September 9, 2021 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] [Music]

[1:32] welcome everyone to the thursday september 9th 2021 regular meeting of the boulder city council i only have one announcement tonight and we will kick that off with um covet 19 vaccinations they are obviously available and free and if you would like more information on how to get a vaccine please go to the website boco.org

[2:00] slash covid vaccine notify sign up and i think that's actually two different things um i think that is the one to get notified and then there's also a way to get the vaccine there and then with that announcement being done alicia could you please call the roll yes sir and good evening everyone councilmember brockett friend here joseph present councilmember renego is absent councilmember swetlick present wallach president mayor weaver here councilmember yates here and council member young president mayor we have a quorum thank you very much alicia and the first order of business tonight

[3:00] is to amend the agenda we need to add item 8 b which is a discussion on the council employee evaluation committee so could i have a motion to amend the agenda i moved second we have a motion and a second are there any objections to amending the agenda great seeing none we will make that amendment and we will move on to our next item which is the declaration for the 2021 pollinator appreciation month and that is going to come from our beekeeper adam swetlick adam thanks sam well i'm not officially a beekeeper i do work for a small local honey company so it's time for me to don my bee suit again and show how much we appreciate our pollinators um the 550 native bee species butterflies hummingbirds beetles flies and other

[4:00] pollinators of boulder maintain the health and beauty of our grasslands forests meadows and other areas native pollinators and honeybees are indispensable partners in the production of our food supply pollinators are essential for the diverse and thriving ecosystems that support all life around the world insects are declining precipitously including critical pollinators from habitat loss pesticide use and climate change this is placing our food security natural environment and human well-being in peril urgent action is required by all of us we must respond to the biodiversity and climate crisis we must develop innovative and equitable solutions to transform our food system and rewild our community's landscaping we must provide high quality wildlife habitat in both urban and natural lands and we must act now as our community enjoys the bountiful autumn harvest and as we see the regeneration of our natural lands from

[5:01] the tireless work of pollinators the city council of the city of boulder colorado declares september 2021 pollinator appreciation month and commits to taking action by partnering with boulder's residents businesses and organizations to join together to protect pollinators and all biodiversity for current and future generations and as always thank you to taylor ryman for putting together the declaration i'm just here to read it great thank you adam and i think with that we have varela abernathy city staff for integrated pest management here to accept a declaration brella thank you mayor weaver and council member swetlick and council members tonight i'm joining you from the goss grove pollinator pathway neighborhood where we have some a crowd here of our volunteers

[6:02] and our committed community members who work tirelessly to help us create the programs and and the gardens that are just necessary to change things and support biodiversity and and and have natural solutions for climate so um i'd like to um first thank the the bee chicas who have um for the last seven years without them we wouldn't have pollinator appreciation month or the bee so festival tonight we have deborah foy cynthia um scott and deborah and teresa beck we're missing tracy bella humor and in addition to this important work um we're really moving into a direction now of of creating habitat throughout the city and we couldn't do that without people who are just taking the lead and working themselves day and night to make this happen you know we're passionate volunteers

[7:01] um and so i wanted to um introduce andre andrea montoya who's the director of the gas grove pollinator pathway project and who is responsible for putting in these beautiful gardens and our city-owned parks so um yeah i'm gonna be happy to talk to andrea now hi there my name's andrea montoya thank you for uh sponsoring our event tonight and pollinator appreciation month i am the director of the goss grove pollinator corridor project these are the volunteers and people that we couldn't do this project without i'd also like to thank brella abernathy for her undying commitment to this project she connects people across the city and the community i'm going to give you a little bit of history about who we are these pocket parks were first built in the city of boulder because they were traffic diversion islands we had stuff traffic going back and forth from arapahoe canyon and the city said we're

[8:01] going to put in these little pocket parks and these pocket parks will give you some peace and quiet well over the years over the dozens of years that they've been here they fell into disarray and not only did they fall into disarray but they fell into disuse they stopped being community spaces and they never really quite developed into anything that the community could use in addition to that we have lots of neighborhoods around here that have yards with gardens in them and though they had beautiful gardens with plants none of it was really connected it was more like we were individuals with yards and nothing really hung together about three or four years ago i started to take real notice of the fact that uh climate destruction was causing a tremendous falloff of pollinator habitat and pollinators across our city across the globe and i wanted to do something about it so it was kind of a perfect storm here we had neighbors who were

[9:02] willing to plant gardens we had pocket parks that had fallen into disarray we had a community of people that needed more connecting and we also had pollinators that needed biodiverse habitat so we sunk our heels in we got out our shovels and we committed ourselves to turning these pocket parks you can kind of see them in the background into real live biodiverse habitat full of native plants that grow around here around this area and can serve the native polis like native bees uh-oh it looks like we may have lost connection can you all hear me okay great just made sure it wasn't on

[10:01] my end well with that i guess we will uh have an abrupt end to our celebration uh with rella but i want to say thanks to adam and torella for the declaration and um thanks to everyone who's helping support our pollinators so with uh rachel i just wanted to say adam you will be missed in future years i don't know who could possibly do this as well as you thank you yeah this is probably one of my favorite things i appreciate that rachel if you ever need a guest appearance i'm happy to do it i vote we invite him back for this yeah and and this is one big loss doing it in zoom because we often would have many people show up in costume just like adam is now in council chambers so looking forward to getting back to that thanks for the years bob all right and so with that we will move on to the next item

[11:02] david gross is here with us and he will present to us the comprehensive annual financial report and then talk to us answer questions and talk to us about the selection of next year's auditor so with that i guess i'll turn to you personally and see if you want to tee this up at all i don't i think we can go right into it unless cheryl has something to add but i think we've um you know we're proud of what we've done financially i know that there are always improvements and i believe that our cafers kind of shows everything that we're doing as we move forward as strong fiscal accountability all right david it's all you take it away thank you i think ryan needs to turn my video back on oh there it is okay all right thank you great all right well thank you for this opportunity uh so my name is david gross and i serve on the boulder city council audit subcommittee uh the committee consists

[12:00] of council members swetlick wallach yates and me and it's our job to assess and interpret the audit of the city's fiscal year 2020 financial statements it's not the job of this committee to in any way assess the city's financial position or to assess its financial activities just the quality of the statements and the audit of those statements so the motion on the consent agenda for later this evening is to approve and accept the city of boulder annual comprehensive financial report or the acfr and also the audit of the acfr so note that this is the sixth year that clifton larson and allen clifton larson allen has audited the city's financial statements and it's best practice to review auditors and consider a change after five years and the committee did this last fall after careful consideration of several firms across several factors including expertise compatibility and cost the committee uh unanimously approved to

[13:01] renew boulder's relationship with clifton larson allen okay so what i'm going to do is i'm going to give a brief description of the four part process that led us to this point so first city staff records all financial transactions second the staff uses this information to prepare the financial statements these financial statements are produced for each of the city's 41 funds including the general fund and the open space and the transportation and municipal property in addition to a combined um set of financial statements there are three main financial statements that are produced for uh for a government entity like this so kind of like a p l or an income statement is something called the statement of revenue expenses and change in net position all revenue transactions are recorded and summarized and categorized by source all expenses are categorized by type and from these the staff computes the

[14:00] resulting net change in fund balance meaning how much more or less did the fund end up with relative to where it started so like a balance sheet uh the city also produces a statement of net position and this is what the city owns its assets and what the city owes its liabilities and their resulting net position if this were a business we'd call the net position owner's equity the difference between this year's net position and last year's net position is the change in that position that we saw on the p l statement above the third financial statement that's produced is something called the statement of cash flows and the statement of cash flows can be an important addition to the other two financial statements to address the to assess the true financial health of an entity so if an entity has lots of non-cash revenues or lots of non-cash expenses meaning transactions on credit and then entity that appears healthy that appears profitable or appears to

[15:00] have enough money can run out of money waiting to get paid this isn't the case for the city of boulder the city does not have a lot of non-cash transactions but it still must produce this statement of cash flows so these three types of statements for all of the different funds these are public they can be used by anyone to understand how the city operates and answer questions about the city from where does the city receive its funds where does the city spend its funds and how stable and sustainable financially stable and sustainable is this city but these and other questions can only be answered if the city is accurately recording transactions and producing the financial statements correctly so the third process is to give these financial statements to the auditor in addition the auditor works with the city staff to gain an understanding of the process used to record the transactions and prepare the financial statements and it's the auditor's job to ensure that the recording and preparation are done in accordance with the rules set by the

[16:02] government accounting standards board or gasby so the results of the audit the auditors gave a clean opinion this is the best possible result for the city so summarizing the opinion on page 18 of the 311 page annual comprehensive financial report or the acfr in our opinion the financial statements fairly in all material respects uh represent the true financial position of the government activities the business type activities each major fund and the aggregate remaining fund information of the city of boulder this is the best possible uh report opinion that the auditors could have now there was one something called a my uncorrected misrepresentation it sounds a lot worse than it is and i'll talk about that in a minute so the auditors look for deficiencies significant deficiencies and material weakness a deficiency is a flaw in the

[17:01] design of a process that might allow for errors it doesn't mean that there was an error but if they find something like this they issue a comment on it so in 2015 the auditors found 14 deficiencies associated with i.t processes the city worked extremely hard to address these uh the 14 was down to eight by 2017 four by 2018 zero for 2019 and again zero deficiencies for 2020. a significant deficiency is a large deficiency or a combination of them less severe than a material weakness but yet important enough to merit attention and again no significant deficiencies and finally a material weakness is a large deficiency or combinations such that not only did this happen but there's a reasonable probability that errors occurred and again no material weaknesses so to recap legacy deficiencies for 2015 are all fixed and there's no new ones

[18:00] no significant deficiencies no material weaknesses now there was one misstatement of the financial statements that went uncorrected and this is called an uncorrected misstatement so what happened was boulder county did 224 thousand dollars worth of work for the city in december 2020 but the county didn't send the invoice until march 2021 after the books were closed the city paid not no available entry occurred so the 2020 expenses which is what we're talking about now should have been 224 000 higher but since total expenses were over 311 million this represents seven one hundredths of a percent of expenses so when this relatively small timing issue was

[19:00] discovered in the auditing process it was deemed correctly to have no material impact on the reported financial position of the city and it's going to be included next year but there is one so there does remain one uncorrected misstatement but again doesn't have a uh a real impact so overall a clean opinion and for the 31st consecutive year 38 years in total the city was awarded the certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting by the government financial government finance officers association so this certifies that the city went beyond the minimum requirements and repaired reports uh that evidence the spirit of transparency and full disclosure uh just an aside one other concern the uh this fiscal year that the committee had was internal controls internal controls are the process uh the processes make it more difficult or hopefully impossible for people to engage in theft so for example a single

[20:00] person is not allowed to determine the amount of cash to be collected collect the cash and then deposit it in the bank given the enormous procedural changes necessitated by cobit and the move to remote work the committee was concerned that these changes might decrease internal controls but both the city and the city staff and the auditors were able to allay these concerns um for example there weren't a lot of trash cash transactions in 2020 and so this seems like it was um dealt with well so the fourth and final step is the audit committee interprets and acts on any recommendations from the auditor there weren't any the audit committee then makes a recommendation to the full council on whether to accept the annual comprehensive financial report and the audit of the annual comprehensive financial report and it's the unanimous recommendation of the audit committee that the city council the city council approve and accept this report and the audit of this report thank you

[21:00] great thank you so much dave and um before we go to council questions or feedback would you mind telling us i know that you help us out with this but you have a day job would you mind telling us the expertise that you bring uh to the work that you do with the city uh yeah i'm a teaching professor associate teaching professor of finance at cu i have been teaching graduate and undergraduate finance for 25 six years now uh uh up there on the hill oh great we so appreciate the time that you take to help um look from the outside and make sure that our processes are stable looks like they're getting better every year which is great and to get that certificate of uh high regard from the government financial officers is wonderful so i want to thank you and thank the whole committee i was on the audit committee for three or four years and there's a lot of detail that has to be tracked there and with that i will turn to council and members of the audit

[22:01] committee and see if anyone has questions or feedback aaron well i'd just like to echo my thanks uh dave we just so much appreciate your service to the city and bringing your expertise to bear and the system is on it and just a huge kudos to the financial department of the city and uh you know the audits have gotten better every single year and have such a clean report and it just it's an extraordinary accomplishment so very appreciative of the phenomenal work by city staff at this great thank you aaron mary yeah i wanted to thank dave so thank you dave awesome work and um this couldn't happen without a an amazing staff behind it um so i wanted to thank our finance staff for the stellar work that they do on an ongoing basis so thank you great thank you so much mary seeing no other question oh there's mark mark

[23:00] jump in sorry i had to unmute um i also want to thank our finance staff they were at the committee level they were very very forthcoming and the information they produced was terrific um and i want to thank dave as well for his uh terrific expertise and helping us navigate this process i actually have one question um starting in 2022 um we're going to be subject to a change in the way leases are recorded um it's called the you're probably familiar with it i am not gatsby statement 87 um and it was apparently significant enough that our auditors had a large section of boilerplate warning us that we had to be prepared for that um is there anything special that we have to be prepared for is that an ordinary course of business adjustment that we will have to make i'm going to let cheryl answer that

[24:02] okay that would be great yeah so thanks mark and thanks everyone um for your comments and feedback tonight and dr gross i couldn't have explained it better than you did so thank you um so this is a pretty big lift for the entire city in that you know in the past we've we've just had to record our major capital leases and now we're pretty much having to go throughout the city and determine all the leases that we have and record those so it certainly is something that we've been planning for actually the gas be delayed it due to covid so we are on it and we will be ready for implementation next year cheryl do you think it will have any major impact on the financial statement itself i don't i don't think so but i'm going to defer to ann penny our controller um she may have other thoughts

[25:00] yeah no i think from the annual financial report standpoint you will see changes at the government-wide level much like you do with the pension expense that we have to record at that level but from a fund statement perspective i don't think you'll see much of a change at that level thanks thank you the the point of this is to account more transparently for things that didn't show up on the balance sheet so if i sign a 10-year lease i have a commitment to make this payment if i bought the building i would have a commitment to make mortgage payments and economically they're not that much different but legally they are and so what happened was lots of entities were essentially leasing a building that someone else owned but effectively using it for the whole life of the building and they could avoid putting the building on their balance sheet and so capitalizing leases or coming up with capital leases is a way to ensure that entities are correctly stating and

[26:01] reporting their financial obligations like they would a mortgage now they have to report a lease contract thank you very good well thank you again dr gross and to our entire finance team thank you so much for all the work you did pulling this all together it is a great accomplishment and um i have to say dr gross you you get so excited about the audit work and the accounting that you must make a great professor so thank you for your time and with that alicia i think we're ready to move to open common is that correct okay that is correct sir and we have three people for open comment tonight as usual open comment is always two minutes so our three speakers will be gary erling williams sales and

[27:02] patrick murphy each of you get two minutes and gary erling you are up can you hear me now we can hear you i got it delayed on mute i wanted to talk to you about the um dining outdoor dining on pearl street um we've had a major change in the number of people especially non-resident people visiting pearl now the pearl open dining went in place without any it was kind of an emergency and it went into effect without any study and there were a lot of unintended consequences and if you drive streets in our neighborhood you will see what

[28:00] happened was it was turned into a big parking lot with no space for neighbors some of us don't even have driveways or parking spaces and nothing seems to be being done about it and we now hear there was talk about a three-year extension now i know there's lots of open parking lots there's lots of downtown parking but the people who come here primarily from out of state don't want to pay and they aren't in any way encumbered by the threat of a possible ticket they just leave so um i think we need to really take into consideration this i think we need to take into consideration how many empty tables there are at different times on pearl street well our blocks are never unparked and as i said you have a lot of open parking options city parking you have a

[29:01] hospital site with a huge empty parking lot you have an alfalfa's parking lot that's never being used and i can't even count the number of parking lots probably public and private that could be used if they were free people would use them and if there was on-site traffic monitoring which the npp does not do anyway thank you i think you need to look at this thank you gary um next up we have william sales and patrick murphy william and we do not have uh william or patrick here um not seeing them in the meeting we do have len siegel who is interested in speaking for open comment um okay well let's bring lynn in because she's only signed up to other times so lynn you have two minutes

[30:05] yeah i didn't get the information for this meeting as being separate there was no notification that you have to have a certain time to sign up for open comment ahead of a meeting that's off access to what it usually is um i wanted to talk to you about cu south one of the things that i found out today is that the if there's a de-annexation there's a change in what happens with the dx de-annexation that the if the land disposal happens that it will not be in effect but that it it wasn't in effect and it and if there's a de-annexation the open space board of trustees will have had to go through all this process for nothing

[31:02] and without having the land disposal of 119 acres this is a new change it was brought up at open space board of trustees by hal holstein last night at 8 50. so you can listen to his review of that but i imagine that it's if it's d annexed because c dot doesn't approve it and then it's vnx well then you could think well yeah if it's deanna's then why should we still get the 119 acres but if we spent the time to process all of this information with cu south they should have to pay the liability of all of the time that's been spent for this last year of us trying to get this annexation through supposedly according to them we're the ones that want the annexation not them um

[32:02] according to us it's them this wants the annexation so i'm kind of confused um this is there's so many moving parts to this annexation and it's changing all the time lynn your time is up thank you for your comments they're appreciated and you can send the rest of them in to us by email if you would like um ryan have either of the other two speakers shown up they have not okay very good we will move on in a moment um i aaron i see your hand i was going to turn to staff and council but would you like to speak before oh i i just feel like we need to make an entry in the boulder city council book of records to only have two people at open common i don't know where our citizens are today that's very very unusual well hopefully they are they're doing something fun um with that we'll bring open comment to a

[33:01] close and i will turn to nuria and sandra and seek to staff any any response not at this time but always appreciate open comment no comment here thank you great counsel any feedback okay see none alicia take us to the next item please all right sir our next item on this agenda tonight is item number three the consent agenda that includes items a through f super very good and um bob i see you've got a hand up i just wanted to announce that i'm going to recuse myself from item 3c some thank you um any other council comments questions juni did you have the um were you going to recuse from 3c as well

[34:10] i was gonna make the comment at some point during voting yes okay super all right with that uh can you hear me uh just barely you were a bit choppy but i understood that you were going to recuse yourself as well she said with the voting juni you are fairly frozen i don't know if you need to leave the meeting and come back in i'll follow up with judy uh separately okay super well with that council uh word the consent agenda um any comments questions or we take a motion on the consent

[35:01] agenda i move the consent agenda second all right we have a motion and a second and i think i will wait a couple of minutes to see if we can get juni back into the meeting so we can be clear on her recusal if if one exists and just for folks who are listening the item that bob is going to recuse himself from 3c is uh calling a special meeting on september 14th which will be um for the public hearing of the cu south annexation which is why i'm here all right yes we can hear you now yeah um sorry about that i'll just keep my camera off so that you can hear me

[36:01] better and yes i will be recusing myself from 3c thank you very good and juni well you were gone we had a motion and a second for the consent agenda so i believe uh we're ready to take a vote on that is that correct alicia and it's a roll call yes sir it is mayor weaver hi councilmember yates i uh on all items other than 3c for which i'm recusing myself thank you sir councilman young yes brockett hi friend yes joseph hi except for 3c thank you sweat lick aye and wallet

[37:00] aye mayor the consent agenda is approved eight to one except for the recusals of council members yate and joseph on item 3c super and i just want to make sure i i believe it was seven to one uh sorry eight to zero for all of the items and seven to zero for three c correct it would be six to zero for other than three c because we have eight present and the two requeues two recursives thank you perfect exactly awesome okay all righty thank you for keeping me straight as well all right next on our agenda we have our call up and check-in items under number four on this agenda 4a is the call up item for site review case number lur 2020-00052 to partially redevelop a portion of the

[38:01] property at 34.85 stanford court with 60 permanently affordable apartments for seniors age 55 plus in one new building the proposed units include 54 one-bedroom units and six two-bedroom units the original sanctuary building is proposed to be landmarked and renovated for the existing child care rainbow child care center on the lower level and new community space for residents on the upper level the proposal includes a request for an increase in maximum allowable building height to allow a height of 45 feet 10 inches for the proposed building very good thank you alicia and nuria i believe do we have the staff presentation we do we're going to eventually hear from ian swallow but i believe jacob popped up as well and might want to frame this for us in a better way well thank you so much good evening mayor waver members of council i'm actually going to hand this off to sloan wahlberg from planning and

[39:01] development services has a few slides for us this evening apologies jacob thank you jacob emily would you mind bringing um that presentation up for me all right there we go okay um so good evening council the purpose of tonight's item is for council to consider whether to call out planning board's decision on the site review application that alicia described which is to partially develop a portion of the property at 3485 student court which was formerly the site of the mount calvary church and this presentation would just be a brief overview of the site review proposal and the planning board determination next slide please so um just to provide the context the nearly five acre site is located in

[40:00] south boulder at the northernmost terminus of stanford court one of the most notable aspects of the site is the topography and the natural slope to the north into the east the site is relatively level at that source southwestern quadrant of the site which is where the redevelopment post the site contains two former church structures here you can see that original church sanctuary constructed in 1957 which is proposed to remain and be landmarked and then you can see that church edition constructed in 2001 which is proposed to be demolished next slide the proposal is for 60 permanently affordable apartments for seniors which would be persons over the age of 55 and to maintain that exact child care facility on site the original sanctuary building would be renovated to house that child care use

[41:02] and also to provide some new community space the proposal includes three requested modifications to the land use code the first is a hype modification to permit a building of a height nearly 46 feet the second is a parking reduction to allow the provision of 59 um vehicular parking spaces where 83 spaces are required which is a 29.3 reduction and lastly a bike parking reduction to allow the provision of 79 bicycle parking spaces where 124 are required in terms of parking the applicant has submitted a parking management plan that describes how parking would be managed and shared between the uses on the site which would include residents but also both our housing partners staff child care staff and visitors and the parking reduction is based on that

[42:01] senior population served transportation demand management strategies and overall access to services transit and multimodal connections next slide please in terms of building design the building is contemporary in style but also designed to be compatible with the existing historic sanctuary the roof is predominantly flat with some sloop sloped shed roof elements that sort of break up the mess and also provide for screening of rooftop mechanical equipment next slide and then on that note the applicant as i said is is requesting a height modification the proposed height is 45 feet and 10 inches which is just as a reminder is based on how the city calculates height which takes the low point within 25 feet of the building and

[43:01] measures to the highest point of the building and the proposal is eligible for height modification because at least 40 percent of the floor area of the building would be used for units that meet the requirements of permanently affordable units and the height modification is necessary to achieve two objectives the first is that the design of the building incorporates those pitched roofs to sort of support that architectural compatibility with the historic structure in the existing neighborhood and as i mentioned the other portion would be because of the topography and how the city measures height so this chart just sort of shows you the two different components of the height modification next slide please so in terms of process the project is required to complete a site review both based on the size of the property and also the number of units proposed

[44:00] because of the height modification the the final decision was by the planning board um on august 5th the planning board held a public hearing and approves the application unanimously with a vote of 5-0 and at the hearing the board discussed whether the proposal meets the site review criteria and the criteria for parking reductions they also discussed the proposed hype modification and also the need to maintain pedestrian access across the site for use by the neighborhood and there was an additional condition added to ensure that no obstructions would be placed on that pedestrian connection through the sick bait next slide please um in terms of the public process formal public notification was provided as part of the concept plan review and also the site review neighborhood comment was given as part

[45:00] of the concept plan and the applicant has worked to address these through the site review process and very little public comment was received by staff through the site review although two individuals did speak in support at the planning board hearing and outside of the formal process bhp has undergone public outreach for the project which the applicant is available to discuss if desired by council next slide um and as i mentioned that concept plan was reviewed by planning board in june of last year and city council discussed the proposal at the july 7th 2020 meeting but did not call it the item for consideration at a public hearing and in terms of other necessary processes the vacation of right-of-way has been completed and the designation for that historic sanctuary

[46:00] is on track to go to the landmarks board at the october 6th um meeting dates which would then go to council within 100 days and if there is no call up tonight the project would move into the technical document and permitting processes so that's all i have for tonight but happy to answer any questions great thank you so much sloan let me make sure that okay and i see two hands up i've got adam and mark adam thanks sam uh i know some of the main concerns about this area were the access from table mesa and especially that this is gonna house um seniors that there may be more ambulance traffic that um has to be sort of anticipated uh was anything

[47:01] prepared in that regard or i i realized i don't think there's any additional access points uh provided in this plan but i wanted to see if that was taken into consideration uh well there wasn't a traffic study done but there was a review by city staff to ensure that there was um safe and appropriate access across the site um so they do have when you're entering the site there is a sort of entry plaza where an ambulance would be able to pull in it's also been reviewed by the fire marshal to ensure that an emergency vehicle would be able to get through the site okay and this may not be a question for you sloane but are there any anticipated um traffic improvements for that street that connects to table mesa just since it is a pretty uh highly trafficked area and it's

[48:00] kind of a mixture of people going a little fast in a residential neighborhood right so um because this that portion of roadway is is not part of this property they wouldn't be doing improvements there i will say that um the possibility of improvements on the sort of public side was evaluated by the transportation department and they determined that that wasn't necessary at this point but it's certainly something that we could reevaluate once this has been developed okay and my last question is there was sort of a community park even though it wasn't an officially established park or anything uh on the west side of this property are community members still gonna have access to that or does this plan in any way mitigate that function

[49:00] um you know that might be a good question for bhp on how um they sort of intend to manage the site yeah i can uh i can take that one sloane uh good evening members of council ian swallow with boulder housing partners um and adam i think what you're referring to there is um there was kind of a historical not historic but historic for the property community gardens over on that west side they've gotten pretty overgrown in the last couple years but our intent um we're actually moving where the community gardens would be so they'd be a little more central in the site and then we would look to make um a portion of those beds would be available for the community um just because they would potentially be losing access there um you'll note if you uh look closely at our demolition plans there's there's one note on there that uh says we'll be moving the dirt from those gardens saving that uh that kind of good soil and moving it to where the new gardens would be so i think we we think that's a good good solution and and one that'll um serve both the

[50:00] seniors as well as kind of the broader community out there thanks for that ian and that did remind me one more thing is there any uh plan for there's sort of a a path that goes to the north um on that property it's you know not a designated path in any way i was just wondering if there's any plans for that if it's just gonna be sort of shuttered or if if you have any idea yeah no i think um it is certainly not going to be shutter that was a big kind of focal point of our site plan so that path will remain um it'll get slightly reconfigured so that it'll bring folks up from the bottom of the hill down on dover there they'll be able to come up through the site walk through kind of the entry courtyard and still be able to cut across to the table mesa intersection and kind of that shopping center so our intent is that that stays that's public um the path will be improved but it's not going to be um it's not going to be concrete it'll be like a crusher fine path so it'll maintain that kind of natural feel out there

[51:00] and we would just yeah we would welcome members of the public in the neighborhood to continue using that once the site's redeveloped all right that's all i have thank you ian and thank you sloan thanks adam uh next we have mark and rachel mark my first question was going to be on the community garden so i thank adam for asking it and i appreciated your response ian with respect to other questions um not taking into account the slope what is the the the height of the physical structures the the proposed structure is that yeah we're going to be within the 38 foot limitation if not for um the way we calculated in terms of 25 feet uh from the from the buildings themselves so in this district the limitation is 35 feet um and even if you were measuring from grade the building would be over that and the rationale for that would be um

[52:02] they could design a building with flat roofs straight across to meet the height limitation but in order to meet that compatibility with the historic sanctuary building and do some screening of the mechanical equipment and they would still be over height limitation i'm trying to do the calculation of where they would be do you know off the top of your head jv um yeah thank you everyone my name is jb jesus i'm the architect uh the lead architect on the project and i i don't remember the exact the precise numbers sloane but it was only about a foot to between 12 and 18 inches when we had um an entirely flat roof on top of the structure we did add the slowproof elements actually at the request of the community um to have slope grooves on the building and to use those to screen our mechanical equipment which caused them to count towards the height of the structure whereas if it

[53:01] had been a standard mechanical screen fence on the roof it would not have been considered part of the building height so essentially a good portion or most of that height increase that you're seeking is for the architectural elements and screening that's correct okay um and my last question is on the parking uh you have 59 spots i assume residents will have some proportion of those spots are they gonna have guaranteed spots or is it gonna be you know between staff and visitors and residents kind of a come one come all um proposition uh each day uh yeah i can answer that mark so we um we looked pretty closely at the parking out here i think we knew that was a big concern for the neighborhood and this site and the contacts out there so where we landed we looked at a number of our other senior properties we found we typically see about 0.6 cars per unit

[54:03] at our senior properties so for the residents that's about 36 spaces we looked at the child care use their staffing needs as well as what bhp staffing needs might be what we found is that we think the maximum number of folks at a peak time out there would be about 45 cars um what we wanted to do is make sure you know that if that's the max we provide some buffer just to be sure we're meeting the needs out there um but also not not providing too much parking at the site so we can still have those gardens we have some really nice walking paths that um without the parking reduction really would have been possible so i think i think we're at a sweet spot with the 59 spaces to to meet need but also make sure there's enough but how many did you assume for the uh for the residents 36 it's about 36. and that that's a you know that's an average looking at other bhp sites but we typically with our senior uh housing communities we do not see a very high

[55:01] car ownership percentage are you looking at about 23 spots for visitors staff etc yeah that's right so and you know i think we would probably have one full-time property manager who was on the site um the child care has you know depending on the day between four and seven staff who would be there and then it's primarily a drop-off use for that child care it's it's a pretty locally served demographic so you do have folks dropping kids off in cars but you also have a lot of families who are walking or biking to the site so i think we feel like that'll that'll work pretty well out there okay thank you that's a lot of job thank you mark rachel uh my question was similar to marx i was wondering about the parking reduction and also why do bike reduction at the same time as as car parking reductions that just jumped out as a little strange to me yeah i can um i can answer it as well so

[56:01] you know i think the the bike parking reduction jumps out as a big number but i i would say we're still providing quite a bit of bike parking so i think we have 45 indoor secured bike parking spaces for the residents as well as several kind of outdoor bike parking areas um the the reason we ended up there was again we kind of looked around at our senior properties to see what bike ownership looks like it's it's a very small number it's it's not typical that our senior residents are biking um i think we also didn't want to say we don't we don't need any i think we've seen you know trends in e-bikes increasing and i think that will only continue for the senior population so we think you know 45 covered spaces in the building is a good number um that that will meet the need for the seniors it also you know allows us to to kind of keep the building footprint a little smaller kind of minimize the uh the bulk of the building while still i think

[57:01] meeting more than meeting the need that we'll see for mike perkin out there okay maybe that just surprises me because i think the the population age is 55 plus and i i i know a lot of people who who bike well into you know 70s and 80s so yeah i guess maybe a follow-up question is if you if it turns out that you need more bike parking spaces what would happen so if we needed more i you know i think we would look to add it on the outside we have quite a bit of space in some of the terraces um and then you know the other point that i would i would just mention here is this is kind of these are formal bike parking spaces what we see oftentimes is people prefer to keep their bikes in their unit rather than locking them up in like a formal bike parking place so um you know our one bedroom units are about 700 square feet so they're quite large so i i think you would see someone who was an avid cyclist would probably

[58:00] keep their bike in their unit and not even utilize those spaces um but i do think we would have a room on the site should three four or five years down the road we say oh everything's full the racks are full we could certainly come in and add some additional parking for bikes okay thanks all right thank you rachel and if there's no other comments i just want to say thanks to bhp for bringing this forward thank you so much for reusing that sanctuary building we've had a couple successful projects in the last handful of years decade or so where those houses of worship that have been preserved have been really great amenities on the site so i think this is a fantastic project and you know [Music] the height is a minor issue in some sense but it does definitely 100 affordable definitely provides a community benefit for that little extra bit of height so again thank you so much um sloan for

[59:00] walking us through this and ian for being here um and with that back to you alicia oh i'm sorry let me double check i haven't heard any desire to call it up does anyone desire to call this project up okay there we go now alicia you can take us on to the next item all right so thank you next we have item 4b which is the vacation of a 20-foot utility easement in the rear yard at 2100 emerald road in order to allow for an adu associated with aur 2021-0003 referenced adr 2021-o very good um any council member want to call this up to speak to it great seeing none i don't think there's a call up here alicia and we're ready

[60:00] for the next item all right sir thank you item number five on tonight's agenda is our public hearings 5a is the introduction first reading and consideration of a motion to order published by title only ordinance 8488 approving supplemental appropriations to the 2021 budget including appropriations of the american rescue plan act funds thank you murray i believe this is you right yep and we've got and hopefully i've got it right this time we've got two great presenters cara skinner in finance and then as many of you know mark wolf has been kind of our project lead on arpa and while he's currently in community vitality it is my great pleasure to say that he will be joining the finance team as of september 20th as our new senior budget manager so kudos to mark but really the team has done a lot of good work on this thank you noria i will kick off the

[61:01] presentation emily if you could bring that up for us thank you very much so uh good evening council we reviewed this special atv request at the august 24th study session so our presentation this evening will be brief next slide the request before you is to appropriate funding for four purposes i will review the first three the service restorations restorative payments and the airport fund project and then mark will go over the initial arpa uses this request asks to appropriate just over six million dollars from the general fund from additional revenue approximately 2 million from sales and

[62:00] use tax revenue that is exceeding budget or expected to exceed budget and 4 million from the city's arpa allocation it also requests a total of nearly 1.9 million from 22 restricted funds from additional revenue and from fund balance next slide the special atv requests to restore services are detailed in your agenda memo but in total the general fund requests are across seven departments and total just over 1.1 million and requests for other restricted funds are across five funds and total nearly three hundred thousand next slide the special atv includes funding to start restoring services and importantly i would add and we talked about this in august restoring positions and hiring staff so we have the capacity to restore services

[63:00] here are just some examples of services that would be restored and phased back in through this appropriation and the 2022 budget and that is library services arts including programs and cultural grants parks and recreation including recreation services forestry and urban parks maintenance staff to support the reopening of the penn field tape the second municipal building and our age well center to support programming next slide next we are requesting an appropriation totaling 1.7 million across all funds for a one-time payment to current employees for the 2020 extended holiday furlough days that they took we do want to note that since the august 24th meeting we have identified that there are current seasonal and temporary workers whose hours were impacted by the

[64:00] extended holiday furlough and funding for payments for those impacted employees has been added to the general fund request and then last uh the airport has requested an eight hundred thousand dollar appropriation from fund balance uh for a time-sensitive fuel farm project uh this project would potentially later be um as part of our atb-2 in november but there was some sense of urgency to appropriate these dollars now and move the project forward and with that i will hand it over to mark to review the initial arbor uses thank you caro and we can go to the next slide good evening again council as carl mentioned we covered a lot of this on august 24th so i will just briefly go through a few of these slides which outline our initial recommended allocation of our local relief funds through arpa next slide please

[65:02] this slide should look familiar to you this represents the city of boulder's local relief funds through arpa in total a little over 20 million dollars tonight we're seeking approval of appropriation of the highlighted portions that's gap funding for limited service restorations a little over 2 million in immediate needs and a million dollar public health reserve to address any challenges or expenditures that arise related to delta variant or other variants in the coming months we did discuss in a million a million dollar reserve for emerging needs based on council feedback we are not seeking authorization for expenditure this evening if there are emerging needs that arise over the coming months there are other opportunities through adjustments subsequent adjustments to base that we'll be back and seeking approval for that at that time what we are not talking about tonight

[66:01] is this the large green area or the remaining dollars for transformative investment which we are pursuing planning for in the coming months in the areas of behavioral mental health small business support addressing digital divide across the city and other initiatives that address some of our most pressing challenges in our community next slide please as mentioned before we're seeking to apply our dollars in very limited areas for restoration of services the largest being in our recreation services to to get us through the next several months and hopefully begin to see some of the revenue come back through the restoration service funding for our severe weather shelter to expand our bed capacity including hotel rooms in case there are is that need due to social distance

[67:00] requirements throughout the winter months and then some smaller amounts for neighborhood grants and public art maintenance next slide please we are seeking to apply arpa dollars to a little over two million dollars in immediate needs uh largest being uh addressing the the digital divide at several bhp sites throughout the city uh additional assistance to small businesses to support our local economic recovery in several areas including expanded and pilot programming in affordable commercial expansion of our micro loan program and programming to encourage safe visitation to the community we are looking at a program to assist folks with utility bills continuing programming that we funded through our cvr allocation in human services in the areas of food child care and health care access and lastly some additional dollars to support services through hybrid work delivery

[68:03] next slide please and our last slide is our requested motion for this evening happy to take any uh questions uh car and i are both available for those thank you great thank you both so much for that presentation and council do we have any questions mark uh camera what is the nature of the appropriation for the fuel farm what makes it uh imperative that we do it now and and do it in that amount i think i would call on someone from the transportation department to answer that if erica so thank you very much uh the reason why it is imperative that we do this quickly is because um we have been

[69:01] um given some notices by the state about um the heel form and the practices and so forth and so we have been attempting to be responsive to those needs that have identified potential environmental risk as well as trying to get ourselves into a best practice place where the environmental impacts of fueling are mitigated and the amount that is involved is based on essentially just what it costs to actually change over from an underground fuel farm to an above ground one that is safer for the community safer for water sources and more effective and efficient and because i modern in terms of deductions from fund balances that that is more than four times the amount of any other uh deduction from fund balance so it just struck me as

[70:00] rather large it is and sadly that is what it costs all right thank you thank you mark mary um i moved to introduce an order published by title only ordinance 84 88 88 approving supplemental appropriations to the 2021 budget second awesome we have a motion and a second mary would you like to speak to your motion um i think we asked all our questions and made all our comments in august and um i totally support these appropriations do we do we have a public hearing oh i'm i'm sorry yes we do all right all right so let's we have a motion in a second but we will suspend discussion

[71:01] while we go to the public hearing and if the public hearing changes your mind mirror you can withdraw your motion so um with that give me a second and i will pull things up yes let's go to the public hearing and we have two folks um signed up for the public hearing we have lynn siegel and edward smutney and because we're less than 15 people there'll be three minutes each so when you are up and you have three minutes yeah i'd like to see some of this for the side of my house which is melting it's basically made of particle board and lousy um drainage on the gutters that drained into the house and just decomposed the siding um it'd be nice to have some shelter at my

[72:00] place instead of like the siding falling off to the tight down to the tie back then eventually down to the frame and and into my house and you know it'd be nice to have some warmth in the winter and some cooling in the summer i have an air conditioner but i won't use it of course sam you know i'm very energy efficient and it'd be nice to have a a public electric utility for boulder that i could justify getting solar panels for so that i could get air-to-air mini splits so i can keep myself warm in the winter and cool in the semper i'm 68 years old it'd be nice to have a little bit of at least basic you know basic needs met that would be nice that would be nice for some of these funds that's it bye all right thank you lynn

[73:01] and um i've been told by ryan that the next speaker is not here so with that we will bring um a public hearing to a close and come back to council we have a motion and a second um and mary did you want to finish speaking to your motion i just wanted to comment to um lynn that there may be some assistance for home repair available and so would encourage her to [Music] look into that um but yes no other comments on my motion super all right with that we have a motion and a second um any other discussion seeing none um it sounds like is this a show of hands alicia is that right yes there it is okay very good so we will go opposite

[74:01] that does anyone want to vote against the motion great seeing none um the motion passes eight to zero all right all right thank you our next public hearing item 5b is the discussion and input on the proposed 2022 policy statement on regional state and federal issues thanks so much alicia again thank you uh mayor we've got cara castillo and the wings to walk us through it okay thank you nuria thank you uh mayor members of council um so we have a powerpoint presentation if that could be started that would be great

[75:04] okay um next slide please all right so for purposes of this item uh i'd like to talk about the proposed changes to the policy statement uh on state regional and federal uh issues um talk about the policy priorities talk about generally more generally about the city's legislative advocacy work we're going to have our lobbyists come up and speak a little bit about what to expect in 2022 uh take some questions from council i have a public hearing and then would love to receive council's direction on on how what kind of revisions they'd like to make next slide please so this is something that most of you know but the purpose of the policy statement is to direct

[76:00] the um i'm sorry i'm a little distracted i'm getting some messages and i'm having a hard time if you give me one second it might be useful to turn this off because they're coming on fast and furious okay i'll do my best apologies if you hear some messages i'll have to move forward on that the purpose of the policy statement is to make sure that the city officials have the direction they need to respond to opportunities as they're presented on the policy sphere in the on the regional state and federal level um the the right now we have 69 positions that have been proposed for you we have 27 of those positions that have some changes that i've been proposed not going to be walking through all of those because they were reviewed by the intergovernmental affairs committee so your committee um composed of mayor weaver councilmember brockett joseph and wallet

[77:01] wallock so they made some recommendations on some changes and those changes were um incorporated into attachment a and attachment b attachment a is the actual changes to the policy statement attachment b is a summary of those changes if you could please refer to those rather than the one that ones that you received in your packet that would be appreciated next slide please since i'm not walking through the changes i'd like to at least kind of in globally explain the kinds of changes that occurred primarily they have to do with reflecting a change in circumstances because legislation or other policy or ages agency action occurred at least 18 of the policy positions are changed because of that the second category is because there's new needs that we've identified in opportunities so there's seven changes to policy positions that are made because of that and finally there's two

[78:02] positions that are made there's just they're just changes in existing positions that were recommended by the intergovernmental affairs committee next slide please um i'd like to start by summarizing some requests that council member friend made and i want to say that i really appreciate her reaching out to me it's always useful because as you can see she provided some concerns and i actually have some proposal proposed language so we don't have to wordsmith on the fly our first concern was the fact that of course we know the supreme court is reviewing the texas law uh on abortion rights and because of that there may very well be a need for our own state act to make sure that we protect women's reproductive freedoms so she asked that it was appropriate to add it here um if you agree that it is appropriate i have language as as written and read on

[79:00] this as plain and simple protect women's reproductive freedoms including their right to access abortions this could also be something that is eventually addressed at the federal level in terms of legislation or perhaps we might be asked to sign on to amicus briefs so a position like this would allow the city to be prepared to weigh in at all those levels second of all their position number 33 has to do with protecting governmental immunity um to clarify that it's um well so actually back up so council member fred wanted to make sure that that position was not interpreted to mean that we were against that that we were supporting rolling back qualified immunity as you know that was established in the uh the major law enforcement integrity act that was passed in in 1920 so the proposed change to the language that i am making to clarify that we are not um

[80:01] proposing to roll back the changes that the state made on qualified immunity is written there again it's the red language it's qualifying an existing statement that says that the city will support legislation that provides immunity it accepts accepts established state law on a qualified immunity next slide please um so the number is wrong here but a third request that council member friend made was she felt that the position number 39 which has to do with providing minimum requirements that local governments must meet to combat homelessness she felt that there was some language that uh created some equivocation and so the language is right there right below it in my proposal and frankly it's it's it's it's merely striking the word some um and so it would read furthermore the city may also support minimum requirements that local governments must meet combat

[81:02] homelessness the reason we kept the word nay is because we would need to look at the uh language before we're gonna allow a state mandate that you know uh it might apply to us it might force us to change our own policy we would of course i'm sorry to interrupt we're losing your voice if you could pull your mic down a little bit yeah is that any better much better thank you okay apologies about that uh so her last uh her last question was about a position number 50 which is regarding thc um so this has to do with the concerns that we have about the impact that our youth with uh some high potency thc uh such as products known as shatter and wax and um i had proposed to strike this language because there was a legislation that was introduced uh hb 21 1317 that did pass

[82:00] that did address um issues of packaging and the amounts and product messaging and marketing so in my eagerness to remove positions where their legislation has passed i did propose deleting it but the council member friend did point out that part of the bill did charge the colorado school of public health with identifying gaps in those regulations so there might be additional legislation that's necessary so what i am proposing in response to her concern is to restore position 50 to read as uh as it exists and that is written there in red next slide please we also received um i've received uh directly an email response from laurel herndon you might have heard from before from the immigrant legal center of baltimore county she's been a world champion of immigrant rights and a great partner with the city on our policy advocacy she pointed out that senate bill 21 199 which

[83:01] which repealed a lot of the anti-immigrant legislation that was passed in 2005 did not actually in its final form although it initially did did not in its final form repeal the need for what's called the secure and verifiable identity document act which essentially prohibits local governments from accepting all but the most formal forms of identification which limits our ability to take alternative forms of identification that can be useful for a variety of reasons so what i am proposing is to return a position that was actually in our policy statement two years ago that was limited to just this issue i won't read the entire thing of course but the main position is to repeal the secure and verifiable identity document act which prohibits municipalities from determining which forms of identification to accept in the provision of purely municipal services next slide please

[84:03] and the final request that i saw from the community uh you all received emails um from leslie klusterm and from duncan gilchrist from 350 colorado he was proposing rejecting rejecting the redactions to position number 12 regarding oil and gas so his concern as was leslie's concern is that the language may be read as to suggest that things are all fine and dandy at the colorado oil and gas conservation commission and they can handle the rules that wasn't the intent the intent was to frankly recognize that a lot of things have changed since we drafted the initial position and that there was quite a bit of detail there that was not necessarily accurate because of the changes that have occurred at the regulatory level because we don't have any subject matters experts on this issue and because we rely primarily on boulder

[85:00] county and places like the city of longmont who are very directly impacted by oil and gas activity we we weren't able to have somebody on our staff to provide us a kind of a point-by-point change to to make to the language so instead my proposal was to to to really simplify it and to really focus on this new issue which is the the fact that there's going to be greenhouse gas emission regulations that are imposed on the oil and gas sector one one point that was brought up was a plain out mistake which um the language reads uh refers to the adoption of this rule on greenhouse gas by the colorado oil and gas conservation commission the codcc it should read the air quality control commission so that is my proposal is to revise position number 12 as it's been presented to you to make that that limited change

[86:00] if you would like to instead go along the approach that were proposed by these members of the community we can certainly restore position number 12 to read as it was originally written the danger there again is that we're not quite sure that it's the exact very complex rules that are many rules that are that have been adopted or underway we don't know whether they're it's still accurate but certainly one option would be to restore the language that was originally there with this initial additional language that has to do with the greenhouse gas emissions standards so hopefully that's not too confusing next slide please so that's the end of the changes on the actual policy statement positions so what i want to focus on now is the state and federal policy priorities and as a reminder the priorities are areas where the city anticipates prioritizing its advocacy efforts i underline

[87:01] anticipates because of course things change and we are not able to set the agenda and as was the case last year there was many bills that we spent a lot of time on that were not identified as council priorities but nonetheless we'd like to be proactive and that's the purpose of identifying these priorities they they do address legislative and non-legislative matters um the third bullet here does describe some examples of council's priorities in 2021 that were successfully met so for example the uh the removal or the increase of the 120 cap on net metered residential renewable energy generation that senator fenberg helped us achieve along with other very important elements to the bill um of course at the federal level we received some tremendous uh pandemic uh fiscal support in terms of in the form of the cares act and and the american recovery act um for 20 for 2022 we're proposing five

[88:01] state policy priorities and four uh federal policy priorities so if we can get to the next slide we'll begin reviewing those so the first one has to do with mental and behavioral health what we're hearing from our mental behavioral health professionals is that our community is under a significant amount of strain that's been placed on us because of the pandemic because of the king super shooting and that this is really translated into an increase in stress anxiety suicide ideation and the other things that are described here and they are requesting that we engage the state in increasing the amount of resources and services and to reduce the barriers to mental and behavioral health care i've listed there are a few examples of the kind of support that we would ask in this state much of this is done at the local level it's actually primarily something that the county and non-profit providers are the lead however the city of boulder as you know is very much

[89:02] involved in either just financing some of these efforts or actually in the case of the crisis intervention response team it's something that it's a program that we have ourselves so it's very much a complementary effort we'd like to engage the state as much as we can we've already met with representative amably who is actually a real champion for this issue is involved in a lot of decisions that will be made during the interim session on how state funding can be used so we we are hoping to meet with her actually have a meeting scheduled with her and the rest of our delegation so that our police chief and our housing human services director can go into a little bit more detail on the the challenges we have with substance abuse and and explore how we might be able to partner with the state so that's what this first priority is about next slide please the second priority is around ranked

[90:00] choice voting you all know that boulder by charter is now required to elect its mayor by using ranked choice voting in 2023 we were successful this last session in passing legislation that will allow just that the coordination of irv between cities and counties however oh actually back up here the secretary of state's office um needs to to take uh various actions to make that happening including um some minimum system requirements and specifications for voting systems the fiscal note for doing that is just over six hundred thousand dollars and they they do not have that funding while they've received the authorization to do this uh through 21 1071 they have not received the funding so that is our policy priority number two is to make sure that the the office receives the funding they need we are hoping that the secretary of state's office will make a request

[91:02] for this funding through their general fund request to the governor's office in fact mayor weber and i have a meeting with the secretary of state uh next monday to discuss this very matter next slide please the third priority has to do with um as part of the overall effort to to reduce greenhouse gases gases in all the sectors of of our economy there is a there has been a proposed a greenhouse gas pollution standards for for the transportation sector it's part of a greater effort for move funding from from i guess mobile sources you would say a lot of the reduction will occur through the switch to electric vehicles over time so the eight metric meter ton co2 equivalent is what's anticipated through that through that transition alone however there are still about 4.7

[92:02] metric meter tons that will need to be reduced through other means and one of those means that's been proposed to do so is to take advantage of the state and regional transportation planning process so cdot and the various mpos throughout the state five of them um including our own dr cog the denver regional council of governments approved transportation plans and that basically decides where state and federal funding goes and it obviously impacts a lot of things including land use and so this proposed standard would create budgets for each region of the state for co2 equivalent emissions budgets and it would require these plans to comply to essentially demonstrate through modeling that the projects that are being added to the plans cumulatively collectively would not result in emissions greater than the

[93:01] emissions budgets that are being provided for each one of them this is a highly complex controversial issue because it does have impacts on encouraging vmt reduction which really has the impact of encouraging communities that have the land use to support a kind of alternative modes of transportation uh you know such as transit and walking and biking and things like that so it kind of intrudes into the area or i should say it does uh it is perceived to be a a challenge for a lot of communities that feel like they should be able to make these decisions on their own and not have um the the state and federal purse um you know preventing them from making decisions on how to grow their city or or county however we have an an opportunity to really make a difference the city of boulder of course we can reach out to cdot but we sit on many

[94:00] different many different tables where these decisions are going to be considered including starting with dr cogg councilmember brockett is our representative there and they will be taking a position on it our climate coalition will be taking a position on it and has already begun providing some comments the metro mayor's caucus the northwest mayors and commissioners coalition the colorado municipal league so this is really an example of our policy priorities and our policy statement positions in general are not just having this city try to go straight to the source but working with our various partners to make a difference and so the proposal here is to support the adoption of this rule i will say that we expect and we actually would like probably to see quite a bit of an evolution and revisions in the rule so what we're proposing is to adopt support for the rule conceptually in terms of making sure that emission reductions occur tied to transportation plans but we know

[95:00] that things such as the modeling some of the mechanics some of the enforcement mechanisms waivers that may be issued those things are going to have to be revisited and we'd like to be part of the discussion next slide please so this fourth policy priority has to do with building energy codes um so again different sector of the economy the residential commercial and industrial sector they according to the the governor's road map for production of greenhouse gases need to reduce their emissions by 4.7 metric million tons of co2 equivalent by 2030 and one of the ways that is being proposed and actually the actual roadmap proposed to get there is to require advanced building codes and it would so what is being considered now i know that at least right now one high level official in the government is considering a requirement for local

[96:00] governments to adopt such advanced codes as a floor local governments would still have the ability to to have a higher more stringent regulations in terms of building energy codes but the state would establish a floor we believe that this is in furtherance of the city's goals to promote climate goals specifically increasing energy efficiency and the beneficial electrification of buildings um we think that local government support will be critical there will be quite a few local governments that i imagine will be animally opposed to this in fact that's where the main opposition will come so it'll be important again with working with the same some of the same partners i mentioned before for boulder if council agrees to take a position in support of this uh proposal that we expect to come forward uh next slide please um so the last the fifth and last priority has to do with air pollution something that i know we're all thinking

[97:01] about and it was actually not really in our policy statement so the intergovernmental affairs committee and um climate initiatives department brought this to my attention and so there's actually been um i i have a description there how it essentially threatens public health and everything that you know i guess it's worth pointing out that those that are most vulnerable um are and by that i mean those who don't have the option to go into an air-conditioned house or perhaps even to go into any house are particularly vulnerable so this is a real challenge both in terms of the need to reduce the contributors to air pollution uh so i i would you know so that's one position that's the position number 40 that we're proposing as well as recognizing that we're going to have bad air we have bad air right now and while we have it as part of a climate resilience effort we need to make sure that we're doing everything we can at this state is helping us do what we can

[98:00] to to build resilience to help our community um to know when you know as much as the best we can when air pollution is going to be bad to identify resources that we can use to help community members to get through these uh these difficult times in a healthy way next slide shifting over to the federal policy priorities the first one has to do with congressionally directed spending requests now there were another way of saying earmarking it's back after many years the federal government is again um listing recipients in appropriation bills of funding and it's changed from how it's done before it actually has a greater transparency it's limited to who can get it local governments are on the list of who can get uh some of these appropriations we as a city um this is something council that we haven't spoken with council about this year or even last year because it wasn't a thing but earlier this year opportunities became

[99:01] available and we did make requests for expanding our crisis intervention response team this is where we have behavioral professionals going to uh places where police are called but where arresting somebody and taking the to the jail may not be necessary may not be the best for the community or certainly for the person who would be arrested um so the proposal that we've made and we've actually gotten the support from senator hickenlooper and senator bennett they have both submitted this for inclusion in the appropriations and the appropriate appropriations bill um is for 245 000 for expansion of the of the program that which would increase the number of trained officers it would add overtime so that officers could be dedicated to right right along with these uh mental and behavioral health uh specialists would add a case manager and perhaps most importantly it would implement a formal program to evaluate what works so that when we seek to make further

[100:02] changes and expansions we're doing so in a very scientific way that has um results at the front of our considerations so this request really has to do i give that all as background but this federal policy party number one is essentially saying let's support the city supporting congressionally directed spending requests for fiscal year 2023 so those requests will be made in the spring or actually late winter of 2022 so we'll have to start identifying those uh this fall i don't have any projects to bring it to you at this point but i would like to have council's support for the city to seek these funding requests and we would of course bring them to the council's attention immediately afterwards next slide please the second request the federal policy priority request is around urban forestry this is an

[101:00] issue that you probably are hearing from the climate initiatives department you probably are going to be hearing a lot more from from them on this very topic they are working on it directing kern in particular is leading an effort at the regional and at the national level to to encourage uh funding and resources to uh to to to plant trees and to create urban forests it's seen as one of the most impactful ways that local governments can address the extreme heat that we are facing uh and that we expect to receive more and more it also address it also sequesters co2 increases the absorption absorption of stormwater interestingly it's not just a question of keeping things cool and by the way i just read that it it can reduce the temperature of an urban environment by about 10 degrees when you have the appropriate urban forest so if you just have cement

[102:00] you could very likely have 10 degrees warmer so definitely enough to make a difference especially for those who are getting ill or even and dying because of the extreme heat it also helps prevent um cold but our buildings don't get as cold when there's trees along the side of it so oh i guess finally it would allow the creation of many jobs where they're most needed uh to actually plant these trees and maintain them and do all that it takes to have a proper um urban uh force uh so the request that we have already begun to communicate and actually the mayor and brett and i have met with congressman august on this very issue is to provide significant new funding to expand urban forestry as a climate mitigation resilience and equity-based community development strategy and specifically to find a segment of that money to be used for research so we want to make sure like i spoke about in the previous priority is that we're using

[103:00] the best species and the best planting techniques and with the investment that the federal government is likely to make and we do expect this to occur in one of the two infrastructure bills that are under consideration probably the reconciliation package um is that some research be done and that some research should be done in colorado where we have some some of the best minds on this issue next slide please the third proposal is a brown multi-modal improvement for state highway 119 um there is a lot of traffic you all know on on this road specifically the portion car to 119 that goes between boulder and longmont and it's expected to get much worse and just like we did on us 36 that we're working on a proposal to to add a managed lane that would be used for hov or bus rapid

[104:00] transit and a quarter wide bikeway so that is the third proposal uh next slide please um so this priority has to do with northwest rail as you all know of course this is a project that was part of the fast tracks measure that was passed in 2004. uh rtd has not delivered on it there's reasons for it but at this point up until now it's been looking very very unlikely that we would ever get it um however there's been a lot of hope i've spoken to about this before amtrak is promoting their front range passenger rail from fort collins to the pueblo um and there is interest there is quite a bit of interest in using the northwest rail alignment to make sure that that front range passenger rail goes through boulder and longmont before it gets to fort collins the state house just passed a taxing district that would allow revenue to be raised for purposes of the front range passenger rail

[105:01] again in the infrastructure packages that are under consideration there is already we expect there to be more federal funding to be made available for railroads so prospects are increased and because of that and because it's very important to our community the proposal is to is to support the funding construction and operation of the northwest rail line and the front range passenger rail line as a means towards building it next slide okay so um final thoughts i wanted to speak to you a little bit about how the city engages in advocacy um so as you know we do our best to make sure that we are always representing what the city council wants uh we are never doing what just a department director or even nuria certainly not myself wants we want to make sure that our advocacy efforts are reflective of council's will

[106:01] we want to make sure that it's coordinated and uniform and we have been very successful in my time i believe as a city in doing that and because of that when we reach out to a legislator they recognize that you know this message is coming on behalf of boulder and they're not going to hear a different message from a different official so this is an effort that we're always striving to improve certainly at the staff level but i wanted to just check in it's kind of a sensitive issue this is more about council's role this is something i spoke about with the intergovernmental affairs committee and they agreed that it should be brought to the full council the request is in full recognition that all of you are elected officials who of course have your first amendment rights to speak on legislative issues or any policy issues as you would and as you would like to just recognize that is certainly preferable and something that i would recommend that for the sake of being effective that we

[107:00] try to always coordinate our message always keep it uniform have it be reflective of the policy statement positions and the priorities and if there's any question that we revise that policy statement we bring it back to council or we don't take a position at all which is always a possibility so that's my request take it for what you'd like um it's it's it's nothing more than that with that i wanted to turn it over very briefly to our two state lobbyists uh to speak briefly about uh what to expect in 2022 at the state house primarily this is an opportunity for you to see the both of them be reminded that these are the professionals that the city hires and that are really making the difference on the ground at the capitol so if will and adam are available if you could chime in and i i will pause there all right thanks carl oh will yeah i think i'm here too great uh nice to see you all um

[108:02] thanks for letting us join you briefly will and i wanted to just speak very quickly about what to expect in 2022 and i'm going to open by saying we really don't know exactly what to expect in 2022 it's it's early um things are moving around but what we do know is there are going to be certain themes that are really going to impact what's happening at the legislature i want to talk about a couple and then will's going to talk about a couple as well i think just as a reminder one of the reasons we really don't know what's going to be happening is because every legislator gets five bills and every bill gets a vote and it's something that we always say to our clients and our friends and anybody who works uh in politics because it's not what you expect right it's different than ever almost every other state in the nation is different than congress a legislator introduces a bill and it gets a hearing so it empowers minority voices

[109:00] and it empowers the minority voices even within the majority caucus so even though we might prognosticate all the different things that come there'll be 600 pieces of legislation introduced so it will be a lot the other thing to think about uh as we go into the session is that we are right now in the midst of a major uh redistricting and reapportionment uh conversation um there is there are likely to be legislators who are drawn into the same districts when we're all done and some of those legislators will announce that they are not going to run for reelection so there will be a whole bunch potentially a whole bunch it could be two it could be 10 of legislators who are lame ducks the last time this happened 10 years ago in the midst of republican control we were able to move civil unions on the floor of the state house because there were several republican legislators who

[110:01] didn't have uh any um uh were were not afraid to vote their conscience because they weren't worried about their constituents at that point and re-election and a challenge from the right so redistricting and an election year and five bills makes things very interesting as we go in will you want to jump in on the things we do know that are going to influence the session yeah the one other um hello everyone it's nice to see all all of you i wish that we were there in person the other big dynamic that will happen this year is that we are projected to hit our tabor um spending limits for the first time in a long time and i actually was having lunch with a member of the jbc earlier this week and we were talking about it obviously we will have multiple budget forecasts and could have some change between now and the time the budget is finalized in march or april but it could be a billion dollars over

[111:00] the tabor limit and that will uh very much be in and of itself a big political football and debate about exactly what form the tabor rebates take uh it will also shape the budgeting process itself because uh even though there's a limit now on what the state can actually spend and some requirements to send money back to voters you're still going to have increases in caseloads and increases in all kinds of needs for spending from the state government so it will be a very defining thing but you also are all very aware of the large amounts of federal dollars that have come into the state um and the the legislature is going to have a significant say in the spending of um of many hundreds of millions of dollars and there currently are i'll mention three significant kind of interim committee processes that are happening right now

[112:00] um one on uh on behavioral health one on housing and then a whole conversation generally about economic recovery the economic recovery committee is talking about a pot of money that's about 700 million dollars and each of the other two are about 500 million it's obviously generally all one-time money but these are discussions with quantities of dollars that are out of the scope of normal for colorado i think for many of you who have been involved in the public policy debates at the state level you know that we end up fighting in bills over 50 000 and now we're having big public debates over more than a billion dollars going into this year so i think maybe we'll we'll probably stop there it will obviously be a very busy year and um and we look forward to uh hopefully representing you all again at the state capitol on a whole host of things that come

[113:00] thank you will and adam much appreciated um so that is the end of our presentation and i guess i will always um at this point be eager to answer any questions that you have and of course to defer to the committee members who have actually had an opportunity to hear not only from me but on the experts on many of these topics we met last last week and we had people who really knew what they were talking about get into details and provide powerpoint presentations of their own so if they have anything else to say at this point that perhaps is a correction to what i've said i would encourage them to do that as well cool so thank you so much carl and adam and will as always great to see you guys um it is unfortunate we're not in person but at least you didn't have to make the trek up to boulder from denver so upside see if you can find them um so let's start with questions and um let's save most comments uh until after we do the public hearing it will be short so

[114:00] let's begin any questions for carl or our lobbyists let's see mark and then rachel and then mary mark my question is for um adam and will in one section of our policy statement we state that the city will support being granted the authority to place limits on the rent increases that can be imposed on pad rents in manufactured home communities is there any legislative support for that goal that you can discern actually um councilmember wallock i know you addressed that to will and adam but i i just had a meeting with a newly elected representative in fort collins who is looking to propose a bill that addresses that very very issue um so i do know that there is another coalition that would like to just repeal the prohibition on rent control more

[115:01] generally and they often see a more limited repeal that applies just to the manufactured homing uh manufactured housing industry um as a as a challenge as a threat for that matter so yeah so we would certainly support it both of those are indicated in our inner policy statement it's a matter of strategy in terms of how to be most successful thanks thank you thank you mark and then we've got rachel and then mary mine's for carl you mentioned um the the subcommittee talked about wanting council members to sort of collaborate or communicate with you before testifying at the state if i heard that correctly i guess right there did i hear that correctly okay and we we did some of that last year so i just want to know were we doing something wrong last year are we supposed to change kind of what we were doing is there is this a this is a slap on the

[116:01] wrist or is this like a do that you know that would be a pretty bad idea if i was trying to slap the wrist of any council member i would say that um there were some times in this last session where there were different messages uh being provided and um it was quite understandable we were dealing with some issues that were at the heart of concerns here in boulder and um frankly we hadn't we hadn't spoken about this so that's why i think it's important going forward to have that conversation have the agreement if if you guys agree let's decide as a council and of course it is a um it would just be a strong suggestion at most because i i know that nobody would want to be completely bound uh to the um to the council approved position got it and then um i guess part two of that is does that apply at all to staff

[117:01] as well because we saw some of that last year as well so did you all talk about that yep yep we spoke about that um for the very same reasons i think that some of these issues were so contentious and and and very challenging for a lot of our leaders in the organization we spoke about the importance in fact we just had a meeting with our leadership team uh last week where we've reiterated that the importance of keeping it uniform keeping it coordinated so something that we will strive to do better okay thanks okay mary thanks sam um carl on the state and federal priorities is there any reason why homelessness isn't included in either one of those sets of priorities so it's not yeah it's a great point because that is one of the most important issues that we're wrestling with the mental

[118:00] behavioral health position really is a way to address a lot of that we know that many of the people experiencing housing are suffering from mental and behavior health issues so that was our thinking it was very much as an approach to address and support our homeless population as well as many others in our community so we didn't call out because it wasn't limited to people who are experiencing homelessness but it certainly includes and that was at the top of our mind so um so i i was wondering if that was the case in which case housing is part of the solution for homelessness was there any thought given to adding something to that effect within the housing and human services portion of the priorities yes and i will try not to distract myself by pulling up the actual policy

[119:01] statement right now but i believe we have as one example of a support that we like to get from the state is resources for permanent or let's just say for housing for people in terms of uh treatment um as well as for um i i i'm perhaps speaking beyond what i know but i i believe that our position does address the need for housing as part of this solution and if it doesn't do so sufficiently we can certainly add more to it okay thank you um and then kind of similarly along those lines um last oh gosh i believe sometime in march may time frame um council approved participation in the mdhi metro denver denver homeless initiative um and that was not included in the list of partners and policy agendas um is

[120:01] there any reason for that no no not at all i think we've seen that as part of the metro mayor's caucus i think i believe it's it's a project of the metro mayor's caucus or certainly funding is because i've constantly seen the request for the annual contributions towards that going through the metro mayor's caucus so so so that was my that's why i didn't uh specifically mention it but we can certainly do so if you find an area to do so okay great um and then um my um next question has to do with the section in section 13 which is build community resilience and would it be possible to add the concepts behind um resiliency for all it was a project that resiliency for all was a project that was worked on um by

[121:02] one of our new county commissioners martha lochemin and um longman has incorporated it into uh as a program within um their city and i was just wondering if um we might be able to incorporate some of those principles within this section and i can send you the link to longmont's page on that yeah so absolutely great suggestion so one thing we could do for example is the preface propagatory statement or sentence before the actual examples of the kinds of things we'd like to see we could certainly introduce that concept there or include reference to that concept uh thanks for bringing that to my attention and please do send that to me okay we'll do um and then um my next question um

[122:00] in um the policy statement number 28 um that talks about policies that address and begin to dismantle institutional and systemic racism um would it be possible to add along with housing and wealth access to add education and access to capital yes thank you and um yes just to clarify you say education and access to capital is that education about capital or education about work management education education comma ah okay thank you access you know access to loans and finance and stuff like that

[123:00] yeah um but you mean equity in education itself um well access yes so equity and access because we're talking about access in there um let me just look at what the statement says again um so what i was envisioning was um include but are not limited to health equity housing and wealth access um okay i see yeah and just adding being specific i know it says include but are not limited but i wanted to be specific about those two um items awesome i got it thank you sure and um that's all i have and carl i'll send you a link to uh longmont's resiliency for all paige thank you jenny

[124:03] i just wanted to make the comment although i'm not looking at the document at this moment that what mary just read is actually not the objective version of the document because i remember we actually discussed to removing the mentioning of wealth access or access to wealth juni if you could turn your video off um that would be great and i i believe that i was looking at the document mary was speaking to i actually think you're correct we removed end wealth access from the header and what um mary was talking about adding was in one of the sentences and it was specifically about education and access to capital so if you want to talk more about that

[125:03] please do no i don't know that that was my only comment that's just speaking from um a different version than the one that we updated during our reading that's all thank you thank you jimmy okay any other questions before we go to the public hearing great seeing none we'll go to the public hearing let me bring the speaker list open but i think it's super short again okay and we have two people signed up lynn siegel and edward smutney and because there's two we will have three minutes each when you are up when you are ready and you'll have three minutes to talk about our legislative

[126:01] as far agenda policy i think what needs to be done most is wealth equity and i mean it's stating the obvious just like oh housing the unhoused it's like duh yeah but but it's like where is the money coming from and all the money that's going into all the projects that you as the council are are approving every day like at 3 11 you know and then they drop their affordable housing and you approve them because of their affordable housing gone poof disappeared no there has to be something in this situation that binds people to their promises that that stops the excess in boulder you know i just watched the

[127:00] one of the boards this week at hoshi motors where i take my car except i only drive my car once a year now but now i have to drive my car way out to east boulder because they're turning that whole block into big high-end housing just like right a block away at mike's camera you know folsom now this is something that happens in boulder coral but it's something that happens everywhere too i'm sure because the more that the that the high-end housing is able to be put in the more you're digging a hole of lower end housing demand and that's just the way it goes and something's got to be done you know my daughter lives in controlled rent in oakland but and i can see the controlled rent side of things but there's got to be some control too when city council is approving all of these projects like the sky's the limit

[128:02] up at 311 they're going to charge 50 000 a month or whatever they want to charge they can charge anything you know the biggest billionaires can be living in there and dragging our town down meantime and there's got to be something in your advocacy coral that will stop this excess because it's bringing the whole economy down and along with covid that's it it's like curtains we can't have an equitable situation and of course so many people falling off into the homelessness and then the demand for drugs rehabilitation mental and everything that you've brought up it's like a black hole and it's a circular process but it has to start at the top something has to be done about the super

[129:01] uber wealthy folks that are pushing things like you south thank you then and it appears that edward smutney is not with us um ryan's shaking his head still so with that we will bring the public hearing to close and bring it back to council i have a few short comments one of them is an attempt to bring us to a resolution on one of the items so the one on oil and gas carl i was thinking um i think i i like everything that you've added that we've added um as far as the narrative goes i think that's super helpful and informative i would like to see a few of the sections brought back however and so i appreciate the comment that we got from the public on that and i'm pulling up the attachment but i think it's the first

[130:00] three there's uh the three items in section 12 are are um that were stricken that i would propose that we bring back i'm sorry i'm having to get there there we go the three that i think it would be good to continue carrying forward would be the applicability of federal laws section the water quality section and the air quality section and i get your point that you made and agree with it that there could be a few items in there that are a bit dated if the crgcc has made some progress on them like with setbacks but i think the general direction of all three of those is still something that this council would support i think removing the last four impact mitigation orphan wells standing before crgcc and local consent i think all of those seem very dated and might not be things we want to carry forward but i think the air quality water quality and the

[131:02] federal law's applicability to try and bring back the clean water act and the safe drinking water act when it comes to oil and gas would be things that this council could support so i wanted to put that out there as a suggested way to proceed on policy 12 and then the only other thing i had to say was i i think the urban forestry thing is fantastic um you will hear a lot about direct air capture when people talk tech solutions to the climate challenge and you'll hear carbon capture and sequestration um i'm extraordinarily skeptical of direct air capture as being scalable enough and carbon capture and sequestration is just the fossil fuel shell game um the thing which will do the most i think going forward for pulling carbon out of the air is making our forest healthy everywhere and doing so in our urban environment has all the advantages that carl just talked about so i think

[132:01] forestry preservation of forest and urban forestry are really effectively the most cost-effective way to do direct air capture of carbon dioxide and sequester it for long periods of time so i really want to advocate for keeping that urban forestry piece front and center as part of the work we're doing at the federal level so that's all i've got um and i see we got one another hand up aaron yeah thanks for that sam if i can sort of colloquy with you on the oil and gas one um i agree with keeping those uh points in i thought that was a good one but uh it seemed like a couple of the other ones might still be worth having as well and i'm thinking of the impact mitigation and the local consent like local consent say would require uh the city of boulder to give consent before a well could be drilled on open space land and i don't think we have that power right now i don't think that that that meanwhile gave us that power so it seems like that's still worth

[133:00] having in there i'm good with that i appreciate both of those great thank you so i think that's a good path forward what you described with the you can also keep those two forward two in there as well um they want to say uh that uh mary i appreciated your recommendations uh in the questioning period so thanks for those and uh rachel i appreciated those additional items that you brought forward as well i thought those were all really good ones there was one i wanted to comment on which was about access to abortion which i think does deserve a place in our legislative agenda after that appalling texas law was passed recently that the supreme court has declined to intervene on so far but one thing carl in terms of your suggested language um it calls out access for women to reproductive care and i would like for us to have more gender inclusive language in there because there are folks that do not identify as women that may need access

[134:00] to abortion care as well so probably wouldn't mind rewarding that so that it's it's inclusive of any gender and person any gender identity that might need access to abortion care i would appreciate that that would be my proposal there other than that i'd just say that um appreciate all the amazing work that will and adam did and carl um and so many of our objectives got accomplished in the last session and i've never seen the policy gender change so much it's because wow a huge amount got accomplished so really great to see so much progress on our priorities thanks yeah indeed it was an amazing legislative session mary oh sorry it was not muted but i was not looking at zoom i was looking at the uh i just downloaded the latest version of um the marked up policy agenda so that i make sure i'm looking at the right thing um i do see

[135:00] what um junie is saying that wealth access was stricken from the language and and that's um but i did want to add those additional ones um in place of that i can see why wealth access would be stricken um but i would like to see um comma access to capital so um the i went over and looked at housing um you know going back to my question to carl regarding homelessness and looking at the housing sections they do have all the usual litec and section 8 and things like that um and the low-income housing tax credit all of that is in there which i suppose would cover things like uh permanent supportive housing one of the things that occurred to me

[136:00] was um you know um kurt um fernhofer has brought up um numerous times the need for um housing um to address folks that have been addicted to methamphetamines and that it's very difficult to find housing for those folks so if there were something that specifically called out that type of funding for that type of housing um i'm not sure exactly what it would be called or if it's covered within one of these categories that are listed within housing but i just wanted to bring that up to make sure that whatever is in there right now does cover that form of housing thank you councilmember young so position 30 which has to do with increasing mental and behavioral health and also substance abuse treatment

[137:00] um it certainly can be improved so so i would take it as direction from you to make sure that we we incorporate something that has to do with the the housing and the shelter that's necessary that element is certainly was certainly intended but as i'm reviewing it now i'm not finding it okay great thank you okay so i guess carl the first question is do you have a coherent set of amendments so that if we uh propose if somebody moves the um legislative agenda with uh as amended are are we all clear on what those amendments are do you want to call them out for us um so you can certainly do so i mean typically what would i do is take this as an input opportunity and i certainly have captured everything that you've said and then i bring it back so that you can

[138:00] review the language that i've used and typically that's approved on on consent we certainly had the time the proposal was that uh you know earlier a year ago we talked about making sure that this is approved by this council so that we're not overwhelming a brand new council but we have time so um rather than me trying to review everything that has been said that would be my my proposal i think that's a great proposal is that you um bring forward all the edits on consent so how does the rest of council feel about that proposal okay and so with that carl do you need us to make a motion tonight or do anything or do you plan to take the feedback you've got and then bring it back to us uh final version on consent i i have everything that i need and i am very appreciative of your time and and for the input that i've received today um yes i think i i understand the changes that you'd like to make and i will bring them back to you

[139:00] at a date that has yet to be scheduled but we will get that done okay that is excellent so council last chance at this one i think we've given enough direction carl says he's got what he needs anything else on our policy agenda i will say thank you again to everyone all of council and the legislative committee and the intergovernmental affairs committee for working through all of this and to carl especially this is a huge task that you have to do every year um we all have lots of opinions about all these things and so hurting the cats to getting to a document like this that's as useful as it is is super helpful and i think rachel just to close on the point that you brought up about um how we manage presenting our positions going forward um i think it is most helpful when we're speaking for council like it's a position on the legislative agenda and we're testifying or lobbying um legislators that we represent it if

[140:03] it's a council position we say it's a council position here's where you can find it in the legislative agenda and here's what we're saying me on behalf of council and if you aren't sure if any council member is not sure or it's different than what's in the legislative agenda that we just call it out as our own opinion um and we can still testify as a council member on any subject and say anything we want but just to be careful not to represent it as a city position and i think that is the main distinction is if it's in the legislative agenda and we're speaking on behalf of the city especially if carl knows that we're speaking intentionally on behalf of the city um then we represent it as a city position but if there's any uncertainty we should just be careful to represent as our own do you have something to follow up with that just i would make a pitch for it's also super helpful like as someone who testified a lot before getting on

[141:00] council as well to to be a council member i always checked in with carl and he gave really good data and and facts and it was helpful so if anybody's reluctant to do that i would say set your mind at ease like it's it's it's great to to converse with carl and your testimony will be even better okay super all right well with that thanks everyone um adam will enjoy the rest of your evening and um see you soon hopefully and we will move on to the next item and then uh alicia what do we have next next sir we have item number six on this agenda the matters from the city manager 6a is the update on boulder business recovery program and the exploration of downtown boulder outdoor dining program thanks so much sam i know this is one that we have received

[142:01] a lot of input both from you and from community and from our business partners as well and i just want to be a vet is going to give us a quick little presentation on the outcome of a lot of those meetings um and know that we have additional staff who have uh really been thoughtful about what do we need to do right now amidst this growing um pandemic uh and then what do we need to do in the long term as we continue to consider what is the continuation or the long-term efforts on outdoor dining so with that um and with great thoughts uh thanks to a vet who tried to hurt the cats speaking of that sam on our side on the topic um i'll send it over to a vet thank you nuria and good evening council i also want to thank all of our colleagues or who are with us tonight from the various departments who are contributing to this work and with that emily if we can pull up the presentation during the last covet briefing

[143:03] council asked to get a little bit of a deeper dive on where we are with the boulder business recovery program especially as the pandemic effects linger as a reminder this slide will look familiar it's an overview of what emergency order 2020-16 and thanks sandra who reminded me that this has been amended so many times is another number associated with it which is 2020-18 and it has been amended five times since being in place basically what all of these things allow us to do to aid community safety and business viability and i won't go through all of the different components here but it includes all the efforts that allow for outdoor dining and they really are quite different as we transverse the city including everything from uh city facilitated closures to a lot of appreciation of all the landlords who

[144:00] are letting people bump out in front of their businesses to some additional infrastructure signage curbside pop-ups and the like next slide so um you asked for a little bit of information of how's it going and we can say that obviously um the program has been well received by the community we estimate expenses right now and i want to say these are extremely conservative and best guesses because things are quite complicated and in lots of different budgets but direct expenses of around fifty two thousand dollars and if we looked at the revenue impact currently it's about two hundred and fourteen thousand dollars that number um we've massaged a little bit because that number includes a figure that would have been on-street uh revenue parking revenue

[145:00] that went to the general fund we basically took that number time the number of spaces that are being used and divided by three in appreciation of the fact that we know there's been lower visitation over the last 18 months this does not include impacts or any loss revenue um other than patio leasing on the mall itself where people are bumping out or in some of the alleys where we are not currently charging um for any of that curbside use we also know there's been lingering public health and safety concerns that continue to evolve with the pandemic but there's been some really improved industry-wide revenue performance there's no direct link which we pointed out in the memo to particular restaurants or to how that revenue is derived but as you can see by the graph provided it's nice to see the figure going up and some degree of

[146:00] recovery in our really hurting restaurant industry we did have some key learnings and i'm tremendously simplifying that into these four bullets the concentration of permits under this program are clearly in boulder's downtown core where we've also received the majority of feedback i think you heard earlier one of our public comment uh which basically said the surrounding neighborhood has some considerations that weren't a little greater focus and this was all laid out in the memo things from noise to spillover impacts of traffic and the light there is a seasonal difference in the experience and we recognize that but in case of the emergency we did want to afford people being able to socially distance by sitting outside and it also has impacts on access in the area not just for people in cars but certainly for folks who are walking or living with disabilities for the rerouting of the hop uh which

[147:01] has caused some some rollover issues in the light and finally i wanted to point out one of the big learnings is everybody across the country has a different model and even within our state different cities are exploring different ways to do this licensure use of the right-of-way all up for grabs and being considered a new next slide i wanted to kind of provide a little bit more context for the numbers here again extremely conservative but we know that the expenses come from infrastructure and temporary art so we did a lot of signage around town to be and especially in the closure areas to wash hands and to remind people to socially distance staff time is conservatively estimated at around 37 000 and this is based on an average three years ago of an average hourly wage this is not indicative of a particular department's actual

[148:01] hours but this is everything from time and permitting administration inspection licensure and we are not actually counting all the meetings primarily called by me so i apologize to everybody on team um revenue um so we got a cdoc brand and that's awesome uh several which allowed for temporary closures this is only a portion of that award that helped with some of the signage and the retention of some artists to help us bring people's attention and make it a little nicer in the closure areas there was 89 000 worth of waived fees about 4 400 of which are alcohol related and the majority of which are in other permitting uh waived fees and the majority of this is for the 106 on street uh repurposed parking spaces just to give you some context um we actually went out and counted the parking spaces and there are if you don't take this the garages or the ones

[149:03] at the muni lot and the like we have 962 i believe parking spaces in the cajun district um and about 106 are currently being used for this program and then we divided that number by one-third so and again trying to be fair and recognizing that there has been low visitation over the 18 months we're estimating conservatively around 132 000 in the normal year kj on street for a general fund generates about 500 000 so we should keep that in mind for a going forward consideration next slide so staff's recommendation as it relates to this primarily tied to the ongoing need to provide for people to have some space and to feel comfortable and safe eating outside is to extend the program through april 1 2022 this would include

[150:01] the continuation of things that are already in those emergency orders around hours of operation and control over amplification um the state and michonne will be here uh to answer the questions you have about that um is requiring reapplication on the temporary alcohol modifications as well as some noticing that we can talk about we are recommending reinspection in large part because winter is different and we have really we want people to be safe in these areas and there are winter differences that we want to make sure are allowing for ada compliance and emergency vehicle access we're it's been a long time since we talked to the property owners and we just want to make sure that there is authorization to use the frontage of their property that way and certainly want people to attest that they have continued to have the city as named insured on their insurance policies and we're at this point

[151:01] recommending through april 1st 2022 continued waiver of city fees not state fees but city fees through this expansion period next slide so what af what about the post pandemic like can we all say uh post pandemic that would be awesome to envision um downtown boulder has reached out to us uh on august 2nd and wants to explore post-pandemic downtown outdoor dining program which balances the needs and interests of the businesses property owners and city in uh supporting access safety vibrancy and the achievement of all of our community goals so we have a lot of work to do but i'm pleased to say that that work has already um begun and they have a working committee that's been getting together and my team has worked with them a couple times but it's time to get very serious about this anticipating a post pandemic possibility

[152:01] which might come back to council and get us started in the spring of 2022. it would look at the downtown scope in other words where is it and for how long and how often it would look at different options that were outlined in your memo around licensure through the state and insurance there are different possibilities around participation cost sharing models that i think is really a lot for dbp to discuss with their members and the participating businesses and of course we want to remind people of the other existing options that are already available to them through other city offerings next slide this is a very aggressive timeline that we have proposed that was in your memo and if this evening we gain support from council to keep moving forward we'll do our very best uh to stick to this timeline um and to keep you and the

[153:00] community posted for when we'd be able to launch a program as early as spring of 2022 next slide and so we only have two questions for council one is does council support the recommendation to extend the emergency order 20 2016 and thank you sandra 20 2018 through april 1st 2022 again subject to all applicable state and local public health guidance and alcohol related licensure requirements and the second question is does council support our continued work with exploration with downtown boulder partnership for post pandemic outdoor dining program and with that emily i think we can lower the slides and i welcome any questions that council might have great thank you so much for that event and i got bob rachel and aaron bob uh thanks sam thanks a bit that's very very helpful i had four kind of

[154:00] questions i'll try to do them quickly first i just was trying to understand the math on the loss of parking revenue um i know that you cut it by a third in other words the maximum potential revenue and then you cut it by a third some of that presumably accounted for i think you said um the fact that fewer people might be coming downtown was another factor in reducing that um the fact that some people are still paying for parking they're just paying for parking someplace else in other words we didn't lose all that revenue somebody you know went down the street or went into a garage and they still paid for parking is that right we're not sure i i think that my colleague chris my deputy chris jones is on but i would say there's not a direct link right now that can prove that all the folks that were parking on that street are parking for let's say in a garage or in a surface parking lot um in many instances uh it's very hard to kind of correlate at this point where those people park i would say we are seeing some return a visitation to the garages

[155:00] um but it is challenging and people do continue to want to search for free parking yeah yeah well it sounds like it's kind of a swag a swag so so that's that's fine i know you your one-third was just an estimate um second question of four um the extension i was just kind of curious about why it's five months as opposed to six months because it currently the program ends on october 31 and six months would take us to the end of october or assuming the end of uh april which is proposing the beginning of april what why why five months as opposed to six i believe we had some conversation with our colleagues about changes in weather and coming back to look at infrastructure and required infrastructure and we'd always part of this is also we'd always been in conversations with dbp about that time frame but i would welcome if there's a strong opinion from one of my colleagues um you know otherwise we're listening for council's thoughts on that i i just knew that there were some discussions earlier this year maybe even

[156:00] late last year about 180-day rule in six months was most that you wanted to extend and so on and so forth so i was kind of expecting a six month extension i was just curious what the what the driver behind five months sounds like it's weather is that what you're saying it's a part of it there was also at the beginning of this and continues to be and i appreciate sandra and her colleagues in the city attorney's office and michonne there's a little um challenge that we have understanding of what is allowed under the alcohol licensure in terms of timing so some of the timing recommendations were initially based on that as well i think we still have a lot of work to do in this area right now we're really still shooting for april first but um welcome any other thoughts that's fine third question is um uh do we have to take any action in other words if if most or all council members are kind of nodding their heads and saying that they support the staff recommendations is that good enough for you and the city manager or do we have to take a vote at some point in time on this

[157:00] i would think that a formal vote would come in the form of if and when and i hope we do get to a formal agreement with downtown boulder partnership and agreement we would typically bring um some question or a motion to counsel on consent to approve the city manager's authorization in that agreement but um i'm not aware that's for the five month extension or for a longer term arrangement that's for a longer term arrangement i'm sorry i was just talking about the five month extension no no no formal vote i can jump in there and answer that so this is really city manager action in terms of the emergency order so i think staff is just looking for direction from council but it really is a city manager right um rule thanks sandra that's appreciated my fourth and final question about is um could somebody put that the second to last slide up the one with the timeline i didn't quite track that one by pretty quickly

[158:01] that's because it's so aggressive that he wants you to look too fast well because that one i do understand why there might be some action by council and i didn't see an action point i saw an ip the one before that yeah so i'm looking like in the kind of march april time frame i'm kind of looking for an action by council and i didn't see anything there and part of that thank you for that and we could certainly come back with the additional update right now we have ourselves in april um looking for that approval um we're letting you know where we stand in implementing against that spring timeline um i don't i don't believe there's another action at that point but frankly there's been so much change during this covert period we also want to remain somewhat fluid in that do you have a suggestion in that regard well i guess what i wouldn't want to do is i wouldn't want to wake up on you know the morning of april first and say oh my gosh we needed to take an action back in february or

[159:01] march and we didn't and now you know the trucks are out there we're removing the jersey blocks and people having to clear away picnic tables so um i guess i'd put a marker out there and say you know let's come back to council in in february and say this is what's going to happen april 1. or at least ask the question what's going to happen april 1. i wouldn't i wouldn't want just there to be an ip in april because that's the things expired by that so that's i guess that's what i would say is i appreciate the fact we're having this conversation on september 9th against an october 31 deadline that's great i would suggest we do the same thing in february against april one deadline okay thank you for that that's all i have great thank you bob uh next we've got rachel and aaron rachel um thanks yvette for the information to answer question number one i'm i'm generally very supportive a couple questions did the emergency orders apply only to downtown or were those

[160:01] city wide those were city one okay because obviously we're just looking at downtown for this so i was wondering um and maybe i'm just misremembering but like if we're looking at garage doors and alleys and and maintaining some of what we've had and um you know the hill has has benefited and it's not in the map like what happens can the hill also benefit from some of this in the near term or other areas that might be appropriate or why are we only talking about downtown the portion of the presentation that relates to emergency orders would continue to be city-wide it's only the portion that would be post-pandemic that we're currently talking to downtown because that's where the majority of the feedback and issues have been coming from nevertheless i have been in contact with um a couple of business operators on the hill and i can certainly reach out to the hill boulder if they're interested in exploring similar idea so i think i'd be supportive of that i

[161:01] just remember a couple years ago we talked about like the hill wanting to activate alleys and so when they saw allies and and i assume garage dooring i've i'm embarrassed to admit but like does that is that like with the restaurants have the garage door that goes up and and it converts okay yeah like is that not legal in the city right now but there's a regular city process for that there wouldn't need to be any emergency order and you don't need to wait till february to start that process um of course i don't want to speak for jacob and his team and their workload but those things are possible to look at even now okay awesome so yeah i guess i would just say if if it and i understand this is probably coming from downtown and that's the the impetus and why the focus maybe is there but it can help other places i would think i would also support that thank you pardon me all right uh aaron yeah so that thanks so much for the presentation and for coming back to us

[162:00] quickly i really appreciate your responsiveness and you and your your team bringing this back so thanks and to answer your question i'm very supportive of the direction you're going in thanks very much for doing this i think it's a great idea and just to to bob's comments around timing i would certainly support uh six months instead of five months you know april as they say is the cruelest month right it can be uh very variable in terms of its climate its temperature uh we often get snowfalls and such so and anyway uh so we won't quite be to spring and the other thing is that um is that i wouldn't want to see this go away before we had instituted the new program so uh you know you've um you said it's an aggressive timeline i appreciate you doing that so hopefully it'll work out on that timeline but i'd hate to see this disappear 30 days before we got a new program in place so i agree with bob as well to to bring this back to us you know for a check-in maybe in the february time frame something like that so we can see

[163:00] how the new program is coming along in its development which i do also support very much and see how the timing is working out so that we can make sure and adjust uh the current approach and tie it neatly into whatever the new approach ends up be and i do um they're i don't know that they're on or i'm sure they're listening tonight but i i cannot also speak for um the workload at downtown boulder partnership i know we're all crazy busy and there's ambassadors and lots of things so i also want to respect their resources and the ability to address some of this but we'll certainly convey that thank you yeah absolutely yeah we have to work with our partners carefully right so that's it that's all i got thank you again great thanks aaron mark yeah just to clarify you bet um is there a state requirement that limits the licensing to april 1. so i'm going to defer to michonne and sandra on the various things we are continuing

[164:01] to learn so i i'll try and speak about this um and michonne if you're here come you can feel free to correct me if i say anything that's incorrect but um so the state imposed a communal outdoor dining regulation during the pandemic that allowed for expedited temporary modifications of licensing premises and um that was going to expire it is going to expire on october 31st um but there was a house bill that was introduced to basically continue the communal outdoor dining but make it permanent however it's not on an expedited basis so they have to follow all of the time frames and time timelines associated with a regular temporary modification which uh i generally and this is where i i'm

[165:00] not sure about the details and sean is 30 days advanced notice there's a 10-day posting requirement there's an ability for it to go in front of the bla the beverage licensing authority instead of being uh adminis process administratively so the the time frame is much longer so that's part of the issue is that um they would it would require extensive time to to apply for that permit that more permanent outdoor dining permit and and i don't know what the length of the um this must have been something that you uh yvette you and michonne spoke about but there is um a certain length in which they have to renew and um it may be such that it's five months and i'm not familiar with that because i'd have to look it up but

[166:00] i'm sure that um if michonne is available she can address that yeah i'm i'm here if you can hear me i think that my video won't come on but um we can hear you you're good um yes the uh we checked with the agent in charge of the state liquor enforcement division and what they said is that on october 31st temporary modification standard temporary modifications are going back in place before during covet there was expediting and fee waivers that happened on a state level that's going away on october 31st so the requirements for um reapplication for temporary modifications is that liquor licensees need to file at least 30 days prior to the first event date they need to pay the state fees even if the city waives the 50 fee they still need to pay the state fees um and the state will not be expediting those applications

[167:01] in addition the requirements in the state liquor code revert to 10-day posting and if as a result of the 10-day posting there's negative comment then we need to send it before the beverage licensing authority for a hearing for that temporary modification so all of all of those sort of sort of individual steps were all expedited during coven and they won't be after october 31st as far as the duration of temporary modifications um the duration is for a particular license term so if a liquor licensee's license expires in two months then they would have a two month long temporary modification and then they would further need to reapply for their next license term so it's really individual

[168:01] based on how long a particular licensee has on their own liquor license [Music] and is that term at all by the april first date in other words are we are we unnecessarily putting people through a an additional licensing procedure that they they would not otherwise have to do by the april first date i guess i don't um foresee that i don't perceive that i don't either and i think um part of the challenge with this is when the state's prior process ends and then when you start again um there's unclear guidance at this point and i appreciate sandra's colleagues who are helping us look into this um so at this point we're going based on our

[169:01] prior understanding and in every hope that the pandemic doesn't continue to linger in this way okay thank you appreciate it i also um and i sean is the expert but i also want to point out it there is truly a difference between communal consumption entertainment districts individual licenses all of which might be things that downtown boulder wants to explore but they truly are very different across all of those different options yeah in addition to that i would just note that the beverage licensing authority has talked about communica communal consumption areas and common consumption areas um twice once in hearing and also at their retreat so they're open to hearing those voices and doing that work um thus far they're and it seems like that's changing that uh there will be some community impetus from a group of liquor licensees which

[170:00] is interested in um you know proceeding with that so okay i do appreciate it thank you thank you mark bob so i guess i didn't hear anything from that that this dialogue um was initiated by mark to indicate that there's a there's a liquor license reason for an april 1 date and so i i joined aaron urging that to be april 30th as a matter of fact the memo referred both to i think it used the word through april and then later it referred april 1 so i guess i would agree with with aaron let's give staff and the downtown boulder partnership adequate time to do this if there's no compelling reason um under the state law liquor law to pick april 1 then let's make this april 30th that's that's a clean six months from our current october 31 cutoff um and i want to also agree with rachel i know that the the temporary extension of five or six months temporary extension will be city wide i do agree that there are certain parts

[171:01] of town particularly on the hill partly on the event street on the hill that i think could benefit from whatever um the staff and downtown boulder partnership comes up with downtown so uh i would hope that um as we think about places like the hill particularly the event street we um we think about uh um uh doing whatever we do downtown there and i'm not talking about parklets here and there around town i'm talking about a long-term street closure like we're talking about in west pearl i would i would include the event street for that so and i just wanted to be clear that i do support the staff recommendation with those those adjustments thank you bob mary thanks sam um yeah i just wanted um thank you vet for um all the work that you've done so rapidly and responsibly um and um and to say that i support the direction that you're going with the the

[172:00] revisions that my other colleagues have suggested with respect to six months um i just have a general question about you know we're talking about the first item being all of um citywide and have there been a any um businesses that wanted to participate but couldn't for whatever reason um have you seen any of that or has everybody that wanted to participate been able to not that we're aware okay that's wonderful thank you that's all i have thank you mary adam thanks sam and thanks yvette uh i will also say yes to both your questions and with a particular emphasis on the check-in uh just because we'll have a new council and want to make sure they know what's going on

[173:01] and the businesses are out ahead of it as well and also to extending um to the hill i think from what i've heard from a couple owners up there they've really enjoyed the the ability to have some additional flexibility so that may be part of the ongoing lifeline we want to give them just to improve the space in general cool thank you adam mary i see your hand up is this new or old okay old all right super uh rachel i didn't know if maybe you were gonna do a straw poll but i'll support the extending it to the end of april too just to get that on the record great well i wasn't gonna do a straw poll only because it seems like we have such consistency in our response um i appreciate you a vet for herding cats this is more cat hurting than usual and

[174:00] so not only us but all of the other folks involved but it's very important work so much appreciated and i agree yes on both items i would like to see the six months so end of april for the first part i think looking ahead and doing something permanent around this will create kind of a progress towards that european ideal of space that can be reconfigured for different parts of the day public space it's very dynamic and is used for lots of things including dining um so i'm enthusiastic about all this and moving forward with it the only copy up that i have is let's please do take a systematic look at access and you know the the change traffic patterns when we have these outdoor dining areas and so on because as i go back and forth between 1911 on pearl um you know

[175:00] part of it's really easy to move around in uh no matter what mode you're you're moving in that's non-auto but towards each end the um center parts are completely closed down the dining areas occupy everything sidewalk to sidewalk and with the additional foot traffic the sidewalks aren't high capacity enough and they become quite congested and very crowded and especially during covet that's been problematic because you got people you know right next to each other um so i would just ask that we um especially as we look towards making this permanent that we make sure that we're equitable so the restaurants are treated equitably and that we make sure that access is a big part of it because the mall works great because generally speaking there's a lot of room for pedestrians to walk back and forth on um but even the mall at a few places has gotten a bit more congested than usual

[176:01] with the outdoor dining so that's my only caveat is it does create um it it just needs to be equal and there need to be rules and the rules need to be you know applied equally to all people who want to use that public space um and with that i'll turn to mary and then aaron yeah thanks um i did want to bring up one um additional thing with respect to safety and i know i want to thank you for bringing up um the ada requirements but i have a question about the um at the intersection of pearl and ninth on the east side there where the crosswalk the the concrete barriers the jersey barriers are to the east of the crosswalk to to leave the crosswalk um outside of the um the common area

[177:01] um for the restaurants um i know um we had at least one accident and one of us here is very familiar with that accident and i'm just wondering um if that has been deemed to be um an area that is used for drop off and pick up by automobiles and um and if there is any consideration to be given to that particular intersection to make it safer it is not designated for drop-off and pickup but i would always defer to our transportation and mobility team in terms of guidance with um with our planning department on safety and any amendments that have to be made thanks for that note mary and we'll make sure that we take a look at

[178:00] that yeah i'm not sure that it's being used but for drop off and pick up but i could see how it could be and as somebody is pulling back out into traffic they may be completely unaware of the fact that there is a stop light there um and and not be looking out for that so just wanted to make sure that we address that thank you and i'll just colloquy on what mary said and then i'll get to aaron um i've noticed a couple times people uh transportation network companies with vehicles that are stopping on broadway to pick people up on the pearl street mall i've seen happen in both directions on broadway where uber or lyft or other driver stops dead in the middle of broadway um at the mall and people load and unload into the car and i've seen it more and more so married similar to your point about

[179:00] what's happening on 9th street but i don't know what we need to do about that but it is becoming i think an increasing problem i've been seeing more of it and you know the night street is a good example of that i'm not sure what can be done about it exactly but i think it's a problem in more places it's not such a big deal on 13th and 14th because traffic is really slow and there's lots of stops but on broadway and ninth it's a different animal um aaron i just wanted to add in some uh support for what you were saying about the the obstructing the entire street um close tonight on pearl just i do recommend that we leave a core door open that we require folks to leave you know three feet or something in between the the different um on-street amenities because you should be able to walk through here that's just one comment thanks thank you aaron okay i will turn to staff a vet and others did you get what you need from us i think so and i again want to express

[180:02] um much thanks to all the cats that are here this evening and all the cats at home i appreciate partnership and i look forward to working with you in these next few weeks thank you um thank you very much for talking with cats that's right and there you go all right and then alicia what is our next item our next item sir is item 6b which is the city clerk's confirmation of approval from the three initiative petition committees to move forward with submitting their measures to the electors on the ballot at the november 2nd 2021 municipal coordinated election great thank you and nuria over to you well i'm going to turn it right over to our wonderful city clerk to give us a quick little update on what that looks like all right well thank you miss nuria for both the introduction and the compliment um yes council in accordance with

[181:01] section our charter section 41 and i'll read it just for clarity prior to an election being set on the initiative petition within 10 days after the date of final action on such measure by the council the committee petitioner cell certified to the city clerk the requirement of submission of the measure to the voters the certification by the committee of petitioners must be unanimously a unanimous vote of the members of the committee legally competent to act at such time upon receipt of that certificate the city clerk shall certify the fact to the council at its next meeting and such measures shall be submitted by the council to the voters of the electors of the electors in november so with that being said the final action for all three initiative petitions was in august on the 17th at the regular meeting so i worked with the city

[182:00] attorney's office and we sent out emails to all the committees and every member because they have to again vote unanimously to proceed with the measure to be placed on the ballot and we got confirmation from each of those committees unanimously so with this particular um i say from what i understand is a record year of initiative petitions this is our last step before the election to move the petitions forward and with me reading the item into the record that certification and that particular requirement was met so i'm i'm open for questions if council has any thank you alicia counsel any questions or feedback great xenon thanks for doubting the eyes and crossing the t's on that for us alicia much appreciated all right sir thank you all all right our next item is item eight on this agenda matters from the mayor and

[183:01] members of council eight a is the discussion regarding timing of ordinance 8485 the 2020 midterm update to the bvcp which is scheduled for first reading on september 21st and second reading on october 5th super thank you alicia and so i brought this forward to council because mark had brought up that he wasn't sure um that it was appropriate for this council to take these rezoning actions um and maybe to go to the next council i i didn't necessarily agree but wanted to give mark a chance to speak to the full council because as it is scheduled currently we will take the final actions to complete the 2020 comp plan update as it's scheduled and mark did you want to speak to your thoughts on that sure uh i just you know we actually have something of great consequence that

[184:01] we're going to be addressing uh on the 14th and 21st um and it seemed to me that the uh rezoning actions require a little more uh consideration than we're going to be giving it um in that short time period um immediately following what's going to be a very difficult and contentious process of decision making uh on cu south and uh i'm not convinced that we can't take a look at it before uh this council expires but i thought doing it hard on the heels of the decision-making process for cu south was was simply rushing it too much um [Music] and you know if we pushed it back a couple weeks i'd feel a little more comfortable about it okay um rachel and then mary

[185:01] just a question when is it scheduled for vote first reading on the first we might have a first read first first reading on the 21st of september second reading on october 5th okay then um i just want to make sure i understand what we're talking about is this um sort of the the end point of a process that we dug into i want to say last summer in part yes thank you sam i didn't know that was too but um i it i guess i will say i i thought that we um analyzed this pretty critically previously and this was more of a just like putting the period on it than then a um maybe a little less discussion so maybe i don't understand what we're talking about and would appreciate clarification if this is not an extension and just a

[186:00] completion of something i'll i'll just weigh in briefly rachel that i think it is just a completing of other work that we've done but sandra or others if you'd like to jump in and and answer rachel's question um i think that might be appropriate at this time um sam jacob here i'll check thank you thanks um it's correct that this is the completion of previous actions all of the items that are engaged here were presented to you in detail during the adoption of the midterm comp plan update in december 2020. so the rezonings here simply implement land use plan changes that you've already approved and these changes have already been vetted with the public through a variety of platforms including planning board and housing advisory board and in effect that action that's before you is a pro forma action and is the final procedural step in the boulder valley comp plan

[187:02] midterm update process and happy to answer any further questions about process uh going forward okay when did we last review this this material this material was presented to you in december of 2020. okay then i would simply say that that it being nine months 10 months since we last looked at it and you know my colleagues may have a different view i would like rather than to rubber stamp it i'd like to be able to look at it one more time and it's fairly voluminous and i just thought the the timing was not ideal and that's fine mark if if you're suggesting we move it a little bit that's kind of a different that's all okay okay

[188:00] okay so that's i'm not suggesting that a new council do this de novo and and start from scratch i'm suggesting that um we just have a little more time after what's likely to be a very uh contentious couple of meetings to do whatever final analysis or review that we wish to do and it may be that we don't wish to do anything um i just know that for me i would like to take a look at the materials one more time um having not looked at them for nine or ten months and astonishingly they are not all engraved on my memory um so it was more of a procedural request than a uh than a suggestion that we kicked this over to the new council can i can i wrap up my um so understanding that better thank you mark um i'm supportive it sounds like we could maybe move it then to october 5th so we're not digesting it on the same night as the sea south

[189:00] um i don't know why you think that's going to be contentious but um so that we don't do it that night and do it maybe the fifth and then the 16th or yes that's really all i would suggest i'm supportive of that i'm not supportive of starting it over with the new council no no no no no i i think that would be a horrible thing to do horrible to the new council members nothing else great we've got mary adam and then i'll go mary um so i i would support just moving it um to october 5th and then october whatever seven days or 14 days is after that um i just want to say that um you know what jason what jacob said about it being pro forma believe it or not this is like my third comp plan update that i've been through and um it is very very pro forma process where

[190:00] you're basically implementing um whatever changes were made or recommended through the it it it trickles down through all the documents in the city and so the the change the zoning changes are basically implementing what we've already approved so it's quite pro forma um everything has already been vetted um and maybe if i recall correctly maybe the most controversial of those zoning changes is likely 3303 broadway and um we have already been through a lot of process on that particular one so um i'm okay with uh moving it out and um but it is just a similar to what we did a couple weeks ago with um putting all of the petitions on the ballot it's just i i just like the opportunity to look at

[191:01] it one more time and i think that's not going to be as likely if we're doing it on the original schedule i am not suggesting we kick it down kick the can down the road that was that was not my intent super adam and then i'll go and then bob adam if mark wants more time to read every single letter of the packet i would never deny him that great and and i i agree um i didn't want to kick it too far down the road but it would be pretty easy for us to put first reading on the fifth and then second reading on the 19th uh and then do the hearing on the 19th right now the 19th is a three and a half hour meeting um so it will go a little longer um so council if you nod yes to mark's suggestion we may have a slightly longer meeting on october 19th but it may be the last long meeting this council has so maybe you want to savor it um

[192:02] bob i i'm fine with a slight extension as well i was going to make a slightly different calendaring suggestion um the the the 28th is a special meeting and it's a light meeting right now returning the 12th of october into a from a study session to a special meeting that's also a light meeting so i might suggest the 28th and the 12th would be better than the 5th and the 19th which are both heavy meetings sure i'd like that that's a great suggestion sandra and then juni yeah i just wanted to um mention that um alicia had noted that there are four public hearings um scheduled for the 19th already um i i'm just now looking at it myself so i i think that we just need to be careful um about that and then the fact that we just need to make sure that there's enough time in between first and second reading as well

[193:00] and that's great and thank you for for that input and a good juni next but as um nuria has mentioned we could take this back to cac with this input i just wanted to make sure all of council had the chance to to weigh in and we can finalize it but i think bob may has made a good suggestion junie actually that's what i was thinking as well to have cac look at it instead of making this durable decision tonight on this a fixed schedule so because i also have something i wanted to bring before cac that could potentially impact the schedule moving forward and and those couple of uh within the next month that's all thanks all right thank you juni so with that i will suggest that cac takes us up with the input that's why i brought it here was to get this kind of input and i think we have enough to go

[194:01] on at this point and bob's on cac i am and juni is so we'll take this and we will bring you'll see it in the cdac minutes and if you don't like it let us know all right so i think we're done with that one alicia what is next yeah what is next sir is item 8b which is the discussion on appointments to the council employee evaluation committee excellent and i also brought this forward but mary has the one that motivated it so mary would you like to speak to this right um so um so sam and i are in the current evaluation committee and um as one of the the things that we were hoping to accomplish um prior to coved hitting was to realign the three council employee

[195:02] evaluation schedules to intuit bring them into alignment with the rest of the city employees and um in order to do that um i think we need to start um sooner than later and that should probably go um to a new evaluation committee because um the conclusion of that process will likely not happen within this council so we need to take a couple of volunteers and maybe we put it out there and you all think about it but it's pretty narrowed down as to who can um be on the evaluation committee since there will be assuredly um only four council members returning perhaps mark will too but

[196:01] um but for sure four so one of you four two of you two views gotta do this so um think about that and um if you wanna volunteer maybe we set another time to do the actual appointment unless you already know already what if you want to do this so mary if i could just ask for clarification um we have one of our employees to do the evaluation for this chair that's judge cook and um we mary and i have been kind of focused on the city manager search and then the city attorney search part of it and so i dropped the ball on us moving through that evaluation normally it would be coming to council about now uh to complete and so the thinking on this was since we need to do this it might make sense to appoint two new members who will be on the evaluation committee who need to be

[197:01] experienced members of the council have them work with mary and i to do that evaluation and then those two council members continue with the work that's going to have to happen with the realignment of schedules and into the next council so that's the subject did i get that right mary well i don't know that they would work with you and i because that is more than two council members working together so um i i the way i see it is yes you're correct um judge cook needs to have a um review but the suggestion from jen was to take this opportunity to align it with the other city employees since we're getting a new city attorney and um and we have a new city manager well not so new anymore but um in any case um yes we need to um do the evaluation for judge cook

[198:01] and um the realignment of the process so um and for that it really takes it can't wait until january to appoint a new one because the current evaluation committee will be not be here through that period so um so i don't i'm not i'm not so sure that you and i need to work with the other with the new evaluation committee i think they would work with jen all i meant by that was hand off whatever we needed to hand off as far as like the knowledge of how it worked jen can take care of most of it i agree i just thought you and i might want to do a handoff of some kind to the new folks um i see some hands here let me make sure i get him in the right order i've got rachel and then aaron um well i think that's an old universe hand but i will ask a question um to sum up can somebody describe the amount of time

[199:01] that goes into this um in you know for the four of us who i mean i do appreciate sam's notion of passing the baton and uh educating people before you both leave so that's probably uh would be appreciated by whoever takes this on i would be curious to know a little bit more about what it is to take this job on so i can speak briefly to that my experience i've been on it three cycles now and this last one was totally unusual so really two cycles and um it gets started in well the old time table it will be a new timetable but in the old timetable start sometime at the beginning of summer we'd start having our meetings and we would meet with the consultant and figure out what process we were going to use obviously there's been a pass process we'd see if we wanted to make any updates so during that six week period we might meet three or four times to set up the process and then

[200:00] um the the staff then goes out to the peer review so it's usually been a 360 review and so the um hr staff would handle getting the reviews out and so on so from a council member perspective there was a quiet period that lasted about six weeks and then it was time for council members to get their review and that's where the herding cats comes in because council members me included are notoriously bad at actually doing their reviews um and so then from late summer into fall there's a there's another half dozen meetings which are with the subcommittee and chasing down uh the reviews and then collating the review data and then getting it back to council members so we have council members fill out the same surveys that the peers did of the the three employees and then

[201:00] we would get all that information back out to council get council's feedback on what we wanted to do as far as raise levels and so on goes and then hand that off at a meeting so it's about six months worth of work and it comes in two bursts and for a little while it might take four hours a week for three weeks at both of those times so that's the way i saw the time commitment mary anything to add you have way more experience with this than i do i only have the weirdo year experience so it is not insignificant but it is you know in a couple different buckets when you have the work to do okay i'll i'll wait till aaron goes and then uh chime in with a purposeful hand super aaron so uh yeah i think it's fun to to move forward with this right now i would just consider these uh interim appointments um so that in the january

[202:01] uh you know when we appoint um the new council to all the different committees that just wouldn't treat these folks as incumbents but say you know who wants to do it this year yeah i'm totally fine with that my very strong recommendation is that the experienced council people doing this because it takes it takes a little bit of extra work and uh having some cultural background as far as how things have gone in the past through your own experience of it would be helpful i think but the new council can appoint whoever they want sure and i don't know about you but in in college the way it works is if you were the first person to put your finger on your nose you didn't have to do a commitment so rachel i'm back with an intentional hand now which is um bob and i are doing the um attorney recruitment right now and it might be easy for us to just continue with jen in this transition as interims

[203:01] and sort of carry on so i would just propose that maybe it makes sense for uh me and bob to do this at least on an interim and i don't see aaron or judy or bob real like you know not touching their nose so i'll make that for purple sold that's great rich great bob do you have any thoughts um yeah i'm i'm willing to do that but i do agree with aaron that i do think we need to out of fairness bringing this back to the new council i do concur with you sam that some experience is necessary but mark for example may very well wish to do it and we don't know for sure that he'll be re-elected so i think i'm happy to to be appointed along with rachel and then we'll visit with our new colleagues in mark in in january and see what they want to do long term that is excellent rachel did you have something else it would be ideal if it didn't really like kick in until the end of the attorney recruitment so we weren't like trying to do everything but just and i think that's probably true for jen as well

[204:01] juni oh can you hear me well enough yeah we can hear you right now yep okay great i don't know what kind of experience you're referring to when you said something about culture because i would be a senior council yet i still don't know the nitty gritty of this evaluation committee and my hope is that these juni you just went on mute um so we just lost we can you're back yeah i'm not sure what happened um but as i was saying is that i think appointing bob and rachel right now would actually what's the word it would stop the new council from

[205:02] throwing their name in in the hat as you know um people who could do it so i i don't agree with appointing um bob and rachel at this moment i think we should we should somehow leave it open so that you know the new council members have that same opportunity uh okay um i i i think what mary and i were thinking was if there were two council members who were interested in the future and doing it this would be a chance for them to get their feet wet well mary and i were still around to give any feedback and and maybe give feedback to jen if she wanted it i'm happy to wait i suppose mary and i could do it but um it would be the least hand-off council to council that we've done before because the reason i came on was because lisa morsell was going off

[206:02] and i could spend a year working with lisa to learn kind of what the process looked like from the inside and then we brought mary and when lisa was off and we've had the coveted disruption so i so will a council i i i think mary and i will do as you as the remainder choose um we can certainly execute this and then just leave if that's the preference mark yeah i i i i have to agree that we ought to have a little more continuity than that the new council can appoint whoever they like but it would be nice to have a couple of people in place in the next couple of months who are prepared to do it who can be taught a little bit how to do it um and if that's not the will of the new council that that's up to them but i i think having some degree of continuity um is an important thing um

[207:01] it doesn't preclude someone else in january from from sticking their hand up and saying um i'd like to serve and that decision can be made at the time but um simply having you guys just disappear um in the first week of november uh and having nobody on council who has any preparation in this area i i don't think it's a good thing um i i would be supportive of of your suggestions sam rachel and then aaron um just for the record this is not something i'm dying to do so offering to do it to be helpful but um i i don't see it as much about myself as making sure that staff has the council resource to get in place whatever we need in place for what sounds like maybe um i don't want to i don't sound critical but almost overdue evaluation so you know just making sure that we have the

[208:02] um the path for the staff needs so happy to do or not do um whatever is best for the city to to function and definitely happy to to stand back if somebody new to council would like to do this aaron juni i totally agree with your your fundamental point there that if new council members are interested in doing this they should absolutely have the right to step up and we should be very willing to appoint them so the the one thing i i feel about why i'm willing to move forward now is because um we've let judge cook's evaluation go too long um so i would like to see that move forward sooner rather than later um which also should be really easy because judgehook is amazing so you know i think it'll be a relatively straightforward process but um but junior to your point i i certainly i pledge as somebody who'll still be around in a few months from the new council comes on to um to not give kind of incumbency to bob and

[209:01] rachel and to 100 consider um new council members if they're interested in participating in the sport committee thank you aaron adam i agree with the extremely interim appointments okay um junie would you like to follow up any further well i hear the rest of my colleagues and their comments about you know going forward with the appointment i still would not agree with it but it is again the majority wants it it's going forward but i still disagree and from what i heard from you earlier the work doesn't have happened until sometime in the summer so appointing these new new these two enter and people actually to me it already set the stage it's similar to what happened when we had the mayor in the mayor pro tem appointments when i first got on council but

[210:02] since this is the will of council we will go with it so just to clarify um the the summer process was the old process and the whole idea is to align because there's two new employees and as aaron pointed out we've let judge cook's evaluation go far too long it's an opportunity to perform judge cook's evaluation now and take the opportunity that we have two new employees to align it with the january time frame as opposed to waiting until summer so the old method was out of step with the rest of the city employees by six months and so the idea here is to align it to be

[211:01] in january with everybody else so it wouldn't be waiting until summer it needs to start happening now so that it's aligned by january 2022 and i'll just say one further thing with that um it is quite possible that mary and i could train trains a loose word just share what we've learned so far with the two new council people who get appointed and if one of them wants to stay on and a new person wants to join them from you know newly elected that would be another way to pass some of the kind of how it's gone in the past and things to watch out for um just because mary and i could have done that with the two interim appointments and then if one of them wanted to continue there would at least be some continuity and mary's exactly right um this is going to come up if we try and do this schedule alignment it's going to come up for the new council

[212:00] right around the time of the retreat so it's going to be a super topical thing and um so it sounds like the will of council is to move forward with some interim i think that's smart and uh rachel and bob have kind of been pushed forward and if uh the rest of council is good with that i think it would make sense for them to do it for us to have a meeting publicly noticed if need be where mary and i spend some time just saying what we've seen or we can do it informally whatever makes the most sense but the idea is just to make sure that we can pass some lessons learned to the new folks so i will this is uh sandra do we need to take any formal action if we want to appoint new community members i can't remember because we usually do this more retreat time frame right um

[213:00] i'd have to look and see i i'm not sure about that i i think to be complete why don't we just take a vote um so we'll go ahead and do this with the show of hands if that works for everyone we can have a motion somebody can make a motion to appoint bob and rachel as interim members of the employee evaluation committee aaron go ahead i apologize for interrupting out of turn but i just i thought we'd agreed not to do motions under matters that's a good point we can we can see if there's agreement and bring it forward on consent if we need to do a vote thank you for the process reminder i've got mary aaron and mark that's an old hand okay uh mark yeah i i we're not doing a formal motion but i

[214:00] i believe this is a punishment for which bob and rachel are perfectly suited and i am prepared to inflict it upon them if they are willing to accept it okay so so that's perfect um i think we have the willow council on that and sandra if we need to we can figure out if we need to bring a consent thing forward we can handle that at cac um it seems like we have acclimation um for uh rachel and bob noting that juni has an objection to it um and we'll proceed with that and if we need to we'll bring it back on consent um okay is there anything else alicia or are we done we are at the end of our agenda sir super so i'll turn back to council any debrief any other comments or staff aaron was there going to be something on the city attorney tonight or is that the

[215:00] next meeting uh the request came in to cac for i think both the 14th and the 21st is that right bob right okay great thanks i am i wanted to speak to that actually anyhow um yeah aaron it's not tonight but i did want to flag i think people will be getting an email for calendar holds and to please pay attention to that because we're in such a tight turnaround and we will need um uh to have calendars held like is it two and a half weeks out bob it's four weeks i don't know sometime in the next month people will need like a half day held so please please check your inbox for that [Music] it's a great reminder and we will put with the um city attorney um work that the council needs to do to tee that up at the next cac and the request has been for the 14th and the 21st to touch this so

[216:00] okay anything else all right with that um our meeting is adjourned at 9 35 pm everyone have a good rest of the week and see you on tuesday next week good night everybody the next meeting [Laughter] [Music]

[217:07] do do you