December 1, 2020 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] [Music]

[1:15] little icons and one of them looks a little bit like a globe and says interpretation if you click on that it pops up a menu that allows you to choose English or Spanish we need everybody to choose their language if you speak both please choose one language that you'd like to communicate in during this portion of the meeting once you've chosen your language the little Globe should change to a little icon that either says n for English or e s for espanol and I would like to remind presenters tonight that with interpreters it's helpful to speak more slowly than you might speak if you were just speaking your native language language and especially true when you're

[2:02] reading something we tend to speak more uh quickly when we're reading A good rule of thumb which I need to remind myself of often is to take a breath in between each sentence especially if you're going over numbers and figures which is likely during our covid presentation it's really helpful for our interpreters if you slow those numbers down just a little bit so that everybody can participate fully in this meeting with that I can turn it back over to you Sam and we can get started great thanks very much Sarah okay so I have a couple of announcements tonight before roll call um the first announcement is that the state of Colorado has announced that a mobile digital covid exposure tracking application has been launched to help individuals be aware if they have been close to someone who has had a positive test for covid this application is available for cell phones running Google

[3:01] Android or Apple iOS and is secure and Anonymous and will provide those signed up with a notification if someone they were near tests positive for covid over 15% of Colorado cell phones have already loaded this application which is expected to reduce covid incidents by 8% please sign up to increase your own protection and that of fellow residents more information and the application itself can be found at www.you phone.com and the second announcement is that next Tuesday's study session on December 8th will begin 30 pm to allow time for interviews for applicants for the Cannabis licensing Advisory Board and I will turn um to Debbie and see if you could call roll please absolutely council member Brockett

[4:02] present friend here Joseph present Nagel slick present wallik present Weaver here Gates here young present mayor we have a quorum very good thank you very much and I will turn it over to Chris to introduce our next few speakers great thank you good evening Council uh we're going to begin tonight with our Co Public Health briefing um that we do at the beginning of every month so I'd like to welcome Jeff Zak and Dr urbina uh to give the briefing hi thanks Chris hi council members thanks again for the invite always appreciate being invited back so what I'm going to do today is walk us through the latest data update and tell you what we're seeing in the next few

[5:00] weeks ahead of us uh and then some of the concerns that we have and we're going to finish with Chris is going to do an update on vaccine and where the vaccine is at this point and what we can expect as we're moving forward I want to thank the mayor for announcing the app I have put that on my phone obviously the more people that sign up for that the better we can help control this disease especially uh with the type of situation that we're in now where we have lots of outbreak um Can somebody share the slides for me or would you like me to share from here thank you uh you can go to the next slide and what I'll what I'll be conscious of is just making sure that I am speaking slowly here so thank you Sarah for that reminder this as you know that we have three different measures from the state dial that we look at to determine where we uh as a county are placed on the dial this is the first one

[6:01] and it's our current twoe cumulative incidence rate and in Boulder County we're at 759.5 per 100,000 for two weeks and that's a little bit better than it was last week so our rates are starting to go down a little bit but I'm going to talk about what we expect to see over the next week or so um because this is probably a shortlived um a short-lived win for us and the the challenge I want to illustrate here to everybody that's listening is this map is still largely red um for incidence rate across the majority of the counties in the state as you can see which means that it's critically important that we work on strategies together um to reduce this virus at this point with this wide of spread and as you'll see the spread is in multiple age groups next slide this is our positivity our two-e positivity test rate in Boulder County

[7:01] we're at 6.7% what you're going to hear from me in the presentation is that we have a really adequate testing um in Boulder County we have four different testing sites as well as some popup testing sites that we are doing um and we're testing well above uh what's required of us uh based on the national numbers which is you've heard me report before 495 tests uh per day we are we're well above that now we're averaging 2700 next slide please uh this is our current hospitalization status and there's three different levels this dial just changed here um so you can see that it used to be just seven to 10 seven to 14 days or or 0 to seven days and now they put a third level in here we're currently in the middle level um and again uh I'll show you a slide specific to our current hospitalizations in Boulder County so you get a better idea of what our actual looks like next slide

[8:03] please this is our metro area slide that I I show you each time I come present um and it is the the it's the seven Metro counties what you can see here is that if you look at the red that's Boulder County the spike that is around September to October that was the spike that was so significantly bad at that time um and it was the the outbreak that was associated with 18 to 22 year olds and our CU students coming back and you can see how much more severe um the the number of 7-Day cases is across the Metro County um this is a significant challenge for us we did see that decrease slight decrease um and unfortunately what you're seeing in those little tales that are coming back up is what we expected which is associated with travel that was happening in uh around Thanksgiving before Thanksgiving as well as Thanksgiving we do expect to see these

[9:01] cases increase again unfortunately as we move into the next two weeks next slide please this is the graph that shows um in the dark blue our number of cases that are nonc affiliated and then in the light blue CU Affiliated um what you'll see in the one of the graphs I'm going to show you in a minute is we've had a little bit higher spike in the 18 to 22 year old population um which is also indicated from probably the early part of November here we had done a really great job at knocking this population down in terms of the numbers of positives and we've seen it climb up a little bit um some of that was definitely associated with Halloween where we saw more enforcement actions that were necessary associated with parties so we somewhat expected this um but students as you all I think know now are transitioning out most students have left campus at this point um and we expect to see this number to decrease as

[10:00] we move forward next slide please this is um our same graph but it has long-term care facilities on it um and you can see the challenge with long-term care facilities um in this this series of the outbreak so in this last month and a half to two months has not been inside the facility themselves but it's been staff that are bringing the disease into the facility because we have so much uh virus in the community uh we we are seeing staff that are bringing that virus into the facilities themselves uh many of whom are asymptomatic um the the great news is is that we you'll hear in the in the vaccine update that we've been able to link um the vaccine distribution directly to these facilities which are our high-risk um population um and and that is really good news as we move forward next slide please

[11:00] this is our our five-day average number of new cases the main point I want to make here is at 157 cases we're still well beyond our ability to effectively do case investigation and contact tracing and uh if you think back to that slide that showed the red counties all across the state that's consistent with where we are at a state level we still don't have the capacity to be able to effectively reach all the contacts that we need to a lot of the Outreach that we're doing at this point is either electronic or it is through a letter um but we we are nowhere near the ability to be able to case investigate and contact Trace every single person who's positive or probable at this point next slide please this is the County residents who have tested positive or considered probable by municipality uh what you can see here is this and this is the cumulative rate per 100,000 uh vast majority of the positives in the last week have been in

[12:02] Longmont um so we continue to see the highest rates in Longmont next slide uh this just demonstrates the relative contribution from each of our Municipal areas you can see that Longmont and Boulder um are the largest contributors um and then in the next slide we're going to see how that breaks out by um by our our ethnic populations next slide oh I'm sorry it's one after that um so this slide just demonstrates that middle Peak that shows the 3780 on it is the 18 to 22 year old population um that we had the outbreak with CU in and this shows all age groups uh that are on uh that are currently um in in uh a total number of cases here for a two-e incidence what you can see here that I

[13:00] think is important to illustrate uh is that we did and we have and we still are seeing high level of case rates ac across most all of the age groups um based on where our line has been um if we look previously in this outbreak um although we've seen the good news again that I sh that I shared with you early on that we've seen some downward Trend you can see that that's flattening um and it's likely to increase based on what we saw happening at Thanksgiving next slide this is that um the race ethnicity graph that I was sharing with you uh and what we can see here in the Orange is that that is our Hispanic latinx population um and the blue is our white non-hispanic and we continue to see a large proportion of our total cases um in the latinx population and we know that this is an equity and it's a challenge for us um we're working with

[14:02] our cultural Brokers um we're working with the city of Longmont specifically the city of Longmont um 50% roughly of their between 40 and 50% of their cases were in the latinx um population so we know that this population specifically is one that we still need to continue to focus on in order to reduce this disparity these are also the folks that are on our uh many of our essential critical business Frontline workers um and are Exposed on a daily basis next slide please what this shows is the total testing capacity in Boulder County or the total number of tests that we're running I'm sorry let me get rid of this um the total tests that we're running in Boulder County as I mentioned before our average is around 2700 per day we have ample testing capacity in Boulder County with multiple sites now um uh several of

[15:00] the two of those sites are dedicated to high priority populations lions and Netherland um and the other two drive up sites stazio Ballfield thank you to the city of Boulder for continuing support of that um and the one that we have in Longmont at the fairgrounds our drive up sites that are free uh to the public next slide please this is our five-day rolling average percentage positivity rate um and because we have such a high amount of testing in Boulder County uh I don't know what ours is per capita to the rest of the sites across the state but we certainly have a lot of testing um comparative um and it's why we have one of the lower rates across the state if you look at some of the the percentage positivity rates you'll see that they're higher Mo most of those are higher than Boulder County um and it's because we do have a lot of testing which means we're also identifying a lot of the folks who are potentially either asymptomatic or symptomatically positive in our County

[16:02] but the number of tests is helping keep our percentage positivity rate uh down further than some other areas next slide please this is our hospitalizations for Boulder County this is not good news um and as you can see um we've had a fairly steady climate hospitalizations um and we are I I'm not sure of the exact number today um but this trend is clearly haded in the wrong direction unfortunately we expect to see this trend continue to climb um as we move o into the Thanksgiving and winter holiday period um and that clearly depends as you'll hear me talk about in just a few more slides at the end here um it clearly depends upon the actions that people take this is preventable I want to keep illustrating that it is preventable um and it depends on the behaviors that that we each individually uh take and the responsibility we take for those behaviors as to what these

[17:00] graphs look like moving forward next slide please this is the hospitalizations and death by age group and what I wanted to point out here is that the the if you look at the age groups on the leth hand side we see hospitalizations happening at the 18 to 22 year old age group even though we're not seeing many hospitalized ICU folks uh at that age group we are starting to see them at 25 to 34 um and you can see the numbers on the table there um so this does impact more than just our oldest age groups we are seeing hospitalizations starting in that 18 to 22 year old group um our highest hospitalizations unfortunately now are creeping up into the most sensitive and the most vulnerable age groups which is 75 plus and again you can see a fairly High number in the 55 to 64 age group as well so it is impacting people um across

[18:02] that age range next slide please this is the state hospitalizations uh I won't spend much time here similar to the same Trend that we're seeing in Boulder County next slide this is our desk unfortunately all these desks represent somebody's loved ones brothers sisters Aunts Uncles um and unfortunately when we see uh increasing hospitalization rates and and increasing incidence rates this is what we know follows those things um and you can see just from the end of October until where we are in November right now we've had a significant number of deaths um High cluster just like there was on the early portion of this outbreak that is again preventable it's what we want to avoid uh and it really does come down to all of us taking responsibility to do the best we can to follow the precautions next slide please

[19:02] this is a projection from the colado School of Public Health uh and this was modeled last week but basically this shows uh the purple line there is based on a 60% transmission control and when I say transmission control they the state just changed this language this used to be what I was referring to as social distancing um so just as a reminder when we were in the early portion March April of stay-at home we were around 80% social distancing or transmission control um and the numbers of infections in our community were lower than they currently are now I'll talk about that more in a minute the projection at 60% between when this model was run um which was uh last week so you can see if you look at where the 1123 number is and how that crosses that dotted line the projections at 80% transmission control

[20:00] so probably somewhere close to where we are right now I don't know the exact numbers for this week they're going to run some more modeling um at the Colorado School of Public Health after they get the updated numbers um from what travel and cases look like from Thanksgiving um we are we're going to see that many more excess deaths that occur between now and the end of the year um so we know again the the reason I put this graph up here is because we know that what we do can save lives and it can save businesses next next slide please this is where I just wanted to focus a little more on that we know um that again this is preventable we literally can save lives and save our businesses um many businesses as I've said to you before uh have been on the phone with me and pleading that they really can't make it through another series of restrictions like we're facing right now we know that we

[21:00] are going to lose businesses from this we know that we are losing people's lives from this and this is preventable we can make a difference um we have to work together uh this takes coordinated effort across all those counties that you saw and it takes individual responsibility but we can make a difference we are getting close there is a light at the end of the tunnel um I'm gonna have I'm gon to shift it over here to Chris uh real quickly but just want to make sure that people are aware that with this many infections in our communities and the estimated number of people that are infectious in the state is around one and and 41 people that's a lot of infection in our community um and that's why we're seeing such steep uh climbs in our incidents reach such steep climbs in our hospitals and the number of deaths that we're seeing is because we have a lot of people infected in our community and the only way we're going to be able to control that is if we all act together it can't just be 70% of us

[22:01] it's got to be all of us acting together and we can get a handle on this and we can again prevent those deaths and we can prevent uh businesses from from losing their livelihoods um we we are going to go into this holiday season and the best thing that we can do is stay keep our Gatherings to our family um please uh make sure you're wearing masks if you have to go out wash your hands after you've been in in public uh make sure that you're social distancing to the maximum extent possible um and I'm going to turn it over here to to talk about the Hope message um with vaccine that we know is coming to Colorado so Chris do you want to take it from here and you can go to the next slide thank you uh Jeff can everybody hear me yes great thank you Sam mayor and members of city council glad to be

[23:01] back with you I'm going to give you a very high level presentation of what's currently happening regarding vaccination planning but stay around because I know there're going to be lots of questions regarding this because it's a work in progress uh I think that uh it's a collaborative effort um between the federal government who's working with our pharmaceutical industry to produce the vaccine our state State Health Department as well as all the local Health departments around around our state so we're working closely with these three different partner two two different partners to kind of come up with a plan and as we go about this work in progress we're learning more and more and more so I'm going to just talk about two different uh components one how vaccines are developed and where we are in terms of that development how it's approved and how do we assure that it's both safe and effective and then talk about priority popul ation and finally leave it open for questions so next

[24:01] slide please so this is a very busy slide but I'm just going to talk a little bit about the vaccine life cycle and what that means we've basically truncated this this life cycle very quickly in our federal government because of the intensity as well as the severity of this infection so a lot of these pieces early on were were truncated because we had several experiences with both SARS and and mirrors so that we had a couple vaccines in development and we're able to use that technology to speed up the vaccine the first part of it the yellow orange part of this but the development is still taking the same amount of time the the green part of this is really the safety phase one uh phase two is the effectiveness and phase three is safety

[25:00] and Effectiveness to go combin and over the last several months you've heard about six different vaccines in the US that are being developed as well as probably another couple hundred vacines across the world that have being developed each has been going through this developmental phase where they take a population of people very diverse different age groups different Sexes different chronic medical conditions um and and healthy people healthy young people to first test the vaccines on their safety that's the first development that usually takes a couple months we're past that then they look at phase two they give both a a um a vaccine and a placebo to look at its Effectiveness exposing people to their natural conditions out in the community to test of that population how many people actually end up with the vaccine and you've heard preliminary results both fiser and Mna the MRNA virus

[26:02] vaccines that that have been developed they show that they're probably greater than 90% effective that's good news but they're still in phase three of that development where they're looking at both safety and Effectiveness both of them have have have tested these vaccines against Placebo and about 30 to 40,000 people and they' show promising results right now in that phase three both madna and Fa fizer have applied for uh FDA approval for uh emergency use uh utilization so authorization so that they are able to expedite the use once they approve their both safe and effective to you approve their use among the general public so we were right right now at that blue uh light blue uh uh Arrow there looking at whether or not FDA is is going to say the evidence is

[27:00] there for both safety and Effectiveness it's we can go ahead and authorize this emergency use authorization and remember this is what we did for many of the testing many of the treat uh treatments that are currently being used in our hospitals this is the standard process of how this gets approval the next phase is this dark blue phase so once the FDA approv this the and this is what the uh the um the um advisory commit on immunization practices what what usually because nobody can remember that they call it the acip provides recommendations and that's actually occurring simultaneously with the FDA review so that we're doing these both two light blue and dark blue sections right now so we're looking at kind of speeding this process up not in the development of testing their safe safety and Effectiveness but in this process of the orange and yellow and the blue sections to get it approved so all the vaccine companies at least six of

[28:00] them have already produced large numbers of these vaccines pending approval by both the FDA as well as recommendation review by the acip so that's where we are right now and ultimately the purple section um not related to the dial that Jeff has talked about before is that next section where we over a long period of time look at the effectiveness and safety of this vaccine so I'm going to stop there and go to our next slide but I know there going to be lots of questions about both so we'll come back to this you youd like next slide so as we talked about once the it gets FDA approved and acip comes up with recommendations about how to distribute it this is where the discussion is happening right now why because there's going to be limited Supply and we anticipate and you've seen this on the national news and local news where what are the priorities for this phase distribution because the vaccine is not going to be totally available and it looks like the earliest dates will be the end of December where we'll start

[29:01] with the first phases now I'm I'm going to just cover these red sections as an overview because obviously they're making this decision right now as we speak so the phase 1 a 1B and 1 C are those populations that are critical Workforce as well as highest risk individuals I think you can read this but those are going to be the healthcare workers the long-term care assisted living facility workers folks that are working with these high-risk populations and we don't want them to be infected as well as we want them to be protected so they can safely take care of patients that are currently positive our next critical Workforce issue group is 1B which is our EMS First Responders firefighters police public health workers and correction workers people that are working on the front line who are serving all of us we want them to be protected to continue to do their critical role uh that they play in our communities so that we're all safe and the final group of that first phase are the highest risk individuals those are

[30:01] people that are currently residing in long-term care facilities and and nursing homes so that we can protect them because as Jeff pointed out in his slides um those are the folks that are most vulnerable who are likely to be hospitalized and ultimately die so we're going to want prioritize those populations so I'm going to just stop and give you a comment about those critical Workforce folks in in Phase One we're going to be working with our and we've already contacted our hospitals they're Contracting with local large Hospital excuse me large pharmaceutical chains that'll help us with the distribution of this vaccine U both in hospitals and and and and Health Care Facilities as well as these long-term care uh facilities so you're going to be hearing more about this but we're all of that process is beginning to evolve so that well once these vaccines are approved and once we have access not to all uh because it's being developed right now but to a significant portion

[31:00] so we can cover this first phase so that'll likely occur in December and January and then let's talk about phase two these are the congregate house housing essential workers people who are living in Long uh people are experiencing homelessness incarcerated individuals adults living in in group homes people living in congregate settings why are these people uh important well those people that are those vulnerable populations that we're talking about those workers that are working with those folks are clearly potentially exposed so that we want them to be part of that next phase phase two and finally in phase two are the higher risk of individuals like myself over the age of 65 adults with chronic medical conditions and and and and those folks obviously who were volunteered to be a part of the clinical trials uh who received the placebo and they'll know by then and finally is and that's those vaccines will probably be available probably early spring uh or late spring

[32:02] and finally the general public will get the vaccine uh in in phase three probably spring summer depending on the uptake uh of the vaccine uh in those populations so we're working in a coordinated way with the federal government the state government our cdph as well as all the local Health Department uh folks and our team has been working actively and working with those resources to prepare to receive these vaccines making sure that they we have coal storage uh we making sure that we have all the supplies necessary make sure we're informing and this is probably the the million-dollar question is can can we be assured that people will take the vaccine once it's been available and so I think we're going to be spending a lot of time with the general public working with our experts like our our our respected leaders like all of you to get the message out that this vaccine will be safe and effective so that we can get people to to actually

[33:00] get the vaccine so ultimately as Jeff talked about as we transition from continuing to be safe with all our prevention strategies we can start to increase our number of people that are being uh immunized who can uh be protected again the vaccine so we can create a a both natural immunity as well as her immunity from the vaccine so there will be hopefully by next I'm comp I'm optimistic that by the next uh my next fall we'll be having a quite different conversation than we are now in terms of the protection and opening our businesses and schools in a more effective way so I'm going to stop there and see if if if you have any questions for Jeff and I about the stuff that we've talked about so far mayor does that sound reasonable that's awesome and I want to say thank you to both you Chris and Jeff for being here and answering our community questions every month it's super helpful and I think there's going to be a lot of excitement about the fact that we're moving into

[34:01] discussion of vaccines and delivery of them so I don't see any hands up council members if you have questions please raise your hands um I'll start with a question as I see Hands coming up um it it looks like that we're going to start seeing vaccines potentially here within a couple of weeks both um Jeff and the governor have said that within the last 24 hours Jeff you had referenced in the call yesterday that there might be 170,000 doses here um in a couple of weeks is that still current and and what does that mean to us H how much of that phase 1A will be impacted if we get the 170,000 doses I'm gonna let Chris take that because he's gonna have probably more accurate estimations he's in these conversations and he can talk about what that looks like relative to that first population uh great question mayor um think the uh that number that Jeff gave

[35:01] you is probably based on a per capita estimate of how many vaccines we think we're going to get Statewide and then how many Boulder County we're right now working with our healthc Care Partners to estimate the number of healthcare workers um uh healthc care providers people working with those long-term care facilities all we have all those numbers in place so that we'll have a fairly good U uh uptake hopefully if people take that so we'll have a fairly good cut into that that 1 a uh 1B and 1 C population the the challenge will be is how many people will find this uh and take the vaccine so if if people say no we don't think this is safe and effective then we'll have more vaccine if people say yes we believe that it's safe and effective and I believe it will be safe and effective once it's approv approved by the FDA we we'll know better as we start to roll it out if people will accept it and then we'll know whether or not um we'll have enough vaccine to imun all those one a one b and one C very good well thanks a bunch

[36:02] and I will say that that slide that you had that broke down the different groups was very helpful so if you can make sure that um somebody at the city has this presentation that would be great and then I think what we'll will be most interested in going forward is when you can put schedule to that because it is great to know that we're getting started um I think it's a claring call for everyone to be on their best behavior as far as dis prevention goes because we're getting close and if we're getting close we want to help everyone get to the point where they can get a vaccine so I have four hands up now I have Mark Mary Aaron and Rachel Mark uh yeah my first question is for Jeff and of course as always thank you for the presentation um do we track data uh in terms of case rates hospitalizations and deaths between uh people who have underlying Medical i s uh versus those who do

[37:01] not not Chris do you know the answer to that I don't think we have that data broken out I have not seen it relative to that so I am I do not believe we do have that data I'd have to go back and ask that question of Emily okay and my other question is for I can answer that because we don't have access to uh we take a lot of work to know we can know we know on National studies What percentages of folks who who have uh diabetes or chronic medical conditions can are hospitalized as well as who die from those potential complications but we have that at a national level not at a state and local level much much much more difficult to track okay thank you and my my next qu or my second question is for you um there are at least two vaccines who that are be coming to Market and possibly more um how are they going to be um distributed are they simply going to be advertising take mine take mine or or will will there be any

[38:02] data that says this vaccine is more effective um for people of color or for this particular age group um but but how will you know how will that happen uh great question so part of the process right now and and they have to present both these two companies you're referring to Mna and fizer they have to present their data and they have to present that data of the effectiveness and safety among each of those populations men women older age groups younger age groups people with chronic medical conditions because they have that all in their clinical trials they've compared that with a placebo group that's stratified in equal equal uh numbers with each of those categories of things so they have to present that data and then once that vaccine is approved then that information sheet that comes with each of those vaccines says that this is the effectiveness of the vaccine this is the safety these are

[39:02] the complications what you what you get after the vaccine sore shoulder fever aches and pains those kinds of things all have to be revealed to the public so then the public decides whether or not they want to take the vaccine unfortunately I think that the vaccine because of it is because it's being rolled out slowly as it's being developed because obviously the vaccine producers don't want to make a hundred million of the vaccine be be before they know it's approved they started out with a smaller quantity so this going to be rolled out probably they both be rolled out at about the same time so the facilities will probably get a sampling of fisers they'll get a sampling of madna and then the the probably if they're available the the consumer will decide well I I've looked at the product information I I'll take the fiser they may not have a choice that healthc care facility or that Pharmacy that's delivering the vaccine may have only that one vaccine so okay than

[40:01] you yeah that's helpful Chris very much um next I have Mary yeah thank you Chris and um and thank you Jeff for your presentations um I have kind of a follow-up question to Mark's question regarding cost of vaccines are they going to be available um for free and a sliding scale with health insurance how is that going to work these are all good questions and thank you for asking them because I do think the public needs to know this because the federal government largely subsidize these vaccines in their development the vaccine has to be provided free of charge now there are going to be accommodations because the whoever is providing the vaccine will be allowed to provide a vaccine charge but they cannot that can be waved easily if the person who's receiving the vaccine cannot pay that so it's essentially free for

[41:01] everyone and um you we've been getting um a few emails about um asking us to make sure that it is optional and will there be a requirement to have get vaccinated or how will that work uh at this point we cannot require anybody to take this vaccine we will highly encourage it uh there are no rules in the past we have made made rules and I was part of this about vaccines like the flu vaccine for healthcare workers but at this point there are no requirements for the covid-19 vaccine thank you and um so Jeff in his presentation mentioned that they are um deploying certain strategies to address the disparities racial and disparities that we're seeing and I'm wondering um to what extent both for testing and hospital for all testing

[42:01] hospitalizations and vaccination um to what extent is data being disaggregated in order to inform the strategies so are you um for example looking at um hospitalizations and breaking it down by age um type of occupation um race and ethnicity how are you yeah what are the strategies behind um how are the strategies being informed by data disaggregation yeah I'll start and I'll see if Chris has anything to add to this so I'll give you an example without disclosing any personal information what we do when we doing when we're doing the case investigations and it's primarily associated with our case investigations so it's the information we're learning about where the person lives who they who they have potentially exposed any Associated

[43:00] follow-up cases with them um and at that point is when we're collecting that demographic data um and we find out who they've been exposed to what their work scenario is those kinds of things and we could see patterns clearly um in many of these cases where we know the person is getting exposed it could be associated with a family gathering it could be associated with where they work we know what the probable cases are looking like like we can see where there's clusters occurring um so when I talked about Longmont um we were very aware of an outbreak in Longmont that involved a host of people that lived in a in a uh in an area and we were able to go out and do some pop-up testing specifically for that area so that's the type of strategy we're using when we're looking at the data to try to make decisions about where do we go how do we do it and Al obviously I know Mary you're involved in some of this too but we are very connected to our cultural Brokers to help make sure that when we're

[44:00] approaching populations that we're doing it in the most culturally sensitive way that we can because we want folks to feel comfortable and we want them to know what their status is and we want to help support them if they have to be in quarantine or isolation council member I'd like to also add to that when when Campbell and I both came up with testing strategies and priorities we F we looked at that epidemiologic data and looked at those populations and said we need to place those testing centers close to those populations and we did a lot of media and information gathering out there to make sure that those populations had access now that's a challenge as you know people are are cautious about about testing they're cautious and they're actually frankly busy um and working two or three jobs to kind of sustain their families so we're very sensitive to that so that we try to make testing available in the evenings and on weekends and so it's available to lots of populations I'd like to add to the vaccine strategies as I reviewed all the federal

[45:01] literature prior to this presentation there was a big focus on equity in terms of prioritizing and making sure that the distribution hit populations um that were racial or ethnically different uh and uh to make sure that that lens was uh looked at and to make sure that those populations were included in the vaccine trials so that to make sure that those populations were tested and and the vacine vaccine was safe and effective among those populations as well thank you very much thank you Mary next we've got Aaron and Rachel Aaron yeah Jeff and Chris thanks so much for that information it's extremely helpful as Jeff I had one question for you about hospitalization rates so you uh showed the graph with the the total number of hospitalizations how are we doing on capacity and what are the projections for capacity in our hospitals over over

[46:01] the next few weeks so there is um a new measure in a new slide and I'll make sure I include it next month that actually looks and tracks that more closely related to um what the governor's purple level is which um is directly associated with Hospital capacity and surge capacity and where they're at but what in general what we're hearing from our hospitals is that it's not that they can't uh they can't they don't have enough medical beds or we haven't heard yet that we have ICU bed shortages what we are hearing from our hospitals is that There Staffing shortages so uh and a a a good example of that as you haven't probably seen or heard of many hospitals yet saying we're going to stop scheduled surgeries and I I call it scheduled surgeries versus elective because obviously some of these are really important surgeries for people right you know Cancer Treatments those kinds of things that are really important for people to be able to have a safe and quality of life um but those

[47:01] have not generally happened yet um and that's because hospitals do have the capacity but they don't have the Staffing at this point that is the limiting factor that we continue to hear with hospitals and what I can say to folks on the phone that are tuning in or or or on the computer or on the television is we need to let our healthcare workers know how much we appreciate their heroic efforts right now because what we're finding is that and if you think back to April people were 00 at night they were recognizing the efforts of our health care workers and when you have healthcare workers who are exposed to people who can be positive or were Exposed on a daily basis and at the same time they see people who are defiant of wanting to wear masks or do those kinds of things they're putting themselves In Harm's Way every day to do the best they can to protect our community so we need to make sure that people know how much we appreciate those healthcare workers those Frontline workers who are out

[48:01] there every single day uh continuing to serve our communities um and we need to do it for them as well so that's the message I would wantan to to add to that for everybody to be aware of yeah thanks so much for that Jeff it's it's good to hear about the hospitals but such an important message that our healthcare workers are are heroes day in day out keeping us all safe so they need our support thanks that's all IE thank you Aaron yep I will um plus one on that last sentiment as well on healthcare workers I live with two and it's um important that we do what we can to keep them safe as they are keeping us safe um so I just have one question it was uh Sam reads something at the beginning of meetings about um installing the sort of um tracking application for you know exposure notifications um and I think Jeff mentioned that he has downloaded it I have two um but I've gotten some feedback from community members that they're worried about that app that they

[49:00] think it's going to um reveal private data or allow the government to track them if they're not complying with like quarantining and things so just wondered if anybody could speak to that um that it's my understanding it is um a safe app to use and it's not transferring any data or anything dangerous but is there anyone who could um speak to that for the community ch do you do you have a sense of that if not I can I do absolutely the same things that you've heard I've heard when I read the site it was really clearly talking about this is not collecting private information what I don't know is all the backend on that so I can't tell you how it works or or how the the data is protected but I have but that's the same things I've heard is that it is protected data they're not sharing personal information um and I don't know if if Chris you have more information on that if not what we would do is is certainly be willing to follow up with you all and

[50:01] get you that information because we do think it's really important yeah sorry go Ahad sorry council member friend I'm not a techie so I don't know but I would encourage people to go to the website and look at their look at the application because they put a lot of emphasis and information there and then people have to make their own decision so y okay um I appreciate uh both those responses and if there is any extra information that we can put out for the community or um have it the ready for our next Council meetings that might be helpful thanks that's the only question I had great and I'll follow up Rachel with that just a reminder to everyone it's www. Addy yourphone a d d yo u r p h ne.com and much of the information that Rachel asked about is also uh to be found on that website so and with that uh Chris meschuk I think that we are done here thank you again to Jeff and to

[51:03] Chris arbina for being here and for keeping our community informed great thanks again Jeff Chris uh we're going to switch now to uh item 1B which is uh a CO education enforcement and compliance update um and so um I did want real quick to address Rachel your question about um the um exposure notifications app there is it is anonymous what they call tokens it's essentially a string of letters and numbers that phones exchange with each other via Bluetooth so it doesn't track your location it doesn't track any other information on your phone and if you go to the website that Sam described there's info that describes how that process works and when when those Anonymous tokens are deleted from your phone and if there is an exposure that you're notified on how that process works so there's lots of great information on that

[52:01] website um and with that uh transitioning and if we can get the presentation pulled up um at the request of council at the last meeting on November 17th um we'd like to share a little bit of an update on um everything that we've been doing related to um really trying to to turn especially this this current curve of the pandemic so um we're going to present the current activities and outcomes as well as some planned additional activities um and actions that the city can take if we can go to the next slide what we've really learned through the pandemic as we've been going is that it takes a systems approach to um uh approach changing Community Behavior to stop the spread of covid um and so to that end um we're gonna we're going to include more than just enforcement information which is what we talked about um on the 17th um and really talk about everything we've taken related to education prevention support as well as enforcement um and as you're going to

[53:02] hear we we can't simply enforce our way through the pandemic but we have to take several simultaneous actions um so we have several presenters that are lined up for this um including Communications Community Vitality the city attorney's office as well as um members for multiple departments as well as partners from the county that are here um to be able to answer questions so first I'm going to turn it over to Sarah Huntley our Communications and engagement director um to to cover the the current efforts related to Communications and engagement then I'll turn it over we'll turn it over to avette Bowen uh assistant city manager and director of community Vitality for business and community support and then finally Sandra Giannis from Deputy City attorney and the city attorney's office that'll cover compliance and enforcement so with that I'll turn it over to Sarah thank you good evening everybody can I get the next slide please Emily okay so I'd like to kick off my portion

[54:01] of this presentation just reminding everybody what I think we all already know which is that Communications engagement and Outreach does not equal enforcement however it is really foundational to people understanding what's expected of them and so we consider it sort of a building block to any other enforcement actions that we may decide to take as a city organization I'm going to go first into some detail on some ongoing effort so things that we've been doing for a number of months now that have proven to be successful um from an analytics perspective in terms of people actually clicking and using the resources as well as qualitative feedback we've received from the community so I think you're all aware that when the pandemic started back in March we created a comprehensive Corona virus website and it's broken into different sections depending on the kind of person you are because the information might be specific to who you are so for example there's a tab for

[55:02] residents there's a tab for businesses and there's also a tab for city employees where we have um internal messaging for city employees we also have created a Spanish language Hub that has much of the same Corona virus information on it we prioritized pandemic and economic Fallout type information when we decided which things we were going to translate first in the city we also are responding as quickly as we can to Community member questions as council members I know you've received quite a few of those through the council email and I hope you've seen staff trying to jump in and respond when appropriate and refer folks to other partners who might have more current information when we can we also created a separate email address for the public to use we have been having daily meetings we've now gone to two or three times a week but we can still ramp up to daily

[56:01] if we need to with our communication Partners in the county when the CU issue was um a top issue of concern we were also meeting with CU we also meet with State Communications professionals and the idea there is to make sure that we are providing consistent and accurate information we also recognize that we all have additional audiences and networks so we often try to amplify each other's messages the other program we stood up quite early on and we intend to continue at least through the first half of 2021 is our emergency response connectors program this has been phenomenal in terms of reaching people who we might not otherwise reach we have roughly 25 emergency response connectors who are community members who already are trusted in their neighborhoods or in their communities of choice um and they are helping us convey information out to

[57:01] the community about covid and resources we have available but perhaps more importantly they're bringing information back to us about what the community needs are and 10 of these connectors are bilingual bicultural and they are um on a stien to help us also strategize Outreach to the communities that we know are more vulnerable as the as the presenters before me were talking about next slide please um that shouldn't be the next slide can you go okay well I'm going I'm going to um Jump Ahead then this slide shows you some of the new things that we are trying there should be a couple of slides before this but apparently we're having difficulty with the presentation deck some of the new things to add to

[58:00] those programs that we were already starting and have been running for the last several months is we have worked with our partners in HHS to create some magnets that have information on covid recovery food stability and housing resources we are also stepping up our use of our video production team we have some very talented videographers on our Channel 8 crew and they are going to help us do more short length informative and inspiring storytelling we also have the youth opportunities Advisory Board working on a video of their own speaking to their peers which we're super excited to roll out we also have um just launched the city's first ever podcast I'm very excited about this this is the brainchild of Manuela sentes our language Access program manager and Josan Avendano who is our news producer and anchor they have um a conversation in Spanish about the disproportionate impacts of covid on communities of color

[59:00] and discuss the data as well as resources that are available and we are promulgating that on all the places people would ordinarily go to find cool podcasts and we're getting some very good reaction from our community on that we also started the community briefings that um I think many of you have participated in we were having those weekly in a virtual space as we move forward we're actually going to coordinate with the county we are going to do a better job of publicizing the very briefing you reive tonight so the first Tuesday of the month briefing for community members to watch because we think it's very robust and informative the county starting next week is going to begin countywide briefings in the very similar fashion to how we piloted our briefings um it was very popular and they heard from people in other County communities that they would like this opportunity so we're going want to encourage Boulder residents to join the county briefings

[60:00] and then we're currently talking to the county about whether one of those briefings a month perhaps the third week of the month to go nicely with the first week of the month um you all receiving an update if we could have a city focused briefing or Q&A session as part of the session that they are hosting um we're still working out the details on that but that way people would have five different po touch points during the month mon they would be able to watch this meeting and then there would be one weekly briefing a month to tell them what's happening in Boulder County and at least one of those would include City officials so individuals in the city could ask us questions next slide if the slide deck's going to cooperate please Emily okay it is not cooperating so I would like to just quickly um highlight a couple of other things that were on some slides that I added that I'm afraid are not showing up in this deck this evening um if you bear with me I'm just

[61:00] going to pull up my version of the presentation so that I can do that so some of the other things that we've been doing um have had to do with our social media presence and that's an ongoing H work that we've been doing we're leveraging all of our social media channels to do what we hope are fun and relevant posts you may have seen the Thanksgiving posts um Shelby con it one of our very talented Specialists came up with some graphics that I actually were Multicultural Graphics um to show different ways people can celebrate Thanksgiving safely and again I'm afraid that I can't show that at the moment because the slide deck isn't cooperating but they um were things about how to drop off food to family members homes there were also some um examples of what a zoom meeting might look like I know our family had a zoom Thanksgiving oh excellent somebody has saved the day here thank thank you Emily um so we're really trying to create visuals that are

[62:00] easy for everybody to understand um that we can put out as our own social media channels and also again if Public Health Partners have Graphics or information we are posting those as well we are doing a weekly bilingual newscast with covid updates as the top priority and then we also um are really pushing out Co information in our e newsletter each week which we get it more and more subscribers signing on to each week so that's been a really helpful Communication channel can we try for the next slide okay so this is going to load I hope as we speak but this is an animated gif that um again Shelby condic created and it just shows the um impact that um everybody having small Gatherings and small bubbles might have so so Emily can you click on the slide and see if it will advance

[63:01] automatically no okay well essentially the bubble slide as we call it previously shows you how when you have your bubble the people who you think are safe for you to gather with each one of those folks have another bubble and then those folks have another bubble and so what it shows you is that it's really not safe to be gathering it all right now and that's the takeaway message um this does work on social media I swear it's a really cool graphic that goes by pretty quickly and frankly not to brag on my team but I think this is one of the most compelling Graphics that I have seen and I've been looking at a lot of social media Graphics about personal Gatherings um so I'm super proud that we've been able to push this out as unique content for the city of Boulder next slide okay and then a couple of other newer efforts to go with the magnets and the other things I talked about we have three radio ads in eng in Spanish that are currently playing that we created in-house the English ads are playing on

[64:01] Spotify which is really interesting because Spotify can geoc code so as long as you're not a premium user who has paid to get no ads or public service announcements if you're in the Boulder area and listening to Spotify you have a very good chance of Len hearing one of our English ads we also have Spanish ads playing on local Spanish radio stations we are increasing our budet budget for paid advertising to amplify some of this great digital content that we're creating so there are ways that you can boost your post on our social media channels and we're also going to be having conversations with the Daily Camera about whether we can use their digital ad space to do some covid messaging and then pending permission related to our sign code we are also um exploring the possibility of putting up some printed banners in public spaces just reminding people on what the regulations are are in the city of Boulder next

[65:01] slide okay and then this is that other information that I presented the graphic on the right just shows you what the magnets will look like both in English and in Spanish and I think that's the last of my slides I'm sorry for some of the confusion with the Version Control I'm going to pass over to IET and then I think the idea is after we get through this whole presentation if council members have questions about any part of the presentation we will stay on the line as presenters to answer those thanks Sarah thank you that was great um I've visited uh had the opportunity to visit with Council many times before so I have just a couple of slides to remind you of the awesome work that's going on um with our Boulder business response and Recovery Alliance partner organizations which of course includes the state and County and many of our economic Vitality Partners uh primarily we have been

[66:01] involved on the compliance side in reminding people what it is to have safe operations um in providing them information that help them spread the word about required face coverings and social distancing signage and resources and support as it might become available federal state or local on the right there is a sample of the banner signage and you can see one of our local businesses with that in their Windows many of these things were produced by our partners and we've been uh able to provide those to businesses free of charge side I thinkout Partners In addition downtown Boulder has played a pivotal role in helping us demonstrate at one of our biggest tourist draws um how to open safely uh and with the convention and visitors bureau and the Chamber and the Latino chamber really helping people spread the word about what's expected so that businesses is feel supported that we're helping them spread the message of compliance not only to the customers but

[67:02] to their own Workforce so while you're seeing things here in the window know that there's also signage that's been created for their backup House downtown Boulder also has ambassadors as has the hill Boulder providing awareness and safety information and free MKS in the community and CBB has done an outstanding job of helping people navigate how to visit so I've just given you one sample of probably more than a dozen um portals that have been created about things to do in Boulder and how to do so safely this one tells you about what to expect and uh is regularly updated by the convention and visitors bureau they've even created what we're calling safe school trip or educational activities we recognize that there are a ton of children being uh educated in their home and they might get a little squirly and so CBB has done an awesome job of creating content that people can download at their home to help um

[68:02] educate their children in the open space safely wearing a mask we're always uh welcoming an opportunity to work with CU um and so there's a big banner uh right now across Broadway and there are downtown banners on and off campus to help with Outreach uh we've been doing primarily through the chamber and the Latino chamber industry safe operations virtual web uh workshops largely attended by um businesses in Boulder but are also available to businesses across the county in coordination with the county um through a grant that uh Community Vitality worked on with transportation and mobility department we've installed hand sanitizing stations thank you the hill Boulder and downtown Boulder partnership and safety related murals some of which you'll see in the remainder of this presentation and finally with council's support I can tell you that the restaurant SOS program

[69:01] and Retail SOS programs have people ordering uh food more safely from their home through nsh and retailers benefiting um from what we hope will sell out soon and a gift card uh that's available to be redeemed at local businesses next slide very quickly we ALS o wanted to touch on something that I know many of you have had concerns about um the testing site at saio is open the site is open seven days a week for symptomatic and asymptomatic registrant through the uh December 30th that date is pivotal for All Care Act work so we wanted to always remind people of that swab tests are free and I know council member friend you've asked several times about turnaround time right now it's about four days um and I recognize that we'd like to be faster but I think it's a pretty good performance comparatively to

[70:01] other communities there have been over 38 almost 39,000 registrants that have been tested at stazio in just since September 25th and the current capacity to test over 1,400 registrants per day the city's costs for the site are paid in collaboration with the state but the city has set aside about 238,000 of cares act funding for the costs associated with site Logistics at stasio through December 30th and we've provided information at the bottom for testing locations next slide I'm turning it over to my good friend sandre jannis from the city attorney's office thank you appreciate that hopefully everyone can hear me um my name is Sandra I'm the deputy City attorney and I supervise the prosecutors and Municipal Court and I'm also part of the public health order enforcement team

[71:00] during the past several months the city has been providing Public Health order enforcement through a variety of means this slide outlines the main enforcement tools that have been used in connection with public health order violations I will go into more detail on each of these tools as we move through the presentation criminal citations have been issued by buo police department the University of Colorado Police Department and Open Space Rangers since the beginning the enforcement strategy has been to increase compliance by focusing on egregious cases of large Gatherings and repeat offenders as you know the city experienced a surge in virus CS in early September mainly within the 18 to 22 year old age group it is well documented that the virus can easily spread in large Gatherings particularly if people are without face coverings and

[72:01] not social distancing as a result the majority of enforcement action and data reflects a focus on this age group and social Gatherings City emergency stay-at-home orders are an effective targeted approach to problem properties civil nuisance abatement actions seek to obtain accountability for mental property owners and landlords great collaboration and teamwork between the city Boulder County Public Health and CU began during the summer and continues to this day ISC or the inter fraternity council is the governing body of fraternities they provide leadership to fraternities and the entire community and have been helpful in addressing issues related to group at homes next

[73:01] slide under the authority of the boulder Revised Code civil emergencies and disaster section the city issued emergency order 2020-4 on March 17 2020 which prohibited violations of state county and local public health orders thereby allowing criminal cases to be filed into municipal court and prosecuted by City attorneys there has been a lot of great teamwork between the Boulder Police Department and CD on on public health order enforcement matters the majority of ticketing has been done by Boulder PD and focused on off-campus activities cupd has also contributed greatly to oncampus cases that have been forwarded to cu's judicial Affairs office of student col conduct for academic consequences Open Space Mountain Parks has also issued tickets and was

[74:02] responsible for the successful enforcement of a very large athletic team hiking together without face coverings or social distancing we had a great outcome on that case as part of the Court sentence the team was required to make Public Service Announcement videos on the importance of following Public Health orders the videos came out great next slide thank you a very effective and creative tool that we've used on two occasions is the use of City emergency orders to Target flant excuse me flagrant repeat offenders by property address the order requires that tenants of the property stay at home with very limited exceptions and requires tenants to report the names of who is living at the property because they're also prohibited

[75:01] from having guests the first order was issued on September 16th for one property and the second order was issued on October 22nd for nine properties all properties were personally served by officers any violation of these emergency orders would have resulted in a criminal citation fortunately the orders were effective we were able to achieve compliance as none of the subject properties had another violation next slide please this slide provides data from the Boulder Police Department regarding calls for service received the left side of the chart reflects the number of calls received by Dispatch this chart shows the calls for service to either the Boulder Police Department 911 Center or the CU Police Department 9911 Center these calls can be 911 or non-emergency

[76:01] calls for service the bottom of the chart breaks out the number of calls by month the dark blue are complaints for noise or parties and the yellow numbers at the top of the columns are public health order complaint calls on March 13th the city began to enact emergency orders related to covid and on March 23rd as indicated on the chart the city issued a stay-at-home order for the city of Boulder as you can see there was a significant uptick of calls during May in part due to the end of the school year and graduation and in August when students returned for classes September also had significant numbers likely due to the Labor Day week weekend and as well as October due to Halloween falling falling on a weekend

[77:02] however as you can see we have seen a decrease um month over month in calls related to noise party or public health order violations particularly starting in um October and then in November as well next slide please this data chart shows Boulder Police Department citations issued month by month in 2020 in the early stages of the pandemic um cupd and BT BPD focused on education with students by issuing warnings instead of citations however once students returned in August officers began to enforce and write tickets when violations were observed consistent with the spike in number of calls in the previous chart citations spiked at various times due to events as previously mentioned such as

[78:01] students returning um to college Halloween Etc it's important to note that the number of complaints can be high in comparison to the number of citations issued there are several reasons for this number one often there are multiple calls for the same property secondly sometimes officers get on scene and complain are unfounded or it may be a minor technical violation and they may issue a warning if there are excuse me if there is no identifiable complaintant and the offer officer does not personally observe a violation he's unable to write a ticket and then lastly violating parties sometimes do not answer the door when officers arrive on the scene and in those circumstances officers make come back and issue tickets on another day it's key to remember that we cannot

[79:00] enforce our way to compliance while many of the enforcement tools we've used have been effective providing educational Outreach and seeking voluntary compliance is still the most effective tool strict enforcement adds significant costs next slide this data chart is from the Municipal Court and it shows a comparison of the total number of citations issued in 2019 versus 2020 the left column shows that there was a total of 35 nuisance party tickets issued last year and the column on the right represents tickets issued for nuisance party as well as public health order violations which resulted in 240 citations we've been treating nuisance party charges and adher to emergency order charges both as public health order violations and that is why we have

[80:01] included it in the chart for 2020 so 2020 reflects the significant increase in citations as you can see um a 585 per increase in fact from one year to the other next slide please as I mentioned before the majority of cases involve college students and therefore the typical Court sentences and outcomes are crafted with that in mind the city attorneys Prosecuting these cases take them very seriously they review each and every case and recommend outcomes based on the severity of the case and whether the person is a repeat offender students with public health order violations have extensive educational and financial requirements typical Court sentences for firsttime offenses require completion of all of

[81:00] the following so the first being cu's restorative justice program students student cases benefit from the city's collaboration with CU and their restorative justice program geared specifically to Public Health order violations CU restorative justice addresses the relationship between the defendant and the community a defendant is required to meet with a CU facilitator and members of the community to talk about the harms inflicted on the community holding the offender accountable for their actions and creating a plan for the offender to give back to the community the community living class is a 90minut online class offered by CU this class educates students students on quality of life crimes most often committed by college students in Boulder they learn about the law in Boulder concerning among other things Gatherings

[82:02] parties noise alcohol marijuana community service so typically 40 hours of community service are imposed to serve our local community but that of course varies depending on the case cost uh are typically around $400 the court fees are $15 the um CJ excuse me CU restorative justice fee is around 100 and the remaining amount is for the community living class and community service fees there's a 500w essay that they have to complete reflecting on the person's actions and the harm caused and then the case also gets reported to cu's judicial Affairs office of student conduct for potential academic penalties as of November 25th cu's judicial Affairs has received

[83:02] 1,319 oncampus referrals for violations of Campus uh covid-19 policy the M excuse me the vast majority of these are students not wearing a mask or students violating the guest policy in the residents Halls which is more strict than public health orders students can have one guest per resident housed in each room and they must be from the same resident Hall most rooms have a maximum capacity of four if a public health order is more strict than the policy then they must follow the public health order a majority of referrals come from cupd and Resident advisors in dorms 220 off-campus referrals for violations of public uh Health orders were received and the majority of those were from Boulder Police Department 659 students have received

[84:00] educational interventions there's a range of educational interventions they're based on existing classes that are often used for alcohol and marijuana related incidents or other types of intervention including the restorative justice process 152 students were placed on probation typically 6 to n months based on the severity of the violation 41 students were suspended most students were suspended through the end of the Fall 2020 semester and they will be able to return in the spring they receive a w on their transcript and they have to reapply through a specific returning student process since the pandemic there have been very few uh repeat offend in terms of individuals um our current policy for repeat offenders is we don't offer a ple

[85:02] offer we take these cases very seriously um they either have to plead guilty to the charge or set their case for trial and there's a criminal conviction that's put on their record um and then Additionally the judge May impose a $1,000 fine the maximum allowed under the law with 600 suspended on the condition of no new violations for a year repeat offenders also have to pay $100 failure to comply fee complete additional community service in addition to the original hours uh of sentence and they required to write additional covid reflection essays um in comparison a firsttime offender would typically receive um what's called a deferred prosecution in which they enter guilty plea and as long as they uh satisfy all the probation conditions and don't receive another

[86:00] violation for nine months that case gets dismissed and so they have that opportunity to keep their criminal record clean um again there's a lot of discretion in terms of the offers that we provide we review each case on a case- by casee basis and certainly um assess the seriousness of each case next slide please the city has and continues to pursue n civil nuisance abatement cases against landlords and property owners for properties that have become a nuisance to the surrounding community Through multiple violations or egregious conduct the city's public nuisance code provides a means uh by which the city can Abate public nuisances the city can seek abatement of a nuisance if users of a property commit two offenses within 12 months or three violations within 24 months that serve to Anor adjacent

[87:01] residents in an effort to control and spread the co the spread of covid-19 and to mitigate the effects of the disease the city issued emergency order 2020-9 to expand the definition of public nuisance found in the code to include underlying facts related to a violation of any public health order other notice Provisions were also amended to allow for service of notice by electronic mail and extending time frames of potential violations in an effort to gain voluntary compliance a nuisance abatement case starts by providing the property owner with written notice that they have been identified for potential civil action an overwhelming majority of properties were compliant after their first notice was received in the circumstance where not compliance continues the casee proceeds to stage two a required meeting in which the

[88:00] property owner landlord or rental property management tenants and potentially neighbors seek a resolution through agreement by the parties to take State steps to Abate the nuisance if compliance is not reached at this stage a civil action is filed with the Municipal Court where the court May impose injunctive relief in those circumstances the city May seek rental license revocation as well as other injunctive relief currently there are 22 Active cases in stage one there are two cases that are moving into stage two and there are over a 100 cases under review next slide please even before the outbreak at CU in the fall the enforcement team has been meeting regular ly during the summer to plan for the challenges that we thought might be coming those meetings continue

[89:01] to take place twice a week with daily morning excuse me daily morning reports seven days a week from Boulder Police Department on activity and tickets issued the night before the daily reports are really helpful in identifying problem areas targeting resources and getting a big picture view of Public Health violations Within City during the meetings we share enforcement information discuss Str strategies planning for upcoming challenges such as Halloween holidays where there's an uptick in Social Gatherings and football games this kind of boots on the ground reporting has been instrumental in the success of enforcement because it it allows us to Pivot and use different tactics when necessary as an example we' heard from other un University towns that despite Public Health orders people were still tailgating and having home parties

[90:00] during college football games as a result of our meetings we were able to strategize and plan ahead to implement actions to mitigate that outcome we worked with communication reps from the city Boulder County Public Health and CU to push out educational information encouraging responsible game watching activities we also had extra Patrols in place to curtail that activity before it even started another proactive example of enforcement involves at least two two circumstances in which Boulder Police Department was able to prevent parties from even happening in the first place by receiving and responding to anonymous tips and next slide please collaboration has been a key component to successful enforcement actions and the current Trend towards more compliance Boulder County Public Health

[91:01] order 2020-9 D1 um was uh created in an effort to reduce the possibility of outbreaks by requiring collegate group homes meaning any off-campus property in the city of Boulder were more than four students of higher education live in a group living in arrangement to submit and receive Public Health approval for a Collegiate group home assessment the assessment must describe co9 prevention and mitigation measures implemented at the facility provide for weekly check-ins and include isolation protocols among other requirements Public Health has reviewed and approved approximately 30 assessments representing nearly all Collegiate group homes in the city weekly check-ins with these groups facilitate by City staff CU and public health are ongoing ISC meetings several meetings

[92:02] have taken place with fraternities sorties and um the IFC Council to address Collegiate home problem properties these meetings have been successful in curtailing illegal activities at problem properties and resulted in significant consequences from the IFC and in at least one Circumstance the decision by a fraternity to vacate the tenants starting at the Thanksgiving holiday and keeping it vacant through through the spring semester Boulder County Public Health nuisance cases for rep repeated or egregious violations Public Health has a heavy hammer and may designate a property as a public nuisance and source of communicable disease specifically covid-19 Public Health has a statutory duty to investigate and Abate nuisances when necessary in order to eliminate sources

[93:02] of epidemic or communicable diseases and conditions affecting Public Health if other efforts to stop violations fail public health will seek a court order for the property to be vacated until all applicable covid-19 disaster declarations are no longer in effect to this point Public Health has achieved voluntary compliance and has not had to seek a closure order in court as a result of the city's collaboration regarding enforcement information Public Health has designated four properties within the city as a public medin and sources of communicable disease based on repeated and egregious Public Health order violations specifically Gatherings that violate those orders Public Health issued notice of the nuisance designations to Property Owners tenants and property managers Public Health has also sent warning notices um

[94:02] and messages to property owners for 26 additional properties there are at risk of nuisance designation based on recent Gatherings public health is currently preparing to send warning notices and messages to four additional properties based on recent violations and lastly business violation the City attorney Tom Carr has been receiving and responding to complaints regarding businesses he has personally reached out to each business who has received a complaint and attained voluntary compliance in addition the public health covid-19 call center has received over 1300 complaints in response to an observed reported Public Health order violation public Health's business liaison team is committed to First contacting businesses in order to educate and encourage compliance in large part because Public Health has

[95:01] been holding weekly webinars with businesses in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce the business team has been able to attain voluntary compliance in the overwhelming overwhelming majority of cases these webinars help businesses push out updated Public Health order information and they're always available to answer questions by email or through the call center since March 2020 Public Health has only pursued legal action against one business for failure to comply with public health orders and that stopped the violations during safer at home Public Health has issued eight notices a violation to businesses for public health order violations next slide please we've reached the end of the presentation most most importantly I want you to know know that there are many dedicated staff that are committed to doing all they can to change people's behaviors and Achieve Health order

[96:02] compliance the importance of this work Cannot Be overstated Our Lives May indeed depend on it thank you for your attention and the opportunity to share this important information we have representatives from several areas that are ready to answer any questions that you might have thank you great thank you Sandra and thank you toet and to Sarah for that really comprehensive very helpful overview of enforcement um Council I will turn to you to see if there are any questions mark just two short ones um has there been I guess this would be addressed to uh Sarah I think um has there been any thought given to extending uh stasio Beyond 1230 that's actually a financial question related to when we have car's act funding through um Chris do you want to

[97:02] answer that sure I can answer that um we have have been helping fund the legistics of keeping the stasio drive-through testing site open um so the state itself pays for um the test itself each of those tests cost about $100 total um and so um uh we're just supporting the logistics of that site so if you've been through that testing site those big storage boxes um cones traffic control on really busy days that sort of thing um it depending on the status of covid um uh that's something that we're going to continue to assess um in partnership with the state uh as well as um I think it'll be and it's on on our radar is really a financial conversation and it's something that that we're wrestling with with the drive-through sites across the county that are supported through the the cares act funding um but it's something we're still closely watching

[98:02] thank you Chris my my other quick question is for Sandra um when we issue an emergency stay-at-home order for a property and the people residing there um can I assume that enforcement is based on an honor System or we don't have anybody watching do we well um partly is honor System but also um I think that there is additional enforcement we do check on those properties but there's also a level of um personal responsibility and I think having that information out in the public um we have heard from people that have been under stay atome that they know people are watching and so there's um more attention placed on their um property because of that so I think that are less likely to to violate okay thank you great

[99:03] Rachel sorry I have this new headphone too today um thank you for the presentations um I'll try and be really quick because I know we're behind um number one for Sarah on um Zoom it looked like you guys were going to blast out like look there's these great ways to communicate indoors with your family try zoom and you know Zoom is limited to 40 minutes and then I think you get charged so I just wonder is there any you know the same way that we provide like Broadband or computers and things for um people who may need it is there any effort to try and help uh provide the community with a platform like Zoom you probably don't have the answer today so just putting that out there um and then number two um on the re I guess this one's for evet on the retailer SOS program can that be used online for online purchases yes it can um um thank you for your question council member um yes can um The Challenge has been that we have to get the businesses signed up

[100:02] and then they have to get some experience in processing the transactions um so we will improve over the days to come some information for them but I'm pleased to say that um we we've already spent about a third um of our match um that's already out there so people should keep shopping local um about 18,000 of that has already been redeemed over the past weekend and I know that there was an earlier question through uh hotline about um the number of restaurants that are signed up through Nosh we started with about 10 and as of today we're at 39 we continue to take restaurants that will be available for this program and um would like to make sure that we expend those dollars before the end of December awesome thanks um and then another thought for Sarah was um you know to the extent that you're pushing out these new um ideas on on social media platform I

[101:01] haven't noticed any um particular emails to council members saying here's a new um podcast or or other new things like can you all push those out I know that um some council members have um I guess newsletters that have big subscriber list and other people have a lot of Facebook or Twitter followers so maybe just to you know a lot of times like if I endorse something I'll be to push it out on social media so maybe we could do that as council members yes we can do that we did summarize them in a heads up but we can send them out as individual items that you can include yeah and just an Easy Link might be helpful to get them out to the community sorry manua um okay so let's see how um this is for Sandra how many tickets have been issued not to see you or not around CU students or properties I don't have that breakdown

[102:00] um but I would say very few we have only focused on the egregious cases and those um have been major majority have been College you know 18 to 22 year olds that's definitely been where we spent a lot of time because that's where um the activity was happening okay um let's see I I think that those are my only qu oh one more I had asked um to to learn what other cities are doing in terms of enforcement did we get that information you know I didn't make that part of my presentation um and specifically um I can certainly follow up and Pro Prov that for you um we have been having um some connection with um

[103:00] you know University towns and that sort of thing in terms of what they've been doing and it's pretty consistent with what we're doing I think we're a little bit more Innovative in the sense that we have been using uh our City's emergency powers and a more creative way um so we've actually been asked to provide information about that but I can certainly dig deeper if that's something that you're interested in sure I don't know that it it needs to be you but certainly that would um from somebody would be helpful so thank you those are all my questions great thank you Rachel so I believe that's everything um Chris I'm ready to move on unless there's something else no that was it great well thank you all um very very helpful presentation and uh hopefully the enforcement will have sent the message that this is a very serious

[104:02] issue that the city is taking quite seriously so um I will pull up briefly one one thing I will ask Council for is um as we move forward with the rest of the agenda um I would ask for a motion to amend the agenda to add item 8B it is a reminder about bias and microaggression training so moved second second great so Mark got that second does anyone object to amending the agenda great seeing no um objection that will pass unanimously and I believe we're ready for open comment right Debbie sorry yes we are okay very good so for open comment I would remind us um Everybody uh is um trying to do their best here and so as you make comments

[105:02] about people in the community or members of Staff um it would be great if you could keep in mind that everyone is trying to do their best um as they know how to do it so gentleness would be great so to begin with we have Lis Chara Chelsea castiano and Amber Noble Luise hi there um my name is Louise Chara I'm an environmental psychologist in the environmental design program at CU and sometimes my work takes me into research on environmental communication I just wanted to caution that given the way proposition 2C was worded we don't know how many people understood what they were voting about um my husband who is an intelligent man with a graduate degree opened his ballot and read Toc he thought it was asking

[106:01] whether he wanted to get gas and electricity from a utility service and given the proposition generic wording shall the city of Boulder Grant a franchise to Public Service Company of Colorado to furnish sell and distribute gas and electricity his response struck me as a reasonable guess so I talked to about 20 friends and Neighbors about two see and the responses I got from most of them were to see I have no idea what that's about what is it about or I've been seeing signs about it and I wondered what it's about only three of these people understood proposition the propositions backstory to even estimate what the voting results meant you'll need to commission focus groups to understand the variety of ways that people interpreted to see and then send out a survey to a random sample of Voters to see how the answers broke down What proportion of Voters understood what

[107:02] that 2C was about entering into a 20-year contract with Excel and were for it what propos What proportion understood this and were against it and what proportion were confused in making creative guesses without this information we're all only guessing ourselves what voters actually intended thank you Lis next we have Chelsea Castellano Amber Noble and Evan ravitz Chelsea hi my name is Chelsea Castellano and I'm here tonight to speak to you on the plan to finally Implement online signature Gathering an initiative that received overwhelming voter support back in 2018 the proposed ordinance in front of you prohibits valid initiative campaigns from using the electronic system alongside with traditional physical Signature Collection it is absolutely imperative that this component of the ordinance be amended to allow both forms of signature gathering in order to provide campaigns and the

[108:01] community with Equitable access to the Democratic process there are many many people in our community who do not have access to computers or the internet or is simply not computer literate enough to complete the rather elaborate process of signing a petition electronically think about your parents or grandparents trying to navigate the complex online process that has been presented to you on the other hand as you heard in the presentations earlier this evening there are many people who are considered high risk for covid and would not be able to sign an in-person petition due to the potential health risks shouldn't both groups have the right to participate in our democracy the only way to do that is to allow both online and inperson Signature Collection and the good news is that you have the authority and opportunity to make that happen I've have heard the City attorney state that the reason to not allow both methods of collection is that it would require more staff time if that additional workload is insurmountable then put the onus on the campaigns to do the heavy lifting

[109:00] and type up any in-person signatures collected that way staff could use that um to duplicate between the two lists staff would only have to verify that that the digitized information matched the information on the physical petition we know this is feasible because um for campaigns because we typed up every one of the nearly 8,000 signatures we collected earlier this year in a year with a global pandemic and much uncertainty around what the next several months will look like and also uncertainty around how the new online Signature Collection process will work for the community it is imperative that you prioritize equity and don't close doors for participating in the Democratic process that could easily remain open thank you thank you next we have Amber Noble Evan rabbitz and Micha Garner Amber Amber you should be able to unmute yourself hi my name is Amber I am

[110:00] seven and I am here to talk about the Homeless Problem our town I am wait no I'm really upset about the Homeless Problem because we're not looking after people who need to be looked after and they're out in the cold by the themselves and they're really lonely and I've met some of them and they're really nice but they have no one to be with and they're freezing all night long and it's so cold this winter and every winter it's so cold and Boulder and we need to fix this problem problem and I'm really sad that no one's trying to fix it I have I've prepared some um ways to help fix

[111:02] it a bus that drives All Around Town um to pick up homeless people and take them to the homeless shelter and um and some more homeless shelters around town especially around Pearl Street a program for homeless to get like jobs um and health care and like food and water and other things like that so that they can stay healthy and like medicine so that they don't die cuz they're really nice and I think that they they deserve to be looked after and I and I'm really sad that none of us are trying to take care of them and I think that we should take care of them

[112:03] better thank you Amber next we have Evan rabitz Michael Garner and Paul colan Evan can you hear me yep yeah Evan rabbits North Boulder City attorney Tom Carr's ordinance 8403 puts his fatally flawed design for online petitioning for ballot initiatives into law creating yet another obstacle to overcome when Council finally decides to implement what voter Boulder voted for 71 to 29% over two years ago the system is far too complicated for most people requiring that users operate the city petitioning website and the state voter registration website and a Google Voice telephone number as Tom suggested the councel so as not to make your own phone number

[113:02] available to every solicitor and robocaller we suggested using a postcard or letter to send voters a security code instead of a phone but Tom declared with no evidence that this was insecure actually Microsoft is now telling people not to use phone or text to send confirmation codes because the phone system is insecure I've sent the information to council and I made a shortcut to the article you can see at tinyurl.com secure codes we know from many elections that postal ballots work great all across the country only Tom and Trump think the postal system is insecure and I believe they both voted by mail Tom's ordinance also requ requires petition sponsors to choose online or paper petitions what responsible person would bet all their organizations time effort

[114:03] and resources on a new petition system designed by Tom a declared enemy of direct democracy that requires users to juggle three websites please let us petition both on paper and online and to rece receive confirmation codes by phone or by mail thank you thank you Evan next we have Michael Garner Paul colan and Patrick Murphy Michael there we go can you guys hear me now yep we can all right um hi I'm Micha and I would like to add getting rid of the camping band to Amber's list of ideas for the following reasons first the threat of police contact undermines the Sleep related health of community members lack of uninterrupted sleep

[115:00] increases the likelihood of getting sick after being exposed to a virus and it increases recovery time lack of un uninterrupted sleep is linked to increased rates of mental illness diabetes hypertension drug abuse and violence and it's associated with memory loss increases in anxiety depression and schizophrenia like symptoms has the camping ban interferes with some resident Sleep Quality it's detrimental to their physical and mental health second the absence of affordable housing in Boulder puts its residents at risk of violence which the camping ban exacerbates Boulders homeless residents who move often to avoid police contact experience higher rates of sexual assault physical assault robbery and violent threats than those who do not feel forced to move women who move often to avoid police contact are 60% more likely to be sexually assaulted than women who don't and there are 247 more likely to be physically assaulted third the camping ban and similar anti-homeless ordinances do nothing to address the root causes of

[116:01] homelessness cycling people through jail doesn't change their behavior and it doesn't improve public health or safety jail isn't a solution an expensive option it's an attempt to make homelessness invisible and to render people invisible these Extreme Measures have destructive impacts on those experiencing homelessness and they cost millions of dollars instead of investing in law enforcement invest in community programs addressing homelessness improve those programs instead of unsuccessfully clinging to criminalization people need to sleep somewhere if your goal is to keep people from sleeping outside don't punish them for seeking shelter provide it that's what saves lives and businesses thank you Micha next we have Paul colan Patrick Murphy and Lyn seagull Paul good evening mayor Weaver and council members my name is Paul colan I live at 3555 silver Plum Court in South Boulder

[117:03] uh thank you for including the covid-19 updates in your meetings it's good to get that information I appreciate the efforts of the county health department and thank you Amber you give me hope um during this covid-19 pandemic we still need to keep some of our attention on global warming I'm sure you've all seen reports that global warming emissions are lower this year because of the pandemic the not so good news is that the atmospheric CO2 concentration continues to rise think of CO2 in the atmosphere as a thermostat study after study has shown that CO2 in the atmosphere acts like a thermostat a thermostat that on our human time scale only adjusts in One Direction warmer the small percentage declines in CO2 emissions in 2020 probably 2020 maybe even 2022 this decline will not lower the thermostat it just means that the yearly increase of the CO2 thermostat setting

[118:02] is a little bit smaller increase than it was in 2019 still moving the setting up to a slightly warmer temperature year after year on a geologic time scale the CO2 concentration goes up and down but on a human time scale our concentration only goes up with more emissions um there for an 80% solution cutting carbon emissions by 80% doesn't solve anything that would still be increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere just at a slower rate so it continues to nudge the thermostat up ever warmer temperatures we've got to stop burning fossil fuels altogether the sooner we stop burning fossil fuels the th sooner the thermostat setting will stop increasing the climate can't wait thank you thank you next we have Patrick Murphy Lyn seagull and Alex OK Conor

[119:06] Patrick my name is Patrick Murphy I live in Boulder today I sent you the no mun Plan B with Equity it would be real and fast carbon reduction pay the mun bills but end any cost of a ghost mun it would eat valuable time and resources like a zombie eats brains anything slower than Plan B with Equity is evidence of insincerity and further erodes trust the 2011 vote on the mun was 49.6% against the mun and 50.4% in favor it's clear which half of the voters were ultimately correct in their gut feeling about a boulder Muni 10 years later and five years away from a mun fin Financial failure we cried uncle that painful cry needs to be relieved with real transparency and real carbon reduction

[120:00] for every dollar we spend no more lawyers engineers and mun administrative hires that don't directly and quickly reduce carbon there's been an obvious loss of trust and lack of real transparency statements by the mayor to the contrary are incorrect so the original leader of the mun is gone the city manager that allowed this to happen is gone the city manager may have done many good things but the mun will always be an item in the failure column we need to lose the habit of Hal truth and cheerleading as a substitute for logical pragmatic thinking that applies to all elements of critical Community need today Darren o Conor's Saturday camera guest commentary on the homeless is just one other example of that regardless of your opinion on the mun we're now dealt a hand without that joker I want us to win but we need to prove progress with facts

[121:00] not propaganda good luck to us let fast carbon reduction begin now thank you Patrick next we have Lyn seagull Alex OK Conor and Riley manuso Lyn with municipalization thank you Patrick that's how we get to the fastest carbon reduction um Lind seagull um I had something interesting happened lately um when I can you hear me clearly because I want to know if any problem at all um I um protested my property taxes it's a thre level job it's working against a bunch of lawyers at the board of assessment appeals and two of my best comparables were interestingly my nextd door neighbor and another property that both

[122:01] were determined unusable because they were demolition after sale now David Martinez the county assessor said that this what what this implies is that when there's a demolition um all the you know this is like an an ecycle issue there's all this embedded energy in the in the structure on the property and the removal of that embedded energy and the restoration of the property to a piece of land gets embedded into the property value this is a problem because so many houses in Boulder are being demoed and I can't use a demo so my

[123:01] property tax goes up and up and homelessness goes up and up and property value up and up based on each house say someone puts up a brand new house and someone doesn't like it they just demo it can't be used as a comp because it gets embedded into the land value now when I B thank you next we have Alex OK Conor Riley manuso and Ella Fisk Alex so Alex is on an older version of Zoom so I'm going to promote him to panelists briefly for his time to speak with you we'll just take a moment for him to rejoin the meeting hello can you hear me all right we can okay so for as long as I can remember I've seen homelessness as an issue in

[124:00] buar when I was little probably around 5 years old I didn't understand why people weren't given places to sleep in first grade I learned about basic human needs including shelter now as a freshman in high school my government class talks about what citizens should expect from the government and still people are stuck sleeping outside in the winter the camp band in Boulder doesn't even allow people to to cover themselves with a blanket I'm sorry to interrupt Alex can you speak up a little bit and become a little closer to the mic because you're very faint and I want to make sure all the council members can hear you can you hear me now that's a little better yes okay thank you so where was I the camping band in Boulder doesn't even allow people to cover themselves with a blanket according to Noah in 2019 the temperatures reached 11° fhe in the Denver area every year people end up in the hospital with hyp thermia from sleeping outside this year in the midst of a global pandemic everything is more difficult recently Co cases have been on the rise in Colorado this affects

[125:01] everyone in our community right now and there aren't enough hospital beds we need to help people before they need Emergency Care the pandemic highlights the need for change in how Boulder deals with homelessness and we can choose to make the change that will help the community even Beyond this year of Crisis even as a young child I saw this as an issue a few years ago I went to a protest on National homeless awareness day I wanted to help however I could and I got to meet lots of people who are homeless and bulber I collected rocks with them and I snuggled with their dogs let's not fall into the Trap of believing stereotypes these are people with their own stories and they aren't scary they're just trying to survive thank you Alex next we have Riley manuso Ella Fisk and Julie ziser Riley please give me just a moment to get Alex back as an attendee and then I will um find Riley in the meeting okay Riley you'll need to unmute uh

[126:02] hey uh hi Council how's it going uh it's Riley here um I really want to Second everything that Amber and Michael and Alex said please I am urging you to stop enforcement of the camping ban um for all of the reasons that have been well articulated it really runs counter to all the stated goals of Public Safety and Health it's really detrimental to the people being targeted by the police it's a waste of public money yada yada yada you all know this we all know that the camping ban is a is only being enforced as a cave to wealthy entitled uh landowning Boulder rights who don't want to see poor people and we know that it's part of Kurt Fern habber xenophobic campaign to force people out of Boulder the same way that Trump is trying to get people to self- deport across the southern border um which is relevant because homeless people are seven times

[127:00] more likely to be indigenous in Boulder than the general population of the city um and much more likely to be black uh Latino or immigrants um so and that brings me to I want to address uh mayor Weaver's comments earlier about the need for gentleness and about the uh like microaggression seminar or whatever and over a year ago when uh councilwoman Nagel made her comments about the struggle of the white man that were like grossly insensitive and whatever I called you all out for paying more attention to your words than your actions and you don't seem to have learned anything from that because it doesn't matter if you address your microaggressions when you're still committing macroaggressions on a scale with your policy and sending violent police to you know even if they're not physically cutting up people's tents and evicting them although they do that if they walk up with their hands on their taser and on their gun that is the threat of violence how is that

[128:01] gentleness why do you deserve gentleness when people who are freezing out on the street right now struggling to survive apparently don't um you know what fix your hearts or die peace thank thank you Riley so it does not appear that Ella Fisk is with us Ella if you're here I do see a Leah Fisk and I'm wondering if that may be the individual so if it's okay with you Sam I will um put that person on and see if that's Ella sure I just notice that name in the list so thank you yes hi I'm Lee and my daughter is Ella and she's here in hello city council I'm Ella Fisk and I live in Boulder today I'm speaking about the issue of the homeless camping band I know it is against the Constitution to be cruel to homeless people by keeping them from using blankets and Tents when sleeping outside I know there are 441

[129:02] homeless people in Boulder I think we should help homeless people by making more shelter another solution is to help homeless people find houses I wonder why it is against the law to sleep outside with a blanket or tent please let homeless people use blankets when sleeping outside please help homeless people find shelter most of them are nice they can be mean like most people but they can be nice like most people too homeless people deserve to be treated better thank you for your time thank you Ella next we have Julie ziser T V kapor and Chris Hoffman Julie hi hi can you hear me great good evening mayor Weaver and council members my name is Julie ziser live in South Boulder I hope you had a Thanksgiving break and are managing with covid I would like to make a few suggestions regarding climate change in

[130:00] relation to the city manager search process in my opinion the Novak Consulting Group city manager position profile has omitted two important issues that need to be conveyed upfront and with gravity the first is climate change the profile needs to Express Boulder strong CommunityWide commitment to immediate action to address our climate emergency any candidate needs to be in alignment with and committed to working hard to achieve Boulder's energy goals detailed on the city website including 100% renewable energy by 20130 the second relates to section 64g of our city Charter the city manager's responsibility to see that quote all franchise rights and Provisions are justly enforced end quote the position profile needs in my opinion to some way convey the current opport the current opportunity and enormous challenge in

[131:00] our city managers executive responsibilities in this respect of protecting our community here are two examples to consider during your internal vetting process city manager candidates need to be in alignment with franchise agreement and partnership guiding principles and goals which are spelled out in section one city manager candidates need to have the temperament and tenacity to hold their own in their environment energy partnership agreement governance role as a crucial member of the executive team which is responsible for oversight of the partnership agreement that's in section two and that includes among other things having the resolve to support decarbonization programs to meet our goals to ensure that article 8 performance obligations are met in a timely manner and to communicate regularly to you and the the community thank you so much for your hard work and for your consideration thank you Julie next we have tonv kapor Chris Hoffman and Holly

[132:01] Carlson tandi ah hi everyone can you hear me yep thank you so much uh good evening council members I'm an international student studying at CU Boulder today I would like to share my thoughts on what are two sides of the same coin and that is abundance and subsequent wastage we all are aware that covid has increased food housing and economic hardships in our community while we all have gone to Great length to live and work in a virtual world however we are lagging behind in our efforts to save the real world from threats posed by this abundance and subsequent waste stage in the current time working or studying in isolation has led to increase in food holding use of single use materials and plastic bags th threatening the possibility of sustainable existence during my few social visits to different households here in Boulder so far of and of relatively new residents like me I noticed there was lack of awareness as

[133:01] to what goes into trash and what goes into a recycled bin even at my own residential complex there was very little information available for the residents regarding how to and what to discard as waste um also during my recent visit to a pumpkin farm provoked my thoughts about food wastage it's true that during holidays we see maximum food wastage which may result due to mass over production of produce or and livestock or by over buying of perishables I really appreciate that Boulder County has some good plans and regulations in place to promote sustainable existence th I have few more advisories uh advice uh and I humbly request city council to spread more awareness amongst residents such as not to hold food more awareness in residential communities sharing of excess food with food pantries and food share organizations composting of food waste and making landfills as a last resort so the generation of additional awareness uh along with an adoption of

[134:00] such practices by residents of Boulder could make the community at large a better place and give a collective sense of purpose thank you so much and wishing you all a very happy New Year in advance thank you thank you T Rachel I see your hand up is this something you'd like to say now you're muted drat um I can wait until after uh staff speaks in in response to anything okay super um next we have Chris Hoffman and Harley Holly Carlson Chris thank you I really appreciate your work council members and mayor Weaver on behalf of our community and regardless of how one voted on the Excel franchise in the recent election it's reasonable to assume that for those who understood the measure the difference between a yes vote and a no vote was one of methodology not of goal the S on 2C website said the partnership agreement

[135:01] quote enables 100% Renewables and does it faster than going it alone the noan TOC group argued that staying out of franchise would be a better way to get to the same goal all these voters whether they voted yes or no voted to support B Boulder's goal of 100% renewable electricity by 2030 now that Excel is going to be our partner in reaching these goals it is incumbent on city council to manage the partnership proactively please require Excel to deliver promptly and publicly to the citizens of Boulder the following three d's deliverables due dates and dollars deliverables these are specific commitments for a defined Glide path adequate to deliver 100% renewable electricity to Boulder by 2030 including the list of sources of renewable energy and specific implementation steps these

[136:00] deliverables should come with Associated due dates Milestone dates by year and quarter for when each of these deliverables will be put into service and begin providing electricity to Boulder and also dollars the estimated cost for each project Andor source of renewable electricity with a total estimated cost for the entire Glide path to 100% Renewables by 2030 as well as excel's and boulders agreement about who will pay for which part of each project and the identified sources of funding for each and we expect this all to be open and transparent to the public climate can't wait thank you thank you Chris and we have one last speaker Holly Carlson um Sarah tells me that there is no Holly Carlson in the meeting so Sarah do you want to check on the phone sure we do have one person who's on the phone line so I'm going to turn that person on to see if that might be um Miss

[137:00] Carlson if you are calling in on the phone line starts with 561 if you could unmute Yourself by pressing star six on your phone is this Holly Carlson by any chance yes this okay yes this it I was having some difficulty trying to get onto the zoom line so no worries good good evening city council my name is Holly Carlson I'm a transplant to Boulder Colorado going on six years I'm also a single mom who lives in affordable housing here in town I'm here today speaking on behalf of our local environment and Native wildlife in the last three years I have watched an influx of encampments become ever so noticeable in and around Boulder especially in our Open Spaces next to our local Water Systems even more so in the last eight months which has been extremely detrimental to not only the environment but also the water quality especially when speaking about our waterfall who use these Rivers as their roads and nesting sites now I understand that the subject of homelessness here in

[138:00] Boulder is a sensitive issue however Boulder's environment and the species who have called this home long before humans are being put at the back burner and made to suffer year after year my question is how can we be putting the environment and the wildlife last on the list of importance when these are the very things that people from all over the world come to Boulder Colorado to see you cannot hide massive amounts of trash feal matter drug perania or stolen property thrown around all around these encampments you cannot hide the camps being built in the city's CTS that were designed to move large amounts of water under the roads and highways safely these are areas that are clearly marked no trespassing yet these individuals are allowed to stay there for months at a time which is both unsafe for humans and the environment this is not a situation where you can put your blinders on or wait to worry about it in the next year our environment and Wildlife already suffered enough in 2020 between the fires and the Damage Done by these encampments so before it's too late I ask that the city council along with Boulder py and the homeless outreach

[139:01] program come together and start to address this issue as I implore all of you to go by an overthe counter water bacteria test at your local Home Depot and go test the waters by your homes in these encampments and you too will see the real damage that is truly being done as I would not swim or have my children near or in these Waters after starting in these tests for personal knowledge lastly I just want to extend my gratitude to the boulder PD for their ongoing efforts to find balance and doing so with dignity I hope that the Boulder Community as a whole can find Solutions and start the process of getting our environment cleaned up and back to the pristine condition in which it should be I thank you for your time city council and chief Harold thank you Holly okay with that we are done with open comment and I will close it and turn to staff Chris Tom do you have anything to respond nothing for me tonight nor for me Sam thank you very good Rachel yep uh just a couple things I wanted to

[140:01] particularly thank Ella and Amber for attending tonight's meeting and speaking and um invite them to share their list there's a a way to email city council and we are always looking for um new ideas so please stay in touch and I think it's cool that seveny olds were here speaking tonight so thank you for being here um and then second there was a comment about staff being uh xenophobic and I just want to state that from my perspective um I think staff carries out our um directives and so I think that um criticism lies with me and my colleagues so um I don't find that staff member to be xenophobic but I also just want to put it out there that um I would rather absorb the criticism than have at lob at staff because they are um acting according to our um decisions thanks thank you Rachel and I'll just follow up and amplify that by saying when I'm putting out the idea that we can treat each other with respect and

[141:01] kindness um it especially does apply to staff we're your elected representatives so if you do have a problem with what staff is doing um the responsibility does lie with Council and so um I would follow up with what Rachel said and say that um look at staff as human beings and if you need to um get staff to correct their actions that responsibility lies with Council um juny thank you Sam um I'm not sure if even to us some of the comments are warranted because I know some of you have been called really bad names and I'm not sure if they are really true because calling someone xenophobic do you have the facts or are you just saying just throw in things and hopefully something stick or you just want to be outrageous and I just don't think that

[142:02] that's the best way to get I guess or policy forward if we're really trying to make a difference in the community so I think being mean is just not very effective at getting anyone closer to where you would like them to be but I just wanted to add earlier I think ember's comments they really touch me Ember Noble I think your comments were really Noble and you know I just when I was seven you know I wasn't thinking about you know making the world a better place I was just thinking I guess maybe as a child so I really appreciate the comments and I have thought about them as well when it comes to because I think she mentioned Transportation um bringing homeless um people in homeless situation bringing them to the shelter but I think there are a lot of challenges to that as well um I think we do that when it comes to

[143:00] you know bringing them from one shelter area to the to the next when when we had the severe weather shelter right but as far as picking them up I think my my experience has been I've walked you know the path a lot of the people who are homeless they have a lot of property with them so I think also I think there is a lot more to it than just having transportation to bring them to one site um and I think maybe um Kurt can say more about that the hot team and I think they do a lot of work in the community when it comes to outreach with the homeless people but I think everything that you said were really well thought of and I think that's a conversation we definitely need to have I guess continue to have in our community because we've been having this conversation so thank you for making those comments and they really touched me and I think it was uh both Ella and and and and amember thank you so much thank you Jannie I don't see any other hands up so with that um Debbie

[144:02] take us to the next okay next is our consent agenda items a through G very good and I think there are two items in particular that we expected to touch on so I'll call those out council members can raise any others one of those is uh item 3D which is the extension of the oil and gas moratorium until the end of the year um Tom do you want to touch on that sure Sam thank you this is um a continuation of the oil and gas moratory on the city has had in place uh I believe since 2013 uh the city's oil and gas moratorium is ex is being extended at this time because the county is in the process of developing regular ations for oil and gas uh and we uh don't want to have anything uh going on in Boulder Boulder is blessed by not really having any oil uh and the oil and gas

[145:01] moratorium is drafted so that U we don't actually prohibit oil and gas drilling we PR application for a permit to do so uh and so someone to challenge it would have to actually have a right to apply for permit and I'm not aware of any oil and gas that's developable in Boulder at this time so this extends it to the end of the year and we will can staff will continue to work on this and bring back something back to council later in the year very good 20 the end of 2021 of course that's what I was guessing thank you um and then the other item is 3E that we are going to touch on and that is the approval of the franchise with Excel Energy so again Chris or Tom one of you sure Chris do you want to do what or you want me to do um if you want to do and then I think Steve is available to answer any questions as well sure there was some confusion in some emails today I want to clarify what this is um there

[146:00] there was Leslie glustrom raised the question of the ordinance number or she referred to ordinance 8410 which I believe was the ordinance that placed the uh franchise on the ballot the charter has a separate provision that requires Council after it's approved by the voters to approve the franchise this ordinance is a separate ordinance from the one that placed it on the ballot which is why the numbers were different as raised in Miss gom's email the uh requirement in the charter is that be 60 days between first and second reading of a Fran of franchise approval council did first reading on on this I believe in September uh this is second reading for tonight it is a ministerial act it is a predicate to having the Pu consider approval of the franchise uh Excel is required to have puc approval of any franchise it enters into this is a requirement on Excel not on the city the Pu rules require that Excel submit a certified copy of the franchise approved by the governing body so for for the Pu

[147:01] to consider approval that the council will need to approve it very good thank you and I guess I have a question on that what happens if the Pu doesn't approve it and that has two flavers I guess one is they outright reject it and then the second is they make um changes which are minor or substantive how can we deal with that well any any change except ministerial ones would have to be reproved by the voters so if the Pu were to change it or reject it and want a different franchise you do not have the authority to enter into a franchise you have the authority to enter into franchise that was approved by the voters so unless it is approved in substantially this form and I mean pretty clearly substantially the same form the the voters we would have to bring anything changes back to the voters that's my view um so so you could um you could state that in your motion if you David gear has drafted some language that I can get to you that uh

[148:00] would add that as a a clear statement so anybody is reassured that the puc isn't going to change what the voters have approved great and from my standpoint I think that additional language would be helpful do you want to read it or put it up on the screen um Sarah do I have permission to share my my screen Sarah may have taken a break I'll just try to do it or read it if I can't one second I just gave you permission Tom you should be able to share okay um I'm sharing now we can't see it yet y I'm pulling it up super so the motion the city moves to declare that if the Colorado Public Utilities Commission requires any material change or amendments to the franchise agreement

[149:01] part of this approval process any such changes or amendments will require subsequent voter approval as required by City Charter sections 108 and 114 very good so that looks good to me and I'll just suggest that um when we move the uh sorry when we move the consent agenda that we say as amended um for item 3D thank you good Bob yeah Tom just on that language um is the word is the adjective material meant to apply to both changes and and amendment can you pull that back up again of course it I I believe it is uh Bob but let me pull it back up for you

[150:05] and in the first um line would you mind humoring me and inserting the word material before amendments also just so there's no um no one would come back and later argue that it was material changes or any amendments it's material changes or material amendments that's your intention if Sam's okay with that yep I'm good okay so that incorporated into the motion adopting the consent agenda and I'll make sure the clerk has this language very good thank you Tom and thank you David for humoring me on that it's appreciated and I meant item 3E is as what would be amended okay so that's everything that we had flagged ahead of time as potentially being an issue I see no other hands so uh Mark I'm sorry but I do have one rather some an odd question and it's relating to ordinance 8434 the construction use tax

[151:01] reconciliation um it if I read the materials correctly 98.7% of the revenue we generate through those um reconciliations comes from permits in excess of $100,000 and so my question is why didn't we simply make that the threshold for um for this statute why are we doing it at $75,000 um when there are only a few permits that are at that level and they don't generate very much money wouldn't it just been easier to do it at 100,000 and I guess that's a question for staff sure uh good evening Council Joel Wagner tax and special projects manager uh frankly we we debated $75,000 or $100,000 um after looking at the data we felt that um the 75,000 was a pretty clear B break point where there was no value added to reconciling permits and then when we hit that 75,000 threshold

[152:03] um there was more variance and and revenue associated with it uh so it felt to us like a um just a a a clear point where uh there is some some reconciliations that produce Reven and also produce more U refunds so look I leave it to your discretion and your call but it looks like to me that that we're uh the lower amount simply generates 1.1% of the revenue just didn't seem to make sense to me but as I said I defer to you on that right all right thank you thank you Aaron yeah I just wanted to mention um that some community members have brought up some concerns around the electronic petitioning ordinance uh just to flag that you I look forward to the discussion we might consider some amendments when we get there but I'll leave it for second reading good enough um Bob I see your hand again was gonna if there were no

[153:02] other questions or comments I was going to move the consent agenda move the consent agenda um with the the um amendments to item 3E that that Sam and Tom and I just discussed second very good we have a motion and a second and Debbie I believe this is a roll call correct yes it is council member young yes rocket I Brent yep Joseph yes uh stick hi wallik hi Weaver hi Yates I um it's eight 8 to zero boot so it's unanimous very good okay and

[154:01] next next on the agenda we have um your call up check-in which is a call up consideration for the application to rename Wonderland Lake to the Wonderland Lake Wildlife Sanctuary very good um Council does anyone have any comments or desire to call it up Aaron no I have no desire to call it up I just want to call out that um the renaming is a product of a lot of residents uh who care very much about that area I wanted to Brand it with a a special name recognizing the wonderful Wildlife out there it's one of my favorite haunts I live nearby and walk there often so just appreciate all the citizen effort that went into this and look forward to not calling it out so that it goes through very good I see no one else and see no desire to call it up so I think we're ready to move on okay next we have our first public hearing which is the consideration of a site review Amendment

[155:00] to the 29th Street shopping center to adaptively reuse and redesign the existing Macy's department store located at 1928 Street in the business Regional One zoning District as an office and Retail building great thank you Council for our first public hearing tonight um Elaine mlin a senior planner and pnds will be the um staff member who will present this item before we go to that um Tom Carr will cover the quasa judicial procedures um but I think actually before that because um we have one council member absent I think Sam you wanted to say some words here at the beginning of this item so I'll turn it back to you thank you um yeah I guess I wanted to flag that um one possible uh complication of having a even number of people sitting um to rule on the site review Amendment um hearing the site plan review Hearing in front of us would be that we could conceivably come to a point where we have a 4to four

[156:01] vote and that would create a situation where um we could have a a complicated resolution and some issues of what was moved how it was moved and um also this is a fairly big project and to have less than full Council hear it um seems like that might not be ideal so I wanted to turn first to the applicant um if the the reason there's a there's a council person missing tonight who um can be at a future um potential deliberation so one possible pathway forward would be to have the presentation um and so the staff presentation applicant presentation Council questions public hearing and then continue the hearing to another evening to have deliberations and a resolution uh decision made on approval or denial of the site plan review

[157:01] application so I will turn first to the applicant and see if the applicant would be comfortable with us going through the entire presentation and hearing and then uh continuing the hearing and making a decision at a future point or and that Future Point would be probably the first or second meeting in the new year um so I'll turn to the representative for the applicant and see if that would be acceptable before I go to council because if the applicant doesn't want to do it I think we'll just proceed with um an eight person Council so Chris I think I need to promote a couple of applicants so that they can respond to your question if you'll bear with me for a moment I have a list and I'll go through right now bet I guess while we're waiting I will point out that we had a couple we had an

[158:01] eight-person Council after one of our members resigned um and we had that eight person Council through most of um 2019 and it created some complications um we had a couple of four4 votes which meant motions failed so I was just anticipating that that could be an outcome don't know if it would be and that's why I wanted to bring this up I believe I've promoted everybody on my list who's got a name similar to the names I was given so hopefully somebody can respond to your question so if you're present and you would like to respond to that you can either raise your hand or just unmute yourself and let us know hi this is Charlie Smith I'm an attorney at Brownstein height farbor and Shrek I can speak on behalf of the applicant um thanks very much for the

[159:02] opportunity to do so we understand there's been a request by Council to continue our public hearing and we would like to accommodate uh the participation of all nine members of council we understand that there's been a last minute an emergency that's come up that's precluded her participation and something we completely understand given the nature of the project we believe it would be best to have uh the full presentation and the decision occur on the same night I would think that that allows for a more robust dialogue with Council and a more fully informed decision by every member of council that's based on the record um we'd agree with our hearing being continued to sometime in the next 30 days and more specifically we'd request that it be at the December 8th special meeting which is obviously when uh Council will all be uh available uh we'd prefer that this not be continued into next year given that we were originally scheduled for a planning board hearing in March uh and

[160:01] we chose chose to hold off on that in the hopes that we could have an in-person hearing obviously that didn't happen because of the continuing spread of covid and so we opted to move forward with a remote hearing but we'd still like to have a public hearing with the presentation and the decision on the same night uh to keep things as normal as possible uh of course we're ready to give our presentation tonight if Council would prefer to hold that meeting and and the vote uh as well tonight um otherwise we'd consent to the rescheduling of the hearing to a date certain in the next 30 days and we'd respectfully request that that be on December 8th at your next meeting so just to be clear December 8th is not a regular meeting it is not even a special meeting at this point it is a study session so um and it is not clear um from conversations with the missing council member that they would be available on December 15th so if there were to be a rescheduling it would likely be on January the um 5th and so

[161:05] that that would be probably the earliest that could happen um and it is it is your choice that's not within 30 days so the rules just to make sure that we're all clear on it people watching and council members if we start a public hearing tonight um that's within your 60-day window um that you from the um planning board disposition and then once we start the public hearing we have discretion to not make a decision for up to 30 days so that would be through December 31st if we start tonight I my expectation is if we go forward tonight there will end up being a vote if we go forward tonight and you do not want to um continue just the decision part then I think we'll just go forward tonight with an 8ers Council um if you don't want to split it into two parts uh it it sounded like January 5th might be an option and I think we're all

[162:01] fine with that on our end if we were able to have the presentation and the decision on that same night it just seems important to have them together to have that you know one cohesive conversation with all the members of council so we can all be answering questions consistently and um having that dialogue okay so I'll bring it back to council I will point out for everyone including the Macy's team that uh planning board has done this at least in my experience a couple of times where you have the um presentation and questions and public hearing at one session and then at another session there's deliberation potential future questions and a decision is taken so coming back to council um Council I guess the the question if I understood correctly from the applicant is we could try and reschedule everything to January 5th I know that we' we'd have a full Council there at least as far as I know um the

[163:01] fifth has some items that could be moved off and I know we have space on the 19th from our last CAC meeting so that's one option and another option is to go forward and do everything tonight so um it looks like the applicant preference is not to split it into two different evenings so I think we need to work with either tonight or the 5th it sounds like either one is acceptable to the applicant so I have Bob Adam Mark and Aaron Bob well I I very much appreciate the flexibility of the applicant um and January 5th um is only a few few days outside of 30 days from now and so I really appreciate the applicant being flexible I agree with the applicant that it does make sense to have the presentation the public hearing and the decision all at the same time otherwise we have that a situation where eight of us will have heard directly and had a chance to ask questions and then one of our colleagues will have to watch it by video and will not have an opportunity to participate so my preference would be if it's okay with

[164:01] the applicant to move this all to January 5th when we all can be together can listen to the presentation can um hear the testimony ask questions and then make a decision uh that night so that would be my preference very good thank you Adam on the input is I think the future is an unknown so we're not any more certain than we are right now that we'll have a ninth council member or not on January 5th emergencies happen so thank you um Mark Aon and Rachel Mark yeah I would want to uh accommodate the applicant and move this to January 5th I would prefer to have a full Council available and for all of us to um be able to receive the benefits of the hearing uh and then make a decision you know immediately thereafter rather than bifurcating it and if that is the

[165:00] applicant's preference I think we ought to uh accommodate them very good Aaron and then Rachel aarin yeah I agree with with Mark and Bob I think there it does help to have it all together and I appreciate the applicants uh flexibility and accommodating council members schedules and hopefully we can all um do our very best short of of of a big emergency to be there in that first meeting in January thank you Aon Rachel uh yeah I just wanted to like do we have a sense that mirab is available on January 5th like I SP I spoke with her after I got the text and she's fairly uncertain that she can make the 15th of this month so that's very dicey um but the fifth she promised that she would be available for 5th of January so I'm a little bit with Adam like you know we're in the middle of a pandemic like you know it's hard to say that January 5th everybody's well in attending so that I don't know it does feel a little

[166:00] bit like rolling the dice but I just wondered like if uh and this is probably a question to Tom if we were to move forward tonight and it would only be relevant I assume if we got to a 44 vote what would happen then what's the outcome of a 44 vote on in this situation the the code is not clear the code on section 944 of the the revised code provides for your callup Authority it says that you need to make a decision either to approve or deny and that the decision either to approve or deny must be be supported by U findings specific findings uh there is no provision for what happens if you don't make a decision uh the if if this were a court and you tied 44 I would advise that the the you what the Court's process is that the lower courts decision stays intact um there is no precedent for this so there is some risk either way you could also argue that a 44 tie um would uh

[167:01] result in a denial because you haven't approved it and you've called it up uh so I could argue it either way the code as I said contemplates a decision by Council and as Sam noted planning board has done this planning board actually has a charter provision that requires four four me members to be in agreement to take action so they have this problem with with more frequency and they have a specific provision there is nothing for councel other than language saying that you act by a majority and could Council say we're 4 four we're going to continue this until we have all nine here and I understand that's not what the the applicant would prefer that all nine be there for the whole thing but seems only relevant in the event that we get to 44 then continue the code requires you to make a decision within 30 days of the beginning of the public hearing so you can as a matter of your right continue it as long as you make a decision and publish your findings within 30 days but not to January 5th which is the next time we expect the ninth council member

[168:01] to be in attendance that's the glitch and the for for to go to January 5th the applicant would have to agree okay thank you and I'll just point out in that scenario it is not clear that we would be allowed to take another vote right so if tied four to four that would be a vote that would have some meaning potentially um but as Tom says we're in unexplored territory so I think the safer thing to do to avoid any confusion um would be to go to January 5th seems like it's okay with the applicant um and so unless there's objections Adam I see your hand but unless there's objections I'm where Bob and Mark are on this and Aaron I think um there is some uncertainty but we know for sure that we won't have nine tonight and probably not on the 15th but likely we will on the 5th Adam not an objection but just generally you know it's I think it's in

[169:01] poor taste to schedule public hearings and then not hold them and uh you know that doesn't sit well so um trying to avoid that I realize again emergencies happened but I mean this is our job I hear hear you if if it weren't for the prospect of Us ending up in a Hung Situation where no one knows exactly what that means I would agree with you um in this in this case I think it's probably prudent not to take that chance Bob yeah I agree with you that normally if if this was a um a relatively minor matter we would just simply go forward and and and and we would decide whatever we decide this is I'm going to say that this is probably one of the larger items that we're going to handle this um year um and it has been our tradition at least in the past that um on larger items we try to accommodate missing council members and and not make decisions in their absence whether that

[170:00] absence is scheduled in advance or that absence in this case is an emergency so I think we try we try to be differential to missing council members and uh you know life happens and um if this wasn't one of the larger um questions of the year I would probably tend to agree with you but this is pretty uh an item of of great interest to the community and to the applicant of course and I think it's U it's worthy of having all nine of us in the room for that okay well that sounds mostly like consensus to me I'm going to turn to Chris and Elaine make and I guess Chris Charles and Elaine make sure that you guys are comfortable with that I feel like we have enough room if I recall correctly later in January that we can accommodate this change but I'd love to hear from you before we go forward yeah thanks Sam um I think we're we can accommodate this uh um folks are available on January 5th and um we can bring a a shuffle to the council agendas to CAC on Monday uh to to try and make

[171:03] it work okay very good Charles Elaine anything else nothing from staff okay very good so Aaron I see your hand well I was just going to ask if we need a motion of some kind to make this happen and I'll turn to Tom to answer that I would prer a motion to continue to January 5th or to reschedule to reschedule not to continue because you haven't started could someone make the motion B uh I move the council direct CAC to reschedule this matter for uh our council meeting on January 5th second okay any objections can we also make sure that the applicant will will you state affirmatively that you do not object Macy's team no objections thank you very good

[172:01] thank you we have a motion and a second if I see no objections I'll call this a unanimous vote I see none this is an 8 zero vote to move um item 5A to January 5th and we'll work on everything else at CAC so thank you and apologies for the late notice to everyone and especially to the public anyone who wanted to speak at the public hearing tonight I am sorry to juggle this at the last minute okay um Debbie what's next um next we have our second public hearing which is the certification of the 2020 coordinated municipal election perfect thank you Pam Davis who uh has served as our designated election official for this last election will be the one to cover this item I did also want to acknowledge that um it it appears there was a glitch in some of the materials so the the memo was added

[173:02] very late to the packet um so there is a memo that's in there but Pam is going to walk uh Council through each of the steps um to be able to search the election good evening mayor Weaver and members of council um as Chris mentioned Pam Davis assistant city manager and I served as the designated election official for 2020 I do have a couple of slides to walk us through this process um so Emily I'd appreciate it if you could bring up the presentation so as I begin I also just want to acknowledge the great efforts of our elections administrator Diane Marshall who was instrumental in the success of this year's election so please advance to the next slide the process to go ahead and certify the 2020 election results is a little bit different than a traditional public hearing so I thought I'd just give Council and the public a very brief outline of what needs to happen for this

[174:00] to get done and then we think that it will move along fairly expeditiously so at so that you are aware the city council also serves as a distinct entity which is the general canvasing and election board and I will be serving as the secretary for that board this evening and so to proceed we will follow the steps that you see on the slide first we'll convene as a board take a roll call and administer an oath of office we are also required to have each council member sign the oath given the challenges of our virtual environment Diane Marshall will be reaching out to you tomorrow morning to arrange for those signatures for the record the next order of business at that point will be for the board to appoint a chair of the board historically the chair has been the mayor and we recommend his appointment by acclamation but as a board you will have an opportunity to nominate and approve your selection shortly following the appointment of the chair I will briefly present our results and ask that the chair open a public hearing upon conclusion of that hearing the board will have one remaining motion to

[175:01] approve the election returns and to adjourn the general canvasing and election board to reconvene city council uh and so to begin this process um I'd appreciate a motion to convene as the general canvasing and election board for the city of Boulder coordinated municipal election held on November 3rd 2020 so moved second great we have a motion in a second so does anyone object seeing none Pam I think we're convened and back to you okay great thank you very much so the next step is for me to go ahead and take a roll call and as we are convened as a board you are all now board members um so board member Brocket what do I have to do exactly sorry this is just the roll call just roll call vote okay for attendance purposes correct here here here there we go how

[176:00] about that present here thank you board member friend I am here board member Joseph present board member Nagel board member stick here board member wallik here board member Weaver here board member Yates here and board member young present great thank you all so our next activity is um to go ahead and administer an oath of office for this elections board and so um due to our virtual environment I'm going to go ahead and read the oath out loud myself and we'll just ask at the end for all of you to State I do that you commit to this oath of office so we the undersigned do solemnly swear or affirm that we will perform the duties of the general canvasing and election board for the coordinated municipal election held in the city of

[177:01] Boulder County of Boulder state of Colorado on the third day of November 2020 according to the law and to the best of my ability so please State I do to accept this oath I do I do do I do do thank you very much so moving right along we now need a nomination to identify the board chair for this meeting historically this is the mayor may I ask for one bit of clarification I don't mean to slow this down but it mentions the third day of November so that's referencing the date of the election is that correct that's correct very good thank you um I'll I'll I'll make a motion that we uh nominate Sim Weaver to chair the board Second Great any objections very good by acclamation back to you Pam great thank you so uh

[178:01] chairman Weaver uh you have been accepted as the board chair so as the secretary for the board um we've presented to you in the late addition to the packet this afternoon the statement of votes the summary of votes the Boulder County audit Reconciliation Report and and certification as well as the statement of election results and certification for the Colorado Department of local Affairs and if we could move to the next slide now I will briefly present the final results of the 2020 election for the City ballot measures the ballot measures were as follows Tob no eviction without representation passed uh with about a 59% approval to C the Public Service Company franchise also passed with roughly 53% majority approval 2D repurposing the utility occupation tax passed with a majority of about 57% to e Charter amendments related to

[179:00] direct election of the mayor passed with a majority of about 78% and 2f the amendment related to the boulder Arts commission passed with a majority of roughly 85% the official results as well as additional historical information and greater detail is available on the Boulder County elections website so at this stage uh chair Weaver if you would be willing to convene the public hearing for this item that would be our next step very good I will open a public hearing um as far as I can tell uh Debbie we have no one signed up is that correct that is correct very good seeing no one interested in the public hearing I will close the public hearing thank you very much and so our final step in this process to certify this matter is to consider a motion to approve the election returns for the

[180:01] city of Boulder coordinated municipal election held on November 3rd 2020 and then to adjourn from the general canvasing and election board and reconvene as the Boulder City Council no moved second very good we have a motion and a second is there any objection to the motion seeing none that passes unanimously and we reconvened as the Boulder City Council thanks very much Pam thank you and I guess everyone look for the email um asking for your signature appreciate it thanks a lot very good okay Debbie what's next our final public hearing this evening is the second reading of ordinance 8439 the utility occupation tax amendments great so for this item uh Steve katak our director of climate initiatives will be able to present the

[181:01] item um I'm actually presenting an update on uh the partnership that we're forging with Excel um I believe Tom or David is available for any questions that might be associated with the ordinance and the tax measure that uh this really represents but uh what I wanted to provide was a update on the status of our partnership with Excel you know we are now a little over two weeks three weeks and past our election and we've been working diligently to put that together so Emily if we could please start the presentation very good if we could uh please go to the next slide so we've really been approaching this on two different areas of focus one being the close out of the

[182:02] municipalization effort and what we have been in the process of doing is beginning to organize and archive the municipalization our documents our analysis all of the designs that we have done uh for separation of the two Utility Systems and all of the financials that we've done we are also in the process of ensuring that those archived records are connected to a road map which would allow us to restart the municipalization effort should either Council or the community direct us to do so we're also in the process of closing out the financial obligations of the municip municipal effort um with this includes paying off a debt of a little over $1.4 million that we owe to the general fund that was borrowed pre

[183:01] 2017 uh in order to carry the municipalization forward we are anticipating that we should have those last Bills uh processed uh by early next year and should be able to completely close out the municipalization effort in the memo packet there was a table but unfortunately it's already very dated because we have paid some other significant bills uh that shows that from the savings Associated or the unspent money from the municipalization effort we should be able to close out the project without tapping into the repurposed funds now when we finally close the out that we may have to extend into the repurposed uot uh to complete the payment to the general fund but it's going to be very close we

[184:00] estimate Emily if we could please move forward the other area that we're focusing on is standing up the partnership with Excel Energy um as you all recall we designated a governance structure to ensure that the partnership was successful uh the portion we are currently working on now is uh seating the executive team this is a team that is designated to really provide the oversite and is responsible for ensuring the success of the partnership uh the executive team will be made up of the city manager and the Colorado president of Excel Energy and other designated staff as um each selects we're also seating the project oversight team and the project oversight team is the team that will actually be

[185:00] organizing the projects and the work U associated with the partnership uh this is um going to be a uh team that represents multiple Departments of the city and has the ability and authority to assign subject matter experts to the uh different projects that are ongoing uh next slide please in addition to that there is an advisory panel that we've designated that is between I believe five and 15 community members that will advise the project oversight team on the selection of projects and the um ensure that we are hearing what the community desires uh from the partnership we're currently in the process of working with Excel to define the process for the selection of

[186:00] that advisory panel next slide please as an example of some of the projects that we're beginning to organize around is the city had several ongoing initiatives that it is appropriate to work with Excel on uh the first one of those is a solar policy revision U that we are working with Excel and working with Senator fineberg um to move forward with some changes to uh rules governing the deployment of solar we also had already undertaken a analysis of the um feasibility of uh the Alpine Balsam project looking at alternative energy sources electrification how how can we best utilize the Redevelopment of a Brownfield site to take full advantage

[187:00] of opportunity as we're rebuilding the campus there we also over the course of a number of years have been exploring different street lighting solutions and what the partnership is enabling us to do there is to get additional data about the existing street lights in the city that Excel loans and we're currently working with them to explore different alternatives to U upgrading that street lighting system next slide please the newer projects that were agreed upon in the settlement and the partnership agreement that we see as high priority items because they're very long-term these are elements that'll take place year after year is U developing how we will work together with Excel on their distribution system planning this is really um allowing us

[188:01] the opportunity to take place in how the Electric System in Boulder will be operated um what work will be done on it and what um really grid modernization could take place on it so this is a real opportunity for us to have some say so on the activities taking place in Boulder we also have the underground to or overhead to underground conversion funding that is both made up from uh when we went out of franchise a decade ago plus the new money so over the course of the next five years uh there will be about 16.5 million dollar available for overhead underground conversion we're in the process of reestablishing the guidelines and the criteria that'll be used to select those undergrounding projects um the um 10 years ago they

[189:02] were going by a set of um criteria that they established I believe in 1994 so we would like to modernize that and ensure that we have the flexibility to achieve the goals that we're trying to achieve in Boulder today the part of the agreement uh we also need to move quickly on is the data sharing uh portion of that and this is both to provide us with better data so that we can design our programs and our projects to better serve the community but also to ensure we have up-to-date information should the municipalization um initiative take move forward again uh next slide please so and along with that we're also working on a Communications plan um we have an opportunity and we will have uh significant

[190:00] Milestones uh with Excel and so we want to ensure that we have a methodology worked out in a process for how we will work together to communicate about the things we do together uh next steps for the partnership are the uh integration of all these project teams but also we plan to bring to council or to get to counsel a timeline for the selection of the advisory committee uh as we work it out with Excel and hopefully we'll have that to you by the end of December uh in January we want to begin the regular executive team and project oversight team and regular team meetings for projects in March I think it's March 3 or fourth for that meeting we plan to come forward with a budget for the partnership along with the close out of

[191:00] the municipalization project and then in addition to that we'll be bringing to forward as a climate initiative staff uh in May uh new goals and targets uh for the community and our community engagement process so that's a very quick very brief update with a lot of in-depth details behind that but uh next slide please so thank you all very much and I'm happy to answer any questions I also have Jonathan Cohen with me and Carol elim if there are any questions great thanks very much Steve that was super helpful I I do just want to I'll ask you I think I know the answer but I'll just double check for the governance team the oversight team which includes the city manager and the

[192:00] CEO of Pesco um there's regular meetings for that is that correct that's correct those will be quarterly um at a minimum for the first two years and then I believe it goes to once every six months if appropriate after two years okay very good thanks very much Aaron I see you have a question sorry dealing with Dog Problems there for a moment so yes Steve that that was really helpful and getting a sense of those timelines is very instructive very useful I know there's a lot of community interest in the next steps is that can we get that up on on the website somewhere that we could direct to people so that there there's some a way that people could look at that information absolutely we will uh make sure it's up on our page um right Away Great yes if you wouldn't mind sending councel an email when that's up so that we can point people to that that would be super helpful sure thank you thank you Aon

[193:04] Adam thanks fam and thank you Steve um I think an important part of a debrief of all this might be you know the the franchise agreement passed there's no question about that so don't want to relitigate that at all but there were some questions about the legality of forming the franchise agreement and that all the processes were followed correctly um if this has to come up again in the future you know if Excel fails that they're meeting their goals and we go through this all over again I think it's important that we have all the eyes dotted and the te's crossed um when we're looking back at all this so making sure we answer those questions I think is pretty important um as part of that debrief uh that you know we did the process exactly correctly as far as uh the charter goes though I'm preparing a memo that answers all those questions uh it's it's a little it's a lot more detailed than I

[194:01] was hoping I'm hoping to get that out within the next week or so and it will not be a confidential memo will be AA available to the public okay thank you Tom great I see no their hands up so we'll turn it back to staff [Music] apologize so just to make sure Tom did you have um any additional comment on the tax provisions and the ordinance now I think it's fairly self-explanatory it just implements the uh ballot measure approving the extension and repurposing of the uot there's a few details in there I'm happy to address them if Council has any questions okay very good hang on pulling up the I don't see any questions um I know that Mary asked one question about carbon sequestration that I thought was interesting Mary asked if carbon sequestration expenses could be covered

[195:01] by these funds and Tom answered that yes uh in the past carbon sequestration projects have been considered as part of clean energy plans I'm not quite sure that that sounds completely right in in the sense that um what we're really after here is not energy projects precisely but it's reducing um carbon emissions as and part of that is taking carbon dioxide out of the air so I don't know if mayor you had any follow-ups on that I found Tom's answer is sufficient um but certainly something we should talk about in the future um I was satisfied with the answer okay and I seen Tom go ahead I perhaps wasn't clear the the ballot measur said that projects that are consist that are part of the city's clean energy plan and I checked back and looked at our clean energy plan and we have funded carbon sequest

[196:01] projects in as part of the clean energy plan in the past very good that's just a terminology thing that I'll pursue internally later okay super I guess we're ready for a motion and you want want to make a motion Sam did we um have anyone for the public hearing oh thank you that's great great Point um yes we do and that's my mistake thanks very much okay turning now to the public hearing I have public hearing three list up here trying to bring it up there we go we have three people signed up for the public hearing ly seagull Paul colan and Leslie glustrom so when you're ready Sarah I think we can start with Lyn ly seagull I don't support

[197:01] the re setting of The 2D um I voted for it long ago and it was for municipalization done okay thank you Lenn uh next we have Paul colan and then Leslie glom Paul can't hear you yeah we're having trouble hearing you is this better that's better okay I got to get real close to my laptop here uh hello again council members I'm Paul colan South Boulder um the $2 million a year uot won't go far in stopping global warming we'll just be nibbling around the edges of the problem with the uot and cap taxes our sole funding sources will'll

[198:01] be hard pressed to come even close to meeting our climate goals we must not rely on the partnership with Excel to deliver our energy goals consider the partnership is just one more tool in the toolbox I recommend Boulder partner with the city of Denver and pursuing systemwide emissions reductions Denver has similar emissions and renewable energy goals to Boulder and Boulder's now in a similar situation as Denver in terms of being highly dependent on Excel to provide low emission electricity and they've had a two-year head start on their partnership with Excel let's Leverage What Denver is doing go to the puc shoulder-to-shoulder go to the legislature arm and arm strength and numbers uh not that Boulder would do exactly what Denver does but it couldn't hurt to check in with them and see what's going on thank you thank you Paul next we have Leslie glustrom

[199:02] good evening uh mayor Weaver and council members thank you so much as always for all of your hard work on so many issues uh my name is lesie LOM I live in Boulder a few comments I want to thank councilman stick for trying to make sure we get clear about the charter provisions and the franchise it was all done very quickly this summer and we want we do want to make sure those eyes are dotted the te's are crossed so thank you very much um I sent an email to council this afternoon on this U utility occupation tax repurposing there were four Provisions in the ballot language that I believe the voters I mean that these were the provisions that really helped the voters I think decide to vote in nice numbers for this ballot measure providing energy related assistance to disadvantaged members of theu community proving system reliability and modernizing the system uh the partnership agreement with Excel and

[200:00] increased access to Energy Efficiency and renewable energy solutions so I would ask that the council put that language that was in ballot measure 2D into this ordinance so it gets carried forward um not many people are going to do what I did which is to find the ballot measure and all and then compareed to this ordinance so I would ask that you you put that language back in and then finally on the city manager position uh it's kind of stunning that somehow the consultant didn't put in meeting our climate goals and while I think councilman Brockett will advocate for addressing that I I don't think we should be paying a consultant a lot of money to make a fancy brochure with cute pictures in it when they've missed one of our most important Community objectives so I would ask that the council take a hard look at that that you ask some hard questions you asked staff to ask some hard questions of the consultant if I mean I don't know how

[201:00] this works but I would take away some of the pay for the consultant because this is a massive oversight so I appreciate getting it fixed but I think there's a more deeper underlying problem and we want to make sure the consultant is carrying that priority forward um you know I'm in favor of hiring internally because people get what we do in Boulder if you hire internally but that may not be possible but so I appreciate the council's attention thank you for all of this as I always really appreciate everything you all are doing thank you Leslie and with that we will close the public hearing bring it back to council for discussion or a motion Rachel yeah I just wondered um and I did read Tom's email response earlier um but does it cost us to put the exact language um that Leslie's referring to

[202:01] that was on the ballot into this um into what we're voting on tonight like why not include it what does it cost us you question to Tom you have to go to a third reading um it's it's also really unnecessary I I can't tell you how many times we go back to the ballot measure when any anybody asks us about what can a measure what can money be used for we always go back to the ballot measure language it's stronger putting it in the code doesn't make it any stronger some extent it weakens it the strongest thing is having it in the ballot measure so um I mean you can do it it doesn't add anything there is some risk that there'd be some confusion um because if we got something wrong but that's not likely uh I just don't see any benefit for doing it because we always go back to the ballot language I if you ask me how do we spend this how can we spend the sugar sweeten beverage tax I would go to the ballot language not to the code so uh it

[203:01] doesn't cost any except a third reading okay thanks um and and I appreciate that I guess if it if it um makes the community feel more secure that um the language is in there and and um the institutional knowledge is therefore codified um I suppose I I'm comfortable going to a third reading on it that's all great thank you Rachel Aaron um I could make a motion if that's okay um that would be great I would ask I'll just put in two cents before you make the motion if we want to include language like Leslie and Rachel referenced I would just want to say including but not limited to because I think there could be other things that were that are worthy um which may lie outside of those buckets so um anyway

[204:00] just for you to think about Aon as you make your mission sure well Tom if we were going to um insert that language where exactly would you recommend putting that I would guess in the in the recital at the beginning of the of the ordinance there let me I'm pulling it up now Aaron um so legislative purpose findings and intent or findings I guess so I would add actually I would add under uh section 3-13-1 on page 11 of the packet actually now going on to page 12 a new D that says Purp and then quote the language from the ballot measure okay so not you wouldn't included in intent in C you would do new D purpose yeah okay well I I mean I hear you

[205:00] talking about the that it's not necessary um but I think it to Rachel's point I don't think it it hurts to to clarify it as long as we go with um Sams um included but not limited included but not limited to as I recall the ballot language says that okay perfect that would that would certainly take care of it so then I I'll go ahead and make a motion to move um that we approve ordinance um 8439 uh while adding a um an item 3-13-1 DD purpose that includes the language from the balot measure for the purposes that the tax might be used for so Aaron I apologize we're doing this on the I noticed that a says purpose so we probably need to find a different word perhaps voters intent or vote vote ballot language or something uh usage of funds usage of funds that's

[206:02] fine that work okay so so the new item D usage of funds that includes the language from the bot measure on on the usage of the funds excellent thank you we have a motion do have a second Mary you raising your hand we can't hear you sorry um I have a question is there by including this language is there could we find ourselves in a place where we would regret doing that especially since we're doing it on the [Music] Fly I have many regrets Mary but I I don't know that we'll regret this I I think with the language that Sam and Aaron have come up with it should be fine okay great thank you thank you Mary still looking for a second sure second Mark second so we

[207:03] have a motion and a second uh is there any discussion seeing none um we'll take a vote does anyone object to passing this ordinance seeing none it passes unanimously thank you all thank you Steve and Tom and I think we're on to the next item Debbie next item is Matters from the city manager which is the police strategic action plan and crime update yeah the one matter for uh uh items under the city manager um we have Chief heral here to present this along with her team good evening Council thank you so much for having me back uh tonight uh good evening mayor um tonight I do have a co-presenter and that is Beth

[208:00] Christensen she is our new strategic and data data policy adviser um best's role um since she was hired is really um to integrate our technology platforms and also bring us up to speed in understanding our data which you know is a main priority for me and so um I'm very happy she's with us tonight uh next slide please so there you go perfect now we're seeing it Chief great great thanks so um tonight we will be going over a high level crime overview we'll be looking at crime viws in different time frames we will also be looking at spatial analysis of the last year of crime which is very important um and then we're going to be focusing in on National Regional Trends we'll take a hard look at what's going on in Boulder this year we'll be focusing in on bike

[209:02] theft which is proving um very problematic we'll touch upon our domestic violence strategy that we talked about last time I was with you and then we'll briefly go over what's next um for the next quarter next slide please so I would be very remiss if um we didn't talk about some major disruptions in policing not only in Boulder but across the state and across the country and I would just like to um thank the police officers of Boulder who continue to come to work and do a phenomenal job on a daily basis we have faced um some real challenges in 2020 um jail space continues to uh be very problematic um in Boulder and this again isn't unique to Boulder it's occurring across the country but as covid worsens the jail restrictions worsen and it's unprecedented in 2020 that we are

[210:00] actually citing um felony offenders for both burglaries motor vehicle thefts um in really large numbers and I do believe we are over 300 um for felony offenders this year in addition um we were receiving intelligence of possible uh election disruption and tremendous amount of resources had to go into planning for possible election disruption um in Boulder in cities close to Boulder obviously uh covid has proven to be very um resourc driven so Staffing and resources have been uh given throughout the city for this um including a couple clusters um from our Traffic Unit and other um officers within the Boulder Police Department that's impacted Staffing negatively the wildfires um took a tremendous amount of resources away from the police department um and I'm proud of the work that the fire and the police did in that Arena and then lastly we

[211:01] cannot forget that the murder of George Floyd continues to provide um Prov to be very disrupting and policing and we are working very hard on police legitimacy and building communities of trust um moving forward next slide please so I don't want to go over everything I just want to uh refocus back in on Boulder Police Department's commitment to police reform and our strategic Plan update remember that these categories fell into six uh categories of accountability data training recruiting and hiring use of force and crime strategy so um you can see everything that we accomplished in uh quarter three but in quarter 4 I'm just going to highlight a few of the things that I think are important one is that our inspections Commander um continues to do daily weekly and monthly inspections and the one that really stands out this quarter is our emergency

[212:01] prep uh preparedness policy and inspection which proved pivotal um because of the possible disruptions in the election and so all of that was audited and came back really solid so I'm proud of the work there um Beth is going to be talking a little bit about the crime reduction meetings with detectives the crime pattern bulletins that she is putting out to all reliefs and she'll talk a little bit about the relaunching of our open data and crime location information for the community I'm also very proud of the work our new training uh section Sergeant he has concluded um blocks of training in the critical decision-making model in the IAT for all of the officers um recruiting and hiring will continue in into um the the beginning of 2021 but I'm proud to announce that the city hired a new uh Public Safety information officer who really hit the ground running and I thank Sarah Hunley for her help in that um her name is Dion

[213:01] war and she has just been doing really good Community work uh for the police department um because I have a strong emphasis in Professional Standards investigation I have added and selected a new sergeant to assist our profession standards to investigate citizens complaints and use of force um I think that this is one of the biggest priorities that I have moving forward and so that was very important to for for me and uh the Professional Standards work um I have been engaging in as many Community meetings as possible in this Co environment and I am beginning police Town Hall meetings which I've had one thus far and they will continue into 2021 and we'll talk talk a bit a little bit about that at the end of the presentation um the only thing I really want to alert you to to the next um quarter is that we will be conducting a very robust workload analysis that Beth has started and by the end of the first

[214:01] quarter we should have a really good idea of the work being done by the police department and Staffing concerns next [Music] slide so briefly let's take a look at local National trans um next slide I I've talked about the Police Executive Research Forum and they're one of my favorite research organizations because they tend to be the most Innovative and Progressive and they really did something unique here that was the first time I've seen this is that they combined combine National trends of small medium and large police departments nationally on violence and as you can tell um not only this but news articles from across the country VI crime is really skyrocketing and there's probably several reasons for that but um when we look at Boulder some of these Trends uh are consistent with Boulder um sexual assaults and robberies are down know nationally property crime under the

[215:00] hand nationally um is interesting because we do not have a full year we are relying on FBI uh property crime for National Trends right now I would expect that by the end of December when the FBI releases its year end date trends that will start to see property crime on a national level rise as well next slide please so Beth did a really good job um she contacted agencies from across Boulder County to understand what they were experiencing so um these are uh agencies uh adjacent to us in Boulder County as well and it's it's pretty interesting when you look at it assaults are up compared to other violent crimes um and this runs true and Boulder motor vehicle thefts and theft from Autos are up in Boulder and across the county burglaries are up in Boulder but mixed results elsewhere domestic violence calls are up and police agencies are reporting victim Services calls are up as well across the County sexual assault

[216:02] reports are down however calls to crisis centers are up child abuse reporting DUIs and Drug offenses down across all cities um so that's all very interesting information from a local perspective next slide and so I am going to turn it over to Beth Christensen who's going to give you a very detailed um review of Boulder's crime and Beth with that you're on awesome thank you Chief thank you Council for allowing me to update you today on where crime stands in Boulder um I've really been spending these first four months trying to understand um our systems our data our policies our procedures that we can better interpret the data out of our different systems so what I'm going to do in this crime review section is I'm going to cover a bit of our preliminary workload analysis very high level um discuss the different serious crime types that are out there where we stand over a fiveyear average and we'll break down each of those

[217:01] different crime types specifically um and look at some of the active projects that we're working on so next slide please okay so we look at calls for service when we do a workload analysis and when we're doing a workload analysis we're trying trying to understand where officers are going how often they're going when they're going um all the specific details and the goal is that we will be able to provide a better resource allocation strategy for the department so what we do know is that year-over year we have about 880,000 calls for service to our 911 Center and over months uh we typically have a summer Spike um due to the number of people that are out and about and engaging within the community next slide please when we break down these calls for service we look at different problem Natures a problem nature is a code a dispatcher will give based on the information a call a caller provides them and on the right you'll see the top 10 calls for service types for

[218:01] BPD what you will notice is that 14% of our call types are categorized as a welfare check or a medical call so right now we're actively working with the the fire with the fire department to determine proper response for these types of calls preliminary our research shows that our department is engaging in about 75% reactive activity meaning that they are responding to the radio based on calls for service 75% of the time this leaves very little room for discretionary time where officers May engage in proactive policing proactive policing may include directed patrols into hotspot locations or engaging with the community on other crime prevention techniques best practice based on what we are trying to achieve here in the Boulder Police Department is to reach 55 to 60% reactive that will increase the amount of time that officers have available to engage in proactive policing and participate in other administrative tasks next next slide so let's look at crime data so

[219:02] when we break down crime data we can look at it in terms of serious crimes for violent and property crimes sometimes referred to as part one crime violent crime will include homicides forceable sex offenses such as rapes robberies and aggravated assaults I do want to Define aggravated assaults because this is where there is an intent to cause serious injury or harm to a person compared to a simple assault we can also look at property crime property crimes include burglaries theft from auto motor vehicle theft or theft or other Laren other Larsen may include purse snatching pocket picking and shoplifting the other two items I do want to focus today which sometimes fall under several of these different serious crime categories are stolen bicycles and domestic violence next slide please okay so let's look at crime year over-year this chart shows the crimes between January 1st November 19th uh

[220:00] between 2015 and 2020 so this allows us to compare the 2020 numbers to the fiveyear average to better understand where we are this year compared to previous years and as the chief mentioned and we all know with covid it's really an unprecedented crazy year you will know that our crime is up across almost every category however keep in mind that these numbers are low so looking at the percentage alone can be a little bit misleading and that's why it's really important to break these down on an individual crime level and look at the trend over an extended period of time so next slide please so I'll start with violent crime um so before I dive into the data you're going to see a lot of these types of maps throughout the presentation um these Maps show the cluster of crime based on a two block radius so if it's within a two block radius we're considering it a cluster so that is where you will see the more most dense locations between January 1st and November 19th 2020 so research after research shows

[221:00] that crime clusters and is not random and our analysis shows just that across problem across crime types here in Boulder violent crime is highly concentrated in the city of Boulder as you can see on the map we've identified five major hotpots concentrated within the 25 square miles Boulder for each of the specific crime types we will also look at the victim offender relationship so the victim offender relationship is based on federal standards and we can categorize those into um known relationships stranger and unknown so known and stranger pretty clear but unknown is where um the victim may not know specifically who the offender is or may not want to share that information so officer code based on what the victim shares with them so here we can see that for violent crime we have a 38% have a known relationship however we do suspect that this number is greater based on investigations next slide please great thank you so let's take a

[222:01] quick peek at homicide so this year Boulder did have two homicides both incidences had immediate arrest by officers for the homicide at Circle K the prosecutor has declined to pursue the charges further the homicide at senton Park is still under investigations but here what we can say we know that both the victim and offender were experiencing homelessness at the time we do know that the victim and offender had a relationship however we are not sure of the full extent of that relationship at this time next slide please so aggravated assault so again before I jump into this you're going to see a lot of charts like this so I want to kind of set the stage so that yellow line on the chart that is going to be our fiveyear average for this specific crime type we're going to look at our normal range which is plus or minus two standard deviations so when our 2020 line that dark blue line Falls within

[223:00] that gray area we're in the normal range when it falls outside that range we are seeing a significant increase or decrease so for aggravated assaults we know that this year we are up 2% compared to the five year average and this year we've seen three periods where we've extended outside the normal range right so we're experiencing a statistically significant increase so these um these scenarios occurred in early January where we fell below that normal range we had a spike in late May early June and we also had a recent Spike between late October and early November so where is this all occurring next slide please you aggravated assaults are clustered in the city of Boulder the largest hotpots are shown on the screen here so we've got downtown Boulder University Hill 30th between uh Pearl and Belmont typo on my part Foo Hills

[224:00] hospital so the weapons that are involved in these aggravated assaults include personal weapons which is hands and feet so that makes up about 35% of the aggravated assaults um knife or cutting device makes up for about 28% of the weapons involved and the various fire arms make up about 11% in the REM in the remainder are other various weapons such as a a blunt object the victim offender relationship highlights that 36% of the victims know the offender however it's really important to keep in mind that under Colorado law if an officer is spit at bitten um or is prevented from in any way uh performing a lawful Duty the offender receives an aggravated assault charge and 22% of our aggravated assaults involve a law enforcement officer as a a victim furthermore out of these aggravated assaults 44% of our aggravated assaults involve domestic violence I want to specifically call out the foo Hills Hospital hotspot because out of the eight incidences that are

[225:01] here uh five of these occurred on premise which was a staff and patient um conflict where the rest were offsite where we do not have a known location next slide please so robberies robberies in the city of Boulder have increased significantly this year with several spikes above our normal range this year we are up 47% compared to the 5year average however these numbers are relatively small so I want to keep it in perspective so if we look at the scale on the left we can see that the greatest number of robberies on a 28 day rolling window is 10 so let's take a look at where these are occurring next slide please forgot the next Slide part thank you so again violent crime like all crime is highly concentrated here on the map we've identified four clusters at Valmont 30th downtown Boulder in the Civic Civic area uh with the small kind of attached cluster to

[226:01] the Southwest 28th in Pearl and then again at Baseline and 36 what weapons are involved here so we have 46% personal weapons it's about 12% for knife and cutting device and 177% include fire firearms and the remainder are various other weapons our victim offender relationship shows that only 25% have a known victim offender relationship however 39% of the unknown relationship we understand to be more known based on the investigations and our understanding of crime science we know that there's more of a relationship there that the victim may not be alluding to next slide please thank you so forcible sex offenses remember these includes things such as rape enforceable sex offences are down 47% compared to the 5year average and we do suspect that this is down due to the reduction in bar activity and University parties compared to previous years and that is primarily due to covid next slide

[227:02] please our sex offences are even highly concentrated in the city of Boulder crime is not random I've highlighted three major hotpots university Hill the southeast university area and then the police department so while our Police Department is not a hot spot there is actually no sex offense that has occurred here it does illustrate that there are incidences where we do not know the exact location so furthermore three out of the out of the five reports that came to the police station they are cold reports meaning that they um are passed uh in this instance all three of them were over a year since they occurred it's not uncommon that most of our victim offender relationships for forcible um sex offenses are known this is typically a known relationship between two individuals next slide please okay so now that we wrapped wrapped up violent crime let's take a look at the property crime so while more widely distributed compared to violent

[228:01] crime property crime is still highly concentrated at places and this is consistent with our violent crime and Trends we see across the country particularly in Boulder we can see quickly that crime is concentrated around high traffic areas including downtown Boulder uh the PE um I'm sorry the 29th Street Mall uh anything around a rapo and 28th most of these are all shopping and Retail districts but again property crime is highly preventable and we'll break down what we can do for each of these crime types to help prevent that crime so next slide please burglaries so the city of Boulder has seen a 27% increase this year compared to the five-year average you can see on the chart where we have the the Nationwide Co shutdown right so several businesses have to close their doors for weeks right so this creates an opportunity for burglarizes the business

[229:01] vulnerable okay uh next slide please lost my spot okay so where are these occurring we've identified three major hotpots between um downtown Boulder uh the University Hill area and again a storage unit shopping area that's along a rapo on the east side of town 29% of our burglaries are businesses several of these businesses again were closed during the early stages of the pandemic and some of them have remained closed uh recently we have had a series of bike shop burglaries you've probably seen some of that in our press releases from the Boulder Police Department we're really positive right now because our investigative leads uh appear promising at this time so hopefully more in the near future the major thing I want to hit on here though is that 27% of our victims report that they left a house unlocked unattended or a garage open so a simple crime prevention measure that we can all do is lock our doors and keep

[230:00] your garage shut next slide please this year uh for motor vehicle thefts and this is the actual taking of a vehicle um we have seen a uh 36 % increase compared to the 5-year average and we've seen a pretty significant increase specifically since August and we do suspect that some of that is due to the college students returning next slide please this crime is more widely distributed around the city but still with high concentrations in specific locations one of those hotpots is up at Cal Mia and I hope I'm saying that right in 36 where we had five uh Vehicles stolen but four of those were in early early January we've also had a series of Motor Vehicle thefts again kind of along the shopping district area on the east side of Campus um and then we've also had a hot spot at University Hill what I want to highlight here is that in University Hill nine of the motor

[231:02] vehicle thefts that occurred here were along Pleasant Street alone with four of them occurring in September October and most of these were due to cars being unlocked along the street 15% of our victims report leaving their car unlocked or garage open however we do suspect that this number is higher based in our understanding of how the cars were stolen so what are the challenges here when it comes to motor vehicle thefts in 2020 so in 2020 this is the first year that we have had to write a felony sum summons for someone who has stolen a vehicle only 50% of our offenders this year have gone to jail in previous years it has been 100% this is back to the chief's point that the jails being closed or minimum um or less people being in the jail is really impacting our crime because yes we do have repeat offenders for motor vehicle thefts next slide

[232:04] please so let's look at theft from AOS theft from AOS are vehicle trespassing is experiencing a 37% increase compared to the 5-year average and I just want want to highlight theft from motto is the actual taking of something physically from a vehicle but not the vehicle itself so since the shutdown the city of Boulder uh of the city of Boulder in mid-march our theft from AOS have stayed consistently up above the normal range this is one 100% a crime of opportunity and I know I keep saying that but it's so important to highlight let's go to the next slide it's so important because 47% of our victims report that their doors were left on un locked or unattended with things uh visible within the car these crimes are concentrated around shopping districts and parking lots where vehicles are left unattended for extended period periods of time at pearlin Junction we have a hotel we have

[233:00] several hotels in that area with parking along the streets and an RT RTD Station where vehicles are left unattended for extended periods of time University Hill plenty of students uh leaving their cars unlocked After parties Etc Southeast campus lots of housing down there for students where vehicles are left unattended the park and ride extended period of time where someone is not by their vehicle the one that struck me a little bit uniquely was Mohawk Drive where we had 10 offences within two block ranges within a short period of time but the biggest thing here is crime prevention you can we can prevent this keep valuables out of your car and lock your car next slide please so let's take a look at thefts or other Larsen so again the these crimes are you know pocket picking purse snatching and shoplifting so this is the only property crime that is experiencing a decrease in 2020 compared to the five-year average at 10% so we do suspect that this is

[234:02] largely due to the decrease in the crowds and disorder minimizing the opportunity for this type of theft next slide please again you're seeing the same types of hot spots pop up crime is highly concentrated in our community and these thefts are occurring in downtown Boulder um between arapo and and pearl along 28th where our shopping districts are um a lot of the major retailers in their City are around these intersections including places like home Home Depot which is one of our um repeat addresses of of other Larsen the crime prevention method here is is leave your valuables off your porches we actually did an environmental ass mment with our community officer where we walked around some apartments where things were just left on the porch and that does count as another Laren or when you're out and about make sure you know where your valuables are with you at all times but there's certainly other crime prevention methods that we plan on doing here in the near

[235:00] future next slide please so let's look at our Focus projects um so now that we've covered our serious crime categories remember back to kind of the serious the serious crime chart where we talk about our locally focused project projects um so I'm going to dive into some specific projects that BPD is actively working on right now um so let's jump to the next slide please okay so domestic violence I know the chief discussed um at the last meeting she was at that domestic violence is trending upwards and it absolutely is and this is extremely concerning because as we go into the winter as we go into the next stage of this pandemic more people are going to be stuck inside with less opportunity to seek assistance next slide please please so what are we doing about it well right now our victims advocate supervisor is training officers on how to use a lethality assessment so what is a lethality assessment well a lethality assessment is a way to identify the

[236:01] vulnerability of a victim to serious physical danger and assist the victim in understanding their risk and hopefully it opens up a line of communication between the officer and the victim themselves next slide please stolen bicycles I know that this one is a Hot Topic right now and it is a chronic problem within the city of Boulder so as of November 22nd we had 995 reported stolen bicycles this year with a total value of $1.83 million this blows me away the average price of a bicycle being stolen is 1.8 th000 it should be noted though that the value of the bike is self-reported by the victim so we've identified uh recent hotspot locations down to the street segment so when we look at crime down to the street segment in a street segment again is like a one block um um from an intersection to an intersection and when

[237:00] we look at that crime Street segment scale we begin to focus in on better crime prevention techniques that are more actionable than say a hotspot it's easier to tell an officer hey go to the 100 block of Main Street versus go to this Hotpot that covers maybe 10 square blocks so as you see on the map we've highlighted two of the major um hotspot segments within the city of Boulder and one is along the Southeast Campus at 28th in Aurora and then over at e Eisenhower in arapo where there are several apartment buildings um and to the point earlier that there are several bikes that are left out on porches um and taken quite swiftly and easily okay so let's go to the next slide please so what are we doing about it um so now that we've identified the hotspot locations and we're looking at a street segment level I've been able to work with officers um our community service officer our detectives and really appreciate all their help and want to

[238:00] give them a shout out um and we were able to come up with a crime bulletin and so a crime bulletin is a tool that we can give our line officers to know what is going on um as a whole throughout the city so what we do is we provide them intelligence when and where is this occurring um specific notes from our detectives on maybe an an active case um and then what we do is we come up with specific proactive policing techniques and so we give them tasks that we want them to complete um to try to help minimize that crime so we let them know these specific hot Street segments what time what day of week when they should go to these areas and engage with the community and some of that is just hey we want to hand out bicycle registration stickers for a new bicycle registration program which I will talk about here in a minute we also want to work with um environmental assessments our community service officer actually went out and performed some environmental assessments with bike shops before the last Bike Shop burglary

[239:00] um and unfortunately that last one happened but again we're we're really optimistic about some leads that we currently have um but we're working on being more proactive using data to kind of guide where we are putting officers and what type of strategy we can implement uh so next slide please so the one thing I want to encourage everybody to do in the community is register your bike it's so simple especially with our new bike index program so we've partnered with bike index where you can register your bike so once you register you can upload a picture serial number um other specific contact information and if your bike would ever get stolen and show up in a different jurisdiction they can find you and get your back bike back to you so it's a really great program we're partnering with local bike shops we um have the registration stickers coming in I don't think they're in yet but soon we will have officers handing those out so I encourage you go to bike index. org and register your bike today uh next slide

[240:04] please so the other part of this that we are engaging with our new legal adviser um who came on board recently is to provide guidance on on how to stop persons that we suspect have a stolen bicycle and in doing this we can provide the confidence to the officers and the legality of of reasonal Suspicion stops right so the more they become confident in that um the less issues that we may have um on the back end uh next slide please so being a data person I am extremely excited about this endeavor and I cannot wait to launch it to the community we have a forthcoming stolen bicycle story map and dashboard so so what this will be is kind of a summation of everything that you saw today an interactive dashboard where we can look at time a day day a week where are the bikes being stolen um having information about those um the the specifics of the bikes um and and we're going to partner again with our local bike shops to help

[241:01] promote this so I can't wait to launch this I'm very very excited little bit more work to do but hopefully you're going to see that here in the coming weeks so next slide please okay so what can you expect from me and the Boulder Police Department here in uh the the next couple quarters so next slide please so before I say all this I really want to give a shout out to it um they've been really supportive in trying to set up infrastructure for some of these um data initiatives that we are working on into the IT staff here in the police department they've been phenomenal and instrumental in me being able to get where I am today um so what can you expect before the end of Q4 um we are going to relaunch that data connection to City's open data portal that is my goal um here in the next couple weeks to finish that have that reconnected so that everyone can know where crime is occurring the specific location the type of crime in

[242:00] the date the other thing you can expect from us is the chief's Town Hall that'll be starting um officially on December 10th from four to 5 and it'll be something that we are doing regularly um and getting some more press out on that and so hopefully that will provide more engagement with the community um coming up so in q1 so January February March um we're going to be completing our detailed workload analysis we are also going to be looking to kick off our records management system implementation so this is very exciting we are looking to get a new records management system which will help integrate all of our data and make it much more simply uh much more simple to analyze we'll also be kicking off our program called copat copat is a data uh aggregation platform for our officers so that they have easily accessible interactive data at their fingertips to help with their policing the last thing that we'll be doing in q1 is launching our version one of our uh Boulder Police

[243:01] Department dat data transparency website so very excited about all of these a lot of work ahead of us but I I am thrilled to be here um and I open the floor up for questions thank you so much [Music] Sam you're muted it has to happen once right so every day um thank you Chief thank you um Beth and um thanks to everybody who helped put this together from the IT department what I was saying when I was unintelligible was we get lots of questions about this subject so it would be great to have this not only the data transparency piece that you're talking about but just this presentation available for us to be able to point out to people would be really fantastic so

[244:00] thanks again for the work and the presentation I've got Adam and Aaron here Adam thank you Sam I just had uh a few questions the first being um I've spent a lot of time downtown working there and I've seen a lot of AG aggravated assault myself I filled out plenty of police reports um I I guess one of the questions I had for a long time now is what percentage of those more College Centric crimes um are are sort of college related so you know where where do we lie um above a a town our size that doesn't have a major institution in it you know just so we can sort of get a good comparison and I know you probably don't have that percentage right offand but that's that's a really good piece of information I'd like to know and I think the community would like to know um so they can kind of get a perspective of

[245:02] what a college town looks like versus what a non-oled town looks like yeah that's a really great question Adam and and you know definitely something we can look at in the future so is something called Benchmark cities um which is where you know we can compare to other cities that have similar demographics simple um similar kind of economic structure and and we can compare that data between our Benchmark cities so that might be something to take a look at but um yeah don't have the numbers today for sure I I just know I've seen a lot of our violent crime is two kids who get into it after drinking a lot and that you know I think that should sort of be qualified to a degree when we're reporting that type of data because that's a pretty specific college town thing um my second question was uh you mentioned for motor vehicle thefts and thefts of in motor vehicles um a little

[246:01] bit about street parking is that primarily a street parking issue um so are you at more risk if you're parking on the street and are there any specific solutions to that you know specificity of where you're parking I think the answer is yes um but ultimately it always comes down to lock your car and leave your valuables out of your car you know one of the the methods that we can go and do a public information campaign on is is leave the junk in the trunk right and and and really it's a crime of opportunity so absolutely the location matters um I think that's I've also heard that street lighting can sometimes matter so absolutely okay absolutely environmental factors absolutely impact this type of crime so even some of the burglaries that we're seeing and not just that forato um are places where there's not a lot of light um we've had um homeowners

[247:00] where um there's no light above the garage door right so it's the recommendation is hey put a light above your garage door and this will help minimize uh the the opportunity for a crime to occur and the last one I had was about the bike index and just bike thefts in general um I know you're probably on top of this but just a suggestion is I see most of this on next door when it comes to people self-reporting essentially so um just wanted to make sure that that is a major Communication channel so people know how to register and absolutely yeah yeah and we're thrilled to have our new public information officer on board and giving her a shout out I know she's on the call tonight um she'll be able to help us really get in touch with with some of the community members awesome thank you both Adam yes your question about uh locations is is really good and I will send you a link to one of the best studies in the country on about um fef from a and picking parking garages um compared to

[248:01] street parking and it really does come down to the environment and how uh these parking garages are managed so I'll send you a link and it's pretty interesting that would be great thank you sure thank you Adam next we've got Aaron and Rachel and Mary Aaron yeah thanks so much for that Chief Harold and Beth and Beth I I'm I'm a data guy myself that's a lot of my day job that was very impressive I really appreciated all that information the statistics and the analysis so really appreciate that and look look forward to getting even more of that kind of stuff going forward so thanks so much for that said one thing and this is probably more a question for chief Harold you know so the the bike thefts is one of the things that we hear about the most you know of um folks losing bikes and and it's their primary form of transportation the way they get to work etc or the bike shop owners who are being you know subjected to this and so clearly it's it's a significant problem I mean it always is in this town but it it seems to be clearly more right now and so those were

[249:01] some great tips Beth about um registering and some other ways that we can do prevention but are there any trends that or or Nexus nexi or whatever the word is that we can kind of crack down on like are there purchasers out there who are you know kind of encouraging some of this stuft because they're creating a market for high-end bike thefts or chop shops or something like that like is there anything we can do kind of on the solution side there on the enforcement of the the major actors there Aaron that's that's a great question and I can tell you we we can talk a little bit um more about this is that um the intelligence there's definitely um offenders that are targeting high-end bikes and they are going all over the place and I can tell you that we have Regional investigations on this now um and to be honest with you it's it's kind of alarming because

[250:02] there's um trails from Boulder to Denver to other parts of the the the state and even down south um that you know sophisticated um offenders or are targeting not only high-end bikes but bicycle shops themselves and so all I can tell you um in an open form is that we know this is going on we have investigations on the regional level and with our federal Partners that's good to hear and hopefully we'll get updates on that someday thanks so much you're welcome thank you Aon Rachel yep um I will Echo um Erin's compliment to Beth that was a fantastic presentation so thank you for all of that information and um my question is pretty similar to ain's really it's you know I understand what we're doing with um reducing the crimes of opportunity and like targeting those neighborhoods where the thefts are most likely occurring but um it seems like

[251:00] without getting at the root cause of the market my guess would be that if those neighborhoods are are shed up and bikes aren't being stolen there they may be stolen from a different neighborhood instead so I'm just a little bit concerned how does that play out in Boulder in general because it is an ongoing problem and it's worse this year and it seems like we're being pretty targeted for this type of theft right now so it like I understand we should register our bikes but if if we don't get at the underlying issues and root causes of of the and Boulder is that is that enough of a solution I guess is a question um Rachel uh really great question and I mean I guess we could talk about this for a long time but I am a big believer and um the principles of displacement um and so when research shows us is when you

[252:00] target Harden um whether it be a hot product like bikes or you target harden a vehicle or you target harden a house or you target harden a street segment that Beth mentioned um it's really rare that you have any form of displacement to another area and so study after study after study shows that the more the police and the community understand the crime problem and they deal with it in Partnership and and and do it effectively the less likely the crime will displace because the environment has so much to do with crimes and if you look at crime and Boulder it is clustering in these areas for specific reasons and the more we find out why that is from an environmental um perspective the less likely it is to to go to another part of Boulder so you can see this across the country when people focus in on shooting violence homicides it really is understanding the

[253:01] environments and I can tell you that the more granular Beth gets in her analysis the more we'll understand this and the less likely we will have displacement in Boulder good good to hear um and then I had asked previously about getting like monthly updates and I understand if we're going to get a new kind of online data source maybe wouldn't need it coming to us because we could go to that but just wanted to touch base on I think this is really helpful and it it can help to inform some of our decisionmaking so wondering how frequently we can expect these awesome updates poor Beth will have to answer that um I I know I've over promised her and um I and I want to be as transparent as I can with this data because it's so important because I can't do it alone the police can't do it alone this is mostly going to be a Community Partnership and so Rachel I hear you loud and clear and I think uh Beth probably give you a little bit better idea of how frequently we can get this

[254:01] information out yeah I think Rachel I've been thinking about how to kind of disseminate this information and and maybe not at Council meetings we're getting in this you know level of detail you know every month or however often we want to do this um but I'm thinking like a monthly quick report I think is something that's totally doable however I do think that data transparency site that we are hoping to launch in um in q1 uh with the help of the IT department um I think that's really going to meet the overall needs um of city council and and really the community members so I can 100% commit to like a monthly report where it's you know maybe even if it's just a chart and some maps um like you saw tonight that's awesome thank you yeah great and I I might just add to that thought that we have a quarterly update from the municipal judge and it might be interesting if we had a regular update

[255:01] from um you Chief uh it wouldn't necessarily have to be about data but maybe it would have um data slides in the backup or something that you touch on so if 's a different subject that you're talking about once a quarter we could have this packaged up as part of that um quarterly and we could have a look at it because I found the maps extremely interesting they're very helpful and it lets all of us focus on the the problem areas and try and communicate better to those locations so just a thought absolutely I don't see any other hands up so I'll ask one more time anyone else Mary thanks Sam and thank you Beth that was a data Geeks dream presentation well thanks so um my question is about um well way at the beginning of the presentation where um you were saying

[256:01] that um 75% of our calls are reactive and that you're targeting I think you said something like 55 to 60% um to reduce it to and so I was curious about what the strategies would be for um that obtaining that reduction and then um yeah that's my question yeah so U Mary I'm I am really interested in doing some creative uh either um looking at the program that is being run in Denver or Eugene to see if can't get some of the medical calls or welfare checks um and maybe somebody is better positioned to take some of those uh calls uh from the police department so I am in preliminary discussions with the fire chief and we have to see if we can start a pilot program here but I'm

[257:01] really looking at these calls for service in great detail to see if the police are really needed on some of these calls um I really do believe that um we really should not be a 75% reaction because I I do believe that if the police do not have discretionary time to problem solve for crime prevention to develop Community Partnerships and if we're just responding back and forth to calls for service um that is not the intention of policing and so um we got to figure it out we got to figure it out and so people are doing creative things all over the country um I'm very interested in um looking at how we can um maybe have people better equipped than us respond on some of these calls for service um so all very preliminary um and and we just really have to understand the data much better than we do right now but I'm going to be looking hard at that if that answers your question Mary yeah no that does thank you very much um I appreciate that and

[258:02] then um I had just one suggestion with respect to the updates um one of the things that I notice um I get the emails for the community connectors weekly so that I see what they are receiving to disperse out into the community and um one of the things that they do really well is share infographs so if there's like you know quick infographs that could be provide it to like the community connectors I think that would be um a good way to get the information out and um and also um the stickers to give out um to the Community Connector as well um but um but I think you know even I think council could benefit from quick infographs and they wouldn't have to be the entirety of the presentation but just like bits of it here and there um because I think that's a really good

[259:00] way to um communicate data we'll do thank you very much Mary great and I guess the last thing before we move on is um Beth you talked about giving more detail about the bicycle registration plan and stickers you don't need to do it now but I think that is incredibly important because if we can make ourselves as a community less attractive to bike thieves then maybe we'll have fewer coming in from outside I mean there have been Denver groups coming up to Boulder for decades now stealing bikes and so if we just make it harder if we get the word out about how to do that I mean I think that is a great program that will will help everyone it'll help the people that don't get their bikes stolen and it'll help us track down the folks who are doing the stealing so I'm really excited about that thank you for bringing it Forward yeah thank you okay I see no other hands up so with

[260:01] that I'll say thank you one last time and we look forward to the next time we see some data from the police thanks thanks mayor have a good night okay Debbie what are we doing next we're moving on to Matters from the mayor and members of council the first item there this evening is the city manager search update where we're uh getting job job profile feedback very good so who's taking this to kick us off Mary do you want to get it started yeah I can go ahead and get it started um so Aaron and myself have been working with Jen and Jen I um invite you to um chime in whenever and um have been working with um with Jen and um and our consultant um Heather Gant on the um job profile for the city manager so what you received in the

[261:01] packet was a draft um of the profile and what we're looking for tonight from you all is um feedback on that and um Jen Andor Aaron if you want to add anything that sums it up so I just thought I'd jump in here I cannot remember Jen have you been formally introduced to council yet um yes I believe that I have in good enough so how do we want to proceed to The Next Step um so what I would suggest would be to um if people have comments that um they would like to share um tonight um verbally that would be um a good way to get things going um I know

[262:00] that I provided edits to a first draft and um since I've looked at the second draft I actually have more comments but um but I invite my colleagues to um chime in just just to note that I I think we are looking for an approval possibly with some amendments tonight um so so that we can send this on out and move to the next phase of the recruitment okay uh I don't see any hands so I'm going to jump in here and just reinforce some stuff we heard from the community um not only do I I think that we want to make certain that we have a expectation that whoever we hire um will take climate change as a serious issue and you know recognize the climate mobilization action plan as a a huge focus of community effort so not only is it prospective that we hope that whoever we hire will do this um I think we need

[263:01] to lead much sooner than we did in the description of Boulder with that being something that's a major concern not only do we have all these great research institutions which are highlighted um many of them focus on climate change and the solutions to that so I I would want to not only see it as something that we hope to see from candidates themselves but that we would lead with it is a um big uh focus of the community to start with so even in that introductory piece and I don't there's a conversation to be had about whether we want to lead with how great Boulder is or follow with how great Boulder is I don't know I'm not a a pro at this but I would say um I thought that was a glaring um absence and then the other thing I'll say is we get down to this point in this fairly glossy brochure and and we have this reference to Bone appeti magazine calling Boulder

[264:00] America's foodiest City I'm not sure that is the most important thing or appropriate thing to to have here I would just comment that I found that a little bit odd and maybe even somewhat off-putting and I guess I'll just make an overall comment I don't know how these kinds of position um descriptions are normally done in this field but I would say it looked kind of like a a tourist brochure at first and I wasn't quite sure that you know it just seemed a little odd to me that it didn't start out with here's what we need and here's what we'd love to have in candidates and by the way here's why you want to do all this um because this is a great place to work so those were some of my major comments and we heard from members of the community about the climate change issue as well okay I'm still not seeing any hands so there we go Mary and

[265:02] Aaron um I will let Aaron um go first since I have already had the opportunity to provide edits to the first draft uh thank you Mary so um yeah I think my my one point that I wanted to make well first of all I thought it was very professionally put together right I mean it's it's extremely well designed and and written and and such so so thanks to Heather and Jen for putting this together um so yeah I mean my my basic piece of feedback is the same bit that Sam did at the first which is to make sure that we have something in the the job description about um about the prospective city manager having a commitment to you know combating the climate crisis and and uh a commitment to uh working very hard to make sure that the city meets its climate goals right with a a reference to our the web page on that

[266:02] because I think that it's a specific area that we need to be uh familiar with and and be um committed to and probably also a mention of uh that they they be up and ready for the challenge of implementing this new uh partnership with Excel because I think that's going to be a substantial part of this role in the next few years is guiding that forward and and creating it so I think those are both important to mention in the in the city manager position and and I thought Sam's Point was a good one as well about getting um our commitment as a community to those issues uh in the community description also so those would be the two things that I would put in there thank you Aon next I've got juny thank you Sam I welcome the thoughts from community members and I do

[267:02] welcome adding the commitment to climate crisis but I think as well it is mentioned and the desired qualities and experience priority sustainability in environmental stewardship I do think that answers part of that question but of course I guess bringing it Forward more is important and I think there's something that was mentioned by community members as well I think that resonate with me this idea of having experience with the region or also having a similar experience to Boulder I think that's very important and I think Jane we we've talked Jen we've talked before about what I think are some of the qualities so but thank you for this brochure I think it's beautiful and well written so thank you thank you juny I have no other hands up so Mary you you started to say

[268:00] something I don't know if you wanted to jump in here again yeah I I I do um so it's I would agree with um Sam's comment regarding the leading with the boulder I did go after looking at the second draft I took a little bit of time to look at other um city manager profiles in fact um one by Novac Consulting did not lead with with the um City it led with the job description I think it being a um a profile for um a job profile that it should lead with what is expected of the person in the job rather than um than you know leading with with uh what would look to me like a a convention and visitors bureau um um brochure so I would put that at the end

[269:00] and um tone that down some um I think that when um when folks look into Boulder they will find that out for them elves and um and I think with the limited space that we have for that um document that we should use it to really communicate what um the is required of the job what um the policy challenges are um what um the expectations of the person will be and um and I agree that including um the the ex or the the commitments that have come from the passage of the EXL franchise within the the profile I think will be real important um and as well as what our climate commitment is because we do have a pretty um a great climate

[270:03] commitment and It Centers um equity and I think that's a real important piece as well so um that that's really all I have Rachel I saw your hand come and go thanks I guess I I would just um say that I think when we started this process um I had asked Jane what her recommendation was and she said she really trusted this um hiring firm or person and so my inclination is to trust that they know what they're and if something should look glossy or not for this particular um application process you know I've I've never looked into being a city manager so I don't know what the what stands out and what would make Boulder look most attractive so my my um inclination is to trust that they

[271:01] know what they're doing and that we hired them for um a solid reason and and I wouldn't second guess much um so I thought it looked great thanks okay I see no other hands and Aaron you had hoped for a motion to approve um do you think Jen do you think you've heard enough feedback that if we approve that you'll know kind of the changes definitely uh so just sort of reorienting um so that we lead with the the job description and and sort of end with information about the city um including climate change um in the introduction and and really sort of highlighting um uh the partnership with Excel and one other um comment was about U The Experience that's required um for this particular region and there's also

[272:01] a removal of the bone Appetit budus city um section as well so we will we will make those edits and and they are all very simple straightforward edits to make um and I think you can approve the position profile with that so can I just ask that I I I didn't quite follow the one about the region what was the the exact feedback you took away from that um it was um about having experience um with the with this region so thinking about like the the the the Mountain West for example as a region and so during the recruitment process um the recruiter will source candidates from a variety of um regions but but she'll also um try to understand um if candidates have experience in a in a city similar to to Boulder so you know the the the reach and the sourcing will be pretty pretty vast I don't think we want to limit ourselves too much but I

[273:02] think really that feedback is just to ensure that during the recruitment we are sourcing candidates from appropriate similar cities yeah that that sounds good I just would I think it's helpful for a candidate to have some knowledge and familiarity with the Mountain West but you could be from a peer City somewhere else in the country that could be a great previous experience as well so wouldn't wouldn't want to rule that out so that sounds good the way you formulated it yeah I mean I I think it's worth thinking about how to put that forward because for instance we fund ourselves largely with um sales tax and that's very unlike cities that are in the East that are almost all funded largely by property taxes and so I I kind of agree you wouldn't want it to be a requirement that you've done your job in the Mountain West it might be interesting to put in there some you know point about

[274:01] knowledge about how cities operate in Colorado and how they operate in the West in general because there are some differences um but I agree it shouldn't be like Aaron said it shouldn't be kind of a showstopper or a filter that we keep people out it could be something that a lot of times when I've done job descriptions you have a here's what we require and here are skills that are great to have and so something that's great to have would be familiarity with Western cities and and pure cities like Boulder so um if I may I have I have a question um for my colleagues um kind of along those lines one of the sentences within the draft profile says that the city manager shall live in the city of Boulder and um connecting that to what one Community member in um the public

[275:03] comment today made which was um hire from within um just kind of connecting those two thinking that well if we say must live within the city of B Boulder and there is a good um candidate that lives within say Boulder County or you know within the seven County region or something um who has knowledge of the region and has some of these things that we just talked about um but wouldn't want to move from like say I don't know Denver to Boulder um is that something that we might be open to is to just say within um the metro area must live within the metro area or within Boulder County or I'm just throwing that out there um with recognition based on um recognition of

[276:03] the conversation we just had and Mary now that you brought that up I'm going to look in the charter and see if we have a charter requirement on that I don't know if we do but one of the things it raised for me I'm looking here at qualifications and talks about city manager Deputy city manager um a lot of Mayors from cities that are not um city manager you know weak mayor strong manager cities a lot of former mayors um might also qualify so you say city managers but it could be any kind of uh City leader there's plenty of Mayors and council members um from cities where uh those roles are more administrative and directive kind of like a city manager is here so it's just a thought under qualifications I don't know if it would help to expand to um other roles that

[277:01] might prepare somebody to do a good job here can I make a comment in response to Mary's question yep so so when uh when I moved here there was a requirement that I live in the city and I was really glad for that because it's really tempting to buy a house just outside the city because it's half as expensive and it really is important I think for the lead employees to live here um for judge cook the council at that time did wave it because she was exactly the situation you talked about Mary she lives close but she didn't live in the city but she was already in the area and didn't want to move so the council decided not to require her to live in the city so she could still still live in her house so you will always have that flexibility but I would recommend that you leave the requirement in the job description to create an expectation that the that the lead employees in the city are going to live in the city great thank you Tom and now I have three hands up I've got Rachel Mark and Aaron Rachel y I think it's I would

[278:02] think it's pretty important that the you know given that we don't have a strong mayor system and the city manager is is um the one running this City in the same way that we all should be living in the city to be deciding things for the city I think it's important that the city manager live live here I mean she's the the top executive for the city it wouldn't I I think that would be very um disconcerting for community members if it weren't somebody living here for kind of like what Tom was just saying so I I would be um really resistant to that and then just for the last conversation on um kind of limiting or or giving preference to people who know this region I I would not want to limit or even give preferential treatment to somebody who's from the county or the region or the Mountain West because I think um the best candidate could be from anywhere and also people who are from a very different system might bring the best

[279:00] ideas for what we could be doing better so I um would be open to innovators who don't know our systems and um I wouldn't want to take any steps or put anything in writing limited our ability to recruit them thanks great I've got Mark and then Aaron Mark very briefly I I I would concur with uh Rachel I think uh our city manager should live in the city uh we can keep it as a wable requirement if we find you know the ultimately Superior candidate who's uh nearby but I I think it's important that our chief executive um resides here thank you Mark uh Aaron I was just going to say that what Mark and Rachel and and Tom just said so did okay very good so unless there are other bits of input is there a motion someone would like to make

[280:06] here Sam I'm not sure you need a motion I think you're giving feedack back to the to Jen on the description and on the thing and it would be really complex to put all the things that you said I view this as stud session I'm fine with that it was just in the packet as a motion and Aeron had said something so whatever Aaron why don't you and Mary weigh in as to what you'd like yeah I think we're just looking for I thought it was a motion but I think if Council just affirms you know that that this is the right direction with the feedback that's given I think that's Direction Thumbs Up Everybody are we good all right super so I think we're done then thank you Jen thanks Aaron and Mary for your work bringing this forward um I think there's one last thing right Debbie there is it is um item 8B which is the bias and

[281:00] microaggression training reminder is that you Mary right yeah it is it is it's me and um this is just a reminder that if you haven't already signed up for uh bias and microaggression um sessions to please do so I think most everybody has um couple people haven't and there's still a wide variety of um choices and there was an email that was sent to everybody on let me see when that was um that was Monday it went out and it was the signup 19 a.m. and it came from Amy Kane um and you can see what slots are still available if you have not already chosen your slots so um please do

[282:05] so great thank you Mary okay yeah sorry Sam but um and I believe we agreed as a self-accountability measure that we would be posting our um attendance uh at these trainings down somewhere on the website just call that out to folks that think we have that intention okay okay so I believe we're at the end of our agenda um we CAC has some work to do to reschedule the item that we punted on um and I would ask if there's any other issues any debrief of the meeting Rachel see your hand the Mary I just had one question and I'm taking us back to probably last March with it but when we met in real life we used to have

[283:01] 15 people signed up for open comment and then another five right and I just wondered why are we at 15 instead of 20 I don't think we are Rachel um Debbie just oh it was just a short night yeah it was just a short night tonight I believe we normally do 20 right Debbie we do we typically do only 15 signed up this evening got it thanks uh Mary yeah I see that Alicia Johnson is still on the call and I just wanted to um heard to say hi is our new city clerk thanks Mary for jumping in and and bringing that up Alicia has been kind of lurking here uh for the whole meeting we did introduce her at at CAC on Monday um but Alicia is our new city clerk um she's been with the city for uh almost eight years I think if I remember right but um um we're super excited that she is now in the role of of city clerk um

[284:03] and so Alicia I would love for you to be able to say hello oh well you guys are just too gracious I so so appreciate it thank you very much Mary and Sam and Bob and the whole entire Council for just welcoming me I'm truly truly excited for this opportunity and the confidence that Chris and Pam have shown by selecting me I also want to give a shout out to Tom who has been an amazing boss for the last eight years almost and he has walked me through and helped me be successful so I look forward to that Journey with all of you and I'm just truly excited I've been walking around with this big goofy smile on my face because this is like I said in my email my dream job and I'm just truly truly excited well good deal I think we're all very excited as well and happy uh to have you here to help guide us through the meetings well thank you conratulations

[285:02] alici thank you thank you welome thank you your input and help will be essential to my success so I look forward to getting to know all of you much better so thank you super you may not be so excited when election time comes around and the workload ramps up but except for that on the East Coast I I was the election official in Jersey we did four elections per year W you also did an individual municipal election which is extremely challenging when you have to do all the steps so I'm up for the challenge let's get it done very good very good awesome okay anyone else any other issues great seeing none I'll gavel the 45 thank you all have a good night good night night everyone take

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