August 17, 2021 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:01] [Music] all right we're ready to [Music] go all right okay Alicia are you ready ready as I'm ever going to be sir okay very good okay I will gavel this

[1:01] meeting to order and welcome everyone to the August 17th 2021 regular meeting of the Boulder City Welcome to the August 17 2021 regular meeting of the Boulder City Council I will start with a few announcements tonight um the if we could get the slides up that would be great our first announcement and the first slide you'll see as usual you can get more information on uh getting your vaccine for covid-19 and sign up for notifications at the website which is on your screen bcoe.org vaccine notify sign up the second announcement is that we're doing uh our midyear boards and commissions recruitment we are seeking volunteers to serve on the following boards and commissions that have vacancies at the moment that is the beverage licensing Authority

[2:00] the two Boulder Junction access District boards the downtown management commission and the housing Advisory Board volunteers will be appointed um to serve on one of these boards and you'll help city council examine issues and work with us on items which are on our work plan and help shape the future of Boulder applications are now open and you can learn about more information and apply for one of these boards and commissions at the the website that is on your screen and with that um Alicia would you please call the role yes sir and good evening everyone council member Brockett presid friend here Joseph present Nagel here stick present wallik present

[3:01] Weaver here Yates here and young present mayor we have a quorum that is awesome glad you're all here tonight um I am looking for a motion to amend the agenda tonight the first item would be to add item 3p which is a motion to call a special council meeting on August 24th 2021 that's next week to approve the order of the city's ballot items for the 2021 coordinated election and then sadly we need to remove items 1B 3G and 3H um all of those were related to the audit report that we were prepared to get tonight um the uh CU Professor who helps us with this audit report won't be able to be present tonight to deliver that report so if I could get a motion to amend the agenda

[4:01] Aon so move and I'll just send my condolences I believe Professor gross has had a death in the family yes thank you Aon is there a second second as well to Dr Gross thank you both um so we have a motion and a second to amend the agenda is anyone opposed great seeing no one opposed so we are able to make that Amendment and then I believe no I will turn to you for the covid health briefing and response wonderful thank you mayor and hello Council uh we have um Pam Davis who's been really leading our covid recovery team available if we have additional questions but we thought we would start today with our great Public Health uh public count Boulder County Health partner um Lexi Nolan apologies Lexi as I tripped over all of that um but hoping you can pop in and help give us a state of where we are apologies I'm

[5:02] going to jump in quickly before Lexi starts to share that we have interpretation um supporting this meeting tonight um so this portion of the meeting will be presented in both English and Spanish um and I have a slide to share to let folks know how to access the Spanish language um function here on Zoom so we'll want you to um select your PR Language by clicking the globe icon at the bottom of your screen we ask everyone to do that even if you're listening in English that way should our interpreter need to reach out to our English speakers you'll be able to hear her um so we ask everyone to choose your language um and just a couple reminders to those who are speaking tonight we ask that you speak slowly um and breathe between sentences that helps our interpreter keep up with

[6:00] what we know will be a lot of information coming our way during this section um we suggest that we don't interrupt that also helps um Marina stay um kept up with what we're all saying um and we ask that even we know many of you have bilingual skills we ask you to stay in the language that you have chosen um and that helps her be able to clearly interpret what you're sharing so thank you all so much um we hope that this is a welcome support to this portion of the meeting thank you Brenda and on to you Lexi thanks so much um great thank you um and I'm here on behalf of uh Boulder County Public Health including our new executive director Camille Rodriguez who um is hoping to join us as soon as she can um and uh if that's possible then hopefully we can just do a quick introduction with her um in the meantime

[7:00] I am very uh happy to be here with you all this evening um city of Boulder has been amazing Partners throughout this pandemic we've had a little bit of a Hiatus the last uh few uh months uh took a little bit of a breather but as we all know um the Delta VIR the variant has uh changed the trajectory of the pandemic a little bit recently and so we're happy to be with you tonight to provide an update um to you all and answer any questions that you have about what we're seeing and the direction we're going thank you and I'll try to remember to speak slowly um and do I have control over the slides or does someone do that for me uh you can just share when you'd like to advance Lexi and you're all set also Camille has joined us oh terrific if it's okay I'd like to go back to the original slide and just um make sure

[8:01] that Camille has a chance to uh be introduced to you all I'll go ahead thank you Lexi and hello um Boulder City Council and hello mayor um I'm Camille Rodriguez and I'm the new executive director of Boulder County Public Health I started at the beginning of June and um I'm I'm very uh pleased um to be here tonight with Lexi to share this update with you um she's going to take over and give you um just an overview of the status of covid in our community obviously but in all it's just an honor to join you I'm getting to know a lot of folks in the community in my short two months here and it's a it's a pleasure to be here tonight thank you thanks so much um so we'll go ahead and move on um and just a clarification we're not actually doing a policy update tonight tonight it's really just a

[9:00] general update and what we'd like to do is share with the community kind of what we see as our Public Health Northstar goals and what we mean by this is that they aren't just the public health agency's goals in relation to the pandemic we think that these are goals that all of our partners in the community can join with us on um really in terms of you know recognizing the the various kinds of ways that this pandemic has affected our community um including obviously unnecessary deaths and significant illness which is a a critical concern continues to be a concern the interest in not overwhelming our health system which has many responsibilities and um provides enormous service to our community well beyond the pandemic um and also recognizing that we're all interested in

[10:00] kind of this concept of safely returning to normal activities and that keeping our businesses open being able to be with our friends being able to get together and do all of the wonderful things that we got to do before the pandemic set in should be one of our critical goals and what we are learning at this point in the pandemic is that we are learning different strategies and um mechanism for really being able to meet all of those needs together um and balance those needs with each other and not um have a singular Focus um only on one goal or another um but really find ways to use strategies that create win wins that reinforce all of these goals together and that's really what we're trying to get to with our Community Partners and with individuals in the community and um just to kind of you know not bury the lead we really see

[11:02] widespread vaccination is the key to freedom and protecting our people the economy and our infrastructure and that we also are recognizing right now that implementing Universal masking during significant transmission is needed until we're closer to community immunity with vaccines and so we'll spend a little bit of time talking about each of these goals and the data that we're seeing in relation to them and then laying out what we see as part of the strategy going forward thank you next so this is just a quick snapshot uh to give you a sense of how quickly this Delta variant has taken over the United States and changed our nation's trajectory this is a um a snapshot of a transmission at the county level in the United States on July 5th and then again on August 9th and I think it's pretty obvious that um this

[12:01] transmission has really uh engulfed the country um at a much more rapid Pace than anyone was expecting and um it is for that reason that we are particularly paying attention to how do we as public health respond and how do we walk um in synchronicity with our partners um to make sure that we're all walking together thank you next so in terms of this goal number one preventing unnecessary deaths and significant illness we had hoped that we would be Beyond this conversation at this point because of the significant protective V uh factor that vaccines provide but we have found that the Delta variant is uh more transmissible than the wild strain um in fact it's more transmissible than Ebola than a cold or than the common FL flue it's more like

[13:00] chickenpox and because of that uh there's a need to be able to vaccinate much more of the population than that original 80% Target that we had set our sights on to be able to achieve Community immunity we also know um and this is a bit of a a shift that carriers of the Delta virus can include vaccinated folks and that they spread the virus faster and earlier in the course of infection we also know that in the United States we have seen 4,000 cases of uh multi-stem inflammatory syndrome in children in the United States and 37 deaths we've also are seeing more Youth hospitalizations and as I think we've mentioned before neurological problems and long-term symptoms um very sadly in Boulder County we have seen 12 deaths since June and I

[14:01] call these unnecessary deaths because the vaccine has been fully accessible to the population uh to the adult population in that time and if these people have been vaccinated um there's a very good chance that all or nearly all of them would have survived and this is this is a tragic thing in our community um to have unnecessary deaths from something like this and it just it really uh encourages us to redouble our efforts to support people to get vaccinations and understand the value of them finally in terms of State Trends the state um we are seeing hospitalizations continue to increase including in Boulder County we follow the pattern of the rest of the state and those hospitalizations aren't expected to Peak until December which is very concerning currently one in 200 about 250 coloradans are infectious okay okay thank

[15:01] you so this is a snapshot that everyone should be familiar with at this point these are cases in the Denver metro region by County um we are looking at a 7-Day moving average of about 14.7 per 100,000 which is about 47 cases a day and that is close to the other counties in the region um which is significant because you might expect Boulder County to have fewer cases because we have a higher vaccination rate than many of those counties but we're very close to them in terms of the cases the other reason that this is significant is because that many cases per day puts our Public Health Department into a surge response so we are beginning to really feel the pressure of being able to respond to these cases thank you so this is the total cases um are at 10 14.54 per 100,000 total cases in the

[16:01] last seven days which puts Boulder County in the high transmission level according to the cdc's uh case tracker um structure which is what we're using now instead of the Colorado dial um even as of a week ago we were still in substantial transmission levels in the orange range and now we have moved to high transmission along with every other County in uh the vicinity thank you so um we felt like this was important to share this is a graph of uh 2021 compared to 2020 in Boulder County in terms of cases and what's notable here is that um we are actually having a seeing many more transmiss many more cases this year than we were last year at this time and we are not seeing that drop off that you you see in the 2020 line that darker line um last year we

[17:03] are actually seeing increasing cases thank you this is case Trends Broken Out by age groups so we can see that um we are seeing particularly high transmission in our younger folks all of the age groups have increased over the past month es is especially high for the 0 to9 and 23 to 44 year old groups um we also oh excuse me I'm sorry um we do H have seen some youth hospitalizations in Colorado that we are concerned about um and continuing to pay attention to thank you and uh we wanted to be sure to uh bring to city of Boulder a breakout of where the cases are happening geographically in terms of municipalities um we are seeing slightly fewer cases in the city of

[18:01] Boulder this week than we were last week but it is still substantially up from a month ago thank you um and a little bit of good news um we are seeing declines in uh racial inequities and we actually are at a point now where the proportion of cases in the latinx community is below the population proportion that the latinx community represents so they have disproportionately low number of reported cases and this is partially due to an enormous amount of work um that uh Our Community Partners have put into reaching out to a number of different priority populations including the latinx but also including um other bipot populations some lgbtq plus population and they have just just just really want to sing their praises in terms of

[19:01] enormous work and energy that they have put into that Outreach effort and also put a little bit of a caution because we know that as at home testing has become available um we think that we are seeing uh we think that there are more cases than are actually being reported um if those uh at home tests are not being put into the state database thank you so why are we concerned about cases this is a great question you know we should be out of this situation um if if we if you you're vaccinated you shouldn't have a problem with hospitalization and death right well the problem that we're seeing is that as long as we have cases um at a point where we haven't reached a level of community immunity yet we will continue to see hospitalizations and deaths and those hospitalizations and deaths will get worse before they get better um

[20:00] hospitalizations and deaths are lagging indicators so as long as cases are continuing to go up we should expect those indicators to continue to go up we are also a little bit concerned because we know that cases read new variants which could undermine our vaccine Effectiveness in the future and um this is just a point that you know we are really trying to take the Long View on our strategies and our thinking about how do we respond to this virus recognizing that this is not something that's going to be shut down in another six months and how do we be smart as a community to set ourselves up for success in the future thank you so this is a um a graph of uh sorry a chart of a county comparison of of cases and deaths and um you know I think the point here is that Boulder County has done really well compared to neighboring counties and to State averages and extremely well compared to national averages um and I think that the takeaway is it's

[21:02] because we've taken necessary steps in the course of the pandemic to contain and mitigate the virus and sometimes they might have felt heavy to folks um but it's because of those steps that we have been able to take as a community and and the work that individuals have done to make smart choices about getting vaccinated about masking even when they weren't being asked to um that really put us in this position that we're in um which is having you know a better outcome than a lot of our neighbors thank you so moving on to Gold number two we really we don't want to overwhelm our health system that would um that would be very uh it would be bad for everyone I'm very unfortunate you know Health Systems serve a lot of folks Beyond folks who are have covid um we are currently seeing that Boulder County hospital beds are between 60 and 80% of

[22:01] capacity including some of our um anchor hospitals that are at that higher end of 87% capacity um we are also recognizing that bed capacity is not the only indicator of a healthy Health System right now and that we need to be paying attention to Staffing and what we are hearing from our health system Partners is that they are seeing increasing Staffing challenges and some of them are reporting that those Staffing short Es are severe we also know that Boulder County hospitals are taking patients from other counties and States because it's the right thing to do um if we have capacity we lend support to our neighbors and friends um and even uh and so even if Boulder County is doing a little bit better in terms of cases uh there are impacts on our health system that go beyond our immediate County statistics on cases um also as noted previously Public Health which is part of the health system is now now working in a surge respon response structure to

[23:00] respond to the cases and the outbreaks and the other uh containment mitigation needs that we're seeing thank you so this is hospitals just so you have a sense of uh what the trend is um increases in hospitalizations and as mentioned previously this is a lagging indicator so we do expect that Trend to continue up even after we have peaked with cases which we don't think we have peaked with cases yet thank you one more you can skip this one okay so goal number three is to safely return to normal activities what do we mean by normal well we want to keep our businesses open we want to keep our kids in school we want people to be able to gather and do fun stuff go to concerts and hear music and um see plays and go out to eat and do all that fun stuff um and so we're really trying to pay attention to what are the strategies that we can use that help not only to um

[24:03] contain the virus and keep our health system going but also support our businesses to stay open so we know that Boulder countyy is in high transmission we know that our cases are probably undercounted by 50 to 100% we know that our total population vaccinated and this is really important is about 66% with two vaccines and so we have historically been reporting on the eligible population as we have uh made new populations eligible and that's really useful for understanding if the population is responding to their opportunity to get vaccinated but it doesn't tell us what our risk as a community is in terms of um where the threats are and so we really want to start paying attention to the total population vaccination rate which is the most important um vaccination rate that is directly Rel relevant to concepts of

[25:00] community immunity we know that about 40,000 per sorry 40,000 of our 15 to 19 year olds are either ineligible or not yet vaccinated and we know we have about 13,000 people in Boulder County who are imuno compromised or can't take the vaccine we know that people are also trying to get ready to go back to their jobs in their offices and that school starts tomorrow for a lot of kids and we worked really hard to develop protocols to keep kids in school and um with masking um especially for kids that aren't eligible for the vaccination but actually recommending a universal masking approach um for uh all kids two through grade 12 um and I will explain a little bit about the rationale for why Universal masking is needed instead of just masking for unvaccinated folks in just a minute um also recognizing that we really need to start planning for

[26:01] fall and winter if we want to be in a position to be able to keep our businesses going um this year during the winter time thank you so this is just a reminder that Boulder County's not an island so you can see here um how the counties around us are doing in relation to the CDC tracker and their case rates per 100,000 um we know that um as people go back to offices we're going to see more cross count uh commuting um and we know that even if we're lower now we've got to be able to use layered mitigation strategies um to be able to respond to this kind of um uh Dynamic situation in relation to neighboring counties too thank you so the road map forward so what do we do do um so the key to achieving all

[27:01] three of those goals are vaccinations number one and layered mitigation strategies with an emphasis on masking during times of significant transmission and what do we mean by significant transmission well it's those substantial or high transmission Le uh levels according to the cdc's tracker um when you get to those levels CDC really encourages much stronger masking practices um and we are also seeing uh other uh advisers saying that Universal masking should be attached to those uh specific levels go ahead so let's just remind ourselves about the value of vaccinations so um vaccines protect from severe illness and death is absolutely true um and we also know that um the unvaccinated and I apolog apologize that's not supposed to

[28:01] be Boulder County that is the state of Colorado but the unvaccinated in the state of Colorado are currently 80% of cases 87% of hospitalizations and 92% of deaths indicating that the vaccinations are holding up pretty well to protect people um but they're not perfect right there's no there's no strategy that we can employ that's absolutely perfect and nature has a way of finding its way through go ahead and just a reminder that um we're looking at 66% of the population um not that uh 81% that we show on our dashboard at Public Health which is the eligible vacc vaccine uh eligible population um and we are currently working to shift this to reflect that broader population number going forward

[29:01] next so let's just talk for a second about the value of masking because a lot of people have said well if we have if we're vaccinated why do we need to wear a mask and it's a great question um and there's actually a pretty good answer to it um what we know about the Delta variant as I mentioned before is that folks who are vaccinated can be carriers and they can hold up to a thousand times more viral load in their respiratory tracts they and the wild strain um produced and what that means is that um they are really transmitting the virus much more efficiently um than uh they were if if the wild strain were still with us and so it's really created a situation where we have to be responsive to the virus and the challenges it's posing to us we also know that um masking is proven to reduce spread and that it actually the way that it confers

[30:00] the most protection is if someone who is carrying the virus is covered um and it produces some protection although not as much for a person who is exposed and so what that suggests is we actually need folks who are vaccinated who may be asymptomatically carrying the virus to also be masked um so we really need to kind of think about masking as a combination mitigation strategy right now and this is just a little visual if you think about that covid-19 carrier as someone who could be vaccinated or unvaccinated you start to see why we also need masking in place and Dr Lena win put it this way um she she had a metaphor for it if it's drizzling and you're wearing a raincoat you're well protected meaning if we're under normal transmission conditions and you have a

[31:00] vaccination you're well protected but if you're going in and out of thunderstorms every single day at some point you're going to get wet and the level of transmission that we're seeing right now is that thunderstorm and while we may have some protection from from the vaccine right now um we're going to get wet if we don't if we don't also um you know find another way to protect ourselves go ahead please so when we think about the variety of strategies that we can use we really started to think in public health about you know there are a lot of strategies that we can use and some of them are a lot easier than others right um so when we talk about things like having indoor ventilation getting tested masking even getting a vaccine those are really easy those are less burdensome than in comparison to community lockdown which we saw last year closing businesses limiting gatherings I mean

[32:02] let's remember last year we had a long period of time where we had Public Health orders that were limiting Gatherings and public health didn't like doing that either um but it was where they we were at the time and it was the tool that we had and so what we're really trying to get away from is the need to use those very painful kinds of strategies and really stay on that other end of the burdensome strategies but we really need everybody's help to do that we need people to go and get vaccinated we need them to go ahead and wear indoor masks for wear masks when they're indoors for a bit longer till we can get through this Delta surge um and if we stay working hard on that easy stuff we it will really keep us from having to go back into those really painful kinds of strategies that nobody wanted thank you next so I just wanted to we wanted to collect

[33:01] a little bit of information about what we're seeing um in terms of vaccination policies we're actually seeing a lot of momentum um for businesses to require staff to be vaccinated and we just did kind of a quick sampling of some Boulder County businesses um that we saw and uh what we're really expecting is that that lure is going to SP spur more policy adoption go ahead next and so just to really land I'm gonna um turn it over to Camille to kind of summarize where we what all of this uh information and Science and strategic thinking uh where it takes us in terms of Landing thank you thank you Dr Nolan and I just appreciate the thoughtfulness that you and our teams at Boulder County Public Health utilized when putting

[34:01] together this information because um I'm not a scientist myself I'm I'm a public health professional but certainly this data um is is very um telling for us and it helps me just say the simplest things you know get vaccinated as soon as you can if you are eligible please get vaccinated um we um we certainly um appreciate the Boulder County Public Health perspective of providing you with the numbers of the um eligible that are are V able to get vaccinated and the numbers of of people who yet uh are able to get the vaccine if you are able to get vaccinated please do so and then we've strongly recommended in our messaging in a press release last Friday um to mask indoors regardless of your vaccination status for now the Delta

[35:01] variant has changed the goalpost for us and we definitely need to use all of that layer to mitigation um strategy um to keep us all safe to protect and promote Health really I want to share one thing that we're doing just at the Boulder County Public Health Agency um we are working with our staff to implement a vaccination policy there um of course we're a part of Boulder County government but as um a separate legal entity we have a a slightly different vaccination policy in general and we're working to walk the talk relative to our urging you all to get vaccinated by um bringing to our management team this week an updated policy that we expect them to approve which will then require the vaccination for Boulder County Public Health employees um so that's one of the ways that that we're trying to model this behavior um

[36:03] at this time I I know that uh we could certainly answer any questions you might have and I'd like to add that our chief medical officer um Dr Chris urbina is is also present um should you have questions that require um his expertise as well um thank you great well thank you Camille and thank you Lexi so much for the information as always um I turn to council now for questions and I see aon's hand Aaron Lexy thank you for that uh extremely useful uh presentation um although sobering I I've known about the the rising cases for a while but I those were even worse numbers than I've been seeing recently so it's important for us in the community to understand that so very much appreciate your focus on on how we get back to normal and what steps we can take with that and the importance of doing the easier stuff rather than

[37:01] having to go back to the the really hard stuff so kind of in that in that Spirit my question is is um are you considering moving from strongly recommending masks to mandating it again in indoor locations like we had in in previous wave uh because it seems like that might help Tamp this down so curious to hear your thinking on that possible step um thank you um we have been discussing um that particular issue I think that um we are focusing on vaccinations at this point because that is the available mitigation that we know is effective in preventing severe illness and death The Masks are a part of it and certainly um when we get to a point where um we feel that both of those um strategies the vaccination and the

[38:00] masking are going to um uh need to be uh taken through the process of a recommended Public Health order um those are some of the ways that that our health department our our Public Health strategy could be implemented but know that um the the mitigation strategies we've taken with the school schs especially to protect those individuals like our children Who are ineligible for the vaccination was our first line of defense here in keeping our community healthy and safe um I'm not sure if Dr urbina or Lexi have any other additions relative to our strategy but it is in our conversations and part of our considerations if necessary you Camille Lexi or Dr Arina would you like to follow up come back just to say we are really we're really closely watching the numbers we are

[39:01] trying to watch which direction the numbers are going um we are very concerned that if we don't see a course correction soon um that we may need to take some additional uh use some additional mitigation strategies mayor thank you I have nothing else to add I agree with Lexi and our director great thanks thanks for those answers I have a daughter who's going back to school in a couple days I'm glad to to see the masks in the schools and I'll certainly take that strong recommendation and and wear one myself the next time I go to a grocery store thank you thank you Erin I've got Mary Rachel and Mark Mary thank you Sam um so first of all I just wanted to start out with a big thank you for um what the data says has been um a successful attempt at lowering the disparities so thank you all for that very very hard work I know that you all worked really hard so thank you um

[40:02] my first question is uh with regards to the 12 Boulder count the 12 Boulder County deaths and I'm wondering um what percentage of those deaths were vaccinated versus unvaccinated my understanding uh council member young is that none of them were vaccinated but I would need to verify that for you thank you for that um and then I was curious about what Boulder County Public Health being insurge response means thank you yeah it's a great question so um last year when we uh kind of got caught by the CU surge um it really kind of took over our world in a way that wasn't um particularly helpful and so we just never wanted to be in that situation again and so what we did was we developed veloped a uh a protocol a special protocol that would take

[41:01] effect um when we got to a number of cases Beyond which our team could do the full case investigation and contact tracing that's usually expected of us um and this was developed this protocol was developed in collaboration with cdph and basically it's it's an approach that um uses a prioritization to identify the cases that pose the most risk to the community um and that also um begins to use some alternative uh Community response and Outreach methodologies such as being able to send letters to larger groups um that may have been exposed as opposed to in-depth uh interviews for contact tracing to ascertain whether someone has a significant exposure or not so it's a way of making the process a little bit more efficient um we Pro you know we probably lose a

[42:01] little bit of um of the the depth of value of those interviews but um it is a it's a way of shifting into a high efficiency stance and being able to continue to respond to the community thank you for that um and then um so in your diagram you were showing how um or you also said in your presentation that if folks are vaccinated that they can still still be carriers um so I'm wondering what kinds of recommendations you have for people who are vaccinated to kind of know where they are in terms of whether and if they might be um carrying the virus right so the most important thing is to wear a mask when you're around other folks um because that will prevent you from picking it up and becoming a carrier and if you are a carrier it'll prevent you from spreading it it that's the most important thing um I would say also continue to be aware of who you're

[43:01] around um use social distancing as a personal mitigation strategy that you can have control over um continue to think about you know it's still summertime we can still be outdoors um those kinds of strategies that people can use in their everyday lives are still really important and even for vaccinated folks it's really important wash your hands um you know all of those things that we've been recommending the whole time continue to do those things Drina do you want to add anything no I think you said it well Lexi I think the the the all the mitigation strategies that we've talked about before council member are all critical and even if you remember when we first started talking about vaccine we were still saying where wear your mask because we we weren't sure early on in the vaccination process whether or not you would be fully protected and it turned out that we were right you were fully protected for the most part for severe illness hospitalizations and death but as over

[44:01] time we've seen uh a gradual decrease in the effectiveness of the vaccine and so that's why you saw the CDC add a third dose for imuno compromised folks and then likely in the fall over the next couple weeks they're talking about adding a booster dose for all of us imuno complement folks who are are largely uh protected but because of the changing nature of the virus particularly the Delta virus we're probably going to add another vaccine um to boost our immune response but and the good news about the MRNA vaccines is they can they can change it slightly to be more effective against the changing variants but still right now our biggest foe is the unvaccinated we still want to get all those folks that are unvaccinated vaccinated before we start talking about boosters down Downstream and in this period as Lexi

[45:00] stated very well in his presentation during this period of increasing cases and breakthrough cases we still want to protect those people that are not vaccine eligible yet so that's why all the strategies that we've implemented have I know we sound a little bit like a broken record but I think that's really our goal over the next several weeks to months to protect the unvaccinated who aren't eligible as well as protect those folks who U who are imino compromised I hope that helps council member yes thank you very much um and you answered another one of my questions which was had to do with the boosters so thank you for that um as well as another question I had about um the safety of being outdoors and social distancing so thank you very much um that's all I have Mary Rachel and then Mark Rachel thanks Sam um and thanks Lexi for the update and welcome to Camille um I have

[46:00] a couple questions you know the the C basically said we were good to go and could ditch our masks and that was following the science there a few months ago so um I guess there was a period of time where where it felt like if we were vaccinated we were um pretty well protected um and and it turns out we're not we're still getting infected and spreading it amongst each other so um that's alarming would say um so a couple questions that flow from that first with breakthrough infections do we have data on like what the if people are getting the long haul or long-term symptoms the way that people who are unvaccinated are or were um I don't think I don't know of a data source for that um I would I would say Lexi we're still following that council member friend you know breakthrough cases are a new phenomenon for us we're following this

[47:00] very closely on a national level as well in Colorado this Colorado is now going to put up a new dashboard about breakthrough cases so we're going to learn more over over a period of time you are still protected I don't want to lead you to believe that you're not protected from severe illness hospitalizations and death for the vaccine that's still a very important strategy and the Breakthrough infections that we've alluded to are still a small number of cases so it's not just common uh that we were're because you've been vaccinated and you do come in contact it's still a fairly rare situation but it's possible and that's why we want to people to protect themselves with masks I hope that helps and I think more to come in the future as we look at that data and we track and we'll hopefully will answer your question about whether or not people who are vaccinated and do get the Delta virus will suffer from long-term or long hauler disease we just don't know the answer to your question just yet okay thanks for that simply let me

[48:04] know cutting in and out cut in and out a little bit I guess uh following from that and following up on Erin's question it's a little bit confusing to me um why if we're strongly recommending masks we're not mandating them because people are so much more likely to uh to follow the rule when a mandate as opposed to just strongly recommended and I'm not seeing a lot of people wearing masks in stores um or at restaurants and then related to that I haven't seen much on social distancing um inside spaces anymore and so wondering where does that fall on that sort of layered mitigation continuum social distancing start um by by just uh completely understanding your perspective on the Mass mandate piece when we're talking about this Stark data that we've revealed to you this evening

[49:02] um we know however and and it's key in what Dr erina just mentioned that the vaccine is effective at pres preventing severe illness and death and and so we want that to be the focus of our community um that's why we've leaned on the strongly recommend and certainly um our Focus um must be protecting those who can't get vaccinated and that's why you know it is hard to know what to do first we don't want to take away the focus of the vaccination piece we've worked hard as you saw on the equity um vaccine work and our community ambassadors going out to all communities but focusing on those who are experiencing disparities and on vaccination and we're finally seeing a change in that data to have it be more Equitable as to those um individuals in our community who before were not

[50:01] getting vaccinated now are those that are experiencing those Health disparities and we have to uh strategize in this regard and at this point at this point we thought about how do we tackle this together and and strongly recommending masks at this point allowed us to watch the data and watch especially how the goal posts are changing in every day with the Delta variant while we still still continue to focus on um pushing our community to get vaccinated so that we can get to a point where we don't uh necessarily have to have these Stark discussions with you anymore um Dr urbina anything you would add um as our CMO to sort of the highle strategy I'm sharing with the council uh no I have nothing else to add I think you said it well director Rodriguez so um so it was a good lead in

[51:00] to my next question and and I I guess I would also just point out it it is um I think an equity concern that if the masks are only recommended that you've got like Frontline workers who are wearing the masks but from the image that you showed like when they're wearing the masks they're not being protected by the person who's coming in and checking out and is infected and and if they're not required to wear a mask and and uh line workers have to um have to be there around people who are infected day in day out that's that's tricky but um the question is is there like a trigger or a certain data point that you are looking for that would sort of activate the Mandate I understand we're watching the numbers but you know like previously we had you know dials and and codes and things that we were looking at for is there something like that that that we can be on guard for I appreciate that perspective I know that um prior to my arrival in Colorado I understand that we were looking at a dial which was focused

[52:01] on not taxing our Hospital Systems um at at this point we're we're shifting our perspective and so there is not a magic number but it's a combination of factors you know the other day uh Lexi and I and I believe Dr urbina and staff visited our uh economic Vitality um Group which is comprised of small and large businesses in the community to have this very discussion and um there was um uh some of the same sort of uh focus on yes let let's all get our masks on so that our Frontline workers are safe um how how do we begin to tackle though the complexities of those small businesses and our health department staff to do the um the complex work of the enforcement um combined with our

[53:01] experience of a surge and our ability to thoroughly investigate cases um it's been a constant battle for many local Health departments I came from Illinois we were struggling with the same issues of Staff capacity and so all in all what I want to say is as we will continue to strongly recommend masking there is not a magic number but we want uh a magic number on vaccinations and that's 100% of those eligible to be vaccinated um I I know that that's not the answer you're probably looking for because mandates and orders seem like the logical step but I think at this point I continue to to urge um the community who's listening and you to to talk with your constituents if you can to say get vaccinated so we can be at 100% eligible and protect those that are not yet eligible or those who are imuno

[54:01] compromised and that mask is a secondary um strategy as Lexi mentioned and I think that it's an easy thing to do to throw it on and model that behavior I I actually even have um my picture that I use professionally with a mask on um to walk the talk and and that's that's sort of the the best I can give you um is to continue to urge The Mask wearing at this point all right uh and and I will uh plus one getting to 100% vaccination very supportive two more um questions this time last year we were talking a lot about CU students coming back and sort of how that might impact the community so just wondering do we know what the vaccination rates are for CU students I thought that they were maybe going to be uh that they had mandated vaccines but with exemptions so just wondering what does that look like and and How concerned is is uh your department on the arrival of many more people to the community yes Dr Nolan do

[55:02] you want to take this one I know that you've been talking well we've all been talking with CU but I think you might be uh more able to answer those percentage questions um what I can tell you at this point is that yes CU um has a a vaccine mandate for students staff and faculty um what they are seeing anecdotally so far is um very good response um in terms of seeing that documentation come in their deadline hasn't arrived yet I think their deadline is midt um for that documentation to appear and what they are uh communicating is that they're expecting a very low number of folks to opt out at this point but we do not have that data yet um I will also O say that CU passed a universal masking requirement for indoor spaces on their

[56:01] campus which was um terrific super supportive um and they're using uh that not as any kind of opt out of vaccinations the vaccination mandate still stands um and so they're uh they're really we're looking forward to conversations to see um how that uh rate is shaping up um but we are not expec ing the kind of challenge that we saw last year um not to say we're not going to be watching it carefully because that is such a an important and significant uh group of our um city residents um and Regional residents that um we really do want to pay attention to it and be as supportive as we can in that space thanks um and last question Rachel I'm sorry to interrupt I just have a request for a reminder from our interpreter to please slow slow down if you could when you're speaking and take a breath and this is not to you Rachel to everyone please take a breath between sentences

[57:01] so there's time to translate the valuable information you're giving back to you Rachel thank you okay gonna slow it down I think um before we meet again there will be um the booster shots available I have a household member who hits eight months in two weeks I think so if I understand it correctly uh boosters go out after eight months um in theory starting in September so just wondering given that there it was difficult to sign up for shots the first time around and to coordinate that what is the plan for booster shots how how will those roll out and how will people be notified of their eligibility so it's a it's a fantastic question um and it's also one of those spaces that that unfortunately um like many things in the last year you were hearing it on the news at the same time

[58:01] we were hearing about it so we have not had time to formulate exactly what the plan is but we are hard at work figuring out how that's going to happen especially with all of the other uh staff demands right now um I will say that the good news is that we are in a place where we have anaz amazing network of vaccination providers across our community including our Hospital Systems including our drugstores um including lots of other partners in the space um who uh you know are continuing to provide vaccines to our community um and so what we're mainly focused on in public health is making sure that there are plans in place to be able to reach folks who um do have uh more difficulty accessing

[59:03] vaccines and making sure that we're supporting their access so that would mean folks who are homebound folks in long-term care facilities um some of those harder to reach populations Mountain communities sometimes um and uh but we should have a more uh robust plan um very soon all right thanks for answering all my questions thanks Rachel Mark sorry about that um I understand the emphasis and the push for vaccinations my my question is how effective is our push for vaccinations the rate of vaccinations accelerating or slowing down well um it's it's a great question um we do have I didn't include that slide

[60:02] tonight I'm sorry um you know what we saw was uh you know a big uptake in vaccination rates back in March and April and part of May and then we started to see a decline um and uh that decline has largely maintained we're seeing I think about 350 vaccinations in Boulder County a day at this point and um but I will tell you that one of the most important strategies that has been boosting vaccination rates lately is that employers are beginning to pass um staff vaccination requirements and so there are a lot of businesses federal government state government other folks who um either have passed those

[61:00] requirements or have communicated to their employees that they are planning to um and we have seen some vaccine uptake uh increases lately minor um that we think might be related to that um the other thing that I think could be a bit of a game changer that's coming soon is that we do continue to expect the fiser vaccine to be fully licensed sometime in September and we think when that happens that we will see um more um interest among individuals to get vaccinated as well as additional organization policies requiring staff to get vaccinated see sorry to interrupt Mark I see Drina has his hand up and I wanted to see if he had a response to you council member I think it's a great question as well I think where we saw the biggest rise obviously with the new vaccin new eligible the 12 to 15 year

[62:01] olds we saw a big uptick in that now we're we're doing quite well with that population and we're BEC largely because of our community ambassadors as well as our our work with our partners particular bch we've really narrowed that vaccination Gap with our Latino Latina community so so I think we're doing a better job with that but we still are struggling with this 20 to 39 year old group if you have any advice for us to get after that population we certainly would listen to you and try to get that group that's pretty well Cal to getting vaccines I would not presume to offer that advice but there's an element it seems to me that to which if we're having that problem for whatever reason that would seem to speak to Rachel's um concern about perhaps perhaps we should be mandating masks as opposed to advising masks if if there is

[63:00] a an entirely vacine resistant portion of the population which we seem to have as well as every other community in the country seems to have would that not call for a somewhat stronger uh approach I address that to any of you yeah I was gonna say Camille maybe you need to step in and I will yes thank you um thank you Sam I I think uh one of the reasons why um perhaps you haven't seen me the executive director recommend that particular order to our Board of Health is also because of being able to lock arms with our regional partners and have a unified response to this and I think um it's a struggle if I may speak for many of my local public health

[64:00] administrator colleagues that this isn't a state mandate for us just to implement now I am not going to um say that that's an an excuse but it would be very helpful based on sort of the the sentiment about masks in many communities and I don't put that on Boulder County because I do believe we're um um I'll say this in my short time as a Boulder County resident I feel uh the sentiment here is much different perhaps than in many other communities even the community that I came from in Illinois relative to the mitigation strategies the layers of mitigations including the masking including the vaccinations I was so impressed when I arrived here to see the numbers and to even fre frequent the businesses and see many people utilizing face coverings

[65:00] with that said um many of us meet uh as local Health Department administrators multiple times per week to try to come to a consensus on how we can lock arms on strategies that include um perhaps orders on masking perhaps orders on vaccination for Frontline workers as one of the council members mentioned it seems um irresponsible at best that those who are serving the public could infect the public or the public could infect those that are in the position to be Frontline workers and so it really takes at times the consideration of how we all can work together because as Dr Nolan as Lexi um brought brought you the Boulder County data as a state we are also you saw um in very high

[66:01] transmission in many areas and so that's probably why council member you see sort of this strategy of us recommending strongly recommending The Masks while really pushing the vaccination because we don't want to dilute that first line of defense against illness and H hospitalization and even death which is the vaccination I I know that doesn't perhaps feel good because if I had it my way I certainly would want everyone to wear a face covering and for us to continue all of our other strategies like handwashing and social distancing but I want to get to that point on the vaccination numbers of our eligible to be vaccinated higher so that I don't dilute the importance of going out and getting that that shot to to

[67:00] save lives thank you um well a related question I really don't mean to put you on the hot seat but have we we received any uh guidance or policies from the state would have you heard anything that would indicate that we will be receiving such guidance or policies from the state oh that doesn't put me on the hot seat at all I'm happy to report that I and other local public health administrators regularly put uh good pressure on our state health officer to then put pressure on our governor to pass Universal masking and even some vaccination um mandates um at this point we are getting information that our governor prefers it to be effectuated locally we have received guidance though council member we received guidance for schools um and and we took that a step

[68:00] further in Boulder County in our Public Health uh order that was passed by the Board of Health and recommended by staff so in that sense um we are utilizing the strategies that we have in response to that lack of a a governor level state level mandates with masking and vaccination okay and my my last question is it's just more of a technical question as booster shots seem to be coming down the road do we know yet whether you're going to be able to mix and match between say madna and fiser or will you have to get a fiser booster for a fiser vaccine um any sense of how that's going to play out council member it's likely that we're going to continue with the same vaccine that you got before um so if you had a fiser you'll probably get a third dose of fiser um the same thing is true about mRNA the madna vaccine and likely with the J&J or Johnson Johson vaccine you

[69:00] know that that uh all that all those questions have to be an answered by the FDA and the advisory committee on immunization practices because that's really how we how we make those decisions a panel of experts who give us the best advice available but it's likely that you're going to stay in your same Lane with the same vaccine okay and though I should have thanked you for the presentation at the outset I'd like to do so now um thank you for coming tonight and and that was a terrific presentation thank you sir you Mark juny I saw you had a hand up do you have anything thank you um I do have a question and a comment as well for Dr urina and well I just want to first thank you and the rest of your team for this presentation and always keeping us ahead of what's going on in the community when it comes to Public Health and you were talking about the young

[70:01] people between 20 and 29 years old and I remember um when the pandemic first hit um when you came to council and we talked and eventually the in the discussion we talked about Community connectors and the next time you know you came back before Council I mean the of Engagement using Community connectors were um were very strong and I'm wondering right now with the new variant what are some of the you know not just looking at Community connectors because we were thinking about them and reaching out populations that are disadvantaged but looking at the 22 29 years old who you mentioned who are resistant um are you you know are you working and partnering with for instance bars and places that these young people are going to get them in you know to get

[71:02] them to get vaccinated um I think a great question you know I think we have made a tremendous progress particularly among our uh uh black indigenous and uh people of color populations our community ambassadors and we've had good relationships with our CU leadership and our CU connections because as you know many of the young people that fall in that category our recent graduates of our University as well as uh practice in our community so I think we're making inroads I I think the challenge will be oh and also we're working very hard with many of our health care System Partners as well as what Le Lexi alluded to earlier so I think we're making good progress but as you know when you're young you don't always listen to the best best advice um it's only as you get older you realize there are other people that are smarter than you and and should

[72:01] listen to your advice but again we are trying to make inrs in those communities and we'll continue to do that and we' appreciate any advice that you have for us if there are connections that we already haven't made please uh reach out to us and and we'll we'll help connect with them no no go ahead I was just going to add a little bit of additional information to put a finer point on it um our containment team is also currently working to um uh Advance focus groups um with young folks to make sure that our messaging is on point and that our um Outreach our communication Outreach strategies are um effective in reaching them uh kind of where they are um so looking carefully at how we frame messages um what kinds of communication platforms we're engaging um and looking at the penetration to see if what we're doing is effective so we um we've been working on that and we'll continue to do that through the

[73:01] fall yeah thank thank you for this I think this is great and I think for me um again when you first came before us the thought the community ambassadors program that you've implemented I think is just fabulous it's wonderful and for these young people as you mentioned their resistance because they're young um but of course going where they are partnering with bars and local organizations especially in places like Boulder a lot of young people love um you know they love outdoor activities partnering with these organizations as well I remember watching the news the mayor the Blasio in New York they're giv a $100 um I don't know if that's something that you can do giving money to young people to get them out there to get vaccinated but I guess it's it has to be a multi-prong approach um also so you know I just saw recently on the news that the NFL Raiders are saying that you know if you want to attend events you

[74:01] either have to get vaccinated or show proof of it so maybe having you know where young people are at events and passing out information on that or having a mobile site during these um these events as well might be way to go as well uh to reach out to these young people thank you for theh suggestions counc member Junior I will I will also mention that um you know for our younger families um who haven't gotten vaccinated we are working on um making sure that we are set up so that as soon as the um children are eligible for the vaccination that we are creating familyfriendly um opportunities for them to get vaccinated so that we're we're vaccinating whole families at the same time um and making making sure that those um opportunities are um you know geared for different cultural groups and

[75:00] um uh making sure that we're creating friendly places for folks to to really be able to to make it an easy opportunity for them um particularly as as school goes back in and we go into the fall great well I don't see any more hands up so I will thank you Camille Lexi and Chris for being here with us um I would like to go back to the days where these are 10 minutes long with no questions and we are on to other business um but as long as we are having these challenges in our community it's great to have you here helping us out with what our response should be so thank you all for being here I will turn now to Nua and Nua I think we have a few more minutes of discussion around our covid response if you want to take us into that sure thank you mayor and just a quick thanks to our um B Boulder County Public Health folks they've been extraordinary Partners as we move forward um I I'll just we had two things

[76:00] really that we wanted to share with you all we ourselves have leaned into this as well we started with messaging to staff that we also felt those obligations to make sure we had safe workplaces and that as we go out into community that we owed it to our community not to fear that um public employees were not uh we're we're bringing more risk to them so we have started and just today sent a note to staff about and set up a easy um way to show or to let us know when they were vaccinated and so that they can report and for those that are choosing not to report for whatever reason um requiring masks we have been and talking we saw this presentation today and as we had been approaching and seeing those numbers we had been talking about um a universal Mass mandate as well but looking to really think forward and see what percentage of our staff have been vaccinated we believe that is a high percent uh and so we will be looking at that um by September 1st we should know

[77:01] that data as we move forward I'll ask Pam I've got two people just to talk and give you quick updates I know we have a full meeting tonight Pam Davis I'll say has been really um spearheading a lot of the covid recovery um from CMO and can tell you a little bit about some of the steps we've been taking and engaging in to to enhance the already existing um approaches that we have done in the city and then we also received a question from um council member Yates and appreciate that question about um how do we prepare our business community and what does covid look like particularly for some of those amenities that people have really gotten used to in the summertime of outdoor dining and looking to see um from AET who's also AET Bowden is on the line to talk a little bit about what she's been hearing from the business community that we want to make sure we partner with and set up some some conversations that we want to hear from you Council about um sort of outdoor dining um generally and where um

[78:00] you would like us to continue to have those conversations so I'll start with Pam and then um maybe we'll shift over to AET soon thereafter thanks nian good evening mayor Weaver members of council um so I'm happy to just tell you a few things that our recovery team is still actively working on as it comes to providing Services directly to our community we are offering as you may have seen a free vaccination clinic based out of our Boulder Public Library um it was just announced today that that will continue through at minimum midep but we intend to assess that on a monthly basis uh we began conducting that on July 11th and we are offering um weekend and evening hours so we are providing free vaccinations with no appointment on Sundays in the Library moving forward um in addition to that we have worked with the state and County to extend our stasio

[79:01] covid testing site um so we do have free on demand testing available for our community indefinitely at least through the end of this year um and that is generously being funded by the state at this point um which allows us to Simply provide the space and some logistical support um in addition we are doing quite a bit of continued Outreach with our business community and a lot of that work is also being conducted through our County Partners certainly our team and Community vitality and our connections with the chamber and The Economic Council and others um are doing great work to sort of hear from our business Community we are trying to get information particularly to our downtown businesses about our vaccine clinics um because it's a very convenient stop before after a shift to come get a vaccine um we are offering both the uh fer and the Johnson and Johnson vaccine at that and we've been thrilled to see a lot of our teenage community members coming through in fact one young woman

[80:02] celebrated her 12th birthday by getting her vaccine shot at the library just last weekend so that's been great um Nur has also mentioned just internally the measures that we're taking to protect our own City staff um and I welcome any questions about any other specifics you might be interested in Thank you Pam Council any questions at all for famam I am seeing none with that about onto of it good evening council members and thanks Pam and Nua and our count County colleagues I have only two slides I'll be pretty quick uh so you asked and you've been receiving a lot of notes in favor of continued outdoor dining I'm just reminding us how that program came about the success that it is and the conversation we continue to have the um Boulder business recovery program um has was basically an answer to a problem the required social distancing and limited

[81:01] indoor capacity was making it even more difficult not only for the restaurant industry but especially for our struggling restaurant industry that was struck with uh limited capacity inside so in addition to keeping the community safe and uh focusing on gift cards and a bilocal campaign subsidized delivery service um industry Outreach festar um and I really want to thank all of our alliance partner organizations for all their hard work here bbrp was put in place through an emergency order and so far we're really excited that it's been able to Aid 88 Citywide participating restaurants that does not include those that are not serving alcohol and are operating on private property so this is just folks that were trying to serve alcohol and operating somewhere that they would also touch a public space um the I want to thank all of our Cross City team for the amazing work um

[82:01] that made the following possible so there you'll see the seven bullets of what that program includes this a Citywide waiver of all parking minimums including the addition of many curbside drop off and pickup locations temporary modification of alcohol licenses which were allowed by the state of Colorado um temporary outdoor EXP iions repurposing the public RightWay in some cases and some on private property so thank you to the many landlords who appreciate this difficult time as well waiver of City fees um rerouting of the hot bus line City facilitated street closures and City provision of some infrastructure next slide so following um this introduction um we got a proposal from downtown Boulder partnership recently but it just furthers a conversation last November and again in February we had already been talking about what happens after the pandemic right there had been

[83:01] some amazing Outreach conducted by downtown Boulder partnership and people were expressing a lot of enthusiasm for the experience and so we wanted to start work on that some of which was delayed in order for us to focus on the ambassador program which is already a huge success and we're thankful to council for that support and Direction so what is this going to do it will expl explore um a post-pandemic downtown Boulder outdoor dining program balancing all of these needs of not only the businesses but also thinking about the property owners the neighbors um and the city in supporting access safety vibrancy and the achievement of community goals this work um which is progressing nicely um is responsive to that downtown proposal um it will explore not only the scope because we had a lot of different iterations across the properties in the bid area in the mall um in the closure area and Etc we

[84:02] have a lot of work to do with the state um about how long temporary is and what that is um as well as insurance participation uh cost sharing models across the businesses in the bid which we're thankful for the partnership um in leading those conversations and we'll also be looking at things that people can do already which have nothing to do with an emergency order like uh existing patio leases garage dooring alleys and private property again there's a lot of departments involved in this really thankful for all the collaboration so our immediate next steps are we're going to listen to the folks who you just spoke to right um the evolving health and safety guidance determining if there's infrastructure or storage needs while we consider these things um program measur and which could really be beneficial as we continue the work that you'll be looking at as a body in 2022 maybe um on the parking code and

[85:02] curbside management depending on the work plan Direction you give process development which really has to start with the state in their definition of what this means uh coordination with the downtown Boulder partnership stakeholder group and what we hope uh very soon could be an agreement that we bring before you on consent you'll notice that it's a license agreement and not a lease thank you Brenda I will slow down um you'll notice that it's a license agreement and not a lease um and we have some precedent for that our last license agreement that dealt with public right of way was with the farmers market and is highly successful so we look forward to exploring this with downtown Boulder um and I see a couple hands y thank you that and I'll turn now to council questions Bob and then Aaron Bob uh thanks for that event um a couple questions um we um the current um

[86:01] arrangement for outdoor dining um you know whether it's West Pearl or the parklets um is scheduled to expire on October 31 is that correct that is correct as it is related to emergency orders okay um and and when will when will we that it might be a date later than October 31 as soon as the county tells us um although we are really sensitive to the fact that businesses need a little bit more notice right to make arrangements and so do we as staff so um I'll be working hard over the next couple weeks to see if we can do that as early as possible maybe as early as um late September early October if it is before we're able to revisit with you on this topic we will certainly provide Council a heads up in that regard how long is we've had October 31 is the outside date for for a while is

[87:01] that right when do we when do we s that date I believe that it was first extended till February and in February we notified all the businesses that it would go till October so that was not that was not based on a health order in other words we didn't know in February that we would need until October 31 to have outdoor dining is that right actually perhaps I could clarify in February we extended till the end of emergency orders or till October 31st when the when the emergency orders uh lifted the indoor dining restrictions we came back to you and asked for support to extend it a little bit further to allow people to continue to enjoy um this weather period that we have um and allow us to return back safely so the October 31st yeah thanks for that refreshing or recollection that so that October 31 date that we picked in the summer wasn't tied to a health order it wasn't like the Boulder County Public Health told us this summer oh you've

[88:00] gotta let people eat outside until October 31 is that right from the county no everything is tied to emergency orders though and what I would say is you know we're continuing to monitor this as everyone is we want to give people as much notice as possible I'm also really working hard with our neighboring cities that have chosen um November 1st so we want to be thoughtful of everyone but at the same time we know that this is a changing situation all over the state yeah and it's true that Denver extended its outdoor dining permissions until the end of 2022 is that right outdoor dining but michon and I are interested in what happens to outdoor alcohol and so um we're we're all working together and we'll continue to keep Council and our partners at downtown bua partnership topress I'm I'm just struggling a little bit with why we have to wait until late September early October to make a decision on October 31 like what what

[89:01] will happen in the next I get the fact that the health orders may tell us hey GNA be on October 31 and that would be great to know that but let's say that doesn't happen what what's going to happen in the next 45 days as we're waiting around because I as you said the restaurants need to know now or soon why would we make them wait for 45 days to tell them oh it's not October 31 anymore we gave them many many months of notice before why are we giving on them only a few days notice this time actually we do feel that the notice we gave in February was the notice that gave uh folks lots of time nevertheless I don't think this is something that is hard and fast I do want to distinguish the difference between um what we're doing under emergency order and a more thoughtful process with downtown Boulder um that is separate and so that's the slide I just showed you should Council one us to have different direction related to emergency orders I think that's something I should refer back to Nua the county and

[90:00] Sandra just one or two more questions and then I'll I'll pass on to my colleagues um you mentioned you you're working with downtown Boulder partnership on a on a a program when would when would that start as hopefully as soon as whatever post pandemic means I think there are ways that we could certainly expedite that depending on its scope and we look forward to working with them if I'm able to bring it sooner to the community and something that all parties agree to I think we'll want to try to do that but I mean when you say post could that be like November or we talking like next spring I would like to talk to our colleagues inside and out about that but I think we can come back and visit council with an update okay could we do that like at our next meeting I'm I'm still struggling why would we have to wait until early October on this decision I'm not sure what happens between now and early October that would change our minds if if if there was a proposition before us tonight that said hey let's change change October 31 to

[91:00] some date in 2022 what what information would we need what information are you telling us that we would need to make that decision first I I think there is some information I don't have that I would want to talk to my internal colleagues about at the same time we just received downtown Boulder Partnerships proposal a few weeks ago even though we've been talking for a long time and um I think if we can make it sooner we certainly would look forward to doing that there is a distinction between however the Citywide program and what is being proposed by downtown bould dep partnership and from an equity standpoint we want to look through that lens as well exactly exactly so I think we want to make some city-wide decisions it's separate from what downtown Boulder partnership might do for his colleagues so well I'll yield to my colleagues now but I I'll just Express um uh disappoint appointment that we're we're um we're talking about another six weeks before we would make you bring to council a decision about whether October 31 should be extended this seems pretty obvious to me right

[92:01] now that we should be extending this Beyond October 31 now regardless of whether you have assistance from downtown Boulder partnership or not that we should make this Citywide not limited to downtown so that's my opinion um I'm disappointed we don't have more information and I would request of staff that we bring this forward as quickly as possible not the 1 of October but at our very next council meeting so that we have all the information that we need to make an informed decision if there's reasons why we would not go beyond October 31 I'd like to know those in a staff memo because we've been waiting for this for a while so that's my my position thank you Bob we've got Aon and Rachel Aaron yeah thanks for that uh vet for the explanation the update appreciate it uh Bob actually asked my questions so I'll just give throw out a quick opinion um that I I think the the downtown um and program has been incredibly successful I've uh I had the chance to be downtown a couple days this weekend and see everybody out enjoying the outdoor um eating opportunities and

[93:02] walking around on the couple blocks of Pearl Street that are closed vehicles and then the sidewalk space etc etc and also seen in other parts of town where those similar restaurant expans expansions have been incredibly successful so um I would love to continue this past October 31st uh if at all possible we did just hear from the public health department that the pandemic end is not as soon as we had hoped and it's a very successful program for our businesses and restaurants so um would love to see you know an update sometime soon where maybe we could weigh in on that make a decision on that so that those businesses had a couple months heads up that hopefully that they can continue thank you very much you Aon um Rachel and then Mark Rachel yeah I'm pretty similar to where Aaron uh is and that Bob asked my question and that I uh feel like Co is is not nearing an end um we talk about

[94:02] sort of post pandemic and it feels like we're not there and it is for some of us I'm one it it still feels much safer to eat outside and I don't see that being different on October 31st or December 31st um you know maybe next December 31st but uh hopefully we'll keep is going because I I think it it has helped uh sustain businesses and and give people a place to be where it still feels safe and it sort of feels like one of the few covid bonuses like people love the opened uh extended Pearl Street and and I I'm I will be hoping that we hang on to that thanks Mark um yeah I've got to be supportive of Aaron and Bob and Rachel uh on this issue you know the I think the need is is is quite apparent um the success of the existing

[95:00] program is very apparent and you know I always try to be you know fairly methodical and and subjects but I'm going to depart from that um I'm not sure why we aren't simply extending the date and figuring out the the details later I just don't know what issues could come up other than you know getting State authorization for outdoor licensing that would cause us to rethink that determination if we said this is going through just the picket date March 31st 2022 um I'm hardpressed to imagine a set of circumstances that would cause us to revisit that and say well uh that's really not a good policy let's let's curtail the program so I am in favor of whatever we can do in as expeditious a manner as possible to give the business Community the knowledge that we're that is our present intention to extend this

[96:00] date um and work on the mechanics as we have to work on the mechanics um so my that's my view on this thank you Mark I see Nua and then all we in Nua yep and and I'm happy to wait thank you mayor um if you wanted to weigh in first but one want to just say a this is exactly sort of the conversation and the nod we wanted to know what your interest was as we move forward we had not had obviously this involves more than just Community Vitality but has some uh we need our planning partners and our transportation Partners given um some of the parklets and the road obstructions with that comes with some of the outdoor dining I too myself and a big fan of some of what we've seen during covid I will note that part of that October 31st is because because that is when our um state liquor license expansion went to and that was the deadline for that so we want to reach out and make sure that we can go beyond that and that's where um

[97:02] with this armed with this information and your um uh your Collective sort of um nod to have us come back we certainly had planned to make sure that we had crossed all those um te's and dotted the eyes to make sure we came back either with an IP or further conversation um in the future so we thank you for that okay um thank you all for that I also think we need to move expeditiously but I would say that I think there's still time um there's probably not many immediate decisions that are going to be made so that we have to come at the next council meeting and make a final decision I think we can indicate to everyone that we are working to extend it that's our intention we have some um administrative details to attend to so I appreciate Evette and Nua thinking it through and making sure that we are doing it in an equitable way uh I do

[98:00] understand business folks urgencies but I will also say that it's about 10 weeks to the end of October and I think in two to three or four weeks if we can have something lined up they'll have plenty of time to respond i' would also like to request that as we look at this we make sure that um pedestrians and cyclists are able to navigate those areas I've noticed quite a bit of creep um between 9th and 11th on Pearl I will only eat outdoors in a restaurant and I will continue that as long as we're having these kind of struggles so I do appreciate what everyone has said about the advantages of outdoor dining but I will also say that some sidewalks and definitely some middle of the street passages have closed down to be zero and I would like to make sure that we can still get folks through there um on foot and by bike so um I am like Rachel and others I think one upside to this in the long run would be if we kept Pearl closed or at least seasonally closed so I think there's a lot of advantages to

[99:01] um the kind of exploration we've been doing but I also do appreciate taking a little bit of time to make sure that we've got you know planning and transportation all lined up and that we hear from everybody who may bring up concerns that we don't quite know so I agree with my colleagues I'd like to move this forward I agree we'd like to give six to eight weeks of notice to business but I do also want to make sure that we're careful in how we do this implementation um I I think one thing that Council would love to hear as soon as staff knows would be if we get the sign from the state that we can extend our liquor licensing Beyond October 31st that would be something great to hear because then I think all Council would know that that that what could be a big impediment has fallen and we can continue moving forward um so with that I will note um the choice has been made to end language interpretation I think we went a bit longer than we expected to um and I want to give a shout out to The Interpreter Marina lrav who was with us

[100:02] tonight and say thank you I know it's a lot of work for everyone um and it is also the case that we really never know until we get a day or two ahead of the council meeting how long the co briefing will last because things are changing pretty rapidly so with that any other comments from Council before we move on from Co great seeing none thank you to everyone who is here our County Partners of that and Nua for walking us through that um with that I will I think uh are we up to open comment Alicia sorry about that sir yes sir we are open comment starts now all right very good let me pull up my list here tonight it looks like for open comment we have six people signed up we

[101:01] will start tonight um two minutes a piece as usual for open comment we will start with Steph hell Evan rabbits and Shirley Jen Stephen hello can youall hear me we can okay um so last week I was listening to the tab meeting and Boulder Police and the state patrol went over the vehicle vehicle violence that's happened pretty much most of July but one in May um so if you don't know we've lost five Boulder residents to vehicle of violence in the last three months um and if you can watch the presentation I'll just go over briefly but if you watch last T's meeting just the beginning the Boulder Police did a really an excellent job of going over all these crashes um so I'll

[102:00] quickly go over uh May in May there South Boulder Manhattan Circle a motorist killed a cyclist um and then in July the rest of these are all in July 34th in Iris diagonal Highway um a car turned in for another car and two two of our citizens were killed in that left turn wreck um 47 47th Independence uh Singler motorist rolled over and died 43y old um leh Hill which is outside of Boulder but in B County one of our citizens is killed by motorists turning left in front of him as he was cycling down leh hill um those are the deaths and we've had a couple of severe accidents 30th in Pearl a motorist turned left he had a Flash and yellow arrow in front of a motorcycle um the the young person proba Los his leg 47th diagonal a motorist ran

[103:03] a red light severely injured a cyclist going through um 47th and then also Pearl and 9th last month there was a um car to pulled out and the moped tried to avoid it and the the rider of the moped was really so if you can look at last tab it's worth it thank you thank you Stephen next we have Evan rabitz Shirley Jen and Patrick Murphy Evan good evening tonight I'm asking the community to help me find a news article from 10 to 15 years ago which was on the front page or front of the second section of the Daily Camera Poss possibly The Denver Post it included an unusually Frank statement from maybe the national league of cities or the National Urban League Colorado Municipal

[104:02] League Etc saying that the city of Boulder makes decisions in Smoke free back rooms while city council puts on a show for the public sounds like today I can't find it on the camera website through the library liary or with the assistance of the Carnegie Library several friends of mine distinctly remember that phrase smoke free back rooms I'm offering a $50 reward for the physical clipping or a link to it if it is indeed online somewhere I'm Evan rabitz you can send it to me by email ER rabits Gmail or see my website Evan ritz.com just like the city should be getting ahead of the game regarding outdoor dining Council needs to decide if you're going to fix the faulty online

[105:02] petitioning software so that it's ready this spring when people want to use it you either need to hire runbeck to fix the faulty software they made or allow maplight to redo the whole thing properly and for free which they estimate will take six months thank you thank you Evan next we have Shirley JY Patrick Murphy and Sammy Lawrence I four Shirley uh small cell towers are now being installed at various locations within Boulder they are emitting EMF radiation that hundreds of scientists and doctors say is dangerous to the health of human beings in all forms of Life the biologic health effects include cancer damage to DNA memory brain development reproduction and more the

[106:01] damage extends to animal and plant life if the plann buildout is completed there will be cell towers emitting both four and 5G radiation every 10 yards throughout Boulder and the world EMF radiation passes through walls and windows and will be essentially unavoidable the FCC as reported by a Harvard publication is a captured agency controlled by the Telecom industry Congressional oversight committees are controlled but with millions of dollars in campaign contributions Wireless radiation is unnecessary for communication as fire fiber optic wires are far more far superior to four and 5G the probable real cause of 5G is that it will allow the surveillance of everyone and provide billions of dollars to the Telecom industry the corporate news media are

[107:03] not reporting the health danger of the small cell towers please spread information and contact your local your elected representatives to ask them to find ways to push back against the Telecom industry as is being done in some cities states and countries for more information and to learn more please go to the Environmental Health Trust and Physicians for safe technology thank you Shirley next we have Patrick Murphy Samy Lawrence IV and ly seagull Patrick my name is Patrick Murphy I live in Boulder for 51 years this is my 104th presentation to city council since 2014 some of you really do listen to those of us in the public who try to bring you facts that you perhaps missed or perhaps choose to ignore my proof of that is the

[108:01] mun or as I call it the Looney mun effort I have recorded that failure in detail in 94 presentations to city council that are memorialized on YouTube far past my lifetime or yours the real culprit in the mun failure was not Excel but rather Boulders bad leadership bad legal decisions and financial Shenanigans in spite of this there's still an anti- Exel voice that in some cases righteously critically evaluates Excel but blindly accepts Boulder's deep failures as if they didn't and don't exist for example in opinion pieces in the camera there are those such as Leslie glustrom Steve pance Julie xiser Phil wardwell from muri and others who criticize Excel en list excel's profits ignore the taxes they pay and ignore the many billions of dollars their investors are putting into massive wind farms solar and shutting down coal plants

[109:02] these writers pretend these investors are not at risk but they are for example excel's last big coal plant is messed up technically and it's more than likely that the investors and not the customers of excel will pay the penalty unlike Boulder who had a massive failure of our water system that had deferred maintenance and left us with a rate increase of over 80% since the 2013 floods I'm certain these writers have good intentions but they're lousy at presenting the full truth Hal truth is a definition of propaganda demand proof not propaganda from Boulders climate action plan leaders thank you thank you Patrick next we have Sammy Lawrence I four and Lynn seagull um Sammy we don't see you in the meeting so if you could tell us by chat or by question and answer box if you are here um and with that we will go to Lynn seagull

[110:03] Lynn I haven't had communication on my phone for the last three months apparently the cell tower at the former Boulder Community Hospital was taken down and no one said a word supposed ly it's supposed to go up on the Foothills campus in September but I sure would have liked to have known that my phone's audio was all screwed up because of that I went and bought a new phone you know like everyone else around the neighborhood has been like if this is community benefit at Alpine Balsam well you're failing right you know let me know at least what's happening um as far as dining on Pearl Street Mall you know I'm not going to support XL Energy pumping all this heat into these plastic enclosures for people to still catch the virus inside um what they need to do is

[111:03] put in what the city needs to do or mandate is heat recovery ventilators in all the existing restaurants for the winter time so that you can increase your tax revenue um so far as the and this will you can put filters on with UV filters to to to put you know to take out the virus to take out the variants to take out whatever change the airf flow per minute to the amount of occupancy in the room and the space do all kinds of things no one's been thinking of that I brought it up a year ago you could have done it long before now um as far as um Camille and Lexi who were talking from the Department of Health um they say they're they're going to get to know us nobody's going to get to know me I'm a black box that's what I am that's what I am to

[112:01] city council and I go to the planning board and the transportation Advisory board and the open space board of everyone I tell we need videos a year and a half ago we need our videos We Exist thank you Lynn thank you um Sammy Lawrence would be our last speaker I don't see Sammy anywhere so with that we will close the public hearing and bring it back um I'll turn first to staff staff do you have any response to anything that you heard it open comment great seeing none Council any questions response great seeing none I will turn it back to you Alicia all right sir thank you next we have on this agenda the consent agenda and that'll be items a through F and I through P very good thank you Alicia and the one item that I would just call forward is I

[113:00] know that we have a short presentation on item 3E um and as we're getting that ready Mary do you have something else I had a comment on item 3E um but I'll wait until after the presentation okay super all right I see Bethany here Bethany are you going to take us through this I am uh good evening mayor Weaver and council members I'm Bethany Collins I'm the real estate supervisor with open space and Mountain Parks um next slide please Taylor um with this agenda item tonight staff is seeking Council approval of the acquisition of a permanent public Trail easement together with access over a portion of the rathon Holdings property located along North Foothills Highway for 23 ,500 per acre and with the total purchase price not to exceed $235,000 the Ron property is entirely surrounded by open space and Mountain Parks protected lands and once approved

[114:01] the trail easement will host a segment of the north sky Trail a trail identified for construction as part of the council approved North Trail study area plan or the ntsa next slide please this is a strategic and high priority acquisition that flows from the guidance in the ntsa which specifically directed staff to pursue a trail easement on the neighboring Foothills Business Park conservation easement property and with that easement acquired staff moved forward to explore the Ron easement knowing this was aligned with the intent of the plan and would provide enhanced benefits and better utilization of the trail easement on the business park property next slide please extensive staff community board and Council discussion and thought resulted in the recommendations for the ntsa and the balance outcomes that guide the alignment and future construction of the north sky Trail the acquisition of the Foothills Business Park Trail easement together with this proposed easement extend the portion of the trail

[115:01] that can be located on the existing railroad grade allows the trail to remain lower on the slope and out of the habitat Conservation Area for more extent and provides better opportunities to reduce impacts and Bridge infrastructure needed to cross through a couple drainages that the trail must intersect it also allows for flexibility for a trail alignment and options for more sustainable grades as well as a potential for Less infrastructure such as those retaining walls and bridges the conceptual Trail alignment drying on the right reflects this with the combined blue and orange line Trail alignment rather than the original yellow alignment next slide please additionally acquisition of the Ron Trail easement will help fulfill several osmp master plan strategies and supports at at least two Charter purposes allowing the city to follow Council guidance from the ntsa to construct the north sky Trail reducing undesignated trails in the HCA and Ma

[116:00] managing increased visitation and better preserving about 50 to 60 Acres of this important habitat block by removing the trail from a portion of the HCA aside from the trail alignment and design benefits this Trail easement acquisition has important resource benefits as well the removal of 5,000 feet of the north sky trail from the HCA which also increases protection of rare plant communities and lessens impacts to the important shrub land and blue stem communities that benefit species like the lazuli buting and a suite of rare Skipper species it also lessens the spread of invasives within the HCA the negotiated easement will also include the ability to relocate and replace the chain link Security Fence to something more aesthetically pleasing which is which improves the scenic values and visitor experience um and it'll have access rights for maintenance enforcement and emergency services to the midpoint of the trail and it gives the rights to perform habitat and weed control activities

[117:00] habitat restoration excuse me and weed control activities next slide please with Council support next steps in the acquisition include osmp staff and City attorney tasks to draft purchase and easement agreements as well as undertake due diligence work including surveying and environmental and resource studies and this will also provide forward momentum in ntsa implementation and design and construction of the north sky trail with an estimate opening in 2024 next slide please with that quick update I I Turn to You For questions thank you Bethany and with that we'll start with Mary and then mirbi Mary yeah I I didn't have a question I had a comment and I just wanted to um express my gratitude for this um alternative Trail alignment I did not vote for the north TSA because of the

[118:01] intrusion it was going to have on the habitat Conservation Area so I'm very pleased to see that staff pursued an alternative Trail alignment and that it has such positive um impacts on um the habitat Conservation Area so thank you very much great thank you Mary and then mirbi Aon and Mark mirbi um also I guess I though I was not on Council when this was voted for it was one of the things that kind of kicked me off into also being interested to run for Council and so I appreciate the realignment because I've been big um opponent of of this north sky Trail uh and so I I really do appreciate the alignment as well and the hopeful protection of the h um just one quick question for you does it also just because again I I don't have the maps in front of me but I had been working on this in the beginning of my term is it also still protecting the

[119:00] um rattlesnake hibernacula that I know before had been threatened more severely I do know they have um they have inventoried those and and it is um offering a an increased setback from the the uh identified hibernacula yes and so is there anything left I I understand we're still going to have to deal with some of the weeds being transported back and forth through the bike tires and and still human impact but is I mean overall would you say it's a 75% decrease in Impact or do you have a percentage of H how much this will decrease the impact I don't I I I don't have the a percentage but I do know that there is intention to um uh do several years because they do have Baseline some baseline inventory data obviously and to do some monitoring information and so I believe they will uh have that that information available unfortunately until you you know determine the the final alignment and

[120:01] actually construct it it really is hard to hard to gauge those impacts okay but it's this this option is basically the best option for being least invasive that we can come up with definitely yes great thank you very much you're are welcome thank you mby Ain and then Mark Aaron well I I did vote for the the north PSA back a few years ago and uh and this uh the imposing the having the trail go up into the HCA was the most concerning part of the whole plan um and I know at the time we hoped that we could get these easements and so very pleased uh that we were in fact able to acquire them so Bethany thank you to you and open space staff for all your work in making this happen and I look forward to that Trail opening in 2024 thank you thank you Aon Mark well as is often the case I'm I'm left to Second Mary's comments and agree with them in their entirety which I do I I do have only one question which is um

[121:03] how was the purchase price arrived at um the purchase price for this easement uh we had actually had an appraisal on the neighboring property um and so on the on the Foothills Business Park uh Trail easement we we went through an appraisal process and so um this this because it's a a very similar uh property obviously and adjacency um similar development potential similar restrictions things like that we were able to to use those values to negotiate that purchase price okay and and thank you for the work on this uh I think it's a terrific outcome thank you thank you thank you Mark B uh Sam if there were no more questions on this item I was gonna move the consent agenda I I have a comment so before you move the consent agenda I will join my colleagues in saying I'm super excited about this outcome uh I did vote for the north sky Trail in the north um uh Trail study area it was uh this was the key point

[122:00] for me was that this uh easement was a possibility and we knew that we would pursue it strongly so I'm very happy that we got it because it does complete I think the faith that we um stated with everyone that we would push really hard to get this alignment so um and I'm glad to see all the interest in this uh I think it speak speaks well to everybody that we were able to get this done and stay away from the hibernaculum as well as the habitat Conservation Area so with that Bob have a motion uh thanks Sam uh I move the entire consent agenda except for items G and H and and is that as amended with the new item for calling the special meeting I'm sorry yes with the new item P for the special meeting so um a through P but not g or H which we've agreed to move off to another meeting second great we have a motion in a second and Alicia I believe this is a roll call Vote Yes you are on there you go yes sir it is thank you I'm I'm on out of rhythm I

[123:01] apologize council member wallik hi Weaver hi Yates yes young yes rocket Hi friend yes Joseph hi Nagel hi stick yes sir mayor the consent agenda has passed unanimously with the removal of g& as amended and the additional 3p item awesome thank you Alicia all right our next item on this agenda is our call up checkins item 4A thank you and I would just turn Nua I see that staff has a presentation did

[124:00] you want to do that or was that a back pocket presentation I believe we had um certainly we'll let staff weigh in Jacob if you want to take that on I know that they were prepared to answer some questions thank you Nora no presentation on this item but prepare to answer questions as need did and uh I'll leave it at that awesome thank you with that I will turn to council we can either have a motion or questions on the call up item I'm not seeing question so I will invite a motion Sam we do we need a motion if we just you're right I take it back I apologize I kind of lost track if does anyone have any interest in calling this up okay seeing none I think we can move on to the next item Alicia all right sir item 4B um is the call up item regarding a three-year extension of development

[125:01] approval for the use review L 20162 for attached residential in an industrial zoning District Associated amenities located at 3289 airport vard Volos condos is a new neighborhood of 70 homes planned in a five building condominum Community compromised of one two and three bedroom for sale homes that include on-site permanently affordable units and five live work Condominiums construction has been completed on the first three of five buildings and the applicant has pre-sell 50% of the units the building permits are issued for the final two buildings with construction expected to begin at the end of 2021 thank you Alicia and I apologize to everyone I had items 4 a and 4 B mixed up so now I'll turn to n and see is there a presentation that staff wants to give here there is we have Elaine mlin

[126:01] ready um with a quick presentation yeah uh I can go over this uh quickly Elaine mlin uh case managed this application and just um uh next slide please it's essentially a um um it's an extension of their development approval and planning board voted unanimously to extend the um development approval for another three years they're essentially just in the middle of construction and they just need to wrap it up um I have more slides it's um at council's pleasure if you'd like to additional information but um essentially it's um just allowing them to continue with their Construction okay very good uh I will now turn to council does anyone have any questions comments or desire to call this item

[127:02] up all right I am not seeing one uh with that Alicia I think we can move on all right sir next on our agenda we have our public hearings item 5A is the second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt or 8474 submitting to the qualified register electors of the city of Boulder at the municipal coordinated election to be held on Tuesday November 2nd 2021 the question submitted as an initiated ordinance whether the city of Boulder shall adopt changes to the boulder revised code to require that any agreement with University of Colorado regarding terms of annexation for the land known as CU South including certain specific details and that the annex agreement gain voter approval in an election prior to provide provision of City Utilities and services other than Flo flood control facilities two are on any portion of Cu South setting forth

[128:01] the ballot title specifying the form of the ballot and other election procedures and setting forth related details and I would like to just jump in here real quick and um before I hand this off to Louise Toro uh I would like to just mention that you know as many of you know council member Yates and Joseph have recused themselves from taking action on the CU South resolution and Annex ordinance ORD ordinance excuse me due to uh previous employment with CU tonight Council will consider uh CU South ballot measure um under agenda item 5A I have advised uh council member Yates and Joseph that uh um I do not believe that they need to recuse themselves from this matter um this uh matter does not involve a discretionary decision it's more ministerial than discretionary in that Council can either

[129:01] vote to pass it as an ordinance on first reading which council did not do or place it on the ballot Council must do one or the other but in both circumstances the initiative is either adopted or it goes to the voters um secondly our um our code of conduct would require recusal if there was a direct benefit I do not believe that this action would provide any direct benefit to CU and for those reasons I have advised those council members that they do not need to recuse themselves and with that I'll hand it over to Lise Toro um thank you Sandra and U uh good good evening uh Mr Mayor and members of city council I'm bringing to you first the CU South ordinance as as Sandra mentioned this is essentially ministerial section 40 of the charter says that if a petition has been found sufficient by the clerk that will be certified to the council it's been done

[130:01] and unless the committee of petitioners withdraws the petition the council shall take final action including setting the title prior to 70 calendar days before the November election so that's what we're asking here you here to do today uh I should mention also that the charter says that Council should confer with the uh committees involved and and to fulfill that I reached out on your behalf to the three committees and uh one of them did suggest a change but as far as the CU South petitioner group uh they don't request any change in the ballot title you see before you which is the same as the ballot language that went out on the petitions and was approved by the city clerk this spring so uh unless there's any questions the uh the uh I guess I'd say if if the if Council does want to make a change we'd request that it be done on emergency so that it could be final today you know there's certain deadlines coming up about finalizing ballot content uh but

[131:01] the other than that this is just a a hearing on setting the title and there's no recommended changes to what you see before you oh and one other thing I should mention is uh it says ballot question number 300 and something and this is kind of a sneak preview of The Coming Attraction for next week which is uh setting the the order of the initiatives and we're not presuming any order uh tonight but we do know that that voter initiated or citizen initiated ordinances will be numbered in the 300s and so that's why I put 3xx it'll be 301 or who knows the it's up to the county clerk because they have to uh balance all the municipalities in in the county and so we won't necessarily get 301 it might be some other number but it'll be we know it'll be in the 300s very good thank you Louis um Council any questions for staff great seeing no questions for

[132:01] staff I think we're ready for the public hearing we have 11 people signed up for the public hearing so each speaker will have three minutes our first three speakers on this item are saridon Haynes ly seagull and Evan rabbits uh Saron you are up and you have three minutes when you're ready hi good evening thank you my name is Sarah Don Hayes and I'm a resident of South Boulder and I am um not in favor of this I know that of the um the um inex I'm supportive of the annexation of SE South and something about this that I feel has been missed from um the the petition text is the process that CU has for a campus master plan and what that means into the um into the process and so when we review the campus master

[133:02] plan presentations they were really clear this spring that there would be a separate process for CU South and so I don't know how that fits into this and the um it just seems really odd to me that the community would be voting on the campus Master Plan full disclosure I do work for CU and I also am a leader in the environmental and climate Justice movement and so I find the annexation agreements um set forth and the potential for carbon um sequestration in our buildings and maybe even living building um possibilities really exciting and I um am not again I'm not sure how this plays in but I do want to make sure that it's clear that there's a separate process for uh campus master plan thank you and good luckk you sidon next we have Lyn seagull Evan rabit and Margaret LM

[134:01] Lynn the worst possible thing for the city of Boulder is to have the see you South Second campus worst possible environment hazard to the city of Boulder in so many ways we can't handle one campus in the city the Delta virus luckily wasn't around when those kids did the big party up on the hill that was before the Delta virus the environmental losses I you know I heard the helicopters going around today uh up on the an enemy Trail they're building rock steps you know this is our open space okay and you want to bring more people to Boulder you know what it costs to run those helicopters to bring

[135:01] steps onto our open space Pathways any concept of the costs of each human being that you add to this community and a whole another campus are you people nuts don't even go there don't even think about it we've got covid we've got climate change and you're building another campus come on now you know babies have young lungs and they're not being vaccinated and this Delta virus can go straight into them and you know what they might have low symptoms they might have you know you might not even know they got it but you'll know they got it when they're 30 40 years old just like Rocky Flats and plutonium you don't know the long-term

[136:00] ramifications human beings overpopulation another campus on CU South is crazy absolutely nuts I'm ashamed of the city for you even beginning to think about adding another campus to this place that is just nuts you should be ashamed of yourself each one of you that is even entertained the idea of this and Sarah my God you know you're an environmentalist this is not an environmental campus you know what I got something to read to you from Hogan pancost a vote in favor of annexation will establish a precedent cementing the fact that intentionally destroying Wetlands is an acceptable procedure for getting your land annexed into Boulder

[137:01] Colorado that was from Hogan pancost this is serious stuff this is a bribe don't take it thank you Lynn next we have Evan rabbitz Margaret LMP and Gary erling Evan the railroading of the CU South annexation is an attempt to preempt citizens and our CU South ballot initiative petition which we sign how hypocritical since the mayor has told the state to quote get the hell out of the way to let us make our own gun laws article two of the co Colorado Constitution our Bill of Rights says section one all political power is vested in and deriv from the people all government of right originates from the people is founded upon their will only and is instituted solely for the good of the whole our constitution also makes

[138:00] citizen ballot initiatives Superior to laws made by Representatives this can be clearly seen in Article Five I'm sorry Article Five section one part 4 which states The veto power of the governor shall not extend to measures initiated by or referred to the people the people's word is final sidelining citizens is standard for this Council here are four other examples the city is being sued by physicians for social responsibility for colluding with the county to deny public public hearings on the so-called Rocky Mountain Greenway two the city went dark in 2019 to stop citizen participation in the details of

[139:01] our first in the country online petitioning system with the result that over a thousand people were unable to use it three the city never held public hearings on spending $3 million this year to chase the home less from one Camp to another when it could have provided tiny homes for about a hundred people with that amount of money when four when previous mayor Jones retired mayor Weaver gave her special kudos for her success in reducing citizen comments from three minutes to two getter done has become council's motto meaning quick and dirty and in the dark where democracy dies thank you Evan give me a moment

[140:00] here next we have Margaret LM Gary erling and Jim MC McMillan Margaret can you hear me we can okay I'm Margaret LMP I live in the Frasier Meadows neighborhood cu's pressure on the city for annexation has got to be counteracted by let voters Boulder voters decide on CU South's um ballot initiative the city is perpetrating a fraud by allowing its citizens to believe a 100-year flood plane will as many of them say finally get us out of the flood plane but you can't get out of the flood plane you can only be more or less protected we're only getting 100-year protection because C forbade the city to provide anymore and Council gave in CU so-called gift of land for flood mitigation is in the wrong place and far too small for the detention needed the city knew this When It revie reversed its own 200 2017 decision for a

[141:03] 500 year of flood protection capitulated to see use demands for more land to develop means giving away any chance to preserve flexibility against future climate change induce bigger floods cu's buildout will destroy critical open space its increased light water and noise pollution will wreak havoc on the adjacent highly protected State Natural Area which Boulder taxpayers have paid for Boulder needs to let voter voters decide initiative to correct a completely irregular annexation process number one public engagement has been minimal outre to affected neighborhoods hasn't happened two drafts of the annexation agreement remain incomp complete complete vague and contradictory they're released so late that the public and advisory boards can't respond adequately three staffs has staff has failed to rep to provide critical information about annexation impacts

[142:00] requested by advisory boards for as much as four years since February council members have held more than 19 closed door meetings with CU officials over annexation the public is in the dark about decisions made in these meetings a major violation of Section 8 of the city Charter and state Sunshine laws five decisions have been fast-tracked without knowing if Regulatory Agencies will even approve them like the access point at Highway 93 six the studies used to argue the CU used to argue for annexation minimal impact on the city were paid for by CU clearly not a disinterested party seven C promises to give land to the city but in small prce says that the city will actually have to pay for most of it at cu's Price eight annexation will increase runoff and flood risks in adjacent and downstream neighborhoods and finally Boulder residents will

[143:01] subsidize cu's development with big increases in utility bills over which they have no control all in the name of flood mitigation our ballot initiative will counteract such taxation without consent and require the city to get annexation done right thank you thank you Margaret next we have Gary erling Jim McMillan and Nicholas lindsen Gary by the city council that would deny the voters their opinion on the contract that the city has put forth with cu it's inappropriate for short-term council members to sign long-term contracts that buy the citizens to pay the bills when they have

[144:00] no chance to vote for or against it now my look at the council says that five members who are on the council today will either be up for reelection or not running for re election two members have said they have received funding from CU which says they needed to recuse themselves there's also one member whose property value of her home may be increased or decreased by the flood plan she should recuse herself that means there is only one person in city council today who will maybe who will be for sure in part of the city council after the November elections who is not in some way being

[145:01] financially compensated by CU so we talk a lot about Republicans trying to suppress votes this is indication of Cu or I'm sorry of City Council trying to suppress the vote of the city residents on a matter that's long-term consequences anyway thank you and please think about voters right thank you Gary next we have Jim McMillan Nicholas lenson and Alan delir Jim can you hear me we can all right well uh Council I appreciate your service and but with all due respect uh I think you're out of touch with your constituents on this matter and trying to get in front of us um and our petition the citizens

[146:01] petition to FasTrack the annexation and I second the comments of Margaret and Gary before me and I would just you know implore you to please listen to your constituents and let the citizens vote on this annexation as per the citizens initiative before greenlighting it and trying to get ahead of the citizens and basically practice a very anti-democratic um Council action the justification that urgency is needed on annexation for flood mitigation is an outright falsehood CU could allow flood mitigation to proceed without or before any possible annexation they simply refus to and the council not representing its citizens of effectively rolls over and seemingly takes this uh as the terms of the debate the father of of flood plane management Gilbert white uh an eminent professor at Cu uh to whom

[147:00] the memorial flood marker uh at the Confluence of uh down downtown Boulder by the municipal building uh is is dedicated to um he'd be rolling in his grave see seeing CU push this misguided maximum development in or adjacent to such a major flood plane that has a huge character uh in defining the Boulder Valley and the city you know honors him with this flood plane marker and many of us have moved to Boulder and have paid our higher taxes and support Boulder because of its environmental ethic and yet this current annexation with an undefined annexation greenlighted when flood mitigation could proceed without doing the annexation uh is really throwing that under the bus the historic respect for the Integrity of the Boulder Valley ecosystem uh is just is just being disregarded there's a huge amount of

[148:00] hydrological impacts this flood plane has and reducing the permeability through this large development uh adjacent or or on the flood plane raised by fil dirt will damage that annexation needs to be well defined it needs uh to demonstrate actual Community benefits more traffic in noise reduced flood plane ecosystem function and destruction of the Boulder Valley Green Belt Integrity doesn't do this moreover lastly 100-year mitigation it's not enough as others have already said and based that's based on historical data looking back we are in the time of climate change and it is upon us event rain events are coming more intensely more furiously and we need to mitigate at a higher level than 100 Years thank you very much thank you Jim next we have Nicholas lenson alen delir and James Morris Nicholas Nicholas you may need to press

[149:02] star six there you go um good evening uh my name is Nick lenson I've been a boulder resident since 1996 my comments this evening are on the ballot measure not so much on the pros and cons of annexation and I've already communicated with Council um via letters to you emails on annexation and I'm sure I'll have a separate opportunity to further elaborate on my position there I will say though that I believe Jim McMillan's uh just pre prior comments were very astute and very clear and I uh think it's um that you should listen to them but anyway as such I strongly urge the council to place the ballot measure on the November 2021 ballot of the general election um I yeah I also request the city council not approving the annexation agreement with CU prior to the November 21st election in doing so you may uh really jeopardize the

[150:00] perception of democracy or the reality of democracy in Boulder um as I think a prior speaker alluded to it would reflect in the ways the US Senate has operated with Supreme Court nominations both uh in 2016 both Merrick Garland and more recently um with Amy Cony Bryant this past fall um you may recall that the citizens attempted to place this ballot measure on the November 2020 ballot but due to incorrect information from the then City attorney led to its failure so this is not an 11th Hour effort by uh citizens that elected you to council to ask to have a vote on any future annexation agreement it is a long-term decision that uh many of us have made in fact remembering very well since 199 actually um since 1996 when uh um CU swept under the darkness of night to buy the uh South South Boulder property um

[151:01] Jim Crane would no doubt be rolling over his grave if he knew what was going on in the city council currently with the annexation agement but for the sake of democracy and Boulder I really urge you to not ignore the wishes of thousands of Boulder C citizens and Boulder voters to do so really jeopardizes the perception and the reality of democracy in Boulder thank you very much thank you Nick next we have Alan delir James Morris and Stephen talene and from my notes Here Allan has a presentation Alan you should be able to unmute yourself okay I'm un muted okay there were two guest presentations made you look at slide two uh Sam made one and I made one recently I gave Sam an a for his

[152:01] understanding of climate change but I gave him an F for failing to mention that the city plan only dealt with 100 year flood and I in mine I felt very strong that we really need to have the update of the 2004 comprehensive flood and storm motor Master Plan before voting on a annexation next slide that plan er comprehensive plan H is in the process of being updating and it's a two and a half year process which really horrified me when I found out it was so long and I went into it and started looking for pacifics in the plan and I realized there was a lot of action items that should have taken place have they taken place and how does the flood of

[153:03] 2013 cast to pluda flood and the three floods we just had recently at Ninth and B Balsam how does that work into it so I started delving further the next slide uh I looked at the storm water master plan of June 2007 and this is really an excellent plan much better than all the other plans which have generalities in them this has got explicit actions defined with detailed cost estimates however not all the work from 2007 is completed yet and uh there's a plan a foot to raise the water utility flood portion of the bill by 12% in order to help accelerate implementation but this plan also needs updating and my obvious thing is ninth and Bal some flood needs to be identified and fixed so then my next slide are we there yet and my

[154:02] answer is no we need to do our homework by reviewing the existing plans you know the the three plans the uh the one I mentioned the comprehensive flooding Soul motor plan the multihazard mitigation plan I spent some time going through that and that's got lots of good stuff in it but it really needs another update this was last updated in March 2018 and of course the storm water plan here's a little extract what I pulled out of the multihazard plan the likelihood of for future occurrences highly likely climate change considerations 100-year flood may become more frequent event in the future some of it may be even a 50y year maybe year it may be five or a 10 year for another uh flood like 2013 so that's less than adequate so all

[155:01] I can do is encourage each of you on Council to go and do your homework like I've done in mine and thank you Alan thank you your time is up appreciate it next we have James Morris stepen t and Thomas Rogers James you should be able to unmute now James okay hello I'm Jim Morris I live in South Boulder um I gathered some signatures for this ballot people of All Sorts enthusiastically signed all sorts of places in the mountain parks along the creek at the CU South area um please allow Boulder citizens to vote on this please stop attempts to prevent a vote by rushing through an annexation agreement with CU there are many recent changes in the annexation agreement the office space was increased by 50% the planning board voted against it the details if CU wants to sell off

[156:00] the property and whether Boulder gets enough time and a reasonable amount of not having too big of increase in the price if C's trying to sell it to some developer who would pay if there is a disaster if there is a flood does Boulder have to pay CU how much the wisdom of building in the flood plane versus CU building in the reserve C use plans to increase its students by a thousand students per year to eventually double from 35,000 students to 70,000 students building 4,000 square foot private homes doing a 100-year flood plan plan instead of a 500-year flood plan using the gravel mining ponds to catch the and store the flood waters instead of filling them in and building on top of them um here are some quotes that remind me to Value nature in wildness is the preservation of the World by thoro the sunshine flows

[157:02] not on us but in us the river flows not past us but through us as long as I live I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing by mure if there's magic in the world it is contained in water Lauren iy David Brower you want a place where you can be Serene that if need be can stir up stir you up as you were made to be stirred up until you blend with the wind and water and Earth you almost forgot you came from Extinction is not something to contemplate it is something to rebel against they're two endangered species in a native Tall Grass Prairie here that was Jonathan shell develop a boundless ethic which contains all living things schweiter sit by a river find peace and meaning in the rhythm of the lifeblood of the earth me visit weapons watch colors change at dawn and dusk hear bird songs and the wor of wings me in leaning into the world we make ourselves

[158:01] receptive to the world's profuse Beauty and we become exuberant more Fully Alive Sandra lubarski immerse yourself in nature quietly listen smell watch taste and touch nurture your conscience protect nature defend the garden of your spirit me when the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more another heaven and another Earth must pass before such a one can be again William BB we travel together thank you James thank you we appreciate your input your time is up next we have Stephen toen and Thomas Rogers Stephen yes thank you um my name is stepen toen I live in The keden Meadows part of Boulder um and uh tonight your vote is not on the

[159:01] subject of whether or not you want to support the proposed CU South draft agreement the vote tonight is on whether or not you support democracy and the right of all our citizens to have a say in the future course and obligations for which we as a community will be responsible long after you have left office all the signatures on this initiative were collected by Boulder citizens who volunteered their own time none were collected by people paid to gather signatures the required number of signatures to put this initiative on the ballot were certified while the CU City negotiations were still in progress and before even a draft agreement had been reached without a reasonable and good faith reason a vote for not putting this initiative on the November ballot represents a slap in the face to the initiative process and the citizens you purportedly represent I emphasize good faith because a vote against placing

[160:02] this fully certified initiative on the ballot in November based on the assumption that the council will approve the agreement before the election is clearly a bad faith argument given that the requisite number of signatures were certified before the agreement was completed before it was presented for public comment and before it was presented to council for first reading the argument that the council will likely approve this agreement before the election is clearly in bad faith a good faith solution would be for you to place this certified initi on the initiative on the November ballot and if you truly want to avoid legal ambiguity add a clause to the current draft agreement to the effect that this agreement will not take effect until after the November 2021 elections and if the citizen initiative passes it is subject to the results of a city-wide election on the

[161:00] agreement itself I urge you to do the right thing and vote to place the certified citizen initiative on the November ballot to do otherwise would not only be a display of bad faith on the part of council but in admission that this agreement may not represent the safeguards and obligations that the majority of Boulder voters want thank you thank you Stephen and finally we have Thomas Rogers uh thank you I've chosen not uh decided not to speak on this issue thank you okay thank you with that we will bring um the public hearing on this item to a close and bring it back to council um Council the floor is open for questions comments or a motion Mark and then Aon I in response to the last speaker I assume uh am I correct that that not putting this on

[162:01] the ballot is not an option that we're either going to put it on the ballot or adopt it at first reading yes that's that's correct and you've already made that decision not to adopt it so really the all that's going on here is approving the title and I didn't hear any speakers suggest any changes to the title I just wanted them to be responsive to that speaker okay thank you thanks Mark Aon just wanted to ask a clarifying question about something that one member of the public brought up um they suggested that that someone whose house value might possibly be affected by a flood project should recuse themselves from this matter I think we've heard that's not the case Sandra can can you or Lis can you apply on that please um I'm I'm happy to say that in in general there if you benefit in the same way as the public at large then that's not considered a conflict of interest if if you benefit by virtue of your status as a member of the community that's

[163:02] going to be benefited by something as opposed to specifically steering something towards you that's not considered a a conflict of interest so no no need to recuse in the circumstance in other words that would be my opinion great thank you I would concur with that thank you great thank you both um there are there are many uh things that were asserted during testimony I will say that um tonight's actions really don't have much to do with the substance of the issue we are acting again in a Mis ministerial fashion uh as our city attorneys office has told us on all three of the items uh for public hearing tonight this one and the next two um so with that I don't believe that there's a lot of options here so would definitely invite somebody to make a motion to move this

[164:02] forward nearby uh thanks Sam um I'll just make it simple I moved to put this motion um on the ballot for 2021 election second very good mirbi would you like to speak to your motion um I just think this is incredibly important I mean I'll I may not be on for all three uh of these as I have an early excuse my cat um as I have an early work dat tomorrow but I support putting all three uh ballots on this uh yours or all three um petitions on this ballot because they got the required signatures and this is the Democratic process and I may not agree with some or all of them but I do believe that this is the right thing to do to put these on so that the people can have um the voice that they so rightly deserve and um the work has been done the signatures have been gathered and they have been

[165:01] certified and so this is this is what we agree to do as um keepers of the democratic process and so this this is what I'm doing so good luck good luck to those petitions thanks meby and Mark I think with a second right would you like to speak to it um yeah I'll I'll uh reiterate what uh what miror has said um you know I'm not going to speak to the substance of it uh signatures have been collected the work's been done it's been certified and I would say this for all three um it's a relatively easy uh formula for me uh the the initiatives have done what they needed to do to be on the ballot let's put them on the ballot excellent okay would anyone else like to speak to this at all awesome seeing No One Alicia I believe this is a roll call vote is that correct that is correct sir and we will start with you mayor Weaver

[166:02] hi council member Yates yes young yes Brocket I friend yes Joseph hi Nagel hi stick yes M wallik hi mayor ordinance 8474 was adopted unanimously very good thank you so much Alicia and with that I think we're ready for the next item all right next on our agenda is public hearing number two number uh item 5B second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt ordinance 8475 submitting to the qualified electors of the city of Boulder at the municipal coordinated election to be held on Tuesday November 2nd 2021 the

[167:00] question submitted as an initiated ordinance whether the city of Boulder shall expand access to housing by allowing all housing units to be occupied by a number of people equal to the number of legal bedrooms plus one additional persons per home provided that relevant health and safety codes are met setting forth the ballot title specifying the form of the ballot and other election procedures and setting forth related details thank you Alicia Lise do you have anything you'd like to walk us through here uh there's not much to add from the previous one uh this is uh I guess I should say that this is another group that has not proposed any changes to the ballot title this is the ballot title that was uh submitted or approved by the clerk in consultation with the Committees to go out to uh get gather signatures and I conferred with the the petitioners committee and they didn't suggest that any changes be made to the ballot title on this

[168:01] one thank you very good um with that we will consider that the staff presentation thank you we will turn to the public hearing um we have 57 people signed up to speak on this I will reiterate that this is a ministerial function for Council we are going to Simply Be voting on uh whether or not to put this on the ballot and to set the title and we have very little choice in the matter of whether to put this on the ballot or not so um you're all welcome to speak as much as you'd like but we um won't be addressing the the substance of the issue tonight and with that I will turn to the public hearing our first three speakers are Nisha schneep biona pigot and Philip ogren because of the large number of folks signed up we'll have two minutes per person and Nisha you are up hi I am Nisha schne a brown

[169:00] queer person living in South Boulder who volunteers with bedrooms are for people and out Boulder County at the start of this month out Boulder County endorsed the bedrooms are for people ballot measure this was out Boulder County's first ever ballot measure endorsement and I'm very proud of what it means for our trans and career communities Boulder was the first town in Colorado to permit same-sex marriage and our state's first openly gay Governor comes from our town despite this for most of our current occupancy laws 50 plus year existence same-sex marriages were illegal and maintaining a neighborhood's character has meant keeping its cisgender heterosexual composition even today Boulder's outdated home occupancy limits mean that it is legal for four unmarried queer people to safely share a four bedroom home together currently many queer tenants living in Boulder face fear of eviction and some have no legal standing to negotiate with their landlords since they are not on the lease the out Boulder County 2021 covid

[170:02] impact study found that over a third of the trans and queer people of color respondents had lost their housing during the pandemic and another 52% of respondents of color were afraid that they'd lose their housing this year for our neighbors who already share their homes with their chosen communities this law gives them the peace of mind to live openly in their neighborhoods and in their everyday lives being out queer and proud having a rainbow flag isn't enough please join out Boulder County in taking a real stand for Boulder's trans and queer communities and please Place bedrooms are for people on the ballot as written thank you thank you Nisha next we have Fiona pigot Philip augen and Ryan Tanner F hi hi hi my name is Fiona pigot and I live in South Boulder I'm speaking in support of the bedrooms are for people ballot measure and I'd like to share my

[171:00] housing story I moved to Boulder in 2010 to go to school and never left now I work in software here in January of 2020 I pulled money with a housemate a therapist who works in low-income clinics to buy our house where we live with two additional housemates the income from Rent rooms helps us pay the mortgage and our housemates have a place in Boulder that's near buses has bike storage and is near their work I haven't spoken to anyone who thinks that our house six bedrooms and three cars to four people and one dog is ruining the neighborhood indeed I often tell my story when discussing occupancy limits and I've been told that my situation isn't a problem as the rule is only needed to quote keep students under control people admit that they want occupancy limits as an option to evict their least favorite neighbors control hungry neighborhood groups have no problem with households of people they like or know personally bending the rules but they agitate to narrow any expansion of housing to exclude students impose income restrictions and exempt certain neighborhoods excluding people from housing stifles communities and reduces opportunities for people like me and my housemates I lived in Boulder for 10 years many times over occupied before

[172:01] buying a house with a housemate sharing and living with more than three roommates enabled me to come to Boulder to save money to stay in Boulder as a student an intern and later a professional and to build a community here in Boulder I hope that passing bedrooms are for people will make it possible for more people to find Community here thanks that's it thank you very much F next we have Philip augen Ryan Tanner and Eric Bud Phillip hello uh my name is Philip ogren and um I'm sorry I got and I live in Boulder near Baseline in Foothills I want to share my positive vision of what life could be like here in Boulder when we get serious about tackling climate change diversity equity and inclusion a lack of a meaningful purpose for the economy and our widespread Mental Health crisis that is characterized by isolation and hopelessness I want to live in a large pedestrian District where cars are scarce and asphalt is considered a scar on the earth to be

[173:00] used sparingly where I can walk 15 minutes to everywhere I need to go for my daily needs where I can walk out the door and see Neighbors gardening children exploring by the creek or teens playing ultimate frisbee in the park a neighborhood where I can walk to the corner and grab a drink with a friend and local artist share music I want to live in an apartment a condo or part of a house that has plenty of space so that I can sleep quietly prepare a meal and work productively but I do not want or need extra rooms for a pool table or a Lego collection or for some kind of Museum where my grown children's things are preserved I do not need a large basement to store boxes of stuff that I have accumulated over the years I reject many of the other reasons why people live in large houses by themselves I want to live a life that is Rich with social connection that limits my negative impact on the planet and makes room for others who want to do the same but today most of Boulder is yet another city that is built up around the prime directive of suburban sprawl that everyone will drive nearly everywhere for nearly every reason our space has been handed over to

[174:01] vast Acres of asphalt for car storage and conveyance in order to serve large single family homes that occupy vast Acres of lawn grass in private yards so I think it is a double insult to the planet and to those who cannot afford to live here that we have alized one or two people living in these large houses by themselves and that and that we have made many other reasonable configurations illegal our occupancy restrictions need meaningful reform now it will be good for the planet and good for us please put that measure on the ballot as written thank you thank you philli next we have Ryan Tanner Eric bud and Blake Stone Ryan uh oh hang on hang on I'm sorry I just got a note um it seems like Blake Stone and Sarah sorry Ryan blakestone is pooling with Sarah Campbell and Ryan Tanner so Ryan won't be speaking now so

[175:00] then we have Eric Bud Blake Stone and Sarah Don Haynes Eric you'll have two minutes Blake if you have your other two folks here you'll get four minutes Eric you're up thank you very much uh my name is Eric bud I live in Boulder and I'm a co-lead on the bedrooms are for people campaign what you're hearing tonight is an outpouring from people many of them Volunteers in our campaign who want to change Boulder's discriminatory housing occupancy limits we have an incredibly diverse team on this on this Grassroots campaign vets are for people we are homeowners we are renters we are older we are younger some of us have been directly impacted by these discriminatory laws and all of us know that we need to make changes that expand access to housing in Boulder for everyone we've been working to get bedrooms on the people on the ballot since 2015 we've been lobbying Boulder City Council for decades to change these

[176:00] discriminatory laws and yet again this year you have decided not to take action on this important issue so we are here to bring this change to the people we're asking you tonight to put our measure on the ballots per the staff recommendation thank you very much thank you Eric then next we have Blake Stone uh Blake we have you is pooling with Sarah Campbell and Ryan Tanner um I'm assuming that those are here so you will have four minutes okay thank you you can hear me yes we can I have been a resident of the B of the city of Boulder for the last 17 years and for seven of those years I have worked in healthc care my bachelor's and Masters degrees are from Boulder universities during the pandemic pandemic lockdown I worked for the boulder homeless shelter for people with covid-19 and I currently work for Boulder Community Hospital and in Elder Care I love working in health care even with all its problems because I believe

[177:01] everyone deserves care whether or not we are related in Buddhism we would call this interdependence that we are all in this together and US them mentality is not why healthcare workers are currently putting themselves at risk to care for patients regardless of their vaccine status so please with this in mind I beg you to hear me out before you conclude I'm just some shill for the other side whatever that may mean to you my life as I conceive of it is not an escalator never have I been as never have I aspired to be married or have children I am not an investor and I'm not building an empire of people who look like me and I do not have a single family member living in this state I am queer and Bolder has been my reluctant Refuge adoption used to be very taboo and I think this is how the idea of a chosen or functional family still lands with many people I can understand that but since I work in Elder Care I meet so many people who have no relatives this includes wi includes widows and widowers

[178:00] people who have divorced or lost grown children but also others including many LGBT community like myself whether you respect the idea of adults living together in a chosen functional family or not it is how I've been living my life for the last 17 years in Boulder because Boulder's occupancy law discriminates against familial status it means I've been living illegally yes that means after working 12-hour shifts in the hospital I've come home to worries about whether new neighbors will report our four-bedroom home for having four adults living in it as you can imagine this has been very stressful for me and many others who share this situation we have tried repeatedly for several years to get a city council to change the limit or modifi language of the occupancy law and every time it's been dismissed it is difficult to express in just a few minutes the huge impact the occupancy law has had on my life at times I felt very angry with the city and those who have gone out of their way to obstruct this reform I've put my energies into research I've learned that in Boulder a bedroom must have its own window its own door not

[179:01] from another bedro bedroom and be at least 70 square feet this means it is impossible to outfit a 3,000 foot home with 20 bedrooms unless that house is entirely windows and has no kitchen or bathrooms in which case it would not be code I've also looked into the history of court cases on occupancy laws and they all seem to rest on the idea of traditional family values and discouraging quote alternative Lifestyles States like Ohio and Iowa have Ohio and I Ohio and Iowa have banned these laws entirely which brings me to the point that the bedrooms are for people initiative is actually quite modest and is not SC it's not scrapping occupancy limits entirely should it fail I will go get a law degree run Colorado State Legislature and sponsor build Banning occupancy laws like Boulders all because again the occupancy limit affects our daily lives it's bigger than the inconvenience of too many cars or Street of or on a street or Rowdy students it's our housing L whether we have a place to call home for this

[180:00] reason I want to say to anyone on the fence that it's not too late to change your mind and support the bedrooms are for people campaign out Boulder knows it's a big deal for many of us in the LGBT community and that's why they endorse the bedrooms are for people campaign the first campaign they've ever endorsed and why I'm urging you to adopt ordinance 8475 the bedrooms are for people initiative as written thank you for your time thank you Blake next we have sidon Haynes carlston Nasser and Pier Stella hunt saridon thank you hello sodon here I'm a ballot sponsor for the bedrooms are for people ballot measure and I'm a resident of the W House in South B ER and with many many hours over the last two years working on this ballot measure the housing Justice um efforts in our city over the last seven plus years and reading the recommendations from our comprehensive housing studies over the

[181:00] last 20 years I have a lot of confidence in our work and encourage Council to place bedrooms up for people ballot measure as written on on the ballot for November we've read policy books interviewed experts and most importantly spoken to thousands of our community members about how to best meet economic environmental and social justice needs without adding cost to City efforts this is um just expanding the housing um we already have built this is not Folly it is collective wisdom and a move in the right direction after 50 years of suppressing housing I'm passionate about getting all Runners on leases and I want our Runners to be visible and secure in their rights and have this housing stock available which will be more affordable I want landlords and property managers to have accountability on keeping their housing safe and welcoming to our community thanks so

[182:01] much Saron next we have carlston Nasser Pierce Delah hunt and Anna verer carlston yeah I I'll re yield my time to uh the rest of the team thank you carlston next we have Pierce Delah hunt Anna verer and Rebecca Davies Pierce I am not seeing Pierce although I have seen Pierce before this evening so I will let you know if Pierce appears Again Sam sounds good and that will bring up Anna you should be able to unmute Anna just got it thank you um hello my name is Anna verer I was born in Boulder and I've lived here most of my life I am an early childhood educator and a graduate student at CU I teach at a monory

[183:01] preschool in South Boulder living in physical proximity to my job has always been very important to me both to help reduce my carbon footprint and to be culturally immersed in the community where I work every year it becomes more challenging for me to afford to live in Boulder on the income of an early childhood teacher and more of the friends I grew up with move away because they cannot afford to live here anymore I know a retired teacher who has lived in Boulder for 60 years and is now on disability even with subsidiary funds from the government living in designated affordable housing she is still paying $800 a month to rent a one-bedroom trailer it is extremely sad for myself and people like her to be Christ out of our own Hometown I have volunteered off and on in my church soup kitchen since I was about 11 years old over the last 15 years some of the same people are still regulars at our meals these people are long-term members of our community and some of them struggle with cognitive

[184:01] disabilities physical disabilities all of them struggle with a general lack of a support network the bedrooms are for people ballot measure was recently endorsed by the emergency family assistance association specific specifically because it would help families experiencing housing insecurity in Boulder I have researched the criticisms of opposing Boulder bedrooms or for people I don't think that this measure would completely eradicate homelessness nor would it single-handedly solve our affordable housing crisis but I have yet to hear a single criticism including those recently espoused by council member Bob Yates that convinced me that this initiative would cause harm to anyone in our community I believe strongly that it would help myself the friends I grew up with and the financially struggling families in my preschool so please let the people of Boulder just vote on this measure as it is written thank you thank you Anna next we have Rebecca Davies Nick Gman and Chessie castiano

[185:05] Rebecca hi hear me we can okay great thanks um yeah thanks thank you Council for your time so Boulders occupancy limit law has been around about 50 years now um sometimes people take for granted that an old law still exists and assume there was some rational decision-making behind it um but I'd like to push back against this idea that just because this law has been around a while that makes it normal or logical to mandate empty bedrooms just because something seemed like a good idea to a few people 50 years ago doesn't mean it's a good idea today in fact 28% of the US population lives in a state where it is illegal for cities to impose this kind of law if Boulder were located in California New York Oregon Washington Iowa New Jersey or Michigan then this law the current occupancy limit law would be unenforceable um the Oregon and Washington state legislatures passed measures just this year Banning cities

[186:02] from considering relationship status when determining occupancy they did so to increase affordability enforce non-discrimination and ensure health and safety it wasn't even a controvers vote in Oregon only one legislator out of 90 dissented um in Washington the bill was titled removing arbitrary limits on housing options so let's dispel this notion that somehow restricting access to housing based on who is related to who is normal when these when these laws are changing fast also keep in mind some things people used to think were normal are you know considered pretty abhorent today um like it used to be normal to prohibit gay and lesbian people from getting married used to be normal to Outlaw inter interracial marriage and it used to be normal to Bar non-white people from living in C certain parts of the city not only is our occupancy current occupancy law not normal or logical it's bizarre that we demand that housemates prove they are a cousin or daughter or Uncle to someone else in

[187:01] their home um it's oldfashioned and invasive and it's time to change please put bedrooms are for people on the ballot as recommended thank you Rebecca next we have Nick Gman Chelsea castiano and Maria culvin Nick hello Council thank you for demonstrating your respect for Boulder voters by placing the recommended title for the bedrooms are for people act on the 2021 ballot as written and approved by the city clerk's office more than 3500 Boulder voters signed the online petition this year to show their support for this exact ballot language and express their desire to have the electorate vote on this specific question in November so it's critical that our elected officials uphold the will to People by maintaining this ballot title as is for decades successive city council majorities have proven unwilling to thoughtfully consider solutions that will give all people in Boulder equal opportunity to

[188:00] choose to share housing the majority of our political Representatives have consistently ignored the community's pleas for Change and disregarded repeated recommendations from City staff Consultants boards and working groups to reform Boulder's home occupancy limits fortunately there is no better way to determine whether or not the majority of Boulders supports equal access to housing than by empowering Boulder voters to consider the merits of the bedrooms are for people act and make this important Community decision for ourselves we all share a common understanding that the current regulatory system is utterly broken and that changes are urgently needed while no one in Boulder can predict the future we can all educate ourselves about this ballot measure and understand the implications of the proposed reform as it is currently written thank you all for showing that you trust your constituents by approving the ballot title as written based on the bedrooms are for people act that

[189:01] thousands of Boulder voters have signed the petition for thank you thank you Nick next we have Chelsea castiano Maria culvin and Theodore kig chelse hello my name is Chelsea Castellano and I am an organizer of bedrooms are for people a citizen-led ballot initiative that will reform Boulder's exclusionary occupancy laws once the community votes to support it in November's election as a co-lead of the campaign I feel as though many people have heard a lot from me on the value of bedrooms are for people but what often gets missed and understated is the value of our amazing team of over 200 volunteers who are some of the most kind compassionate and committed people you will ever meet as you can hear by the testimony you have already heard and will continue to hear

[190:00] our proposed measure is made by the people for the people we are an 100% volunteer run Grassroots campaign we are renters homeowners old young parents single students professionals essential workers retirees environmental stors bike enthusiasts Library Champions animal lovers and people who just genuinely love our community and want to make it better for everybody our measure the bedrooms are for people act is not about bedrooms it's about who does and does not have access to them the simple truth is that Boulder will never be an equitable Community until all people have equal rights to Access housing we believe that everyone should have the freedom to choose who they can live with and that the government should not restrict that freedom for people they so wrongly deemed to be less valuable members of society the bedrooms are for people act brings us one step closer to becoming the Equitable and welcoming

[191:00] community that we are all striving for please put bedrooms are for people um on the ballot as written and enjoy living in a more inclusive community come November thanks you Chelsea next we have Maria culvin Theodore ConEd and may Thelen Maria okay can you hear me now we can great um so I support the bedrooms are for people ballot initiative and I ask you to please place it as written uh on the ballot and here's why um more people perh house I believe is not only good for renters in the environment but it can benefit neighbors as well I lived in a large house of seven people from my mid 20s to my mid-30s which allowed me to afford graduate school and work on my dissertation and my housemates and I didn't make much money because we were

[192:01] busy volunteering in the community for example organizing the neighborhood ecopass being a drop off location for community supported agriculture doing Outreach for ecosy and housing a Precinct Captain so when young people can't afford to live in Boulder the city loses the energy and The Innovation they provide Boler no longer has that alternative Vibe um now I'm at the point in my life where my kids are moving away and I'm starting to think about what comes next and many people in this situation benefit from having the ability to share their homes with others to have a vibrant household people to share the costs and people to share the work it seems remarkably intrusive for local government to say no to these very personal decisions about who I or others choose to live with what possible business is it of the city councils whether the people I choose to

[193:00] live with are related to me in many states the courts have ruled that cities don't have this ability to discriminate between different types of Roommates overruling the uh con institutionally protected right to free association entire States as diverse as Montana and California don't allow this kind of Prohibition in 1973 a conservative state supreme court in Colorado did uphold City's ability to discriminate against the poor the elderly thank you Maria I'm sorry your time is up we appreciate your input okay next we have Theodore kig Ma felen and David Glo Theodore hello can you hear me here we can hi my name is Ted kig and I vote in Boulder I'm speaking this evening in support of the bedrooms are for people B at measure I'd like to emphasize that this is a long time coming I started

[194:01] working on this in the fall of 2015 we investigated the law and history of the law and housing and Boulder and frankly found a long record of inaction and ineffective action stagnation in housing stock with jobs outpacing uh housing capacity and Rising prices were already apparent six years ago in fact reports commissioned by the city made clear that these problems were apparent years before that as we dug deeper we found a more poignant problem which po populates this larger economic picture tenants tolerating abuse for fear of eviction neighbors cut off from their neighborhoods for fear of being reported it was clear that something needed to be done at the time I and a colleague Melissa Yugo reach reached out to all members of council we also conducted surveys as best we could with limited resources and talked to whoever we could as I recall the four Council people who are still on Council from that time all met with us one of you even suggested that City might take this up uh in 2017 that has not happened in the intervening six years we have worked

[195:00] with the city clerk's office and City Attorney's Office three times to craft language for our ballot measure the substance of our measure has remained largely the same even as has become more clear our measure is well understood and has brought support as three Signature Collection campaigns and the recent poll made clear as Becky Davis already made clear our opportunity to lead on this has already passed the 12th hour is not the time to become more involved the ballot question is clear and well understood by Boulder voters please use the ballot title without changes thank you thank you Ted next we have ma Helen David Glover and Michael Diamond mave apologies may you should be able to un mute now okay there we are I studied real estate finance and then worked in affordable housing to afford to live in Boulder myself I have relied on shared housing first as a renter and then as a homeowner I want to make the point that

[196:01] sharing housing will always be less expensive than renting a place on one's own everyone agrees that we need more affordable housing for low moderate income workers I believe that to do this we need to use every tool available to us we cannot rely on any one action for example inclusionary zoning alone will not provide all the housing we need building housing is expensive making it affordable always requires some form of public financing we do however have one Housing Resource that does not involve new construction and does not require taxpayer money of course I'm talking about unused bedrooms if we allow people to live in them more people will be housed affordably at no cost to the public the

[197:01] median cost to share housing will always be cheaper than the median cost of an apartment on one's own shared housing is not for everyone but it is an important tool to increase housing availability in Boulder I support affordable housing and therefore I support bedrooms are for people I ask that you place the proposed ordinance on the ballot as written and as recommended by City staff thank you very much thank you mave next we have David Glover Michael diamond and Mel law David I'm no longer seeing David Sam all right we can move on to Michael Diamond Mel law and Sarah wise Michael hello I'm Michael and I am a climate scientist over at some of the labs here in Boulder and a resident of North Boulder although I'm speaking to y'all today in my personal capacity the

[198:00] newly released report by the un's climate advisory body shows that our region has much to lose if we allow the world to continue warming Western North America has already experienced an increase in extreme heat and agriculture ecological drought due to our action so far um we are projected to suffer from further increases in heat drought heavy rains and flooding and fire weather if our enaction allows the world to continue to warm above targets set in the Paris agreement dramatically cutting emissions of greenhouse gases like CO2 as soon as possible is necessary to avoid the worst consequences of climate change some of which Boulder has already um begun to experience why is this relevant today well together buildings and transportation account for almost half of Colorado's heat trapping CO2 emissions bedrooms are for people's plan to give people more freedom to live together tackles this problem in multiple ways um for just one example it's much more efficient to heat and cool one house with multiple residents than multiple detached houses with those same people living apart splitting the

[199:01] costs of a solar installation or battery array is also a lot more affordable if you have multiple people living in the same Abode and giving people more flexibility in where they live will allow people to live closer to their places of working Leisure um this means less commuting lower CO2 and as an added bonus less air air pollution um including the ozone that's been pling us for days on end recently um not everyone needs to cohabitate to help halt global warming but there's no reason at all that we should prevent anyone who would want to take these actions from doing so safely and living as they wish while also protecting the planet um please Place ordinance 8475 on the ballot exactly as written as the signature gatherers and voters have said they wanted it thank you so much for your time thank you Michael next we have Mel law Sarah wise and moresa Kum K Zade Mel hi can you hear me yep my name is Mel

[200:01] I'm an essential worker and I'm in my 30s I've lived in Boulder for only three years so far when I first moved to Boulder I did so to be part of a progressive and inclusive community a place where I could finally heal from the trauma and escape the generational poverty that I was born into and I could finally find a place where I could belong and Thrive as a member of the lgbtq plus Community then I learned about the occupancy ordinance and I saw how it further enabled the obstacles that minorities already face however passing bedrooms are for people as written Boulder can finally be that inclusive and Progressive community that I was drawn to thank you so much for your time thank you Mel next we have Sarah wise moresa Karen Zade and Katie Faron Sarah thank you for the opportunity to

[201:01] speak to you tonight and for your service as council members my name is Sarah wise my gender pronouns are she her and I am the director of nursing for Behavioral Health Services and chair of diversity equity and inclusion at Boulder Community Health I'm here tonight to encourage the council to bring bedrooms or for people ballot measure to the vote as it is written the benefit of adding this housing option to the other affordable housing efforts that are in process is that this solution unlike other Housing Solutions offers connection it is concerning to understand how social determinants of Health such as housing and stability affects our health and well-being having said that it is heartbreaking to understand how isolation affects our mental emotional and spiritual wellbeing as you likely know isolation in addition to covid and racism is another Public Health crisis in our country our County and our city

[202:00] isolation is one of the root causes of the Behavioral Health crisis we see today since 2019 all emergency rooms and hospitals in Boulder County has seen an increase in emergency room visits and hospitalizations for suicide attempts Behavioral Health crises and substance use disorders in all age groups and all genders the intelligence of bedrooms are for people solution is that it not only provides another route to housing stability but it has it but it has connection built in it is a viable easy to implement coste efficient solution for the citizens of Boulder to continue to consider on Election Day please bring this ballot measure to vote as written and thank you for your attention and consideration thank you very much Sarah next we have moresa caram Katie Faron and Lindsay sworski

[203:01] moresa evening this is live in Boulder the C campus I live here I work here and give to this I'm an assistant professor Boulder I speak as a single immigrant and a citizen of the United States and Boulder now all know most of bould as of now it's illegal for more than 3 related people to live together um and you would be surprised if you gave your friends a call and told them about this ordinance um I doubt that anyone would come back to you and say oh yes of course that's reasonable um the current limitations on occupancy are arbitrary unsustainable intrusive restraint personal and Community Freedom help no one they don't help Property Owners not renters not visitors um many have spoken here on the merits of this measure um let there's a minority opposing this measure um and therefore we talking about it tonight um

[204:00] some folks are worried about the quality of their lives thinking that this measure will somehow bring more people in their neighborhoods thinking that the value of the property may take ahead well people that you're worried about coming they are already there and they're struggling they're being pushed out we heard about from them tonight know these folks you may remember fols who left this place who just had to were pushed out if you think that this occupancy Li somehow keep this community and town idic I invite folks to just go out open Windows right now truly and deeply breathing the air into their lungs we are allal with the direct impacts of climate change now that is the main threat to the property values invol climate change occupancy limits aggravate that um we can't keep climate change out of our backyards there can be no IDE low population perfect living conditions but the rest of the planet

[205:01] Burns climate change will be in our backyards we cannot protect the environment large houses under occupied being chilled in the scorts and hot summer days and he up being for spinners thank you moresa thank you moresa I'm sorry your time is up appreciate your comments next we have Katie Faron Lindsay sworski and z p Katie my name is Katie faran I am a home owner and I support the bedrooms petition ending these outdated discriminatory laws will cost the city nothing does not require new development and will decriminalize what's already happening across the city Boulder has an ongo goinging Legacy of exclusionary housing through zoning and restrictive ordinances and we can see the residual impacts of that in our community today school enrollment is on the decline Boulders population hovers at around 88% white which is not reflective of the county or the state or the country

[206:00] according to a 2014 study on Intercounty commute patterns greater than half of Boulder County's lowincome workers drive into the county to work as to school enrollment families to be able to Envision building a life here and raising their kids here as to our demographics black indigenous and people of color need to feel that they're welcome here and that there is space for them and as to our forced commuting patterns workers should have the option to live where they work if we are going to be a jobs Center and on that note even when these terrible cloudy hazy fire days recede we'll still be dealing with terrible a quality because of these forced commuting patterns and ozone I'm not suggesting that bedrooms is going to solve all of these deeply ingrained issues but it is going to help it will do that by giving people more options more flexibility than they have right now and by decriminalizing something that should never have been prosecutable that's an amazing step for Boulder for equity and frankly for property rights the community has spoken on this twice

[207:02] in two separate petition Cycles so please approve the bedrooms measure as written as the voters wished thank you thank you Katie next we have Lind sworski Zeb pice and Kristen kritz Lindsay can you hear me now I can okay great um this is my first time speaking at a city council meeting so I just want to thank you all for the work you put in to serve Boulder I'm super fired up about this issue and I'd love your support and getting the bedrooms are for people initiative on the ballot and I'd love your support and understanding yourselves how important it is and championing championing the issue along with us so what I want to say is I'm a boulder right I've lived here for 18 years I own the boulder healing Hub which is a community- based business made up of over a hundred self-employed local Wellness practitioners for the past seven years I've lived in a 10

[208:01] bedroom house in North Boulder with my unmarried partner and we've wanted to have community members live with us in the house because 10 bedrooms and because it's a part of our very Bolder hippie values but we've been thwarted by the fact that it's illegal to live with people as we wish in the ample space that we have and what's super crazy is our next door neighbor lives in a house with a five car underground garage and a two-car front garage for a family of three so they are allowed to have seven unrelated cars in their house but are not allowed to have seven unrelated people and now a 9,000 SQ foot house is being built directly across the street from us with a nine car underground garage going in so I want to live with people and not cars and it's ludicrous that our current laws allow these grotesque houses to be build filling up these old half Halfacre Ranch Lots with

[209:01] mega houses and mega amounts of cars and not humans so I would say houses are for humans and bedrooms are for people um I just feel like the times come it's these outmoded housing occupancy laws are going to change bedrooms are for people has righteousness and Common Sense on its side um if you're going to let my neighbor have nine cars please support me and having nine beloved Boulder housemates thank you Lindsay next we have Zeb pice Kirsten kritz and Alex worth Zev Sam Actually I don't see our next five speakers ERS here in the meeting so that's Zev Kiren Alex Sarah and Eric the next person on the list I see is Lynn seagull okay Lynn you're up and then after Lynn we have Mak Kohl's and Olivia ceile Lynn yeah um It's Curious Sam that you

[210:03] um you said that you that that there's no point in discussing the merits of the this case because you have to put them on the ballot anyway so why have anyone be talking anyway I guess it's because our times are cut to two minutes when we have six people at open comment two minutes you know you got a light night tonight didn't you Sam so let's change the situation you know um people I've had 17 people at my house at one time with no complaints for seven years no problems on the perimeter of Mapleton Hill you know so I should have every reason to want to support this but guess what I'm reluctant to support it and you know why because of the electric car elevator talk about the garages that Lindsay was talking about or whatever her name was since the display is not

[211:01] showing up half the time it does show with my name um but why why the discrepancy um my glasses oh um if you include with this a drop in the subsidies to car elevators for 21st in Pearl you know and third stories and um and no bribes like with the bus stop for Energy Efficiency with electric resistive stoves you know these are bribes and you're taking them all the time with planning board like you did Sam before planning board before Council and this town is grow building like crazy now I agree with bedrooms are for people but what I don't agree with is buildings higher and bigger and CU elus efficiency

[212:00] living units Michael Diamond talked about this it's much more efficient and a big household with Mara like household thank you ly thank you L your time is next we have next we have mon Kohl's Olivia cile and Thomas Rogers mon good evening Council uh thank you for receiving our comments tonight you know on my black face in Whittier where I live um one house was bought up last year for $1.7 million and we have a one person that is living there parttime it's a pier for her she's from California two houses just around the corner uh from her two houses around the corner just sold for 1.8 million

[213:00] purchased by somebody who also has homes in Florida in California again for a pat part-time resident in Boulder those white uh Condominiums half a dozen of them across the street from the old hospital on Balsam $3.5 million each over 3,000 square feet and more than half of those half dozen are owned by people who live here only part-time two weeks ago I met a young man 41 years old who who has been in Boulder stayed in Boulder since he graduated from CU he's an aerospace engineer in the 20 years since he's graduated he has been kicked out of housing that he's lived in three times because of the occupancy ordinance with increased enforcement and

[214:02] intrusion into the relationships of the people in his house he earns nearly $100,000 at an aerospace lab in see you yet can't afford to purchase housing here is really time for this to happen we need to have bedrooms sir for people on the ballot and we need to approve it it is really important because we're losing so many people that are important to our community thank you mon um we have someone who was teed up earlier who was not here Pierce Stella H so Pierce if you're ready you can go and then after Pierce we'll have Olivia ceile and Thomas Rogers Pierce uh thank you can youall hear me we can great um yeah so uh currently uh when you have a house that

[215:05] has uh in and infinite n number of bedrooms in it um if you have four unrelated people in that house the it is legally considered over occupied and I want to push back on the entire frame of what it means to over occupy something um the idea that a a five-bedroom house cannot have five people in it uh that it it seems to me like we are enforcing under occupation rather than enforcing against over occupation um we're not talking about like uh trying to uh fight against uh uh like unsafe conditions here we're talking about creating a false scarcity that is what is happening and uh of

[216:01] course that has an extreme benefit for the providers but this is not uh supposed to be uh a government run by the providers of course I have a lot of thoughts about how that happens um but uh I would rather we do everything we can to provide for people with what we already have this isn't like we need to make new housing this is just a bad law and we can change it and we can provide more housing by allowing the housing that exists to be accessed um so that to me is a no-brainer um and I I have you know every bit of understanding of how a law like this gets passed and I don't know who's complicit on this Council uh with that situation whoever is shame on you whoever is uh whoever is open to

[217:02] repealing this and passing bedrooms are for people I thank you and I express my appreciation for you um thank you Pi your time is up we appreciate your input thanks next we have Olivia ceile Thomas Rogers and Kurt nordback Olivia hi my name is Olivia I just moved away from Boulder after six years living there because it's become so unaffordable to live here I love the community and I love where I used to live but the current zoning laws and unrelated for most areas forces young working people out at 27 I've been working out of college for 4 years now and I want to share a home with friends unfortunately the city has decided for me that Living With Friends isn't an option I don't have family around and I'm not married so my options with for living with people are limited I lived with four roommates in a five-bedroom house in South Boulder but when the city threatened to evict us during the pandemic I couldn't feel comfortable in

[218:00] my community anymore the inspector came to our house and claimed that a neighbor said there were too many cars parked on the public Street he said that frequent visitors to our house could legally be considered tenants per the city code and therefore we could be considered over occupied because of that he made me feel like he was looking for a reason to evict us and like we were doing something wrong just by living there um forcing renters to live illegally takes away the comfort that comes with a place to live I started to be so nervous around our incredibly friendly neighbors that I used to love seeing because I knew that any one of them could decide to report us to the city and we wouldn't be able to live there anymore please Place bedrooms are for people on the ballot as written that's all thanks thank you Olivia next we have Thomas Rogers Kurt nordback and Laya hickey Thomas thank you can you hear me I can my name is Thomas Rogers and I'm here to speak in support of bedrooms are for people I've lived in Boulder for 29

[219:01] years as the council has indicated that they have no real choices to make about the substance of this measure I want to speak to the citizens of this city who are trying to keep people out the cost of housing is possibly the biggest problem people in this city face a lot of people who already own homes in Boulder are terrified of the idea of people from the outside moving in and ruining the city with horrible things like noise or traffic or making it more difficult to park what I want people to understand is that the people who are most affected by the high housing costs are the people who already live here the rising cost of housing isn't just keeping people from moving in it's pushing people out young people and even older people who have lived in Boulder for most or all of their lives can't afford to stay here they're being squeezed out and pushed away my three siblings all had to leave town due to the cost of living here my high school click of nine people same story I'm the only one left these are people from

[220:00] affluent families finding that it's not financially feasible for them to live here and as a result Boulder is undergoing a mass Exodus of its youth those who want to preserve Boulder's character or culture should be striving to make it easier to live here and the bedrooms are for people measure will help make that happen otherwise the people who grew up here will have no option but to leave and every home is going to be sold to a new out of toer who thinks that Boulder is a bargain compared to San Francisco and for those of you fighting to keep people out please consider who it is that you're actually pushing away thank you thank you Thomas next we have Kurt nordback lla hi and Mary Street Kurt hi Kurt nordback thank you for taking our comments we hope you understand how important it is for people's voices to be heard on this issue most of the focus around bedrooms are for people has been on its benefits for housing affordability and a room in

[221:00] shared housing is the most affordable market rate option available in the city which is why both I and the woman who has since become my wife lived in shared houses when we were younger in fact it's what allowed us to live in Boulder and subsequently meet and get married in reality many of the houses that bedrooms would affect are already occupied above the legal limit you know how it works it's a four-bedroom house and only three tenants are on the lease but there's an implicit understanding that if they get a fourth housemate the landlord won't object and we have data from Zillow that indicates that standard procedure the problem is there are thousands of those additional housemates in Boulder and they have no legal rights or responsibilities they're subject to eviction at any time due to City enforcement or the whims of the landlord not being on the lease they have no legal recourse if the landlord treats them unfairly or violates their rights and they have none of the legal responsibilities expressed in the lease or in law so to me and as shown by the

[222:02] powerful testimony you've heard tonight bedrooms is mostly about housing Justice that's why I'm urging you to adopt ordinance 84 75 as written thank you thank you Kurt next we have Laya hickey Mary Street and Joy Road Laya good evening Council and staff my name is lla hickey I am a resident of North Boulder I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the ordinance put forth by bedrooms there for people long before I moved to Boulder I was aware of the city's Progressive reputation but as a Transit enthusiast I was likewise aware of an ugly truth about Boulder Boulder has a commuter problem the city's own data showed that by 2018 58% of the more than 150,000 jobs in the city were staffed by commuters doing the math for you that's nearly 90,000 people a day

[223:00] traveling into and out of Boulder primarily in single occupancy Vehicles so why do people commute to work in Boulder maybe some of them truly enjoy living Longmont but Census Data also shows that the number of lowincome job holders commuting into the city increases every year even though the number of low-income jobs is roughly static all that to say what anyone anyone who has lived in Boulder already knows the city is unaffordable and it becomes more so every year now I hope that everyone in this room loses sleep thinking about the impact of climate change and I hope that we spend that time thinking about how we can Halt and to the extent possible reverse that damage transportation is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States today not oil and gas not cattle ranching driving motor vehicles allowing people who work in Boulder to occupy housing that already exists in Boulder is an incredibly low effort change to

[224:02] facilitate reduced commuter traffic reducing our greenhouse gas emissions bringing us closer to meeting our Master transportation plan goals and doing some small piece of our part to slow climate change I urge Council to place bedrooms out for people on the ballot as written thank you for your time thank you Lyla next we have Mary Street joy roie and Ray bomba Mary I don't see Mary on the list Sam and this is just a reminder to all of our community members um to uh if your name does not match the name that you registered I won't know it's you to unmute you so please check your name um as it appears and let me know if it needs changing thank you so we should go on to Joy thanks everyone I'm Joy Roy I'm a boulder resident and while bedrooms of for people has met the criteria to be

[225:01] put on the ballot I think there would be significant unintended consequences from passing the measure as it stands well I agree with the desire to create a affordable rentals I actually lived in kind of a nightmarish five people in three bedroom Boulder situation in grad school uh bedrooms are for people is completely uncapped there's no limit to how many houses in a neighborhood could shift to buy the bedroom rental units and there's no cap to the number of units a house could offer given Boulder's approach to grandfathering I think once the genie is out of this bottle we're going to be we're going to be stuck with these repercussions home ownership for young families and low and middle-income citizens has become l less attainable each year in Boulder and these few affordable neighborhoods that remain where citizens have been invested in building a community for themselves and their children are at risk if bfp passes so why are they at risk because the number of rentable bedrooms increases the total profit that can be made off of a single family home increases and thus the price of single

[226:00] family homes will rise in fact this is exactly what happened in Austin as occupancy limits were removed the amount of rent a house could bring was a significantly raiseed shift the ROI for Commercial Real Estate Investors and pricing low and middle-income home buyers out of the market and while the non-investment property own and proponents of bfp that we've heard from tonight think that rents will go down they're not going to because Boulder was yet again voted as the best place to live there's just an inelastic demand unless they think that bfp is going to be a good thing for these renters they better hope there's no economic uncertainty in their future because unlike local landlords who may use property as a Nest Egg large commercial landlords like those funding bfp have no problem evicting tnics undergoing hardship and the Washington Post recently reported on evictions by commercial real estate Mega landlords such as Invitation Homes during covid by placing bfp on the ballot as it stands we ignore the interest of the homeowners and long-term renters who have invested their lives and often their life savings

[227:01] in their neighborhoods and those who hope to someday become home owners in Boulder themselves thank you Joy thank you Joy next we have Ray bomba hope mikkelson and Lisa Nelson and from my notes I think Ry has a presentation sure thank you for letting me talk my name is Ray bomba and I live in Boulder and I like most other people in Boulder are deeply concerned about the inequity that exists in Boulder's housing and what's particularly concern Troublesome about this ballot measure is that it clearly will make matters worse if you think about the economic accept as we all know we live in a in a town that has 25% of the market as students the market for rooms and high occupancy houses is overwhelmingly comprised of students so if we want to know what will happen if this measure passes we need to look at the student housing market and we need to think about what it means to continue converting houses that were

[228:02] formerly occupied by non-students to student housing so according to the National Housing Institute quote in all types of markets student housing raises the cost of rentals moreover they say in strong markets like Boulders student housing creates another competing use for limited affordable single family homes and can result in displacement of lower income households whether we like it or not we have to accept the reality that we live in a town where student Market drives certain segments of the housing and this measure will drive up rental costs and thus disproportionately hurtt the people who are the most disadvantaged in our community and by having a huge incentive to convert houses to rentals this will clearly make it more difficult for families to buy a house next slide please how much will prices increase 39% if we look at the 12 month sales in in a

[229:03] neighborhood between the high occupancy region and the low occupancy region 39% is an enormous difference that everybody needs to be worried about and should be worried about families can definitely not compete with that so next slide please if if we're concerned about Equity you might ask why are we talking about home ownership well because in our country thank you thank you Ray I'm sorry your time is up but you can certainly email us your presentation to council at bouldercolorado.gov thank you next we have hope Mickelson Lisa Nelson and Steven Bross hope hi my name is Hope Michaelson and I'm a boulder resident associate professor who studies Cosmos climate science I've been working in promoting diversity Equity inclusion for over 20 years and I'm very concerned about the impact that bedrooms for people will have on our city there is a common

[230:02] misconception that this measure represents Progressive housing policy on the contrary this measure is very regressive meaning that it just proportionately hurts low and middle- inome residents we obviously need to solve the housing affordability problem but bfp will not help and will cause great harm to our city Studies have shown that such measures lead to higher rents and higher house prices Denver recently completed a three-year study to address their housing shortage equitably and concluded the expansion of bfp like scenarios would lead to increased housing costs and displacement of vulnerable populations they implemented policy that prohibits or disincentivizes expansion of rent by the room housing investor Acquisitions of homes and subdivisions of existing houses thus after a study of data from 40 cities and involvement from all stakeholders they dismiss the bfp approach as inequitable housing policy and implemented measures to prevent it the outcome would be even worse for us because D because B Boulder is a college town with an insatiable

[231:01] demand for high occupancy housing and students who are willing to pay much higher rents than possible for long-term residents all the neighbors are intricate all the neighborhoods are interconnected through the housing market and all neighborhoods will experience a rise in prices some worse than others bfp would disproportionately harm black indigenous people of color and lgbtq plus residents of Boulder bipot groups statistically Fallen lower income brackets nationally and according to out Boulder Country the boulder lgbtq plus Community is statistically closer to the property line than the general population increasing housing costs through bfp would disproportionately display bipo and lgbtq Plus members of our community out Boulder and other groups have been misled by the the measures proponents who into thinking that bfp would lower housing costs rather than the raise them please um fight against housing policies that further disadvantage low income in a vulnerable populations um if it if this passes please thank you hope I'm sorry your time is up we appreciate your

[232:01] comments next we have adelyn Fury Anna Fernandez Frank and Ryan bonick adelyn hello my name is Adeline Fury and I own a house at 19th in Iris in North Boulder um I'm a member of the career community and I support bedrooms are for people and I think it would very much help our community um contrary to what was just said uh anyway while I own a house now I spent seven years as a PhD student uh here in Boulder living in renting for five of those seven years I was living in violation of the occupancy laws as they are currently written the majority of my fellow graduates students also lived in violation of this law out of necessity due to our low salaries we found and filled five to six bedroom homes with five to six unrelated people instead of leaving those bedrooms foolishly empty those of us who did not want to share homes joined joined the thousands of Boulder in commuters clogging the roads every day seeking more affordable rentals in surrounding

[233:01] cities the bedrooms are for people initiative would help The Graduate students of Boulder it will also reduce Boulder's contribution to climate change by reducing the number of people that need to incomm to Boulder each day because this city is too expensive to live in um I support graduate students and therefore I support bedrooms are for people I ask you to place the proposed ordinance on the ballot as written and as recommended by City staff thank you thank you edin next we have Anna Fernandez Frank Ryan bonick and Joel Lumis Anna good evening City Council Members my name is Anna Frank and I live in Boulder I'm here on behalf of EA emergency family assistance association in Boulder as public policy and community outreach coordinator to express F support for the proposed bedrooms are for people valid initiative family homelessness is a critical yet oftentimes invisible issue in our

[234:00] community about 200 school age children in Boulder City Schools experience homelessness each year when families lose their homes the most common solution is to double up with another family in a home in Boulder's high cost housing environment where the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is over $2,000 a month the ability to double up with another family is critical to preventing local family homelessness this also allows them to share other fixed costs like utilities or Internet service and support other each other with child care and other practical matters especially after life altering events like loss of employment or divorce however in most of Boulder it's currently illegal for more than three unrelated people to live together these occupancy limits defy the occupancy standards recommended in the fair housing act and disproportionately affect lowincome residents of the city including those we serve at effa our

[235:00] average EA participant spends over 70% of their income in housing expenses so these proposed changes in occupancy limit have the potential of significantly reducing their housing costs because of how currently City occupancy limits puts children family and low-income individuals at risk of further homelessness and housing insecurity the board of directors at EA endorses bedroom s for people and its inclusion in the November 2021 election thank you for your time and attention hna next we have Ryan bonick Joel Lumis and Michael Parish Ryan hi Council uh my name is Ryan bonck I'm a renter in Boulder and I've had the immense pleasure to volunteer with bedrooms are for people this year uh plenty of our other volunteers have already said a ton so I'll try and keep this short um occupancy limits have a let's say questionable past uh many were specifically written to exclude large

[236:02] cohabiting families commonly immigrants people of color Andor lower income earners um The Fair Housing Act amendment in 1988 expressly banned uh families from those occupancy limits but the legacy of the law lives on Banning non-traditional families from Legally inhabiting a home together while bedrooms doesn't go as far as the federal housing recommended occupancy limits of two people per bedroom I am proud of the work we've done to get this on the ballot but also would ask that yall just skip the wait and simply adopt the petition as written thank you thank you Ryan next we have Joel Lumis Michael Parish and RJ Bole Joel uh hi everyone um my name is Joel Lumis um I'm a student at CU Boulder I was a cashier at king supers in South Boulder and I'm a resident of the city

[237:00] of Boulder for the past three years um in the past uh since the shooting at my workplace on March 22nd I've actually worked with some of you to um pass some gun control bills in the Colorado general assembly but another thing that I learned working at king supers was that most of my co-workers did not live in the same city that they worked in Boulder was is simply too expensive and making a $12 minimum wage makes finding affordable housing almost impossible um so most of my co-workers along with tens of thousands of bites are forced to make the daily commute from the surrounding Denver area where you can't can find affordable housing I myself have lived over occupied as I worked at king supers and attended CU Boulder it's the only way that I could find to live to afford in the city of Boulder um I think that increasing occupancy limits would allow for more low income households to live and work in Boulder and I'd ask you to help to make housing more affordable and to decriminalize those who must live over

[238:01] occupied to afford housing by placing bedrooms are for people on the ballot as it's written thank you thank you Joel next we have Michael Parish RJ Bole and Ryan Shard Michael hello thank you very much for taking comments for so long I don't have much to add besides all of what everyone has said to support putting bedrooms off for people onto the ballot as written I appreciate everyone's time and commitment to that thank you very much thank you Michael next we have RJ Bole Ryan Shard and Lisa Spalding RJ hello thank you my name is R.J I'm an attorney and environmental planner in Boulder and I'm the co-lead for um a new campaign Boulders for people a pro people Pro housing campaign supporting city council candidates running for election this year I wanted to tell you my story about living in Boulder um when I moved here four years ago um as an associate attorney my entry level salary

[239:00] didn't meet my needs to live in Boulder and cover my lost school loans to make things worked I lived over occupied um to stay secure I now watch Junior coow workers in my current workspace drain out of the city for similar reasons they are middle inome Advanced degree graduates who can't live here because the limits of the current occupancy law make it difficult for them to live alone unsupported the new campaign Boulders for people envisions a city where all Boulder rites can find a place to call home regardless of race age gender identity economic status physical ability what have you we're committed to increasing housing opportunities expanding safe and effective Transit increasing economic vitality and escalating initiatives to combat climate change and Achieve raal racial Justice bedrooms are for people as written is a critical steps toward realizing this Mission this measure will increase housing stock and reduce strain on vulnerable bites living on the brink of eviction and homelessness it will increase more affordable flexible and creative housing arrangements for those most affected by the occupancy limit as

[240:00] written currently and will keep Talent here in Boulder for the benefit of employers and employees alike this measure will reduce the impacts of people community to Boulder as many have mentioned which in turn impacts our abilities to uh curb climate change reducing occupancy limits is not a pentia to The Growing Pains Boulder is facing but this ballot measure is written opens doors for our neighbors Boulder rights of all backgrounds to secure and retain a place to call home and it helps us grow into a more just and Equitable holder please place this measure on the ballot as written and thank you for your time tonight thank you RJ next we have Ryan Shard Lisa Spalding and Michelle Constantine Ryan good evening council members my name is Ryan Shard I'm a boulder resident who's lived here for about a year and a half I'm also a member of the transportation Advisory Board uh but today speaking on behalf of my family which includes my spouse and are two small kids I support bedrooms are for people in placing it on the ballot as written and just want to tell a story about what it means to me

[241:01] I've been working I've been working professionally on greenhouse gas mitigation for about 15 years um and we know the transportation is nearly 30% of climate pollution both nationally and in Boulder it's clear from the science that to tackle that pollution we need to reduce passenger vehicle miles traveled by making it easy safe and fun to ride bikes and walk and to use public transportation so how do we do it well it takes a lot of supply and demand measures but one of the top things of all is to Simply allow more people to live in closer proximity to one another and to where they need to go this is the number one thing that will enable residents to not need to use a car to make biking and walking their first choice to increase utilization of public transportation while at the same time more potential for local taxes and user fees to expand public transportation services and to work against the sprawl which causes inbound communs who clog the streets the measure at hand with bedrooms are for people does this in a very common sense way it deletes an outdated prohibition on people living

[242:00] together in buildings which are already built for humans to live in by doing this what we get is significantly more supply of legal housing overnight without building a single thing what does it mean in practice for renters thousands of more rental rooms available and which landlords are now competing with on price it's a simple fact of microeconomics which tells us that more Supply will put downward pressure on rental prices and expand access to the availability of rental housing for business owners it means more customers living near shops and for parents it means more families and residents to make the school system stronger and all of this while giving the people who want to call Boulder Home a better base of resources for transportation alternatives to cars that can make it serious impact against climate change I ask you to please Place bedrooms of rep people on the ballot as written thanks very much thank you Ryan next we have Lisa Spalding Michelle kadine and Brian Bowen Lisa the bedrooms are for people supporters worked hard to collect the requisite number of signatures and have earned the right to put their initiative

[243:00] before voters however I hope everyone will take a closer look at the unintended consequences before they vote the occupancy memo presented to city council last month in response to this initiative states that staff primarily focused on single family housing and did not research multif family housing that's because this initiative focuses on houses and single family neighborhoods the municipal code has a broad definition of functional families that includes committed couples of any sex their extended families and two borders in single family neighborhoods Boulder has welcomed families of all kinds with open arms but the cost of housing is pushing them out the bedrooms initiative will squeeze out even more families by creating a rent by the bedroom plus one market last year Boulder ranked first in the country for the youngest Runner population 65% of Boulder Runners are between the ages of 18 and 23 of course most of them are

[244:01] among the approximately 24,000 students out of state investors already buying single family homes to convert to rent and they are being encouraged by this it's a lucrative student Market families wishing to buy or rent a house with a yard where the children could play with neighboring children and walk or bike to school will not be able to compete with deep pocketed investors wealthy student renters and young single professionals some students stay in Boulder after graduation and more and more young single professionals are coming for jobs if they are taking up the homes family's need instead of the large number of old and new apartment ments they too will have to leave Boulder if they want to start a family thank you thank you Lisa next we have Michelle con kadine Ryan Bowen and Claudia team I believe Michelle has a presentation according to my notes Michelle you are up uh Sam I don't see Michelle in the meeting I do

[245:00] have two people on the phone who I've reached out to by text to try to get their names um so I encourage those two folks to text me back so I know um who you are and can unmute you if you are on the registration list um but at this point I don't see Michelle let's move on to Brian then Brian you should be able to unmute now okay figuring this out thanks guys um appreciate you guys' time tonight um Brian Bowen um ex planning board fellow um and supporter of bedrooms are people um there have been so many great comments tonight um and I'll just try to make a few quick points and and be be brief um I think you know allowing folks the number one way to improve residential energy usage in Boulder is

[246:00] to let people live in the already built and already uh conditioned bedrooms that we have um the number one way to get people out of cars is to have walkable neighborhoods that are populated enough to support frequent mass transit um easiest first step in addressing the housing crisis um locally is to let people sleep in the bedrooms we already have built um over my years of being an architect in this town I've had uh dozens and dozens of calls from well-meaning folks who want to uh you know have two or three couples live together in a small um Collective environment in an existing house and I've always had to tell them like no you can't do that that's not legal here and then explain why it is and it's um it's hard to find a good reason for that when you're talking to people who just want to do a little bit of a you know micro co-housing or co-living kind of environment so um you know everyone please just support the bom Sur people uh proposal as is written and uh God

[247:01] speed thank you Brian next we have Claudia team Ora Goldman and Lincoln Miller hi good evening members of council my name is Claudia Hansen theme I live in North Boulder it feels really good to have the bedrooms are for people organizers here as a formality tonight after they had to come asking this Council for a Lifeline last year it's been a long road for this campaign and an even longer one for this issue restrictive occupancy limits are an economic environmental and social justice issue and shared housing has been on the short list of reforms proposed by activists and City working groups for longer than the 14 years I've been a resident of this city in many ways I'm an unlikely person to stump for this cause I'm too old I'm too white I'm too middle class I'm too straight nuclear family home owning set in my ways to be bothered but the bedroom's people are my people and I am

[248:02] theirs in another life I might be struggling to live here chafing against housing rules that are enforce the consumptive norms and family structures of a bygone era and in yet other lives some of them actually lived in Years Gone by many of the folks wary of this change might have struggled with housing too if you recognize an earlier version of yourself in any of the stories told here tonight then the bedrooms people are your people too the group of organizers and volunteers that are finally bringing occupancy limits to the ballot are some of the best neighbors we have they are engaging residents and elevating voices that are rarely heard in Municipal politics they may be new names in these now virtual meeting spaces but they are very much of for and by the people and bedrooms are for people is Boulder pure it's a Grassroots campaign for justice for sustainability and for simpler lives these are Community Values in Boulder and they deserve finally a chance to be

[249:00] affirmed thank you thank you Claudia next we have Aura Goldman Lincoln Miller and hammer or okay hi can you hear me you can awesome thank you I'm Aura Goldman I'm a business owner and homeowner here in North Boulder my large family home is on the corner of Delwood and 10th Street near North Boulder Park um so much has been said already so I just wanted to add one more point of support for this measure currently I only know of one legal way to elevate occupancy in a of a home which is the boulder Co-op initiative passed in 2016 as you know it is very limited only allowing up to 12 co-ops a year I succeeded in converting my family home with a group of wonderful activists into an activist housing Co-op under the boulder Co-op initiative after my kids

[250:01] grew up and left home in 2018 the good news is that we succeeded in creating a warm kind environment of people who want to make a difference for social justice animal Justice and climate change but this way of doing it was just too hard the amount of leg work and paperwork needed to become a legal entity and qualify as a co-op has been a distraction from our purpose there are many reasons people choose to be lower income and it is often very Noble I support bedrooms are for people to allow more homeowners to be able to easily share their homes and create awesome world changing environments thank you thank you Aura next we have Lincoln Miller Eva HR and we will end with Alexander Sage Lincoln okay good evening city council first off I just want to thank you for putting the bedrooms are for

[251:02] people measure on the ballot and uh the boulder Housing Coalition is very proud to join groups like effa and out Boulder in endorsing the bedrooms are for people ballot measure as you know we believe very passionately in Sharing housing so when we did our own professional engineering study we found that Co-operators that share housing are using onethird the per capita energy of other Colorado residents so that's very powerful so I would we would like to enable more of this kind of sharing across the city uh so many folks worked so hard to create this very small carve out that works just for co-ops so it's super

[252:01] fitting actually that we would go after Aura because I want to back up what she said as your expert Cooperative housing uh Organization for the city there's this one way for folks to share using the co-op ordinance and it's incredibly difficult for groups to use and it's costly to set up this would be much simpler to do and would create a much greater impact across the city the sharing would create more sustainability more affordability and create more community and the other critical thing that it would do would it would decriminalize sharing for low-income folks so thank you for putting this on the ballot thank you Lincoln next we have Eva HR and Alexander Sage

[253:02] Eva hi good evening my name is Eva HR I live in Boulder and I run a nonprofit here I want to speak in support of bedrooms Sur for people as many other people have said a lot of people are already living in violation of the current restrictions and these people have housing insecurity simply by virtue of a regressive law that publish that punishes being poor having a nontraditional family structure or simply wanting to live in community With Friends the current limits are explicitly discriminatory and immoral I urge you to place bedrooms Ser for people on the ballot as written thank you thank you very much Eva and we we will end with Alexander Sage hi yes I'd just like to you know as a last person kind of summarize what we can know from the fact that we're here and bedrooms for people

[254:02] has continued to push this campaign year-over year and collect thousands upon thousands upon thousands of signatures from Boulder Community members and the fact that we're here at 1015 at night with people dozens of people chiming in on how much they care about this issue and how much this issue aligns with values that I'm sure all of you because I've read all of your bios claim to support in terms of inclusiveness and being environmentally friendly that the arguments in support of bedrooms strongly align with these values that everyone claims to support and the fact that we're here at this moment means that proper action sufficient action hasn't been taken by Boulder leadership preemptively and so the citizens needed to take it upon themselves to do the work to create the issue and get the issue passed amongst

[255:02] ourselves and uh would just appreciate and encourage any Boulder leadership to try to think ahead of the citizens so that you can enact policies that we would appreciate before we have to go through and create and enact the policies on our own accord and so thank you for hearing us and thank you for hearing me in that plea to to try to be pressive and preemptively P policies that your citizens would appreciate before we have to do it on our own thank you Alexander and with that we will bring the public hearing to a close bring this back to council and I see a hand from Aaron I'll just go and make a motion if that's right works for me so I'll move that we adopt ordinance 8475 submitting to the qualified electors of the city of Boulder at the municipal coordinated election to be held on Tuesday November

[256:01] 2nd 2021 the question submitted as an initiated ordinance whether the city of Boulder shall expand access to housing by allowing all housing units to be occupied by a number of people equal to the legal the number of legal bedrooms plus one additional person per home provided that relevant health and safety codes are met setting forth the ballot title specifying the FL of the ballot and other election procedures and S4 related details thank you Ain is there a second second what he said super we have a motion in a second Aon would you like to speak to your motion Mark you didn't repeat every word of that uh well this is a required action on our part because of the submission of signatures by the petitioners um but I do also want to thank everyone for their moving testimony in favor of housing equity and accessibility and sustainability tonight that's

[257:02] it all right uh any other discussion by Council seeing none I believe this is a roll call vote Alicia yes sir it is and we will start with council member Yates yes young yes rocket Hi friend yes Joseph hi Nagel hi stick yes wall hi M Weaver hi mayor ordinance 8475 was adopted unanimously excellent thank you and what do we have next item 5c our last public hearing for on tonight's agenda and that is second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt ordinance 8480

[258:00] submitting to the qualified electors of the city of Boulder at the general Municipal coordinated election to be held on Tuesday November the 2nd 2021 the question submitted as an initiative ordinance initiated ordinance whether the city of Boulders shall prohibit the sale and manufacturer for sale of certain fur products setting forth the ballot title specifying the form of the ballot and other election procedures and setting forth related details uh hello again uh this is the one measure where the committee of petitioners has suggested a change to the uh the question they are requesting that Council add the word animal in front of fur uh just to clarify what types of fur are are being addressed here um if Council wants to do that it should do that by emergency uh other uh otherwise the original title that was approved by the city clerk is I think

[259:02] clear in explaining what you know that we're talking about fur product and not some other kind of product okay thank you Louise um Council any questions for Louise or discussion of the proponent requests before we go to the public hearing great seeing none with that we will turn to the public hearing on this item we have five speakers so each speaker will be allowed three minutes our first three speakers are Lynn seagull AA HR and Alexander Sage Lyn no writers on this one but you needed writers on the last one and you blew it you blew it guys what you needed to do was you needed to say that there's only one that the landlord could only have one or two

[260:00] houses but not more than that you guys blew it you know on newer what did that mean on on newer you defanged that project by um exempting Boulder housing Partners which you should not have and Tom Carr pulled that off before he left town but um with the last one you needed to do some things with this one it's pretty simple yeah of course we don't want fur products no sweat but you know do the right thing figure things out it's so intuitive about bedrooms are for people what needs to be done something needs to be done with the hill because the hill is the whole problem that drives up housing cost all over Boulder so you do something with a hill you say that it's Exempted at at in the hill or in particular neighborhoods that you want to or something no discussion nothing where is everybody is anyone home and

[261:02] then half the time the people's name is not up on the display I have a brand new computer Brenda written hour you know I can see that one time the name is up there and another time it's not and I'll look on the tape and I'll see that yes it isn't on some of the some of the identifiers on some of the people what do you do personally choose I don't want to show this person I mean come on these are Basics do your job people and yeah go for the fur thing I I had five cats of course you know we don't need fur products it's so archaic done ly next we have Eva HR Alexander sage and Brent johanes Eva hi good evening this is Eva hamr I live in Boulder and I run a nonprofit here um wish I could say it as

[262:00] succinctly of course we don't want F products um I think 200 years ago it would have been maybe normal maybe acceptable to think that animals were automatons who whose experiences didn't really matter um scientific consensus right now is that animals do feel animals are capable of all the same emotions that humans are they can feel pain fear Joy loss and are just like us in every single way that matters um animals us prefer are treated terribly even as far as farming goes um living in the same cage their entire life lives showing so many stereotypic behaviors running around in circles um self mutilation Boulder is a city of animal lovers people who love their dogs and cats and take them everywhere anyone who's met a dog or or cat and loved one knows that animals are capable of a huge range of emotion and don't deserve to die for such a frivolous and unnecessary

[263:01] reason as as for given that this measure has no economic impact on Boulder there's no reason that the council can't um accept the language as offered and pass it immediately into law without putting it on the ballot um again harming animal for is unnecessary and frivolous reason as for is atrocious and not modern and Boulder can be a leader along with California and many European countries and making a stand against fur and against cruelty to all animals um I noticed that Boulder has a particularly Progressive animal policy that we don't call animals owned but call the humans in um who who care for them Guardians and in line with such a progressive stance on animals I would encourage the council to support animals who are killed for their fur as well um thank you so much thank you Eva next we have Alexander Sage Brent Johannes and

[264:01] Ora Goldman Alexander okay yes thank you I would first like to start off by addressing the fact that we requested changes at this point in the process the changes are not substantial they would not in any way contradict the main substantive points that the residents of Boulder and the 5,000 people in the Boulder Community signed on to support they nearly are changes to the text that simply make it more succinct and thorough the Grassroots group that wrote the original text and collected all the signatures did the best that we could based on the resources that we had but the many lawyers at the Humane Society reviewed the text recently and recommended those very minor and

[265:02] Technical changes that again are not substantive to what the ACT would actually prevent or change speaking of what it would prevent or change there are no fur stores in Boulder there are no major stores that sell a lot of fur there are no stores that rely on fur sales there is no economic impact or political ill will or Reason to consider not supporting something like this passing and to just allow the changes that we recommended and about fur in general and as it relates to what we started this meeting talking off of with a very large conversation around the pandemic covid-19 has been found on minks in more than 400 farms in more than 10 countries United States including in North America millions of minks have been C killed

[266:01] because they have been infected with different strains of the Corona virus in one of these Farms they actually noticed that a mutation was brought about because of the spread of the co Corona virus on that fur farm so we know based on lots of other evidence from people that are much better versed in this than I am and I would be happy to give you that supplementary information as I started to email all of you that references people that study the spread of zuanic diseases supporting the concept that these do spread multiply mutate and start in concentrations of animals like fur farms and it could be the next pandemic it could be the mutation of this pandemic I just want to make sure that everyone understands the link between what we talked about in the beginning of the meeting and fur farming and Industrial

[267:00] animal agriculture thank you for the time you Alexander our last two speakers are Brent Johannes and Ora Goldman Brent BR two should be able to unmute okay uh thank you for your time I know it's been a long meeting I appreciate you uh hearing us out um so as a Committee Member of the Humane clothing act I would like to take this time to urge the city council to consider some small Chang changes to the measure being placed on the ballot we are confident with the measure as it exists uh but with advice from a legal team from the Humane Society we have identified some small parts that could be improved upon these changes include the addition of a findings clause which only provides more context and doesn't change the substance of the initiative in addition I would like to propose some minor word changes to the existing text

[268:01] uh just to provide more clarity um if the council is not willing to consider the previously requested changes um I would like to propose an even less substantial alternative that was previously requested as we are responding to feedback that was already received from some of the me uh council members on this matter we believe that people of Boulder want to have the most clearly written laws and the proposed changes make this legis legislation more clear and better reflect the intent of the legislation and what will ultimately be the intention of the people of Boulder I Ur you to consider making these amendments to the measure to be placed on the ballot and I would also like to say as someone who collected over a thousand signatures for this petition I have done a lot of speaking with the people of Boulder on this issue and I can attest to uh to the fact that

[269:01] the majority of the people who I spoke with uh recognize that the fur industry is outdated and completely unnecessary uh in the city in the city of Boulder the majority of residents of Boulder believe that animals deserve greater protections than what our current legal system provides for and the majority of the residents of Boulder wish to see more lawmakers taking an initiative in advancing legislation meant to reduce animal suffering including passing the human clothing act uh the majority of the residents of Boulder are appalled by the conditions which animals and fur Farms are raised and as more than 95 % of fur products come from fur Farms where animals are kept in small cages and are killed in particularly inhumane ways as to preserve the condition of the fur these practices are not in alignment with the values of the residents of this city many state and local governments have passed similar legislation California banned the sale of fur products in

[270:00] 2019 and just last night the city council of an Arbor Michigan unanimously passed law almost identical to this law being proposed um to ban the sale of fur products for all these reasons I urge the city council to consider proposed amendments and to pass the Humane clothing act thank you thank you Brett and finally we have Ora Goldman hello thank you for hearing me again I'm Aura Goldman a business owner and homeowner here in Boulder I appreciate appreciate you staying well into the night to hear what we want to share with you and one of the things that we care about deeply my purpose in speaking here at this time of night as the last speaker here is to get more attention in General on what I think is a very important issue of animal protection I would love if you as our Representatives take some time to learn

[271:00] more about issues related to animals and put the intersection of animal to human issues more in the Limelight in particular I'd like to speak in favor of the Humane clothing act for these simple reasons first because fur farming is inhumane the nature of what the animals experience is too graphic and horrible for me to speak about out loud I suggest the movie the ghosts in our machine as a way of seeing the animals and how much they suffer and what we've learned learned is that Humane treatment of animals is referenced several times in the boulder um law revised laws and in the I'm sorry the boulder Revis code and it's a core value of Boulder residents the second reason I support this is because there's a great and harmful environmental impact from the toxins used by the fur industry and the feeding and confinement of animals for

[272:01] fur this is not eco-friendly ban Banning fur is consistent with the commitments of the city of Boulder to environmental sustainability thirdly I don't believe it to be controversial from our research there are no businesses in Boulder Who currently sell fur even large National corpor corporations like Macy's and Urban Outfitters have already proactively baned fur the only stores that may sell used fur such as Thrift and consignment stores are accepted from this ballot me measure lastly I would like like to be proud of Boulder for joining with those who have already stood up to banfer which includes the entire State of California Israel and 20 countries in the EU in some cities and states the council is able to approve a measure without submitting it to the ballot especially for non-controversial measures in fact I believe that California did so with their fur ban and I don't really understand the rules here

[273:01] um I heard you say that you aren't you've been advised not to do that what what would allow you to Simply bring this measure into law I believe that would be a strong statement and a testimony of your leadership thank you thank you AA with that we will bring the public hearing to a close turn back to council comments questions motion great job I yeah I have a couple questions um one I think we heard from a retailer that that at least one business would be impacted by this I didn't know if um Louise maybe had information on that or um the the petitioners will there be any businesses impacted by this law um is the first and then second I'm just

[274:00] wondering historically um I understand that the changes requested are being described as not substantive but it did look like a lot and so I'm just wondering do we tend to um make that volume of changes to petitions um at this juncture so Lou put that at least number two over to you right I I'll definitely start with number two uh excuse me it's it's really at this point in the process it's it's uh very difficult to start over and have new ballot language and we're not you know the the change that I was bringing to you from the group was a change to the ballot title not changes to the actual ordinance I know that the groups had reached out to council and asked if there was any interest in passing a revised version of the ordinance or putting a revised version of the ordinance on the ballot but there weren't any takers as far as uh advancing that and so under that scenario what the charter provides is that the measure at that was actually

[275:00] signed by the the uh signers of the petition is what should go on the ballot and if and if you wanted to change it that it would have been done you know at the last meeting where you discussed this or some previous meeting and this is sec would be second reading of that so it's kind of late in the process to do that um so what we're recommending with the ordinance is to just pass the version that was actually circulated for signatures and and whether you want to change the ballot title or is up to council but um and as to the first question I don't have any more information than you did I heard I think what I think I got copied on an email that council members got that mentioned that there's a business in town that would be affected but I don't think I have any more information about that than the council members do thanks um and I guess maybe I'll just turn that into a statement uh to respond to petitioners I think it would be hard for us to um just adopt this uh on our own when

[276:02] when there may at least be some impacts um and say that as someone who is generally supportive of the ballot measure and not uh wanting to be difficult but I think there would be public process and um larger discussions and and it was brought to us as a as a ballot initiative so it makes sense to me that it it stay in that form um and for the reasons that Lou said that we um proceed with it as is so hopefully that is um still an acceptable uh ballot measure to to put on for the petitioners and and I don't know if they want to weigh in on that but uh that's time Le thanks oh and you know that's your that brings up a good point which is your approval of the previous two measures and if you approve this one the petitioners still have the decision whether to pull the initiative from the ballot so they could elect even after you approve it the petitioner committee could elect not to to to basically withdraw the initiative even at this

[277:00] late date then would there would be nothing on the ballot so I I'm just pointing that out as a legal possibility that the the petitioners are allowed to withdraw their initiative within the next 10 days or they're supposed to or actually they have to affirmatively tell the clerk that they want to proceed okay that's helpful actually because you know I don't know if they would prefer to run it again next year in with a different language um if they wanted to do that given that it doesn't sound like it will have a dramatic impact on on animals during the next year thanks thanks Rachel mayby Lise can you just tell us I mean why is this so difficult to go update is I mean is if it's not substantial to the people who actually signed it I mean is it not just going in and typing something up I mean it's not like the the ballots have been printed and there's thousands of ballots that need to be changed is isn't it just going on a computer and adjusting some verbage or am I'm missing

[278:00] something here well it would be this is second reading so we'd have to come back to uh if if you're going to make substantive changes to the actual petition that you know it's it's that should have been brought forward earlier that that um and I know that the group reached out earlier and to council members and didn't get any interest in in putting in a revised version but the you know at the beginning of this discussion we were talking about how it's this is essentially a ministerial act for the council and you don't really have uh you you could with the petitioner's consent come up with a different version but now where it's August 17 and we're on second reading and the ballot language has to be finalized in a couple of weeks and you would have to have another hearing if you're going to make that kind of substantive change to the the language and so there's kind of a bias in favor of using the language that was circulated to the voters on the petition okay great I appreciate that well then I

[279:00] mean I guess hopefully that they won't pull it and we'll move this forward and I guess I mean personally would put it into law because I don't care if it would affect every business this is something that should be banned across the world at this point so um but I guess we'll probably put it to the voters and I hope that the people who have gone and gathered these signatures will get an overwhelming uh vote in favor of it so that it just puts a feather in their caps and thanks for the hard work of circulating this to um everyone who was involved thanks mayor by I've got Mary and juny Mary I move to adopt ordinance 8480 submitting to the qualified electors of the city of Boulder at the general Municipal coordinated election to be held on Tuesday November 2nd 2021 the question submitted as an initiated ordinance whether the city of Boulder shall prohibit the sale and manufacture for sale of certain fur products setting forth the ballot title specifying the form of the ballot and other election

[280:01] procedures and setting forth related details second okay we have a motion and a second Mary would you like to speak to your motion um as Lee said tonight we are um making ministerial acts and um this is part of that ministerial act so um we'll move it forward to the ballot super mayby do you want to speak to you already spoke anything to add no just what I said already okay thanks juny yeah I just actually have a question I wish um maybe getting the question answered before the motion to me seem to make slightly more sense but um my question was actually the forur products I I just didn't fully understand would people have an issue with certain fur products are there

[281:00] other fur products that are nonan animal products if that makes sense not that I know of and when we say certain fur products in the ballot title we're referring to the fact and it was mentioned by one of the speakers that this doesn't actually ban all sales of fur products in the city so some would still be permitted and I think they mentioned so a resale product and then there's also exemptions for um certain federal law provisions and so forth and so it's not all fur products that are being banned it's only some fur products over using the term certain to describe that so and then somebody who's interested in the details can read the full ordinance where it really spells all that out thank you okay so we have a motion in a second um any discussion I have one quick comment um I'll just say that uh generally speaking these are ministerial moves

[282:01] that we're making but I would just encourage folks to think about you know running ballot language past people of interest groups of Interest prior to going in gathering signatures we've seen this several times over the past few years where things have landed in our laps which had not been really well vetted and we've been asked at the last minute to fix problems that really should have been dealt with earlier I think this measure stands on its own just fine with the language which is here so I'm going to support the motion and I'd like to see it go to the voters and I generally support the intent behind it but I will just say as a process um point that getting substantive changes well after you've collected signatures puts us in a very funny position where we can't know what the intent of the voters were who were signing so I'll just make the comment that um going forward it it's very

[283:01] helpful if a little bit of groundwork is done to check the language with folks who might have an interest other than that we have a motion and a second um any other comments seeing none Alicia I believe this is a roll call Vote Yes sir it is and we will start with council member young yes Brocket Hi friend yes Joseph hi Nagel hi stick yes wallik Weaver hi and Yates yes ordinance 8480 passed was adopted unanimously excellent okay so Alicia I believe that brings us to the end of the agenda is that correct that is correct sir okay very good council members any

[284:01] last items or staff juny is that new hand you're putting up yes okay super you're up I do have a comment about the meeting tonight and it relates back to after the public hearings where we had questions I didn't get to ask questions before and we usually ask questions but that's one thing and also there was one Community member who gave testimony which I couldn't hear and I thought it was me who couldn't hear it and I went back on YouTube and clearly no one could hear it because it's just there was some technical issues so moving forward for the future it might be a good thing to just either stop the Community member and have the person speak again once they fix the audio problem because they

[285:00] I didn't understand what they were saying and no one did so they almost was no value to what was being said but given the person another opportunity to correct it so that they can participate fully actually would have been useful okay awesome um in the case of something like that you can always bring it up if the hearing is still going on um I I uh I could make some sense of what was being said and wasn't sure how to fix it but I would be happy to be responsive if people want to make make a suggestion like that we could try and see if they could fix it and bring it back so appreciate that juny I'm sorry I did not it was in the chat actually I thought you saw that but well quite well taken okay um with that any other debrief any other items staff counsel okay very good well um we have a meeting next week uh it will be a short

[286:00] special meeting and then study session and with that I will get 45 thank you all very much have a good night good night [Music] all [Music]