February 8, 2022 — City Council Study Session

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:03] [Music] [Music] all 00 do we we have [Music] Mark the meeting we are ready on Channel 8 so we can well let's just text Mark and see unless someone else has texted on yep

[1:04] know if your folks are having trouble getting [Music] in all right well hopefully Mark can join us soon send him a text and you said Channel 's ready to go Channel ready to go all right we got eight of nine all was good um uh let's see we might as well just get it started um we got some announcements so if we can start um tonight's study session with some regular weekly announcements and then we'll jump into the content of the evening um first and foremost covid-19 testing and vaccinations um if you're interested in testing for more information and provider locations for free covid-19 testing go to www.b.org testing um and the local free site is at the stazio fields which is by the Valmont power plant and the recycle center um near the bbsd U bus station

[2:00] off 63rd um if you haven't been before um also vaccinations for vaccine information and provider locations go to www.b.org vaccine also great chance to get involved in our community um those of us that are elected officials many got our starts um by and through boards and commissions it's a great way to serve this community and get to know a lot of the policies in a more intimate fashion um recruitment for boards and commissions is currently open and closes on February 21st of 2022 um you can find board and commission descriptions um and vacancies online at www that's supposed to be a DOT bouldercolorado.gov boards and commissions um I'll speak for myself but perhaps also my Council colleagues if you are interested in a board a commission please don't hesitate to email any of us as we'd love to talk to you about the board boards um if you

[3:00] want to learn more some of some of the folks on Council have been on many of the boards that you might be applying for um and certainly many of those currently on boards and commissions um certainly would offer their time up to certainly talk to anyone who was interested to learn more about that uh please don't hesitate it's a great way to get involved if you have any questions about some of the process uh please reach out to our city clerk's office um at city clerk office at Boulder colorado.gov next up we're going to talk a little bit about price gouging um in light of the events from the Marshall fire we want to make sure people play pay special attention that Colorado law prohibits charging excessive prices for certain essential products goods or services during a disaster period and makes clear that such price gouging is a deceptive trade practice under the Colorado consumer protection act coloradans who witness price gouging or who think they might be a victim of price gouging should file a report with the Attorney

[4:01] General's office at 800222 4444 or stop fraud colorado.gov and also on on a little bit of a um a higher and and a light note um tomorrow is the grand opening of or grand reopening I should say of the Table Mesa king supers grocery store um there will be a a celebration um of the return of employees and community 00 a.m. tomorrow it'll be hosted in the front of the store itself um there will be a ceremony with remarks from public officials that will last about an hour um maske wearing is strongly encouraged um and if you have any U further questions please contact Sarah Huntley um at Huntley S bouldercolorado.gov um and keeping in mind that staff are working with a multi- agency Boulder strong team to plan a March commemoration uh when the

[5:02] anniversary does arrive um as a South Boulder resident I'm really looking forward to this it's a long time coming and it's a great chance to find Rejuvenation um in the opportunity to remember those that we lost and a chance to build a stronger Community going forward um and indeed we are Boulder strong um and so hopefully we'll see 00 am or throughout the day at the table Mesa King sus yep awesome welcome Mark good evening sorry to be late all right so uh well so now that we got all nine we can get this show on the road um so for tonight's study session we're going to be touching on two main topics uh for the evening um they will be Library District formation and Library District advisory committee recommendations about the formation of Library District um and then second up

[6:01] will be gun violence prevention legislation um we'll be talking about content and and timing as a whole um so those are the two items we have for tonight um and so we will get started with the conversation about the library district um and so to get us started with a little bit of a staff presentation and backstory um why don't I turn it over to Nua um and we can get that started for uh for us this evening great thanks so much Matt so a conversation about a library district has been going on since at least 2018 when the library commission mentioned it as part of their master plan and last year Council asked us to do a bit of work into this possibility including forming a Library District advisory committee that could provide some recommendations and I just want to take a moment to thank the hard work of that Committee in getting us to this point and for all of Staff who's been working hard on this for the past few months so with that I'll turn it to our Deputy city manager Chris mesek who's been working with our library director David

[7:00] faran to kick us off and introduce the rest of the team Chris great thanks Nara good evening council members uh tonight uh as we pull up the slides uh we've got several staff members that are going to be here to help uh present this item and if we go to the next slide we uh we are going to begin with a little bit of just background uh and I'm going to cover the process for establishing a a library district and what it is and Janet Michaels from the city attorney's office will also Al uh covered uh what what the state law process is for creating a Library District uh and we're going to talk a little bit of around the cost of providing Library services and then we'll pause there just to make sure that uh if Council has any questions on the background information then we'll we'll we'll dive into really uh one of two parts of the conversation for tonight the first is around the library district advisory committee recommendations and so uh David Faron will help present uh

[8:01] some of those recommendations and we have several members of the library district advisory committee here to be able to answer questions that council members may have uh uh and then we'll go into the second part of the conversation after we finish that uh and uh we'll talk about if a library district is created uh what would reallocation of the current city budget that goes to uh the library uh and I do want to just correct myself uh I think David gear actually is going to be the one to present the the formation part at the beginning here so um that is our plan for today so we'll stop at kind of the end of each part uh for the relevant Council questions uh and with that let's go ahead and jump into the next slide and that's just to to cover really quick how did we get to the conversation today and as Nua mentioned uh in 2018 the library master plan was was accepted by Council and in that Library master

[9:02] plan there was a lot of conversation around sustainable Library funding and then in 2019 uh a community advocacy group the library Champions proposed to create a Library District by petition um that petition was was withdrawn but it really started a conversation or continued a conversation around Library funding and in February of 2020 right before the pandemic uh we Council had a study session um where we talked in detail around um the background on Library funding and Library governance and the options of Municipal funding and governance or District funding and governance then obviously the pandemic took our attentions for a while and in May of 2021 we we brought that conversation back and the outcome of that conversation with council at that time was to have staff continue to explore the district by resolution process and in addition to that to form

[10:00] a committee of community members to get feedback on what the the terms would be if we were to create a library district and then separate Library services from the city and transition those to a library district and then that that committee met between October and January of this year and that is what we're here tonight to present is the recommendations uh and the outcome of that direction from May of 2021 so let's let's go to the next slide and talk a little bit about what is a Library District so if you think about the city of Boulder uh and you can see on the screen here on the map the blue outline is the city of Boulder limits and the city of Boulder provides multiple city services or what we in the comp plan call Urban Services we provide police protection and Fire Protection Water and Wastewater Services storm water and flood services

[11:00] Park and Recreation services and Library Services what a Library District would do is it would take those Library Services currently provided by the city of Boulder as an entity and as a government and put those into a new governmental entity which is a Library District which is what that black outline is is the current draft boundary of the library district and that would be a new quasi governmental entity that would provide those Library services inside that Geographic boundary and it would be that Library District um that that runs and operates the library and so if we go to the next slide let's talk a little bit about what library districts do they're they're created and enabled through state law and it provides Library services within those Geographic boundaries it's governed by a separate Board of Trustees uh that runs that governmental entity um and that Board of Trustees in the district itself has taxation Authority

[12:00] through property tax that's how the district would fund itself to provide Library services and that Board of Trustees would set the budget and set the policies in strategic direction for the library and oversee the library operations and management they would hire and supervise the library director set the program in policy Direction and communicate with the community uh in the geographic boundary that it serves to provide Library services so that's the kind of overview of what a library district is and with that we'll go to the next slide and I think if I've got it right now I'm handing it off to David gear uh to talk a little bit more about the the state law process thank you Chris I I assume that I have audio here good evening members of council um as Chris mentioned I'm David gear and most recently I've been working a little bit as the interim planning director of planning and development services um but I've also been working on uh the library

[13:01] district team since uh after the adoption of the 2018 Library master plan and have been working with uh David Faron and his team on kind of some of the approaches to financing the services that are provided um to the library library services that are provided both to the residents within the city limits as well as many of the people that um live outside the city limits but take advantage of our wonderful Library so it's not really the purpose of the study session to um talk about establishing a Library District as much but I know that there are new council members that haven't been along for the ride so we just thought that we would do kind of a quick primer on on some of the basics of Library District formation um so I'll just go through those but as Chris mentioned a library

[14:02] district is a separate governmental entity it has statutory Authority subject of course to the taxpayer Bill of Rights um to assess property taxes within the district service area um and those property taxes I think as you all know um at least in Colorado and specifically Boulder are perhaps some of the most stable Revenue resources um that are generated for government there are two approaches to creating a Library District under the Colorado library law it describes the process for both the formation and the governance of districts uh first and this is the the uh path that we are on there's approach where the governmental entities um through cooperation create a Library District by the adoption of a resolution by each of those entities involved as

[15:01] directed by the council in May of 2021 we are now pursuing what that might look like the other approach is through a petition process where a group of petitions circulate a petition and if at least 100 valid signatures are collected the question of whether to form a district is Advanced to a ballot measure for a vote by the electors in the service area of the proposed District following several Council meetings and study sessions regarding options for Library funding in May of 2021 Council directed us to do the work needed to form a district by resolution um for those of you um that are also familiar with this project as it has gone on a petition was circulated by the boulder Library Champions and submitted to the Boulder County um El uh Clerk recorder for

[16:00] verification and then at some point um with conversations between the Champions and the city uh they withdrew their petition at least temporarily so that we could explore this approach to Library District formation so the the process oh if uh if you wouldn't mind changing to the next slide please um the process for establishing a Library District by resolution of both the council and the County Commissioners and what the timeline would look like is shown on the slide uh and I'll just go through the process quickly but in April in early April 2022 the council and the Commissioners would likely hold a joint meeting and a public hearing on the adoption of a resolution to form the district the resolution that

[17:00] establishes will will establish the service area boundary for the district as well as what the proposed Mill Levy is for the library district in terms of Taxation um the library Law requires that the notice of these public hearings on the resolution be published not less than 30 days before the hearing so that that's a rather long lead time for a notice but that notice must dis describe basically the same elements that I mentioned in the resolution uh that this the legal service area for the district as well as the proposed M ly so for that for an April 5th assuming that would be the date that we would have this joint public hearing a notice would need to be submitted to the camera by March first so we're on a rather tight timeline for that reason we're asking the council at this study session whether it

[18:01] supports uh the draft proposed Library District in mil weby so that we could take it to the next level to a public hearing if the city and county adopt their respective resolutions then the council and the Commissioners form committees under the statute to appoint the initial Board of Trustees uh for the library district it is these three entities the city county and the library district that negotiate an intergovernmental agreement um the IGA which we're going to talk about in a moment identifies how the real and personal property personnel and provision of administrative Services during the transition from a Municipal Library to a library district will be will be handled the the library Law requires the entities to enter into an GA within 90

[19:00] days of the appointment of the initial Library Board of Trustees so that would put us into July or August of this summer depending on when the Board of Trustees is appointed and ratified meanwhile the library district works with the county to put a put together a taxation measure that would be put on the November the the November 2022 ballot um in November 2022 the voters within the service area of the library district will vote on a ballot measure to approve or not um a a property tax Mill Levy to fund the district if that tax measure is not approved the library as a functioning entity remains a city Department the IGA is drafted such that if the c s of the districts do not approve a tax measure

[20:02] to fund the district within three election Cycles the district dissolves and the library continues as a city service and a department that condition as well as all the other conditions in the draft IGA are subject to negotiation of the parties to the IGA uh if the tax measure is approved then the district is established then we begin the process of transition in uh the city to a library district and one uh note on that um I think that you know the ldac process the library district advisory committee uh I think one of the council at least my interpretation of the council's prior um um advice to staff in terms of going forward with next steps was that they really want to kind of understand what um

[21:02] exactly um or maybe not exactly but more closely than what staff had put together previously an IGA would look like and of course that committee is a rather diverse group that uh represents many interests and I noticed that Bob has his hand up I don't know if you want me to finish or would you like me to pause B can do you mind if Bob do you mind if we wait until we get done with the background I think we might be close to being done with the background and then that way we can break them up into the four chunks that were sort of laid out at the top of the top of the meeting that's fine I I've got two questions on this slide but but let's let David finish then we come back to this slide okay awesome thanks well let's go to the next slide so um under the Colorado library law the ITA needs to address the rights and obligations and responsibility of each party including the transition from the Municipal Library to the library district ownership and control of the

[22:02] library's real and personal property the transition of the library personnel and providing for administrative Services during the transition uh so with that said I I think I'll just um bring my comments to a close because I know that we will be getting into quite a bit more detail on the IGA when we start to start the discussion of the recommendations of the library advisory Library District advisory committee so can you back up one slide please are we doing are we uh done with that background stuff because I notic there might be a couple more slides before part one or do you think this is a good pause there David uh well David far's gonna pick up after this okay so um this is at the conclusion of my remarks do we want to just David you

[23:00] want to just March through your slides and when we get to part one we can Circle back and and Bob can ask his couple questions sure as you like um good evening Council my name's David Faron I'm the library director for the city of Boulder um and if you could just please Advance the slide to spaces one more please all right so um just again as part of the background we thought we would lay out what does it cost um currently to run the library and these are estimated costs based on the current budget Uh current 2022 operating budget of around $9 million um addresses the operating deficit due to the pandemic reductions which are roughly 700,000 um there's a cost administrative overhead um which is what the city estimates the cost to be for such things as facilities um maintenance costs HR payroll attorneys that kind of thing the total for that is estimated at $3.6 million then there is currently non not a funded Capital maintenance

[24:01] budget um which including an annualized deferred maintenance cost comes to around 2.3 million and then we are looking at um the distinct possibility of opening up the new North poer Branch library in 2023 super excited about that and the estimated cost for the operation of that facility is around $1 million brings us to a total roughly of an estimate around $16.7 million next slide please so some of you were around still when the master plan was presented and the master plan once presented uh we were asked to do a deep dive into the um financial situation and what would be the cost of actually um reaching all the defined levels of the master plan so as common with Master plans for the city of Boulder we outlined three different uh tiers of funding maintaining the service level uh roughly at that time we estimated that was around 14.5 million address Community demand and was the next level up from that and it jumps

[25:00] significantly $18.9 million that folded in um the notion in terms of addressing Community man demand that we would um fully staff all of our current Services open up a noo a North Boulder library and then also address um taking care of our facilities uh and then the third level was the expanded service level um which jumps us to $20 million margin in cost but some significant um programs outlined there um opening a gun barrel Library an outreach program to the latinx community focused on early literacy and um youth literacy um fully Staffing the Carnegie Library and activating the canyon theater so that kind of I think we probably ought to bounce back we'll be going over funding quite a bit I'm happy to take any questions on those as well but and I turn it back to you um Matt or

[26:01] Bob or David however you guys want to do it oh I think there's a final one that has sort of the question we're going to be addressing uh but just so that everyone can sort of see it um and then yeah yeah and just so we can all think about what that just make sure we can give you the feedback you need um so that questions answered Bob you had some questions and I know go back a few slides you want to tackle those right now e we actually have to have another set you

[27:03] know another set of negotiations to negotiate what the you know what exactly the IGA will look like um and then you're into the ballot season shortly thereafter so you want to get all of this done in a time where you where the library district would have a shot at putting together its Taber measure um to in time to get it on the 20 helpful thank you David so there's no um there's no magic April 5th it was just somebody's calculation that um in order to get a tab of ballot measure on by late August early September which I know is a hard deadline you just wanted people just wanted three or four or five months to to get that negotiation out of the way and and the table B measure put the others that right that's correct that's thanks question go ahead you mind if I add a little bit more to that please Chris and and I think what what

[28:02] David shared and what you just said was is is exactly it which is this timeline is really built around uh if uh the desire was to get to the the 2022 ballot for a Taber funding measure and there's there's lots of kind of mechanics and steps if the hearing is in April then immediately following that the the council and the Commissioners form that committee they have basically two weeks to pick the trustees and then come back in the month of May for each elected body to ratify those appointments and then uh you would have a Library District Board of Trustees that then would get to meet for the first time in June and then there is an end of June uh deadline that if the the library district were to be approved for funding by the voters uh that the uh the Board of Trustees needs to send intent to collect taxes to the county uh assessor and so that's where

[29:02] kind of the detailed timeline was all back calendared based on meeting those uh those ballot and and deadlines for taxation but to your point if uh it if the the timeline were to be something different that just means that it would be a different year for uh consideration of a ballot measure thanks Chris let me just ask ask a following question that I have one more question for David and I'll shut up um uh Chris you mentioned a June 30th notice of intent uh to collect taxes is that a revocable notice in other words if if a notice of intent went in before that June 30th deadline and then things fell apart you know in July is is the library district stuck with that or can they P can they withdraw that uh I'll let the attorneys jump in to correct me if I get this wrong but my understanding is that essentially the the district would send its intent to uh the to Boulder County that they intend to um serve the

[30:01] geographic area proposed in the boundary uh and their intent to begin collection of property taxes but that is all contingent on whether uh the district uh ballot measure is on the ballot and they're in voted and approved by the voters within that boundary so it is a contingent notice uh uh in terms of uh they have to wait for the voters to approve it before they could begin actually collecting those taxes so they could send the notice in but then if if things fell apart in July or August and they never got a Taber measure up it would just be effectively revoked is that right yes that's my understanding but uh I'll look to David and Janet no that's correct and and the main reason of the yearly notice is so that the county you know to the extent that they need to start to put to get put in place the administrative practices or processes that they need to do to collect the tax that they have a little extra time to do that that makes sense thanks David a final question to to David gear David um you mentioned it's a

[31:02] little chick and rig situation because it's like we have to create the party on the other side of the table and then we have to negotiate with that party and um and and I get that's the just the awkwardness of this whole process um what if we create the party that is we create the library district and we appoint trustees and then we sit across from them to negotiate the idea and we don't come to terms we we just don't agree because we're in a negotiation which by definition means you're either going to fail or you're going to succeed otherwise it's not a negotiation what happens to the district if the negotiations don't succeed in May June July whenever they're going to happen and the parties just cannot come to terms um does is the library district go away or does it exist and such till such time as we come to terms I mean I I just don't understand the leverage there um you know when you're creating a party on the other side of the table and then you can't agree with that party what happens then yeah so I will um ask Kim Setter to um

[32:03] light up his camera and his microphone um but and I'll just get started so it's my so uh I think the statute is silent on that topic and I think what typically happens is um you know there's a 90-day date in the statute and what typically happens is if they're not working it out they ex the parties extend that time and just use additional time to work the issues out and if if we missed the deadlines for getting on the 2022 um November ballot the election would just push over to um to 23 so uh Kim do you want to add anything to that or correct that 2023 wouldn't it push over to not 2030 oh 2023 you're right and David that was correct um the

[33:02] other thing to keep in mind Mr Yates is that hey hey Kim Kim before you do you mind introducing yourself so know who you are I'm Kim SED I'm an attorney with SED and vanderwal and we've been forming Library districts and representing libraries for about 30 years um and I had assisted you a year and a half ago or two years ago too when we were working um but Mr gear is correct and also remember that your resolution forming the district will have a provision that says if the library district doesn't obtain its funding within a certain amount of time it dissolves so you're giving yourself an opportunity to go ahead and come up with the IG if that doesn't happen time passes by if that funding never gets done and the IG never gets done the library district goes away thanks Kevin welcome back it's always happy we're always happy to have you here um just let me ask a clarify clarifying question around that I get the um the fuse that's

[34:02] built in from from a funding sample but it's kind of a long fuse it's kind of a long period of time could we also put a provision in the formation document that says that um if the parties can't come to terms on the IGA by September one or some some period of time where we would have to kind of come to terms otherwise we're not going to have a ballot measure that the district goes away in other words a double trigger one that says if we can't come to terms by September number one just gone the second is the one you refer to which is giving the voters two or three bites of the apple on the tax is that a possibility yes you could add that additional provision to your formation resolution great thanks so much Kim I'm done all right uh juny Mark then Nicole thanks thank you very much I think I feel like I was slightly confused and then I heard Bob's questions and then answer and I'm still on the same side of being a little bit

[35:01] confused about the answers uh so bear with me so I don't understand why would the IGA or the terms of the IG would fall apart because my I guess part of my misunderstanding is why would we not all be on the same page on this agreement well I I guess um I don't know that I have a good answer for you juny other than um being a party to many negotiations there have been a lot of things where when I went into it I thought we were pretty close together that fell apart okay it's GNA be you know you're gonna it I think how all of that works out I'll just add a little bit of an editorial comment here a lot of how it turns out as who gets appointed to that initial board in terms of them

[36:00] negotiating the agreement and then the other thing I say that might be a little bit editorial in nature because I think I'm kind of interpreting some of the prior direction of the council but one of the reasons for this ldac process that we just went through was to get a diverse group of people in a room that um are community-minded and have an interest in the library number of them um are former Library commission members so it was a quite knowledgeable group and I guess from my per perspective in participating in that um I think uh the bottom line is Whatever Gets negotiated I think having their perspective added to what the staff has already done is hopefully going to push the parties that much closer together but again that would be me looking into a crystal ball a little bit yeah no thank you for that and I

[37:01] think one other question or I have two question so this is a I guess a multi- party so there's a city uh there and then there's the county and my question as far as it relates to the county are they in are they in lock step with our values or at least the process that we are uh we are working on or is it can they deviate or or not be on board they can so I'm gonna ask uh Janet Michaels to fire up her microphone and camera and Janet has been the primary contact with Boulder County um as we've been kind of working our way through the process and Janet I don't know if you had anything that you wanted to add in terms of perhaps some of the questions you've received from the Commissioners or County staff or um how how things seem to be going at this point in time yeah thank you David I'm

[38:00] Janet Michaels with the city attorney's office we have had been uh having conversations with the board of County Commissioners we were at a meeting last week or July or January 27th with them um I I can't sit here and say they are completely on board they still have a lot of questions really good questions they have concerns about the boundaries of the library district and the impact of for instance the the mar on um some of the areas that would be included within the district the boundaries are something that the parties can negotiate so if it was Council or or the board of County Commissioners who wanted to exclude certain areas because of impacts of fire for instance they could do that essentially what the county wants

[39:01] to see is whether the city council is on board number one and number two they want to know what the support is from unincorporated Boulder County to um [Music] form the library district and Chris do you have anything that you would like to add to that question no I think Janet you covered it really well and uh we're set to check in again with the County Commissioners following this study session uh so we kind of have been having parallel meetings uh building up to if if uh then we have the the uh joint meeting in April uh so we're trying to kind of bring both uh governmental entities along in a [Music] conversation thank you did that y did that cover your questions juny thank you I have one one more question I wanted to ask about which is so you said that voters will have I guess three btes

[40:03] at the same Apple so if it goes to the voters in 2023 it's not passed then I mean in 2022 then it can go again to the voters in 2023 then in 2024 and then after that if it doesn't happen in 2024 then that's what it is we're moving forward but at least there is that every year it we voters will have the same opportunity is that my understanding correctly you are understanding it correctly and the three-year time period that's what staff has proposed and from my understandings from the many teachings that um Kim has provided to me over the years um that's something that you know can be negotiated the number of bites at the Apple but three is a rather common number thank you very much that's all thank you thank you so much Mark you're up then

[41:00] Nicole okay um thank you uh two questions the first is something you may have already provided to us uh in a prior meeting but I'm I'm just not remembering if this is the case the boundaries of this Library District look like a gerrymander congressional district in a Southern state um what was the theory behind particular boundaries why did we leave some parts of the county out I mean I mean looking at the borders it it looks a little bizarre so I'd like to understand what the the theory was in terms of doing that and I apologize if we uh we've been informed about this previously I just don't have a recollection of it that's quite all right I can take that question if you don't mind Mark so the original we originally tested um the idea simply of the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan that was the initial proposal that we brought forth to council and to the County Commissioners back in 2018 at Council meetings and

[42:01] subsequently in discussions with the County Commissioners and then various times Library Champions having discussions with County Commissioners areas were added onto the map so the map began to take on a shape um you know much broader even even than what's currently represented right so there was um I believe it was the um city council uh a couple of members who are currently on Council who recommend ended um the Western portion uh of off of North Boulder um the County Commissioners later requested if nwat could be included they um ask if the areas going north to along 36 up to Altona could be included they asked if El Dorado Springs could be included and so for testing purposes all of those areas were added to the map um the the original intent of the map was really to capture as many um active current library card holders as is possible without impeding upon any

[43:02] other municipality or any other Library District so the shape I'm afraid um has to do with the precincts primarily in the mountains and north of Boulder the the shape of the voting precincts which we also were trying to keep the alignment of the map to the voting precincts are quite odd and quite large right so the the voting precincts West the west of the city of Boulder get pretty extensive and stretch all the way up to to the um up to the highway crossing over to EST spark so that that's the that's the the Genesis of the map it's it is still a work in progress um the library district advisory committee recommended some guidelines uh for changing alterating the map uh we implemented those and so the map that you see before you is as a result of those um alterations and then we're waiting for input really from city council and from the board of County Commissioners to tell us the true boundaries of the map because is your purview to set those boundaries so it's

[44:00] essentially a mouse designed by committee that ends up as an elephant okay um my other question is um I guess it's a process question for this evening we have been provided with a draft IG which has substantive terms and conditions are we discussing those this evening or is that simply something that gets discussed in a negotiation with the with the Commissioners I these we're appointing the commissioners um to the extent that Council has a view on particular Provisions in the IGA are we going to be expressing that this evening or we going to making uh you know getting any sense of of where Council wants to go with those what's the process again I think we we would um councelor W I think we would love to hear what counselors think of the IG the only parts that are um that we're asking for you to give us some direction on tonight are the the boundaries of the map and the mill Levy the projected Mill Levy

[45:01] all of the other items of the IGA uh can be negotiated through the course of the next several months thank you that that's all I've got um all right we got Nicole uh then Tara and and Mark just to your point there since that's not one of the main questions maybe we can sort of fold that in at the end once we address the main questions that staff has then if we still got some meat left on the bone we can maybe just decide whether we want just tackle some IGA conversation will that work that works great thank you thank you Matt all right Nicole you're up thank you um so this is just kind of a question about the uh timing of the process um as I understand it there are 57 Library districts that are currently in existence um across our state um I you know I hear tonight and just also from following this for a bit we've been working on this for about four years um and I was just wondering if it usually takes this long this feels like a really long time um to me and I was just wondering if you could just give a sense

[46:01] of um how kind of our process compares to some of these other districts um because it just it feels like what 57 other districts have even created it's not really rocket science um and so I I'm just I'm curious where where we sort of fit in for comparison here so Kim Setter would you mind uh Kim has a lot Kim form most of them so um he's very well positioned to answer that question yeah I think uh I I think you're pretty much in the middle um Co of course drug it out for two years and that means you were in the process for about two years and that's pretty normal all right thank you that was it thanks Nicole terara you're up finding that meute button in the same place okay number one it relates to jun's question so referring to the bite

[47:03] of the Apple so can somebody explain to me okay so let's say in 2022 on the ballot the the proposed mevy and the reasons for 2023 is not to ask the same question over is it is it to change the mill Levy to change something within the proposal and then in 2024 why and so thank you for answering this I wish I knew more about Liber districts why the three chances uh there's nothing magic about the number um it's just I think that we kind of went with what we typically saw in igas um where the where this is an issue um but it could be two years it could be one year um if the council wanted to do that um so yeah and if it failed the first time um I my guess is is that there would probably be a conversation after that about why

[48:00] it failed um and would we in fact need to both us and the library district think about what the level of services is uh um and any other factors that might lead to a successful um subsequent election so onea would be the um history of the library the person that knows the most about the library districts do they they when there's a three years or two years do do the um ramifications usually change like do does the midd levy often go down or just curious about the history um so far we've had all the library districts pass on the first go around except one um that was in Adams County went to the voters three times and the M Levy did not go down it was just a difference in the way the voters were approached and there was also a change in the executive director that created

[49:02] some change in the voters Minds okay number two when it comes to um unincorporated Boulder do they vote as well or they don't vote they do vote okay that's good okay and the last one would be in terms of the library district and the IGA do we if we don't talk about it tonight would you say that it's like a pro-or a situation where we're just going to go along and the negotiations will be have already been decided what is our place as the council um tonight and thanks for explaining what we have to do so it's clear to me well at some point you know as we move into negotiations with the district we will need to get direction from Council on kind of what the goes and no goes are in that negotiation so we will still need that feedback and I think that tonight

[50:01] you know really um is about the library District's recommendations and the um the IGA that is before you tonight it's we consider it a draft or an example of what the library um the library district advisory committee recommendations would be what it would look like in in an agreement so you want us to talk about tonight well it's I don't know that it has to you know if you have I think it would be more broad overarching topics tonight might be appropriate but um I think that you know I really kind of more of an in-depth conversation would happen at a future meeting okay great are you good there Tara awesome any other questions regarding um sort of our initial you know I mean we we just sort of got through some of the background and so we

[51:00] haven't really gotten through part one or some of the subsequent conversation which is good stuff it's good but I think there's probably more from staff that'll inform us that might then better prepare us to answer some more of these questions that staff has provided us so um unless there's any other questions based on some of that background we're ready to move on I don't see any hands all right onward and upward to part one right it is um it's my pleasure to present the library district advisory committee's recommendations and I do want to commend them it was a group of um 12 people um selected five from unincorporated Boulder County seven from the city of Boulder um some as David mentioned having some knowledge or past knowledge of this process others totally fresh to the process and they did um they did hard and commendable work over the course of four months they met eight times for approximately three hours to pop and had very intelligent discussions over um I think what some would describe

[52:03] as uh somewhat complex um issues so let's jump to the first slide um I want to give you first of all the staff assumptions going into the library district advisory committee um this had to do with the property transfer and transition to a library district and so the the staff set certain assumptions going into the conversation and that that were that those they are as follows that the transition um to a library would be done as efficiently practicably practically and quickly as possible if a district were created that the library district would become responsible for all facilities maintenance and future Capital Improvements that the city would not charge market value for the sale or lease of the facilities because the community had already paid for them um that the buildings should remain in the public domain no matter how they were leased or owned um the city and the library District would cooperate on decisions that would impact the main library and its environs because of its

[53:01] uh pivotal place in the uh in the downtown area um that the proposed service boundary would align as much as possible with the current voting precincts and cannot impinge on any of the other governmental entities service areas so governmental entities being any other municipality or a Library District or a library service area and then we felt that 3.8 mil property tax would generate sufficient funding to provide for the service expansion level and cover all the costs not considered in the 2018 financial analysis next slide please so the library District's recommendations and these are covered in much more detail in their written report that you have in your packet tonight but I'll cover them briefly as far as funding um the library district advisory committee unanimously supported the service expansion level of the master plan and supported an up to 3.8 mil property tax on the boundary um the district advisory committee established

[54:00] basic guiding criteria um which Incorporated the basic things we talked about it incorporates the most number of users within that area without impeding upon another area tries to align with voting precincts etc etc I will say for their benefit that the their discussions occurred in October and November prior to the Marshall fire which is of since January has raised some questions about the map um as for the Board of Trustees the Library District advisory committee recommends seven members um there's a choice of five or seven and they unanimously chose seven because it could better represent um a diverse number of candidates um and they recommended the trustee appointment process for the new members after the initial appointment with ratification by Council and the County Commissioners um unanticipated by us but um the this is where the the committee really excelled they brought to bear um the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan highlighted a number of pages um and values that are

[55:01] expressed in the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan and requested that those be incorporated into their recommendations as well next slide please as to the land and the transfer of assets um they recommend that the building and land ownership for the George Reynolds Library the Carnegie Library for local history and the new North Boulder Branch Library transfer to The District in in total that the leases for The Meadows Branch library and the current U noo Corner Library transfer to the district um that the main library buildings would transfer ownership but the city would maintain ownership of the land and that the two parties would negotiate a common interest Community agreement to determine how and who funds the maintenance of the areas in that around the library as far as the transfer of other assets um the library district advisory committee recommended all basically I think as they described it all the things that would fall out of the building if you picked it up and

[56:00] shook it um would belong to the library so the furniture the equipment the books um the art collection which was purchased and or donated to the library would remain with the library district those items in the collection that were bought uh purchased by the city and or um of unknown Prov Province would remain with the city that all of the existing U memorandum understanding for historic collections at the Carnegie Library would transfer to the library district and the balance of funds collected by the city for library and for other Library purposes would also transfer to the library district next slide please then we also asked um at council's request we asked the elac to weigh in on community engagement um the ldac uh group recommends um the following that Council conduct the public engagement process about reallocating current Library funds and

[57:01] reducing or eliminating current sales tax levies um they recommend the elimination of the current um Charter Library dedicated 333 mil Levy after the library district is funded um they recommend that uh we improve Community understanding about the services of Library District um property tax could fund um they asked that we initiate that engagement early provide factual and clear information about the cost impacts and collaborate with County elma's communications they did specify some focused groups that they felt we should reach out to the city and county businesses um County renters and homeowners and community members who are marginalized excluded or under represented and the next slide please so just a brief overview of our meeting with the boulder Board of County Commissioners we presented to them uh on Jan Chris Janet and I presented to them on January 27th um much like the preview

[58:01] that you got today the cost of Library Services the proposed Library District boundary what a district is um we we gave them the library district advisory committee's revisions to the map um and then also the proposed no rate you can see here some of the commissioner feedback that we received um they were they expressed uniform concern over the Spanish Hills and Marshall fire impact um one commissioner requested information engagement be done Incorporated we will provide that with for them I think we have provided that for them now in a memo and then also ask what the community's current sentiment is about forming a Library District um since the the last poll was done in 2019 and I don't know is there another slide here we arrive at the questions so the questions for Council about the ldac recommendations and um Council we do have three members of the ldac they elected three representatives

[59:00] to be here with you tonight if you choose to direct questions specifically to them we would deeply appreciate it if they had their feedback um we also as City staff we are going to defer to them uh in the case where you're asking why they arrived at a certain recommendation and staff City staff will weigh in um if necessary but the questions are does the council have questions and feedback about the library district advisory committee's recommendations Council support the draft of Library District boundary in mevy for the purpose of issuing a public notice and what feedback does council have about additional information on community engagement to be conducted by staff prior to April 5th public year thank you David um so that that concludes part one we got a couple more questions here from staff for us to answer I see aon's hand then Bob then Nicole um go forward Aon yeah thanks for all that David um I have a few questions before I ask those I just want to give a huge thank you to the ldac you all did

[60:00] an extraordinary job I was really impressed with the the deep thought that you put into it and some really Stellar recommendations so um really appreciate your service on this important topic for our community um first question is um so those proposed District boundaries have that has that incorporated the very recent changes to the precincts that the County Commissioners have did I think just like a week and a half ago have we looked at how that might impact the the layout of the map I can answer that question Erin uh it does not currently include those uh we are working with the county clerk and reporters office they are finalizing their detailed maps uh and we're supposed to get those uh next week and then we would reexamine the map to see where there were any Precinct boundaries that may have changed uh and what that might mean for changes to uh to the the proposed District boundary so that is uh

[61:01] teed up to be able to have that uh work completed uh prior to an April public hearing okay great yeah well hopefully it won't hopefully the changes weren't drastic enough that they would you know impact the the overall shape of things but I'm glad to hear you're on it no surprise um and then talking about what areas get included you know I heard the county commissioner concerns about um including areas that were impacted by the Marshall fire do we have any ability to Stage the size of the district like to um say okay we'll Express an intention to expand in five years or to say okay we're going to include all of it for now but any property that was born in the Fire gets a you no Mill lovey added in for five years or do we have flexibility in those kinds of areas well I guess I would look to Kim on the

[62:02] annexation issue um and if you want to answer the taxation issue that would be fine too or I could do it yeah with regard to the taxation issue that the tax has to be uniform across the district and with regard to the expanded boundaries uh there are no annexation or inclusion Provisions in the library law so you have to choose your boundaries and they remain okay Choose Wisely could could we separately run a program like a grant program like funded out of the the county or the city and the county to say hey uh folks in who whose properties were burned we're we're going to Grant you a rebate through general fund dollars uh for for the incremental amount of the library tax yes okay so I said something I might recommend that we take to our discussion with the County Commissioners since we only get one crack at it to maybe I'm

[63:01] into a comment here but I'll just throw out what I'm talking that maybe include the full um the full areas but but shelter those folks whose homes were burned from any incremental additional taxes for some period of time through separate program um last question so one of the recommendations from the ldac was that the Commissioners appoint their own successors and then those would get ratified I believe there's a way is there an alternative where the city council and the County Commissioners could continue to have a role in the appointment of future trustees so that um so there was still some elected body oversight of the composition of that body of the library trustees over time you want to take that Kim sure David um under the statute there's the provision states that that the the two forming establishing entities can form a

[64:00] committee to do the appointments and then keep that in place or delegate the authority to the library board to recommend new appointees then those recommended appointees are either automatically appointed after 60 days or there has to be a 2third vote of the um the establishing bodies to make the appointment so you have a veto power and you also have the ability to maintain this committee thanks for that I have a couple comments but I'll wait till other people have asked their questions thanks thanks Aaron Bob you're up and then Nicole then Tera and then oh hey uh Joanie you had your hand up did you wna were you trying to respond to one of Erin's points yeah I I think the shorthand here for what the library district advisory committee recommended isn't really accurate we did not recommend that the library trustees appoint their successors we recommended

[65:03] that the library trustees do the vetting for the candidates that are then put forward to the elected bodies to be appointed it was our understanding that the elected bodies always do the appointment it's just a question of who does the initial work of identifying candidates in script so that's just what I wanted to clarify thanks John yeah thanks for clarifying that Joanie appreciate that um Bob Nicole then yeah I I'll have a lot of comments at the appropriate time whenever that is whether it's tonight or during the negotiations about real estate transfer and governance and areas of influence and the three times tax and so on so forth so I'll save those till whenever it's appropriate but I do have a question which I think is directed to Chris meschuk Chris one of the questions you've asked us is are we comfortable with the tax rate because I understand that's one of the things you'd like to hear from us tonight assuming the library District's formed um and I can't

[66:00] answer that question unless I have some sense of what where the community is typically what the city does is when we're going to propose I know it's technically not the city proposing the tax the library district but it really is the city so let's kind of get over that legal nicity typically when the city is proposing a tax increase or tax extension we go about to the community and we we pull them to sense where they're at on this because the pollsters will tell you that you want to have about 60 or 65% of the people in a poll in a survey telling you advance that um that they're in favor of this otherwise the likelihood that the tax will pass is is low and I know that there was a survey down about three years ago um which had about a 45% yes uh answer um and that was done by a firm out of Vermont and then there were some methodology concerns about that in any event setting that aside that's three years old and a lot of stuff has happened in the last three years so are we going to do some polling I feel a little naked going you know publishing a notice in the Daily Camera on March one

[67:01] and informing Library District on April 5th and kind of burning down this road towards a big fat tax increase without having any idea where our taxpayers are on this is there a possibility we could get a poll done in the next uh maybe 45 60 days to um to find out where people are sitting on that yeah thanks for the question Bob and uh there's a couple of things in there and I I'll probably look to David Faron to help me a little bit with some of the details here um and I think to your point that you made which is a good one which is uh the the ballot measure itself for the M Levy to fund the district would actually be an action of of the library district as a governmental entity as you as you described so it wouldn't be the the city council putting that measure on the ballot it would be the library district as a governmental entity uh and uh we did do uh statistically valid polling in the past uh and um David May that's

[68:01] where you may need to help me with what the outcome of that was because I don't have that right here in front of me um and so there was some there was some polling that was done uh then and then there was a a community uh survey uh or poll that was done recently as well uh and at this point there has not been a recommendation to do additional polling um uh um and open to hearing what other council members have to say but David do you mind sharing because I think you're you're good at remembering this off the top of your head of what the results of that were if if you've got it there in front of you and if not sorry for putting you on the spot I confess I don't have it in front of me what I what I can say is I I will um there was there were disputes over the methodology I think that was we had memos both from a Critic and then also a response to that critic from um the actual poster and I believe the number that you're referring to Bob the first number in the the first

[69:00] number that you're referring to that had lower level of support um was a number significantly higher than what we're currently asking so we were at that that that was the result of whatever we were thinking at that time but we asked um residents um what it basically what it would look like for a 4.6 Mills and so at that level there was um well arguable whichever way you want to look at it arguable whether there was support or not um the second question was at a level more in line with what we're currently asking um at around a 3.7 or 3.8 Ms I believe it was 3.85 mils and at that level it had a much higher level of support I believe was in they R of 60 or 65% um in favor of that um so yeah we we asked the we asked at that time four different levels of funding the first one was not one that anyone was proposing but nevertheless at that time we were still discussing what it would look like

[70:01] if the city put a dedicated tax and funded the library at the expanded service level levels and so to do that would be about 20% more than what the current taxing rate is with the broader boundaries does that does that answer your question Bob on that poll yes I I didn't have a question of the poll I have the poll right in front of me so I didn't didn't need any okay I don't that um but I I guess my my question is I guess I have two more questions and I'll stop on this line of questions one is um does anyone on this call have an opinion about whether three-year-old poll is still valid and Bob I don't know if that I think I don't I'm guessing that may have been a question for other council members but I I did want question for anybody who can answer it got it the the other piece I did want to just jump in really quick on that I didn't answer in the first part of your question is in terms of the timing of a poll our typical experience when we do a statistically valid poll is that it's uh

[71:01] typically in the range of 12 to 14 weeks or so um that we we spend on that from uh the Contracting process through uh the tabulation of detailed results uh we do believe that that can be done faster closer in the eight-week range if it were on an accelerated timeline assuming granted it meets the uh the city's purchasing uh procedures um so that's what uh what our understanding is in terms of the timing yeah I've heard that too Chris that we could especially since we've we've already pulled once so it's not like we have to reinvent the wheel here uh actually I think it's been pulled twice once by the city and then once a private party did a poll last year and so I I would think the 60 days would and I've talked about pollster I know that they can do it in 60 days so it it seems like that's doable you mentioned uh the technicality of of the library district would be actually asking the question but isn't it true that if we form the Library District they actually wouldn't have any money to pay for a poll though right uh the the district itself as a

[72:02] governmental entity would exist kind of essentially on paper with that Board of Trustees and then whether uh they looked to the city and the county or whether they look to private philanthropy to fund that poll would be kind of their potentially their choice and could be a part of uh an IGA discussion if they were looking right but if we if wanted to get a p this is a chicken Ray problem again right if we wanted to get a pull done to know if we wanted to form a Library District we would we we can't like form the library district and then tell them do a poll and then they say well we don't really have any money and then they come back to us and ask for money and that 60 days doesn't start until May or June or or sometime that's too late but if we started it now we could presumably get an answer by April and be better informed to make a decision right if you chose to go that route that was something that would be something that we could try and do yeah okay that's great I'll have lots more questions but that's good for now all right thanks Bob uh Nicole you're up

[73:00] thank you um I'm just going to start by responding to that last question uh Bob asked about the um survey and this is not really a path I would love to go down um I think so I went back and read the survey results from 2019 um at that point there was actually a seveno spread um using the kind of questionable methodology that that folks had um with uh a there were many more voters or potential voters saying that they wanted the library district even with that higher mill rate than there were um not and I think like from this last election we were talking about a fivepoint difference as being kind of decisive on one of the measures so you know to me that feels pretty significant um and you know the other thing that I noted about the survey that I thought was really interesting and I think the um National survey International survey firm that did it uh noted the same thing was that over 90% % of the people that they surveyed viewed the library as very favorable I think it was like over 96%

[74:01] even um I mean I think you know libraries are probably right up there in our communities with puppies just something that people really love um and you I think in the last 13 years we haven't um failed to get a new tax passed right so um I I I I'm not too concerned about this um the other thing is that the the survey from last spring um less than a year ago was by Drake which I think the was the person who kind of criticized that first survey a bit um and as I understand it U from that survey they showed that 50% of Boulder City residents were in favor of increasing property taxes by $250 per million doll home um for the library district only 31% were opposed so if anything during the course of the pandemic that um that point difference shifted a lot I mean that's almost a 20% Point difference and that wasn't including kind of the um the unsure voters too so it really it just it feels

[75:01] to me like you know we've got the information that we need from the polls um I don't feel like it's an expense that would really give us a lot more information given how favorably people in our community view the libraries um so anyway long long-winded um data oriented response to to your question Bob so sorry for taking that a little bit long there um I actually had a question for um the ldac um Representatives who are here and I'm just curious if you could tell us a little bit about why you wanted to support the full extended Library um master plan hi my name is Alicia Gib Sidle and I was one of the alac appointees um I can try to answer that question for you so um one of the you know so so a little bit about my history is that I was on the library commission from 2014 to 2018 and then I rolled over to the library Foundation after that so I'm now um the board president on the boulder Library

[76:01] Foundation um and I think one of the you know reasons that that um everybody in that group sort of wholeheartedly supported um funding the library to that level was due to the libraries um Community involvement that they that that we did during that Master planning right and so so we had the master plan that was you know 2018 um approved by city council and to get there there was a ton of different kinds of community involvement that the library did um throughout that plan and so to me it was you know taking all of the the data from from that plan and everything that it took to get there all those conversations with community members that we really realize that people really wanted a lot more from library um and I think that's really you know what's gotten us here in this room tonight is how much people in this community do love their library and

[77:01] really want more out of the library and want it funded to you know to that full extent with all the programming and and things um that go into the library that they they really know and love thank you um and just a followup for that uh on that on that question and this may be um partly for David as well um it sound like one of the things that I kind of read you know in in your recommendations and um just in some of the discussions previously that it really is about getting our services to um kind of an an optimal place for what the community is looking for and making you know better more appropriate um more efficient services for the community and it sounds like um you and the library commission as well as David as the Director of the libraries kind of are both bringing your expertise to that and and you know saying hey so it's kind of what what we need in order to meet the needs that of the community is that a fair assessment yeah I think that would be a very fair assessment and you know there's other past Commissioners um that were also

[78:01] part of that group as well who you know were also part of the master planning process and I think we all you know want to see our work really um actually put out there right so yeah yeah great um and I'm just wondering about that point 33 males in dedicated property tax funding um I think you're recommending refunding it to the taxpayers and I was just wondering if you could talk about that recommendation a little bit I'll take that um one of the one of the things that came up in the conversation that I think was a little bit of a surprise to uh many of us was how much interest there is in the community in what's going to happen to the freed up dollars um and so that was a topic of a lot of conversation I think we touched on that at three different meetings and there was certainly sentiment by some people that this is something Council should answer before the election and then as we talked

[79:00] through the process and you know when the money would be available we realized that really wasn't um likely that just wasn't realistic um and so our recommendation to have a robust process came from that there was certainly sentiment that we were hearing from community members because part of our charge was to go out and talk to people um and there was certainly some people who saying well if you're going to raise taxes you can lower anything and um we thought you know sales tax is a tough one to look at lowering for a whole lot of reasons but this property tax which was dedicated to the library by the way in 1907 when Andrew Carnegie made his Grant to build the first Library um we felt that this was a pretty easy thing for the city to give up um if you leave it in place and it's still going to the library you're kind of double taxing city folks um and it it seemed to us like an easy kind of thing to do um and

[80:01] I would also say that within the context of this conversation we also talked a lot about hoping that Council would consider some benefits to small businesses when you look at the reallocation of this funding um because we recognized the impact to them and I think you saw in the recommendation we actually asked staff to look at quantify that with some examples and while the library district itself cannot um differentiate taxes there are things the library could do to provide services to businesses that would be helpful and there may be things that the city could do in the reallocation of funding that would also be helpful in terms of Grant programs or something like that so all of that was kind of lumped together in our conversation about about that third of a mill yeah thank you I appreciate that and thanks for mentioning that too and I think you know this goes back to Erin's Point as well I know that's part for later but love that idea thank you

[81:01] for thinking about that too may I ask one more question Matt or do we need to yeah yeah no I just wanted to say that that conversation about reallocation is coming up in part two so um so hopefully we'll get some more thoughts and staff will talk in Greater detail so I know you primed that conversation and so I'm sure there's more to discuss but I just want to let you know that that's coming up in a little bit in case you got more thoughts on that front but go ahead if you got another question go for it yep last one um and I was just wondering if somebody from lak could speak to how uh the recommendations align with the city's Equity goals before someone does I just want to also acknowledge that we have three members from our library district advisory committee and just so for people watching and just for everybody just so we know that we have Joanie and Alicia and I believe we also have Joanna so we have three people from um from our library district advisory committee just so we know where we can get some information and reference some of the great work that's being done so either of the three of you want to take that go for it you g take it

[82:01] Alicia I'll start out and then I'll let you finish how about that um so yeah so I was just going to mention that you know one of the things that we really discussed in this L deck was the most fair and Equitable way to fund the library and that's why we sort of you know looked at who is using the library in our community and and make you know make sure sure that you know the city isn't paying for a service that's really you know going up into the mountains and doing all kinds of things and so one of the things of why that map looks so funny was because we wanted to be fair and Equitable about who is getting you know um who was who paying for the library Services right and then the other thing was moving it to a property tax we also felt like that was the most fair and Equitable way to pay for a Library District because you know the the the who owns the property who has more in the community is paying more

[83:00] for the library right and so basically um being able to to make sure that that you know the the sort of habs in the community are pairing their paying their fair share um and similarly within um uh the community you know the community engagement piece we really thought was another really important piece to make sure that there was you know equity and inclusion um out there in the community to make sure that everybody kind of knows what's going on and that's kind of why we we um added those bullet points into the recommendation and make sure that that you know the voters aren't like surprised by this right we want everybody to understand the math and everybody to understand the problems that we're facing um and so that's why we also included specific groups even within that recommendation of of community engagement to make sure that it was done equitably Johnny what did I forget in terms of the city's how it

[84:00] aligns with the city's Equity goals that is something we actually talked about quite a bit um we asked the library to talk to us about what they are doing now in terms of equity programs and one of the big gaps in the library Services right now is Outreach to underserved populations that's been a gap that was identified in the 2007 master plan and it's still a gap today um that was something that the committee thought was really important to fill and that's a big objective of the master plan funding there was also discussion about the various policies that the city has adopted and that's one of the things that took us to the comp plan frankly because the comp plan is kind of the city's Bible and there are all these policies in there about Equity as well as other things the library currently follows those and we thought it was important that the library continue that so we called out um in the appendix to our report certain specific policies that we thought were important for the library and a lot of those went to

[85:01] equity as well um I would say that right now I think the library Services don't really align very well with the city's Equity goals I mean one of the things that we've been most concerned about is that the boulder reads program and the reading buddies programs which are two programs that really serve underserved are very much underfunded the manager for those programs has not been um they don't have authority to hire and I think it even may have been a permanent reduction so that's an example of kind of how the left hand and the right hand aren't working together as the city tries to balance the budget um we also talked about wages for librarians because they're at the low end of the city's um wage scale and we thought it was important for the trustees to have the ability to raise wages to allow people who work at the library to live here if they can and so when we looked at the 3 7 to 3.8 Mills that was one of the things we tried to look at is there enough in there for them to raise that as well so that we we talked about

[86:02] Equity I think in in about half of the meetings can I add one thing this is Joanna Rosen Bloom and um Nicole thank you for that question the other thing that we did is when we got the number on the mid Levy rate we um looked at that rate through the lens of three different groups we looked at its impact on rent ERS and that would be apartment Runners we didn't get into home Runners we looked at it um from people living in affordable housing and we looked at it from the lens of small businesses because we felt that um in in terms of the the the impact of carrying the tax How would how would that impact those groups and it wasn't like we had a lot of time where we could hire a consultant so the answer we got was direct kind of more uh directionally correct than um a grand study but it gave us a sense that the tax is really effective in minimizing

[87:02] the impact on um lower income people thank you all and just thank you for all the work that's gone into this um not just over the last few months but really the last years in a pandemic too all right uh Tara then Mark hey a few things so first of all I'm wondering if you checked in with the seniors I think one of my I was thinking about Aaron's remarks about a grant program and I think that will be super important because because of the property taxes were recently increased and when I went door Todo although this is anecdotal I spoke to a lot of seniors who could barely they were so upset about the rate the rise the uh Rising property tax the recent one and they said we don't know how we're going to make it we might have to sell our house uh we can't handle it you know because they have a fixed

[88:00] income or because they're disabled and again have a fixed income and then for some people who are middle class or lower class that also the property you know when you buy a home for $100,000 and then 10 years later it's like so much more you're you're not able you're not prepared to pay those High property taxes and so now we are asking people to pay more for their property taxes I'm wondering if you got a chance to talk to the seniors and what they said that's my first question and my second question is can they get grants the P the people that are struggling with property taxes that they already can't pay because they bought their houses so long ago and it was so much cheaper what did they do if they can't afford those property taxes and then as far as the small business owners we I think somebody told me today that they're paying four to5 times the amount of residences when it comes to property taxes I'm super

[89:01] concerned that in this time of the pandemic slash uh supply chain issues slash labor issues and um inflation and so many things how this is going to stress them out did you have a did you have a uh did you talk to a lot of small business owners was it con um just give me the background of that and then I'll give all my other questions you could just whoever can answer them that will be fine the other thing that I was thinking about when it comes to the ballot language is when you say the words M Levy I'm pretty sure mostly nobody knows what that means except people have studied it so are you going to be clear on the ballot that it is an increase in property tax or are you g to what type of language I'm always complaining about government speak and government transparency is important so I feel like the the community needs to know what mil Levy actually means that's my other thing so I think I'm super concerned

[90:00] about those that have been affected by the pandemic and the recent problems in the past few years that's why Bob's idea of a poll is not necessarily a bad one because whatever happened two years ago it's like a new world and so because I want the library to succeed and the um the the ballot measure to succeed I want to make sure that it is something that Community says yes this is great versus no this is too much and so that's why I'm bringing all this up anybody can answer I know that was a lot I can respond to the at least the first part um again our charge was not specifically to go out and do community engagement we were only there for four months um we did talk about the issues um affecting seniors um and to be clear the the assessment rate has not gone up it's the value of homes that has gone up that's driving the property tax rate um we learned in the course of this that I think many people are aware aware of the

[91:01] homestead exemption where seniors can get a percentage off of their property taxes and I think many seniors take advantage of that there is also a provision in state law that allows people over 65 to defer their property taxes entirely until they sell their home or transfer it to someone else and I think that's not a program that's as well known as it should be um and and that's something that people can take advantage of you apply for it each year um the state actually makes up the difference in that so the county or the district or whatever all the local governments are made whole so that gave us some comfort at least as far as um helping with seniors um I think Joan we had mentioned earlier that we had looked a little bit at at small businesses and Joanna had mentioned the sort of snapshots that we did we do think that's a concern um in Boulder I think there are you know there are some businesses that probably can afford property tax increases well

[92:01] um there are some smaller local ones that I think it would be more of a challenge for um and we really did hope that the the county or excuse me the city and the district can come up with ways to address that um Joanna or Alicia is there anything you would add to that I would just add so you understand the process we used because we didn't really have time or resources to go do deep deep Dives but um and David correct me if I'm wrong here but David did find some national statistics on small businesses and I think it went something like 50% of small businesses are run out of homes and if um it's run out of a home then it's included in the residential property tax there's no separate business tax per se of the 50% that rent um uh office space or store space retail space um 10% are owners and those people

[93:02] will be impacted because yes the businesses are taxed at such a higher rate than the residential but for the um 40% who lease um David looked we just looked at one business and it had uh an annual rent of $42,000 to rent retail space I'm going to say it was the Meadow Shopping Center but I'm not 100% sure about that and the um increase in the monthly rent from the assessment of the library tax was about 3/4 of 1% so it felt manageable that being said it is almost anecdotal because it wasn't a big deep dive but it kind of gave us a sense and that's what we based our decision on if I could add the the survey the survey of of renters um both residential and

[94:02] commercial was very limited and done in a short period of time I think we looked at eight of each so we found actual places for rent I then went on to the County Assessors found the property values of those individual properties did the assess rate on the percentage of how much the small business would actually um uh take up within the confines of the over overall building either from a commercial or from a residential point of view and then assumed that the landlord would pass the entirety of that cost onto the tenant and so that in a in a commercial lease that shows up in tripl net in um you know in a residential lease it probably shows up in an annual increase but yeah the the numbers if the full amount was passed on to the tenant um mostly man mostly turned out in less than you know in a multi-tenant billing was you know less than one or two per. Nicole did you have a followup thank you yeah thanks thanks

[95:01] for noticing I was trying to jump in there with a quick colque um which was just that you know I think that the library also provides a bunch of services to seniors um as well and so I just kind of wanted to raise that point too um in in the process of this discussion like one of the things that I learned in kind of preparing for tonight was that um David you all had actually called every senior in Boulder over the age of 65 who was a card holder and you know maybe in this entire region um in April shortly after the pandemic began just to check on their well-being um so you know I think just just lifting up this idea that the library provides so many benefits um often to you know those who um are retired and home and um don't sort of have have others to check in on them and the other thing I just wanted to ask this this maybe um a question for some of the finance people or Joanna you seem to know a lot about this my understanding is that that that four times greater increase for businesses that comes from the Gallagher Amendment not from um it's not like we kind of

[96:00] control that um so this just another another point where we could think about um how we could help the businesses um offset this increase for a bit while they're in recovery that I think that was a question is is that correct but I saw you nod saw about 10 heads I saw about 10 heads no so I think there was some pretty good confirmation of that yeah yeah I know not everybody who's listening can watch so thank you um and then with I just go ahead David sorry go ahead oh no well there was just part of the question about ballot titles and um the taxpayer Bill of Rights in the state constitution has a lot of requirements about what has to be disclosed and um any any um measure that raises taxes and I think a lot of those issues are just they're they're covered well the the Constitution actually doesn't give you a lot of options in

[97:00] terms of how you draft your ballot titles they have a recipe in there and it includes um you know the tax you know identifying the tax that you're raising and then the amount of Revenue that would be generated by the tax as well the reason why I brought all this up is not because I'm against the library district by the way but I'm assuming that the community would have all of these questions so I know this is our time I I hope nobody takes it in in any other way I know this is our time to clarify for the community any questions they could have as um and this is the time we should be doing it I would assume thank you very much was that all your questions there Tara awesome um I see I've got uh Mark Lauren then juny okay thank you um first I I'm actually surprised that the library doesn't get 100% uh approval ratings 96 actually seems a little low to me but the approval of a

[98:00] 3.8 mil uh Levy is going to be somewhere below 96% and I do think we are missing an opportunity to at least poll and and make sure that the community is with us on this issue um at the end of the day none of this is going to fall on the library district if it is unsuccessful or if the tax is rejected um we are going to look bad um and we are going to look as if we are imposing something on the community that they don't want I'm hoping that's not the case but it would be nice to know that in advance and and so I I think there's a utility to at least doing a poll that's that's my first point um my second point is I have a problem here um I've had several conversations Joanie with you and other advocates for the library district and and we've heard about it at at meetings and the common theme had been

[99:00] uh look at all the money that we're freeing up for you to to do other things to improve homeless services or you know do more affordable housing or whatever now it's being marketed as a tax reduction opportunity uh we will raise money for the library and you can commensurately uh lower tax rates so that it becomes a Net Zero proposition we can do that but if we do that we've taken away what had been marketed to us as the primary reason for proceeding along these lines um it becomes Net Zero for everything other than the library and so can you please tell me why we have changed our your basically your marketing point of view um and how you really expect us to to deal with that yeah I can respond to that and with respect Mark we haven't changed our position at all um we have always said that going forward with the

[100:01] library district gives us sustainable funding for the library and it frees up money for the city to use on other things and there's a third of a mill in property tax that is currently dedicated to the library that we think it would make sense for the city to let go of we've been consistent on that since 2018 the library district advisory committee had some other things to say about possibly looking at reducing sales tax and that sort of stuff so that came from the ldac that did not come from those of us who have been championing this from the beginning we've been very consistent okay then then I appreciate that because uh then I would have to take a little bit of issue with the elac recommendations on that because if there's no benefit to the city of Boulder it not necessarily a good thing to do and I'm in favor of of doing a fair Library District but you

[101:00] know there there have to be some terms and conditions that are satisfactory to us and um simply providing more money to the library and less money to everybody else doesn't really meet my criteria may meet everybody else's but that's that's a different story I see your hand up go for yeah just to respond to that the ldac is effectively saying the same thing um that Johnny is saying just that 333 mil ly that's what they're saying is hey give that back to the taxpayers right the rest of it like figure out what to do with it and I think it would be from the ldex perspective and the questions that we were getting from the community the community really kind of wanted to know where Council was going to end up putting this money and I think that's um you know like Johnny said that's not exactly like uh the timing is not

[102:00] perfect on that but any kind of Direction um you know I think that's the number one question you're going to get is what are you going to do with all the rest of this money um and so I think that is uh probably any you know any anything that you could give the community I think they're going to be very grateful for on that front well I'm not how sure how grateful the community will be to have a 3.8 increase versus a onethird of a m decrease but you know perhaps they're focused more on the onethird of a mil um I I I I'm just not sure they're going to see it as quite equal I guess let me say it a different way I'm sorry I wasn't being clear I think as a taxpayer taxpayers want to know where their dollars are going right and so they understand that like this chunk won't be going to the library anymore so I think the more you could clarify about where it's going the better this you know the this election could go um and what the ldac recommends is that Library tax that

[103:02] that small third of a mill go back to the taxpayers I would agree with that recommendation I would however say to people who want that direction if this is passed in 2022 and there's a transition year in 2023 um we will be dealing with 2024 we will not know who is on Council we have no legal capacity to bind that Council um and and so when people say what are you going to do with the money the answer is who knows um hold on hold on hold on Johnny and and Mark can we're gonna touch on this in part two um and so so let's let's let's save some some of this uh conversation for that because that'll be a little bit more of a narrower conversation in part two let's doely yeah let's try to address some these questions that we got here awesome I appreciate your flexibility Mark um but I want to make sure we get to uh Lauren and then Aaron and then hopefully we can

[104:01] sum up some of these questions before moving on to part two Lauren you're up thanks Matt so I have a question for some of the ldac members um you know specifically we've sort of been talking a fair amount about surveying or polling and so um I was wondering if if if you have any if you would like to support that having a the city run a poll or survey um and sort of why or why not and also I heard some comments about you know not having the time or resources to do a deep dive on different kinds of information and so also just curious if there is any information that this that you would like to see the city try um and provide or do a deep dive on as we're working towards um this

[105:03] agreement and and I'll feel that Lauren we we did not discuss a poll so we really can't make any representations about where the elac might have been on polling um we did have a lot of conversation about Community engagement and felt that it was important for the city to have a robust Community engagement process and to start that as soon as possible um we were a little concerned with the understanding that there really hasn't been much planning for that to date and we know money and staff are tight in the city so that's really where we went I think the ldac was more concerned with making sure the big picture information is available you can get way down in the weeds with this Library District stuff but for the community we wanted to make sure that the top level information about cost and impact and benefit and what the life services are that that is what is communicated um to the community and you'll see that in the recommendation thank

[106:01] you you good Lauren yeah I mean unless any other members want to expand on that I think I'm good all right Ain then Bob all right is it right if I weigh with comments in terms answers the other questions yeah yeah please go for it I think we've done enough of a round robin so I think we can start to hit that that section before we move to part two great okay well um we had lots of questions about the LX recommendations my one bit of feedback is that as we moved to the IGA negotiations uh to consider uh how the trustees are appointed I think it's worth considering standing doing a committee of city council and the County Commissioners um instead of the um recommendation from the trustees I I don't think it's critical but I think it's worth considering so I just would would like to consider that as we move forward into that a negotiation stage um I do support uh the boundaries um the proposed boundaries will be interesting to see if the precinct changes affected

[107:01] at all hopefully not um and just reiterate my comment before about the idea of sizing it for the long term for the permanent you know future of the library district and looking at Grant programs for those affected by the fires that could be a joint City County collaboration um for a grant program there uh I think the mill Levy is set appropriately I think um libraries are are are like puppies like Nicole said and I think people would very much appreciate the additional services that that level of mil would support without it being too high or extreme so I think you're right on the right track there and then I thought that ldac also had a great recommendation on community outreach um so like like you said start it early do it often and reach out to those um underserved communities and with a robust engagement plan and I'm comfortable moving forward with the currently imagin timeline of an April 5th uh approximate joint um hearing with the County Commissioners uh you know I

[108:01] appreciate the the point about the the polling and more information being potentially useful but but I would say we have gotten a couple polls on this topic you know one year in 2019 and I think Nicole summarized well the good information that we've gotten out of that and that um ultimately from from my experience in the the community and what I've heard around town over the last several years discussing concept I think it's clear that there's a strong potential support for the district and ultimately we can go to the voters and they can say yay or nay to the to the M Levy in the fall so uh great work everybody I'm looking forward to moving to the next steps thanks Aaron Bob you're up yeah I was gonna do the same thing Aaron did so Aaron thanks for kicking us off on comments I guess it sounds to me like this is I know we're going to talk a little bit about reallocation here in a second so I'll save those comments for later but if this is our um last chance to speak about what we think about the draft IGA before we actually take a vote uh it sounds like maybe in April on a

[109:00] Library District I'll just weigh in and I'll tell you the things that would have to have have to change for me to get behind the library district I'm not sure I would support it even hold on hold on hold on sorry I think because we were going to try to talk about the larger IGA discussion sort of at the end there once we sort of finish some of those main questions because I think Mark had some IGA questions as well and so we sort of wanted to table the larger discussion of IgA details unless I heard that a little bit wrong we were trying not to dive deeper into the comments about the IGA as a whole because I think we were trying to stay pretty high level but we can dip dip in that once we sort of check some of these questions off and finish presentation too does that sound reasonable uh yeah I do I was just following Erin's lead I thought he was getting into the IG so if if so we're we're let me just be clear on the process here we're breaking this conversation into three or four parts so right now you want to know only about the because Aaron talked about governance and some other things so in in April so I was just kind of curious like what are the boundaries of what we're allowed to talk about now well I I I thought there was some some larger points about the specifics of the IGA

[110:01] that were being referenced that seem to be a little bit more detailed than beyond the questions here and so I just wanted to sort of flag that for a piece that was going to come sort of after these main five questions were sort of resolved where we could dive into that sort of to some extent I I just didn't want to necessarily dive to all those pieces because that wasn't a specific question that we were necessarily being asked about the IG considering it comes up with later but if we wanted to nibble at it now that it would sort of just be a separate Conversation Piece At the end now if if if everybody wants to do that a little differently that's fine I just noticed it was a separate piece and want to sort of pull that out so it could be sort of easier to Cull all the IG related comments together okay well I mean some of these are IG related comments as far as the boundary and the tax and and and governance which Aon just talked about but if you want me to save all my comments till the end I'm happy to do that too I don't I don't care we can talk about whatever they're going to be the same comments whether they get them now or get them in an hour you know I I'll defer to maybe David and or David faran or David gear

[111:01] and maybe Nua where where they want to go with that I just didn't know if we wanted to sprinkler all these IGA comments throughout these or or parse that out separately to make it easier to call so since you guys are are taking this information in I defer as to where you want that placed yeah I appreciate that and and perhaps Matt what I suggest is I'm I'm hearing how the conversation is going that let's get them now as part of the part one conversation although I really appreciate you're trying to make sure that the question staff are asking are getting answered so if we can do both of those get those questions and do those and then we'll go to part two um if if that's all right so yeah and N if I might add to that the the the critical information is you know are we ready to go forward to an April meeting with the board of county commissioner and we would like especially some feedback on um both the boundary you know the support for the boundaries for

[112:01] the purposes of the notice as well as the uh M Levy amount and of course um all of your thoughts tie into to the IGA because it you know at this point it's drafted in a manner that's consistent with ldex recommendations so we're all yours so mat when yeah go go for it Bob yeah if you want to throw that in there so an answer to David's question the answer is no um not ready to go forward um in at least five general areas I a lot of other areas but at least in five general areas and if the if if the next time we're going to talk about this is in April I might as well get them out now because I wouldn't want to raise these in April and have people go like oh gosh I wish you would have raised those in February because here we are in front of trying to make it a vote tonight so number one uh I think Lauren asked a really really great question why not um because what I'd hate to do is get to April have have not have staffed done anything on polling and then we say gosh

[113:00] it would really be great to pull and then it's gonna be too late so why not pull um you know the the the poll that was done in 2019 whether it was flawed or not showed 45% support at as David pointed out a slightly higher level and in exactly this mil Levy it was 49% now pollsters will tell you you need to have six 60 to 65% not 50% not 51% 60 to 65% so even if we were to rely on the 2019 poll which is stale and and possibly defective we're not even close to that so let's find out I mean why not I mean it's going to cost us $50,000 why would we why would we wait to April and say gosh I wish we would have made that decision in February let's make that decision now let's pull the trigger and do the poll um because without a poll I'm not going to be supporting this at all um so and I don't know you know I don't know why we would not it's not like the L didn't even talk about this so let's let's do the poll let's get it done let's bring it to the April meeting and let's see what the taxpayers say about it because we can form a Library

[114:01] District um on paper but as Adam swl famously said last year all that really matters is is the vote vote on the tax because if the tax doesn't doesn't fly all the rest of this is just is just talk um the area of influence we haven't talked about tonight um I thought Mark raised that eloquently in his um hotline post that's something that going to be a pretty hot topic um I don't care if we talk about it tonight or talk about in April but that's going to be a pretty big um issue um Aon rais issues in governance we're going to have to have a discussion about that we can get talk about that tonight or talk about in April we're gonna have to have a conversation at some point in time we've alluded to the you know whether we should have three bytes of the Apple two bytes of the apple or our typical one bite of the Apple which is we go to the voters and say do you want to want this tax or not if they say no then we kind of consider what we want to do next so that's a discussion we have to have either tonight or in April but I don't want to surprise people if I brought it up the first time in April and then the real estate transfer which we really haven't talked about I have I didn't see

[115:01] anything in the memo nor did I hear anything tonight that provides a compelling reason for the transfer by the city to the district of the real estate other than it's complicated and I will tell you that transferring the doing a lease transferring real estate and having write a refer I will tell you as a real estate lawyer is highly complicated it's far more complicated than than a lease so if you're looking for the Least Complicated thing to do do do a lease a $1 lease by the city of the real estate don't do a writer reversion and all sorts of other garbage that's going to have to go into a ground lease so those are five big areas I have lots of little areas of concern I want to raise them tonight we don't have to talk about them tonight but I won't be supporting a Library District formation in April unless these are resolv to my satisfaction again talk about it tonight talk about it between now in April talk about it at April but I wanted to give people a heads up those are concerns that I have thanks Bob I see we haven't heard

[116:00] from Rachel much so Mark do you mind if we let Rachel go and then we'll Circle back to you absolutely go for it thanks well that's awfully sweet um thanks I I just have a question about the poll like we considered whether we wanted to repo as I recall during the last Council and and I hate to relitigate things so I'm unlikely to support a poll but just wanted to ask um David Faron with that um you're talking about a 60% um support rate and Bob's talking about in the 40s and I have a my vague recollection is there was something with that poll like where the nose were counted as or the Mayes were counted as nose or something so can you just maybe make sense of the the difference between your number in Bobs sure thank you very much Rael no the um Center for research in public policy who is the um was the vendor that got the contract for the poll has uh

[117:02] used the methodology where especially in a um in a community with a high voter turnout like Boulder so Boulder I think at that point had the third highest Boulder County had the third highest voter turnout in the nation he used a calculation which assumed that even if people said they didn't know they would know by the time ballot arrived and so he distributed the I don't knows between yeses and NOS so he he he assumed that they would vote um and it kind of goes back to I think um councelor spear was referring to the the the spread right so the spread between those people who said they would say yes and those people who said no um that spread was at whatever 177% or 15% and then he distributed the I don't knows evenly among those I mean according to whatever formula you used uh to either a yes or a no category based on the assumption that um most people in Boulder would go to the polls

[118:00] and look um the the person who questioned the methodology methodology um said in turn and this may be where Bob is getting it that um everyone who said I don't know was actually going to vote no so that was how he interpreted the results if they said they don't know no he put them in the no category okay and so that's the difference between this a result that was supportive in the 40s versus the 60 per yeah I mean I we could go back to that poll it it's been it has been some time um the I I don't want to litigate it now I mean the pollster is a credible poster that won the bid through the procurement process that we have um has a good reputation has a long Client List he wrote a rebuttal of the criticism that was provided to him I think there were there were questions um from the

[119:01] rebuttal as to whether or not there was any social scientific validity to the notion that people who said I don't know would automatically fall into the no category which is how he kind of interpreted the result the critic um interpreted the results to suggest that everyone who said I don't know would fall into the no category and hence there was only 49% to support it we ask a lot of questions in that survey um and the main driver of the survey um was the Affinity rating right so he used um a number of pages at the beginning of the poll to determine the affinity for the library that's where the 96% that someone cited comes in or 92% or whatever it was that that affinity for the library would mean that Library supporters in his experience would show up to the polls and would vote in an election all right and that the Affinity would not change that that that was that was the prim unless something drastic happened the Affinity ratings were less likely to

[120:01] change thanks for that uh David and and so just to weigh in on the the repoing question again because we did already look at that and we decided to move forward uh I don't want to relitigate it tonight and and kind of move the goalpost so I'm supportive of the the current timeline that's set up and appreciate the presentations tonight and mark thank for let thank you for letting me uh cut ahead of you all right Mark Mark and then Nicole after that then I'll uh I'll add a few comments uh after Nicole well you may not think I'm so sweet after my comments um last word on polling uh I don't see how it hurts us um instead of uh litigating over the methodology of a three-year-old poll um I just don't know understand why wouldn't want current information if it's 65 35 in favor of the levy um we can

[121:01] move forward with confidence if it's 5545 we can move forward anyway if it's 6040 against it's telling us we're we're walking into a buzs saww and there's no reason to be spending the time to do it I I I just don't know what the harm or the downside is of finding out it's a little bit like wanting to go to a doctor and only getting good news um other issues for me however the more substantive issues on the IGA and they're they're probably similar to to Bobs um uh these are properties that have been bought with taxpayer funds um I want to keep them in title I'm happy to lease them for a dollar a year and in terms of uh the difficulties of doing so you take the dairy lease and cut and paste dollar a year um and and there you are uh it's not that difficult to do that I think it's the appropriate thing to do uh in terms of uh three bytes at an Apple at the Apple I mean what if

[122:01] this thing loses 5545 I don't want to be obligated to put it back on the on the ballot um and I'm I'm very uncomfortable uh if it does lose um telling the people of Boulder hey you're wrong we're going to give you another opportunity to to get right um that that's to be an inappropriate way of of proceeding we have the option at any time in our discretion of putting it back on if it loses 5149 but I don't want an obligation to do that um I like to think we will behave appropriately and if it's very close and we want to we really want to move forward with this we'll put it back on and if it's a an eight-point loss we probably won't but but having an obligation to do that to me is is a little too far um the partnership for the main library area of influence to me is absolutely a non-starter I want input uh from the library district and

[123:00] anything we do in that area I will appreciate input but any decisions that are made outside of the boundaries of the library district are to be made by the elected representatives of the Boulder City Council I don't want to delegate that to some other body and give them uh a veto power over anything we might do I have no idea what that might be at the moment but that's the province of the city council um not the library district which will have enough to do on its own um and lastly on the mil Levy I think it's really quite aggressive I understand the library wants to get everything that they want but you know that will make them the only Department in the city of Boulder that gets everything that they want and there are some impacts resulting from that you know we're considering other taxes homeless tax affordable housing tax head tax Transportation tax after the passage

[124:00] of a 3.8 mil Levy Levy I think the probabilities for passage of any of those uh become vanishingly small and if you care about any of those issues or the possibility of raising funds through taxation for any of those issues you really had to think pretty hard whether 3.8 um is a little too aggressive um if that's what the library district wants U and that's what they want to go to the public with I'm happy to do that but let's understand that there's a consequence if it passes at that level we will have a very difficult time passing anything else uh to fund social programs that we deem to be uh necessary and with that I'm going to pass it on thanks Mark Nicole and then I'll call myself then juny after that thank you um I just want to State for the record that I absolutely see this as being a social program that is necessary for a

[125:00] community um Mark I think we talked a little bit about this during the campaign at some point uh there is very clear evidence that social infrastructure like libraries literally saves lives um during extreme weather events this is part of climate resilience and resilience for a city um I I think you know the the polling for me um it it do I just don't see what else we're going to get from it um so you know I I don't think this is something I'm in favor of it's $50,000 and a bunch of Staff time um that doesn't feel like a a good use of time given that we have a survey that's I think less than a year old um relatively recent that was you know a year into the pandemic um just as vaccines were starting to come out so that feels like you know pretty pretty good time um in terms of waiting against it and we still had almost a 20o difference in terms of people supporting it um I think you know one of the things that I just kind of want to bring us back to a little bit of a a higher view here um this is something that our director of libraries is telling us that we need in order to

[126:01] have effective Library services for our community um and the level of services that our community is asking them for um it's something that the library Commissioners are you know putting forward as well as a lot of supporters in the community including the um ldac folks who spent a bunch of time kind of you know looking into this and really um our experts who've brought their expertise here and I'm just kind of thinking back to our conversation last week when you know Mark you and Bob were both saying hey you know we need to trust staff here right staff are the experts we shouldn't try to micromanage and and I I feel that some of this really does feel like it's trying to micromanage I think these conversations this is an issue I've been following for for years and it's these aren't new conversations they're kind of the same conversations that are coming up and and you know I personally would just like to kind of get get this moving forward um you know the libraries have a lot of support in our community let's let's see that right we can iron out some details but you know staff are telling us this is what's needed in order to provide the

[127:01] level of service that our community is asking for and to sustain our community and and I would really like to see us listen to that if I can cqu for just a minute I I don't a couple of the points that I have raised uh when I raised it in my hotline staff indicated that the Alternatives I was suggesting are possible they didn't say you can't do a leaste instead of a conveyance I'm not micromanaging staff they acknowledge that that's a direction that that one could go um when I raised the issue of how many btes at the Apple you get they acknowledge that it it's it's something that can be discussed um and the partnership for the main library quote area of influence um that to me is is absolutely a non-starter because it's delegating to an unelected body um veto power over things that ought to be decided by Council you know if we do something and and it's and it's inappropriate in a year and a half or so

[128:00] we get you know that there's a way for the community to register its displeasure with us and they can do that in in any way that they think appropriate there's no way to reasure measure displeasure with respect to the library uh directors I mean it's they are an unelected appointed body and I don't mind taking their input this is not micromanaging the document simply saying this is simply an inappropriate provision to put in and with respect to the lease versus conveyance I too am an old real estate lawyer and it's just not a big issue the issue is why do you convey um the assets were were paid for by the people of Boulder they ought to be retained by the people of Boulder in ownership we're giving them under a long term lease at a dollar a year it's done all the time in the public sector there's nothing very novel about it we do it with the dairy um there's no reason not to go in

[129:03] that direction which by the way has served us very well for a long time with the dairy and they have done what they do and they do it very well um so none of these things are are really micromanaging but I'm making legal comments um and I don't think there's anything inappropriate about making a legal comment about a legal document so um that's the end of my thanks Mark no I appreciate you're clarifying that a little bit and you know I just want to point out in in terms of you know giving the libraries what they need to be sustainable I think some of this is really coming from the fact that our city I mean libraries are sort of one of the first things that we cut whenever there's any kind of Crisis and you know we left them even though they make up about 3% of our city budget we left them with about 20% of of their Cuts right really disproportionate um and you know they still kind of haven't recovered so I think part of this is giving the libraries or at least for me empowering

[130:01] the libraries to have what they need um in order to to serve not just Boulder but you know the third of their service area that's outside of Boulder as well I was simply pointing out yeah let's let's in that query no worries no worries all good um but we do you know we're just looking at the time we got to get to part two I know there's going to be some conversation about you know what are we going to do or or what are the conversations around this remaining $10 million so I know we want to spend some time talking about that that's in part two so let's get to that I want to say a few comments I know juny does as well um oh and then Lauren snuck in there nice um all right so we'll we'll we'll do juny Lauren and then we'll move on to part two so you know a couple of things um for one is is before we even finish here I want to make sure that staff has gotten clear um uh uh advice from us and direction for these three questions so after my comments jun's and Lauren we'll Circle back to staff and make sure that they've got what they need it sounds like there might also be a need for perhaps a straw

[131:00] pole because some some some things might actually require a level of work versus just part of a a a shmorgishborg of options come the April meeting so we'll check in with staff in a little bit but you know a couple comments for me is um you know one of it comes down to this sort of how many elections do we do in order to get it right um if standard practice is three so be it but one thing that jumps out to me and this is a conversation we're also having in our community is making sure things are on parity because if we have an election in an even year and then turn around and ask in an odd Year we're not sampling the same people with even the same question and so for me there is a there's an an issue of equity there's an issue of who's participating in the conversation especially with something that impacts the whole community and so I think if we're going to do it and I don't know if there's any historical context but to me if we're going to ask people on an even year then we should only be asking people on an even year where we're asking 50 plus thousand

[132:00] people so going from 55,000 to 34,000 it doesn't me that to me that doesn't h mean anything in terms of getting a sense of what the community wants if we're bouncing around with a plus minus of 20 some thousand people so I'm just sort of curious about you know thoughts on on trying to stay maybe on an even year asking uh Cadence there so we're at least consistent in understanding what we're asking and why and what the implications are um you know it does it does remind me of the fact that I believe that you know the library folks collected signatures around two years ago and had sufficient signatures to get a Library District on the ballot and it was through consultation with Council that they said okay we won't put it on because they had trust that Council was going to do a robust process to get it on there and so I do think that in the back of our minds we need to honor what the voters did in order to collect signatures to want to circumvent Council so I want to make sure that we're maybe being a little careful in subverting that will um indirectly as we move through that process we should be honoring the

[133:01] signatures that were gathered in an attempt to get this on the ballot um and that that discussion may come later um you know and I want to also Echo a little bit of what Nicole said you know we either give this Library District the wings to thrive or we own its Demise by not going forward and I think that's a very clear thing for us to consider when we look at these things because in many ways a lot of the troubles the library are facing are our own creation I.E council's decisions on where it has funded and where it has provided some maybe lackluster support especially from the pandemic going forward so I think it's important for us to own the alternative uh uh going forward it is our de facto day shelter for our unhoused what are we doing about that so I think these are a lot of important questions that giving it its own ability to evolve and thrive is absolutely critical in order for the libraries to do the job they're meant to do and take a role in the next 30 years of what libraries can be while we while we

[134:01] figure out what we're going to do with our own house but it can't just be the status quo is sustainable I don't believe it is and I I'm quite confident that many in our community don't feel the same way um you know I do think that in terms of a governance idea I like Aaron's idea about um you know allowing the board uh County Commissioners and city council to do the vetting and appointing I think that's that's a really U good piece with regards to the polling um to me we we've done this uh this this to me feels a little bit like analysis paralysis um and so I I I think we know enough to get this on the ballot and you know certainly having campaign for a number of years I think we kind of know enough to say that this should and could go forward um and so those are a few thoughts um that I have for this um and and I want to make sure that um I allow juny Lauren and then I see Rachel sneaking in but we're going to have to cut off here um so Rachel that that's you're going to be finishing off the comments here before we move to part two um or at least before we move to part two we'll Circle back to staff and make

[135:00] sure that we've given some feedback enough for them to feel good about questions 2 three four so juny Lauren Rachel if we can be brief and then we'll try to get these questions answered for staff thanks thank you very much Matt and you're doing a very good job at managing this uh discussion I just have a few comments to make and also I'll answer the questions on the screen um and I think my comment my first comment is about the drift intergovernmental agreement article four talks about the uh real property uh disposition and section four talks about 4.2 talks about the Carnegie Library conveyance or transfer um I think my comment and also a question which is in section 4.2 to when we were talk when it the part that talks about the new North Boulder Library my question is I don't

[136:02] understand why it says using Community culture and safety tax revenue other Capital funds Library specific funds in order to build or for the city to complete the construction because my understanding is that we we are going to the voters to ask for money to create this um this Library districting so I just don't understand why we would be using the culture Community culture and safety tax and I'm wondering too is that money was it even supposed to be allocated for this particular project David you're muted David you're muted yeah I can take that Jimny um the north the new North Boulder building uh $5 million of that came from the community cultureal safety tax vote in

[137:00] 2017 it was specifically asked for the voters if they wanted to have a library in North Boulder another three and a half came from Impact fees um there's something in the neighborhood of a million in uh contributions from um the foundation and then the making up of the diff difference came from the balance of the library fund so it's it's a mix of funds that go into funding that all of those funds are currently allocated there's there's not money I don't I don't believe there's money left over anywhere there might be a little bit here there that hasn't been spent yet because we haven't begun building the building but it money has been out okay thank you for that I really appreciate it um I don't have any other question I fully support the draft proposed Library District boundary and the M Levy for the purpose of issuing a public notice on April 5th and um I believe you've done a lot of work staff

[138:00] has done a lot of work and I really appreciate it and I can see um I'm I'm in full support thank you that's all thanks juny Lauren you're up thanks Matt and I'm just going to sort of weigh in on a bunch of the topics that I've heard come up so for um sort of the surveying or polling I think um I'm not interested in pushing that forward I think that our money could be better spent on um you know making sure our community engagement is really robust um I also support the boundary as drafted um and uh raising a mill Levy for the purposes of issuing the public notice and having the public hearing um in terms of the Property Disposition I'm open to either selling or leasing I

[139:00] do think that if I think that there would have to be a pretty good argument made um for why it makes sense for the library to own the land and I think that you know that I suspect that those arguments exist but there's I think that I anticipate having the public being more concerned about that and so if that's a road that we go down I think you know I'd like to hear more as to why that's um an important piece and as far as the board um recommend recommendation for appointments I think having um the library board make the recommendation but the council and Commissioners make making the appointments that seems to make the most sense to me so that you know ultimately the elected officials have um that you know still

[140:00] hold that power that's it thanks Lauren that was concise I love it uh Rachel you're up okay I'm gonna close this out here following up on one of Lauren's points which is um about the leaste versus own I think that that's going to be one that's likely a sticking point and where we probably will hear from the community that uh it's going to be hard to let go of that uh owning those buildings and and the notion that we would have to uh you know we'd have a first wrer refusal and and um that gets a little sticky so I just wonder again not in favor of a poll and I don't know what the timing would need to look like but you know not in a not in a poll formation but could we do like a beard Boulder where we're just getting a little bit of feedback from the community in whatever time frame we need to on a couple of those points where where um it it seems like there's division among council members and likely division within the community because I think we want to tee this up for Success so um to me it's not

[141:02] about like whether Mark's right or whether I'm right or you know whoever like I think we want to know what's going to pass so if we can we can do a simple be heard and just you know uh however uh lightweight that could be presented that might be helpful and again I don't know if that would have to before April or when that would happen but um I would love to know from from the community especially on that point and there are probably others would you rather us retain ownership or or lease it thanks can I ask a question M thank you I just have a question about the beard Boulder comment made by Rachel I'm wondering do you think or at least to staff would that be a representative of the community I think that would be my only issue if we were to do something to beard Boulder is it enough you see what I mean I'm happy to take that question um

[142:01] I'm Sarah Huntley I'm the director of communication and engagement while participation on beard Boulder is always helpful I would never use it to assume that um what the will of the entire Community would be it is not randomized it is always self- selected so even if we got fabulous return on numbers um it would be uh probably not you would not be able to extrapolate with any level of certainty what the entire population would be which is why if that's the goal of the survey is to be able to predict voter outcomes you're best off doing a professionally established survey that uses randomization and other best practices thank you very much thanks sah thanks juny um Lauren is hand still up or is that a relic ah thanks um all right well um we're going to try to move on to part two but before we do I figure it's important for us to maybe sum up here

[143:00] and and check in and make sure that um staff has what they need from us on a few of these issues um you know one the one the one sticking point that seems like it might need maybe a straw poll because it would add some significant process to this would be whether or not we to take a straw poll on a poll um pardon pardon the double there um so I you know I I just you know we don't want to do too many polls here but I think that might be useful on this particular one just because of the added process uh that that goes in there so um if there's unless there's any objections to doing that at this moment I I think it would be helpful to just sort of know whether that's going to be added to staff's process or not um in ahead of our conversations in April and such um so um I don't see any OB nura are you good with us doing that um on this particular point because that seems to be a sticking point that would add significant process you know you certainly could unless Teresa wants to chime in there

[144:00] and tell me no but it's certainly good to know that as as most of these things in the council in the staff memo a lot of this is up to the will of council and we are here really to take Direction um so if that is something that um you would like to consider or give us Direction on then we'll have to know that and there could be then um conversations staff has to come back to with whether or not that impacts the timeline okay Chris uh I'll ask you if there's more to that no I think that's it and Teresa I saw you unmuted if if you've got something B uh yes thanks so uh the council procedures do provide that Council will give direction to staff at study sessions for the presentation of action items at Future regular Council meetings um I think think in the interest of understanding what that direction is um a straw poll would be appropriate but certainly understanding that it's in no way a formal vote um you know or or a

[145:04] direct action item other than directing staff I appreciate that Clarity Teresa um again unless there's any objections to doing that process I I the other recommendations I think even though there might be disagreements I think are part of the platter of options that'll come later um and and since they've already kind of been discussed and and just get a little more refinement I don't necessarily see that as being a little bit of a deviation from the current path um and and I just want to make sure that I have that understood before we fully Embark um but maybe in the meantime why don't we start with uh just a little straw poll any anybody who is in favor of actually having a a new poll um to shed light on the community support uh for the library district sorry to cut in can we take the slides down staff and Mark Matt not to not to reframe your question I think the poll would not be at the library just be a question on the tax uh fair enough fair enough a straw

[146:03] yes a straw poll on whether or not we want to do a poll to the community uh about where they stand on the M Levy uh taex so see one two all right I see two hands um yourself oh okay thank you thanks um so I think that direction is is pretty clear for staff um you know one of some of the other things that I've heard um that I think are some pieces in here that are are seem pretty good at least some points that weren't made but are part of just the the platter is interest in offering a rebate for areas impacted by the Marshall fire I think that's a good thing to throw in there because it also seems to align with what we've heard from the County Commissioners um and the other point I know that Chris said that they're working on it but just to make sure it's to it's certainly flag is updating the boundary Maps based on the recent uh work that the County Commissioners just put out with with

[147:00] precincts and some of their work so to make sure that that's totally consistent um and then um some of the other stuff I think our conversations about area of influence and I think that's a good conversation I I'm not sure does that need to be I don't think that needs to be settled now in great detail I think we heard some good dialogue and I think there's um some some good points that we can come back and have that more specifically brought up um unless people want that specifically known now um and then the other parts were sort of just regards to what to do with the TR with the dis uh with the properties as a whole whether it's a lease whether it's purchased whether it's given uh again I'm I can kind of go either direction more or less um so I'm not sure that needs to be decided now because it seems to be part of the platter that we decide unless saff wants further refinement on those options happy to sort of sort of narrow that down but it's not like we're add I don't think we've added anything that isn't already not known by staff do I have that sort of clear I see some hands but I just want to check in with staff that that's providing enough Clarity or are we still in a Land of

[148:02] ambiguity well the only the one area where I would not or I would just like to be clear about is that you know that that the council is okay with us publishing for the purposes of an April meeting with the county public hearing for the County Commissioners that we would be okay with publishing the boundaries that um the district would potentially have as well as the potential mil wey amount those are the two things that are coming up um in the near term and of course I guess that's based on the assumption that you want to go forward and try to hit um a November 2022 election um and then you know I think all of the stuff on the IG it's great

[149:00] data um um but I think that that conversation will probably continue into future meetings in terms of what the council's objectives are um and where you know like I I said earlier uh what we've drafted is the El D recommendation um you guys get the final word so um we will be listening particularly close to what the council would like to hear or to see thank you for that clarification David um so in terms of the mil Levy I outside of wanting to get another poll um I I've maybe only heard one or two people say that they're not totally comfortable with the current mevy but but that's but I've heard most of the council say that they're okay in its current form um and so I think that that that that's the kind of message I've been hearing and with regards to the boundary it seems like there's pretty clear support for the boundary with some of those conditions that I mentioned just a little bit ago about um including the county piece and then certainly a

[150:00] consideration of uh and it doesn't mess with the boundary it would just be a condition afterwards but something to acknowledge that we're looking at trying to help those uh impacted by the Marshall fire um and certainly in consult with our partners at the county commissioner's office um does that help give you the clarity you needid I think so and of course you guys will understand that what we will do with that is that we will work with commissioner staff to actually set a mutually agreeable hearing date and we will publish notice um in a manner that's consistent with that okay and are we still and I I didn't see any large objections to getting that public notice uh published um uh around uh issuing the public notice of the April 5th um to a public hearing I I think we're all online that that timeline still works okay seeing some nods good um all right so just covering a few things I do see a couple questions from Mark and terara so let's hit those up before we move to part two um so Mark you're up yeah just

[151:02] as a question of process um when do we delve into the provisions of the IGA and and try to get some clarity on those well we could do it at any time um I guess my thought would be it would probably be um after we decide to go forward with um the next step and Library District formation would would make sense to me as a time to have that conversation with the council okay just want to make sure we have that opportunity yeah okay thank you thanks Mark it's a good question uh Terry up so the small businesses back to them is it possible to find out if we can have grants available for them or is that not possible because that might be a game Cher for me I don't I don't want to see more pressure on uh part two um we're going to talk

[152:00] about what we want to do with that remaining with that sort of leftover 10 million in part two so hold that question and if you want to be first yep if you want to be first to Reas that I'll make sure you're called first um but I think that'll be more of a question for uh for part two um so last checkin so we don't have to Circle Matt you went on mute y yeah weird um are you feeling good with where we're at with um part one and that's not just for David David gear but also for um David Farner are we feeling good answering those questions or any more clarity that's needed nura feeling good thank you I saw a hands up from David and David so all right thank you very much all right U no thank you guys um all right so let's move on to part two um and I presume maybe that's David faran leading that or no Mark looks like Mark showed up sweet mark You're On It Go For It part two good evening Council Mark wolf senior budget manager I'm gonna take you through a couple slides here um

[153:00] hopefully go uh fairly quickly uh knowing that it's uh already getting late so we're going to talk a a bit about um the current Library budget and the implications of reallocation so I know there's a a lot going on in this slide so I'll walk you through left to right uh starting with the 22 adopted Library budget so right now um there's three sources of funds for that budget uh general fund is about 7.7 million uh general fund Capital which is also general fund uh contributes 1.2 that's specifically to finish the uh construction at at North Boulder uh library branch and then as you've discussed there's the dedicated. 33 mil Levy of about generates about 1.4 million at least projected for uh 22 so as comp contemplated in the IGA uh 2023 would be a transition year the city uh would continue to operate Library as a

[154:00] city service through that year and then the library district and this all assumes that a su successful ballot measure at the end of 2022 the library district would repay the cost of those operations beginning in 2024 and I believe that's over a three-year um time period uh Library District would then be independent of the city beginning in uh 2024 um with the exception perhaps of U facility and grounds maintenance um which we can get into so for in in terms of implications of reallocation u a couple things of note you've talked about the 033 mil Levy there there would need to be a voter um decision on that so currently that's defined in City Charter that that 33 is specifically for Library services so we don't have the option just to decide to reallocate that elsewhere without um changing our Charter so that would be that would require a vote um of electors to determine uh how to repurpose or eliminate that and then in terms of

[155:01] general fund savings uh so looking forward into 2024 which would be the first year that dollars would be available or cash if you will would be available we'd project the library budget at about the general f fund Library budget at about 9 to 9.25 million and that includes a million dollars that we're currently budgeting uh for operations at the at the North Boulder Branch as well there are other direct uh general fund savings um most um mostly within that um facility and grounds maintenance although there are some other cost savings associated with the library splitting out so again it's a range those costs vary obviously we budget based on Revenue projections and so as we've learned over the last several years things can change quickly uh but based on the information we have we're estimating that that savings to be in that 9.5 to 10.25 million range that could be reallocated beginning in 2024

[156:02] next slide please so I talked about timing already um we're walking through the creation uh process now um what uh in association with the ldac recommendation uh what we are putting up is a potential process to support looking at um ways to reallocate that funding when it becomes available in 24 which would have a process that could coincide with the creation of the district and the ballot measure um this November um one of the things uh we thought could be helpful is utilizing the expertise on council's financial strategy committee to do a deep dive into that prioritization similar to the process that we followed with our uh Community C safety tax renewals so the idea is that prioritization um is is completed um prior to the the the ballot item on District funding I think that should say

[157:01] November 22 um so that would happen over the next several months that that recommendation uh or prioritization if you will would be advisory to the 2024 City budget development meaning we couldn't make a formal decision until we appropriate those funds uh in for the 22 budget which begins in March really of 2023 but would wouldn't um finish up until uh September October of of 2023 when that that savings could be reallocated and appropriated in the 2024 budget next slide all right last slide I'm not going to dive into the details of each of these U ongoing needs and this is certainly not comprehensive we've had conversations with this Council um where we could add to this list there were couple items mentioned tonight about potentially offsetting some of the impact of of the tax itself um all of those things could be in play in terms of thinking about um some needs going

[158:01] forward and how we might be able to uh prioritize or what we might be able to prioritize against um we have certainly have staff available to talk about any one of these but the idea is that we would take a list more comprehensive to than this Pro uh put some uh staff time behind um scoping in a rough order of magnitude what the cost of these unfunded needs are and providing that to uh FSC uh to to provide um some prioritization guidance to to council to have a full discussion prior to November of of 22 and that's the end I believe I think the last slide is uh just the question and we are happy to answer any questions you might have thanks Mark um I see a few hands up uh let's see I saw well we definitely want to let Tara take first cracks and she sort of LED in on the last part so Tara uh Bob and then Aaron okay I literally forgot what I was saying so I'm gonna go last while I

[159:03] remember um Bob you want to take a crack while while tear our remembers yeah sure thanks Mark Mark that was very helpful as always Mark I assume that you could not tell us today what the city's revenues will be in 2024 no I obviously we we make uh a best guess and we are happy for our partnership with CU Boulder who helps us with those financial projections but but no we we cannot predict right and similarly I assume that you don't know what our expenses are going to be in 2024 that's correct again we try to do our best from a budgeting perspective it's the game we play every year but no not not precise and you would know if we're going to be maybe in a recession in 2024 right or a pandemic no I'm I'm not pmic or anything like that right so I guess I'm kind of a puzzled by why would we we in 2022 who cannot in any event buying future councils would be reallocating money which we don't have yet but even

[160:01] if we knew we had it um if we didn't know our revenues and didn't know our expenses isn't there some false Precision to reallocating that N9 or10 million yeah I I would defer to others on process I would just say that the the prioritization happens every year as we enter are into a budget process and um you know that's basically what we do is try to plan and allocate towards priorities all of which are not funded fully at levels that are ideal and then we have to change and adjust as we get more information and so I think this would just be the idea is that this happens earlier than our normal budget process and would obviously be Revisited as we enter the 2024 budget development great thanks Mark Terry you remember what you were thinking yes thanks yes I do I'm not going to tell you who told me but somebody did tell me thank you that person oh yes small businesses so I'm wondering how we can you know for me

[161:01] that's a game changer I would be very sad if our a lot of our small businesses the ones that weren't out of their homes but the ones that actually had brick and mortar stores could not handle this property tax increase I would want to know sooner rather than later that we could grants so that's my ask the other thing I want to say well that's all I'm going to say well I I would appreciate the question I I would defer to our friends in community Vitality on the exact programming I know we don't have a program in place at the moment um I think for the purposes of tonight certainly if we embarked on a process to prioritize and that was a priority of council to add small business grants in some format um we could could certainly look at that as a part of this um reallocation prioritization process do that answer your question

[162:02] Taran oh yeah you waiting for me yes it does thanks well how do we find out if it's what the council wants to do should we get a straw P kid um we well we can touch on some of that detail or or higher level stuff but I see Aaron and Nicole um so go for thanks uh question and then a comment so Mark about the third of a mill that's currently dedicated to library services does the charter authorize us to collect that tax or does it bind us and require us to collect that tax just just it seems like when we've passed other taxing measures recently it has authorized us to to collect a tax but that we could choose not to legislatively rather than needing to go to the voters Is this different from that it is different from that um the way that the charter is drafted with regard to the 33 it's not actually part of the mill Levy it's um an

[163:00] earmark of a portion of the mill Levy so the way it's drafted it says something along the lines of Thou shalt spend 33 Mills on the value of property in Boulder on on the library there so we'd have to put a measure to the voters to um to remove that requirement um I guess could we at the same time say uh remove our authorization like our total Mill Levy like reduce our Mill Levy at the same time that we remove the requirement to dedicate some of the libraries yeah I think the council could do that legislatively um you know the the our M Levy and I would invite car Cara Skinner to to join me here but um our current M Levy um it's under the charter maximum M Levy of 13 Ms it's close to 12 Ms and I

[164:00] think that the council could just reduce they would the council would have the authority to reduce um the the rate of taxation by ordinance but you could also put it to the people as well I see car car's nodding so it sounds like thank you car Skinner here um we did have discussions about this that in general I think that you can reduce the M Levy but I think there was some specific Charter language that maybe we'd need to revisit on that thanks for clarifying um and then I'll just make my quick comment that that I think you all are on the the right track here so I'm happy to keep talking this over um you as we move forward about how we ideas for how we might reallocate some potential priorities obviously understanding we wouldn't be making final decisions and wholly support uh ter things about getting um grants for small businesses on that that list to consider because I think we do want to

[165:01] offset those impacts that's all I got thanks thanks Aaron I see Nicole and then Mark sorry struggling with unmute um I had a question uh first for Mark um sorry let me find where I wrote it down um so I think you mentioned um in one of the slides or in the document that you gave us that uh by not having to kind of support the library um as a result of it becoming a district that we might have an impact in terms of increasing staff capacity uh like in finance like in HR legal it that kind of thing um and I was just wondering if you could speak to a little bit to that point just a little bit and provide a little more clarity on that sure there there's certain um internal services that that we provide the library district just like we provide all of our um city departments uh some pay for that through what we call Cost allocation that it's basically

[166:01] an estimate um I would say better than an estimate and a calculation of what the cost of that service is if they have a separate funding source um if there general fund supported in the case of the library and we provide those Services as a normal course of business and so um in that case it's a little bit more difficult to quantify but um that's why we mentioned staff capacity um certainly not talking about a Library District would free up some time I mean you know you get the point it's just stuff like that in our normal course of operations Finance staff procurement um the city attorney's office support and others uh Communications all of all of the that time I mean those are parts of people those are those are hours those aren't really easy cash savings but it would allow us to look at you know where we might be able to spend some of that capacity elsewhere yeah okay awesome thank you um and then uh the second thing I just wanted to um address Bob's point about kind of looking ahead you

[167:01] know toward um uh how how we might spend these funds I really do feel like it's critical that we kind of have some idea of what it is we would be putting forward to the voters um we make all kinds of decisions without knowing what the future is going to look like right I think I Le would really love to have a crystal ball and unfortunately I do not um so you know we kind of do the best with with what we can right now um but I just personally as a resident would be really wary about kind of voting for something without knowing even a general category of where things are going to go and you know if this passes in 2022 we start um allocating our 2023 um budget pretty soon so I think it would actually be this Council and us right here um who would be allocating some of those funds and maybe Mark you can correct cor me um if if my just kind of mental math on when when we do budget allocations isn't correct but you know to that extent I mean I think we can all say that if

[168:00] we're transparent about where we kind of see these needs being right now where some of this money could go even just kind of initially in the first few years um like we're talking about small business support and stuff like that we're the ones who can hold ourselves accountable I mean I I would really hope that we would be able to do that um in that situation but um mark maybe you could correct me if if I've got my thinking wrong on the timing no I I believe you're correct so we would start the the planning for the 24 budget in 2023 and so it would be this Council to adopt the budget okay great thank you thanks Nicole um all right Mark and then oh tera's hand was up and then down you want to go after Mark all right so Mark you're up you know as as a member of the financial strategy committee I'm always happy to take on um a project but the reallocation project is one in which there are a multitude of variables and we have a firm grip on

[169:03] precisely none of them um you know trying to project out uh a couple of years without knowing anything about anything you know it's we're doing it to assuage Community concern but it's not substantive we don't know and we cannot know at this point what it's going to look like I I mean I think it's clear that that we can identify categories where we will consider uh reallocating funds but that's about as far as we can go and you know we can take broad categories and say you know if we can we'll put more money here we'll put more money here and we'll put more money there but other than that any promise that we make to the community is a promise without substance um I think Bob was right we don't know what the economic conditions are going to be uh we don't know how much money we're going to be bringing in we as the uh famous line about Hollywood goes

[170:02] nobody knows anything and that's kind of where we are and so you know if we want to do this deep dive of financial strategies um we can do it but it it's it's for cosmetic purposes only because any promise that we make is unknowable and irrelevant and as I said we don't even know who the council is going to be at that point um so I you know I just don't think this is a meaningful exercise other than to falsely tell the community that we're going to do things that we may or may not be able to do um possibly next year we have a better handle on it but at this point and doing it in connection with the vote I I just is a more misleading uh exercise than it is substantive so can I can I just kind of cqu on that I think we do know who the council is going to be that's deciding it's us right we'll be deciding but in

[171:02] in 23 we're going to have a number of new council members who knows how many in late 23 like by the time the 20 the budget's already been decided right like just like we don't we new council members don't get to say what the 2022 budget is even though we were elected in 21 23 is the transition year so you know we're not going to be reaping this this windfall um quite yet uh so I again I'm happy to do anything that has substance I just don't think this this has it and again if it's something we want to do to make people feel that we really have a handle on what conditions are going to look like um when the LD is up and running in 24 you know we can do that but it's it's not a to me it's not a subst of exercise can I further call do you mind absolutely you can't do that go ahead Mark go for Mark wolf question for you the would the reallocation of the funds

[172:03] be passed as part of the 2024 budget before prior to November of 2023 yeah yes that's typically our process is that we um have Council take the final action on the budget appropriation for the following year by October of the of the previous year so it would be October 23 for the 24 budget so I I'll just so it would be this group of people barring resignations or recalls or something just understanding that circumstances do change somewhat over the course of a year and a half but it would be this group can we volunteer for a recall I think that's called resigning um I again I I I acknowledge that um but that that's a 2023 conversation it's it's not a 2022 conversation in my

[173:02] view Tera you're up and then I'm gonna call myself yeah in my view I want to know how many times we're going to use the word cqu in this evening I say we CAU it here never heard that word anyway all right moving on to more serious matters now I'm just kidding my dear counsil friends say it as much as you want okay um just in case we do talk about allocation I just want to say that um putting in a word once again for the seniors and my husband always says Tara even though I explained something why do you keep asking me the same question that is a question that I have for myself are we or are we not able to help some of the seniors out who might not be able to afford this is that possible I know we have these such programs that people never heard of and such but uh some people never heard of them people have already texted me they've never heard of them so I'm assuming they haven't so I'm just still thinking about the seniors and that's the and the second thing I want to say is I'm going

[174:00] to put in a wors for Parks who also got decimated by the pandemic and you heard it last week was it last week how many people complain that we don't have openings we don't have lifeguards we don't have we if we're going to allocate I'm just G Bob you know I I agree with you Bob that we shouldn't be talking about allocations but just in case I'm going to throw one in for Parks right now because they desperately need more money I'm just going to say it all right I'm done uh thanks Tara um Nicole you can uh fire off after me if you don't mind um so well I Erin I appreciate your your line of inquiry to really solidify the fact that it will be the nine of us that will get to decide where that first set of reallocation comes from um and so in that sense I think it is absolutely appropriate for us have that conversation now in fact it would be irresponsible for us not to given that so many of the things that we want to do especially given the size of money we're talking about nearly $10 million allows

[175:00] us for transformative change well we can't plan transformative change by the flip of a coin or a tweet it takes time to develop the plans to in order to do that and we've had a lot of things that we've put on the back burner or we said we can't do because that takes money from another department and here we have that chance so to me it is incumbent upon us to actually do that now and do that work I'm thinking of things with regards to our inous I'm thinking of how do we ex expedite some of the work that we all unanimously supported for our core arterial Network to get protected bike Lanes to really meet our vision zero I'm thinking of a lot of very big things that require one or more years of lead time to accomplish we've got money that might be coming from the state in the form of matching funds in order to help serve our unhoused or me health and drug addiction I mean these are big things and if we don't start thinking about the shovel ready nature of those now we're missing the window and then deciding to tie our shoes in the middle of a race and so I think we really have

[176:00] to kind of think and be more Forward Thinking rather than reactionary to some of these budgetary issues and really stepping us out of some fiscal conservatism that many ways has kind of handicapped us as we've come through the pandemic so I think we have to think different and this money coming from perhaps hopefully some liberation to Library District allows us to think new um to think forward and I think we have a great chance to do that so I would really like to have that conversation with you um with our colleagues about what we can reallocate and I think there's some great things we can think of in generalities in large pots get staff prepared for we don't have to make hard commitments but it also allows us to be accountable to the electorate to say well you did say you were interested in this a year ago why aren't you still interested or still you are and I think that's a good dialogue for us to have of course some of the numbers will change but I'm okay with that but I do think we need to prime the pump um as we go forward with that um Nicole VRA yeah this is just kind of related to that point and I'm just wondering if

[177:00] there's maybe a a difference in terms of what what it is we're talking about with regard to um you know reallocating these funds here and if that's kind of creating some of the difference so I'm gonna put this out there a potential Bridge you can let me know you know Mark if I'm totally off Bas um but you know the way that I'm seeing this is not not as an etched in stone right every dollar kind of accounted for but just letting the public know hey this these are the kinds of things that we're sort of thinking about you know that that this could maybe go for um so that that is at least my perspective there maybe others who really do want that sort of etched in stone kind of um you know line line by line detail on the budget but this is what you know I would hope that the financial strategies committee could kind of come back with of some ideas around okay you know if we've got this extra money here might be you know some places to kind of put it maybe um you know some of the extra projects the small business stuff like we could have these conversations then um and not you know keep keep staff up quite this late thank you staff as always for hanging with us um but you know I mean just in

[178:02] terms of talking about what what we could potentially see this going for I mean for me the libraries are a line item in the budget for social infrastructure and they provide a lot of services and they move us really you know forward on our Equity goals in a lot of ways and so you know when I'm thinking about reallocating it know some of the ideas that were um in the memo were about um physical infrastructure and I would really really really love to kind of keep this for some of our social infrastructure um if we can so I I just want to put that out there um but anyway thank you um and I saw was that tera's hand was up right NOP all right um anybody else have thoughts or comments on reallocation um I see Lauren I know we haven't heard from Rachel not saying anything to put her on the spot but her voice is very welcome and she's very thoughtful so I would like to hear it and same with juny again not forcing you to call but anyway would love to still hear your

[179:02] thoughts Lauren you're up thanks so um while I agree that you know plans often change because circumstances change um I don't think that means that you don't plan right so I think um and even as things change it's good to have a framework that you've already started with iteration really um in my opinion leads to some of the best ideas moving forward and so I think that it um would serve us well to think about how we might um allocate this money because we want to make sure that we're doing the best we can with it when it's available to our community thanks Lauren juny then Rachel thank you Matt um I'm a little bit torn I do agree that

[180:03] we have to um start thinking about how we want to to allocate that money I think it's that's the best it's a good way to go right it it's going to help hold us accountable instead of not really knowing where to spend the money but I do understand the point or the comment that was made that things may change so maybe as we're really thinking about this process of allocation or reallocation is think that hey we're doing the work now but with the caveat that things may change in the future um I fully support the comment made by Tara uh I'd love to see or I would fully support some funding going to small businesses for Grants but at the same time we also have to think how long do we would we have to keep this grant process going because this $10 million

[181:00] is not endless so at some point small businesses how do we intend to support them or is this a one time or is it how do we intend to keep this grant process going so I think it's a lot I'm not sure if I even answered your question because I'm still very much I see either side and but I'm in support and start looking at okay how we going to spend this money because we want to be accountable and being accountable mean that we we need to think about how we want to how we intend to allocate the funding thanks thanks juny um see Rachel and then Aaron and then maybe we can hopefully come back to staff and close this out thanks for the invitation Matt Benjamin um I I don't have too much to add I think it's already uh been well covered but I believe the question we're supposed to answer is do we agree with the proposed process and next steps relating to how the uh Library funding could be reallocated yes I agree with the process and next steps um you know

[182:02] it's good information to get I uh again I think we need to be cautious overall uh to set this up in in a way that it will succeed so um I I worry a little bit that that we assume that a tax will passed because it's always passed uh I I believe that in a neighboring City Superior they just for the first time did not pass attacks so um I don't you know I am I don't want to put the cart before the horse but I do believe we should plan and invite the community to weigh in but we should also be mindful that we are um we don't have crystal balls as someone else mentioned so let's not be presumptuous and and let's set this up for Success thanks all right Aaron take us home yeah so well said folks um just one additional thought it sounds like there is um interest in sending this on to the financial staries committee as proposed by staff just a thought about this being broad budget categories right we're not

[183:01] talking about like spend $10 on this and 1850 on that but it's really about some top priorities that that uh Financial strategies committee would recommend for consideration for reallocation right so so not no false Precision but kind of a broader broader look at the possibilities just a recommendation there well a Aaron couldn't help himself still be mayor in summing up at the very end um I was gonna say that but he beat me to the punch nice work uh I do see Mark um uh what do you got say Bud well I don't have a problem with a the process as described by Aaron sort of identifying areas we would like to go but we also need to do some projecting here I I I think Tara uh has good points about assisting seniors assisting uh small businesses we're going to there's going to have to be assistance for um for others probably lower income people

[184:01] uh at some point we need to understand how much of that 10 million is going to be left to us after we have subsidized the tax obligation of a lot of other people um hopefully a lot of it but we ought to at some point get a handle on that thank you sounds good um Nua Chris David does what what Aaron said sort of resonate that um you know or I should barely just ask does anyone object that we send this to the financial strategies committee to sort of work on these broad categories that sort of align with the council priorities and come back to us with sort of those broad pieces sort of acknowledging that we don't have that crystal ball see a few nods I I see a few 904 stairs you're at Council service all right um great so hopefully that helps address that

[185:00] um all right uh final check-in um with staff do you guys have what you need from us on Library District stuff um going forward H David Faron David gear nuura you guys feel good or is there some some clarity that you still need I'll let Chris and The Davids speak to it uh I will uh look to the team as well I think we've got most of the clarity that we need one item on the uh the exploration of grants that I just want to flag is one of the things that we'll probably need to to think about and and work on is thinking about who uh would provide those grants uh as the the district would extend beyond the city limits and so thinking about if if it's a city program that would be limited to just the city limits if it were a district program then it would apply to the full District boundaries but if council's comfortable I think we can include that as a part of our follow-up

[186:01] work and and uh and work with the financial strategy committee and Council uh on exploring that that topic further but I'll look to the rest of our library district uh team and see if there's anything else we need for tonight I go ahead yeah thank you Janet Janet Michaels with the city attorney's office if I may just clarify the library district is limited by the Colorado library law to expend their funds only for Library purposes so they would not lawfully be able to um give grants to lower income or whatever category of people that you would like to I just I want to say thank you the feedback I think we got all the information we need and you guys raised a lot of really good points especially around the library district advisory committee's um proposed IGA I think there's a lot of room on the the

[187:00] questions you raised specifically around leasing or owning the question of the downtown influence area those we' need to bring back significantly more clarification I think for you on that topic specifically governance is entirely obviously within your control you can decide how you want to do that with regards the board appointments and then we'll have to I mean I I think the bites of the Apple qu question came up tonight and really that's not something we did a lot we basically stole that information I think from a previous IG if I'm not mistaken David and so um yeah so I think that's one that we'll have to do some more research on too and understand we'll bring that back to you um but those will all be items that you guys um have ample opportunity to negotiate in the IG over the next several months thanks David um Bob I see your hand up I just have a process question thank you David for summarizing that because it it does prompt a question my mind so it sounds like we have some um issues disagreements um information to gather

[188:01] so on so forth on various terms of the IGA are we meant to kind of bottom those out and vote on them before we form the library district or we meant to just vote in the library district and then when that those new District preses come back to us and I don't know July or August with an IGA we vote Yes or No On It Well Bob I don't know that there's a right or wrong answer to that question we could do it whenever you want um if you wanted to to have an initial conversation about it perhaps in a study session format we could do that before April or you could wait till after April and before we started negotiating um the library district IG and get that um that feedback from the council before um we went into those negotiations and after the you know the district would be formed by that yeah I just I'm not sure exactly who sits at

[189:00] the table in the negotiations I assume it's City staff and presumably City staff needs some direction for us so we for example we were all over the board on real estate lease versus owned presumably somebody's going to need some direction from us on that before you sit down opposite this newly formed Library District so it seems to me there'll be some efficiency trying to get Council on the same page on that before we formed the L District at least contemporaneous with that as opposed to finding out two or three months later yeah that I that would be fine you know all the T all the issues that you that I have listened to you guys raised tonight they are completely within the realm of policymaking um I you know I'm kind of Legally agnostic um so it's really we we would want to hear from you you know I get that I just I know we're the policy makers I just want to know when we're going to make the policy you know are we going to make the policy in April we're we make the policy in July is really all I'm asking well we can take that back and see what uh what

[190:01] opportunities are on your calendar in the near [Music] term thanks for bringing that up up um yeah me baring any objection I I I think that's that's straightforward to kind of just look at calendar and see where we can sort of tackle that before we get too far down the road um um but certainly and when we can give that its proper due diligence um outside of um a meeting like this leaking another hour plus on IGA detailed discussion so I think that'll be helpful to come at it with some fresh eyes once some more details are laid out um all right um it looks like we're good to go barring any last comments um if we are oh yeah David just one last comment so you know as we prepare for that so we have a list uh that we can put together based on your conversation tonight on what's in the IGA if if council members have other issues with what's in the IGA or how we approach things or questions about why

[191:02] we did what we did um we would certainly welcome those questions and it would help frame uh it would help us frame the discussion that the council would want to have thanks David all right well before we move on on um I just want to say thank you to um staff David Fen David gear you guys have been doing a great job on this and especially the library district advisory committee um you guys did an amazing job to get it where it's crafted at this place given all the parts and variables that go into forming a Library District um so just incredible job and thanks for um helping the naral to scope and and allow us some get to some specific questions for us to help kind of move the ball forward and um we really look forward to the next step here in in April um and again just credit to everybody even those that aren't on the call everyone who's had a hand in getting it to where we are over the last few years thank you so much and we look forward to continuing that process uh come early April um so with

[192:01] that I think uh nura are we ready to transition to gun violence prevention I think we are and we will be uh left in uh great hands as uh our City attorney Teresa Taylor Tate takes it over before we do do I just want to check in we were kind of Full Throttle there for about three hours switching topics does anyone want to take five um yeah I see that all right good I I I probably should have popped that in earlier but um that's me that's a rookie mistake on my part um eitherway so why don't we why don't we take five um do what you got to do and we'll meet back here at 9917 and then we'll get going with gun violence prevention stuff sound good all right see you shortly [Music]

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[198:27] [Music] right I'm going to shut off so no one can watch me oh no our first in-person meeting should be at tera's house and we can get the good stuff I second that all right I do want to given subject matter I do want to before we get going good there's Mark I want to make sure Lauren Lauren's in um I just even though the screen's off I want to make sure she's present I saw Mark and Tera Flesh on so we know we're

[199:11] good all right Lauren are you there audio give us aah or a thumbs up yay she's back all right so we're ready to go nura uh back to you we'll send it back to Teresa without anym good evening council members um I'm joined tonight but with oh it's already late isn't it I'm joined tonight by Louise Toro see senior assistant City attorney from my office who is working on the gun violence prevention project um we come to you this evening uh on the heels of the enactment of SB

[200:01] 21256 this law was enacted by the state legislature in June of 2021 and it allows the local government to enact an ordinance regulation or other law um governing or prohibiting the sale transfer purchase or possession of firearms ammunition um fire components or accessories um and the local law can't be less restrictive than this state law but it really does open the door for some legislation that um that wasn't possible before we're here tonight seeking your guidance and Direction about whether the council would like the city attorney's office to draft ordinances to regulate in this area and if so which specific areas Council would like to see brought back and we do have a PowerPoint to walk through on this if I could get that up just to walk us through and we'll move to the next

[201:00] slide so what we're going to do is we're going to move through each of these options um and then um looking for some indication about whether this is an area that you all um have interest in and whether you would like us to draft something and bring it back for consideration at a future city council meeting hey Teresa for for process before we get on I think it was sort of my intent that just given the um importance of each of these individually within the greater context of gun violence prevention that we would just for for absolute Clarity probably just straw poll each one just to make sure that you you know exactly yep you got council's will to move forward or not and then you sort of put them on or take them off the table as we go through each one will that work for you Teresa will that also work for youa I th on this y I think that makes a lot of sense okay great any objections from Council on that

[202:00] process all right sorry for the interruption tresa but continue and then when you're done with each one we'll pause we'll do the straw pull and then continue on from there very good um so the first is a Prohibition on open carry and what this would do it is it would ban carrying firearms and public places there are some exceptions here um Law Enforcement Officers members of the military um places where a property owner is given permission for open carry also carrying a a firearm in a vehicle or in a locked case um um or carrying a concealed weapon with a permit but so big picture this would be a Prohibition on open carry Rachel I see a question Rachel yeah and I don't know what the when the right time is to ask questions on individual proposals Teresa um if you want me to do it now at this meeting uh after the meeting but I do have a couple

[203:00] questions on this one sure um I think it makes sense since since we're trying to gauge interest in each of these individually to ask questions as we go all right then with Matt's permission I will ask two questions go for it um first is the ex ion for uh carrying an a locked or enclosed case um I have seen uh protesters be kind of cute with that and have like a see-through case with an assault weapon in it at a at a protest you're not supposed to be open carrying but you can still see that there you know that somebody's carrying at a protest and so it's like a way around so I just wonder why that like if um if you could get back to us on on whether we need that exemption in there I'd probably prefer not to see it in there and then similarly with the and I know that these came to us as model ordinances so um appreciate that it may be a question for gords or someone else but uh carrying a concealed weapon with a permit if you're carrying a concealed weapon I would

[204:01] think it shouldn't be open so that part's confusing to me so can can that exemption go as well so if those are both legal and Council would support not having um I mean I could see if you have a locked or enclosed case you know from a car to wherever you're going to the shooting range or something fine that's not obviously open carrying but where I've seen open carry is like you know when you're turnning the corner at the Boulder Boulder and things like that and and you know somebody's standing there with a um a weapon that that you know they're sort of openly appearing or protesting with so even if it's in if it's in a gun-shaped case that doesn't really make you feel uh less like you're seeing an open carried gun so if those two could could both be considered I would uh be interested in in amending that with coun if if council is supportive of this at all and then with those amendments oh and then I saw jun's hand was up and then not you good

[205:01] juny yes thank you for now I'm good okay uh Bob just a process Point as we go through here um and Matt I think you said this but I think it's Bears repeating I think the direction we're providing Teresa tonight is do you want me Teresa city attorney's office to draft these rules we're not voting on these rules we're not approving them or not I think if there's some improvements like Rachel just offered that's great but I don't think we're we're um supporting or not supporting we have to have a lot of community engagement on this kind of stuff and so I think teres is just looking for us to tell her if we don't want her to draft a particular thing because we wouldn't want to waste her time but I I know you said that but I just want to be super clear on that because I know we have press listing in tonight and I wouldn't want to see a headline that says Boulder it's open carry or something like that because we haven't made that decision in thank you for that clarification and it's an important one this is really the initial conversation about whether to move forward and have continued conversation and use model legislation as a starting

[206:01] place a jumping off place for that thanks for clarifying Bob Rachel is your St hand still up for a comment or is that a relic awesome thank you um all right um barring any other comments or feedback on this which I oh juny you're back yeah I I'm I I don't um I'm not an ex expert on this in this field I just have a question when it comes to um open carry laws in the state or well I guess the regulations that we are crafting well they mirror state law uh is there a state law on the prohibition of on open carry so yeah I think that would be helpful for me to understand well I can take that one if that helps um excuse me and I'm Luis

[207:00] Toro with the city attorney's office um Colorado in general is a a open carry state but we the the the point of this of course is as Teresa stated is we're allowed to be more strict on these points now some of them uh you know and actually this one especially around where you can carry a weapon is something the US Supreme Court is taking a look at right now so you know we'll see how that turns out but um the the idea here these are all proposals that don't already exist in state law thank you all right um think probably fair right now at this point um I'll ask the question uh so as a straw poll again this is not any official action this is just to get guidance from Council towards staff as to move forward or not um on crafting an ordinance on the prohibition of open carry um can I get a show of hands for those that um do not

[208:00] want to see our City's attorney's office draft this Ordinance do not want it and Matt do you want like a a physical hand or do you want the raiseed hand function in uh either one I can see everybody um and since um so that's what I'm asking so anyone who does not want to see us draft an ordinance on prohibiting open carry all right sounds good well Teresa I think you got what you need from this one ready to move on yep thank you for that clear Direction so advancing to the next slide this should be a Prohibition on carrying in carrying in sensitive areas um and and so this would prohibit opened or concealed carry so both of those of firearms in City buildings parks and playgrounds Recreation and community centers demonstrations on public property um within a certain distance of

[209:01] polling locations or ballot counting locations um places that sell alcohol hospitals mental health and substance ofes treatment centers places of worship um although the they that they could Grant permission if they so chose uh stadiums and Arenas Banks theaters daycare centers preschools uh again there's an exception here for law enforcement um Armed Forces security guards um I and and motor vehicles I would note this one doesn't have an exception currently in the model legislation for local law enforcement so here we would be looking for two pieces of information whether you want to move forward with this number one and then number two would you be interested in including an exception for local law

[210:01] enforcement I see Mark and juny Mark go for it well my my first question is did we authorize uh city attorney's office to draft the first uh ordinance with Rachel's uh amendments uh because that wasn't clear to me and I would support that uh that's a great point I I wasn't sure we were getting into that specificity of of approving amendments more of just that that would be something that Teresa would look into as she was drafting it as an option to see if there were any restrictions or not I think that was more highlevel recommendations but um I will look to Teresa for clarity if if if there's something different there as I understood it we would move forward with the model legislation um drafting with that model legislation and then making some inquiries um and and look at uh the issues that Rachel brought

[211:00] up that's okay with Rachel it's okay with me is that sufficient Rachel um well I appreciate that that clarifying question mark and I don't know that I'm uh have an outsized vote here but I I just wanted to flag that because I think the exemptions could essentially erode the whole thing if if we're not careful there so um I I think as long as we're looking at it and if we find out whether it is um legal and doable under state law then that would be uh great to get updated on as the process moves forward thanks for clarifying Mark did you have a comment other than that nope I do not thank you juny you're up thank you I I'm not opposed to the exception for law enforcement and members of the Armed Forces on official Duty I think to me I think that's understandable

[212:00] um and I remember I went to a CML conference last year and I took this class where they were talking about gun control issues or just issues around gun and and preemption laws in in Colorado and I wonder with this one prohibiting open or concealed carrier or firearm in City buildings I wonder if this is something we can really do because I think at the time when I was in that class my understanding was in order for the city to be able to carry such a regulation they would have to have some type of a uh either a metal detector in the building to be able to do that so again I guess what comes with the these type of regulations right what would we have in place well we have metal detectors so that we can enforce something like that so that would be my take but of course um I fully support anything that I guess

[213:00] that protect community members thanks juny um I had a clarifying point which is to clarify that all of these and and I'm trying to understand a little bit um except with permission because these are not necessarily owned by the city that it would be up to the owner via private property who runs that facility of stadiums Arenas Banks daycare centers that that that that's separating from City that they have under our law could choose to abide by our prohibiting the carrying sensitive areas but could also choose not to because it's their private property is that what I get in terms of um that that exemption outside of what is city property is that correct well the the way that the model ordinance is written is that it only gives that choice to places of worship so if it's a place of worship that feels that they need to have armed security this allows

[214:01] that but the way it's the way the model ordinance is written it would not give that same option to stadiums Arenas Banks theaters and so forth it's just for places of worship that could opt out right right okay um or be selective that the they could you know they don't have it's it's not an all or nothing it's not like if they allow one person with a weapon they have to allow everybody they can be selective about who they want to have have weapons right and so um and so the question extends to so if that is the case with daycare centers um you know for instance like the The JCC um they are not a city facility but they would but they also hire armed security guards for security so where does that stand in here because it does say security guards employed by the city um which I don't believe they're employed by the city and so where would that fall in in this instance it would

[215:01] fall under the the rec recreation community centers that Pro prohibition is limited to ones that are operated by the city so they would just be not within the prohibition in the first place okay because it's not a city uh community Center but a daycare center within the city would in preschools within the city well the daycare center the way it's currently written the daycare center would not be so that's I I'll make a note that that's something we should take a look at so I guess what you're telling me is that there's a daycare center at The JCC yes there is okay I will Mark that down appreciate that thanks foring that L of course Mark Markus see your hand up yeah yeah just just a quick question would this prohibit a bank from having an armed security presence uh it would unless we made that put in an exception so all of these are just models of course and we can change

[216:00] them however we want so I'll make a note on that too but the way it's written it says it's it's only the places of worship that have the flexibility I I I I think we ought to at least consider an exception for banks uh say that's where the money is any other thoughts or comments on uh this draft ordinance or this not draft ordinance but this particular piece Rachel well would would Mark's point be corrected if we just said security guards employed by the you know wherever they are place of worship Bank not I mean they don't have to be EMP they're not going to be employed by the city if they're at a bank or a daycare center so just security guards at their place of employment or where we're working would that work Lise I think it would I mean you know you've had you've also had off

[217:01] duty police uh sitting in front of Whole Foods which category would that fall in and as I read this you know if they're off duty uh that that might not be possible possible and go ahead Mark sorry I'm sorry in today's world uh there are institutions that might want to have a you know a meaningful security presence well I think that I think that would come in under the law enforcement exception because even if they're Off Duty Officers are deemed to be on duty at all times so that when they're a law enforcement officer they're a law enforcement officer I like I like Rachel's suggestion security guards you know in general could be armed yes okay I I um I do think that we're probably getting a little too in the weeds of of starting to word Smith um ordinance changes I think just

[218:01] flagging some areas of concern is probably as far as we probably should be going um just for the sake of what this conversation is because we're trying not to go too far down this is about just are we pursuing the draft legislation and they can consider some amendments going forward um unless again I if that is not the will of council or staff that's been my impression that we want to try to keep it a little high level here also recognizing it is 940 um not that these aren't good places to go I'm just not sure that's where we want to go at this juncture um in this process um I see Rachel then I see juny and Mark is that still a hand up or followup or Relic Relic for me oh Relic for you juny you're up yes I I don't want to be labor at this point and I think you're right we're not here to but um my understanding from reading this prohibiting carry in sensitive areas it doesn't include private property am I correct well in general yes but some

[219:03] some forms of private property like places of worship it would it would apply to but generally it's it's sensitive areas so if it's not a there's sensitive areas is a term defined in the model ordinance so it's not it's not everywhere again I think my question would be how would you enforce something would you because I'm wondering if this law will infringe on people's private property because if someone is on private property and I don't know they have a weapon will the CD come in or well this give us the right to come in and and somehow I don't know start rounding people up to because they they're they're they're violating this regulation well I think the point the I think the concept is that it that it's supposed to be in in more public areas and it's we're supposed to be defining

[220:00] it as certain sensitive areas and then everywhere else is it doesn't apply to yeah I that that was my sense as well and I hope that's something we can clarify because I don't know if we would have the constitutional rights to go into private property or tell people on private property what to do so I think that's something maybe we might have to clarify especially when I heard the conversation about the the bank the security guard I just don't know if this is within or perview thank you thanks juny um and I I'm not trying to confuse I realize that in that first straw poll I might I might have been a little confusing by doing the not rather than just straight up support so I think we'll try to simplify it this time um that was on um so um with the prohibiting carry and sensitive areas uh piece and certainly given the feedback that we provided Luis and Teresa on some clarification that they'll probably come back to us with um can I let's do a straw poll if we're ready um why don't we do a show of hands

[221:01] this time oh I see n's hand up what you got oh in inadvertent hand Matt sorry it's all good I keep setting my pen on my space bar bar so I got to stop doing that um all right so for a straw poll so um let's just do either virtual or uh your physical hand a show of hands for those that support um the city attorney's office moving forward um with this particular um draft ordinance all right all right so we'll move forward with that one um Teresa are we good with that and ready to move on um you know could we we also get some direction about whether we would want to include a local law enforcement exception on this a good question um I don't see why not but I would defer to maybe some of those that like Rachel and Bob who've been doing a lot more

[222:00] work on this front um for a few years Aon you got your hand up yeah I mean Teresa I think it's worth considering considering as part of the discussion right because we're going to talk about the details of these when they come forward so I think that's certainly one to bring forward for discussion at the time very good thank you I say I support that too I'm with Aaron that works for me I get a nod from everyone else that seem reasonable all right T are we good to go on to the next one we are so this one's pretty straightforward um this would be about raising the age from 18 to 21 to purchase a firearm and for clarity um we already have something on the books but we would need to repeal it and then bring something back forth that's in Greater alignment

[223:00] with preemption is that the understanding I have about that of how that would work that's the plan well that would be the plan if that's council's will okay thoughts or comments I thought Aon I think oh juny can I ask you what is the rule as of right now for purchasing a firearm in Boulder it's 21 Statewide it's 18 so we do have this on our books right now but like Teresa said the idea is to kind of start over with a brand new ordinance and just make sure that it has all these elements in it does it impact um carrying as well or no meaning that okay someone is 18 I don't know they purchased a firearm somewhere outside of the city does that mean once they enter the city they somehow um the fact that they enter into Boulder itself somehow

[224:01] they are violating or rule or regulation well we'll definitely want to take a look at the the the issue of people who are our existing ordinance has exceptions for people who are just passing through because you know like if you're going hunting in the northern Rockies and you're coming from Denver you might drive through Boulder with a gun in your trunk and we're not you know we don't necessarily care about that you know we're we're more worried about the people who are stopping and staying here with their firearm so that that's kind of a big picture question we're going to want to look at for all of these but as far as the the 18 it's we we redefined minor to instead of being 18 to be 21 so everywhere in our code where it says a minor can't do something with a firearm that's deemed to be 21 years old is the age so that that's the way our code currently reads okay um I think from just looking at this one sentence or I guess two

[225:02] sentence uh I I support it because it's something that is already in existence and I think my question is outside the scope of what's written in front of me because you're saying raising the lawful age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21 it's not the same as owning a firearm so I suppose if owning a fire arm at the age of 18 is something that is that would be illegal in the city of Boulder I think we would have to be clear on that too that's a good point thank you Matt you're on mute no my speakers just went out so I couldn't hear anybody sor about that um I missed the last of what juny said so barring it wasn't throwing this totally under the bus um I think we're okay to to do a straw poll to make sure that we're ready to go on this

[226:01] one all right um show of hands again virtual or physical um all in favor of having this move forward all right uh I think we got our answer Teresa ready to move on to the next one yep so this would um be a waiting period for firearms purchasing and it would be a 10day waiting period after the initiation of a background check this um this would go to dealers um of course there are exceptions law enforcement um Corrections agencies US Marshals Federal officials Armed Forces um um transfers between licensed firearm dealers importers or manufacturers gunsmiths uh security forms or per firms excuse me or Personnel um and persons engaged in the

[227:01] business of transporting or storing Goods who possess firearms in the course their ordinary course of business but so this would be that General prohibition or rather a general imposition of a waiting period of 10 days for purchase do I see any comments or thoughts none at this juncture um all right so um we move to a straw pole um show of hands for those that wish to see this move forward all right looks good we move forward on on to the next one Teresa uh so uh again I want to remind you that what we're looking at is is a repeal of our current existing ordinance and um a

[228:02] potential uh imposition of a new ordinance and so with that in mind now we're talking about banning assault weapons large capacity magazines and Trigger activators just um also commonly known as and bump stocks uh and so this is similar to what we did in act in 2018 um that was enjoined but it would include large capacity magazines with a limit of 10 Rounds uh and bands assault weapons trigger activators um there is there would be an exception that would allow people to keep Legacy weapons and there would be a registration process um excuse me I misspoke it's not a registration that's not that's not the case at all and that is in fact the wrong word um but instead they would receive a certificate from the city um evidencing the fact that they have a a legacy assault

[229:01] weapon um and then there would also be uh civil liability for anyone um who has these firearms and there and those Firearms are used in the commission of a crime oh Aon and then Rachel the the Civil liability is that only about these specific types of weapons or would be on all kinds of firearms these specific types of weapons okay have we considered having one that applies to to all firearms or these are pretty new I think San Jose is the first city that's that's done this so it's uh you know it's it's a pretty new area but but excuse me I mean we could try to do that and we you know we can certainly

[230:01] look into the possibility of doing that I'm not necessarily saying we we should but um yeah that's just asking for clarification so I'd be interested in your your advice as we move forward on that question Rachel yeah I feel like I'd like to know more about the um civil liability piece and um like any crime that you've um that you have at that firearm in your possession when you're committing or just like more information on what we're talking about with that I would I'm not aware of that being done um so I guess I would I would um be interested in an analysis of its likelihood of of survivability in the event of a lawsuit um so I'm uh just question mark on the Civil liability piece otherwise

[231:01] very supportive Boba maybe you said this or maybe this was in the memo um I think some people um receive certifications that um had previously owned um these weapons before 2018 I assume that those people would not have to recertify that their old certifications would still count is that right that's the plan great thanks Lise all right Barn any other comments or questions I think we're ready for our straw poll um so raise your hands virtual or your flesh hand how manyy you're in favor of uh City attorney's office pursuing this one as well all right we got our answer very good on to the next yep so now we're moving into the realm of regulating dealers so this would be a regulation of firearms dealers and

[232:01] ammunition Sellers and it would require them to um to obtain a law enforcement permit and land use permit to operate and would require uh certain spec um specifications for premises where firearms and ammunitions are sold including safe storage video surveillance liability insurance of a million dollars per incident um it would also require the sellers to keep records of all transactions and take thumb prints of purchasers to report lost or stolen Firearms or ammunition uh and again we're talking about civil liability for ammunition sellers who Federal who violate federal state or local law um if someone is injured as a result of a violation of of this um and then also would require

[233:00] safety warnings posted on the premises juny thank you um I support everything that we're doing here but I'm just not sold on the enforcement mechanism because I'm looking at the city and the or role as a city and I'm wondering with everything with each one of these regulations that we coming up with what are some of the mechanism of enforcement and to me as well for instance this one I feel like we are crossing over the role of ATF so at the end of the day I'm just not I well support it but I'm still very much concerned we're putting laws in the book that we may not have the Manpower or the knowhow the technical expertise to

[234:03] enforce well I I do think this has the biggest lift of any of the proposed ordinances because it's so comprehensive as far as having the both a law enforcement certification and a land use piece and and it it do and you're right it does uh to some extent duplicate what the ATF does and part of the rationale for having municipality do this is that the perception that the ATF hasn't been able to hold up their end of it on regulation as well so that's part of the motivation for this model ordinance Rachel yeah this uh I think is a question for nura is there someone from law enforcement here tonight I don't know if Maris is on the call or someone from the PD who can just um my question is how much of a burden will this be on the police department to do because this as Lou said is a heavier lift uh in in a number of

[235:00] directions there is not to my understanding Rachel but certainly we can take this back again hopefully the purpose of today will tell us if there's general interest and certainly when we come back we'll be talking about specific Lang language and perhaps some of the other considerations like ability to do so within our current um within our current Staffing level so we'll make sure to take that back and know that we'll be discussing uh as we move forward I can tell you that we have shared these with Chief Harold and her staff um and we're in conversations with them about what they would like to see but it felt premature to to get ahead of that without knowing the will of council Erin you got comments thoughts questions yeah I I'll just sort of echo what my colleagues have said here you know I'm interested in this I I did see that the complexity level of this ordinance was much higher than of the other ordinances and um I know how uh short staffed the

[236:02] city organization is so just would like to hear you know if if staff felt like hey this is this is manageable both from a legal enforcement and planning perspective then great um if you did feel like it was not manageable then please let us know that you know if it if it doesn't feel like it's a feasible um thing for us to do given our our other things that we're working on at the city Rachel just one more if I may I um I probably will not vote to support this without hearing from staff that it is sort of uh feasible and and not an overreach so I just wanted to explain that um I probably won't be supporting this one because it it seems like we have a a big lift already on on all of these and and I would like to know before I uh asked CA city attorney's office to do more work on it that that it makes sense from from P's perspective I see Nu's hand up um you g to clarify yeah I just was going to say

[237:00] that's really good to know because then we know that city attorney's office won't move it forward but we'll make sure to come back at some point and uh maybe it's a matters item to just say we've got Clarity this is what we know and then get further Direct C from you if that's good with you Teresa absolutely um let's let's check with our colleagues here um um so let me let's start with uh maybe as Rachel mentioned let's start there um and then we can move to a different question if we need to um so um show of hands of colleagues again us as a straw poll on if you're uh comfortable setting this one aside until staff can do a little more scoping to see how big of a lift this is and get back to us it maybe a matters uh from the city manager at a subsequent meeting how many support setting it aside in that particular

[238:01] facet okay yeah we got clear direction to do exactly that so we'll set this one aside and hopefully you'll come back to us in a little bit and we'll know whether to go forward or not uh thanks for bringing that up Rachel on to the next can I just make one point about that um in um and thinking about for staff if there's like a price tag associated with it or something like that too I'd be really curious to know that like um you know we we can't do it with current staff capacity but if we had one more person or something like that we might be able to do this so that's just something I would be interested in thank you great thanks ni ready for the next one Teresa ready so this would be with respect simply to some signage um and the language is here and it would be a warning um about about increased risk with firearms in the home uh including suicide domestic violence dispute deaths unintentional deaths of children and

[239:01] household members um and then and then an Outreach um hotline giving a phone number or a we and a website that could be visited um to seek assistance with any of these and then again we could have that we we could require that that be translated into a variety of languages um I have a question on this one um and it sort of coincides with the previous one the previous one also had in its ordinance that it would require a warning sign um to any purchasers and then yet this is another warning sign and so I just want to make sure that if we do pursue both of these that we're clear as to what those warnings are and they're not in conflict with each other or that the passage of one and not the other doesn't impact the the others warning sign or its language just so that they're clear and separate because it seemed like they might have been a little overlapping in terms of what they were

[240:03] referencing okay yeah I understand that Lauren uh do we have a hotline number that would deal with all of these issues and a website where people could go for help with all of these I I understand it to be for mental health help okay perfect thank you all right baring any other oh Lauren Lauren hands back up what got oh that was a relic all right um barring any other thoughts and comments uh we'll do our straw poll um show of hands virtual or real of those support seeing the firearm dealer signage uh U move forward with work from the city attorney's

[241:01] office all right looks like we have our direction we move forward with that thanks Teresa on to the next yep and this is going to be the last one uh ghost gun ban so this deals with with uh firearms that do not have identification by a serial number um and a federal license there would be exceptions um a few exceptions um if it's a federal lense e if it's an antique firearm or it's made before October 22nd of 1968 very precise um and then those Firearms possessed by law enforcement as well my my question is that extreme specificity on the date is there some is there a formally substantive reason why like did serialas start getting printed

[242:01] on that date by Winchester and Remington and everybody or is that kind of arbitrary I think it is something like the when the FED started requiring serial numbers I do believe it's a federal law that went into effect on that day okay thanks for clarifying any other thoughts or comments all right barring none um so we'll do our final straw poll here with regards to the ghost band uh raise your virtual real hand if you support uh City's attorney's office pursuing this one going forward all right we got our Direction we'll be moving forward with that one um and I do want to just clarify because of people listening or watching um uh TV or online you may not be able to see our hands because you're probably seeing a full screen so I do want to kind of just quickly recap um the direction that we've given staff um with regards to these ordinance um all but one of them

[243:00] uh was given clear Direction by Council for staff to look into them and Craft um ordinances um the one that was sort of set aside was the regulation of firearms dealers and ammunition sellers this was set side um with the caveat that we gain a little bit more understanding as to how much uh work is going to be required of staff to facilitate this um and so we'll get updated on that at a future date and may decide to continue to move that forward or not um but again um six of the seven we're moved forward um to have city attorney's office look into them with that single one as an exemption to be set aside for the time being um so hopefully that clarifies things um Teresa Lis any other clarifying nura thank you for very clear direction we will come back to you uh with respect to the firearm dealers um under matters and then we'll also look forward to to a date to bring these um to you in a draft form for some official action um and

[244:02] discussion wonderful thank you very much and and I appreciate you're working with us um on this and look forward to those ordinance as we come forward and and I I'll speak for certainly myself and hopefully maybe our colleagues that we really look forward to seeing these come to fruition as a major step for us to protect our community um and certainly as we look to the year anniversary from which we lost um 10 incredible people in our community um I think this is a great step for us to um show that we're committed to keeping people safe and we're committed to um a safe and Civil Society um that we live in so um thank you for the work on that and we look forward to it coming coming forward um Nua as we conclude our last topic any last uh bits of discuss question or anything from our Council colleagues that we want to touch on before we close out tonight nothing on my end just thanks for all the direction Aaron great job Matt good meeting well run complex

[245:00] staff thanks well uh it's like an Olympic uh race I I've got uh about two hours to shave off my time uh for the next one so there's there's there's Improvement to be had all right well um with that thank you everyone really appreciate the time um and uh we will see you next week at our regularly scheduled council meeting thanks a lot you guys have a great night good night [Music] everybody

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