and people subject to policing a fair Shake in the process however no such independence is baked into the police department side of of it as a sergeant is who runs the investigations and the chief of police who has ultimate

[106:00] say in what happens with the investigations there's nothing Democratic or independent about this process it is just more of the same the police investigate themselves and decide what punishment and wrongdoing they themselves deserve this is how it should this is how it always goes though and why there is no evidence that police review boards reduce police Poli brutality the Min the Minneapolis Police Department was subject to several police oversight boards and yet they still murdered George Floyd and numerous others when Mary young proposed changing the name of the oversight board to something that doesn't imply dominance she was actually right the citizens of Boulder have no more control over the police department than they did when Zade Atkinson was held up at gunpoint for being black or when Sammy Lawrence was attacked and arrested for filming the police while disabled and black there's a reason reason the Boulder Police Department was so willing to be a part of the oversight task force it doesn't pose a threat to their power in the city and even adds a nice Progressive PR spin for them as they continue to harass homeless people and

[107:01] ticket their house friends who bring them food in public parks which happened just a couple weeks ago if you want to stop police brutality you need to take their power away that looks like defunding and disarming not giving them raises slashing homeless beds to pay for fancy new bomb trucks and setting up additional bureaucracy for them to find themselves innocent with thank you thank you Ryan Jessica Brookhart Riley manuso and Dan Diane aosta Jessica one moment here all right Jessica hi there I'm Jessica Brookhart um I'm with haa Sushi um we have location a location here in b and then we have two in Denver as well as one in Greenwood Village um and firstly I want to thank you so much for your leadership helping um you know our city navigate through covid-19 I know

[108:00] it's difficult it's difficult for all of us um restaurants have really benefited greatly from the option of these expanded patios it allowed us to keep our customers safe our staff safe and our restaurants and and to hire our staff that had been laid off um it'll these seats outside are Priceless to us as winter approaches we're faced with the reality of Min minimal indoor seating we would like to encourage the city council to consider following Denver's lead by expanding patios for the next year to October 31st of 2021 we ask you allow restaurants to be creative and how their guests are are being kept warm by way of portable heaters igloos and other temporary Heating units foot traffic to the downtown restaurants will help keep our town vibrant it will encourage traffic to other retailers and help all of us get through this pandemic together we believe that it is the best in in the best interest of everyone businesses customers and the

[109:00] city to expand these patios for as long as possible potentially even permanently beyond the pandemic I thank you so much for your help um end of comment thank you Jessica Riley manuso dianella aasta and ramish bat Riley okay um so um I uh want to also voice my uh opposition to the camping band I really just like I know I've been talking about this every time I've called into Council for the past uh probably year um but it really is just a disgusting policy that is counterproductive to everything it's supposedly stated to int to uh intend um it um and uh Katherine hog who spoke earlier today is one of the people uh exposed at uh safer leaks. blog.org um uh which uh where she advocated for

[110:03] uh treating uh homeless people with uh torture techniques used in gentan Bay for sleep deprivation um and these are the kinds of people who are advocating for the enforcement of the camping ban people who see uh homeless people as subhuman and undeserved undeserving of basic rights it's motivated not by any sort of wish for the well-being of the city and especially not for the wellbeing of unhoused people but out of a kind of abhorent hatred which is made clear in the leaks that came out last night um and uh so you know really like the camping band doesn't get people to leave it negatively impacts people's ability to connect with Services service providers are like Boulder County AIDS project and mental health Health Partners people who advocate for homeless people uh struggle when people are evicted suddenly to reconnect with them because so few people have phones um and also I want to say uh big

[111:02] you to Jane bradam for uh is supporting BI Incorporated for supporting the camping band for defunding libraries in favor of further militarization of the police I hope you are ashamed of yourself and I wish you ill in your retirement dianella aasta Ramesh B and Misha tour di it doesn't look like Diana is present in the meeting we'll move on to the next one uh Ramesh bot Amisha tour and Patrick Murphy all right hi can you hear me my name is my name is Ramesh B and I'm commenting on proposition 2C on behalf of the appr approximately 3,000 members of the SRA Club who live in Boulder the SRA Club is very concerned and disappointed that the council ramed through this ballot proposal without

[112:00] adequate analysis we've had a little bit of time since the council wot though and the full significance of the agreement is coming into Focus now as leaders of the city it is your responsibility to clearly inform the public about the implications of this agreement you don't have to take sides but you have to give people the facts will you please tell citizens clearly that the agreement Falls well short of our 100% renewable energy goals Excel only promises greenhouse gas reduction not renewable energy and that to only to the extent required by state law which is 80% by 2030 Excel has said that some of this will be accomplished using natural gas in the place of coal this means more fracking in Boulder we are fond of shaking our finger at w County because fracking there is literally poisoning us will you tell Boulder rides how this is going to work moving forward how are we going to argue with the straight face that fracking is bad while embracing future further use of natural

[113:02] gas for the foreseeable future will you tell the public that in contrast to the franchise responses to rfps have come into come with offers of 100% renewable energy at a much cheaper price in ex what Excel is offering and that some of these offers are willing to even lend us money for municipalization we don't need to be trapped into a franchise Ram through at the last minute we have many better options will you please tell the public that no cost analysis of the franchise agreement has been done by the city even now weeks after the council vote all we know is that we are making a minimum of A2 billion commitment over the next 20 years it could be a lot more than that but we have no idea because the city hasn't done an analysis thank you raes Misha tour Patrick Murphy Brendan son and then we'll see if de's available Misha all right so I didn't really have time to write out what I was planning to

[114:01] say because I was busy today out on the streets trying to keep my neighbors fed and clothed and safe because you won't do your job like how is it that private citizens have to keep our NE our neighbors safe with a fraction of the resources that you squander on police and useless while our neighbors are dying like you need to re-evaluate your priorities that's all I have to say Patrick Murphy Brendan son and then deid donon Patrick my name is Patrick Murphy I live in Boulder in 28 days we'll begin to find out if Boulder citizens have rejected the mun Folly and are ready to let real carbon reduction begin now not six years from now our intentions were

[115:00] good and still are but our ability to critically evaluate the mun honestly has proven to be a failure the mun naughty list documents that history of failure if and I hope when the mun is voted out I'll closely monitor whether real carbon reduction rather than a shadow mun is what occurs will we keep all the well-paid administrators engineers and staff that are not reducing 1 ounce of carbon or will they be replaced with solar incentives wind incentives a renewable energy certificates broker and energy use reduction efforts I hope we can finally see the light and that light comes from LEDs my guess is that it'll take a year to pay off all them Muni debt especially since we borrowed $1.4 million from ourselves and need to pay that foolish loan back to ourselves that $1.4 million could have replaced all the lights in every Boulder lowincome household with LEDs thus saving them

[116:00] money and reducing our carbon footprint maybe now we'll replace all our own street lights with LEDs like every town around us already has maybe now we'll see that XL corporate hate like most hate is wasted energy maybe now we can see Boulder for what it is a corporate Monopoly and relearn the art of self-critical evaluation the munity and its supporters have demonstrated that we have at least temporarily lost that skill collaboration will bring progress and real carbon reduction and a positive example that can be shared rather than a cautionary tale there are many things in 2020 that need to end the immun is definitely one vote Yes to see it happen thank you Patrick Brendan son and deid D Brendan uh good evening members of city council my name is Brendan and I'm a seconde law student at CU and a South Boulder resident tonight I wanted to

[117:01] address Boulder's occupancy limit and its negative impact on Neighborhood Health I like many others have lived in homes that exceed the occupancy limit frankly because it is cheaper to do so speaking from experience life in an over occupancy home is a course of mistrust I am disinclined to to wave to my neighbors as I leave my driveway to shule my neighbor's sidewalk when it snows and even to greet my neighbor's dog as I walk by them on the street this all because I fear that one evening a neighbor returns late from work to find that he must Park a bit further from his house than usual and realizes that four apparently unrelated people live in the four bedroom house across the street prompting him to call zoning enforcement increasing occupancy limits even modestly will encourage healthy neighborhoods in at least three small ways first it will alleviate the mutual mistrust between over occupancy renters and owners second will prod renters to

[118:01] develop stronger ties with the neighborhood encouraging them to invest themselves in the well-being of their neighbors and neighborhood finally it will Foster the small daily interactions between neighbors that make a neighborhood feel like home for these reasons I ask that you take the small step recommended by governor polus of suspending enforcement of the Occupy limits until the pandemic is over and ideally until bers Boulder voters can be heard next fall thank you for your time thank you Brendan Ryan were we able to get de back on uh D is present Let's uh turn on theic hi can you hear me city council got you D go ahead hi thank you on behalf of the boulder Museum of qu temporary art we thank you for the time you have committed to ensuring the health safety and vitality of our community during these challenging times I'm speaking in front of you today to advocate for a reduction in the cats

[119:01] that the city staff has proposed to the B for the boulder office of bson culture in its 2021 draft budget that is being discussed tonight the proposed Cuts will further weaken our ability to continue presenting quality and originally programming that both brings the joy of art to the community and amplifi the voices of artists whose work stands against inequality racism and violence such as the recent exhibitions by visual artist nma Morgan and Candice Davis which reflects on the Centennial of women's aage support from the office of arts and culture and the boulder rarts commission has been critical to boka's work boka is located in the heart of downtown is a vital local business employing over 25 of the administrative employees for its ambitious schedule of 12 plus exhibitions and more than five 100 programs a year theok additionally contracts over 100 artists and arts Educators to create artwork exhibitions and educational programs that engages all ages in EN reaching creative experiences not to mention over a

[120:02] 100,000 employees we urge you to eliminate the cats or at the very least adopt cats that are not greater than the overall budget cut of 7% versus the current 177% cat to the art that is being proposed by staff the current proposed cats will have a detrimental effect to the city's cultural identity and the vibrancy of our cultural destinations causing further decreases in economic activity most importantly this cut will negatively impact the lives of Boulder artists and our Collective art ecosystems during a time when we need the healing and Innovative power of the Arts the most thank you thank you devid uh that ends open comment I'm G turn it back to Jane and Tom to see if there's any comments from staff Jer on mute thank you um I don't have any comments thanks Shane Tomy I will note

[121:02] that Mr Dome was out of order he was talking about the budget which is not appropriate for open comments since it's a matter of public hearing and he should not speak again I guess and I would condemn Riley Mancuso's vicious attack on Jane that's uncalled for and unprofessional and not appropriate for for any public discourse thank you Tom anything from Council Members just raise your hand if you got something to weigh in on here I'm not seeing any hands so we're going to move on to the consent agenda Debbie back to you next we have the consent agenda items a through G Jane I don't believe we have any presentations for any of these items is that correct so actually I think we had we wanted to have a really short presentation on items f and g so f is the land use code updates and G was um a

[122:00] change in our sales tax code on definitions take it away yeah um is Charles or Carl here to talk about item F I'm I'm here good evening council members I was gonna try to share a brief PowerPoint I'll try to I guess that's not available oh here we go one moment okay before the city council tonight is ordinance 849 uh which is a cleanup of the land use code we call it the code fix ordinance contained within attachment a of your pack packet it does contain 53 changes uh to the land use code try to advance the

[123:00] slide is everyone seeing this okay yes um this has been in the works for several years uh basically when we're implementing the code when we're doing development review and engaging with the public and applicants there are some areas of the codes that that have been problematic you know wording that doesn't make sense and it's things that we've been flagging over the years this is the culmination of a lot of those notes that we're happy to bring forward next slide please if if that's possible okay so these are the themes of the ordinance uh there there's Corrections clarifications language improvements graphic updates and additional changes to meet today's needs so correct are basically inaccuracies that are in the code you know if there there's an inaccurate code reference it's much like the supplement where we're trying to make those Corrections clarifications is when we're making some changes to the code language to just be more simple and more understandable

[124:01] there's been times when we've uh just Rewritten it to to make it more clear uh language improvements is similar although it might involve some reordering of the language uh reformatting but generally it's all keeping the intent of the original regulation and making it more clear for folks to understand if you look at the existing code you'll notice that a lot of the graphics were hand drawings that were done in like the 1980s 1990s we're trying to bring those up to date with more 3D looking computer drawings so we have a number of those updates throughout the code and then we have additional changes to meet today's needs these are things that were unanticipated in the past areas we're trying to remove things that are ambiguous and remove outdated text close loopholes um some examples of that are just you know we didn't Envision electronic filing of subdivisions for instance so that's been added to the code um we we've added some language that encourages flush mounting

[125:00] of solar panels things of that nature so next slide so inside uh attachment B is basically the explanations for all the changes so uh basically show the new language underlined the old language being crossed out and then the reason for change beneath SL please so staff is recommending that city council approve ordinance 89 um to fix mistakes clarify code sections update the graphics and improve the overall readability of the code uh planning board has recommended that city council approve this ordinance as well so I'm happy to answer any questions on this great so let's pause here and ask questions of car I see Aaron has his hand up Aaron yeah no questions but Carl just want to appreciate the very hard work that you and the staff put in on that and planning board for reviewing it and going through them those are extremely

[126:01] detailed changes so I appreciate the expertise that that shows on all of your parts thank you for that great I don't see any other hands up uh thank you Carl uh Jane moving on to item uh 3G and 3G is the item regarding the definitions and I believe Joel Wagner is here to talk about that I'm here good evening hi Joel hi Jane good evening Council Joel Wagner tax and special projects manager I don't have a presentation I'm just going to give a brief overview of the proposed amendments to the definition section of the Revenue code in tonight's motion so in its 20 June 2018 decision uh in the case South Dakota versus Wayfair the US Supreme Court found that as long as a state does not unduly burden or interfere with interstate commerce it can impose its licensing and tax collection requirements on remote sellers that only have customers in the state this is known as economic Nexus uh the state of Colorado quickly

[127:00] adopted two new roles rules stemming from the Wayfair case first a rule establishing economic Nexus for remote sellers without physical presence in the state and a second a rule requiring Marketplace facilitators such as Amazon or walmart.com to collect and remit sales tax on behalf of Market sellers that are selling products through their their marketplaces economic Nexus is more complicated and due to some recent changes by the state requires adoption of the State's new single filing portal while staff Works through its concerns with the State's new portal um in collaboration with the Department of Revenue we're recommending adoption of tonight's proposed ordinance amending the definition of vendor to include Marketplace facilitators which will bring the city of Boulder in line with the state treatment of marketplace facilitators this proposed amendment was developed by the Colorado Municipal league in coordination with home R taxing jurisdictions industry groups and online retailers so far 16 other

[128:02] municipalities have adopted similar definitions and so we're um working again in coordination with all of those to come into alignment with the state So currently many Marketplace facilitators such as Amazon and walmart.com are very voluntarily licensed with the city of B and they collect and remit tax on their direct sales through their websites however many of these companies do not collect and remit tax on behalf of their thirdparty Marketplace sellers this creates an unpair unfair playing field where some retailers are required to collect and remit tax and others are not so the proposed change creates a More Level Playing Field for locally licensed businesses who are competing against Marketplace sellers the businesses that will be affected by this definition change are currently licensed Marketplace facilitators who will have to begin collecting and remitting tax on behalf of their Marketplace Sellers and in a more indirect way the marketplace sellers themselves who will no longer be able to sell their goods

[129:01] taxfree one last item I want to stress is that this is not a tax increase nor is it a change to tax policy or a change to what is taxable in the city of Boulder it's simply an amendment of the city's definition of vendor to include Marketplace facilitators if Council approves this tonight staff will begin a communic plan including Outreach to existing taxpayers notices and public um and social media releases and while the ordinance will be effective 30 days from tonight we plan to treat 2020 as an education year in order to provide Marketplace facilitators time to change over their software and communicate the upcoming changes to the marketplace Sellers and with that I'm happy to answer any questions thank you Joel um we'll take a pause here for questions for Joel mirbi has got her hand up mirbi I I think this is just going to unfortunately open way too much of a can of worms but I'm just going to ask um so this whole thing that the state and I I understand the difference between city and what the state has done and I get

[130:00] that we're trying to be in line with what the city or the state has done but this is I'm assuming this change from what I'm understanding is affecting small businesses to now start collecting taxes and I I guess and again this is where the can of worms comes in and I'm sorry this probably should be a much discussion but I I don't really want to vote for this because what this has done to small businesses across the state of Colorado is make life a living hell literally I I can't even begin to tell you how difficult this state tax um issue has become on small businesses um and US my business for example it's it takes hundreds of hours and it's not accurate and people are getting charged incorrect taxes there's shock there's not a class action lawsuit um from residents across the state of Colorado that are being being charged vastly overcharged and unfairly charged and so I guess coming in line with what the state's doing when their systems aren't even set up to accurately allow for small businesses to handle this there's

[131:00] no software there's no support when you call into the business programs or the federal or the state um branches that are supposed to preside over this so is is that what this is basically doing is is putting a heavier burden on small businesses to now pay taxes to all the different counties and states and or counties and cities and I mean there's like over 700 different ones to have to even deal with right right and that's excellent feedback and that is um I would say that's the economic Nexus portion that we are not proposing bringing forward tonight uh the state essentially took two things they took the economic Nexus which is um for Sellers and local and state of Colorado businesses that are selling across multiple jurisdictions um and that's the piece that they're they've launched this new internet filing portal for but it's still very much in its infant stages so we're working through our customer service concerns and customer experience concerns around that with the the

[132:00] Department of Revenue uh this piece would only apply essentially to Marketplace facilitators such as Amazon who are selling products on behalf of marketplace sellers directly through their websites so for example if you go on to Amazon and you look for uh I just bought a new tree saw you can get it through Amazon.com and they'll charge you tax but if you get it through um Joel's Saw Shop sometimes that one will not charge you tax and so we would be putting that burden on Amazon to collect and remit that tax on behalf of their sellers okay all right so that's fine so um maybe just for the small businesses out there could you actually if you have the information on where small businesses can go to provide feedback could you put that out here just if there's a website or something just for anyone who's watching sure yeah I can I can follow up with you with the the state's sets website awesome okay thank you uh any other questions for

[133:02] Joel okay if not we can uh entertain a motion on the consent agenda B yeah I I have this may be a procedural question um but I am concerned with uh item 3E The Landmark designation for the tea house it's a conversation we can have tonight or we can have at second reading but it's a conversation I wish to have um I believe that um the Alternatives that we have been presented with um uh in terms of only uh landmarking the exterior of the Tea House are too narrow and I would like to have that conversation as to how we can broaden the effect of landmarking to include the interior of the building um uh which as I want to point out again is a city-owned building um and again

[134:02] you you you need to give me some guidance whether that conversation is for tonight or for second reading um but it's something I I do want to raise and and put in front of the council the landmarking is a quas judicial process we would ask you to uh conduct your conversations about the extent nature and extent of the of the landmarking after you've heard the evidence at the hearing which will occur in two weeks okay and then Tom just to follow up on that if um if we pass um uh the ordinance on first reading now we have the uh quad judicial hearing uh in two weeks and let's say there are changes to the ordinance then would we then take that to a third reading is that correct yes okay Mark are you comfortable with that yes I am thank you okay any other comments on the U consent agenda okay hearing none uh do we have a

[135:07] motion the consent agenda yeah second okay motion by Barry second by Adam uh Deb I think this is a roll call is that right yes it is go ahead council member swli hi uh wallik hi Weaver Yates hi young yes rocket Hi Brent yes Joseph I Nagel I the motion passes thank you thank you Debbie uh go ahead and uh identify the next one Debbie um next on the agenda is your call up and tonight's call up is the landmark alteration certificate for 1346

[136:00] PE Street the former Lazy Dog Jan do we have a presentation on this one we did not plan on a presentation for this one great um is there any interest in um calling this item up hearing none we will not call it up okay Debbie go ahead and identify the next item next we have your first public hearing which is the 2021 budget items related to the 202 budget sorry Jane back to you well thank you very much um we do have a PowerPoint for Council and we as you can see we have many many folks here that will be able to answer questions as we move through so Ryan could did you put up the PowerPoint thank you so much um so we're on to the 2021 budget um I will be

[137:01] presenting near the end Cheryl patelli will be presenting most of the information and we do have a slide related to uh the budget for housing and Human Services that Kurt Fern hobber will be presenting so next slide um our agenda tonight is that we're going to be starting with a budget overview that Cheryl will be presenting this is very much the thing that you often see in our budgets which we Pro talk about our revenues and then our uses of funds or our recommended budget with many many graphs for you to take a look at and then we'll move on to a quick presentation about our Capital Improvement program and then we'll follow up with um items that you asked about at the budget study session and and uh we've received comments from the public on since then and then we'll end with questions in motion language um and then you'll move into your public hearing portion um before I move on to the next item I just want to thank the

[138:01] many staff members that participated in the budget this year as you all know it was a really difficult budget year for us and for the entire Community really um and we had people working so hard to make this budget match the declining Revenue that we have experienced and I want to thank all of my city fellow City staff members for their great work and for Council support and in particular the support of the financial strategy Committee of council um you really have helped us quite a bit so um I will now turn it over to Cheryl patelli who will talk about the budget overview and the sources uses Cheryl thanks Jane Taylor can you go two slides thanks um so this again just as a reminder was council's 2021 budget focus our number one priority when um bringing

[139:00] forth the recommended budget was Public Safety also we prioritize funding to address the most basic needs and health of our community while continuing to focus on advancing racial Equity two more slides [Music] thanks so here's our 2021 um projected Revenue it's 337 million which is a 7.7% decrease from 2020 as you can see on the graph the three largest uh Revenue sources for the city are sales and use tax utility rates and property tax and these three sources represent nearly three4 of all of our funding next slide this is uh the same slide but we have taken out the water Wastewater and storm water utilities in here sales inuse tax is 50% so certainly when we

[140:03] looked at the 2021 budget um this uh Revenue Source has been very adversely affected by the pandemic so it's a very important source for the city and it represents half of our Revenue minus our utility funds next slide this is the general fund revenues um so the general fund is our largest fund is 147 million that we are projecting for next year which is a 6.4% or $10 million decrease over our original 2020 budget so if here you'll see the cost allocation transfers of 8% and then if we can go go to the next slide we've taken information and incorporated or uh the the cost allocations and transfers into the slide putting them in their originating cing

[141:00] source so here you can see many of our dedicated funds that transfer money into the general fund are there sales and use tax funds charges for service those types of things next slide actually two slides so moving on to the other side the expenditures our 2021 recommended budget is 341 million which is a 7.7% decrease over our original 20120 budget I will note uh we have a total of 41 budgeted funds which is a lot uh one of which is the general fund and then 40 dedicated funds of our total bud budget 80% is operating 20% is capital and the breakup between general fund and dedicated really becomes um interesting when you look at the capital portion of

[142:00] the budget um because only 14% is governmental Capital it really restricts our ability to move money around um for Capital funding for the city next slide so with our Revenue uh reductions that we talked about um this table shows all of the reductions by the dep departments and each department is a cross fund so for instance the fire department is only in the general fund yet uh R has multiple funds that is shown here and you will note uh that when we prepare the 2021 budget we did not take an across theboard strategy I I think at times it it could be the easier option but I don't think it is the most strategic option for us to take rather we prioritize our Cuts based on several factors um including how we prioritize

[143:01] our services and also Equity considerations next slide so recommended uh total budget by Department uh the total budget is 341 million is you can see and it spans several different service areas to the community Public Works utilities makes up about a quarter of the city's budget next and here is the same graph um excluding utilities and again um we we see the diverse services that we provide community and many of these departments represented here have rest restricted funds such as Transportation open space um housing and Human Services slide here's our 2021 general fund uh

[144:00] budget of 146 million again general fund is unrestricted so we have a lot flexibility to spend our dollars where our priorities lie uh Public Safety expenditures account for nearly 40% uh please inquire that of all general fund expenditures next slide and it wouldn't be a presentation without uh discussing reserves here we're just talking about general fund reserves but please you know be aware that most of our operating funds do have Reserves at varing level so reserves are very important to us we do have a policy for the general fund to hold 20% in reserve in 2020 prior to covid our original budget was at 19.5% so we were very close to meeting our goal um once covid hit as you know

[145:00] we planning on utilizing some reserves to cover the cost of our services and we're projecting reserves to down to 15% and then 2021 the recommended budget that the city manager has proposed programs Reserve serves at about 177% and Please be aware these are all approximate um estimates at this point we won't know for sure until after actual actual revenue and expenditures come in for the year one thing I I want to talk about is our need to um replenish our general fund reserves so best practices along with all of the rating agencies say reserves should be at a minimum of6 % and then going up from there depending on your own City's situation so for example we all know um based on the 2013 flood we we are vulnerable to floods

[146:01] we're certainly vulnerable to fires now we have the pandemic um it's very important for our city to have higher Reserve level than than that 16% so as we move forward uh looking at the 2022 budget we're planning on bringing a plan to you to replenish our uh general fund and actually all of our funds reserves next slide so just one slide on the capital Improvement program next slide Taylor sorry our Capital program is a six-year plan for capital investment in maintaining and enhancing our infrastructure um as you can see our 2021 Capital Improvement program is 73.5 million and our six year totals about 668 million across 198 projects so

[147:01] if you look at Year's 2022 and 2024 um the majority of our expenses come in utilities they have some bigger projects planned for those years 2023 you'll see facilities and Fleet the the yellow color um that's the Pavilion renovation so it fluctuates year to year but um one thing I can say is that 95% of these projects over the six-year uh span are projects F focused on taking care of what we have and that's something the city is dedicated or decided was important um during the Blue Ribbon commission over a decade ago so um we're proud to say we are very focused on taking care of what we have and with that I'm going to turn it back over to Jane to talk about followup thanks so next slide please so let me just say um a word here is that

[148:03] we had a really good study session in early September and at that meeting the council members asked a number of follow-up questions we tried to and I think we succeeded in answering all of the questions that you brought up that night um in your packet that you have today um in writing so it's in the memo but we do have staff members here that would be able to answer if you have particular questions about those items so next Slide the presentation that I am going to make tonight will be focused on four different areas housing and Human Services the flat irons facility project at the golf course Arts grants funding and Library service plan plan and we picked these items because since the study session we've heard from the community or council members that these were important items that uh you wanted us to talk about so next slide is the

[149:00] housy and Human Services slide and I'm going to turn that over to Kurt fobber because he has deeper knowledge than I do about those changes Kurt uh good evening Council so housing Human Services receives funds from various sources and we use these funds to support the community and households that are at more at risk within our community the Human Services fund um in this budget has been reduced by 450,000 um there is also an expectation of a reduction of the Health Equity Fund and that's based directly that's a that's a direct tax um and the sugary sweeten beverage um tax which we're expecting a reduction in revenues there so we've gone through a process um with covid as well as with reductions in Revenue that has led us to prioritize um our our funding to the

[150:01] community based on um food security um Health Care safety and housing um programs that don't fit into these critical criteria or been reduced uh um as a result of of um covid and what activities can occur have been eliminated the substance education and awareness um fund U will not be reduced in in 202020 or 2021 these some of these programs are going to continue uh virtually the Youth Opportunity program um had a pretty significant reduction and most of that is related to the grant program that they would participate in giving out to the to the community and our community funding will go through our other mechanisms um and under home under

[151:00] homeless programs um through a consolidation of programs into one facility we have realized um savings and with the savings we've been able to continue our funding emphasis on housing supports and wraparound Serv but it's an overall reduction of1 th $100,000 um under the homeless programs next slide sorry I muted while Kurt was on uh just to sum sum up housing and Human Services I really want to say that Kurt and his team did a fabulous job on really caring about the the most needs in our community and cutting at the edges so that we could continue to support those programs and those people that are most in need in the city of Boulder so now I'm going to talk briefly about the flat irons facility project this is not an operating project

[152:01] actually it's a project um it is the result of city council direction that we received in 2014 when staff spoke to uh city council about future options to address the flat irons Event Center that building was well pasted its uh useful life when it was destroyed in the flood of 2013 and so we had proceeded with the Demolition of the facility and um council did say uh and also prab that it was an approved capital investment for the future our strategy here is this the project we think will meet a number of our sustainability goals it's going to provide restrooms that are energy efficient are proposing a restaurant space that's designed to serve families and the nearby Neighbors in houst Boulder

[153:00] and more restaurants and more familyfriendly locations obviously we have a picture here of the outdoor la which has great news that will encourage many activities here the project is fiscally responsible because it assures that Golf Course operations will be self- sustaining and in fact we hope they will be able to contribute further to our Recreation activity fund and support other projects and other um items that we do through the Parks and Recreation it's also environmentally responsible because it will meet and exceed the strict strict energy code requirements that we have and one fun fact about the former building is that that former building had energy bills in excess of six times that of a normal building and so we're going to rebuild it in a very environmentally safe manner um to really reduce our energy usage and finally we think it's socially responsible because we think that it can

[154:01] f fulfill its use as a municipal golf course a golf course that's accessible and open to people um from all walks of life in our city and from all um abilities we are going to be providing youth programs here Etc so it's a self- sustaining facility and it's something that is very much needed it also is funded primarily by the parks Improvement fund which is completely money that's dedicated to Capital Improvements for parks and so those funds could not be reprioritized elsewhere so next Slide the next slide one is about the Arts grants so you can see in the slide that at the top of the slide the very first bullet point indicates what our total 2021 budget is for our arts program it is $1.24 million and it's 100% general fund

[155:01] of that amount three4 of a million dollars are dedicated for cultural grants this is a large amount of money it is less than what we had allocated in 2019 and 2020 and it is less because we have needed to cut the budget um in many different areas in the city and sadly Arts was again among those if you look at the trajectory of Arts funding in the city you'll see that in 2015 we had a pretty low budget uh for these kinds of Arts grants as a result of the cultural facilities plan that uh match chansy and our community and our Arts community in particular worked on we started to increase that budget and ultimately we have been able over time to increase it more and more um and so we were able to achieve Great Heights in the last two years as we move into the next year it's it's unfortunate that we've had to reduce it but this is one of the items

[156:01] that we needed to do to make the budget balanced this year and I guess I'm going to advocate for the fact that three4 of a million dollars in cultural grants is quite a significant amount of money to be sending into the community to support our cultural organizations and artists in our community next item next slide is the library service plan so um the library Services have been reduced in this last year and of course it's because of our Public Health guidelines that Jeff Zak talked about earlier we are limited in the number of people that can gather indoors and as a result of that we have had to limit the services that we have available um the main library is currently open to limited in-person Patron services and and just speaking with David today we're getting quite a bit of usage out of the library The Meadows Library is one of our branches that Branch serves the people in our

[157:02] community that are the most underserved in other areas and a large senior population as well and so that's the reason that we focused on that particular Library as the branch that would remain open for limited services so um it's open for material returns and for uh byy appointment holds and carryouts our youth services programs and Boulder reads are provided online and we're having excellent participation with our online community in that and we have material home delivery that is also offered currently Reynolds library and North Boulder Corner Library are closed um they actually serve a fewer number than main library and and Meadows and so in order to make the highest use of the dollars that we have we focused on those other two libraries uh in the future if Public Health restrictions are lifted we intend

[158:00] first to move to the main library and restore a number of the services that we've had to take online there um we'll be restoring some Youth Services in particular um programs and events and Boulder re then the branch libraries being North Boulder and George Reynolds would remain closed through 2021 but we're very hopeful that revenues will return and they will be available to be open in 2022 um the Carnegie will be open for email service if we are able to restore a bit of funding and by appointment at 50% of previous service level so that is our plan for 2021 next item next slide okay so we're presenting you tonight with two options and of course you can make changes in any of those but here are what the options are the first option would be a general fund appropriation of 146 million and we would hold the $950,000

[159:01] that we had set aside for emergency reserves and we would put that into emergency reserves meaning that at the end of the day our budget would show an emergency reserves of a little over 177% in as you move into 2021 if the revenues start to increase and you feel that those monies could be spent you would be able to do a supplemental appropriation which means staff would come to council and we would make proposals about the ways in which extra dollars could be spent and you would approve those based on Council and Community needs the second option provides a little bit more flexibility to the city council what this would do is it would take that $950,000 that we otherwise put would have put into emergency reserves and it would put that into either the city manager contingency or some other line item that could be uh

[160:00] reviewed by the city counil and the proposal would be is that that money would be flexible money in case emergencies came up particularly related to covid since we don't know what is going to be happening in the winter months that would allow you to quickly say to the city manager at the time hey we realized that you need more PPE or you need um testing money or you need some sort of money related to covid or other things and we would like you to spend that money and you would not need to like separately appropriate it that would leave um the general fund emergency Reserves at around 16.6% give or take so either of those options is open to you certainly tonight based on the public testimony that you're going to receive you could make other decisions with regard to the $950,000 um if you are going to want to spend a portion of that in the 2021

[161:00] budget and you want to tell us about it tonight we we then recommend that you go with option two so that we don't have to have a third reading of the budget if by putting it in option two the money would be available and then we can later make sure that it moves into the correct budget place so if we have more questions about that we can talk about it after the public hearing so next slide and finally we have second reading of the budget on October 20th and again we'll have another public hearing that night in case there are other folks in the community that want to make presentations and I believe that we're on to questions and then the public hearing thank you Jane and thank you team um so as is our practice for public hearings um let's um focus on questions for staff now there may be some opinions that folks have and maybe some adjustments to the budget but let's save those until after the public hearing but

[162:01] uh feel free to ask any questions you have now and we'll have an opportunity to ask questions also after the public hearing so raise your hand if you got a question before we go to the public I see Aaron and then Mark and then Rachel up all right thanks Jane and everyone for for that um excellent as always presentation Jane question for you in terms of the two options that you presented um if we went for option two then the reserve level would be was it 16.6% um something close to that if we went that route that would still be a higher level than the reserves are at today is that correct or because we would still be planning on adding some additional money to the reserves yes um yeah yes it would what I believe to be true is that our projections for revenues next year allowed us to move from around 15% where we are this year up to the

[163:00] 16.6 okay thanks for that and then um question on the uh Parks uh Capital Improvement budget so just um following on to your presentation about the the facility at the flat irons golf course so you know the those the funds a lot of the funds that it's uh tapping are restricted funds but they're they're restricted funds for the use of Park Capital Improvements correct right so that we could also use that funding for other Capital Improvements and and for other Parks uses would that be true well the answer is that that is true however we could not actually spend the money in 2021 because we would we do not have other project projects that are designed to be constructed in that year understood although I believe what I've heard is that from our if I remember from our packet that there is additional Outreach and design necessary to be done for the flat irons project as well if I recall they're looking at

[164:00] maybe starting construction about at the end of 2021 right okay thanks oh that's it for now thanks thank Mark Rachel and then Mary Mark hi U thanks Jane for that presentation I just have a couple of questions at least at the moment you were kind enough to provide a table detailing uh Consulting fees that the city incurs um and it showed uh a grand total of 10.3 million dollar in Consulting fees um how does that compare um to 2020 have we made any reductions in our use of outside Consultants I don't know the answer to that and I would ask Cheryl or Cara to weigh in on that okay well let me before they weigh in let me do a follow-up question to that the largest single category of those Consulting fees is

[165:00] miscellaneous and we have about $4.8 million in miscellaneous Consultants which seems like quite a lot um Can can we get before the second hearing some detail as to what um what that is sure and and again I'd like also to see a comparison to 2020 to see if there's any room for um reduction there and my second question um for the moment actually I have three questions and the second one is um I need some help looking at uh the city manager's message I saw that the budget for Fleet um and Facilities was approximately 26 milli million dollar and was going to be reduced only by 0.9% which seemed rather modest but then if you go into the budget itself on page 99 it shows that um uh Fleet and Facilities budget in uh 2020 was in fact

[166:03] what is represented but that for 2021 it looks like a major decrease um and I'm trying to reconcile what I'm seeing in the text of the budget itself with what I'm seeing here in the uh in the summary it looks like there's actually quite a substantial reduction in facilities and Fleet budget thanks yeah Ken be is here and Ken is our um accountant and financial Guru that works with Fleet and facilities and so I'm gonna ask Ken if you can help explain that thanks Jane and we might be able to get you more details on the reduction but I think primarily the red production in the facility's budget will be due to onetime nature of capital expenses so when you're looking on at that I think in the capital category there was more in 2020 relative to uh

[167:02] 2021 but we can get more of the details on that to you before the second reading yeah I just want to understand what in fact is is the reduction it looks like it's much more substantial than is shown in the uh summary sheet of the city manager's message and my last question is one of the communications we've received um uh has been from um uh the boulder Area Rental Housing Association and their concern is that with the the likely probable passage of the no evictions without representation um uh ordinance um and and the increase in um rental fees rental licensing fees they they have come back and proposed um spreading that um increase in the licensing fees over two years and my question is really um a

[168:02] does that make any sense and B what impact would it have on the budget if we did so and that can also be done uh for the second uh public uh he in actually I think that Charles pharoh is here and he can explain that to you okay thanks for the question uh Mark so um you know we found it most Equitable to implement the increase in the fee all at once in 2020 but um if we did break it out into a graduated approach as it was suggested by bahra um it leaves us about $110,000 uh general fund transfer shortfall that will need to reconcile so it's it's certainly possible for us to do from an administrative perspective but we would need to accommodate for that shortfall in this budget cycle from the general fund and I just want to remind everyone that I

[169:01] believe Charles correct me if I'm wrong that the landlord fee is not paid every year by the landlords it's paid every four years so the increase is not going to hit every particular landlord this coming year it will hit when they renew their license understood I just wanted to see what the flexibility might be on that and what the impact would be okay that's and I had a quick followup if I if I may um on the the fees the rental fees it's um if you hav a a multifam unit that's just that's one rental unit it's not done by the number of units within the multif family unit is that correct do I correct it's done it's done by the building and not the number of units okay oh so if you have a 10 unit building it's $190 for four years that's

[170:02] correct I got it all right thank you Mark you have a question about Consulting fees I don't know if Cara was able to answer that now no I thought that was going to come back J you answer the question okay hear what you said but I think we're going to bring that back for second reading and that's that's fine with me great we have Rachel then Mary thanks uh Bob and thanks for the presentation I just had a question on HHS um homelessness program 7% reduction it says 100,000 from consolidating Services is that um Kurt all from shutting down the 30th Street location for severe weather shelter um yes a big part of that is um uh at at 30th at 30th Street we were

[171:00] paying rents for the facility for 12 months out of the year plus we were paying for staff to work 247 um so moving it to the other facility it's basic it's a very it's a small increase in the number of Staff got it um but there was still a net reduction of somewhere around 100 beds I understand we we added some um permanent housing um for some individuals but there was a net reduction with that $100,000 savings right for the number of beds available in shelter specifically severe weather shelter so there yeah there was a reduction however some of that um some of that reduction was shifted into hotel rooms and some of it was shifted into um additional supports for for housing okay I guess it still seemed like a pretty significant reduction

[172:00] though in the number of of beds that were available in a severe weather night even with the hotels added in yeah so it's it it went from like uh roughly 27 to about 195 on the coldest nights and 175 on the other nights okay um appreciate that so I guess I'm like the $100,000 Savings of of eliminating that consolidating that didn't somehow translate to more um beds or services available it's it's a net reduction of 100,000 and kind of a net reduction for severe weather shelter of about 90 to 100 beds or 90 beds in the worst night is that true um yeah so that's the the net reduction but again we had um we we use some of those savings to increase our investments in getting people housed okay thank you

[173:00] yep great uh Mary theetta I just have one question um and that is for Kurt um on the the substance education awareness fund um you said that there would be no reduction and so I'm wondering if that's because of where the money comes from and it's just it's dedicated to that particular purpose um that's correct um however we are expecting uh somewhat of a reduction in the revenue there however the difference has been um over the last um couple of years some of the programs under that fund have taken a while to ramp up and um so they've now gotten to the point where they're where they're ramped up and um so while there had been

[174:01] some under spending in um previous years um um that that the the spending that we're at currently will remain um and there was carryover funds in previous years there won't be carryover funds um going forward um but the the the main point is that that that um revenue is not um it cannot be spent on other things yeah that it has boundaries of what it can be spent on that's correct okay thank you thanks Mary um the only other person that's got their hand up right now for questions in this stage is Adam so we have no other questions after Adam we'll move on to the public hearing thank you Bob I have two questions one followup to one of Mary's questions and that is uh regarding the uh the rental licensing fee uh this was

[175:00] a new piece of information to me but it's my understanding that a um housing unit like the pelaton per se they have maybe a 100 rental units maybe more they pay one rental licensing fee every four years that's correct if they're um units that are jointly owned then yeah it' be one rental license and did we look at the equitability of that when we were originally making that decision um yeah I think that that decision uh goes back somewhere into the 90s so um I'm not exactly sure what the policy rationale was at the time but other than um I think it was important that rental license fees not be a barrier to people getting them they're important because we want to make sure that people are getting their safety inspections we want to make sure that we're verifying zoning so that's

[176:00] really the function um of the review itself sure it just seems a bit odd to me and we can talk about this morning comments um that someone who rents out one unit has the same burden as someone who rents out hundreds of units potentially so um my second question is just a process question uh I just want to know a little bit more about how the budget comes about and this is probably for Jane uh does each department head sort of Lobby for their needs is there what what does that process kind of look like I'm just interested in you know how you ultimately get to the cuts in one uh versus another sure um the budget actually starts um early in the spring and we do some projections about what we think our revenues are going to be for the coming year and then we provide guidance to each one of the Departments and the Departments almost all of them have a leason to the budget department

[177:02] or an internal Financial person and so they work together to think about what their work plan will be for the next year uh what increases they might need in a normal year but of course the was not a normal year and what our projections were showing is that we were going to have to be reducing staff um finding ways to cut the budget and so we provided guidance to them at first of cutting the budget I believe 10% and so folks provided proposed budgets that showed those cuts um and we asked them to show more than the 10% that we asked for because we knew that we weren't going to be able to take all the cuts um from all the different departments so we have a an executive budget team that meets one by one with the Departments and they talk about what their proposed budget is about they talk about how it meets Equity needs and they talk about how it meets sustainability goals that

[178:02] we have um and and as after each one presents at the end of that the executive budget team talks about which are the budget reductions or increases that we think we can take or that we should take based on where the community is going and what the needs are in this particular year um the budget cuts that were presented in the first round were not sufficient to balance the budget and as a result we went back to the Departments and asked them to present a second round of cuts that we again went through they didn't have budget hearings at that point but we went through their reductions and took took additional um reductions to the budget to come up with the budget that we have in a more normal year indeed departments do ask for extra um staff members they might ask for extra money for a particular project and we try to base that again on our

[179:01] sustainability Matrix that we have on Equity concerns and on what we see as the most important um I don't want to say projects but initiatives that the council and the community have in front of them so that's how it goes cool and one brief followup to that um so we we essentially make the budget and dictate what the staff workload would probably be prior to the retreat by by a few months um I'm just wondering is that the best way to go about it like it just since that's the way it's always been done it seems like if Council on to take a radical shift in what departments they needed to focus on we sort of lose that opportunity by a year by having the budget discussion well before the council Retreat So Adam you are correct about that and we've talked many times about it how what is the right way to do it the thing is that we are kind of bound

[180:01] by state law that we have to finalize our budget before December 1st of each year um and we have traditionally held the council retreat in January because that followed the November election in the odd years when a new Council would start and and so the timing of the election and the legal requirements of the budget make it more difficult I would say for us to um to sync those in a way where you could have the The Retreat first and then the budget second um and also preparing the budget is not something that can occur like the month after the retreat preparing the budget does take a minimum of six months for us to work through um because there's so much involved in it um so yeah the the timing is difficult and it might be something that the financial strategy committee wants to think about in the future thanks for that Jane uh that

[181:02] makes a whole lot of sense but maybe we should think on it in the future appreciate that you're welcome thanks Adam Mary you got your hand up got a question yeah um Jane's response to Adam's question um kind of prompted me um to just ask um in particular the process for making the recommendation of that 7 basically about three4 of a million dollars in the Arts grants how did that um how did that number end up where it's at we we were having a hard time making decisions about cutting the Arts and honestly nobody wants to cut the Arts and nobody wants to cut human services so it was actually I would In My Memory one of the last things that we made a decision on and what we were seeing is

[182:02] that because Human Services was I mean its grants cut up to 17% we felt that it was fair to have the Arts budget cut that similar amount and when we figured out what it would be it's three4 of a million dollars which is a lot of money and only takes us back to 2018 which isn't that long ago and was much more than we have been devoting to the Arts in the past and we therefore felt that it was a fair thing to do I see Matt's on on the line and wondering if he has anything to add thank you Jane you're welcome Matt you want to say anything U no nothing to add we did have conversations with the Arts commission about it over the course of several months and um and what what were the thoughts of the Arts Commission in terms of how to um allocate those funds

[183:01] that are proposed well staff brought back uh the city manager's recommended budget and um we did divide up the different programs within the office of arts and culture trying to minimize uh the impact on the grants and then bring a number to the Arts commission uh which then um starts the discussion on how those grants get divided that conversation is not complete we presented a few options uh but at their October meeting October 21st is when we will ask for final decisions on that all right and um the the money that has been allocated that's that roughly 3/4 of a million that covers all of the operating um grants correct yeah conceivably that's about the amount that we spent on just the general operating support category in 2020 okay thank you Matt y okay I don't see hands up so let's move on to the public hearing we have uh

[184:02] 30 people signed up for the public hearing so under our rules um each speaker will be limited to two minutes um I would remind folks that we do have rules of decorum we well we want to hear from everybody and we express we appreciate expressions of diversity of opinion we also ask that everyone be respectful of other speakers and of our city staff and with that we will start with Mark Phillips followed by Adriana Luen Luellen I'm sorry and Daniel Katz Mark you're up thank you B we do have a number of folks who have since decided to pool uh and so in our first slot we do have Melissa fathman up who is speaking for minutes uh who is pooling time with Mark Phillips and Elizabeth Francis both of whom are here so I will go ahead and unmute Melissa okay thank you so Melissa you'll have four minutes do I I was on your question I

[185:02] had five minutes but no our our rule is is uh three three for four Melissa three for four M Mela sorry oh dear I'm gonna have to cut something okay well thank you all for allowing me to share my perspective um I'm the executive director of the dairy Arts Center and I want to begin by um expressing our appreciation to the city council for increasing Support over the years uh you've helped us become the fifth most Arts vibrant city in the country midsize City and that is a feat to behold I also want to acknowledge the difficulty you face in constructing the budget I personally understand this because I'm facing the very same CR crisis with regard to loss of Revenue which brings me here today the dairy is currently experiencing an 85% reduction in earned Revenue due to covid and if the pandemic continues and theaters remain closed in March we're talking about well over a million dollars of lost earned revenue and of course the longer it goes on the more that is lost

[186:02] and despite the overwhelming wonderful generosity from the caring community and Foundations the overall loss Still Remains staggering so in order to make up for such severe losses I've had to make extensive cuts to the dair's budget and because we must continue to pay for insurance and upkeep and utilities which include if I'm correct in reading the proposed budget includes an 8% increase in water rates 5% increase in Wastewater and a 12% increase in storm water rates which I have to say is unfortunate timing for us during this historically challenging year but we have no choice in cutting most facility expenses and so the biggest budget cuts have unfortunately come from payroll to date I have had to indefinitely Furlow 27 people many of them will not return and it will be very difficult to replace them in addition of all the small businesses that have been impacted by the pandemic the organizations that rely on theaters for their operations either

[187:01] as a venue a presenter or performer will likely be the last ones to go back to business as usual so there's an overwhelming concern among many of us about how long we can hang on with an election cycle and shifting personal fin finances we've already seen many of our donors tapped out in the spirit of Boulder's future and the potential to remain an Arts vibrant City in the years ahead I urge you to consider making cuts to the Arts a little less severe than the proposed 177% and closer in alignment to the overall budget reduction and I do understand the process of comparing funding to the Arts year-over-year but I have to say this year does not compare in any way to years past every little bit counts for us even an additional $100,000 can mean the difference between several organizations staying afloat or permanently closing down in preco times our over 300,000 people would visit the

[188:01] dairy every year and many of them asked us us today when are you going to open we miss you we miss the Arts we hear them and we're doing our best in our greatly diminished state to continue to provide ongoing Arts experience with our online content drive-in movies concerts on our loading deck Dock and impactful murals and we will continue to do what we can but without the many vibrant eclectic and diverse artists and arts organizations that exhibit and perform within our walls the dairy and the Boulder Community stands to lose far more than what is saved with a 177% cut thank you so much for your time thank you Melissa uh just Ryan just to clarify that was uh pooling with Mark Phillips and was Elizabeth Francis that's correct okay I'll try to keep track here um do we have any pooling among Adriana Luellen Daniel Catz or Claudia

[189:02] hubik uh we do um I want to mention that Kathleen was planning to pool with a few folks but those folks are are not here is not here um so we will move to uh Daniel Katz Daniel Catz you're up the proposed budget includes $37 million for the police department do you know what police actually spend their time doing what do we get in return for that $37 million I'll tell you we get cops who threaten my friend for trying to hand somebody a croissant we get evictions of unhoused neighbors that serve no purpose other than sadistic and entertainment for bigoted homeowners who lack basic empathy we get citations for housed friends who try to feed people in a park in return for $37 million we get a gang of armed thugs that terrorizes our community data collected by the New York Times shows that cops spend just 4% of

[190:00] their time investigating violent crime this does not justify a bloated budget for a militarized police force while our friends literally freeze to death on the streets of Boulder what good could we do with $37 million during the recent cold snap and Boulder many of my friends and I tried to find and distribute emergency supplies and shelter for those who needed it the work we did wasn't enough and a man died I still wonder if there's anything I could have done differently to prevent that if I had just spent a little more time or bought a few more sleeping bags maybe I could have done something how many of you have wondered the same how many more people are going to die this winter while youve reduced severe weather Sheltering capacity you have the power and the resources to fix this and you don't give a fund housing and services defund the pigs I yield my time and your rules of decorum Claudia hubak Deborah molden and Ryan Harwood Claudia you're up thank you

[191:01] Claudia has has also pulled uh with Amy Britain and the speaker will be Amanda Berg Wilson okay well we we'll get to that then when we get to Amanda uh so let's try to keep things in more or less in order so we'll remember that Claudia is skipping and we'll you'll let me know when her her pooling partner is up so next is Deborah Malden all right hi DEA Malden here Arts liazon at the boulder chamber board member of create Boulder in the scfd I know you have difficult decisions to make and I'm here this evening to urge you to preserve funding for the arts and culture grants at least to levels that are equivalent to what other City departments are retaining in the 2021 budget wearing my chamber hat we recognize the critical role that the Arts play as a contributor to our economy through the $70 million of economic activity that Arts

[192:00] organizations generate directly and by attracting patrons to restaurants bars hotels and our retail businesses as important Decades of research have shown that the economic health of a community and the quality of its social bonds are strongly linked the Arts uniquely offer opportunities for people to come together in the creation and celebration of culture helping to build social capital this capacity of people to act together on matters of common interest also contributes to the health and well-being of individuals and neighborhoods the importance of building Social Capital as a step toward recovery was an underpinning of the community cultural plan as you know this master plan was developed in 2015 when the city was still recovering and recovering unevenly from the Great Recession and the devastating impact of the 2013 th floods the need to reimagine a more just

[193:01] society and rebuild a stronger Boulder has never been more acute than it is today this is the time to invest in Boulders cultural resources and to recommit to the cultural plan a Cornerstone of which was the steady stable funding of the arts and culture grants program thank you for your time and hard work for our community thank you Deborah Ryan Harwood Tila duen and Misha tour ran hello Council the allocation of funding in this budget around homelessness socks shelter beds for homeless folks are set to be cut by 50% while the boulder police homeless outage team budget is up over $100,000 why is that if the point of the hot team is to connect people with Services why are we cutting those services and then giving that money to the cops that are supposed to connect them to those Services doesn't make any sense is the additional homeless

[194:00] Outreach funding to deal with all the additional people that will be on the streets with a reduced capacity shelter five miles from downtown during an eviction crisis you're really going to cut the shelter's Beds By % at the beginning of an eviction crisis it's already started last man last month a man froze a death in that freak snow storm Daniel just talked about that three years ago Benji Harvey froze to death after being kicked out of the boulder shelter for the homeless how many more frozen bodies do y'all need to see to understand that accessible shelter is important in L full housing y'all need to fix this budget the homeless people are getting organized and aren't putting up with this austerity anymore occupy Boulder was just the start there are a lot more of them than there are of you and their numbers are growing with each eviction you failed to prevent and each shelter bed that you defund thank you uh we have Tila duim he should tour and Amy

[195:01] Britain good evening Council T happy birthday Jane uh as you know I'm the uh chair of the bulldo transportation Advisory Board I am here tonight just for myself uh City budget does not generally come before tab but of course my perspective is informed by my work on Tab and I've certainly learned a lot um with tab's involvement in the CIP process and through that process this last year there were some ongoing concerns and priorities that really kept rising to the top uh not just this year but it really came to the four this year was We were um grappling with realities of budget shortfalls and and resource shortfalls in light of covid and so we have known for a long time that the transportation funding sources have been inadequate to um to really uh wrap our arms around our goals as a community that we um articulated in TMP that made even worse now but I would just like to

[196:01] point out that the precipitous drop in the funding that we see out of sales tax revenue for transportation initiatives and just transportation funding and maintenance does not reflect a drop in the necessity for these facilities and to maintain them staff has wisely focused on safety and vision zero initiatives as well as maintaining things and I think that the safety and vision zero uh focus is appropriate but there the focus on the maintenance which sounds prudent has the inadvertent effect of reinforcing a lot of past um mistakes and prioritizations that we don't necessarily agree with at at the moment um in particular I am alarmed by the line item that indicates a vague and worrisome drop in transportation demand management funding I would like to really understand a little bit more about what's behind that because I think that's all the more important now as we are trying to reframe how we use our streets postco and re envision our

[197:01] streets as something other than places to move single OCC vehicles around thank you TAA M shaur Amy Brittain and then Shelley Ben Misha thank you Bob Misha is not present uh Amy Brittain is seeding her time to Amanda Berg Wilson Shelly is not present Devin is not present and we move to Jeff Martinez Jeff Martinez you're [Music] up all right thanks can you hear me yes okay good evening members of council my name is Jeff Martinez I'm president of boulders Association of firefighters I'm speaking on behalf of all my brothers and sisters who have been continuously working the front lines throughout this Nationwide pandemic we're experiencing today during good times we know the dangers and Hazards of our job in today's world the hazards of our profession have increased tremendously

[198:02] my members have selflessly dedicated their lives and those of their families to make sure the citizens of Boulder are never left wondering who will respond when they dial 911 this Nationwide pandemic has changed our jobs and lives forever from the way we respond to the personal protective equipment we need on scene today I'm here tonight to ask you all during these troubled times to stand behind your firefighters and this community by not allowing our Frontline engines to be shut down with budget cuts or by depleting Frontline Personnel jeopardizing not only the taxpayers of this great City but the firefighters who have dedicated their lives to protecting you all we local 900 endorse the long-term Vision along with the master plan that was approved by Council earlier this year we fully stand behind ALS capable transport units and the proposed master plan so long as they are properly staffed without lowering today's current Staffing levels or shutting down current

[199:01] Frontline engines to accomplish the vision as set forth as you know my members have accepted no pay raise for 2021 bearing the burden during this financial crisis we all experiencing our hope is that their financial sacrifice will allow our department to function at a proper Staffing levels as stated in our local bargaining agreement so please tonight when you make your decision on the future budget I ask that you think of the lives of not only the citizens but the lives of my brothers and sisters on the front line Thank you thank you Jeff uh next up is Riley manuso ly seagull and Jan Burton Riley hello um so I I want to Echo what some other people have said I think that it this is exactly the wrong time to cut Library spending at all um I think that city manager Brans justifications ring

[200:00] Hollow and false because um the fact that we've shut down several libraries and are having to reduce services and in-person services and adopt creative new Solutions is precisely why libraries need more support now more than ever so that Librarians who are some of the most hardworking selfless people in the entire world and libraries which are a almost Universal public good can adapt to these Changing Times and continue to meet the needs of the community um and I also think that um you know the fact that police Remain the largest uh the largest expenditure in the general fund and have seen an increase in percentage of the budget this year under Bran's proposed budget uh shows that city council has learned nothing from the 100 plus days of protests this year in response to the police brutality uh sparked uh by the awareness brought by

[201:01] The Death of George Floyd but also the awareness that this is a problem in every city in America that so many cities uh spend more on police than they do on everything else and it's a equivalent to in the federal government trying to cut NPR spending which is like a fraction of a percent compared to the Pentagon which is you know billions and billions and this is echoed in in cities and states across the country where we spend the majority the the largest percentage of our money on militarized occupying forces uh and I think Boulder has a chance to actually be a progressive City here uh but probably won't because apparently you listen to people like safer Boulder instead of you know um the most vulner vulnerable members of your community thank you thank you Riley ly seagull Jan Burton Beck spoon yeah um I a lot of folks that have been on tonight Daniel Riley Misha I wish she was on again

[202:03] Ryan um Tila um you know in general I found that the city pretty much is inefficient in their use of funds um for example there's something called the 42 inch Interceptor which is our sewer system and which is in 204 determined that it has severe issues and problems um and that we could have have a catastrophic disaster with our sewer system throughout the city um and including the sewage treatment plant and yet the city of Boulder is considering spending $40 million to fill a gravel pit so that Colorado University can build another campus the size of

[203:01] downtown Boulder in in South Boulder um and I see constantly three story buildings approved as if they're by right when two stories are by right um the city spent probably $5,000 um on me because I went to a program at the West Senior Center and took off my coat and put on hand lotion and walked through the center of the circle to sit down and somehow this was inappropriate behavior um and probably 5,000 bucks I had to fight a um a suspension from the West Senior Center for one month um I just don't see where you're spending money really efficiently

[204:01] heard situation we have next up Jan Burton Beck spoon and Paul colan Jan good evening Council Jan Burton I was proud to be part of the 2015 Council Along With Sam Mary Erin and Bob when we approved the city's first Community cultural plan Council city arts staff and the Arts commission have been building the support for arts and culture and the underlying people who we call artists musicians muralists dancers and performers ever since we have made great progress but 2020 is like a year like none other for these organizations and these people recommended cuts of 177% in our in our Arts budget will have devastating impacts on real people and real organizations as you heard from Melissa at a time when we should be helping aiding and amplifying tonight I represent create Boulder a nonprofit

[205:01] which is proposing that Council increase funding for the art and culture grants if if Council will add 100,000 back to the Grant's C budget create Boulder will then fund raise and contribute an additional 50,000 thereby ensuring that the 2021 grants budget remains at 2020 levels we believe this is critical given the Staggering losses in the art sector at a time when our community needs the Arts more than ever to put this in perspective we're asking your support for $100,000 point2 per of the 341 uh $341 million budget the overall Arts budget is 1.2 million in contrast other beloved recreational budgets like parks and W is 29.5 million including a $6 million Golf Course upgrade you've heard from many Boulder residents in the last few weeks giving you heartfelt messages of what the Arts mean to them

[206:00] in their lives Council should provide leadership needed to change the budget tonight in a small but meaningful way for the health of our community than thank you for your time and efforts thank you Jan beex spoon Paul colen and if I understand it correctly we go to then to Kathleen McCormack corre thank you beex beex spoon um I appreciate all the folks who've collaborated on Boulder's budget and in year with a lot of financial volatility I know City staff who were furloughed earlier this year and I re want to recognize how hard it is to put together a document that makes those types of tradeoffs um as a boulder resident My Wish for our limited budget is to invest in affirming Community programs and not punitive ones I have a lot to say about that idea but I'm going to focus on one particular line item under the police budget the homeless Outreach team and if you've ever I don't know if any of you have ever seen Boulder

[207:01] police's homeless Outreach team in action downtown I have and I wouldn't categorize it as Outreach it's precisely precisely policing and policing is a social relationship made up of practi practices empowered by the state to enforce the law and social control through Force it's a punitive system let's not pretend police are stabilizing or nourishing to folks experiencing homelessness that's not what happens during those interactions downtown and if you're thinking but we need a department that works closely with the municipal court I'm going to challenge you to be more imaginative than that remove money from the police department's homeless Outreach team and invest in resources that actually meet our underresourced Comm Community member needs there are plenty of opportunities in this budget where $99,450 will actually impact this issue for example we could restore $100,000 to severe weather shelter beds or I'd hand

[208:00] it all over to the firefight fighters who are always there for the entire Community end of comment thank you beex Paul colen Kathleen McCormick and Mark vial before I bring up Paul we do have two folks who have rejoined us who are not present for their time so I recommend we move them to to the end of our list here uh adri Wellen and Devon Patrick Hughes okay remind me when we get to the end um go Paul Kathleen and Mark good evening again council members my name is Paul colan I live in South Boulder the city budget is not affected by the presence or absence of a franchise agreement proposed in ballot issue 2C did not even rate any discussion in the budget presentation the idea that 2C will help the city's financial situation is just not true the proposed fan franchise fee the 3% sales tax and

[209:00] energy sales that all residents will pay Exel will collect City will receive is exactly equal to the utility occupation tax that replaced the franchise fee back in 201 12 the utility occupation tax that we residents currently pay and Excel currently collects and the city currently receives the lack of financial analysis of the proposed Excel partnership agreement and determining how it will financially affect the cities and its residents that lack of analysis is just stunning that should have been part of this presentation my own back of the envelope analysis shows that it would be prohibitively expensive to reach Boulder's climate goals under this partnership agreement whereas a locally owned nonprofit electric utility would substantially stimulate the local economy and could and thus would improve the city's financial position again please endorse no on 2C and please pass a resolution this evening urging that no vote on 2C I release the rest of my time to Jane's

[210:00] birthday celebration thank you Paul just a remind your folks we're going to focus on the budget on this hearing Kathleen McCormack Mark vial and Leah Brenan clack Kathleen and Kathleen is is pulling here with Allison and Kathy Beck okay uh Mark you're up then Leah it is I'm Excuse me it is Kath Kathleen's turn Okay Kathleen hi uh good evening I'm Kath McCormack chair of the boulder Arts commission many thanks to city council for all your past support especially to city manager Jane bragin I'm here to ask that you increase funding for arts and culture so we can continue the progress from making toward building a more diverse Equitable and inclusive City and a more creative culture that enriches life for all of us in balder the Arts the Leading Edge for the city in terms of diversity equity and inclusion drill

[211:02] down on our grants to Arts organizations and individuals and and who they in turn collaborate with and you'll find thousands of people in connections that serve the underserved in our community including lowincome folks black latinx indigenous and other people of color the lgbtq community children seniors people with physical or mental handicaps and those who are experiencing homeless all of these people plus the whole Community are served by the arts and culture everyone is welcome to participate in and benefit from City funded arts and culture opportunities Co has been devast daating for many arts groups but our Arts Community has been active engaging the community healing us feeding our souls while respecting CDC guidelines we saw this with the covid relief work projects in Creative neighborhoods funded by the office of arts and culture with create Boulders support artists pivoted to live

[212:00] performances and exhibits at parks and ball fields drive-in movies and virtual concerts dance classes and arts education public art has been critical we're hearing that many people uh we're hearing from many people who love the new murals on the library in underpasses and other places around town all of this is sparking people's imagination and giving them hope and inspiration as well as healthy diversion from the daily stresses of covid artists have demonstrated we have a key role to play in helping recover from the pandemic September meeting the boulder Arts commission wrestled with how we could cut our budget by 177% we understand we'll have to cut our budget but we question the fairness and wisdom of having arts and culture cut 177% while the total City budget is being cut by only 6% with the office of arts and culture we're doing our job to create triage scenarios but it's clear that any budget reduction will mean that people will lose jobs and some Arts

[213:00] organizations may not survive the year No Doubt you've heard this from many of our Arts organizations and artists in the community some of whom have lost half or most of their income one budget scenario focuses on supporting our 37 General operating support organizations which range range from large and extra- large groups to smaller groups these include chiaka the dairy ET toown Boulder International Film Festival Boulder philarmonic B Colorado Music Festival Museum of Boulder modus theater Boulder ballet Boulder Opera block 1750 and the noble Arts District to name just a few among dozens many of them are are nationally recognized and draw thousands of people to Boulder another scenario focuses on supporting the go groups and also Grant categories that other artists and arts organizations rely on especially if they don't receive those Goos grants we need to support the jobs and activities that allow them to live and create here we're

[214:00] also focusing on grants that can be used effectively during an extended covid period we believe it's in the city's best interest to bring our budget cut in line with other departments we assure you we would use the additional funds effectively the city recently trusted the Arts commission and office of arts and culture to collaborate with create Boulder to leverage a combined $40,000 contribution to the Denver foundation and the Bonfield Stanton Foundation covid-19 arts and culture Relief Fund which produced $165,000 in Grants for eight Boulder Arts organizations a fourfold return on investment the Arts are not large POS social economic effect on the community we ask you to please Infuse more funds so much thanks Kathleen Ryan who C who did Kathleen pull with um Kathy beak and Allison Palmer got they are both present great got it just trying to keep track we have Mark vial and Leo Brennan brener

[215:00] Clark clack coming up Mark you're up hello can you hear me yep great um this is Mark villal I live in South Boulder I would like to thank Jane the city council and City staff for the fundamental changes in funding the Arts that have taken place during my tenure on the Arts commission and I sincerely appreciate the difficult task that staff and city council now face we are in uncharted waters and my heart goes out to everybody that has to make these difficult decisions um I just want to throw some numbers at you uh these numbers are from The Americans for the arts arts and economic Prosperity study number five and they're based on 2017 figures which is the most recent data um estimated spending by nonprofit arts and culture organizations is$ 35,5 14,000 this is Boulder County

[216:00] estimated spending by cultural a audiences 34,2 183,000 for a total of almost $70 million in spending in our community um the creative Industries in Boulder County um there's roughly 1,884 Arts related businesses that employ 7,372 [Music] individuals um I also want to reinforce Kathleen's point about the fact that the Arts organizations in our community were able to Pivot during this pandemic and several of them remained open that included Biff local theater Dairy Boulder Opera and others um one thing that's been of recent topic was can the Arts make up the suggested cut by receiving at least the same amount of funds currently being spent by the city for the leaf and Branch cleanup last time I checked City brochures and advertising wax poetic about the arts and culture organizations

[217:00] that make Boulder a vibrant and desirable community and no mention about leaf and Branch cleanup thank you for your work happy birthday Jane thank you Mark uh Leo brener clack followed by Mark gilb Leo hi my name is Leah brener clack and I'm the founder and executive director of StreetWise Arts I know it's difficult to make cuts to the city's budget in order to address all the shortfalls and the needs that we currently face but please consider the Arts grants in relation to the city's own budget vision and framework priorities including creating healthy and socially thriving cultural opportunities and an economically vital community that benefits from collaboration diversity and Innovation these all are things that the Arts Community is contributing to Boulder StreetWise Boulder just completed our second annual mural festival for social activism where 38

[218:00] artists painted across the city in 25 locations artist painted murals on black lives matters social justice diversity immigration housing climate crisis and more StreetWise Boulder not only provided free safe access to the Arts but we also paid artists $50,000 over $50,000 35 out of those 38 artists were from Colorado 22 of those artists were of color 17 of those artists were female identifying and at least four of those artists were lgbtq our website inex report that we had over 5,000 visits that week of the festival the self-guided tours brought patrons to local businesses along the tour routes and the community enjoyed safe access to arts and culture our education program has been on hold since a small bit um since the pandemic hit and we're trying to navigate the new funding sources in a world of shutdowns and low resources our story is just one out of so many dedicated Arts organizations that are working to amplify equity and social change in addition to creating tourism

[219:00] jobs for the Arts and connection to each other the grant program offers a small bit of stability and support for programming and operating expenses where other Revenue falls short for so many Artisan nonprofit organizations we received a grant finally after years of applying with because of so many competing organizations with such a small pool of grant money please consider uh thank you Leo uh Mark gilban and then uh Ryan did I see that kitty lemman and dropped uh that is correct marand do we go to Amanda BG Wilson then that is correct okay Mark your up and then Amanda Berg [Music] Wilson nothing perhaps shows the disconnect and the growing disconnect between purported Bolder values in reality than our budget and our budget priorities it's clear from our budget priorities that law and order are the

[220:03] most important thing in Boulder let's Dam the Arts people housing cultural events in his recent guest opinion racist classes counselor Mark wallet called efforts to defund and demilitarize the Boulder Police Department Draconian what is more Draconian racist Boulder policing data officer lolai chemical weapons military vehicles breaking a black protester's wheelchair after beating him rubber bullets in the face doing cleansing of homeless camps or community members who understand the cultural moment systemic racism and calling for substantive change maybe wallak needs the definition of draconian because his cruel ignorance extends to not knowing what the the word means rigorous unusually severe or cruel RX says it is cruel to demand

[221:03] positive change and this year's budget is nothing more than a farce that shows that what we care about are our trumpian Law and Order values get over it you Hypocrites do something worthwhile here we go wallak is more like Draco than the Athenian Statesman known for being an unself-aware cruel than even the most Ardent police abolitionists the cruelty carried over every day when we talk about homelessness where Boulder animal cruelty codes provides more protections for pets than the end unhoused who cares if over a 100 unhoused humans have died on Boulder streets thank you Mark Amanda Berg Wilson then Elizabeth

[222:00] Maguire Amanda is pulling with Claudia hubak and Amy Britain okay Elizabeth McGuire then John Smith [Music] Amanda you're able to talk you'll just need to go ahead oh okay I just am waiting for I believe I get four minutes I'm sorry I've lost track I've lost the plot is this Amanda speaking now this is but I believe I get four minutes hi Amanda who are you pulling with um I'm pulling with Claudia hubak and Amy Brittain okay great both of whom are present great Amanda you're up for four minutes thank you thank you so much Council for the opportunity to speak I'm Amanda Berg Wilson the artistic director of the catamounts a boulder based Theater Company dedicated to theater for The Adventurous pallet we are grateful recipients of General operating support from your agency the boulder Arts commission I want to speak to you tonight both as the leader of that organization but also more personally as

[223:00] one of your constituents as I think my experience as emblematic of many artists who live here I moved with my family almost 30 years ago as a teenager graduated from Boulder High go Panthers left in my 20s to pursue theater making opportunities in Chicago but after my daughter was born in close proximity to my father undergoing his second bout of cancer moved back to Boulder in my 30s to be closer to him and the rest of my family like so many artists who relocate here I left a th thriving career behind in another city but I was excited to bring the kind of boundary pushing theater I was making in Chicago back to Colorado and to do what I could to make art opportunities not only for myself but others and so founded the Catamount in 2011 like so many artists I've since firmly planted myself here as a homeowner a volunteer at my daughter's school and in many other community capacities all while continuing to grow a freelance career and the catamounts who are entering our 10th season I'm also an avid Arts consumer my daughter

[224:01] takes lessons at parlando and Boulder ballet my husband and I attend concerts at shiaka in eTown and I relish the night at many of the wonderful theater and dance companies here I started attending Boulder Arts commission meetings when I first moved back to town to see what the lay of the land was I can bear witness to the fact that as the commission has had a larger budget to spend honed its Grant making to have more impact increased its professional development opportunity for its artists and shifted a significant portion of its funding to operational grants the quality impact and reputation of the Arts in Boulder has grown exponentially the catamounts are emblem atic of this growth in almost 10 years we sell out entire runs of shows primarily to an audience of cultural tourists 70% of our audience attends our work from outside of Boulder we partner with local elementary schools to offer Hands-On curriculum integrated arts experiences to students for free and we are deeply committed to presenting which which

[225:00] features the true diversity of our community hiring artists 40% of whom are non-white I cannot say it enough a consistent and reli iable investment from the city has made all the difference to my ability to live as an artist and Boulder and to building a thriving cultural organization here and as an Arts consumer I have seen directly how increased investment has raised the profile of our town as an Arts destination keeping those cultural dollars here that used to be spent elsewhere so many artists I know and my fellow Boulder companies had full rosters for 2020 that changed dramatically with this pandemic but the catamounts haven't given up navigating This Moment by continuing to produce theater for our community in socially distant and virtual ways because emotional health is public health and the Arts are essential in preserving Public Health our audiences have let us know that this programming is the first time they F felt normal since the shutdown please ensure this not so long

[226:00] ago thriving industry comes out of this moment strong scfd has already cut operating funding by 30% this season an additional 17 % may be justified as not that much but please think about its timing and cumulative impact it will be devastating to an industry so many greatly impacted by this terrible pandemic and which will be one of the last to come back online I implore you not to allow such a deep cut to pass others have spoken well about the economic impact of the Arts but please also consider the lives of artists who live here and contribute so greatly as citizens who give back to Boulder tenfold what we ask you to invest thank you so much thank you Amanda uh Ryan I think we go to Elizabeth Maguire and then John Smith do I have that right uh that is correct but it doesn't look like John Smith is present okay Elizabeth Maguire then is it [Music] Jeremy correct okay

[227:06] Elizabeth good evening I'm Elizabeth Maguire the executive director of the Colorado music festival and Center for musical arts and a board member at the Boulder County Arts commission tonight I speak to you on behalf of the artists themselves who only require enough means to survive and the tools to support their craft typically they are not motivated by money and often find discussions about money or placing monetary value on their art difficult artists are brave and creative Souls who are willing to expose their own shortcomings and struggles because of the belief that what they do enlightens and elevates The Human Condition they thrive on giving voice to the voiceless expanding connections between cultures defying all that defies Humanity by constantly proving we are all fundamentally equal these values reflect all that Boulder stands for our society

[228:01] is vibrant in large part because it is infused with the work of these individuals and the organizations that promote them all they need in return turn is to be valued while I understand cuts across the board inevitable the 177% loss of budget is a massive blow to the artists their morale and organizational sustainability across the board it is a stinging indicator of what value is ascribed to arts in our community all artists have to cling to in these dark times is the belief that those of us in positions to make decisions have the foresight and strength to Envision a future with them in it without action we risk losing them to less expensive cities and to non-arts jobs please recognize the presence of these artists is critical to creating the future we all imagine beyond the covid-19 pandemic by increasing funding for the Arts and on a personal note I sincerely recognize the difficulty of

[229:00] your situation and I thank you all for your past support and your current service good night thank you Elizabeth uh Jeremy Capel Adriana Luellen and then Devin Patrick Hughes Jeremy but before we get to Jeremy we do have number 29 Melissa hathman um who is pooling time with Mark Phillips and Elizabeth Francis both of whom are here this evening I think Melissa's already spoken though um forgive me then we're on to Jeremy Jeremy Capel I think is next go ahead Jeremy I just got the unmute button sorry uh good evening everybody I'm the current president of the bmea the position was dropped in my laugh a few months ago because of the collateral damage from the pandemic uh so this is my first meeting with you guys and the first time speaking with any of you at all I hope we can change that in the future uh because I think communication between our leadership and yours

[230:01] is uh the best way to make our city great uh I want to take the time to acknowledge that I understand the pandemic has had a significant imp on the city I want you to think that bmea doesn't recognize that I'm just pointing out that there's a possibility of tweaking how we think about our response to it as far as how employees are treated uh by now I'm sure all of you have read the email I sent to each of you individually about the contract violations and the resulting grievance so I'm not going to repeat any of that information you will have it uh besides to say with this large of an economic question mark I hope we can all agree that it would be ill advised to vote Yes on a budget that doesn't reflect the agreed on contract between the city and its employees uh additionally I've also been asked by many members to mention the message that's been sent uh inadvertently I'm sure to the employees by laying people off and fllowing employees while simultan simultaneously hiring many new positions implementing unnecessary Citywide trainings and advertising large expensive Community

[231:00] projects uh this all looks good in the news and on resumes but uh things like that should probably be put on hold if it's going to be at the expense of employees livelihood especially with some of those jobs are Revenue producing uh please think about how things like Council Retreats looks on a budget to someone that can no longer provide for their family uh I know things are not that simple but please consider how this approach is seen by employees and how it makes them feel devalued in your eyes many of our uh other cities have put employees before large headline grabbing projects and future expansions they put employees first and I think we should do that also some of the positions on the budget are labeled as hold position V it when the position is actually currently filled and they're losing their job anyway thank you for your consideration all the hard work you do talk to you again soon okay thank you Jeremy Adrian Luellen and Devin Patrick Hughes thank you we no longer have Adriana present here I'll unmute

[232:00] Devin Devon I understand you had a practice earlier I hope it went well and uh you're the last speaker tonight I'm Devin Patrick Hughes very fortunate to be an Arts commissioner and conductor of the boulder Symphony thank you Council so much for all the amazing work you do for our community and and thank you Bob for your flexibility as you're right I was conducting a virtual Symphony rehearsal tonight I would like to share with you just a few of the things the symphony has done during these challenging times we're so grateful to have created new and safe opportunities for musicians and staff to continue to get paid we've created Partnerships to keep restaurants open with music we've raised money symphonically for amazing service organizations such as Community Food share and the NAACP legal defense fund we forged Partnerships with assisted living facilities to ensure their residents are not forgotten we've used the Ingenuity of our stakeholders to share to share Boulder to share music in

[233:01] Boulder and Beyond and to forge opportunities to keep our musicians working over the past few weeks you've probably heard many stories like mine one of the most extraordinary aspects of Boulder is the plethora of Arts organizations and artists that water our soul on a daily basis the Arts unify like nothing else in the world the Arts create Community dialogue and a vision for society that is years ahead where we currently stand the Arts not only Inspire us to be better as a society but also to bring home the bacon but also bring home the bacon for thousands of volder citizens when you consider budget allotments your choice to not decrease the Arts budget will send a message that Boulder values all that is sacred in The Human Condition and that covid won't stop us from caring for the soul and well-being of our people thank you so much for your evening your time and your consideration I really appreciate it thank you Devon and that ends our

[234:01] public hearing thank you for everybody who spoke tonight uh it was very helpful for us before we uh bring it back to council I wanted to Jane give you an opportunity in case you or any members of your team wanted to comment or respond to anything you heard in the public hearing so Bob there was so much that we heard in the public hearing I think it would be actually more efficient if council members ask questions that they want us to respond to that sounds great yeah so Council uh let's do this let's do questions first and then uh let's move on to opinions and statements do any follow-up questions council members have raise your hands please I see Rachel and then Mary Rachel you're up um a couple questions first um Tila from tab mentioned um I want to say

[235:01] Transportation demand management but I might really be butchering that those free words but just wanted to get some clarification on what that cut means or what that budget item I guess what that line item maybe being reduced if I understand her testimony correctly how that translates that's question one yeah and Erica vandenbrand is here uh she is the director of transportation and Mobility Erica thank you very much and I have to admit that you know the budget was put together before I came here I have Natalie Stiffler here to um address that but so much of it um was really you know focused on things that weren't happening already so not putting expenditures into Transit that wasn't occurring um things like that Natalie perhaps you can elaborate gonna see if they responded to any of the art stuff hi yes good evening thanks Erica and I think Erica has sum summarized it really the transportation demand

[236:01] management Cuts were focused on looking at reducing our contributions to um Boulder Transportation connections which is largely a um employer TDM focused uh organization and so that's where we made some Cuts thinking that there wouldn't be as much um need for TDM programs for some of the employers that we typically would engage with given that um a large percentage of employees will be teleworking for a good portion of 2021 that's helpful thank you so much um and then I think I just wanted to well two more I was confused by the or just wanted to know if there was anything clarifying that we wanted to talk through on the I think it's bmea the I think it's a collective bargaining agreement with the city

[237:00] staff towards the end there sure I can address that so as you all know we have three bargaining units um the Boulder Police Officers Association is one that we do have a collective bargaining agreement with that runs through the end of 2021 then the International Association of firefighters local 900 we had a contract with them that runs through the end of 2020 and we talked with them about potential changes that was voted down by the membership and therefore I wrote them a letter now I'm talking about the firefighters indicating that we would honor the basic terms of the contract in 2021 and renegotiate during that time but that the portion of the contract that relates to increases in Pay ends at

[238:01] the end of 2020 um the same situation occurred for bmea with the exception that bmea despite our requests to set up times to negotiate um refused to respond or didn't respond and then in June said that they chose not to negotiate this year as a result of that their contract ends at the end of 2020 as well um I again wrote to them and said despite the fact that your contract ends we will abide by the terms of of the contract the grievance procedures Etc but that again any increases that occurred in 2020 um have have already happened and we are not having increases in 2021 and we will renegotiate with that Union again in the early part of 2021 um for 2022 and of course in for

[239:01] all of the unions now their uh contracts will be expiring at the either 2020 2021 so we'll be doing a lot of Union negotiations next year and we're very hopeful that the sales tracks revenues that support our employees will um come in better and will be able to afford to have Merit increases for 2022 um thanks for clarifying so for BMA is bmea is that essentially all or is it a subsection of City staff I understand it's not police and it's not firefighters but that's correct increases is that most of staff it's Boulder Municipal Employees Association I believe there are around 400 members these are many of our Frontline workers so um people that are working on our streets maintenance operations our utilities maintenance operations our Parks operations um some of our uh Library workers are members of

[240:01] bmea so we've got they it's mostly Frontline type workers okay um thanks for clarifying that so just to so I understand the people who are not covered by um a CBA that work for the city putting the police asde um or I guess they do have a CBA they're also not getting Merit increases right like for the city manager as an example only the only employees getting increases in 2021 are the police officers who are members of the boulder Police Officers Association every other employee is getting 0% increase okay thanks for clarifying that um and then last I I I think Kurt might have had elaboration on my question on the um $100,000 uh reduction 7% for for his department or maybe for the bed so I wanted to invite him to to

[241:02] elaborate um thanks Rachel um since you asked that question I looked up some information to provide a more uh complete answer to that so the other way that I would state that is if we um were in a position where we could keep 30th Street open uh for um additional season through 2021 um that would be a cost of about $410,000 um on top of our um current budget um the reason for that difference is two things one is um if you'll remember remember um a few years back uh the 30th Street um property was um set up to be a temporary location for a severe weather shelter so we had we had planned even in the previous year um for sever weather shelter not to be continuing um this fall so severe weather shelter for um uh for 2020 is

[242:03] actually for a for just the the spring season it's not full year um so that's why it's a smaller that's one reason it's a smaller reduction and the other is the increase in um um some funds towards um Housing Solutions as I mentioned earlier thanks all right that's all my questions appreciate it great um it looks like we have two more sets of questions before we move on to comments uh Mary and then Aaron Mary um so Rachel asked the two questions that I had regarding TDM and um clarifications on BMA bmea and I just wanted to make a just a quick comment to Mr Capel that um if he thinks our Council Retreats are anything fancy he should attend one just to find out how little money is spent um and this year

[243:00] we probably won't even get food so um just saying um and then um with respect to um the Arts Cuts I just wanted to find out um the explanation for the drop in TDM amount was due to um um the expectations of um less need for travel demand management so I'm wondering if similarly there are um categories of Grants um like that in the arts and culture area so Matt shansky would know the answer to that more than I Matt yeah the Arts commission has been discussing um each of the grant categories this year and we've made some changes in um how the 2020 funds are being distributed they had the same sort of conversations about 2021 as well and so um that has been something that um

[244:03] both adjusts the way we deliver grants that we believe are going to be helpful during this time and um called put um other Grant categories on hold that we think will not be as useful so Matt what Grant categories um are the most um critical would you say um the general operating support it seems to be the consensus is the most useful and yeah go ahead um and we're similarly looking at Arts education and the individual project grants um those are grants that go directly to artists uh from my personal perspective this is about Workforce and trying to keep the Arts Community employed um but there are a lot of other considerations that have been brought up

[245:00] specific to the needs of the pandemic and um the the proposed um budget amount that covers all of the general operating when compared to 2020 is that one of the scenarios yeah one of the scenarios the Arts commission is looking at is um only funding the general operating support with the um the budget that uh is proposed and so the the amount of budget that three4 of a million dollars would fully fund General operating support but would not fund any of the other Grant categories in that in that scenario okay and you mentioned um Arts education and individual project grants what are the um Grant um totals for each of those categories um we haven't decided on anything yet so I can't say what might be assigned to each but I can tell you about the allocations in uh 2020 if

[246:01] that's helpful yes please um oh boy and I'm having to pull that up I apologize um so in the uh Community projects for individuals I believe we have $25,000 in 2020 and the uh Arts education grants $30,000 in 2020 and then um I will add that um we are recommending professional development scholarships also be something that gets funded because so many of people in the Arts community are looking for uh expanding their business practices and their training and um my what I believe to be true is that it's about $118,000 in 2020 in that category thank you Matt great we have questions from Aaron and then Adam so uh Rachel asked my question

[247:01] about the employee union but Jane if you can just maybe clarify um I think in in uh their letter to us I think there was a statement that in the absence of renewing the contract they were still guaranteed an increase in 2021 or something to that effect and could you just address that point please I guess I can address it um there there's no guarantee whatsoever that any employee is guaranteed an increase um either it's in their contract act and if they're under a collective bargaining agreement and for bmea and IA those collective bargaining agreements end on December 31st 2020 so there really is no contract for next year for those two collective bargaining associations and then for those that are

[248:00] management or non-union there's never a promise that there will be a salary increases so I don't know why they rely on that okay and and it is Jen you turned your camera on did you want to add anything to that or only if you needed me to add some clarification but I didn't have anything to add okay all right thanks that's it thanks Aram looks like the last question is from Adam and then we'll move on to discussion thanks Bob um I think mine is probably going to end up being for chief Herold uh I recall during the fire master plan discussion we talked about how CU utilizes fire and EMT services but doesn't actually pay into the system in any way I was wondering what sort of the if that's the same for BPD um because I assume that a lot of our calls for police are student related in one

[249:01] way or another and I know that cupd probably doesn't respond off campus so I'm just wondering if we know about what percentage of calls um result from student based activity and if CU also doesn't have any input there uh to the budget thanks Adam um so I can't give you specifically the percentage but I can tell you it's probably between 18 and 20% of our calls for service are to go to University Hill that General geographic area and I will also say since I've been here um CU um has helped with a overtime budget for um emergency response during covid and they have been great Partners they actually get in we have um joint response on some of the calls so we're both communicating correctly um and diligently on those calls for service so this is something

[250:02] that we could explore moving forward but since I've been here I think CU has been an excellent partner both their police department and their leadership team and it's something that we can explore moving forward so Adam do you mind if I also provide an answer to that um not at all please yeah there there's a sort of a difference between the police situation and the fire situation CU has its own Police Department that patrols on campus and so our officers are not required or called to go onto campus to enforce rules or laws there CU does not have a fire department at all and so if there is an emergency on campus that involves the fire department our officers our firefighters are called to go onto the campus so we actually provide oncampus services to fire whereas we don't necessarily provide Police Services on campus so that's kind of the

[251:01] difference that we see about why we would prefer to get some contribution for the fire department from CU because we provide them actual Services gotcha I was just trying to shore up what might be the difference between uh the amount of calls based on CU Student Activity and what services they're actually providing obviously I know that's a hard number to pull out of the air but um I'm I'm sure it's not one to one that's sort of what I was getting at right thanks okay looks like we're done with questions let me suggest to organize us for discussion um during the staff presentation Jane helpfully identified four areas um where there had been some Council questions since our study session on the budget a few weeks ago so I might suggest that we go through those four areas one at a time each and see if there's any uh commentary or proposed

[252:00] budget adjustments and each of those uh and and those are human services housing Human Services the golf course Arts grants and Library Services maybe there's no changes or comments maybe there are but at least touch on those four that Jane identified um I heard some discussion earlier about the um the rental license fee so we should probably touch on that and then we can touch on anything else anybody else wants to I don't want to foreclose any discussion but I just wanted to maybe have an organized uh path so let's maybe start with housing Human Services and see if there are any comments or proposed to adjustments there Aon ice your hands up yeah Bob I think that's a great way to organize things I just wanted to make a call out one additional thing which was the two options that Jane presented um at the end of her presentation about whether the you know that approximately $950,000 um kind of goes into the reserves to maybe be used next year or is in more of

[253:01] a contingency fund um that could be uh allocated to some different pressing needs and um because it may affect uh how we approach these other items and I I'll just advocate for that uh second option um if if you don't mind me speaking to it right now um that uh given that uh we are already planning on increasing um our Reserve allocation somewhat even with that I think having that $950,000 available to meet some critical uh gaps in the budget either decided now or in the next few months as needs rise uh would be a good idea so I'll just I wanted to put that out there for to have as part of the discussion as we go through the um these individual items okay well thanks for that eron let's start with that um I see some couple of hands up so let's focus on the $950,000 question $950,000 question in in the reserves or in a contingency fund some of which we may actually spend yet tonight I see three hands up um uh and

[254:03] let's see if we can focus on those first Adam I am also for um contingency fund I think every dollar that we can spend now is a dollar or several dollars we're going to save down the line um whether that be in you know medical treatment for people that we could house um whether that be for you know keeping artists in town to provide their work uh and this is the biggest financial crisis of the century thus far and I think it needs to be addressed as such um and I realized that we could have more acute crisises um based on climate change and every everything else that's going on but um to me it's it's worth spending some of this money right now for sure thanks Adam Mark yeah I would take a slightly different view but not not entirely different um I am very concerned with any

[255:00] followon impacts of this budget crisis and and covid uh and the possible need for reserves uh in an in unanticipated uh ways going forward um so I I really would not be in favor of taking $950,000 and uh in effect creating a fund for whatever it is that we think is appropriate now um uh I would propose um alternatively uh that we go to a reserve at least for the moment we can always reallocate that Reserve later of 177% instead of 17.4% and if my math is correct that um uh each percent of the reserve is is $1.4 million that would give us some discretionary spending of about $560,000 keep our reserves strong and again if

[256:00] revenues increase a bit later um we can play with that number again but I'm I'm very reluctant to um simply spend the $950,000 now I can always we can always create a bag of goodies but that's that's not our problem as uh as with every legislative body it's very easy to spend it's much more difficult um to show restraint um so I would I would propose that we kind of split the difference a little bit um if we want to spend a few hundred, on various designated projects that's fine but I would hold the rest in reserve um because we don't know what we're going to need we have no idea what it's going to look like we don't know if we're going to have a vaccine we don't know if it's going to be effective um and we may have unanticipated needs for those reserves in 2021 that we can't anticipate now so that is my view um I

[257:04] would I would be a little more uh C ious about it uh and again you know if we keep the reserves at 17% we have created a little bit of a fund for which that we can use to address any injustices we see in the budget and any any needs we want to address right now okay so we have now three choices on the table we have option one which is put it all in the reserve option two create a a contingency fund and perhaps spend some of it now and marks marks option 1.5 which is to put some of it in reserve and and some of it in the contingency fund perhaps spending some of it now so let's focus on those uh we have Mary Rachel and Marine let see if we can bottom out this question so I just um I wanted to support Mark's comments um because we really don't know what lurks in the future and I think we have to be mindful that um it may be covid related it may

[258:04] also be some sort of um crisis such as a flood or a fire for example so um so I think we have to be [Music] um we have to proceed cautiously um I would also say that um the budget subcommittee talked about um options one and options two and one of the reservations um that the budget subcommittee had and U mark Andor juny please um chime in if I'm getting this wrong um that the putting it in the city manager's contingency um or any contingency fund like that is a lot less transparent and um and so that was a concern um so I would just raise that flag um about the transparency of

[259:01] putting it in some sort of a um contingency fund um such as that um so um that's all I have okay we have Rachel then Mir by the way I just want to interject say I think that's an accurate description of of where we were okay uh Rachel then Mir um I think I may be a little bit confused about what the options are on the table at this point but in in theory it seems like um a moment in time where we would want to free up more funds so whichever bucket that puts me into um I would think we less need to um Shore up the reserves which I know Jane has worked really hard at at um bolstering our reserves through you know for the last I don't know how many years so I appreciate that and um don't don't minimize how important it is but I think

[260:00] that this is a year where we I would prefer to see us have a little bit more to utilize and unless that's um siphoned off into reserves or contingency funds so just to be clear on that Ral I think um Mark and Mary had proposed um uh spending up upwards of half of that $950,000 or allocating it and putting the rest in the reserves are you with that or are you in favor of of of um of expending all the 950,000 I would like to at least leave it all on the table and and have that in our discussion tonight all of it okay I'm just G to keep track mayby so I um would prefer to put it all in reserve but I can compromise and go with Mark's plan get the 17% and E okay juny do you have a a view on

[261:00] this yes I um I agree with Mark I think that's the right thing to do we can't spent all the money um half fit the baby that's perfect that that works and I think that again as Mary mentioned That's The Prudent thing to do um I I'm there too I like the the approach that the mark and Mary were taking and I support that so let me Circle back to Adam and and Aaron um I know that you guys were only facing two options and now we put a third one on the table uh Adam or Aon are you okay with what Mark and Mary had proposed I'm going to be okay with it I would like to spend more but I understand um the the idea to holds some back I have some specific ideas on what to spend it on as well when we get into those questions so rather than have a slush fund that's not as transparent I do think that's sort of an issue okay um Ain are you okay with this side looks

[262:00] like we're starting to build a a majority around that yeah I mean it's not uh my preferred option but I'll can work with it okay we should probably take a pause here and and say Jane does this kind of work so the thing I want to say is that yes it works um because you're the council you represent the community and we want to provide a budget that you support the thing that I don't know and I'd sort of like to ask Cheryl or Tom is how we pass ordinance tonight when we are now no longer have presented you with the correct numbers because the numbers have to shift a little bit based on this 560,000 so I don't know how we handle that so we do an amendment on first reading and we provide uh the the amended version of second reading okay I

[263:01] know that we have to have the exact numbers if they give us percentages or things that chery can work with and prepare an ordinance based on their intent and they amend it that way then we can they can adopt it at second reading okay we just need to be able to publish it in time for the 10 days yes yeah okay okay so that looks thanks thanks for kicking us off there eron that looks like the direction we're heading now um so let's now drill into specific um budgets and some some of these may be no change but I just wanted to to at least touch on the the four that Jane highlighted in her initial presentation so let's start with housing Human Services um any proposed um changes to that budget and maybe it's Jane could or somebody could you put up on the screen the the one page on the deck that was the housing Human Services I think it's page uh

[264:01] 21 yeah that page so Ryan are you or Taylor are you able to put that up uh Taylor do you have that there we go perfect much that's perfect and Kurt maybe you could get on the line so you can help answer any questions okay so I see mirb your hand is still up but I don't that may be um a vestage of our earlier discussion do you have anything to add on housing Human Services no Bob it was from before okay great so I see Adam and Aon Adam you're up thanks Bob yeah I don't want to relitigate um as we have a rule against that but this is one of the areas that I was concerned with um and I think we

[265:02] could utilize $100,000 of that money and put it right back um into housing and Human Services to um you know hopefully stem some of the Fallout of the eviction crisis and um the budget cut that has occurred there um I know we can put it to good use and that's a really important area so that's where I would think about 100K could go at minimum just to be clear Adam are you um providing an extra 100,000 and leaving it to Kurt Department uh to exercise or Discretions or some particular place you wanted to go you mentioned evictions yeah uh I think it could be best utilized in um either a homelessness program or um preventative eviction uh treatment either one of those I think are are super important at this juncture okay so um Adam just a question for Adam so Adam

[266:01] um rental assistance for example yep rental assistance would fit under uh eviction prevention for sure would you propose the 100,000 for rental assistance um it if that's all that would pass yes but I might try to split it between the homelessness program and rental assistance okay thank you Bob I have a comment based on Adam can I ask or should I wait please yeah go ahead jeny I just have a question because we have we mentioned it's about 560 ,000 and my question is I guess it would be for Cur before we start deciding how much money maybe we should ask her some of those questions how much money he needs and how where where it would be best served as opposed to us telling him where it should be spent Kurt you want to take that jump in

[267:00] there for a minute um if I may um so I was is Adam was speaking I was thinking about you know what the priorities might be um evictions is sort of an unknown for us um at this point currently we put some carers ACT funds into um eviction prevention this year we also received additional funds uh from cdbg um that we're planning on allocating uh a portion of it towards evictions um in 2021 um the challenge is we don't we don't know what the need is um and if if 2021 is anything like how things change in 2020 um it's it's hard to answer um but we're trying to set our budget up in a way where we have some at least some additional

[268:01] flexibility um around um eviction prevention but quite frankly we don't know it's enough there's just not enough information um and we also don't know if there's going to be like a caraz act two um that will be passed at some point in the future which would have a huge impact on what that story would look like so Kurt do you think that money would potentially go unspent regardless I'm sure you'd probably have a a list of priorities yeah actually my goal would be that would be unspent because that would mean that our community was in a situation where it didn't need it um however if it was unspent there there's certainly um other opportunities to to um support the community Bob is right if I pop in you're next up go ahead great thank you yeah thanks for that Adam I was I was

[269:00] also going to bring up um some additional funding to housing and Human Services and one possibility that I see would um be about dedicating some additional funding to the Human Services fund grants um you know those uh have a 177% proposed reduction which is a really substantial cut and I know that those grants go to nonprofits that do extraordinary work in the community I I wonder if we we might think about restoring some amount of funding to that and maybe we we don't get in into the spe specifics of what organizations get get which grants that's not our we don't don't go to that level of detail but maybe we could give some direction from Council that the grants in 2021 could have a particular focus on you know dealing with the immediate needs and fallouts from the covid and resulting economic crisis so I'll put that out there as a possibility Adam would you be

[270:00] okay with that yeah Bob I'm interested in getting housing and human Services additional money and whatever Council would be most interested in that's going to be okay with me I have my own ideas but I want something to pass great thank you uh Rachel then Mark then Mary we continue to focus on housing Human Services till we put that one to bed all right well um um probably no surprise I'm with Adam on wanting to see some more funds go into HHS budget um I you know I've been on this state evictions preventions task force so the governor hasn't finalized recommendations yet but I I think it's a question mark on what what might come down from the state level so I don't know that I would um target funds specifically for that without knowing what what help might be on the way from federal or state levels obviously that's a huge need so um I also think you we talked a couple weeks ago about uh day services not really being in place for

[271:01] people who are unhoused and staying in shelter so could some of the money go to bolstering that for higher temperature thresholds or other um homelessness Solutions and Sheltering so I guess I have two broad thoughts one is could we designate whatever amount we're going to set aside and ask that um some proposals come back for how to spend it and you know for whatever I understand Jane needs like a a probably a line item to move us forward but whatever the line item needs to be and then it's got sort of an asterisk where Council would then vote on how exactly to spend that or prioritize it later if possible um and then second we're talking about a half a million or $500,000 right something 540 in this concuss so I don't know that we want to Target the exact amount right now without knowing what the other suggestions are going to be so I guess I support this and want to know like is there only $50,000 we want to spend somewhere else than we're you know is

[272:01] there 600,000 or we arguing so I don't know that I want to um make an exact decision at this moment without knowing what the other asks are so in hearing that could I just add one one one quick thought uh Bob um please uh eron's recommendation to put it into the Human Services fund uh Grant pot um might make some sense here because the things that both Adam and Rachel are talking about could be funded through the Human Services fund grant program um so um effa receives funds from the Human Services fund grants um as an example so that could support um eviction prevention um some Services associated with supporting the homeless um can also come through the Human Services fund grants so putting it in that pot um allows that to occur um with

[273:00] with that said there's a there's a um a community based advis committee that gives input to how those funds are spent under the Human Services fund grants great just process question probably for Tom uh Tom if if and Rachel you rais a good point we we may Circle back on on others of these let's go through all of them and then we can assess where we are but um if we had a placeholder at least for 100,000 here Tom how specific do you need Council to be with respect to passing this on first reading tonight if we said 100,000 for housing Human Services increase is that good enough um and then Kurt could come back on second reading or later in the year and tell us how he wants to allocate that so you can um appropriate money to the Human Services fund um and then uh allocate it through an adjustment to base or you could just leave it in the reserve and then allocate through an adjust to base later

[274:02] um if you're going to uh if you're going to appropriate it now you should and you want to designate it what to do it you should do it now does that make sense Bob yeah I was just trying to to get to the right level of granularity in other words we could say 100,000 for hous and Human Services or we could say 100,000 for Human Services fund and I'm just trying to sense from you Council may have a preference between those two yeah things but from from your perspective you're okay either way yes okay the thing that you can't do is to is to sort of say um we want we're going to tell you to do it and then later we're going to tell you how to spend it uh once you appropriate it you appropriate it and your Authority ends does that so if we appropriate it to housing Human Services generally but expressed occur our desire that would give us give us the most flexibility down the road is that what you're saying yes although you you you you've got to be careful you you don't have the authority to run the department you appropriate the money through budgeting

[275:00] and then they spend it okay uhk then go ahead I Mark and then Mary anybody else wanted to jump in there I had a followup okay I think it goes back to what Rachel was talking about about the day services so is um is Tom saying that we couldn't save $100,000 toward funding grant funding to nonprofit organizations that would offer day Services yeah you could do that juny uh my caution is that you cannot then later come back and say U well we want it to go to a specific organization or we want to go specific cause later once you appropriate it then you've appropriated it and you've given the guidance that you're going to give okay thank you could I um May I follow up as well um so Tom you mentioned um that it

[276:00] could remain in reserves and then do an adjustment to base later yes and um what I heard in this discussion was that um there's some unknowns yet and uh for instance we don't know how much money if any money may be um coming down for from a second cares act um so if something like that happened then perhaps some of this some of that money could be used for some of what we're proposing to use now and so I'm wondering um if and this is a question for Council if it may not be wiser to leave it in reserves and do an adjustment to base later once we know more and and we wouldn't be um and we wouldn't be taking money out of the

[277:00] reserves unnecessarily because some other funds come um from the feds later so that that's just a question for Council and that's option one okay so let's um I just want to be cognizant of time because we got a lot of work to do here on the budget then we still have about an hour and a half two 30 so um let's um let's try to make some decisions here Mark Mary juny Aaron have their hands up on this one yeah I I I support Adams suggestion of of an additional increment for housing and Human Services I might actually go a little higher um I'd put it into Human Services fund grants if since Curtis indicated that gives them enough flexibility um for a number of different uses um and without wanting to predict an election I

[278:00] I I suspect we're going to have a um a new ordinance after this election it's going to raise about a million n for both legal services for evictions and uh rental assistance and so we we ought to keep that in mind as we do this um there may be other uses in uh HHS um that are more appropriate than than rental assistance because we may have a lot of money coming down the road for that purpose um I suspect that that's going to be the case um but having said that I I I would probably go 150 or two um for housing and Human Services because I think it's that important to Department my preference but I will go with whatever you know people want to do here Mary juny and Erin I've asked my question or or thrown out my thoughts great

[279:01] juny thank you I would like to I like very much Mark's idea and I don't want us to get lost into Rachel's point on the day Services which I think is very important and because of Mary mentioned eviction and the possibility that we will have the money for eviction and we don't know the future so maybe a solution might be to allocate money toward for nonprofits uh toward for day services so I like the idea of raising the money threshold to 200,000 maybe allocating a 100,000 to nonprofit organizations that would provide day services and the rest we can keep for evictions or or just leave it to the um to the department to do whatever it pleases with the money with the rest of the

[280:01] money okay um eron yeah I probably would also put in more than a 100 but R to Rachel's point we probably should cycle through all the topics before deciding on exact amounts um and just Mary you raised a good point um but I think the how much money we might get from the federal government is so unknown it might be zero it might be a lot it might be for one thing it might be for another thing but I think we do know that we will have ongoing Human Services needs in the community so I I would advocate for for putting in you know one or2 200,000 000 in additional in the budget kind of regardless okay so let me try to summarize um we haven't made any decisions and going to circle back on everything before we take any votes but I'm hearing something in the range of 100 to 200,000 um we seem to have some council members who are are somewhat relaxed about providing it to the human housing human services department and letting them spend it as they determine appropriate as the circumstances unfold

[281:01] and then some council members have some specific request so let me just let's just kind of Park that for now and move on to the other things um Golf Course or the flight IR I guess Event Center um Erin I think you had some comments on this one so maybe you can get us kicked off on this one yeah thanks for calling that out Bob I appreciate it yeah so um I I think this is this is a worthy project uh for the the golf course the The Event Center was demolished years ago uh there's a desire to uh cover the operational costs I think these are all worthy things but I'm thinking that you know in in the in in our current times um I would like to propose um a focus in the shorter term on um uh building out additional uh neighborhood parks that are in underserved areas um and um because those could use the same kind of funding uh that was allocated um to this um uh

[282:02] project so I have wanted to put a proposal out there to to folks to see what they think about um putting off the golf course projects for perhaps two years and um uh giving feedback to the parks department to say uh please look for opportunities to um build out Parks neighborhood parks in underserved areas and I mean the two that occur to me are the ones I mentioned before the Violet park next to um the Boulder Meadows mobile home park and and the eaten Park in Gun Barrel which is critically lacking in park services but I'm not the perfect expert on what the parks department need so I would be thinking about giving guidance to the department to um to look for those uh uh best sites that could meet those criteria so wanted to see what people thought of that idea just I'm GNA jump in here and just make sure I ask a question so we that we're focus on the right things um this money

[283:00] is all dedicated money the Permanent Fund um and and the capital Development Fund other funds for Parks so this this is not within this 500,000 envelope that we've been talking about this is really a prioritization within the the um the dedicated Parks funds is that correct Cara or Cheryl yes you're right okay so this is outside the 500,000 so so eron's made a proposal of effectively re reordering how uh the projects come in maybe do a few Parks before we get to the golf course comments on that Mark and then Rachel well I I I can't believe I'm saying this but I'm kind of come around on the golf course a because the funds are dedicated um so we we can't use them for HHS for instance um and two my my understanding was that we don't have anything up shovel ready um and so if we're not doing this I'm not sure we're

[284:00] going to be doing anything in 2021 um and the funds are there and dedicated so I I I guess uh I have um moved from being fairly uh antagonistic to the golf course to saying the money is there and and I don't know that we're going to be able to spend it on anything else within this time frame and there is a need for it and it will serve some Community purposes so I um I'm very sympathetic to what Aaron has said but I think at the moment I unless there's something that's ready to go um in terms of design and uh itable construction documents I I I would use it here and I may comment on is there anything else out there we we could do um if we decided to postpone the uh the golf course we have anything ready Allison can you answer that I can so I want to be clear on

[285:03] where we are with the golf course Jane mentioned earlier that it's been on our CIP unfunded list since 2014 and so the parks and rec Advisory Board just reviewed the concept plan they're scheduled to um take action on it in October if that happens we would proceed with design of the building which is funded and construction documents would be issued in the third quarter and hit hit the ground in the fourth quarter and so um as far as what else could happen Aaron mentioned two parks and we provided in the memo an analysis of why those parks are sequenced the way they are in our 5year CIP they are both funded um Violet is funded in 2023 and there's two key reasons we've done that all of the city's capital projects go through a city-wide review process um really to one get some peer review but also to enhance efficiencies and coordination and so Violet is Ed to

[286:00] be developed when the library designs are final so that we can reduce any redundance because that project has had varying levels of outdoor space and then also it aligns with utilities projects along Four Mile Creek which forms the northern border of that Park Eaton similarly is funded in 2024 and one of the key reasons for that um one I understand there aren't as many public parks in that area however if you look at the level of service through Green Space provided by HOAs because so much of that area was unincorporated when it was developed HOAs were required to provide the park planned that a full service City would but that was unincorporated land so there's in your memo there's the map of the park proximity we do want to develop Eaton the preference would be to do it in 2024 to allow time for there's a partnership opportunity that we think would make it an even better park it would include amenities that are not typically included but and also would not typically be funded at a park that size and so if if Council were to want

[287:02] to prioritize different projects we certainly could look at other options we'd want to understand what the goal is I understand council member brockett's interest in in providing access in those areas while we're eager to develop both of those Parks we do think both of those areas are served by both playgrounds and Parkland Ally I have um a question um a follow-up question um if the flat irons facility were not done um right the 2021 budget is um 6 and a half million dollar um and so it's my understanding that once this is built it will make the the golf course basically self- sustaining so in other words the um revenues from the facility will cover the operating costs of the um

[288:03] Golf Course so um my qu there's actually two questions one is um by putting this on the shelf for two years um how much would that increase the construction cost by so how much would the 6 and a half million go up by and then um the other question is what additional costs or what additional savings would not be realized because we would not have the revenues of a completed building sure so let me take the first one project escalation my understanding right now is that it is um higher than average construction is an industry okay during the pandemic and so escalation last I heard um and I'm checking to see the number I believe it was around 10% a year and so there would be you know if we waited two years we're

[289:00] looking at over a million dollars in cost escalation um the other Challenge and a cost that would escalate is again currently we have a temporary restroom trailer that is you know it's been in service for five years and so we will continue to invest in costs that try and prolong that but that that money you know it's it's we don't think it's necessarily the most cost-effective thing to do to keep band-aiding this this restroom trailer together and so the next thing that goes to is just the viability of the golf course so that team is doing really great work um golf across the country is fairing very well in the pandemic I just saw numbers from September and um they're so impressive they the golf I think 40,000 rounds a year so where I'm going Mary is that that the golf course is not um being subsidized this year it will cover its costs our hope is with the project that it'll actually do more than that that'll provide additional funding into the recreation activity

[290:00] fund where we could expand the financial aid program to the golf of course that hasn't been feasible in the past um we'd like to you know many of the community benefit options that are outlined in the memo such as concerts so this lawn that is in your slide here is what exists now it's not necessarily as conducive to community events as what is part of the project there will be an event lawn similar to the Green in the Civic area that will be conducive for um that one of the golf course team ideas are turfcare lessons for community members they the Sy Symphony just actually happened two weeks ago that's a picture that's a distance event that happened so so again the hope is is that with the investment in the facility it will not only bring back the community feel that we're hearing and Community engagement is missing right now but it'll generate more money so that we can enhance the community offerings there we have um Rachel everyone's got their hand up so we'll we'll try to I have I'm sorry I had a just a a a quick

[291:01] question um and I was muted I'm sorry um so is it possible that the enhancements and you said that that the there's been such interest in um in golfing I guess that um it has increased the revenues and it has been self-sustaining and so this would possibly increase the revenues would the revenues increase to the point that they could then um provide funding for those other two parks um that were mentioned eaten and violet they could but I think my immediate reaction would be it'd be better to use those as operating funds that could be used for programming because we have them Pro that those parks are programmed in our CIP there's a 1.5 million for Violet in 2023 and a million for Eaton in 2024 so those parks are funded just two and three years from now in our Capital um Improvement program and so my

[292:01] recommendation would be that this for when this is functioning as a full successful Enterprise that money is going back into Health Equity programming right now so much of our Health Equity efforts are funded by the Health Equity Fund and if we can um just really grow our efforts to be a successful social Enterprise then we can sell fund some of those Health Equity efforts thank you okay we've got Rachel Adam juny and mirabi on this question I'm going to shrink my comments um I am sensitive to what Erin's going for but I'm gonna put my faith in staff and the uh Parks Rex board and not Tinker with what they've come up with for a long per time thank you Adam what Rachel said Adam okay juny I will go with staff proposal because of the equity that Jane mentioned and the funds are already dedicated and the golf course belongs to

[293:01] the municipality so it's either we fix it now or allow the cost to go up so fix it now is just the better way to go thank you juny mby also will be supporting the staff's um proposal Aon there seems to be um broad yeah I I can I can tell when when the the support's not making it across the line so um I'll take it back but I'll I'll leave the points as I made them but that's fine it's not the will of council great decision made aarin I just want to say that I appreciate it um the idea um and it was intriguing um but I I do think that the um the cost escalation um kind of did me in okay let's decisions made yay um let's move on to our [Music]

[294:00] Arts um uh I see Adam Erin I think you had something on this too and juny so I'll just start with Adam Adam go ahead yeah I don't have anything specific here but I think this is an area where we could take some of that uh that funding we're planning on allocating and put it in yep I think that's where we're heading I guess the question is how much uh Judy yes um I would like to propose since we've made some proposal before 150,000 because I think that's about the ballpark the amount that's missing or at least some community members were advocating for and the reason why I feel so strong about this is because when we think of the Arts it serve people across the community people of multiple income

[295:00] brackets so it's it's a real Equity issue not to fund the Arts and I think it's very important at this moment to do so thanks Judy JY let me ask before we go on to Mary and Mark um we asked you a question I think um we earlier heard from uh Jan Burton and maybe some other speakers about a proposal from CRE Boulder which is a nonprofit uh that supports or organizations and they proposed that if the city could um restore 100,000 of funding that cre b or would go out to the community and raise 50,000 kind of in matching funds um so with your proposal of 150 could that include 100 from the city and 50 from CRE or is that what you're thinking I I didn't think of it that way because I thought you know just us doing or putting the money forward is we don't have to worry about whether they'll be able to raise the fund or not but if you think that's the better way to go then let's do 100,000

[296:00] but I thought the 150,000 is just uring that the Arts is fully funded yeah I wasn't waiting I was just just just clarification we'll see what others say um okay thank you um Mary then Mark yeah M so I guess I have a counter proposal um during um I I asked um Matt about um other TDM like um categories in the Arts grants that were probably not as um well there probably won't be many field trips going on because of Co and um there were other categories such as that and the categories that Matt threw out as um being still critical were Arts education individual project grants and the personal development so when you add um and he threw out 30k for 2020 it was 30k um 25k and 18K

[297:01] respectively that adds up to 73,000 so my proposal is to take the create Boulder proposal um and um and split just split the difference um so divide 73,000 um by two and um and make it matching 36,500 and 36,500 so um create Boulder would put in half of the 73,000 and the city would put in half of the 73,000 um because to fund it fully there was some categories of grants that were kind of like well this isn't going to happen during covid so um that's my proposal okay and obviously we can't speak for create Boulder about whether they would accept that but um we can certainly ask them uh Mark first first a question Bob you've had some conversation what is the extent of the

[298:01] cig Boulder proposal what cre Boulder proposed is that they they would if if the city would restore 100,000 um they would match it with 50,000 from the community they would go out and fund raise 50,000 community so it was a two it was a one for two Grant I Mary's propos match Mary's proposed a one for one match I I don't know I don't know how they feel about that but um that's that's Mary's kind of counter proposal well let me let let me just comment in in general terms I'm I'm okay with um providing well more than okay with providing some additional funding for the Arts um I'm okay with if that's the will of council I'm okay with Mary's proposal uh if crate Boulder can raise 50 I would be more than happy to put in another 75 to 100 um whatever the will of counsel is on this uh I'd like to do a little more

[299:01] for them uh how much more uh I think it just depends upon our consensus but I'd like to factor in to create Bolder money um and make that a part of what we do may I cqu on that um just absolutely not never well you know I just want to point out one thing that um there were a lot of advocates for the Arts and I I totally understand that um and when you think about fairness and Equity you have the youth opportunities um Advisory Board whose budget was cut by 7.87% and their whole grants program of $100,000 went away um so I I do think um and again it it's probably my Catholic upbringing but I do think that um I mean all of us has to do our bit to sacrifice

[300:01] something and um and I think that providing this additional um if if if the 73,000 with a 50/50 split is a minable um that that covers the items that they felt were critical um so I I feel pretty strongly about that and I I wouldn't go above that 36,500 okay uh we've got um Rachel then Eric I have a question as we budget do we in other places factor in matching grants is that something that's built into our budget that we're going to budget this much and then some else will no we we rarely get matching grants the times that we have done it is with regard to capital projects under Community culture and safety um we did matching grants for Museum of Boulder

[301:02] student arts and a few others okay um I think it's a a great offer I would probably fund it to the degree that we think it should be funded and if a matching Grant arrives that's great but I'm um not totally comfortable budgeting off of um a matching Grant because I think it could just that as a general notion could lead to sort of um pay to play like if we give you this much in the budget then we'll get you know that much so I'm I'm not totally comfortable with planning around it I think it's it would be great if it's received but for budgeting I'm just a little uncomfortable and think we should just fund what we think Arts needs the alternative would be to um do this as an adjustment to base uh eron yeah talking about the the matching uh We've I think we've worked with the

[302:01] convention Visitors Bureau sometimes in the past um to get matching funds to support um cultural organizations in town um Bob is my memory correct on that haven't we done that a couple times we did for J at least one year if not two years for Jore literature Festival um where we put up some money in exchange or well in hopes that they would match it and they in fact did okay yeah so a little bit of a precedent there and I I do support um adding back in some Arts grants funding and a lot of it is because of um the existential crisis that uh Arts organizations are facing right now in our community and all across um the country because of the inability to hold uh most kinds of in-person performances so you know this this is an area of unique need in our community and um if we see uh Arts organizations um you know uh if we lose

[303:00] them now they may never come back you know unique entities so I support bringing money um some amount of money back into this program you know perhaps um you know one might think about uh putting in $100,000 with the the uh hope that the create Boulder um program works out and they're able to bring the $50,000 to the table um I think Rachel's point about not being a you know budgeting for what we think we uh want to do is a valid one but um also hope that they they could follow through on that um idea and uh bring it up to that 150,000 level so I do support doing something like that here I'm GNA call it myself and then I've got inq um Adam and mirbi I agree with with Aaron um I just want to make an observation you know we we've talked about just recently at the golf course and the potential return on investment there and how it might make some sense and that will in turn potentially fund other programs and then we also talked

[304:01] we talking about uh Human Services about importance of uh helping um individuals that are adversely affected by covid I think um this Arts funding does both of those things 3% of the employees in the city of Boulder work in the Arts business and many of those people um are either unemployed or have had their um livelihoods severely impacted um and it also provides return on investment the Arts in our community provides $70 million in economic um uh impact and that turns into $4.6 million in actual direct revenues for the city in the state so there's a return on investment and it also um helps people who real life people who live in our community and are working in this area so this is not a this is not a nice to have you know this is a this is a got to have for a lot of people so uh it really is a Lifeline for folks and and it will bring

[305:01] dividends back to us so I support Aaron I'd like to to stretch as far as we can I think the offer from CRE Boulder is generous um I take Rachel's point about we can't book that and that's why I would probably go with what R what eron suggested restore it at 100,000 um and if Kore Boulder can top that off with 50 then we're we're in a really really good place but if somehow they fall short they can only raise 25 or 30 or 35,000 we've restored a substantial amount of Arts fun money regardless of how much they raise um so I think it's a it's a potential win and then big win situation uh so I would I would go in at at 100 uh from the city and ask cre Boulder to match that with 50 if they can I have Adam and then mirbi now that I've heard everyone's input um first of all I I'm kind of concerned about making decisions with City money based on the inputs of

[306:00] outside groups in any situation I think that's a very slippery slope and one we should try to avoid um just because the implications could be bad um that being said uh I understand Mary's sort of input and I feel like $75,000 is a pretty good amount that would restore the the critical funding for all the programs that are going to be lost um and hopefully other outside community members will find it in their hearts to still do whatever they can but uh that's a number I would feel comfortable with and just to be clear Adam you you do 75 from the city and and then um not necessarily rely on anything from CRE Boulder I would not rely on anything from CRE Boulder I would hope that they do whatever they can but uh yeah 75 I think is a good number 75 Adam okay great um Mark oh I'm sorry mirabi you're next mirabi is

[307:00] next um yeah I'm I'm a little worried like as Adam said but I guess I'm tending to lean more where Aaron was um I would at least like to see a 100,000 go to the Arts so that's that's more where my my sticking point is everything else I can be a little bit more lenient on so okay Mark um I guess I would like to suggest the possibility I like Adam's suggestion um possibility of 70 5 see what create Boulder can do we can always do a supplemental appropriation um or an adjustment to base and provide more later not you know this this money is not going to all be spent in a day um and we can see what the economic conditions look like we can see if they can actually if create Boulder can actually provide any supplemental funding and if we determine

[308:00] it's appropriate uh a few months down the road we can appropriate more money okay so let me just kind of recap in reverse order I have Market 75 mirabai at 100 Adam at 75 Bob at 100 Aaron at 100 um Mary at 36 and a half juny you were at 150 yeah go ahead s yeah I was going to make a comment I am at the 100,000 mark because I don't want this train to run away from us and I wanted to ask Adam and Mark because we are trying to get to a solution here what is the difference between 75 and 100,000 when you just mentioned that we cannot depend on this Outsider so if we cannot depend on this Outsider to provide us 50,000 why are we expecting them to give

[309:00] it to give us 75,000 so I'm just slightly confused and I was wondering maybe yeah go ahead just a C I'm not anticipating that it's just 75,000 I'm suggesting that we can provide more later and it might be another 50 it might be another 75 I'm I'm not limiting my uh sense of contribution to $100,000 I'd like to see if create Boulder can assist um and get us to to a a higher number U but if not I'm prepared to provide more money a little bit further down the road um so I'm I'm not limiting that but frankly if if I could also live with your 100 I I am you know I really at that point you you were just starting to to Really uh uh get way down in the weeds here um and if if

[310:00] that's something that would be important to you I would be happy to bump it up and and frankly still look to see if create Boulder can provide some further funding and the reasoning for my decision is I don't want an outside group dictating council's decisions and I see automatically going to 100 is doing just that so that's why I made that choice Jun um and personally I'm fine moving to 1002 but I I just don't like the feeling of that I agree with you Adam on that okay well let me suggest that we'll take let's take the crate Boulder factor out just for a second and they raise what they raise and let's let's not rely on them for anything if I heard Adam and Mark right they're willing to go to 100 yes I would be okay Rachel where are you at at hundreds

[311:00] fine okay Mary looks like we're we're getting some some majority build around 100 well um I'll just I I'll just make one more pitch um I Heard um Adam say 75,000 and the 75,000 actually has some grounding in critical needs um rather than um 100,000 just seems to be pulled out of the air and isn't really grounded in in a critical need um so those critical needs that Matt chansky outlined added up to 73,000 so 75,000 addresses those critical [Music] needs okay anybody else on this one okay let me suggest we move on the one other category uh and I not sure I

[312:00] heard a whole lot of commentary from anybody uh tonight but Jane did have a slide on Library services are folks okay with what staff has recommended on Library can can I just say Bob one other thing on that sure well just that um I I appreciate people's points about not letting outside groups uh dictate our policy I think that's a valid point I do want to thank cre Boulder for coming to the table to offer to raise money for the Arts Community I think that's a positive thing if they can accomplish that for the community so just want to hold both of those things at the same time thanks for saying that eron Library Services any changes from Council on Library I I'm sure I'm sure none of us are happy with where where we're where we're at here um are there any concrete proposals to change

[313:00] it Bob can I Chim me again here Ain sorry to keep talking but um ju just to clarify I guess I should have asked this question Erin Erin then Mark okay thanks um I should have asked this question earlier but we when the slide says priorities for additional funding after Public Health restrictions are lifted does that mean that we will um uh restore services and open Meadows in Noor Corner Library when Public Health rules allow is it or or would that take some additional uh funding from some other location to accomplish that let's say whatever it is May June next year they say sure the libraries are fine um what happens then kind of under the current proposed budget I think it will take additional funding but I'm gonna ask David Faron to respond to that David yeah there uh that's that's correct Daron uh good evening Council and you guys stay up

[314:02] awfully late but um yeah it would take additional funding those funds have all been cut uh for from the 2021 budget so I I guess I would just like to say I would like for us to be able to uh reopen the branches um when public health concerns allow so it's if there's some way to develop a contingency plan with some of this um uh you know I'm fine doing it with an appropriate um appropriation debase modif adjustment debase sorry it's it's late um I'm fine doing it with a separate action next year but I would just like to make sure that we're planning for that and would be able to bring a proposal back to council uh for ways to accomplish that uh when we're allowed to from a public health standpoint yeah we we've we know we have priced all of them out so we know the cost of actually reopening um the

[315:01] locations currently so we have that data should you require it thanks uh Adam oh excuse me Mark first there a question for David um what would it take in in terms of financial resources to open either uh Meadows Branch or the noo Corner library with full service I mean what what kind of number are we looking at yeah so to get to full service at Meadows Library we're talking about around $300,000 um to get to full service at the noo Corner Library uh roughly the same we're we're partially opened at Meadows now so the cost even though it's a bigger location would be less than I think we're we're operating now with carry out service but to get noo open probably also around $300,000 and my second question is is there any particular program or programs

[316:00] that can initiate now if we found a small chunk of additional funding for you um one of the one of the things that we're looking at with the health Uh current under the current health restrictions we could open up the children's area at the main library um we're we're planning on trying to do that a couple of days a week to make it available to families who what funding would you need for that um well in order for us to get it um give me one second in order for us to get it open fully so five days a week I have the cost here me just one second um I think it was right around again that2 $300,000 range um let's just see everything's it's like going to the mechanic everything's $300,000 um no to get the children's area open

[317:00] would be less than that we would have to um would have to hire back 2.75 FTE so that's probably um to have the children's area open at the main library downtown five days a week uh 2.75 FTE so let's call that right around $100,000 and you could do that tomorrow if you had the 100 um we would probably have to hire for those positions Mark those people um are not not no longer the city okay so um I don't know six weeks we we're we're planning on by November 1 opening up the children's area a couple of days a week to limited access um for families that want to reserve the space and come in and have access to the collection um we could take it to five days a week with those additional

[318:00] FTE um I don't know how Council feels about that but that's certainly a potential place to utilize a portion of uh the money we have to spend I don't know if anybody else uh feels strongly about that well Rachel has her hand up see what she has to say yeah um Mark largely asked my question but again to David you know is that the number one priority you would have for the libraries opening um the main branch with some additional or specifically for the children's area is that the number one Community benefit you see yeah on our priority list we list um restoring the services the main library and I believe you know the cost for fully restoring the services is around $800,000 the the cost of um restoring the core services like Story Time and programs is the $320,000 figure St story time alone

[319:02] would be probably in the neighborhood of around $100,000 okay and yes that would be our priority um you know and as as it's listed in the slide Meadows would take to 75% service levels and then after that it would be um noo thanks um so my thoughts or I think similar to Marks that I would um specify that the library get uh x amount of money and and trusted can use it for the best community benefit Branch other uh I don't see any hands up any other comments on the library got a proposal from Mark and Rachel so I have a question um so these this opening would depend on changing Public Health orders

[320:00] correct the the the children's area at Main no Mary um so the the children's area the main library and The Meadows Library we can safely control access to a limited number of people and um and keep them socially distanced um noo presents some complications because it's unlikely we would not be able to open up under the current guidelines we would not be able to open the building up unless we were Staffing it to let two people in at a time which doesn't really make sense we could offer um curbside pickup at one of those locations um but again that's a there's a cost associated with doing even that okay and and the efficacy of doing it I mean we were very deliberate about these reductions um you know as Jane mentioned in the in the entro to the side The Meadows Library serves a larger portion

[321:02] of of the elderly of under um lower economic status families more Latino families so that's why we rank that bll higher um and they also do about four times the amount of business in a regular year than the nobo corner Library okay um Tom do we need to have a motion to extend the meeting yes that would be good second second anybody opposed okay thanks should we um do do we kind of get pretty far on the library we're going to circle back on all of this stuff and summarize and try to put this into a package here but anybody have anything else to say about the library okay um one other topic that came up

[322:01] tonight and it's been uh there's been some email traffic on as well as the is the increase in the uh license rental license fee um I know the staff wants to move us to a cost recovery model which would increase the fee from $105 to $190 per renewal which is once every four years um we heard tonight that those are done on a u a per uh property basis not a per unit basis um there's been some talk about whether we should phase that in that would come as a cost to the city so I just framed up the argument there or the discussion there Adam's got his hand up maybe you could launch us Adam yeah thank you um I'm fine with the proposal of increasing the amount I don't think it's super costly over the course of four years especially um I think it's wild that uh it's not on a per unit

[323:01] basis or something grouped in some sort of per unit uh amount that that sort of blew my mind um simply because that that feels to me like it's I realize that probably not every unit needs inspection or anything like that but it feels like there should be groupings in this instance um that's that's my input so I think I can explain it the usually these fees are based on the cost of services and this is this does not cover the inspection the inspections are paid for separately by the by the owners um so my guess is the fee was set based on the paperwork it takes and since you're you're licensing an owner uh it's the same paperwork regardless of the number of units that the owner has and as as you noted it's a relatively modest fee um the inspection cost is much more that that would make a lot more sense in my mind but even still

[324:01] um just for you know if you have that many more units you're probably making that much more money so you could possibly foot that much more of the burden compared to someone who rents a single unit and is probably trying to just get by remember this is a fee and not a tax and so it has to be associated with the service provided gotcha okay well then I'm barking up the wrong tree or maybe a discussion for another day uh juny then Rachel so I understand the idea of raising the fee but for now I would say no and the reason why I would say no is I remember when we did that eviction prevention letter we received so many emails from a lot of the landlords and they were saying that if we asking them to mitigate um eviction we should do

[325:01] something as well on our side and be responsible so I think to balance what we're asking people to do because again we're still anticipating a lot of evictions I would say put off put this off until next year or the year after to revisit it but I don't think it should the rental license fee should be increased this year I'm going to jump in with a question that I see Rachel and Mark have their hands up if Charles is still here or somebody who has the numbers if we if we did what um juny proposed and we uh put it off for a year what would the cost to the city be um it's typically annually about our subsidy is about $220,000 a year subsidy being the difference between $15 we charge and $190 at costess correct so so we would the budget would take a you guys have

[326:01] prepared the budget based on the Assumption we go to 190 so the budget would take a $200,000 hit if we if we deferred it till next year that's correct okay Rachel Mark and Erin I just I'm confused a little bit about the idea of I think the request was to to stagger it to implement maybe half the fee now if people are only certifying once every four years that doesn't make sense to me so that's my only concern is like if you know if somebody's going to certify this year versus next year versus three years they're willing to pay at once so I don't understand that the notion ofing it really I I think it would sounds like it would help one4 of the license holders the other three fors there' be no advantage to them so I'd probably just rip off the bandaid in that case and and do what the staff has recommended Mark eron and Mary yeah I I I I understand where jun's thought process on this uh but I think a $200,000 hole in the budget is is excessive

[327:01] um and even Bara was was fine with um a graduated over two years um increase including 4 $40 or $45 this year and the and the balance next year um but doing it that way I think would would leave a $100,000 hole in this budget and I would be prepared to do that but it's you know if it's not the will of council I'm I'm fine with that too eron um yeah I appreciate jun's Point uh you know we have had some some good uh collaboration from the uh property owners in in town with our um requests to work with tenants and of course their eviction moratorium from the CDC and and so it's there's a lot of tough times all around so I I the staggered approach um

[328:00] maybe seems like a reasonable thing because it is a was it a 90% increase in one year which does seem like an excessive percentage increase on kind of anything um the and Rachel to your point I mean it is only going to help uh one out of four uh own owners or who have rental licenses um one could make the a case though for say it's you know it's not the largest amount of money but if you were planning on bringing your license next year um and you were already think thinking about that that um it's the people who are in the shorter time frame that would be hit by it a little bit sooner all right I'm going to stop talking because it's late and I'm tired but so I'd go for the the stepped approach which is an easier U budget Gap to plug Mary before I call on you I see Jane has her hand up so she might have some wisdom to impart to us not sure it's wisdom but just a statement that if we do not impose the full tax for 2021 there will as you all

[329:00] noted be a hole in the budget that would mean that the $950,000 that we had to either put in reserves or contingency would be reduced by $110,000 so no longer would there be $950,000 to spend but only $ 840,000 [Music] thanks Jane Bary um I'm with Adam on this and um with Adam and Rachel can I ask a question Charles you may not know the answer to this one um it was enlightening to hear that um the these fees are paid on a per property basis rather than a per unit basis do you happen to know um who um not asking for the name of the company or the person but what's the biggest property holder in other words who pays the most how much is how much is paid by the person who pays or the entity that pays the most are we talking somebody owns 40 Properties or properties I just like to

[330:01] scope it it's a good question Bob I don't have that off the top of my head I apologize okay thanks mby um I'll be supporting staff's recommendations uh you know I'm I'm there too um I I I am I'm sympathetic to the fact that uh this is a big increase by the same token there's been no increase for many many years we probably should have been increasing it um a CPI basis but we didn't so shame on us and right now the taxpayers are subsidizing um that so this moves us to a cost recovery model it's a big hit um in the first couple of years but um when we're looking at at you know debating about 100,000 for Human Services or 100,000 for Arts this is 100,000 spread out over over um literally thousands of property owners so um if everyone contributes that extra

[331:01] $85 that will go a long ways to funding some of the other things that are that are being reduced so I'm with staff as well anybody have any big harburn about that okay I think that's what we're at um we need to Circle back on the on Human Services arts and library but there are there any other adjustments to the budget that people want to talk about Rachel I just um am still concerned about the two SRO that are in the budget uh for Myriad reasons but number one is schools are not in session right now and I think it's odd that we have sro's like budgeted when we've got older high and Fair View um not meeting in person and it seems like it's just sort of bbsd call on that and that makes me feel like it's sort of um and obviously a great

[332:00] relationship with bbsd and it's um taxpayers are going to fund it either way but it sort of seems odd to me that we would have these positions reserved in our budget when they're really dependent on somebody else's um you know what schools happening and I don't I I just don't know why they're in our budget so I would I would remove [Music] that Jan can you weigh in on that sure our initial proposal was to have zero SRO in the budget when I mentioned it to the school superintendent there was grave concern expressed on his part and part of what's going on is that the schools have created a committee that is looking into the question of should there be sro's and that committee is scheduled to report back to the board of education on October 20th we don't know what they'll

[333:02] say but the the speculation is that they will say that sro's are a very important part of what is needed in the schools for security and that they will support keeping the sros and so the school superintendent felt like my recommendation to reduce all of them was in the city of Boulder was putting him in a very difficult position these is a the school board the committee the rest of the communities that have um schools in their cities and so we talked about it a couple of times and he made the point that in particular if the schools come back to iners which they are striving for in 2021 how will those students that are in particularly Boulder high and Fairview High be protected in the event

[334:00] of a serious event and that I thought was persuasive with the idea that when they are doing their budget which they're on a fiscal year not a calendar year so their year starts in July My Hope was that next spring we could work with them the schools to figure out what they really needed in terms of SRO and encourage them to fully fund those SRO for the city so it was sort of um an act of good faith with the schools to keep two our two SRO in the budget given the shifting circumstances I I appreciate that you know the other piece about students being left unprotected is you know we have a a fear of of um a mass shooting but there reality is that um the the statistics are that

[335:00] they what actually happens is that there are overp policing of black and brown kids in schools so it's not just like a um argument that it's a schol safer so I'm uncomfortable my think also that um Mom's demand action has come out against Sr in school so I know that's a bigger discussion but it doesn't make sense to me that we budget for it when it's um sort of automatically contracted to bbsd and they're not even in school so it just doesn't make sense to me that that would be a line item in our budget and I understand that you you had sort of a good faith discussion and don't mean to interfere with that but it's nonsensical to um Adam Bob uh is this just additional funding requests or general comment well I I Rachel's put up a proposal on the table to to Def if I understood it correctly to defund the two SRO that are currently in the budget which if we did

[336:01] that I think I think we we we should divorce our I'm going to suggest that we should divorce our our our discussion about the value or non-v value of sro's and really focus on the question of who pays for it um because obviously if the school district paid for SRO reimburses for the SRO we presumably could provide those to them so I could I think this is a budgetary question rather than a value question and so Rachel's proposed I think for both budget and value reasons to maybe eliminate the Sr from the budget which would presumably save money that could either go into other police functions or be put someplace else in the budget Jane what what's the what's the price tag on the two uros I believe it was around $200,000 okay so Adam do you have a comment based on that information not yet okay uh any any reaction to Rachel's proposal

[337:03] Mark mostly a question um for Jane um the sro's are obviously not going to be put into place until we have open fully open schools correct correct and perhaps you're wanting to know what they're going to be used for and I think Maris is on the line and can better answer that yeah sure Jane um you know fundamentally we've talked a lot about police reform since I've been here and to accomplish that um I've talked about having a full-time training section and so um you know to have a full-time sergeant and five dedicated training officers to be able to run a 247 uh training section so I can complete um all of the things that we've talked about before with police reform it's one of the foundations and I can't do a lot of the heavy lifting without

[338:00] this full-time training section so it was my hope that we could accomplish that um with the um SRO positions Maris just just clarify for me you were going to use the SRO funding for the training correct right the original proposal was that we would have zero SRO in 2021 but that we would keep the funding that we normally would have and those dollars would be used to fund Trainers for the Department what we and under that scenario we had I think 1 million 150,000 or something left over instead of the 950 after marrison I had the conversation with the school district we made the decision to compromise with them by allowing there

[339:01] to be two SRO which meant that she was short the money for the training officers so we took $200,000 away from the $1.15 million to give for those training officers essentially and restoring these two SRO that reduced your remaining balance from 1.15 to 950,000 so in this budget there's training officers and two okay so so what we do with the two SRO does not impact the training function that Maris wants to implement exactly okay um so my question is um if we end up not requiring two SRO either because um we don't get fully open schools or you know covid resurges um can we

[340:00] later utilize that budgeted funding for other purposes so what I what I think is true and Maris check me if I'm right on this is that we would still have those officers but they would be out in the field okay yes so I would still need um I one supervisor in five Training to to complete the mission of of a of a full-time training section so um no no matter what at the end of the day those other two positions would have to come from the patrol operations um so um I guess to answer your question you would have to pull those other two that I would need from the patrol function so ultimately I would be losing those positions from Patrol if that makes sense Mark I I will it's 11:35 and I am confused um and and a bit

[341:04] tired I I'm just trying to get a sense the training that you wanted to implement is accommodated in this budget is it not yes okay so that the SRO can be looked at separately in terms of whether we go forward with them or leave them as a placeholder and reallocate funds if we uh if the schools remain closed and and then we have no need for them is is that a correct statement or am I starting to hallucinate it's it's a correct statement okay can I call I I guess I'm just confused why we're talking about the training in the context of the SRO like are the sro's the two officers who are SRO providing the training and that's why we're talking about it like are they functioning and if so like

[342:00] should we not just designate them then as training officers if we don't want to cut the budget but it just seems strange to me that we have this budgeted item that is not utilized and and on somebody else's sort of timeline and back and call it doesn't make sense in our budget let me um I'm just going to make a proposal and see if um how people react to this um again I want to I'd like separate the the value of the sro's from the from the budgeting exercise because I think we're trying to focus on the budget tonight um I have to believe I don't know this to be true I have to believe that the School District budget is is in much disarray as ours is um in part because there's a lot of functions that they're not even performing right now the school trips are not field trips are not happening and programs that are not being put on and all sorts of stuff that's not happening I don't mean to say that this the school district is a wash and and money but but I do observe that

[343:00] a majority of school districts funding comes from property taxes and those have been largely unaffected and um well they do get money from the state and that's probably been impacted I'm sure there's a lot of expenses that they're not incurring right now that they had budgeted for I get the fact that their budget for this fiscal year is already set um I think I I like where Jane is heading which is I think ultimately I'd like if the school district wants um SRO they should pay for them um and I would like to see next year's budget not include anything uh for funding for Sr we could talk about whether we staff them but we wouldn't fund them so I'd like to suggest that we split the difference with the school district and say okay here's the deal you need to have some skin in the game um we'll pay for one SRO in this budget you pay for one SRO in this budget you get the money from whatever place you can find it presumably you've got all sorts of compensating factors going on in your budget and by the way this this is we're trending from from two to one

[344:00] in one to you should prepare for the fact that we're going to pay for zero in your next budget so how do people feel about that so I raised my hand because that was The Proposal that Maris and I made to the [Laughter] school so I mean I think that the council could make this proposal again and say that our budget will include funding for one SRO and the school district wants to have the second one they can provide the money I mean we could do that but Council needs to do to do that we we we we have to be the bad guys because you already tried I already tried did not work that you already tried and succeeded like they wanted five and you said we'll split the difference and got to two or did you already try to go from two to one we tried to go from we said we were providing zero they said they wanted five they needed an argument and so we

[345:02] went back to them and said okay instead of zero we will fund one if you'll fund one and they said no so how does council feel about um backing up Jan and Maris on the one inone proposal oh I got Aon and Mark yeah I mean basically a thumbs up but just that you know know the the the schools are still mostly closed so I think there's some opportunity to work together here and try to try to figure something out um and and their uh their board is still considering whether SRO are something that they want at all right so um I I feel like we we can go out with that intention but uh let things develop see where they're landing and continue to negotiate Mark I I would fund one and they get to

[346:00] fund the other or not as they desire um times are tough although who's going to make the call whether it's Fairview or Boulder High that has the SRO they can again we're not talking about how many SRO they get we're talking about who pays for them well I'm just yeah if they say absolutely not so then they only have one if they only if they're not going to fun one then they can decide which school gets it okay uh uh other comments from council members on that idea well just one other thing I mean from a budgetary perspective like if the if bbsd is paying for one officer then we don't have to have it in our budget right and I guess that's what we're proposing um if they say no we absolutely won't do it we're not going to fire the officer involved right I mean so you I think for from a budgetary perspective I don't

[347:00] know that we can reclaim these dollars right now we presumably Jane and Maris can find out between now and the time of second reading on October 20th if they tell us if they tell us they want they don't want any sro's then I'm sure you're right we don't save any budget dollars but meis can certainly put those officers to good use right if they if they're willing to fund one then we do save up budget dollars it'll be their call fine others hear hearing nothing will we'll take that as a consensus okay Maris are you okay with that I am so good with that thank you okay good so let's anything else on the thanks for that Rachel that was helpful um anything else on the budget before we Circle back on the things we talked about Adam I'll keep this super short um the fire master plan really stuck with me when it was presented to us so if we

[348:01] have any additional dollars I think that would be an excellent place to input them based on our current service levels compared to other towns okay let's um bottom that up before we go to Rachel unless Rachel do you have some on fire going in a different direction I was just gonna ask you know we're sort of I feel like a little bit willy-nilly coming up with ideas here and I wanted to give Jane's input on on our ideas um my idea here's where I think you are you would like to create a 177% reserve and you're proposing that you have $560,000 to spend um that's fine with me I think you're spending 100,000 on Arts um probably 100,000 on the library and around 200,000 on the Human Service grants that's the way I'm

[349:00] understanding it that doesn't add up to 560,000 it leaves 160 left over I would suggest that you put that back into reserves because you seem to prefer the money going to reserves I haven't yet heard what Adam was thinking about for the fire department um and I would want Michael calderazzo to weigh in on it but normally $160,000 when it comes to fire service doesn't go super far so I I would want Mike to help me understand what what we could get with that thanks um good evening Council I I um not exactly sure how much we could use um for some of basically would go towards some of the cuts that we're already taking so it would depend I that's where we that's where we' put the money first um and I think the big thing uh might have been alluded to a little by President Martinez related to um how we

[350:03] staff and maintain minimum Staffing on shift and so right now what's programmed into the budget um is a reduction in that for 2021 that's where we would look to restore first with any additional funding before we move from there um towards some of our bigger uh master plan goals so what that would mean is that with 160,000 we I guess would say tonight that that money would go to the fire department and then we would provide you in the memo for second reading how we intended to restore some of those um Frontline Cuts if that would work how do folks feel about that

[351:00] not everyone has to weigh in but we're going to from here on out we're going to take silence as Ascent uh Mark and then Rachel I'm okay with that the only other place I might want to put a little extra funding if we had it would be economic Vitality because we get I think very good returns from the money that they spend in support of small businesses um but I'm fine putting it into fire as well Rachel yeah I just wanted to clarify Jane part of what I'm getting at is like we didn't look at transportation we didn't look at a lot of departments do you think that we're targeting the right spots for the the money knowing that it's a drop in the Hat of the bucket and we're spending a lot of time on on a drop in the Hat do you are you thinking that we're H looking in the right directions I I do think you're looking in the right direction because um in order to restore significant pieces of the other budgets that would make an impact and and we want our money

[352:01] to make an impact in a positive way for the community you need a lot more in those particular areas but in Human Services Grants and arts grants you know already the impact that you can have by helping a person avoid an eviction or helping an artist um do a project where they earn money and so I feel like the impact that we have is greater in this in these areas then it would be if we tried to put some lump of money into another department that might need way more to accomplish their goals mayby I was just going to say I supported it going towards fire um but I mean again I could be suede on that too but I mean I'm fine with it going back to reserves I mean if we really think it'll make a dent in Fire and they could use it fantastic

[353:00] but yeah I'm easy great thank you eron yeah I think Adam that was that was a great point it sounds like it it could make some incremental benefit to you know cuts that are being felt by the department I just wonder if we might bring this home because Jane you I thought you summarized where we were going pretty well there so Bob can we finish this up but it feels like we've getting close to the will of council here yeah I was going to go there too I wanted to make sure that no one else had anything else because we had some good good lastman discussions from Rachel and led by Rachel and and um Adam so I didn't want to cut anybody else off off anybody else have anything because we we did I think we got to 560 uh we have 200 on Human Services 100 in arts 100 Library services and the 160 on fire um and we're actually do a little bit better on reserves than we thought if if in fact we save the money on that SRO if the school district kicks in on that SRO um how do people feel about that

[354:01] package getting some nody heads okay so Tom help us Craft um because I know we want to try to get this done a second reading on the 20th um would you like a council member just to say what I just said um move to adopt the budget with those amendments is that GNA do the trick for you course you're not adopting tonight you're introducing and I'm sorry okay but yeah and if you do that but yes I think that's that's an adequate summary so the staff can um add those numbers to the various parts of the budget and reduce the reserve amount by the 560,000 okay right what can I ask the Taylor put up the final slide that slide is a is a listing of the four I think it's four ordinances that you need to pass tonight

[355:04] maybe not Taylor was working on pulling out that slide now okay thank [Music] you I mean I I've got them in front of me on the agenda if I could just I could just go for it go for it Aon yeah okay so I I will um move um introduction first reading and order by published by title only ordinance 8426 adopting the 2021 budget for the city of Boulder Colorado with um uh the Amendments I think this is where the Amendments would go um uh with the Amendments of adding um $200,000 to the Human Services housing and Human Services budget $100,000 to the library budget $100,000 to the Arts grp grants and $160,000 to the fire

[356:03] department I think that's one motion we have a second second do do we need to make any specific provision for the 17% Reserve or is that automatic well I guess what you should say is and reducing the the the reserve amount by $56,000 okay and reducing the reserve amount by 500 um wasn't it $500,000 like $490,000 because it was 950 you're reducing it by 560 right because that's what we're spending here they they they had it all in reserve yeah that's correct

[357:01] are you okay with that AR yep I you guys cut out out sorry I I missed something I think Tom just suggested that the reserve is because it was all going to be in the reserve as as originally proposed that we're reducing the reserve by 560 the 560 we just allocated yep that sounds good okay um we need to make motion on do we want to vote on them one at a time or do we want can we Tom can we vote all all as a package you can vote them all as a package okay Aron keep going camera off did we lose Aon my internet's getting a little spotty okay how about somebody else make the other three motions

[358:02] ber motion to uh uh introduce ordinance 8427 establishing the property tax Mill Levy for 2020 to be collected in 2021 any second second okay um ordinance uh in motion to introduce uh wait minut do I still need to do 8428 yes because one is the budget and one is the Appropriations okay uh motion to introduce ordinance 8428 appropriating the 2021 budget second and this is Cara I think this needs to be amended in the same way as you did ordinance 8426 thank you and amending uh that pursuant the uh changes that um Aaron

[359:00] enumerated in introducing ordinance 8426 okay and lastly um motion to introduce ordinance 8429 changing certain fees and Mark those are all introduced order published order to be published by total only and passed on first reading right yes thank you okay uh because this is all first reading I think this is a show hands is that right that's correct okay we got four motions on the table that have been seconded um all in favor raise your hand it looks like everyone's up no post okay that passes unanimously thank you staff thank you Council and thank you staff members for being here um those who don't have something Yet to Come can go home and thanks so much for your work thanks

[360:02] councel okay it's approaching midnight I'm actually on the East Coast so it's now approaching 2 am uh and I'd like to make a suggestion um we do have a public hearing scheduled for um this and so I don't the next item go ahead and announce the next item Debbie then I'll make a suggestion de are you there I am sorry um our next public hearing is the discussion and input on the proposed 2021 public policy statement on re regional state and federal issues in direction to staff to draft a resolution indicating the city's position on select measures appearing on this November State ballot Okay so we've got a couple of choices we could um and we've got two more items after that one of which will probably take 20 or 30 minutes so we could um skip this one all together um

[361:02] that feels a little icky to me since we have some people who have been patiently waiting to testify at the public hearing we could um so that's option one is cancel it and re reschedule it the second would be to go ahead and open the public hearing let people testify but not do a staff presentation or Council discussion this is a discussion I don't think there was a a motion other than a direction to staff to pass a the draft resolution so presumably we could do that quickly but not have a presentation from staff and not have discussion and then defer that to a subsequent meeting uh and the third is to do the full-blown thing which is scheduled for 75 minutes preference of councel Mark uh I would I would suggest that we permit the public testimony um not do the presentations and reschedule those for a later dat okay anybody opposed to

[362:04] that I assume this is Carl is that right yes Carl can you in like one or two minutes just frame the issue so that the the public speakers have something to tee off of but but don't do the whole whole presentation just say say what this is yeah absolutely uh thank you uh Bob um I guess just to be very short and clear about what this is this is an opportunity for Council to provide comments on the proposed changes to the policy statement really quickly it used to be called a policy agenda we're proposing to call it a policy statement now so that's what we're referring to it as um the changes were highlighted in your memo they were summarized and attachments um I don't think it would be a benefit to to all of you for me to summarize those now uh but I I would say

[363:02] to the people who are here to uh to speak on public hearing that they should certainly feel free to provide comments on the proposals that are made um what I will do what I can do is um based on after hearing from the public and after feedback that Council gives I can make revisions to the uh to the policy statement and bring it back for your consideration on the 20th it could be on consent or it could be um an item an actual public hearing if you like or or under matters or it could be delayed to a l point so as you please but uh the idea was to have this approved by October 20th and we may still be able to accomplish that I think what we had proposed is a dis robust discussion tonight and then approving it on consent and so I think we'll flip that over we'll we'll hear from the Comm um and then CAC uh will schedule more

[364:01] time than we had originally lotted for the 20th so the council members can weigh in and we can make adjustments and then pass it because this is our policy it doesn't require two readings um and so it's something we can pass on the 20th as scheduled uh we'll just need to allocate some time for Council discussion that we're we're not having tonight so let's open the public hearing and see who is still here uh bonus points for uh hanging on um we have have um eight people signed up uh so that means three minutes a piece um don't feel like you have to speak for three minutes but if you um if You' like to you can um Ryan are you still with us to kind of help manage this yeah absolutely lla has withdrawn as our Fe first Speaker would be Jonathan Jonathan Ward you're up for three minutes thank you for waiting can you hear me okay yes we can oh okay this is by Dr Jonathan Ward I'm a retired cardiologist living and

[365:02] working in Boulder for the past 30 some years um I'd like to thank you Council for considering and voicing support for improved health care and yes Health Care savings obviously we share stamina and a common goal of appropriate allocation of resources and Community wellbeing you'll hear unfavorable statistic medical statistics and painful stories from my cohorts what I'd like to do is address physician burnout uh which is a real danger for many reasons our present system is leading to early retirement moral injury from lack of control vulnerability and suicide among Health Care

[366:00] Providers but I would like to be upbeat at this point particularly and present my vision and solution our country is moving toward a single-payer platform like Medicare for all by regulating exorbitant profit from the medical corporations and chains I mean the pharmaceutical industry the hospital chains the medical device Industries the insurance companies by by regulating this profit we can focus on expanded Public Health preparing us better for crises such as this pandemic protecting our Workforce which we can't take for granted providing necessary equipment prevention preparation coordination improved Medicare reduce burnout and allow Physicians to focus on

[367:01] the Art and Science of patient centered care again which is what we signed up for this is possible by eliminating the distractions of time consuming billing Administration and multi- inssurance hassles Health Care will be available to every citizen from Cradle to grave the only affordable system by eliminating waste and controlling profit our oath will always provide high quality medical professionals know how to do this we just let the ball drop for a while overwhelmed by for-profit Industries Medicare is 55 years old successful publicly financed privately delivered many of us can't wait to be 65 and get affordable quality Care from our own physician and Hospital of choice the only real losers will be the industry CEOs that presently

[368:03] make thank you Jonathan we have Eileen monach uh and Evan rabitz and Lyn seagull Eileen okay uh council members thank you I'm speaking to you tonight to ask that you place specific language for Single Payer universal healthcare or improved Medicare for all in Boulder's legislative policy statement in my talk I will share both my professional reasons as a PA at Clinic Family Health and my personal reasons why I strongly support improved Medicare for all Boulder has identified advancing racial Equity as one of its leading priorities Boulder and other cities across the country cannot meaningfully address racial Equity without improved Medicare for all one of my young African-American patients Tanya not her real name suffers

[369:01] from diabetes she is a single mother of an autistic child she worked hard and put herself through college after graduating and getting a better job she was able to finally get employer sponsored health insurance and no longer qualified for Medicaid she soon learned though that she could not afford her life-saving insulin through her health insurance plan instead of advancing her career she had to take a pay cut and go back on Medicaid to be able to afford her insulin Tanya is trapped with a figurative knee on her neck by our for-profit health care System she's now stuck at a wage below 138% of the federal poverty level just so that she can keep her Medicaid and afford her insulin there are many many there are many more Healthcare hor stories I could share with you um but I next wanted to share my own personal story to help dis spell the myth that people love their for-profit health insurance in 2018 I

[370:02] was diagnosed with a condition requiring surgery the doctor visits lab work and imaging studies done in 2018 just barely exceeded our $4,800 deductible the unfortunate news though was that my surgery was unable to be scheduled by the end of December that year due to the obvious high demand in December this meant that we'd have to start over the next year with a new $4,800 deductible so yes the insurance company was happy that year while we were not they cashed in on our monthly premiums for the year while paying next to nothing meanwhile we paid our $4,800 deductible plus the monthly premiums to add further insult to injury after my surgery the next year the insurance company still made over $99,000 in profit over what we paid them in premiums for the year versus what they paid toward my surgery after the deductible in closing I would um I truly have no love

[371:00] for my husband's for-profit health insurance plan I'm grateful however for my health care providers and the excellent care that I received it's imperative that we separate such a primal basic need as our health care from the profit-driven marketplace and pass improved Medicare for all please include support for improved Medicare for all part of Boulder policy statement thank you thanks E Evan rabbits and Lindy SE good morning I fully support what I and Jonathan just asking a you the city should also Lobby the state to remove the state preemptions that stop localities like Boulder from having rent control gun control pesticide control control of telecom companies as with 5G and prevent us from having a real estate

[372:00] tax and which force us to keep our money in the very worst Banks who use it for fossil fuel projects and other things that turn our money against us and future Generations in this way the state prevents us from solving our own problems and there are elements of city government that prevent the voters from solving our own problems using direct democracy let's solve both these problems thank you thank you Evan Lin seagull um and then I I think Riley manuso is no longer here um if that's the case Bill simple is after ly seagull ly that's correct and then Dylan is is not present as well okay Lyn and then Bell is us first of all first of all you hear

[373:03] me yeah if there's any problem with my audio signal please let me know instantly I don't care if it's three or five in the morning you know these things need to get done if you don't want to do them then don't put it off and put it off and put it off I want to know what I'm exactly supposed to be talking about tonight and of course I I'm in that Health Care profession and I support Medicare for all and single single paay and everything that simple's gonna say and eileene and Jonathan but I like a better organized situation here and if you people don't want to take the job of staying on these meetings until 4 o'l in the morning then do two meetings a week this is the job this is the population in Boulder 107,000 and you're spending it all on

[374:02] the developers you know and I support Medicare for all but I think that you ought to have a more iterative process here too that's really critical and um you know you at your retreat don't want to have masks on because you can't see the visual connection that people make well how do you think it's for us staring at one minute and 18 seconds how do you think that makes someone feel seriously I don't deserve to have my image up on

[375:00] there and you do yeah sure I don't think so done thank you Lyn uh Bill [Music] simple go ahead B you just need to unmute oh okay uh thank you for staying up and I urge the council to support the wording that I submitted by email on Saturday uh to the policy statement item number 50 While most of us support everyone having health care that they can afford it's important to see what policy gets us there and which policies don't for-profit insurance companies will always have the incentives to collect premiums and to not pay for health care just like ien was saying

[376:01] defending the Affordable Care Act which has helped some leaves the current fragmentation in place a public option adds more complexity and expense and still leaves gaps a reinsurance plan that Colorado has considered it will help some but it throws more taxpayer dollars at a broken system to improve Medicare for for all is an essential part of addressing poverty racial inequities homelessness anxieties about affording health care and addressing mental health issues in general we can spend less have robust coverage for everyone and have better health care but only with improved Medicare for all so with this policy statement Boulder can join cities and counties across the country speaking up for the Affordable Health Care that we all need by endorsing improved Medicare

[377:01] for all thank you thank you Bill and thank you for everybody who uh who stayed up to uh to provide their testimony tonight we're going to close that public hearing Carl do you need anything else from us we'll obviously schedule an appropriate amount of time for Council discussion on this for the 20th but you need anything else from us tonight well two things first of all um originally The Hope was to get some direction on what ballot measures you'd like to take a position on or or against you don't have to do that um and maybe given the hour that doesn't make sense um secondly um I'm assuming that this will be a CAC conversation but I'm assuming that I will be coming forward with an agenda for the 20th that is ready for approval um of course um approval could be delayed for a subsequent meeting if needed but

[378:02] so just trying to convey the uh the typical expectations and let you do what what you will with that okay with respect to your first item um you uh I think the the legislative uh Affairs governmental Affairs committee which consists of four of the nine council members had a recommendation uh rather than talking about that tonight and I know that there is some time sense to be around that because the ballots will be going out next week um does it make sense I guess this is a question to council does it make sense for Carl's team to go ahead and put together the resolution that was uh supporting the ballot me State ballot measures that um the committee recommended and then council members can vote Yes or no or modify it on the flag and it only requires um a single vote are folks comfortable with that you

[379:00] don't have to weigh in about whether you're comfortable with what the committee recommended is comfortable with the process Arin well I think the it does require some substantive discussion which I think we're probably past our expiration date to have um tonight so i' I'd recommend that we have the whole discussion at the at a rescheduled meeting and maybe we can just approve it in rough form you know with final language to be um completed after we approve the compositions okay anybody have any objection to that okay Carl we we will talk at CAC about how much time you'll need and and what the what the appropriate U agenda for that will be okay very good great thanks Carl yeah so on the two ordinances the budget ordinance since you amended 8426 and 8428 um I'm assuming the council chose

[380:01] option one that is to uh leave the remaining amounts in the reserve and um to appropriate po 560,000 of the money not option two to put the remaining funds in contingency is that correct yes that was my understanding does anybody have a different understanding what Tom said okay thank you thank you Tom okay Debbie back to you you so we're up to Matters from the city manager and our item is we have an update from uh regarding the city of Boulder evolving initiatives in response to covid-19 business impacts okay and this can I make a suggestion also on this one um I know there's a lot of good news to report here um and it is good news but I think you're looking for a decision from us on a particular matter so if we could um be refund the good news part of it and jump right to the decision part that would be

[381:00] good good morning Council happy belated birthday Jane thank you all right um Taylor if you can pull up the slides and move to slide four please uh the title my presentation says it all covid lingers and this is an update on our continuing response I appreciate um and will assume that uh council's aware of all the good work here on slide four that uh crosses a lot of departments and uh represents our short-term response over the last 6 months next Slide part of the good news today was a press release that we want to appreciate our local businesses all those who applied and um are so honored to be able to provide support for the 2011 awardees that received $679,000 those funds should be distributed over the next two weeks and if Council has any questions for me I'm happy to answer it at the end next

[382:01] slide and yet things persist and so uh earlier this evening you heard um from many of my colleagues about the continued prioritization of Public Safety um the assistance we need to stabilize the local economy the equity lens being applied in all initiatives and the responsible use of funds these are the community's values and we've lived through all of the initiatives that we have with our partners over the last six months next slide so we have three things that we are recommending to Pivot to um I want to say upfront that there is no one perfect answer for all of the reasons you've heard and prioritizing Community safety and the community's values um we are just trying to make sure that we are appropriately deploying dollars there are three initiatives we hope will help uh businesses particularly restaurants and Retail over these winter months by the way there is absolutely no proposal

[383:01] of staff to um halt outdoor dining um we are just prioritizing and highlighting um how we would pivot for winter months the first is to use a part of the cares fund allegation allegation appropriation for uh allocation for subsidized thirdparty delivery the RFP for this process closes on Monday um and with the chamber we'll continue to have conversations from any organization if we are unable to find a successful vendor for this program we will find another way to Aid restaurants who are currently experiencing up to a 35% charge for thirdparty delivery that cuts into their margins and we want to keep community members who are ordering in their meals safe while also supporting these important businesses in our community next slide the second is to use a portion of the funding to promote buying local there's

[384:01] never I keep saying this every month I say it again there's never been a more important time uh to support our local small businesses and this is an outgrowth that wasn't just as a result of covid but is also what we heard in the recently completed retail study and developed retail strategy we would use a portion of the funding to create a city subsidy for a holiday season um some version of a gift card they've done this with bir and bucks and there are other programs um details TBD next slide what I think is getting the most attention in our community right now is how we will P pivot for the winter um and I have my colleagues I think they're still out there Charles pharoh Edward Stafford uh michon cook Erica Vander brand and Bill Cowern who are here um later to answer questions if you have any but the basic problem is that there

[385:00] continues to be limitations on indoor dining um that are consistent with the health care guidance that we've all received in response we want to do things that are consistent with that safety guidance but also allow people to have tents um and some people are asking for heated tents um we would not uh suggest anything that would that we would retain all sidewalk infrastructure allowances we would retain the reduced parking pricing curbside pickup locations waved minimum parking requirements Citywide and we would mitigate um some of these experiences in winter with the earlier programs I uh shared with you I do want to point out that uh this program has been wildly successful and appreciated and we as staff also appreciate the many restaurants that not only serve the community but employ many many people in the community next

[386:02] slide um one of the things that has been very popular is a street closure that Council suggested I believe in June on the west end of Pearl Street and the event Street um first uh wanted to say that we are aware that that's very popular and rrc has been helping to navigate the process of helping us see whether there's interest Beyond um this program to go into perhaps a longer program as some semi-permanent or seasonal effort um a survey conducted by RSC in partnership with downtown Boulder partnership and the Chamber uh recently found that most people would like to see um it continue at least some of the time and some people are interested in it permanent um some however would uh not are not sure or are not encouraging it so this was a small sample size and I'm sure there will be other Outreach but we recognize that it's been highly valued and valuable um during this time of Co I

[387:03] think one of the things that sta um is proposing this evening is that we sort of begin to think about the difference between a program that's going on right now that's covid responsive and an ongoing seasonal street closure or streetery program that might be a larger work plan item next slide so what do you do in the meantime um first we are suggesting that The Pedestrian malls certainly and the event Street would continue to utilize outdoor dining expansions as they have been um many of them some of them use tents but most do not um and there is already a closure on the event street that we are certainly recommending continue du the winter months based on the current utilization not only design of that amenity but the utilization that street on the mall we also recognize on The Pedestrian Mall that people may want to

[388:01] add tents or not that may have maintenance implications well certainly will um that we would want to discuss with you a little bit further but I guess the big message here is we're assuming that it continues there would also be a continued ability to utilize sidewalk pedestrian areas alleys as consistent with safety requirements Ada and public health orders uh that would all be retained ConEd um right now there are barricades closing the West End of Pearl and this was explored with downtown Boulder early on um and and in thorough discussions with all of the concentrated group of restaurant tours and retailers at that end we have two options for you that consider the values previously um one is taking out all the parking spaces and I'll talk about that in a second for for the winter months um or you could continue the existing closure on the

[389:01] west end but there would be a maintenance implication that we should discuss separately with my colleagues um we have been talking about a 2021 return of a seasonal uh parklet program and this would be something that we believe would be a late 2020 work plan Edition that um I'm saying potentially impacts other staff responsibilities but I would almost bet that it's going to impact um current work responsibilities the council will want to consider in this year's work plan or give us further Direction on at the retreat that might include a permit process um amending that some of that infrastructure that it so that it performs better and you could give us a little Direction on is this seasonal um or is this ongoing developing uniform guidelines for in Street parklet infrastructure believe council member Yates is of is currently in my hometown and so seeing

[390:00] some of that kind of Parkland infrastructure but our staff as you know was able to Pivot earlier this year very swiftly for businesses because we kept it simple making things that are more durable to be in the right of way um will require some thought uh and I'd wanted to refer to my colleagues later if you have questions there we' want to consider special event or permit considerations concerning seasonal closures or longer closures um and then alcohol lure um is an ongoing issue I have a little bit more news to share with you about that and I'm sure michon does too um the big consideration there is what is the difference between the common consumption Direction and direction that might be just about a particular business next slide we thought it might be helpful for you to see what currently exists on Pearl West End so there's a picture of the map that you saw in June um along with a picture there of

[391:02] how those uh strees are currently established and the other option that you were we were discussing today which um takes out the parking for the season um so you can see just you can see the purple lines there depict which parking spaces would be affected and you can see similar to what they did on Main Street in Longmont how these Jersey Jers barriers would be lined up that would allow for the regular maintenance schedule that we always conduct during winter months I would be remiss if I didn't say that the safety issues go beyond being able to have vehicles go down uh a street or have uh snow plowed um we live in a community uh in a beautiful part of the country where streets do ice over um people are coming pretty fast on um whatever their mode of Transport is and we want to be thoughtful to be able to

[392:01] be as consistent as we possibly can there's also access to utilities and other things all of which were outlined in your memo next slide I would also um not be doing a good job if I didn't mention how many people were involved with all of this work so council member wall thanks for the shout out for economic Vitality uh but there there's a cast of millions out here um working to support the community through this uh these are just a few of my colleagues um from across vared departments that have been involved in some of these initiatives and we thought it was important tonight that you know who's out there working and that we'd be able to thank them in front of Council next slide so what would our proposed timeline be for these tents with heaters um and by the way and this is for benefit of an earlier question if you put a tent um and it has sides according

[393:01] to the County's Health direction that they've provided to us a week and a half ago that is considered considered additional indoor space so we have received some recent County Guidance and that is part of the process and why we have been working on that so fervently over the last week and a half um based on your feedback this evening we would complete the FAQ and the application packet over the next day tomorrow there would be a web page update and an FAQ with a 17 page as a yesterday 17 Page uh guidance document that answers all those questions and is easy to find answers in that would go live on the 8th and the application window would open on the 12th when we return from our Furlow day the applications would be rolling they unlike last time we would not have a hard stop date so if people were not ready in the first couple days they would still have an opportunity and we would give you an information packet

[394:01] update at some point in December um next slide so the application is basically waiting for a thumbs up from you it would open on the 12th there will be two options one for an immediate issuance if you hit all the things on the checklist and you followed all the guidance it's a go go get your tent go get your heater and we're ready to go and then we just follow up with you um the other is a fast review issuance next slide um the we've given a little thought to what would be involved in immediate issuance and it's basically a tinted structure of 900 square feet or less um with this kind of power power utilization um and again trying very hard to help people keep it simple and

[395:01] be as clear and transparent in the process as possible very customer-driven process as much as we could the fast review requirements would come into play if you are using an enclosure that is larger than 900 square feet and to give you some feel for that that's a 30x30 tent and I'm using the word tent in a gracious manner it could be other things besides a tent um or um you're adding more than 50 amps um or the other things that will be provided in the guidance we do recognize that it is very difficult um to find something that works for everyone this assumes that the majority of this infrastructure would be on private property um or on the sidewalks um primarily on private property though that's where you'd have some space we also recognize that in the two areas where you have some degree of closure whether that's the West end with open

[396:01] lanes or not um there would be an opportunity um to have tents with heat in those places as well um or to just keep the infrastructure that you currently have and on beautiful days that should suffice for most um there may be instances where people currently have parklets in the street and it is not the recommendation of Staff um given the safety and other considerations that we shared in the memo to have those continue through the winter months I want to stop here and mention 180 days um I got a question earlier today of where where's 180 days coming from and that is basically because the difference between considering a structure permanent or not Falls within the fire code if 180 days or less and moves to the building code if over 180 days now of course we recognize that um

[397:00] it will still be cold in February and that Council may decide that they want to extend beyond that but this gives us an opportunity to have some further conversation also to see how much interest is out there for this type of infrastructure but we'd be interested in your thoughts there we recognize that other communities have

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