April 19, 2022 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[4:03] [Music] well good evening everyone it's my great pleasure to welcome you to the tuesday april 19 2022 meeting of the boulder city council live and in person for the first time since 2021 welcome everyone welcome back great to be here uh and just so we did the uh council and staff are present in the room and uh members of the public will still be interacting virtually but in a month from now we will be welcoming the public into the room as well and then just a quick reminder to my city council colleagues uh make sure to unmute your microphone and keep it near

[5:00] your face when speaking into it sometimes it can be hard for the public to hear us if we don't speak directly into the microphone and i will do my best at that as well okay well we are going to start with a couple announcements first about covet 19 vaccinations for information and provider locations for free coping 19 testing go to boco.org covid testing and the boulder site for that is 2445 stasio drive seven open seven days a week from 8 am to 6 pm and for vaccine information and provider locations go to boco.org covid vaccine our other announcement for this evening is about 2022 boards and commissions recruitment annual recruitment for most boards has closed but we are still recruiting for the following boards uh due to an in uh insufficient number of applications being received and those are the beverage licensing authority the boulder junction access district parking and travel demand management the board of zoning

[6:01] adjustment cannabis licensing advisory board design advisory board downtown management commission library commission and university hill commercial area management commission so applications will be accepted until further notice and you can find descriptions and vacancies online dot gov slash boards dash commissions if you have any questions or need assistance please contact our very friendly city clerk's office at city clerk's office at boulder colorado.com all right well with that i am going to go ahead and formally call us to order and request a motion to amend the agenda to add item c which is an update on the library district meeting with boulder county commissioner claire levy and mayor brockman yes roll call call let's do the roll call first thank you it's okay we're all back in uh back the band is all back together so it's good to see everybody yes good to see everybody

[7:00] all right good evening again everyone council member benjamin happy to be president in person mayor brockett here and glad to be back councilmember fogerts present mayor pro tem friend here council member joseph president spear present wallach it's been a long time present good to see you sir winer present and yates delighted to be here mayor we have our quorum thanks so much alicia um as i was saying before i would welcome a motion to amend the agenda at item 6c uh we have a motion and a second and wow we can actually raise physical hands now so all in favor all right that's unanimous

[8:00] the motion is agenda to adam item 6c right now we have a boulder community health day declaration of 100 years to be presented by mayor pro temprent and is this i'm just reading it off my computer right not standing okay well it is my honor to read this declaration as follows local access to a comprehensive range of medical services has always been integral to the integral to the health and wellness of residents of the city of boulder community leaders and citizens of the city of boulder recognized more than a century ago the need for boulder valley residents to have a community-owned locally governed hospital the nonprofit community hospital association of boulder was established on april 19 20 1922 to construct and operate such a community-owned locally governed hospital a group of local doctors donated the privately owned 15 bed north boulder hospital to the community hospital association in 1922 converting it into a community-owned

[9:01] facility a renovated and expanded boulder community hospital with 45 patient beds was opened in 1926 boulder community hospital has methodically expanded its services and facilities decade by decade to meet the evolving needs of the city's growing population generations of boulder families have directly benefited from the medical skill and personal compassion of older community hospitals doctors and nurses generations of bolder families sorry of boulder residents have been employees of volunteers at and donors to boulder community hospital in 2014 boulder community hospital adopted a new name boulder community health to better reflect its evolution into a regional healthcare network with an expansive range of services spread across boulder county oh hang on i'm scrolling here the heroic frontline staff at boulder community health selflessly put their own health at risk over the past two years to keep local families safe and healthy during the coven 19 pandemic

[10:02] boulder community health now encompasses 2 000 employees 700 physicians and other clinicians on its medical staff and 200 volunteers boulder community health remains one of only two that's two independent health systems in the whole state of colorado so we the city council of the city of boulder colorado declare april 19 2022 as boulder community health day in recognition of the vital services that the doctors nurses and other staff at boulder community health have provided and continue to provide for the families of our community so huge thanks uh to boulder community health for all that they do for our community thanks so much for that rachel and so today is their actual 100th birthday so they're off having a lovely celebration in person so no one is here to respond directly except they recorded a video message so if we could get that teed up that would be fantastic

[11:07] good evening i'm dr robert vissers president and ceo of boulder community health and i'd like to take this moment to extend my sincere thanks to mayor brockett council member friend and the boulder city council and to the entire boulder community for helping bch celebrate our centennial anniversary since 1922 we've grown from a small town hospital to a regional health care network with locations across boulder and broomfield counties we've grown alongside our community driven by a dedication to increase access to the highest quality care for all boulder valley residents i along with the bch leadership team our medical staff our employees and partners and volunteers are honored by the reading of this proclamation which names today april 19th

[12:01] boulder community health day we take this milestone as an opportunity to reflect on our incredible past recognize our present and look ahead to an even brighter future thank you for letting us care for you and your families and for helping us celebrate a century of caring for the communities we serve great thanks for that productivist from dr vissers okay so now we are going to move into open comment and uh brenda will you be giving us the guidelines tonight i will oh sorry mayor i will thank you uh john if you could pull up the slides please that would be helpful we're putting john through his paces tonight and share on zoom as well

[13:05] thank you so much um so as many of you know the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive meaningful and inclusive civic conversations this vision supports physical and emotional safety for our community members for staff and for council as well as brenda i'm sorry to interrupt if you can hear me we can't hear you in zoom thank you so much sarah appears to be unmuted but we can't hear you would you like me to do the instructions give me a thumbs up if you would okay hi zoom audience and open comment speakers this is sarah huntley calling in on this meeting i'm the director of communications and engagement so as many of you know the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive meaningful and inclusive

[14:00] civic conversations we're trying to support the physical and emotional safety for everybody involved in our democratic process for more information about this vision you can check out our website where we have some information about how it was created and some of the community feedback that has gone into this process as well as some of our internal staff feedback so we have a number of guidelines that we'd like to just propose tonight if you could go to the second slide please i'm not sure that i can thank you so there are some rules of decorum found in the boulder revised code again intended to support this vision we're asking that all remarks and testimony be limited to matters related to city business no participants shall make threats or use forms of intimidation against any person obscenity racial epithets and other speech or behavior that disrupts or impedes the ability to conduct the meeting are prohibited and we do ask people to use sign up to speak and use the name in zoom that they are commonly known by um you do have to display your

[15:02] whole name and we are currently only accepting audio testimony online and with that hopefully brenda will be able to unmute our speakers i do appreciate everybody's patience tonight as this is our first in-person council with our public and with some new technology that we put in to try to make the process be a little more seamless so we're learning we're learning as we go thank you for your patience thanks for that sarah all right our first three speakers and by the way get two minutes each are patrick murphy morgan parsons and sherry hack i'm waiting for the slide my name is patrick murphy i've lived in

[16:01] boulder 52 years this presentation is about boulder climate action continuing to ignore wind source and wrecks the utility occupation tax is a carbon tax and over time boulders collected over 88 million dollars in carbon taxes and more than half of that was never used for real carbon reduction and the four million dollars of carbon tax that is collected each year and not used for carbon reduction could enable all boulder residences and businesses to be 100 percent renewables today using wind source incentives for 11 years one source has been denigrated and that includes today renewable energy certificates also known as rex have been denigrated by boulder and that's ludicrous wrecks stimulate the renewables industry and we should be buying them directly now to meet our climate goals on january 10th carolyn elam made the following ludicrous statement quote a renewable energy certificate or attribute that doesn't come with

[17:01] emissions reduction or displacement of fossil fuel doesn't meet our criteria for our community end quote there is no such thing as a wreck that doesn't do both the boulder excel advisory panel is a little bit good but also a prime example of just a symbolic check box filled with misdirection that puts blinders on solutions such as wind source and rex that can reduce carbon now the panel exhibits endless wheel spinning that in my opinion focuses on leftover muni goals guided by leftover muni employees we need less talk and more immediate action the quarterly meetings are glacial in velocity with clear avoidance of cost benefit analysis time is one of the largest costs are we spending money and time for paychecks or carbon reduction the planet burns floods and dies as boulder fiddles with climate change

[18:00] for over a decade thank you patrick now we have morgan parsons sherry hack and charles brock hi and good evening to the boulder city council members my name is morgan parsons and i'm a resident of boulder county i appreciate being virtual today and having the opportunity to tell you all why i think instituting a guaranteed income program is important people can't budget themselves out of poverty giving cash to boulder's low earning residents is just one way the city council can help provide for those in need other cities have implemented similar projects and have found great success the stockton economic empowerment demonstration in stockton california found that just distributing 500 a month to residents helped increase full-time employment and allowed those individuals to pay for more unexpected expenses these payments combined with opportunities to utilize financial

[19:01] literacy programs and connections with boulder small business development center can help participants start new businesses gain new skills and even help them navigate more gainful employment finally as more recommendations and studies are being done on the project i'd like to mention that i believe all low earning boulder residents should be considered for the guaranteed income project including formerly incarcerated folks the criminal justice research organization has found that formerly incarcerated people face higher rates of housing instability and unemployment that other non-incarcerated people of similar age do not the guaranteed income program could help these individuals readjust and will give them the opportunity to help family members and themselves i'm looking forward to seeing more of the research on the guaranteed income project it's future implementation and appreciate the time to speak with you this evening thanks thank you morgan next we have sherry hack charles brock and jay lowsky

[20:01] dear city council what would you like your legacy to be during your tenure on city council do you want to be known as the city council who allowed development on the last natural wetlands in boulder county under the guise that is good for flood mitigation ceo south will destroy wildlife and make traffic unbearable in south boulder especially in the case of an evacuation like we had for the end car fire where traffic was gridlocked and speaking of fires what is causing them and what's being done about it there's another fire today in north boulder or do you want to be known as the city council that was so soft on crime the boulderites are hesitant to come down to our crown jewel of pearl street anymore or use the bike paths or enjoy the city parks because they've been physically and verbally assaulted by criminals who run amok without fear of consequences for their actions how long before major employers and businesses leave town like amazon and others have done in seattle because

[21:00] their employees don't feel safe working downtown anymore what will this do to the tax base or do you want to be known for the vagrant disregard of our beautiful natural environment that is being used as a hazmat trash dump for illegal campers not to mention the creek being used as an open-air toilet happy 2022 earth day everyone but here's something you want to consider you might be the city council that really got the citizens of gold politically aware because once you're a crime victim you wake up and become acutely aware of what's happening in this town and what's happening is that we have a public safety crisis an ecological crisis and a political crisis right here right now thank you thank you sherry next we have charles brock jaelowski and evan ravitz so we're working on bringing up mr brock's presentation we just had a

[22:01] technical glitch so if you want to move if it's okay with mr brock we can move to the next speaker while we're working on bringing up his presentation or he's welcome to spring without his presentation i'll wait thanks okay thank you for your flexibility so we have jay lowsky oh i'm unmuting can you hear me yes yes hey how you guys doing today thank you again for having me uh speak uh to city council i really appreciate it guys i really appreciate all the hard work everybody's been doing um towards the trying to figure out how we do the parklet seating for downtown you know as you consider this decision you know one of the things to think about is you know the real stakeholders are are the ones that are you know actually signed on the leases the ones that are personally liable for the uh places that they rented the loans they took out and uh and uh

[23:01] all the things that they signed up for and so i'd really appreciate if you guys you know consider you know the property owners the tenants that have all put their lives online to be able to uh do business in downtown west pearl street um also you know to be considered other locals who support us during the winter months not only during the tourist months the tourists will always be here but you know a lot of us rented on west pearl street because of um we could get the locals to come downtown and you know it's that old saying that's um that they use in the real estate business location location location well for us you know it's the location of uh pedestrian traffic location of drive-by traffic uh location of parking and um you know the majority of the businesses on pearl street west pearl street would like to have all that back because it does influence of how well we've done business over the past uh in my case over 34 years now

[24:02] as we've seen over the years historically restaurants don't do very well on the bricks because of the perception and the reality of inaccessibility um you know furthermore you know expand if we were to develop and to expand more seating for outside a lot of our places were only built to handle the original footprint that we have for our restaurant so that would add another added expense for us to be able to uh further take care of customers if we were to have more customers that were dining on the outside and i don't think we should overlook as well the elderly and the handicapped that are having trouble accessing uh west pearl street as well you know all the surveys that we've done during the pandemic um you know thought it was a great ideal for us to be able to have the outdoor dining but um remember how it was before the

[25:01] pandemic it was packed downtown west pearl was very vibrant and um i would like to like to see the seed to be excited about seeing west pearl getting back open again especially since we spent so much money in the past few years what about seven or eight years ago about beautify beautifying uh the downtown walking area on west pearl street so um your time is up but we really appreciate your testimony mayor yes we have mr bronk's presentation ready to be shown great let's bring that up and charles you're up great thanks my name is chuck brock i'm a member of the parks and recreation advisory board hi tara but i'm speaking tonight on behalf of the community cycles advocacy advocacy committee and we'd like to draw your attention to cu's hotel development conference center as you know construction is going to begin later this year and community cycles is concerned about some aspects of the traffic patterns that are planned for

[26:01] this development so there are currently our plan for two access points so chuck i apologize but actually the presentation is not up at least i'm not seeing it i'll keep going and you can look at it afterwards okay well that's fine apologies for the issues go ahead that's all right um so they're currently planning two access points one is uh off of university and the other there it is is on grand view at broadway and the problem is the grand view entrance which crosses two lanes of traffic a sidewalk and the broadway multi-use path and at this point if you're familiar with it the path is sharply downhill which leads to some pretty high bicycling speeds and if you're pulling out of the of the property and getting onto broadway going northbound the angle from grand view uphill is sharper than a right angle more like 110 or 120 degrees and they're also planning bus access and we'd also like to point out that visitors to boulder will not be familiar with our multi-use paths or cyclists and

[27:02] are not really going to know what to do around the multi-use path so this is an obvious danger zone and we really think it should not be permitted and we believe the city has control over the connections of this development to the city city streets and so we'd like you to ask the city manager to identify who's making traffic decisions on this project and to try to get them to make changes to the design and specifically we believe the access by vehicle should only be on the south end of the property from university at 13 and there should be emergency vehicle access only allowed at grandview and vision zero really means predicting dangerous conditions like this and preventing them before they can cause serious injury or death and we really believe this design will lead to such crashes so thanks for listening and for your action on this issue thanks for that chuck and because of the technical difficulties if you wouldn't mind emailing us that diagram that would be great okay now we go to evan ravitz lynn

[28:01] siegel and maura dudley hi evan rabbits north boulder people need to know that the city is finally allowing both online and paper petitions for initiatives and referenda after last year's debacle when they forced us to choose but the city is refusing to notify us of this change only the new boulder reporting lab has told the people within weeks of the start of the pandemic boulder implemented online permits for developers builders etc and notified us using all media the city proudly serves business but is still fighting online petitioning documented at tinyurl.com petition story nobody in five years has publicly testified against online petitioning

[29:01] against fixing last year's problem or against telling us the problem is fixed so it is dark money and power that is manipulating our government the big suspects who can control the city but fear empowered voters are number one the chamber of commerce which emails show worked directly with the former city manager behind council's back to get east boulder declared a trump opportunity zone thus subsidizing gentrification two the downtown boulder partnership whose board member proudly told me downtown boulder runs the city and three big oil and gas which spent about a hundred million dollars fighting ballot initiatives for drilling setbacks and to make initiatives much harder the denver post published their editorial against direct democracy and

[30:02] online petitioning and refused my editorial for them so people and that should include the city let your time is up but thank you for your citizen proposals are easy all right thank you next we have lin siegel maura dudley and john banischak consent item 3g no on water and sewer not my tax dollars until you have capped enrollment at see you and put in a 500 flood mitigation system there the 42-inch interceptor and has 12 outlets to it and this is a lot of money going into water and sewer infrastructure that i don't want going in there when we haven't got protection for it when we're going to have a 500 year flood and we are all going to be swimming in because the storm sewer and the water

[31:00] connects and you get sewer mixed in with everything um call it up check in on 4b no on the best western hotel the city of boulder needs its hotels there are 900 students being accommodated on hotel road that takes away our tax dollars and then you come begging for a library district with with county money and with my property tax money no way sales tax revenue can do it if you weren't giving it away to the students at cu we need to cap enrollment we're losing all of our people city manager planning director two times these recruitments are expensive for the transportation director you know this is a ship going down boulder is you need to do things the right way which means cap enrollment at cu largely no cu south and no on the east boulder sub-community the missing middle is act exactly what

[32:01] we're doing is wealth inequity the mis the middle is missing anyway and we just get higher income housing housing and lower income housing and we can never ever ever keep up at a thousand dollars a square foot for apple in east boulder at flatiron's business park um the bike racks up at cu they're gone that's because they want places for all the students to sit for their 80 000 student campus that they have proposed lynn your time is up but thank you for your testimony next we have maura dudley john banischek and ashlyn duthorne hi i'm maura dudley um i'm still for the library district and building more housing but i'm going to talk tonight about west pearl and outdoor dining the newly car-free blocks of west pearl have been a wonderful addition to the downtown and i hope it becomes permanent i'll quickly say that my experience with the outdoor dining on the car free areas

[33:01] of downtown have meant lovely evenings i've seen people face to face and running into people and having conversations and just feeling like our community is a little smaller and closer the outdoor dining on streets that sell car traffic are not quite as appealing so opening the west end to cars but keeping the outdoor dining to me undermines what makes that area so nice right now obviously every city gets to decide which streets are for cars and which are for people but as the climate crisis gets worse we're going to need to do many things quickly including encouraging less car use so having space downtown that's explicitly not for cars sends the message that we want people to use other modes to get downtown as much as they are able and encourages visitors to stay downtown without renting a car um i'll run through a couple bullets based on what's in the report that you're gonna look at tonight if we're doing a five-year pilot the infrastructure should have some aesthetic guidelines throughout downtown um it's obviously a little ad hoc right now if you go the route where the city owns

[34:01] the infrastructure it would be great if it's buried for restaurant preference but maybe there could be some that would be not just for businesses but also for public space and at the end of the pilot could be sold or repurposed i really hope that you're including lots of people from the disability community to address access issues and i really think there should be public space between 9th and 11th not just restaurant outdoor dining and in reading the report i want to point out that some businesses say that not having enough parking is a challenge on west pearl but it's unclear if that's actual data or anecdotal um business owners often just hear the the most troublesome parts thanks thanks very much tomorrow next we have john baniszek ashlyn duthorne and sydney anderson good evening council members the survey itself that was presented relating to the outdoor dining

[35:01] update was skewed in favor of closer of closure and expansion as was the reporting itself on page eight of the report it states that nearly half of all businesses indicated they would prefer west pearl to remain closed to vehicle traffic after the emergency orders and in august as displayed in illustration 5. so their illustration 5 depicts that 41 of the restaurants would would support keeping west pro closed and 50 percent of the other businesses however more than half of the businesses support opening west pearl if you look at illustration five once again there is 59 percent of the restaurants support opening west pearl and 50 of the retail restaurants the retail businesses support opening west pearl and i think that that's just illustrated

[36:00] illustrates uh the bias and the skew uh in the survey and in the reporting itself and if you look at the citizen comments there are many comments uh that relate to that similarly the to compare the impact of the west end closure and outdoor dining on business it that's really comparing uh the expanded dining enclosure compared to no indoor seating pandemic conditions which is not a fair comparison of course it was helpful at the beginning closing west pearl street for five years is far too drastic a change to make without overwhelming support from the business and property owners tremendous capital investments were made assuming that the parking in access and here more than half of the businesses do not support continued closure thank you thank you john next we have ashlynn duthorn sydney anderson and margaret lecompte

[37:04] thank you mayor brockett and thank you council members i appreciate the opportunity to speak today my name is ashlyn duthorn and i am a student at cu and resident of boulder i'd like to use my time to speak about the urgency of implementing a free city wide bus program as a student i'm lucky enough to have an rtd college pass which is paid for through student fees and allows me to use rtv transportation for free this pass proved to be an invaluable asset earlier this year when i was unexpectedly without a car for some time and had to rely solely on public transportation and ride sharing services as i'm sure you are aware the cost of ride sharing services continues to increase and it's too unsustainable for most people to rely on consistently as a result most people use either personal passenger cars or public transportation like buses this would not be the case however if people have to pay exorbitant exorbitant

[38:01] fees for bus transportation while i do not think that the fees are unnecessarily high right now i do think that even a small fee deters users who have other modes of transportation available because boulder prides itself on being an example of a sustainable community i think it should commit to more initiatives to cut emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants by getting cars off of the road according to the u.s department of transportation transportation accounts for 29 of us greenhouse gas emissions and a passenger car carrying one person emits 99 89 pounds of carbon dioxide per 100 miles while a full bus emits only 14 pounds per passenger this means that if just one driver switched to taking public transportation it could reduce the household carbon footprint by 8.1 percent given the urgency of taking actions to combat climate change getting cars off the road is a goal of the cities which i think should be taken seriously and prioritized in order to continue the city's very respected and

[39:02] necessary green initiatives i encourage the council to implement or at the very least study a free citywide bus program thank you for your time thank you ashlyn next we have cindy anderson margaret lecompte and peter mayer thank you all for having me here today my name is sydney anderson and i am a citizen of boulder as well as a law student at the university of colorado i am here today with concerns about the homelessness issue in the city no one chooses to be homeless many of these people are on the streets as a result of natural disasters domestic violence and serious mental illness and despite the lack of evidence that criminalizing the homeless helps the issue last year the city council allocated 2.7 million dollars to increase enforcement of the tent ban which is enough money to house 90 of the around 150 nightly campers in boulder for one full year these bans effectively discriminate against many vulnerable people without doing anything to fix the underlying issue when shelter is full or inaccessible

[40:00] especially in light of the increasing turnaways at the boulder shelter for the homeless camping is these people's only option in 2018 a federal court ruled ticketing people when they don't have access to shelter violates eighth amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment enshrined in the united states constitution the effect of the camping ban is to punish the homeless for something they have no say in if these bands are to be enforced then i believe they should be supplemented with a safe housing for the people they target pushing the homeless out of populated areas with no support is dangerous for them especially women who are more vulnerable to assault and can also be costly to the city in the form of criminal justice and emergency health expenditures i would like the city council to take these thoughts into consideration as you move forward with your plans to address homelessness thank you thank you sydney next margaret lecomte peter mayer and andrea montoya

[41:00] good evening people and city council tonight you're going to hear a staff report on the proposed flood mitigation project for the south boulder creek flood plain i want to focus on the limitations cu imposed on that project in the annexation agreement the city signed limitations would make it which make it impossible to have a really effective feasible and economical flood mitigation plan this is really a bad deal for boulder it's almost earth day boulder needs to be a leader in fighting a climate change but cu has forced the city into a flood mitigation plan that has little ability to adapt to climate change cu's plans also to develop land in the natural flood plain endanger any future efforts to enhance and protect public safety cu vetoed the publicly endorsed and city supported 500-year flood protection design demanding that only a 100-year event could even be considered

[42:00] and the city caved in agreeing to the 100 to your flood design that will be overwhelmed in the face of inevitable and larger flood events in the future the current flood water detention pond planned at is inadequate because cu resisted anything larger despite that it will be insufficient to control floods larger than 100-year events cu is only willing to donate 36 acres specifically for flood mitigation that's only a quarter of the sum 120 acres the flood project will require ceos offer to quote make available for purchase unquote added acreage will only inflate the cost of flood control at sea at boulder residents expense buying cu south was a bad business deal for cu but the cu south annexation agreement is a very bad deal for boulder it should be repealed by a yes vote in november eight two thousand twenty two thank you very

[43:00] much thank you margaret now peter mayer andrea montoya and linda quigley good evening council members my name is peter mayer i live on hawthorne avenue in boulder tonight you will discuss a memo that states the south boulder creek flood mitigation project will be funded from the city's flood and storm water utility fee and the mile high flood district it states that 66 million dollars for the south boulder creek flood mitigation project was included in the 2022 budget approved by council it states that the project cost includes 41 million million for construction of a dam and flood wall 10 million for earth and fill and 15 million for cu impacts including tennis courts warehouse relocate location and their own drive these are cost estimates that were developed years ago before the pandemic and economic changes that have occurred

[44:00] construction costs across the u.s have skyrocketed steel and concrete are reaching all time highs the flood mitigation project as proposed is going to cost far more than mr tadayochi has reported to date boulder ready already has the absolutely highest flood and storm water utility rates in the front range and this is according to the city's own rate material which was mailed to every home last month the highest now to pay for cu south you are proposing to commit to dramatically raising the highest storm water utility rates even higher every household in boulder will feel this impact what is a current estimate for how much the south boulder creek flood mitigation project will actually cost under today's conditions 100 million 120 million what will this do to our utility bills what will this do to other needed flood

[45:00] mitigation projects boulder ratepayers deserve at least an engineering ass to estimate of these costs right now thank you very much thank you peter andrea montoya and linda quigley thank you very much for allowing me to speak with you about a serious incident that occurred in my neighborhood on april 1st in the heart of our city my name is andrea montoya and i have been leading a community effort in the gosgrove neighborhood building a pollinator corridor over the last three years on the shoulders of neighbors who had existing gardens in their yards already our goal is to create a vibrant corridor of loosely connected native plant habitats that support our dwindling numbers of native pollinators here's a bit of the important detail for you these insects who are we are supporting to carry out their life cycles they don't just do it amongst the plants but they go into nearby bare

[46:00] ground up and down the city rights of ways and beyond our project has been successful and we have now joined the city of boulder as part of the cool boulder campaign all sounds pretty good right well imagine how horrified i was when i came home to discover that true green had administered a cocktail of herbicides up and down 18th street on city rights of way without permission from home owners i instantly understood that ground nesting species would be killed songbirds would nibble on the pre-emergent pellets and flowers would be toxified and here i stood appalled with little or no recourse this could happen to any neighborhood we are all sitting ducks one neighbor i have who raises monarch larvae with neighborhood kids lost all of the larva last year due to spraying near her yard council let's work together to get these

[47:00] toxic petrochemicals out of our city designated pollinator habitats and out of our community soils and waterways i'm aware that the state of colorado doesn't allow pesticide restrictions by local municipalities and to that i say let's be creative i know our city implemented a fracking moratorium when it was against the state law to do so why don't we do that now with pesticides with respect thank you thank you andrea uh last we have linda quigley uh mayor i do not see linda quigley okay well i guess that closes open comment then i'll turn to city staff if there are any responses to things said an open comment thank you so much mayor i'll say as always thank you for those that call in and appreciate community and your patience as we work out our glitches with new technology in the room but i also wanted to just note for um and and lift up evan ravitz's advocacy and others who have talked to us about

[48:00] online petitions and paper petitions and for those that have been listening those actually have been posted on our website and for people that want to know more that we are accepting both they are currently up on our website that we that we are moving in that we have moved in that direction thank you good to hear theresa mayor members of council i just wanted to make you aware that the city attorney's office is looking into the pesticide use and seeing what our options are we'll certainly keep you updated that's great here and i'll just follow up on that since it sounds like some of it was on city property do we know that mayor that is our understanding that it wasn't um indeed sprayed in rights of way that are that are owned by the city and so um we are looking at solutions under our code great hopefully there's some recourse so thank you for looking into that uh any follow-up from council members two things piqued my interest with respect to cu south uh one of

[49:01] course is the the issue of uh cost estimates and will we be dealing with that in greater detail tonight and if not hopefully soon uh the the memo on that seem to indicate it might be coming in under 66 million dollars obviously uh mr peter mayer's comments indicated quite the contrary and it's something i i think that would be of interest to the community the other also relating to cu south is have we previously looked at the impact of development there on evacuation uh procedures and routes um you know we have seen the bumper-to-bumper traffic that has occurred with some of these fires and hopefully the cu south is not going to increase or exacerbate that problem and i'm hoping that that staff is looking at that as well thank you

[50:02] do we want to wait for that item tonight to address those questions earlier i'm fine to wait okay i'm just raising the question great thanks for that mark rachel you just wanted to follow up on um charles brock's community cycles request on the cu hotel access points is that being looked at we've also received some emails about whether those are are the best blade plan thank you i do not know at this moment if that's being looked at but certainly unless staff here we can get back to you and circle back with the answer good well if we don't have any other notes we'll move on and i'll just take a quick moment to note that uh there have been two fires today just outside of the city of boulder so on one note just want to thank so much the firefighters who've been responding to those and keeping them under control also a plea to everyone to please not burn anything in this critical time and then a note that we will be talking about fire resilience and response at

[51:00] our meeting next week which of course is very timely so just wanted to note that okay i think we're on to our consent agenda alicia yes sir thank you mayor our consent again excuse me our consent agenda for tonight item three consists of items a through g great any questions or comments on these or a motion while i have a good degree of support for the east boulder sub-community plan i remain concerned about the representations that have been made with respect to the plan creating middle-income housing and i know it i i did a hotline a few days ago and i raised a number of questions there that were not answered and i then sent a second hotline sort of

[52:02] reiterating those questions and i got no feedback on that as well i don't necessarily know what the answers are to those questions but i certainly would like to have staff address them and answer them as as part of this process so my support for the consent agenda relating to um the east boulder sub-community plan is going to have a reservation for that discussion of how we get to middle-income housing because i do not think it was properly addressed thank you so much i know that staff is working on our response to that hotline that second one and so i'm sure we'll get that to you soon no dirty words in that response please okay no other comments i was going to make a motion please i moved the consent agenda items 3a

[53:00] through 3g including items f1 f2 and f3 second second okay great we have a motion a second i believe this is a roll call vote that is correct sir thank you everyone we'll start this vote with council member yates hi benjamin yes mayor bronken yes councilmember folkerts yes mayor pro tem friend yes council member joseph yes spear yes wallick with the reservation i previously stated with respect to uh 3c yes and weiner yes mayor the consent agenda including items

[54:01] a through g is hereby approved unanimously thanks so much alicia uh let's move on to our call of check-ins please all right sir our call-up check-ins are not item number four on tonight's agenda item 4a is the vacation of a portion of utility easement at 1580 redwood avenue that's referenced under adr 2021-00027 all right any interest in calling this up not seeing any on the next we got four of these so onto the second one item 4b is the site and use review for redevelopment of the property located at 770 28th street the former best western best plus boulder inn into a mixed used project that includes a three-story student apartment building with 96 four-bedroom units along with the ground level amenity space common areas and

[55:02] below-grade parking the existing five-story office building located on the east end of the site at 777 29th street will remain the proposal includes landscape improvements for shared open space between the apartments and the existing office building the applicant is proposing a 55 percent parking reduction a solar exception is requested due to typographic variation from the site to the property to the north and resulting in a minor enrochment of shadows on an adjacent property within solar access area 2 solar fence this is reviewed under case number lur 2021-0024 all any questions comments or interest in calling it up questions go for it um what standards if any govern the waiver for a solar exception

[56:01] the memo was a little unclear to me it made had many references to planning board meetings and the statutory references and to be quite honest i gave up uh statutory analysis when i stopped being a practicing lawyer so it would be better i think for most of us if that information could be contained within the memo itself as opposed to a reference to the code and it looks like we've got elaine mclaughlin from planning ready to jump in and answer your question excellent sure you bet good evening mayor and council members so there is uh specific provisions and standards within the code on how to evaluate a solar encroachment it's part of the planning board memo and there's a link to that planning board memo hopefully that you can open but this met that criteria and essentially it's just ensuring that there's

[57:00] no other means to to make this accommodation work for additional solar encroachment or if there's um any indication that it would impact the neighbors ability to provide solar in the future in this case because it's a solar access area 2 it's a 25-foot solar fence and this encroaches about six feet beyond that 25 foot shadow today and it's in an area that today is in the adjacent um spanish towers parking lot so findings were made that um it wouldn't negate solar access in in this case again solar access area 2 is protection of roof tops and not necessarily parking lots it'd be difficult in this location to be able to impact rooftop solar thank you i appreciate any others

[58:02] not seeing any so i think we can move on thanks elaine okay item 4c is a landmark alteration certificate to construct a rear two-story addition at 936 maple tin avenue a contributing property in the mapleton hill historic district question comments or interest in calling it up keep rotating my head not seeing any okay i think on to the next one next we have 4c which is also a landmark alteration certificate to install front railings at 745 highland avenue an individual landmark and contributing property in the mapleton hill historic district great i think that was 4d but yes 4d my apologies thank you questions comments interesting calling it out not seeing any okay sounds like we're done with our call-up check-ins

[59:00] all right to next on tonight's agenda is item number six the banners from the city manager six a is the south boulder creek flood mitigation project the scheduled briefing thank you so much we've got joe tattayucci and brandon coleman coming up to share their update before they get started nicole i'm just going to recuse myself from this discussion given my affiliation with see you okay we'll miss you we'll come get you when it's done this is i haven't done this in a while good to have you back we're all in 3-d good evening uh mayor and members of council i am joe tadayucci i am not sure

[60:00] if you're coming through it's the green lights on can you hear me that sounds better okay i'll do it like this i'm joe tattiucci i'm the director of utilities and we are here tonight for an update on the south boulder creek flood mitigation project and this is the first time that we're checking in with this council on the project our our goal is to do a high level overview of the project and just get everyone oriented we have a brief presentation and a handful of slides brandon's got some neat new renderings of the project that he'll be showing you and he'll also run through the schedule with you which also kind of serves as at a high level our work plan you can see the remaining steps i wanted to note that there's no council action required tonight or or really

[61:00] anticipated this year other than what comes up through the budget process the one remaining step that council will act on has to do with open space and and that will occur in 2023 in terms of where we are in the in the process i did want to mention that the team is making really good progress it certainly is a very uh complex project and and you've heard that in the past and brandon will be showing some of that when you see the steps on the schedule but i'm happy to report that we're still on track and moving forward and in order to make that progress there have been a couple of key council decisions that have led to that in 2020 you may recall that we landed on the variant one 100-year alternative as the basis of our design and then in 2021 or

[62:00] 2021 we had the annexation agreement which was also key for us because we had to know how our design would interact with the university property and what we had to work with so the the decisions have allowed brandon and his team and the consultants to move forward before i turn it over i did want to mention a couple of relevant and positive staffing updates um in in utilities we've uh recently hired chris douglas who is a new manager of our engineering and capital projects group he's in the front row there and he'll be supporting this project and and all of our major cip projects and then i also wanted to note that brandon beside me here has been promoted to a lead engineer position in the stormwater and flood engineering group so i will be working closely with brandon and chris to staff up to support

[63:01] this project and other important flood work before i turn it over to brandon i i did note the questions that mark had and some of the the public input might suggest that we go through our presentation i've got notes on what those were and then when we finish as we get into questions we can hit those at the very beginning of that part brandon okay can everybody hear me okay okay um as joe said i'm brandon coleman i'm an engineer in our storm flood utility on the project manager for the south boulder creek flood mitigation project and we'll just go to the next slide i think i can just say that okay so tonight we're just giving a project update and uh good evening to the council great to see everybody in person and

[64:00] also i recognize we have a few new council members quite a few new council members so we're going to be going over a brief kind of project overview so talking a little bit about just some of the generalities of the project kind of what joe mentioned how we got to where we're at today before we get into the schedule it is a very complex project so it's kind of helpful to get your feet under you before you see the schedule we have proposed so the next slide please and then the next one too would be fine um so just as a general project overview south boulder creek uh is a major drainage way in the city it's over 27 miles long and includes 136 square miles of watershed area which makes it the second biggest drainage to enter the city behind boulder creek the headwaters begin at the continental divide and then it extends all the way to its confluence with boulder creek on the east side of the city so on this map you can see the black outline is boulder city limits

[65:01] and then the next slide so the south boulder creek drainage watershed area is very similar to a lot of headwater drainages in the front range and if you can see in this map the headwater area the upper and the middle basin are are all very steep and canyones and then when you get into the lower basin where south boulder creek enters the city it becomes much flatter and the flood plain tends to spread out so that introduces a lot of variability into the flood plain and there's a few major features on south boulder creek including gross reservoir el dorado canyon state park and then numerous roadways crossings including state highway 93 and us-36 so the next slide so i work in the storm flood utility and uh boulder is the number one flood risk in the state of colorado uh we have 16 major drainage ways and this is just a map of all the drainage waves across the city a fun fact i like to point out is

[66:01] you can't ride your bike across the city without at least crossing a couple major drainage ways so in south boulder creek on this map is on the very far right side and you'll see it's kind of on the edge of town so the next slide so south boulder creek does have a history of flooding it's flooded three times significantly in the past in 1938 1969 and also in 2013 most recently the in 1938 a significant difference was gross reservoir wasn't in place so there was significant damage to el dorado springs area in 1938 and then in 1969 was the first time we saw us 36 over top and flooding in the west valley area we commonly refer to it and the picture shown here is the thunderbird apartments along thunderbird lane after south boulder creek over top us 36 and then most recently in 2013 we had major flooding from the south

[67:00] boulder creek drainage that over top u.s 36 and this is kalmia avenue and this picture really paints the need for the project so this is high hazard zone very deep flooding very dangerous to life safety so the next slide brandon can i just do a correction i think that's probably koala not kalmia koala yes sorry thank you thank you okay so um so the key part of this project is really protecting life and safety so this is south boulder creek you'll see diagonally running across this map is us-36 and the red outline on here is the cu south property just to give people kind of their bearings and you'll see on the right hand side the blue that's the main channel of south boulder creek this project's really focused on addressing flooding that comes through the city so if you click on the slide one more time

[68:00] so we're really looking at mitigating this flooding so along thunderbird drive and this is commonly referred to as the west valley overflow so there is a high hazard zone that is associated with this and uh high hazard is unique to the city as it identifies the greatest risk to life safety so that's really what the focus of the project is so if you click on the next slide so joe mentioned we got approval from council in 2020 to uh move forward with the design and we've been working on the conceptual design um since then and we still have regional detention right at us 36 so this is where the design sits today and we got some more definition based on the annexation agreement that was approved last year as well so if you see this map the dark brown area is an earthen embankment there's an orange area which is earth fill and that's really maintaining the existing floodplain as it sits on

[69:00] on the property right now and then there's an orange line that runs parallel to us-36 that's our spillway or the flood wall and then the yellow line is our outlet work so the intent of the project is to detain the flood waters in this facility and then release them in a manner through our outlet works to veli channel as to not impact downstream so the next slide so as part of our preliminary design activities we've developed kind of some 3d modeling and this helps us really do design reviews and also helps to visualize the project sometimes engineering drawings are very difficult to understand so this is kind of that same view we just looked at looking north and we've added our kind of flood waters to here so you'll see the embankment at the top of the screen in that green color and it's kind of hard to see but what's creating the detention here is our flood wall along u.s 36 and then south loop drive is the

[70:02] road on the west side so if you click again on the slides so this is just another view and this is actually catch up here too of course there we go uh this is actually looking to the north west along u.s 36 so us 36 is in the foreground there and in the upper right hand corner you can see the table mesa park and ride and that's where that west valley uh flooding kind of originates so you can really see the purpose of the project is creating this detention with our embankment and our flood wall along the u.s 36 regional bike path here and then the discharge point you can see on the right hand side of the screen where that channel is flowing that's veli channel so our outlet works are actually discharging to veli channel so for me it just helps to visualize this we use this modeling to create different views but also to do design reviews as we're doing preliminary

[71:00] design it's a really great tool we've developed in the engineering world so the next slide so another important part of this project and really important to city values is just protection of environmental resources so this project is directly adjacent to the south boulder creek state natural area which has really high quality habitat that supports diversity of wildlife and that includes two threatened species the preble's meadow jumping mouse and also the lady truss orchid and yes uh and it also supports a native mesic tall grass prairie and also the riparian and wetlands communities in that area so that's a dino uh it's a i'm trying to think of the right word now but see cpw creates the state natural areas and it's a program that they have so south boulder creek's been identified as a

[72:01] um unique ecological system within the state so the next slide so that's just really high level overview kind of of the project what the purposes are some of the challenges and now we'll get into the schedule update and when i get to the schedule slide i just want everybody to get prepared there's a lot of agencies a lot of coordination that needs to go on for this project um that includes the army corps of engineers u.s fish and wildlife fema state agencies colorado department of transportation colorado division of water resources where the state engineer sits as i mentioned cpw and then also internally within the city so we work closely with our open space department as well so if you go to the next slide from here so this is our schedule and kind of where we're at today so i'll walk

[73:00] through this a little bit slower so at the top of the bar it's in quarters and it's showing out to the year 2026 right now and that red line's about where we're at today um so the first set of activities we have in this schedule are design activities so this is really related to the engineering and the design associated with the flood mitigation and as you can see we're getting really close to finishing the preliminary design or the 30 percent design which includes hydraulic modeling geotech analysis and also civil layout so just how all our features fit together how we make sure the facility is going to work when we design it so we're actually getting close to that milestone right now which is really exciting news and um we'll be moving forward from there in the design and then the next design activities really are 60 design so that's the next bar on here followed by 90 design and then final design so really we shouldn't be having major changes to the design by the time we get

[74:01] to final design we should have kind of fleshed all those out at 60 and at 90 but those are review milestones for the design so the next uh kind of bar i have there is orange and this is going to be permitting so the green bar is really our environmental permitting and as i mentioned there's a lot of environmental resources in this area so it's really important we really count for environmental permitting and so the first step in that is to work with the army corps of engineers so they'll be the lead permitting agency as far as environmental permitting goes and they'll be doing a 404 review which is clean waters of the u.s and from there they will be consulting with fish and wildlife service for threatening endangered species so that's the next bar after the corps determines what are waters of the u.s and then after that consultation with fish and wildlife we would then have the

[75:00] corps issue that permit for that 404 permit and then following that we would go to our city wetlands permit and our city wetlands permit is actually probably going to be more stringent than what the core would give us as a 404 permit but all the wetlands would be considered in the city that we would be impacting so that would be the last step because we need our 404 permit before we can get the city wetlands permit so the next bar um is a fema clomer and clomer is just flood management us acronym so it's a conditional letter of map revision so this project is going to significantly change the flood plain associated with south boulder creek so when we do that we need fema's approval as kind of the federal regulatory agency over the flood plains in the city and kind of across the country so we'll be working on that and that will start after 30 percent design because we've done that hydraulic

[76:00] modeling so really that's going to be at the next phase of design we'll start that and then next following that so there's a lot of impacts to us 36 i showed the outlet works which would be a tunnel under the us-36 embankment and also the flood wall infrastructure some of that will be located in cdot right away so we're going to need a c dot right of way permit and then last throughout the whole design process the facility would be considered a high hazard dam by the state engineers office and so they will be doing design reviews as we go throughout the process so that's what the last bar is in permitting and they'll give us a design approval letter once we get towards the end of design so uh the next one is our stakeholder agreements and there's some a lot of parties involved in this so the city doesn't really own any of the land so we've had to work with a lot of the stakeholders around uh around where the property is going to be

[77:00] so the first one is we have osmp on there and osmp i'm going to let joe talk a little bit about the process associated with that he mentioned that before but we've continually worked with our osmp staff related to impacts to city open space property associated with the prop project so that's going to be an ongoing process throughout the design the next one on the list is a huge milestone for the project and gave us some definition just around what we can actually do out there because a large portion of the property would be located on the cu south property so the cu south annexation agreement got approved last year that was a really big milestone for us as a design team and also for the project uh the next one there is a cdot agreement so this is going to be separate from the permitting is we're going to have to enter into some form of agreement with cdot to impact their right of way as we go forward so that's what that bar is denoting and then there's also irrigation ditches

[78:00] in the area and they historically are some of the oldest infrastructure in the city so you need to work with irrigation ditches and particularly dry creek ditch number two so we'll have to work on an agreement with them as a stakeholder in the area okay so the last section here is the yellow bar which is where we really want to get to and that's the construction bar and you'll see that starts after design after permitting after all those steps have been completed we would go to a bidding process and then selecting our contractor and starting construction around sometime in 2024 and have that projected out to go into 2026 right now and that's the schedule that's a lot um i tried to go through that slowly but i also did want to give joe turn it over to joe and really talk about the open space coordination and the process around that and i think we need one more click on

[79:01] the slide to have a there we go a graphic show up so what you just saw come on the screen there is is really the the window of time where we would have enough design detail at the front end around 60 percent design to start working with the open space team department and their board in earnest to go through the disposal process and that can occur anywhere it won't take the entire green box there's some flexibility and when we start that and a disposal is is really a three-step process because of the the way that charter works and how open space land is structured it does require a formal action from the board first and and then from city council and then after that there is a 60-day uh public notice process that occurs and as i mentioned we'd be ready for the

[80:02] disposal when we get to about the 60 design phase i personally started my career in the utilities engineering group and i have gone through the disposal process with our open space team before in a typical project we would go to the board in in a two meeting series and provide a detailed presentation to them really dig into the project explain what's going to occur in the first meeting get their feedback and and their comments and then come back in a second meeting hopefully having addressed any concerns or comments they have and ask them for action as you probably gathered from brandon's presentation of this of this schedule slide this is a really complicated project so we'll also be working with the open space staff as brandon mentioned and with their board giving them updates along

[81:00] the way as we would do with any stakeholder to make sure that they're comfortable with the project at the time that we go and ask them for a decision so that that's kind of the the situation with a disposal and um this schedule and all the steps that brandon listed may seem a bit overwhelming for our utilities engineering team i don't know that we have all of these things necessarily on the same project ever but all of the steps that he mentioned it is typical for us to get these types of permits and the approvals from fema and cdot and we've we've done that a number of times in the past so again the key council decisions really allowed us to kind of stop spinning on alternatives and get started down the road of obtaining these permits and and working on the design so that is uh kind of where we're at and

[82:01] just to to clarify the terminology we're using we're saying 30 60 90 design that may be intuitive maybe not but it just has to do with the level of detail we start out with a conceptual design and we keep working with our consultants and we build on the level of detail and and we we get design packages at various stages we we work with our consultants give them feedback there may be a portion of the project that they're saving for later and they'll detail later or they're going to take a specific thing and and keep building on it from start to finish and so those are just milestones where we as the owner of the project will receive a design package from our consultants that will get a chance to review each one of those would would typically have a set of drawings and and specifications as well as an updated cost estimate

[83:01] so that that's kind of how that works and i guess you can go to the next slide it may just be that may be the end of our prepared stuff and it is so as promised at the beginning i did note a few questions uh and and made some notes here there was a there was a suggestion in public comment and understandable concern about what's happened due to the pandemic and supply chain issues and escalation of costs suggestion that the project cost may be 100 or 120 million and referred to our prior cost estimate of 66 million dollars which actually got negotiated down during the annexation were we're just starting to get or about to get that 30 percent design submittal

[84:00] from our consultants and so we will have updated costs that we plan to bring forward in the budget process this year not seeing anything that would indicate to us that we're not in the ballpark of our previous cost estimates we did have a significant contingency 40 percent if i'm remembering correctly in the 41 million dollars so that we do have some room to accommodate unexpected changes and early in the pandemic i know the housing industry with lumber and things like that was immediately experiencing escalated costs for for projects we were not seeing that in in 2020 and early 2021 on our big civil engineering projects in utilities we did just have a water project that went out for bid and our engineers estimate was around 18 million dollars and it came in

[85:00] 4 million over so that's the type of scale and and i think the what we need to be bracing ourselves for as we're seeing projects go out to bid and come in and we've tried to leave plenty of cushion for this one to accommodate it so don't have new numbers at this moment but we will within the next month or so as we start the budget process and i expect it to be within range of what we've been talking about here the other question had to do with evacuation routes and were those considered in the annexation process and i i know there was a lot of discussion with our transportation team our planning team emergency services our fire chief was involved i don't recall how how those types of considerations were made so we'll have to get back to you on on that subject but i do know a

[86:00] lot of thought went into all aspects of of that situation and brandon mentioned it in his presentation the comment in public comment about us having the highest rates for stormwater and flood is an accurate uh characterization we are the highest and we're also the highest flood risk in the state of colorado and we're going through a storm water and flood master plan right now and at a large scale trying to quantify our overall needs for the utility and the scale of the cost and the duration of time that we're going to need to complete those projects so there's there's going to be a lot more discussion coming this year about overall flood projects costs rates and those types of things through the the master plan process the budget and further updates on this project trying to think did i hit all the things

[87:00] that we wanted well that was great joe and brandon very informative really helpful to get that update so thanks so much do we have uh questions from um council bob uh first of all joe and brandon thanks for that great presentation really appreciate it and obviously please do keep us informed as things progress here over the coming months and quarters just one question i noticed in one of your slides you had um the logo of the mile high flood district up um do you anticipate of course that's a separate taxi entity up and down the front range do you anticipate the possibility of applying for grants to the ohio flood district at the appropriate time and receiving some of the funding from from that organization we do and brandon was just talking to me before this meeting about the numbers brandon if you want to rattle those off quickly yeah so we enter an iga with the mile high flood district and currently they match what we will contribute to the project and currently they have over two

[88:00] million dollars contributed to the project and we anticipate that pro number to go up through their cip process as they uh prove more budget in the coming years great great as you guys give us updates in the coming months and quarters please keep us surprised to that that grant money as well thanks guys i would also mention that you can't turn on the news without hearing about federal funds and around infrastructure and we're working with our central finance team and our utilities financial lead and tracking those very carefully and and we don't have anything specific lined up yet but have some leads and we're um looking into those things carefully rachel yeah thanks for their presentation it's exciting to see uh it moving forward although you know that the end date still looks far away so appreciate all the work you all are doing on that um i just wanted to clarify two things in the memo where it

[89:01] said 66 million we did negotiate that i believe under 50 million so in the annexation agreement the the projected costs got shaved down a lot they did and um i had that information before the meeting and i'm drawing a blank on what the number was but you're you're in the right ballpark it got negotiated down substantially yes i recall and i don't have the exact number with me either and then on the um you know there was a question around uh fires and evacuation and i just wanted to point out that the agreement included a strong i think it's transportation demand management tdm this is not my forte um concept plan and so that that area will actually you know will really encourage people not to have cars uh first of all and and to have a lot of public transit so my concern would be more is is cu going

[90:00] to have good evacuation plans for the people who live there without cars but as a as opposed to the rest of boulder it actually should um not have a ton of autos and um it's also people who are already going to school here and working here and so their cars if they're driving in will already be here and and it is expected to reduce so in terms of fire evacuation i think it it's it's not the biggest concern of of all the the projects that we'll be looking at and on that topic i know that i believe next tuesday there will be a study session on resilience focused on fire and what's been experienced in in recent months and days unfortunately um and i utilities uh has a role in that and i'm participating in in some of those planning meetings and discussions and there is a lot of conversation around evacuation for and fire is not the only issue there

[91:00] are floods and droughts and and other things that we have to think about and there is planning that goes into all of it and advanced plans that get prepared for the community i'll go ahead and call on myself with a question i do note that uh some of the permits that we're looking at like with the u.s fish and wildlife service and the corps of engineers the timelines for those and before we're at the 90 design phase so are they comfortable with a 30 or 60 milestone or are we gonna have to go back to them or how does that work right so the first step in that is really to say here is our project footprint are there waters of u.s impacts in that project so that's what we're waiting for right now is is called a jurisdictional determination but we can submit and work with them at a 30 design level as long as we have kind of a relative footprint of what the project looks like and then that'll give them enough information to be able to consult with fish and wildlife

[92:02] but really that jurisdictional determination is going to drive what type of permit we're getting so we we are able to work with them currently good to hear junior thank you aaron um i was just looking at your presentation again and you mentioned 30 60 design and i wonder where are we right now by looking at those designs and then my second question is maybe i'm looking at this wrong why does it look like a lake yeah uh brandon those are good questions um so currently we're just wrapping up the 30 design and what we did to get to that stage was we really try to characterize the site so that's where the water is going where our facilities would go and also will our facilities function during the event that we're designing for so

[93:00] we're wrapping that stage up now and then when we go into 60 we would start to refine that so really looking at more detailed modeling further refinement of that having some of these reviews by the permitting agencies to make sure we're taking that into account and the way the facility functions is it does function kind of like a lake so it's a lake that's continually draining is a good way to think about it um but where we have to detain that water so that we don't further impact people downstream for where we redirect that water so that's why we have the detention there and that's why it looks like a lake in the renderings okay can i ask a follow-up question where is it draining to so there's a major drainage way that runs along south boulder road it's called vieli channel that originates by the south boulder rec center and then comes down and actually discharges back to the main channel south boulder creek so we would have our facility discharge under us 36 to that channel and by

[94:00] having the detention we can discharge that channel without making those impacts downstream worse okay thank you if i just clarify it it only looks like a lake during a flood event right this is it's not a everyday occurrence yes so that would be uh when the flood comes it'll fill up and it'll start to drain and we have to drain it within a certain time period to meet uh water law in colorado and everything so it'll drain completely after the flood has passed so that example drawing you had was during a flood event yes yes exactly yeah thanks matt thanks aaron uh first uh chris welcome to the team so i just want to make sure you know you've got a happy family here welcome and brandon congratulations on your promotion thanks um so my question centers around uh esa and nepa studies and i see clearly that there's clearly a you know an esa consultation which i presume results in a esa study um and usually with those there's comment public comment periods and so i'm just wondering that in your timelines are you already baking in sort of like the

[95:00] longest comment periods just for you know being conservative in that aspect because i know some of them can go 45 or 90 days in some aspects um and also is there a nepa built in here at all or is that really embedded in the esa in that in that capacity so those are kind of my combo questions yeah so the core would be the lead agency so they'll say what we have to do as far as environmental historic preservation things along those lines and it's really their job to consult with each one of those agencies and we can support them in that consultation and then it it's all based around the jurisdictional determination on what type of permit we get and how much public comment periods associated with that we do know there's threatened and endangered species on the property so that would be a biological assessment is what we do and then the u.s fish and wildlife would give us a biological opinion associated with that so until we know what that jurisdictional determination is we don't know

[96:01] what the public comment periods are going to be associated with the permits just yet i appreciate that when you get to that uh maybe just err on the side of public asking for extensions because that in some of my environmental work i see that be quite common so just so that we're you know being conservative on our timelines sure and and i didn't a good scheduler would have a red line on what goes through the critical path and environmental permanent permitting currently isn't on our critical path so we do have a little bit of float in there so lauren one of the concerns um i've heard a lot is sort of regarding the amount of flood capacity you know we're designing for a hundred year um in in the event that we were to have a flood that was beyond that capacity are you guys maybe you could speak a little bit to how that how the design will react in that kind of circumstance

[97:04] i can start that and brandon maybe you can supplement what i have to say um one of the things and and i think it really gets to the climate change concepts and expecting more um frequent and and more severe events and so any flood protection that we provide in any drainage will help the community for the first aspect if if we have protection in place and floods happen more frequently it will help and so the question of what happens if the 500-year flood comes and we only have 100 year protection well the the project will hold back water until it exceeds the the hundred year level and then water as designed will start flowing over the spillway and there will be downstream flooding but people will still benefit the inundation

[98:01] downstream because the project is there will be less than it would without the project even if our design level is exceeded and i think they're a common concept and i think we heard it during public comment tonight is that it was a discretionary choice for cu's benefit for us to go with the 100 year flood level and that's really not accurate we looked at feasibility we can't make conditions worse for people downstream and we could not match the conditions we needed to in our design for over a hundred year flood go ahead and could you also maybe provide a little bit more detail about um how so you know in the more recent flood where it over top 36 you know the kind of sudden inundation that people got how

[99:02] that might compare to um some water going over the spillway and you know are those the same sort of things or does this design help sort of slow that process well a couple of things about that and and we've met several times during the public engagement process with the people who live downstream of us 36 and experience that flooding and they're very interested in the in the progress of this design as well as emergency warning and one of the things that we did after talking with them that is has been installed is a camera we have a camera system in the city and some of those are focused on creeks and can give us insight when when we're in a precipitation event to what's happening so that is something that we've put in place in the in the last year

[100:00] um is online and i'm now forgetting the the the crux of the question i think um so basically if the spillway were if we were to have a flood event that um where floodwaters went through the spillway would that be sort of a similar flood to what we had in 2013 or is the spillway still going to create different conditions it would change the the timing for sure and i i'll let brandon kind of explain the details of that sure yeah so 2013 was a slow moving event but it when it over topped us 36 it overtopped quickly so this facility does give us some time to react because we'd start to see it fill up before it actually gets to the spillway elevation and that could be beneficial in our

[101:01] emergency warning system so i think with the fires and everything we're seeing how that emergency warning system works and having this facility be part of our storm flood utility we would definitely look at emergency warning associated with it and it's really designed for the more critical event so not like a 2013 event but a really fast thunderstorm event and it will still give us that you'll see it fill up and have a chance to react even though those events happen and then just to the 500 versus the 100 the volume of water that we're detaining even for 100 um would wouldn't be there for the 500 so even if it was a 500 year event yes you would still see flooding but it wouldn't be as bad as what a 500-year event would do now thank you rachel since we got on the 100 versus 500 i'm just going to ask a couple of questions i mean it's always good and this council hasn't heard it before so you know i think it is relevant so like to your

[102:01] last point brandon if this was 500 years is is this 100 year and then it's five times more for 500 or is it dif like how much is this bottle is going to be retained in 100 year versus 500 year and if that's not a good visual then feel free to use something different that's what i have here yeah i uh in engineering term we would say the bottle's probably not to scale but but yes uh yeah the way the facility works is essentially we're trying to drain the facility as fast as allowable so when our peak flow hits we actually have storage for that storage volume so we are storing quite a bit of volume i don't know the exact like proportions to the 500 to the 100 but i know it's a significant um it you definitely see the mapping reflect the 500 year flood much less than what is currently with the facility in place does that

[103:00] well you did not like my my water bottle which i i get but i guess how i understood it is a 500-year flood is not five times as much water as 100 years it's it's more like so that's what i meant like if we're at 100 year we're more like here and 500 not five times that much yep and it's also good to point out just this is phase one of this facility so we're or of the flood mitigation on south boulder creek so really this is addressing the flooding from south boulder creek the river which upstream is very natural and then when you get downstream of here you see significant runoff also from the urban drainage of kind of the west valley neighborhoods as well so that would be phase two um of the mitigation but yes the 500 is not five times larger than the 100 year yeah and and i think it's it's not anywhere near there if i if i follow it correctly um a couple more questions um where else in the city do we have 500 year flood mitigation in place

[104:01] 100 year is the highest that we have and most drainages have much less than that yeah so it's zero so zero or five hundred and hundreds of max and that's that's uh not the majority of of flood mitigation systems we have are at 100 right there at 10 and 25 correct um and then i just also want to clarify as i recall um and i would invite colleagues who were on council at the time with me to to to recollect as well but when we were looking at 100 versus 500 um it would have been much more environmentally damaging to do 500 year it would have possibly not been permittable to do uh 500 years due to the c dot tie-in and it would have been like 30 or 40 million more dollars is that is that about right yeah that that's accurate and and the really came down to the flood modeling and just not being able to match existing conditions which is a prerequisite

[105:00] of of flood mitigation projects but had that not been the case and all the other things all the other challenges that the 500-year flood would have faced on top of that it would have been hard for staff to recommend continuing to pursue that and fund pursuing it yeah and so i i just want to stay for the record like i advocated for 500 years uh mitigation before i got on council and it didn't it became infeasible so i think that we hear a lot from the community let's have 500 and and that's like asking for a million year mitigation because it's just not doable thanks right and mark's got another question maybe we can move on here in a minute just a very quick comment as i recall those negotiations and my colleagues can correct me if i'm if i'm wrong cu was was simply unwilling to agree to 500-year flood mitigation we didn't have the option of choosing

[106:00] from a or b it was they were only prepared to do a and as a consequence we took the option that was available to us i don't think we did anything we didn't we didn't choose to ignore 500-year flood mitigation it simply wasn't on offer from cu and so this is what we've got and i you know i think this is um that's obviously a very substantial improvement over where we were i guess maybe i'll just respond real quick mark thanks for that point that that what we're hearing is that even had cu thought 500 was a great idea we would not have been able to permit it so it was it was infeasible in many different ways yeah and this and the negotiations on this project and the analysis goes back literally 25 years but really in earnest goes back to 2015 and brandon uh i think came into the mix here

[107:00] in early 2019 or 2018 and i i came into it in august of of 29 2019 i remember the month and the year and and so we were looking at and and know that those conversations were happening and cu had stated positions previously but we were kind of ignoring all that and looking at the the feasibility of the flood levels knowing that there was a lot of roadway ahead of us in terms of of negotiation so that for for our current project team that that's our perspective great well thanks so much if i don't see anything else we'll just say thanks again great presentation very informative and chris again welcome to the team we'll look forward to the next update when you got it all right thank you so i think we're moving on to outdoor dining

[108:02] we are and i see chris jones making his way down the runway the walkway whatever you're gonna do chris um but know that we have been talking about outdoor dining for a while we certainly want to talk through some of those insights that we gathered through the pandemic and certainly have done a lot of conversation certainly with you and with our community about the benefits and the next steps for what outdoor dining has for us as a city and in that process too we've also had a lot of conversations about what are those i think i'll use i think it's rachel's uh notion of what are the silver linings we have learned over the pandemic and we had some of those conversations about beyond just closing certain streets and we certainly will be talking about the west end but what else did we learn in the pandemic that could be scaled across neighborhoods in the future and so some opportunities to talk a little bit more about that i think are forthcoming and

[109:02] with that i think i've talked enough to give chris a chance to get settled chris thank you maria for the distraction oh thank you nuria for the distraction for a moment and good evening council chris jones interim director of community vitality i'm glad to be here delighted to talk about outdoor dining and the west end closure but i would be remiss to not point out some folks that we have in the audience well i will be doing most of the talking this evening there's been a lot of folks from a number of different departments that have been helping uh in this conversation so that have gotten us to the point we're at this evening folks from planning and development services transportation and mobility the city attorney's office business licensing and of course community vitality and yvette bowden i know while the faces have changed the folks who are working on this have not so still delighted to be here and looking forward to learning

[110:00] more about expectations moving forward so next slide so tonight i've got a number of things i want to talk through first we're going to go through some background on how we got to this point today then some scoping considerations for the work moving forward for staff we have been working on the concept of a pilot program the last time we talked about this there was some direction around looking at a downtown program so we do have some work that's been done and we want some some feedback on some of that moving forward um there are also a number of regulatory considerations that we want to get some guidance on and then of course the west end closure while there was not guidance that was provided from council the last time we talked about this around the west end as we've been pursuing this work it comes up time and time again so we have some questions for you this evening on that finally we have done an amount of engagement and gotten some feedback from different entities and want to share

[111:00] some results there and then we'll move into questions from council for staff and then want to hear your discussion and then i'll have a next step slide that'll be contingent on your direction next slide please so way back when did eternity go in may of 2020 the city created the boulder business recovery program that enabled businesses both restaurants and retailers to expand out to help offset the impacts of indoor capacity limits that were associated with the kovid 19 emergency with that we closed the west end of vehicle traffic given the high concentration of restaurants that we know exist and existed in that stretch of pearl street that required us to reroute the hop route on that segment and also we heard from other businesses saying that the hop kind of impacted the ambiance of spaces on the east end so the hop was rerouted there as well we also implemented some curbside pickup zones um so this was to help businesses

[112:02] that were more focused on takeout orders and so we implemented those those have since been discontinued now that our new on-street pay stations allow 15 minutes free no matter where you park once per day per vehicle we we eliminated those pickup zones so we had that condition through the summer of 2020 and then in october of 2020 the city extended the program with some additional requirements around winter operations so that's when the jersey barriers showed up to protect folks in the winter conditions in september of last year there was an agenda item exploring further extension of those emergency orders to april 30th of this year it's a misprint on the typo or on the the slide and then a conversation around the future of outdoor dining that's when we got direction around focusing on a downtown boulder pilot so the the emergency orders were extended and staff began work on

[113:00] exploring this downtown boulder pilot in february of this year we presented for an information item to council um to explore that further and we got some uh feedback both from stakeholders council members um knowing that there were some still some big unanswered questions that we want to pose with you tonight so then finally in march you considered some funding considerations for arpa that were approved through the adjustment to base in support of the city's proposed business recovery and then the emergency orders were extended by the city manager through august 31st of this year so that leads next slide please i'm going through the slides as well so i need to remember to also ask uh that leads to our questions so these are these are some background i know they're in your packet but um we're seeking some specific guidance from you all this evening i'll read through the questions just for context for the folks that are listening in so first question does council wish to

[114:01] direct staff to expand the working scope beyond downtown and continue developing guidelines and requirements to allow for an outdoor dining pilot program citywide in both the public right-of-way and on private property after the coven 19 emergency orders end that leads to another question around do the staff proposed pilot program guidelines and requirements adequately balance considerations around key issues including safety accessibility equity and operations next slide so some additional questions does council wish to direct staff to create an ordinance to waive or modify certain land use regulations such as use review requirements for businesses that wish to participate in outdoor dining in both the public right-of-way and on private property as part of a proposed five-year pilot program next does council wish to direct staff to pursue funding options to partially subsidize the capital costs associated with bringing existing outdoor dining extensions into compliance with the

[115:01] boulder revised code and the proposed pilot program guidelines and requirements then does council wish to direct staff to take necessary and to take steps necessary to continue or discontinue the temporary west end closure to vehicle traffic as it contemplates the possible addition of a future work plan item to develop a long-term downtown vision that includes shared street concepts and finally what additional community engagement does council desire moving forward regarding the pilot program and the temporary western closure to vehicle traffic so about four hours for this item tonight maybe next slide please so first some scoping considerations that we're seeking some guidance on next slide um we're wanting some guidance around the geographic parameters of our pilot program again we were originally focused on a downtown boulder pilot and are wanting to to hear from council on expectations of maybe a city-wide

[116:01] program um there are also some questions around seasonality should we be allowing um outdoor dining year-round and letting restaurants or participating businesses decide whether or not they keep that equipment out during winter months and then there are considerations around the use of public right-of-way and what space should we be allowing businesses to expand to to what extent and would that be limited to on-street parking where should we be thinking about that on the pearl street mall bricks and there are other available spaces on sidewalks and other open spaces we also have some considerations around private park property a number of participating businesses have expanded into their private parking spaces or other open spaces and that's another consideration for the program and finally there's the west end component again it's it's intrinsic with the decisions that we make around outdoor dining are intrinsically intrinsically connected to what we do on the west end so next slide

[117:02] we've attempted to summarize this range of options into a matrix the first option could be council's council's will could could be no we are not going to extend these outdoor dining extensions and we are not going to continue the vehicle west enclosure that outcome would lead to a pretty much pre-pandemic conditions we go back to the status quo that existed prior to may of 2020. the opposite end of that spectrum would be a continuation of outdoor dining with some requirements that staff is proposing and also a continued closure to the west end as we consider our long-term strategies in between there's a variety of options with could consider yes outdoor dining but but no to the continued closure on the west end and then some seasonal components to each of those and i know this this matrix was included in your packet so looking forward to maybe narrowing this down in our discussion tonight

[118:01] next slide so when it comes to the proposed pilot program next slide we have a number of considerations that we have taken into account as we're working to to really narrow in on what we are going to require businesses to do and and provide guidelines for how we want to move forward so these categories are safety accessibility equity and operations safety this is the level to which all people can access destinations and enjoy their use of the public right-of-way and outdoor dining infrastructure without any threat to life or limb accessibility is the level to which all people can easily reach desired destinations with unobstructed access within the public right-of-way regardless of purpose transportation mode or ability equity is the level to which the city can reasonably facilitate an equal playing field among all businesses as well as other legitimate uses of the public right-of-way operations would be the level to which staff and facility resources are impacted relative to our pre-pandemic

[119:02] conditions next slide so when it comes to safety i'm not going to read through all these things but we're really wanting to make sure that we're protecting people from impacts when it comes to operating outdoors from wind snow flood other considerations and then there's also interactions that happen in the public right-of-way when it comes to operating in parking spaces you are inherently operating close to vehicles so making sure that people are safe from those types of components and then in the in the hopefully unlikely event that bad things do happen we need to understand what's the liability um considerations for these extensions in the public right-of-way next slide on the accessibility front ada is so important american sorry americans with disabilities act so making sure that we are thinking about how all people might experience these spaces so the photos that you see on the right

[120:01] while might look like a really inviting place to dine you can't park your bike in that bike rack anymore because it's now being encroached upon by the park bench the other dining space might look really inviting and cozy and warm in the winter but if you're a person who uses a wheelchair you cannot access that space and i won't mention how the tree grate is not now able to get as much water to keep that tree alive with the platform over that surface next slide when it comes to equity we have folks who have been able to expand larger than others and so there are some considerations around how much you know should we be allowing individual businesses to expand in the right of way and then are there is there a limitation on on businesses that can participate whether they are expanding onto private property public right-of-way whether their restaurant or another type of business because the program that we did originally established allowed retailers

[121:00] also to participate some other considerations are around whether or not if we are subsidizing this program is there are there some eligibility requirements for businesses and then again what are those other uses of the public right-of-way that we want to make sure that we can accommodate even if we are allowing these private uses of the public right-of-way next slide when it comes to operations no matter what we do there is a permitting implication for our planning department as they are seeking to identify who wants to participate in the program and how are we going to make sure that they're following the rules we are pursuing modularity in this work to make sure that there's some consistent infrastructure that's predictable and easy to remove when there's our maintenance needs or special events happening or other considerations if there is a seasonal component to this we need to be thinking about where any of this equipment would be stored or who's responsible for that and then who's responsible for putting

[122:00] it back out when the season starts up again and finally ongoing maintenance from snow removal to street sweeping to repairs of both city infrastructure curb and gutter streets and the infrastructure the outdoor dining infrastructure itself who is responsible for that moving forward next slide i'm not going to read through all these elements but there is there are some proposals included in your packet that take on each of these different components as we are seeking to to narrow in on what the exact guidelines and requirements are going to be for the program as we're working with council in the community moving forward next slide but in that draft framework that we did include in the packet we are proposing that we do allow restaurants to expand in the public right-of-way or private property and ex and we're exploring steps to help make sure that can happen so this would be a city-wide program um where we're limiting participation to a maximum of 500 square p square feet per participating business this would be a

[123:01] five-year pilot program um and proposed to be year-round or the discretion of the participating businesses um we would propose that this would end or the program would begin sorry at the end of the coven 19 emergency orders currently scheduled for august 31st um a revocable license would be required for this participation and we're looking to we're working to identify a preferred vendor list that if restaurants or participating businesses want to be fast-tracked through that permitting process there are some vendors that we're looking at that can provide this infrastructure that provides that level of predictability that we are needing if we want this to to move efficiently next slide there also are a lot of considerations around how and who pays for this transition from whatever is out there now to this city approved compliant infrastructure as i mentioned council did approve the 250 000 in arpa funds as part of the adjustment to base um and

[124:00] the the business recovery program um the caged central area general improvement district we've also identi identified fifty thousand dollars in funding that can help support a program the colorado department of transportation has some revitalizing main street funds that we could be pursuing and there's an opening call for those grant funds right now that we could pursue as part of this program and then if desired we could also come and ask for additional appropriations if it's if that's needed depending on the guidance that you all provide this evening next slide when it comes to how businesses would experience those funding options we've presented three different options depending on who you are and how you want to participate if you are expanding in the public right-of-way we've identified an option a where individual businesses could pursue purchase of compliant infrastructure and we could use the funds that council has made available to us to subsidize a portion of their purchase

[125:00] contingent on their transformation from whatever they have out there now to this compliant infrastructure so acknowledging that folks have spent some dollars on equipment on the street now and we are requiring them to change that to new infrastructure and we can make a grant available for those businesses maintenance and storage of those outdoor extensions would be the responsibility of the participating business another option to consider if there are businesses that don't have capital assets available to them to do this bulk purchase or their own purchase of of this outdoor parklet infrastructure would be to participate in a city-funded program where the city could purchase in bulk a certain amount of outdoor dining parklet infrastructure and then we would charge an annual rate commensurate to allowing for a 50 subsidy over time of the cost of that infrastructure the maintenance and storage of that program might be

[126:00] on the city uh responsibility side or a partner that we're working with on that option for private property we're not suggesting that the city would be involved in purchasing infrastructure that would be placed on private property and leased out um but we would allow we're we would consider allowing with your guidance a program that that folks purchase their own compliant infrastructure they would be able to apply for a grant reimbursement uh amount to be determined to help subsidize their transition from whatever they have out there now to the city uh compliant infrastructure again their maintenance and storage uh maintenance and storage of that infrastructure would be responsibility of that business that leads us next slide please to some reg no matter what direction we go there are some regulatory considerations planning and development services has provided a script in lieu of having edward walk up here in transition i'm going to read through the

[127:01] script that they provided um next slide please so many development types are required to be approved through the use review process use review is a discretionary land use approval that may be allowed if a particular use is demonst is demonstrated to be appropriate in the proposed location the standards for use review are intended to ensure that such uses are compatible with and do not have adverse impacts on the surrounding neighborhood under the land use code use reviews are required for outdoor seating areas that are over 300 square feet in size and within 500 feet of a residential zoning district this review is required in all mixed uses business and downtown zoning districts that allow outdoor dining typical requirements relate to good neighbor practices amplified and non-amplified sound screening and hours of operation also during the pandemic the city has allowed the use of parking lots on private property for outdoor seating

[128:01] areas this permission may not be in compliance with approved planned unit development site review or other city approvals on for the property throughout the pandemic pursuant to the emergency orders staff has not required compliance with these development regulations for the new outdoor seating areas that have been established there are probably other requirements that may need to be modified as well as we continue to learn more about the outdoor seating pilot program if the council wishes to continue the present arrangement for outdoor dining it should consider an ordinance that authorizes the city manager to waive or modify land use code requirements to allow these outdoor seating areas to continue after the emergency orders expire for the duration of the pilot program as noted the pilot program considerations in the pilot program considerations some of the anticipated impacts could be addressed in the permitting process and so we do have a specific question for council this evening related to those considerations

[129:01] next slide please and that gets us to the west end closure next slide we applied the same considerations safety accessibility equity and operations to what's being experienced on the west end so when it comes to safety the barriers are required to keep that space safe and clear from motor vehicles but those they are providing some delay or causing some delay for emergency access there have been some witnesses of scooters and motorized vehicles still operating within the boundaries because they can fit through the openings you can see a motorcycle parked on the sidewalk on the photo on the right and the mall loop traffic on the one-way loop around the the four block pedestrian mall has been diverted to a certain point to other streets and so cause could be causing some safety considerations there um the pickup and drop-off behavior that we're seeing of both people and freight has led to some unpredictable movements

[130:01] at the ends of these closures and so just some safety considerations in that uh in that front and then also we've noted some wrong way traffic on the 10th street stub it's low volume low speed but some unpred again more unpredictable behavior that can lead to some safety conflicts next slide when it comes to accessibility there are a number of ada parking spaces within this west end area that are of course no longer accessible to people who need them trying to get close to their destinations micro mobility access is somewhat limited we've been able to work with some of the restaurants to open some spaces back up so we are able to get bikes and and scooters through more efficiently now but there was a challenge um earlier in the closure again i mentioned emergency access and challenges around loading you can see on the right here an example of a freight vehicle just parking where they can at the very end of the closure to take care of the

[131:00] business that they need the hop again has been rerouted and we have unused boarding areas that have been that were just built probably about four or five years ago and again loading and unloading for passengers and freight is limited next slide when it comes to equity there's a lot of space that restaurants have been able to work with and that's great if they have the capital resources and the staff resources to expand into those larger footprints but those with less resources have been not able to do so the fast casual restaurant business model has it seems to be suffering in this environment and they're not able to take advantage of the the um takeout nature that a lot of folks have been employing during the pandemic and so that's been you know folks like chipotle and the bond me shop didn't make it and that might not be the only reason but i i do know that uh another business uh that is still there has been communicating some struggles in that regard um and then of course there are still

[132:01] some challenges around special event uses while the space is open it's not entirely accessible if you want to be getting um vehicles in there for setup or staging um and then we would say that sit-down business models for restaurants certainly seem to be showing some more success in this area next slide when it comes to operations snow removal has been challenging it's been getting done but it's continues to be a consideration general maintenance maintenance of the space is just it's it's more limited with this closure um the concrete barriers have have just made it less efficient it's harder for us to get we can't get plows in through there so things need to be hand shoveled or smaller vehicles are being used um and uh finally folks are using the space for other purposes you can see an example here where during the winter months unused outdoor dining furniture has been stored in the space as well as snow because there's no identified place to put it

[133:00] next slide we've also done done some analysis on sales tax revenue um so based on what we've uh discovered it seems that the west end has not been recovering as quickly as other parts of the city when it comes to eating places correlation does not necessarily mean causation so there might be some other components that have led to this but our data is showing that in 2021 eating places on the west end were at 59 of 2019 levels where restaurants are eating places city-wide we're at 88 percent of 2019 levels um so that that is a significant uh difference um and there might be other causes for that but it's just an important thing uh that we thought was was interesting could help your discussion this evening next slide now on to some of the engagement and feedback that we've done next slide we have been to the downtown management commission twice originally we were doing this work focused on a downtown boulder pilot so

[134:00] that's where we were focusing a lot of our engagement in that we also did a survey to the downtown community including residents businesses workers and visitors and we got 836 responses to that but again that was very focused on a downtown pilot program and more recently given the inclusion of the west end closure part of this conversation we approached all the businesses that are operating within that closure and got 47 responses to that survey last month and early this month what's not on here is we actually also did an interview with the center for people with disabilities to talk about some of the accessibility challenges and we got great feedback from them and i believe that was included in your packet next slide um our conversations with dmc um they agreed that the city did the right thing and and we did have a responsibility in responding to the original coven 19 impacts and the restrictions on indoor capacity but they expressed concern about equity

[135:01] considerations if if the programs were to continue um they wanted to make sure that we were approaching it thoughtfully when it comes to the requirements and and guidelines and they had particular concerns about continuation around the west end closure and operational and equity challenges there next slide in the outdoor dining survey of the downtown stakeholders when asked about how outdoor dining contributed to living working or visiting downtown boulder a strong majority of respondents across all fronts indicated a significant improvement or some improvement moving on the next slide when we asked businesses specifically in that survey how outdoor dining impacted their business again a majority of businesses both restaurants and other businesses said it was very positive or somewhat positive next slide when asking next slide

[136:02] when asking restaurants in that downtown survey i think there are about 54 restaurants downtown boulder restaurants responded in that survey more than 50 percent said they were very likely or somewhat likely to participate in a continuation of an outdoor dining program this is before we posed any sort of fee option the next question next slide when we post two different fee options uh one at fifty dollars per square foot another one at 35 dollars per square foot um the folks who said they were very likely to participate in the program did not change the folks who went from um uh kind of a skeptical not sure um at the 50 level moved into at least the somewhat likely level so at 35 dollars per square foot um a majority of restaurants who said that they were interested in an outdoor dining program beyond the covid19

[137:00] emergency were still either likely or some are very likely to participate at a 35 per square foot level next slide when we approach the businesses specifically on the west end closure and we asked them about the impact that the west enclosure in outdoor dining has had on business a majority of restaurants have indicated a very positive impact and a majority of retailers have indicated a very positive impact other types of businesses these are second floor businesses or service just non-retail and non-restaurants it's been more mixed with more of them falling into the either neutral or somewhat negative category next slide when we ask them about factors that they experience during the closure a majority of restaurants and retailers indicated an increase in foot traffic and more activity in the area but they

[138:00] also were acknowledging at least a number of them that there are increased parking challenges again non-retail non-restaurants were more likely to indicate a decrease in visibility or access to their business or less foot traffic less foot traffic sorry some other considerations that we heard was from restaurants who while they were allowed to expand they might not have the staff resources or capacity to actually take advantage of that opportunity so that was just something that we heard in that other category next slide when we straight out ask them what their preferred action was after the end of the emergency orders we got mixed response but a majority of the responses came in suggesting that they want to continue to keep the west end closed to vehicle traffic but it i would say that it is mixed 41 percent of restaurants suggested they want to keep it closed while 35 said they want it to be

[139:00] reopened to traffic with no um out or dining in parking spaces and so while it is it's might there might be a stronger preference to keeping it closed i would say this is not a statistically valid survey approach and so it is a an information point and important for council to consider that we're not seeing strong consensus one way or the other um on the issue so with that next slide we can get into questions that council has for staff i imagine there might be a couple and then we can get into the questions that staff has for council great so yeah let's start with questions for staff then we can take your questions for us one by one after we get through our questions for you um who's got questions i see tara juni chris would you mind telling us where exactly the the information on the center for disabilities is

[140:01] that's a really good question if it was not included in this packet um maybe i think it was included in the information item it's been some time since we had that conversation with them it might have been on the february information item and i'm just going to follow because i was going to ask the same question i did not see it in the memo if it's possible for somebody real quick email us that so we have we can review it a little bit absolutely recorded the meeting as well so it was a good conversation juni thank you i just have a quick question about the um about the slides and the surveys and my question to you when you were doing the surveys and i see some of them you have hundreds of responses for the west end did you by any chance separate or buy for kate is that's the word these businesses that were impacted or

[141:00] did you just lump them all together and then you get the results does that make sense um i believe we have jennifer pensino who is on zoom who might be able to speak specifically to how we cross tabulated some of those impacts we do have the capability i don't know that in the analysis that that was specifically um pulled out that we did cross tabulations to understand how different types of businesses may have responded to different types of impacts other than what we've communicated and i'm not seeing jennifer in the meeting okay yeah of that bowdoin come on up sorry that's it's come on down i think it says hey it's always good to get to come up good evening council lily jet fountain

[142:01] assistant city manager was lumped together for the first survey we could go back to that raw data um and hope well jennifer could go back to that data and pull out west end businesses versus otherwise i do not believe that we asked them their address at that time in the subsequent survey where you're seeing only the 84 responses that is restricted to the west end respondents and i also want to acknowledge the awesome team that went door to door to ask those questions and also downtown boulder partnership that was so helpful in that outreach thank you thank you event thank you thank you very much bob and then i'll call on myself chris in the in the memo and in one of your slides you talked about a couple of options on this is just on public property not private property one being that the um the restaurant um would

[143:00] pay a licensing fee for the right-of-way access which i know has been a program the city's had for many many years long before covet but they would bring their own regulation compliant module with them or materials with them and the second alternative option was that they would pay just a fixed fee that would include both that license fee and kind of effectively a rental or an amortized cost of that module so so i understood all that that made a lot of sense is there um could we could we provide both options to restaurants and let them pick in other words i assume that when you calculated what the rental fee would be under the second option you kind of made some assumptions about economies of scale and how many people would participate and so if you assumed 100 restaurants were going to do it and did the math on that and only 10 of them actually opted into that that might kind of screw up your math so is there kind of a threshold that you need a special number of restaurants you need to participate

[144:00] in that second option in order to stick with the numbers you put in the memo so in short yes i think we can accommodate both options option b a city run program has some obvious efficiencies in uh fast tracking work through permitting but also some ongoing operational considerations so option a would be more consistent with our pre-existing program where folks can go it alone and and apply for a revocable lease to expand into the public right-of-way and pay that annual fee that you suggested and so i think that we can explore both options there is certainly a bulk discount that gets greater the more that we are able to purchase um the folks that we've been talking to on that front it comes down to the discounts start at a minimum of three of these things but the discount's smaller and so i would the easy math on it is for every

[145:00] one additional parklet you get one more percent discount off the total up to 20 parklets so 20 parklets or more 20 percent off um ten parklets ten percent off and so just there is there's certainly some scale there and we need to make sure we go back and do the math and then thinking about whether or not there's a uh what the subsidy level is from the city if that's something that council wishes to support um we'd need to go back and and make sure our calculations are are coming out right but um uh certainly be looking to target that 35 per square foot so that just to follow up on that that on that discount volume discount maxes out at about 20 parklets is that right 30 parklets on a per particle basis is about the same cost as 20. correct so you'd be able to i realized that there may be some efficiency to people going with the program so to speak um and and maybe the regulations are a little tougher to comply with if they brought their own modular module from a purely economic standpoint as long as

[146:02] you had 20 restaurants opting into the um to the city leased program that is the city or some partner provided it you would max out on that discount is that right correct and just roughly just to put that 20 into context how many rough how many restaurants are participating in the outdoor dining program um at least on right-of-way property right now um that's a very good question and it's fluctuated i think at the height of covid we had over 100 businesses participating in both the um private property extensions and the public property extensions i think at this point we're down to maybe uh maybe about 20 but i don't know the exact we haven't gone out and and done re-applications so it's it's depends on uh where if we're looking at right now today the numbers come back dramatically okay um but we're at the end of winter i know that there are a number of applicants in for our summer extension

[147:01] but that's not all been finalized yet great thanks i have some other questions i'll leave it about that for now i'll go ahead and go next so um one thing that was unclear to me i may have missed it was how for outdoor dining public right-of-way versus private property how would the city's required standards differ between those two cases that's a good question i'd say that we're still wanting to explore that obviously there are some key considerations if you're operating in a parking space next to a curb versus a private property extension so i'd say that there's still some more work to do there that has not been fully baked yet yeah that's fine i guess kind of where i was going was hoping that they would be different because if you're in the right of way next to cars going by that seems like a higher standard than if you've fenced off a part of a private parking lot for example which seems like lower dangers there you'd still want the ada accessibility but

[148:00] okay so it's good to hear you're thinking about different standards in those two cases great and i just got some pings in we are at currently at 25 folks who have applied for alcohol containment so that's where we're at right now with the program and there are some folks that haven't applied for alcohol containment so rough space um and so but thank you i had rachel and then matt and um saving the best for last okay um which isn't me so one question i don't know if it's currently happening or not but could you um have a combination like could three restaurants next to each other do like going together for that 500 feet and have like a you know like you have at avanti or rosetta hall kind of situation or way back in theory yes if you can find three restaurants right next door to each other that actually want to work together or on the same block like you know

[149:00] especially if we're making it all if we go i think it's option b where it would be uniform like you know right now it's got in some spots a more cluttered chaotic feel is have have restaurants or staff given any thought to to making it more of a a combo outdoor dining experience i'd say it depends on the context so if it comes to the liquor code folks will still need to have demarcation between their licenses if folks want to work together to purchase this this infrastructure in bulk that's compliant i can certainly go back with planning staff and explore how we can make sure we're still permitting it appropriately um as long as they're not out of compliance with some of the the liquor code that we are out of control on okay that makes sense and you had had mentioned like some of the smaller i don't know volume restaurants maybe couldn't afford some of the the larger outlays so that might help with equity theoretically

[150:01] it certainly could okay um and then just a question that we've we've gotten some comments about the propane tanks i assume whatever we're going forward with does have like a heating component because is it visualized that people would still be allowed to use those and and ask for maybe two reasons one it seems like when we're trying to model this on europe maybe there's not a lot of propane heaters out there i don't remember that them maybe they are and second to the extent that there are still enclosures um involved like we did um we did make it unlawful to have propane inside of a tank last year inside of a tent last year so that that feels a little bit incongruous so right now in our draft guidelines and requirements we are suggesting that there would be no tenting structures and nothing over the three foot walls other than maybe heat lamps which those are things that we see in the private or the outdoor dining

[151:01] previous extensions prior to the covid pandemic or umbrellas or things like that but when it comes to these structural components we've seen a lot of issues when it comes to wind weather the desire to heat or cool we have air conditioners that are operating out in these spaces as well so we are proposing at least in our draft guidelines and requirements that we would not be allowing any of those larger structures moving forward but we would still have propane tanks just like i mean you could have like the the tall heaters that are propane still yes okay well first uh yvette if you're still here thanks for all your hard work and getting this going for the last few years with outdoor dining and christopher thanks for all your work with that but also taking the helm and continuing to move us forward um my question centered around kind of this sort of annual permit and the timing of

[152:00] when our temporary piece ends here in august and when the sort of new permitting cycle begins one is that sort of is still in kind of peak summer outdoor dining time in our community and so i'm kind of wondering that is is there a transition built in that um in terms of when that happens do you just need to be committed and you'll be given sort of a grace period over a certain amount of time from which to install the modular or start the permitting process um if we want to relax our land use regulations or create some sort of ordinance so i'm just kind of wondering if you're already got outdoor dining set up and you want to go through the permitting process that you're still allowed to use it while you're in process permitting the last thing i'd i'm currently concerned about is if you invest that kind of money and then you got to throw it away while you're in permitting process to then only bring it back so i want to make sure that that area is covered um in in that capacity and really just sort of want to make sure that we're not forcing change right in the

[153:00] middle of the busy season and if there's a time to say maybe on the backside of winter in early spring when we're starting to really come back up that that's a time for install so i didn't quite pick up on the timing of that in the presentation so if i missed that my apologies and then the other part the really other question would be timing of the ordinance i know we have general statutory requirements of doing an ordinance but i'm kind of curious when we thought if we wanted to go down that path when that might get done would it be done before august or with that sort of leak and work plan wise those are all really good questions um and i think the whole packet relates back to the emergency orders and so that's really you know we certainly have no intention of paying ourselves into a corner but we also wouldn't suggest that our outdoor dining conversation should drive when an emergency is is ending um and so we certainly want to take into consideration the nuances of if emergency orders are ending august 31st is there a way through other avenues working with our cross departmental team that can allow that

[154:02] slow transition to compliance and so we can certainly in our next touch with you all as we get the guidance tonight and and move forward we will take that that issue that you've raised into consideration and let you know what we can do in that regard i appreciate that and the other question sort of back to bob's question sort of that kind of touched on cost a little bit and one was um some of this is based on five years and so i'm kind of curious if would would cost substantially change for restaurants if it was amortized out over maybe seven or ten years like would that lower the barrier of entry again kind of coming back to an equity perspective to make sure everybody has an e a good opportunity to get into that does that do would that change the math more or less in that capacity um we would have to take a closer look at that i mean so there certainly is an amortizing schedule that led to the amounts that we were looking at and so you adjust any of those variables you're

[155:01] going to come out with some different numbers and so i would say we need to have a conversation about those assumptions that went into those numbers and make sure that we're thinking around some of those equity considerations and make sure we're we're thinking about those variables i would say even with uh option a if folks buy their own equipment our current lease rate off the bricks is 13 13 per square foot and 1875 per square foot on the bricks that could change that likely will change um over time and so yeah there are variables that uh um that we won't know until the world changes and we'll learn more and that's kind of the nature of the pilot as well as we want to have that time to learn about these things to determine after that five years what you know what is the the uh right amount to be charging and uh what are the adjustments we need to make appreciate that thanks mark then lauren then bob okay thank you thank you um

[156:01] first i want to shamelessly jump on matt's comment uh i i i think you may be cutting it a little close uh in terms of everything that needs to be decided and implemented by august and so i think some thoughts should be given to rolling this through october before we make um we make restaurants actually uh change everything and and move into the new system um there are just a lot of moving parts to this um my own questions are a little different um you made a reference to vandalism um have we experienced a lot of vandalism with respect to the uh the outdoor facilities um uh i guess it'd be defined a lot i do know that there was a notorious event on halloween of last year that did lead to a lot of damage and destruction of infrastructure on pearl street and i

[157:00] would say in general throughout the city we experience vandalism on a daily basis not necessarily associated with the outdoor dining infrastructure but it is a concern that we need to keep in mind as we're implementing infrastructure whether it's for outdoor dining or anything else well at least under the first two options you've proposed who would be responsible for damage repair um city or or the uh the restaurateur um at this point uh it's yet to be determined we likely would be wanting to pursue some sort of maintenance agreement with uh individual businesses um or a partner like the downtown boulder partnership for any of those parklets that are within the downtown boundaries so i'd say it it's probably gonna depend and um in a 500 square foot facility how many seats can you get do you have any sense of that oh

[158:00] i'm i am not a uh restaurant designer but it probably it probably uh depends on the ambiance that you're going for okay fair enough and and my last question i i've just got to ask it because i i don't really understand on page 11 of the memo under equity there's a sentence that begins height restrictions of three feet and prohibition of closing structures and roofs is recommended out of safety what is the three foot height restriction that's associated with alcohol licensing uh so if you want to serve alcohol that is the the height requirement um for your barriers between general public space um and uh service space oh okay the sentence didn't reference the um what you were talking about so i am looking at and thinking are we gonna be serving three foot tall boulder residents where are we going to find them

[159:00] children are not going to be served all right fair enough thank you if i may yeah well just it's like at the amusement park she must be this tall i love it maybe we can build that into the structures though i just wanted to say two things one is uh and one to clarify in the february first packet that we sent there was a reference to the outreach that was done with um our group on disabilities the people with disabilities there was a notion there that the video link is available upon request and it sounds like there is request or there's some desire so we will make sure to send that around but just want to make sure that we're not we're trying to find that but it's you're not going to be able to listen to it right now tonight on the diet so i wanted to clarify that and to the question about the orders i'll say that we hear you right our public health orders our emergency orders have been around public health considerations we are not proposing that the outdoor dining concept be what drives it although we will look at numbers when we get to august about whether there is a safety

[160:01] consideration depending on where our covid numbers are to expand because it is a public health need to do so and do that and then we'll take a look at that in august about what that is but we want to be really be clear and talk about additional options that we have because if the numbers do not support maintaining those emergency orders for that purpose are there other vehicles that we can use if we hear from you all a strong desire to to expand that if i can just follow up on that if people don't mind there was a suggestion from uh chip of the downtown boulder partnership in an email this afternoon that perhaps the partnership could apply for a special use permit for a couple of months to bridge that end of the emergency orders to end of the season does that seem like something that potentially might work that is certainly something the working group has discussed and we can uh explore further absolutely cool i think we got lauren up next but did you want to colloquy on the same issue okay so yeah lauren bob matt

[161:03] and then nicole thanks i had a sort of similar question to bob but related to the seasonal opening and closing of parklets is there like a threshold there could some restaurant could we allow some to opt in and some to opt out of seasonal closure or does it really as you've been thinking about it need to be an all or nothing kind of situation on that front um i think we'd have to contemplate that a little bit more um i don't know that we've we've gotten into that level of nuance of uh it would tie back to the permitting process on how do we keep track of who's doing what for what period of time um without creating a huge burden on on staff of making sure that we're getting out there to inspect those facilities um and making sure people are following the rules and doing what they said they were going to be doing so we need to explore that nuance further if there is

[162:01] some desire for um seasonality then then we would need to be really thoughtful about those parameters and if there is if it is more of a let folks go as they as they prefer then that would be a different approach okay thank you and then i had another question about um you know there was some we have funding set aside currently through our sort of arpa allocation and i was just wondering with the number of businesses that are currently doing utilizing the outdoor dining program if we were to look at that sort of what level of subsidy for what percentage of those businesses would that money be providing like are we getting to that 35 number per square foot for all businesses that currently are using it or are we getting

[163:00] half of the way there do you have any sense of that not at this moment um i know that the the spectrum of possibility is you know we've seen some examples for instance san francisco is has provided a flat grand of 2500 per transition from whatever's out there now to the city approved infrastructure that's one another end of the spectrum we have other communities that have funded the infrastructure one hundred percent uh with you know no ask of the participating businesses it's kind of just uh here here you go we're we're helping out so um we'd we're seeking that guidance from you all today to try to understand um where maybe on that spectrum we need to be moving toward thank you bob really um two follow-up questions one on equity and cost and the other um on access which we haven't gotten into yet but i wanted to follow up on first on equity and cost uh a point that matt raised and i the picture that's on our screen here in in

[164:01] in the chambers probably makes my point i assume that whatever regulations you come up with as far as size and quality and safety and so on and so forth are going to be different on the street for example than they are beyond the bricks i mean for no other reason then there's not going to be a car driving down these bricks and so the picture on our screen shows just kind of a table and some chairs and do you really need the big bulky protective modular unit on the bricks the way you would need it in a parklet or you can have two different standards the infrastructure that we are currently looking at the modular infrastructure can accommodate different types of working environments and so um you are correct and yes we would not require um large platforms um in addition to the bricks that that since we have that flat surface for ada accessibility alcohol service still does require the three foot wall and so we are looking at some consistency in the side structures um

[165:02] but obviously on the bricks we would not require that intensity of use or infrastructure for the surface on the ground okay so you'll have different standards depending on the conditions correct including safety ada and then of course the liquor rules always come into play okay changing gears a little bit um talk a little about access because we haven't touched on that too much um you know one of the challenges i think on west pearl is unlike the rest of the mall and other parts of downtown where people who have mobility challenges can usually park pretty close and we've got handicapped parking on 11th street we've got handy pack parking on 13th and on 14th so you can usually get to your part of the mall and park relatively close if you have accessibility issues similarly i know that at least during covid we've done a pretty good job of creating little places for people to park temporarily and and dash in and pick up their takeout order i know we have this new 10 or 15 minute

[166:01] rule which is great um could we do something similar in in in west pearl um between ninth and eleventh that's a it's a long stretch from 9th to 11th and and i think some of the challenges with that stretch is there's there's not really a great place for someone with a handicap sticker let's say on the car to to park really close to you know that's not really anything on ninth and eleventh can be far away especially if they're going down in the direction of ninth could we better utilize 10th street which of course tenth doesn't cut through but it does go two and stops at pearl street right now we have half of 10th blocked off at the alley and the the southern part blocked off but could we um turn or maybe i should ask a question differently what would be the challenges in turning 10th street for its entire distance from spruce down to pearl into a place where traffic can go both ways i know it's only one way right now but could go both ways a cul-de-sac at the end of the southern end so people could

[167:00] turn around and go back the other direction and actually with lots and lots of handicap parking and maybe some spots for people to pick up to go orders i counted i looked it on google google satellite earlier today it looks like there's over 30 striped parking spaces on on the two sides of 10th between spruce and and in pearl so it seems to me that that that we could make that a lot of handicap parking and a lot of pickup parking between between spruce and pearl so tell me the reasons why we couldn't or wouldn't do that from a traffic engineering standpoint well i am not a traffic engineer and i do know that uh devon joslin is on the call but i would like to maybe take a step back before unless we want to get into the nuances of street design and turning radii um that that is a concept um that could be explored and evaluated among other

[168:01] concepts that have been suggested in this conversation knowing that there are there are a number of trade-offs in whether or not we keep the west end closed and things that we need to mitigate or eat or accept and so while that's possibly a perfectly viable idea some time and effort would need to be expended on evaluating that next to other ideas that we have heard that might that might better mitigate some of the challenges um we just haven't we have not had the time or capacity to do that level of analysis yet um and that's part of what we are suggesting we need to do without presuming that maybe there's a specific end in mind and maybe that will be the end that we come to but it will require a certain amount of evaluation and work we just bought you an extra two months so and it might take a little bit longer than that okay we can get you more time and good enough bob devin i appreciate

[169:01] you popping up it sounds like we got probably what we needed from chris that's good enough for now thank you devon enough right so we got um matt yeah and then nicole um so question about sort of annual permitting and this really just comes from you know restaurants already dealing with lots of things they have to do lots of hoops they have to jump through lots of permits like liquor licenses and other things um how would we want to fit this in as seamlessly as possible and that's really kind of my question is do we want to kind of say like it's calendar year and therefore at least for staff it just comes in as one bulk there's your chance you process it you move on versus just it constantly peppering throughout the whole year kind of thing and so i'm just sort of curious because it's just one more piece that they have to kind of do every year um and so trying to sort of lower some of that burden um as well for them and so i'm just wondering if there's been thoughts on how to integrate that kind of process uh for restaurants and anybody utilizing an outdoor dining into the system and

[170:00] processes that they already undertake and have to deal with quite a lot of administration for i'm not sure i am the best person to respond to that question because i know that that that relates to a lot of different uh processes of the city and i'm not sure if um edward stafford wants to come up and and speak to that i see him making his way down come on down edward well thank you edward stafford senior manager in planning and development services so part of what we actually would look at is what has to be an annual basis which may be more about the fee versus some of the fee pieces which may be a longer basis part of what we also have to account for is what do we have administrative rights under the charter under the bolder revised code that we can do so for example in the lease of public space we can only do that administratively that's less than three years and so we'll have to watch what those dates and what those renewals can be and we're used to that we do that on a very regular basis with patios that were permitted long before the emergency orders that you see out there and so those would be the things

[171:01] we'd be pulling together for that we are looking and want to have the least administrative burden case for our own well-being and for our restaurants out there and so we would not want to necessarily see something that has to be done with a complete new process every year we also have to take into account as a part of that what the liquor licensing requirements are and i know they also would prefer not to have to repeat that process every single year and there are limitations to how long we can do it more than likely in a five-year pilot these are going to be two the initial and a renewal period that will probably be necessary especially for those that are being looked at in the right of way in the city's property that's very helpful thank you for clarifying that i think there's yeah it sounds like there's room for us to kind of work on that versus it being sort of a fixed outcome with regards to those permits correct a big thing we want to make sure is that they're not having to pay all of that money for five years up front recognizing that's a cash flow issue and so there's abilities to do that on an annual basis wonderful thank you cool

[172:01] thank you and thanks for once again answering our many many questions about all these things my question is about the draft financing options and as i understand it in all of these um cases the city would be reimbursing or offsetting some of the expenses um for some of the infrastructure am i understanding that correctly that would be the intent of yet using dollars to offset okay thank you just wanted to make sure i understood that part correctly before i get to my question so my real question is just around you know infrastructure needs to be replaced after a while right so you know we have some money to help out with some of these costs now what happens in five or ten years like where where does the money for replacing some of that infrastructure come from at that point and um yeah i guess my my question is where is future council going to find the money for uh replacing some of the

[173:00] infrastructure it's a really good question i think it depends on the option that we want folks to pursue if it's the option where they pay their revocable license fee for the use of the public right-of-way and they own the infrastructure then if it gets to a point that it is not being kept in repair then the city can exercise its right to revoke that revocable license and we can make sure that the aged infrastructure is removed when it comes to a program where the city does a bulk purchase that was part of the accounting that we were looking at and trying to make sure that we were narrowing in on on an amount that could accommodate for future replacement over uh anticipated 10-year lifespan of infrastructure presuming that after those five years the program wants to continue okay so if i'm understanding correctly then um the money would come from some of the fees and things along the way um

[174:00] we would just be kind of saving that and banking it for replacement costs in the future correct okay thank you um and then my other question uh was that um it seems like staff is not recommending maintaining the west pearl closure the truck the vehicle closure and i'm wondering if i'm understanding that correctly or if you are preferring to not take a stance and just provide us with information i'm just kind of wondering there that's a really good question thanks for putting me on the spot [Laughter] staff has did not provide a specific recommendation to discontinue the closure um i'd say that a lot of the data that we have um uh is across the board when it comes to the considerations that that city staff would take into account our inclination is to certainly be more conservative and would would uh suggest um that the disk that the closure to vehicle traffic discontinue

[175:01] for the uh time being in its current format so that we can have the time to explore other possibilities um while not having to also deal with with what we're experiencing out there right now but um we acknowledge that a lot of folks in the community have said that they really like it um and even the business community on the the closure did not come out in a strong enough majority to make it seem like there's full consensus on keeping it closed or open so i we we have been hesitant to provide a specific recommendation but um are we would certainly air more towards being conservative and acknowledge that any other time outside of emergency orders there isn't there we wouldn't have just arbitrarily closed the street unless there was some sort of emergency that the water main break or some something that needed to happen that required that immediate closure without a more thorough process and we just

[176:00] haven't had the time um to do that sort of that type of process yeah thank you all right can we move oh tara i didn't have to deal with this microphone while we were on zoom but there's no need for them that's true thanks for reminding me i couldn't find the mute button i appreciate when it comes to that outdoor furniture the modules are they affected at all by weather so if we did have seasonal closures would it help the um life of those structures or it doesn't matter um it's a really good question i don't think we know enough for sure in the sense of there's it might be six of one half dozen of the other in leaving the infrastructure out in the elements throughout the winter with snow plowing and ice mitigation there are some impacts there but physically taking everything apart and storing it and then pulling it all

[177:00] back out again might have some other impacts we just don't know yet so maybe in some ways of the people if the different restaurants etc have their own their own furniture and their own structures it might be easier for them to store it these are pretty large hefty pieces correct or you don't think that makes a difference um i'd have to think more about that it would be easier for the city uh for sure if if individual restaurants maintained and stored their own equipment but the at least the infrastructure that we're looking at is designed to be easily stored in a compact way okay um and so that's that's part of the consideration uh in this uh vendor selection well that's really good to know and um the 35 dollars i know bob was earlier talking about that it's 18 and then 13 so that the 35

[178:01] dollars includes that already so it's not really 35 extra dollars correct okay and my last question is is if we do extend it to october can we remove some of the unseemly structures before october or do they have to stay there until october that's my question that's a that that's a good question i mean can we extend it and then still ask people to start removing the structures that are unseemly way before that i would presume that we could find some folks who would willingly work with us if once we have some decisions around what the post pandemic emergency order program is going to look like we might have some some folks who want to work with us in the near term i'd say the challenge being is is the summer months are the busiest months and so folks are going to be really interested not necessarily in the transition but what's the impact of their ability to operate even for a short period of time so if we can make that transition really quick and easy then we might find some folks who want

[179:00] to work with us but if we end up extending for some uh then then presumably we need to extend for all and then it'd be a volunteer basis if folks want to transition sooner okay we've got junior and maybe we can move on to answers yeah i i have a question about the expansion or extension until october will we have to do another survey how will you ensure that people who i first thought okay this was just gonna be until is it august or september and then it's extended a little bit longer how are you going to get their buy-in if you know their hope is this would be because they are community members or businesses who are ready for this closure to end and for us to go back to normal so how will you ensure you get their buy-in

[180:01] thank you for that question um i think it's it's kind of two-fold in a sense of the emergency orders are the emergency orders and and uh that's really the date that you know we're looking at and right now they're extended for this particular element of the coven 19 response through august 31st if numbers continue to rise as they seem to be doing right now we might find ourselves in a position that we want to continue those orders to the end of october or the end of the year it's it's uh i'd say that there's still a lot of unknowns in the emergency orders regardless we want to get to a point where we can adequately and accurately communicate to the restaurants what that post-emergency order condition will be and whether that's uh september 1st or january 1st or may 1st of 2023 um i'd say that that that's that's the other piece yeah thank you all right well let's hit the answers to your questions and so i will note we've

[181:01] got a lot of these to answer so if we spend a half an hour in each of them we'll be here all night so let's see if we can move forward through them i know we'll have some comments but hopefully on some of them we can just say yes or no or great so i think you have slides that have yeah do you want to thank you john okay so i guess i can just read it here so our first one does council wish to direct staff to expand the working scope beyond downtown and continue developing guidelines and requirements to allow for an outdoor dining pilot program city-wide in both the public right-of-way and on private property after the covenant emergency orders end and i've got a thumbs up over here i've got all kinds of thumbs up mine too yay that was a good one any quick comments on just one quick comment um we got in our economic report that restaurants in the hospitality industry are going to lag behind just about every other business in terms of their recovery out of covid into at least 2025 and so i just as a

[182:00] preface for all of this that we're doing whether it be through arpa through outdoor dining through what it is i think it's just critical that we remember that's a heavily impacted part of our business community that's going to lag behind the others and so it just sort of speaks to the need for us to really try to give them the support to get them through that extended period of hard times which they've already had and will continue to have beyond many other businesses in our community point taken next do the staff proposed pilot program guidelines and requirements adequately balance considerations around key issues including safety accessibility equity and operations people are a little slower here we got nicole i just want to ask a question about this question when i've been thinking about this decision i've been thinking about the beautiful table you made us that shows the matrix right and i'm just wondering is this referring to a specific row in the matrix is this just sort of

[183:01] in general trying to figure out how to scope my answer actually i might ask that matrix may have been about the west pearl closure and we're currently talking about outdoor dining pilot program do i have that right it's both and do it and i'm happy to yeah okay answer explain better the question so it's kind of iterative where we are seeking some guidance tonight we are narrowing down on some of those requirements and so um it's not fully baked yet on what those requirements are going to be and it is contingent on both the west enclosure for instance if the west enclosure does not continue then the requirement on the west end is going to for any outdoor dining extensions would be there needs to be a barrier between traffic and the outdoor dining space so it is it is interconnected um so this question um maybe if i could go back i would

[184:00] rephrase it a little bit because we're not quite fully there yet but it does relate back to that table of we need to get to a point where we are accommodating all the safety considerations but acknowledging that depending on where council goes tonight there might be more we need to do around some of the other components for equity accessibility among operations thanks for explaining that better but i just but the point say that this is about outdoor dining specifically rather than the west pearl just to be clear yeah so without necessarily agreeing with every guideline or requirement yes i believe that this has been adequately balanced we got a thumbs up okay sorry go ahead we'll get a couple bob mark yeah i guess i'm gonna get the same kind of qualified answer the rachel just did i mean generally yes um but a couple of things that we mentioned early some of us mentioned is some degree of flexibility in the restaurant so for example the flexibility on whether they bring their own modular unit or the city um leases it to them i get the fact that there's a there's a

[185:00] volume discount there so that you may not be able to provide that flexibility but if you can that'd be great same with along the lines of what lauren raised about season flexibility around seasonality some may want to and some may not want to so i don't know if we want to prescribe one thing or the other and then again i i urge staff as he developed those guidelines to really focus on access and how do we particularly when it comes to west pearl i know we're talking about dining generally but but access to ensure wherever this outdoor dining is it does provide access because i know we did this kind of quickly back in may of 2020 and and and now we're kind of catching up to that and i want to make sure that whatever you do does have um an access consideration i know you've been thinking about it so i guess i'd give it a qualified yes okay mark matt uh also a qualified yes i'm going to piggyback on bob's comment i think there needs to be a little more emphasis on accessibility um particularly for those who are more challenged in terms of mobility and i'd like us not to create a

[186:02] a dining experience that only some can enjoy and so i would encourage a little more a more detailed look at that that issue and how we're going to address it let's forget matt nicole ginny or nicole matt sorry okay apparently it's getting a little later now what's your name again [Laughter] lauren then i was just gonna give another qualified yes answer i think for me it's more about like the general framework that you've laid out i think is really balanced as we dive into the details i think that um opinions might start to shift more that there's going to be some more controversial things that come up yes we're qualifying a lot of our answers um so i'll sort of stay on trend

[187:01] uh the one consideration that i'd like to see us build in and i know that there's we're starting that is the the long-term future of the downtown corridor and where this and the other improvements we may do fit into that and so i think you know making not only meeting the needs of today but like we're thinking about with so many other things are we building the infrastructure and needs for tomorrow and i think that's a consideration i'd like to see over the next few years as we start to build out that larger downtown program but i think that that's an essential piece i'd love to see it part of this as well thanks juni oh you got to me quickly thank you uh it's a yes for me as well and i think there was a question that was brought to you about maintenance what does that will look like and i think maybe that's something that definitely your team need to look into because i'm thinking okay you said well maybe the city will do it maybe the downtown partnership does that mean we will have to hire more staff and what does that look like especially now during this coveted pandemic so

[188:00] that's something to consider but overall i think that's a very thoughtful process that you've been through and thank you for bringing it forward i'm just calling myself yeah i think you're going in a really good direction they're very you've been very thoughtful about those guidelines i'll echo the thing about flexibility that you know that potential for some people to do their own thing and and other people to join in with the the city program maybe some people could be seasonal if they can manage the transition on their own and not impose a substantial burden on the city with that so if we can find ways to be flexible i think that'd be good and also just to that public versus private just on the private property if we can keep the regulations minimal and really stick to ada accessibility safety the required alcohol rules but not try to layer a whole bunch of extra on you know because i think as opposed to the the parklets where you're in the right of way and i think you need to be more careful it seems like on the private property you can be a little

[189:00] more forgiving anything else on this or we move to the next one yep one i guess there's an observation matt maybe think of this when he's talked about thinking about downtown holistically and long term um i just want to remind us that when the voters approve the community culture resilience and safety tax in november one of the things that we committed to the voters was that four million dollars of that money would be allocated to a pearl street refresh that money hasn't really been allocated or spent yet and so in addition to the arpa money theoretically we could use some of that money for whatever infrastructure um that might be developed around outdoor dining particularly around the west end so i just want to don't want to forget about that four million that's kind of hanging on out there great point what do we got next does council wish to direct staff to create an ordinance to waive or modify certain land use regulations such as use review requirements for businesses that wish to participate in outdoor dining in both public right-of-way and private property as part of proposed five-year pilot program i'm seeing lots of thumbs

[190:00] up i totally agree i'll just say and i would go pretty far with this like and again things not related to safety ada accessibility etc like let's let people do this easily everybody loves outdoor dining right like it's such a pleasure to be able to sit alfresco with your friends so okay well good enough on that next does council wish to direct staff to pursue funding options to partially subsidize the capital costs associated with bringing existing outdoor dining extensions into compliance with code and the proposed pilot program guidelines and requirements i got a thumbs up over here another one i got a nicole's got to comment okay good and then matt and rachel i just kind of get concerned with the amount of staff time that that may go into something like this and you know recognizing that while everybody loves outdoor dining when you're part of the outdoor dining it's not

[191:01] clear to me that that's true in terms of um you know how much folks have been working on this and i just greatly appreciate all the work that's gone into it um but um i i think my my leaning here is really dependent on staff's assessment of the the sort of trade-off right um applying for grants is it takes a lot of time um i think you know for sustainability purposes i would really prefer to not have something that's grant dependent that could you know a program cost right that's incorporated that can sustain itself into the future and i'm just one of nine so but an important part of those nine matt rachel uh yeah so i'd actually take it a little step further um instead of partially i think this is infrastructure that we should completely invest in given that the fees are then self-perpetuating beyond and given the lag of the restaurant industry's recovery this is exactly the kind of

[192:00] investment this is exactly the kind of stuff arpa money was designed to serve we know our restaurants employ lower income and you know marginalized communities are employed at our restaurants i mean it is so fitting for us to make this investment and then let it propagate in perpetuity with those fees so so instead of partial i would say let's go whole hog into this and really make sure we're investing into the long-term sustainability of our hospitality industry rachel would with this investment be city-wide and would it include i mean is what are we answering with this question and do you need us to to give you a dollar amount like we had a couple different targets we will develop the proposal further based on the feedback tonight um we would propose that uh any grants would be limited to folks who've already demonstrated that they've spent dollars on outdoor dining

[193:00] infrastructure that's now no longer compliant if we're requiring them to transition to this uniform modular infrastructure whether it's on private property or public property we're suggesting that we would make some of these resources available to them if they don't want to participate in a bulk purchase program that would be limited to businesses that are expanding into the public right-of-way so one of the earlier questions was should we extend this beyond downtown but this question is already extended beyond downtown to answer it so and and would it apply to restaurants like in strip malls if the developer allows them to and they've already invested if they demonstrate that yes they've already invested we are suggesting that they would be eligible for some grant and and what about um restaurants who who maybe weren't allowed to participate because of developers and like seems like they're boxed out yeah i'd say that that's an element that we don't have control over

[194:01] um okay so generally supportive and and would want to make sure that it's it's equitable maximally tara then i'll call myself i should have asked this a few questions ago i don't know where it fits into all the questions but i was thinking about one of the comments and i wanted to first thank the community everybody who wrote back on those surveys some of those answers were really great and creative one of them was that the modulars really don't account for as much creativity per se am i correct like everything begins to look the same it has that more corporate look somebody wrote and i tend to agree with them how can we contin how can we promote creativity downtown and not have everything just look the same is my question or are you really into the look the same thing chris you might be i'm not saying it's bad well uh community vitality now includes arts and culture um

[195:00] so i i would suggest that uh that is an element that we want to remain flexible to a certain point um and that the the infrastructure that we are looking at does have elements that can be customized per business desires and if there are wood panels that can be painted um there are there are a number of variables and options available um in the infrastructure that we're looking at that will allow folks to be um reasonably creative i think that creative is also can be something that's in the eye of the beholder and something that might seem really creative to to one person might uh seem like quite the eyesore to another so trying to put some uh guardrails around that if i can just expand on that too that one of the reasons modularity has been proposed as an initial not as an only is because it's faster and there is a desire to have some ability for current restaurants to really be able to step into that as well there is a tract where people if they want to be more

[196:00] creative and more unique that they can do it but then their track for approval will be slightly elongated so that will be something that will be a determination made by each business as we move forward and again as we continue to step up that may change in the future but for now there was an expediency about modularity that is both uh timeliness issue and knowing that there is some customization that could come as well right well and well i was just going to call myself next to what you did um so i just say that i think you're you're on the right track here i think if we can get additional grants to help offset the capital costs fantastic maybe we can get assistance from say the downtown boulder partnership and applying for those grants to not put too heavy of a burden on staff or look for other assistance but um i think it'd be good to um partially subsidize those capital costs i know we already have some arpa funding identified right to assist with some of this so that's great more opportunities

[197:00] would be good if we can find them as well any other particular comments on the suit rachel i think good one nope okay move on i think we need to go back a slide okay does council wish to direct staff to take steps necessary to continue or discontinue the temporary west end closure to vehicle traffic as it contemplates the possible addition of a future work plan item to develop a long-term downtown vision that includes shared street concepts outside of the gate can i ask that maybe we go to the matrix and because the one question i have is do we want to in this particular question do we want to also answer it by perhaps consolidating those five options down to preferred two or three so that then there's much more um focused guard rails for staff in terms of where our eventual maybe preferred direction might go versus it's still just the whole enchilada of options and so i'm wondering if there's appetite from anybody on council to take that

[198:00] opportunity embedded in this question to try to if we can narrow those five down to two or three options are you talking about the one that was earlier in the presentation that's what seems to be the suite of things that are dictated as a function of this and by saying yes we're kind of saying yes but then to some other combinations so i'm wondering if council can provide some greater clarity within that well i think you were talking about the one that was at the beginning of the presentation like so can we flip to that quickly and and i'll just i'll just mention i'm happy to to take a look at that i'll just point out that that we have what are we doing for the next few months and what are we doing longer term you know we have to figure out what we're doing for the next few months we don't have to figure out tonight what we're doing long term so mark you know this one has

[199:00] um appears to be easy you know so many people would like to see more pedestrian traffic on the west end but to me this is something we ought to be fairly cautious about i i take seriously when we get substantive emails from jalowski dave querrey the owner of jack's west end cafe centro apparently trident is also interested in returning uh the west end to normal and going back to something that that matt said if if we wish to help our restaurants um what's the right thing to do here and it's not simply whether we want to have car traffic there or not i'm focused on what's going to be beneficial to our restaurants and that sector and when you look at the vacancies between 9th and broadway

[200:00] i i have questions as to as to the effectiveness of what we're doing and i don't think we need to necessarily make that decision tonight you know yay or nay i'd like to see more analysis of it but i would want us to take pretty seriously the comments from some fairly serious restaurateurs if that's the sector we're most concerned uh with assisting um so i i would simply urge us to go a little bit slowly on that juni mayor i'm sorry before if i may interrupt just a reminder to speak into our mics we've had some fluctuations amongst the speakers if we're doing that as we're coming back in thanksgiving i was trying to be nice brenda so

[201:00] um i don't know which where we are heading are we going to look at the matrix and if we are i would like for chris to tell us where to go because it looks like there's one two three four five options but it could be more than five options depending on how we're looking at it so i think it goes back to the question that was just recently asked i think we're looking at the matrix up on the screen right now yes it's the same one i have in front of me as well but my question is sorry to interrupt but yeah so i think the we've already done the left hand column right so that that we have chosen to continue outdoor dining expansions i think we've given that feedback so i think we're looking at the second column which it as proposed has three options to no continued vehicle closure seasonal only or just yes okay okay okay yeah press this question bob i want to make sure we're answering the white correct question because because i i don't know if this right-hand column of the matrix is is

[202:01] always in forever or it's just between now and october because those are two different questions if the question is or should we keep west end closed through october while we think more about this then that's maybe a different answer than are we making a long-term decision now and i think the question that chris asked was between now and october or maybe august right yeah well you want to say what you're thinking and then let me just let me clarify i think we can certainly just answer the decision to october but my only concern is if we do that decision and then we just sort of walk away and go about our business have we provided some scope that in the intermediate time based on that decision we've narrowed the scope for staff to start thinking about that long term and i don't want to then come to october and then start to refine this list if we can maybe already chip away at a few of these options and provide a little bit more of a refined list of things for staff to already start to build upon so when we do get to that time we're not starting at five we're maybe talking about only two or three

[203:00] potential options for the long-term possibility so i just i just want to like make short and long-term perhaps inc steps tonight if possible versus kick the can on the long term until october and then start that conversation right so i agree with you although they're they're they there's only three choices which is yes no and seasonal because those are our three choices in long term so i don't know if we can knock one of those out um but we try so here's what i'd suggest let's start with the what are we doing for the next few months and then the next question is about what kind of outreach do we want to do and i think maybe we could then as part of that address like well what kind of direction are we looking towards and how do we want to engage the community as we're thinking about that could that work so we'll start with the short term and then talk about what comes next sure um yeah sure yeah i mean that works i i just hope we come out of this with a little bit more of a narrow or scope of long-term possibility that's a point point taken so with with your permission

[204:01] then let's talk about what are we doing between now and at the end of august or the end of october kind of depending on whether the whenever the end of the public health emergency orders and what we have to do next to extend this if we'd like so rachel's hand up first well so the question that i see is do we want to continue or discontinue the temporary west end closure during that interim period right that's what we're being asked to answer tonight i think directly yeah yes what what is the desired condition after the emergency orders have ended well or is it right is it between now and when they end no no whatever we were presuming that whatever's out there now will continue um um this is all the consideration after emergency awards i had that wrong so thanks for clarifying that rachel so we're keeping it closed not

[205:07] dining that available into travel lanes so we're suggesting that uh we know emergency orders will be ending at some point um and we want to work with restaurants to get them inside an envelope that will work with a reopening of the west end of vehicle traffic if that's the desire of council if your desire is to keep the west end closed indefinitely in anticipation of a longer planning process then we don't necessarily have to require restaurants to put in barriers to protect outdoor dining from vehicles they could expand out into the travel lanes because that space would be theoretically open and available for other purposes if it's not going to have vehicles so we do need some direction on once emergency orders end what is the envelope that we have to work with for restaurants on the west

[206:00] end specifically if we're going to be pursuing an outdoor dining program do we need to make sure that they are aware that their envelope is within parking spaces because we need to get that street reopened so if i can just ask a clarifying question here because the the question is saying like wow we're also talking about longer term right so so what kind of interim time period are you thinking about here because there's like so there's through august then there's some next time period which is about what you're asking about now and then some longer term future where are you seeing those time frames looking like so yeah no i'm confused um so we we would anticipate that there is a desire to extend the closure on the west end at least through the end of this warm season so the folks who have tents out there now don't need to remove those until we get into our next timeline can i just pause we're

[207:01] saying does anybody disagree with that right so it's still close to vehicles through august at a minimum okay thanks go ahead then post the end of emergency orders or some sort of you know transition time where we get folks from whatever they have now to compliance because we discussed earlier that maybe we want to have a little bit of a wiggle room even if the emergency orders end um is there a way that we can allow folks a little bit of time between now and the end of the outdoor eating season to get into compliance then what are the conditions after that so it's really about what does compliance mean on the west end does compliance mean that restaurants need to pull back into available parking spaces so that when if if this closure is not going to be continuing in perpetuity that we can actually open remove the concrete barriers and traffic and flow and outdoor dining can exist and coexist with that mixed traffic

[208:01] environment okay so do people want to weigh in on what happens after after august and that's chomping a bit will tear you raise your hand as you all know my biggest concern is probably the ada compliance and making it fair and just making it uh easier for people that are disabled that i'm gonna go with opening up west pearl and using the parking spaces for um the outdoor dining because i think besides the pictures of the snow which were very good pictures by the way thank you for those it reminded me of what it was like um in the winter on west parliament it just didn't feel that safe to me and it was quite messy snow wise and also heart for older people seniors and disabled to just manipulate themselves around some of the blockades so for that reason i'm either going to say yes for

[209:01] opening it or if you're not going to do that please seasonal and please don't keep pearl westpro closed is that right did i say that right all right um so well chris thanks for clarifying that issue just temporarily with regards to august and then some past after that and then the longer term beyond that um so i i i i and you know if i'm just way out of left field here i would like to still think can we ask can we answer the question in the form of a straw poll between those three options with west pearl i like that's what i'm trying to get at is what how do we how do we refine that beyond we know what we're doing until end of august then what is the scope beyond that and so are we just going to straight answer one or answer two or so i just how do we get to like that's what i'm trying to understand i guess i i do see this as is a question that's a little more subtle

[210:00] than just one of three options so i think it's worth people weighing in a little bit with their their thoughts it's not the thoughts or just wondering what the outcome is in terms of what are we going to try to settle on well let's hear from what people's thoughts are and then we'll try to drive to a direction okay okay okay did you want to i will say that i will just answer the question then i would like to see uh wes pearl i would like to have us not consider reopening i'd like to take that off the table and consider either seasonal or or maintaining closure in the long term so i'd like to narrow the three options down to two in terms of my preference okay thanks i think i had rachel and then lauren and then juni it feels a little premature to answer like the big picture one two or three because i'm hoping we will get more information like during the interim between whatever we're doing i would say that i would not be in favor of reopening until the analysis is done so that that seems like a lot of work and

[211:00] um you know it's a lot of change and it would seem like a pain for the the restaurants and businesses so i think to continue the temporary closure until we know what we're doing would be my my top choice i am concerned i think i have really enjoyed the the west end closure and it seems like it's just been you know i think it was mark uh councilmember walk who said you know it seems like you know all good like why wouldn't we do it but the the tax numbers that you showed the like the the revenue um and taxes seem to demonstrate that we don't love west end closure like if we're not giving them business then then um and we just think it's good then that's that's not a favorable outcome to me so um i would like i would definitely like more information on maybe a deeper dive you said that there were businesses that closed on the relevant blocks and that might be some explanation of

[212:00] of the tax revenue on those blocks so i would like more information there do not want to make it worse for businesses that we are trying to help and also you know we have goals to get people out of their cars and and so this is is helping towards that goal and it's it's climate friendly um if we do continue the closure i think we need to make it more bike friendly so there are a lot of questions you know maybe maybe it's a wound instead of a full closure i don't know yet what it should look like but i think directly to answer the question keep it closed until we know would be my my hope and then i would hope that we revisit this maybe early and often in in the upcoming months thanks thank you yeah i'm mostly in alignment with rachel i think that um but i do want to bring up an additional thing which is i don't think i want to see the transition happen in the middle of summer i think that

[213:00] that would be really cause a lot of chaos as a lot of people mentioned that's the busiest time for a lot of those businesses so for me i think it should stay the same as it is until october um it would be nice to have more information at that point to start considering like what the long-term options are for me i would like to see it stay closed but i do you know with the difficulty of 10th not going through and some of the issues that are kind of unique to the urban fabric in that area i do think that we need to look at that in a really nuanced way and so maybe you know one of the people suggested an area in kirkland park lane becomes a one-way wooner through um a restaurant area downtown and that's that example seems really um successful

[214:01] and so looking at some potentially one-way with parking that allows us to address some of these issues maybe for a portion of the street maybe tenth goes through in one direction or the other but that still allows more outdoor seating than we have now and is less of a car street than just opening it up but i also understand that making those changes takes time that's a big design undertaking so i think that maybe prior to october it would be nice to have an idea of what that schedule might look like and then i got mark nicole bob i saw we'll have a chance to talk here thank you erin um i think just from hearing my colleagues i think this is a very hard conversation or at least even for me i'm not sure where everybody stands and that's why

[215:00] earlier i thought maybe some framing for us would have been actually pretty good and i went back and looked at the matrix as was referred by matt and it seems like if we were to say no to both to continuing outdoor dining and also no to continuing the west end closure we would get to safety accessibility equity and operations it would be on the green so to me at first i thought that was a no-brainer that's what i wanted but i think we have to also consider other things in the community as well so i think for me i would say yes to continued outdoor dining expansion but no to the continued west end vehicular closure i think to me that's the sweet spot and i'm wondering if that's what you're looking from council members because from everyone else i heard so many different things i heard seasonal i

[216:00] heard seasonal based on west end closure and seasonal based on expansion so i don't know really know where people stand and i'm wondering do you really understand what we all are saying because we each are giving you different answers juni your answer was the clearest based on the materials uh provided so thank you um i'd say that i i will maybe want to go back and and repeat uh summary of what i've heard if we're not feeling like there's clear guidance but i guess i want to hear from everybody um and uh if you could follow jenny's exam no just kidding or not all right i think i saw mark next and then nicole you know my concern is that there are simply too many things that we don't know i don't know why uh all of those restaurateurs i i mentioned earlier with the exception of pasta j all are outside of the barriers and seem

[217:02] to be thriving and if you go inside the barriers we have a number of places that have gone out of business so again if the if the premise is how do we support our restaurant community i would like to know why that is the case why have we had so many businesses failing inside the barriers um and so many restaurateurs outside the barriers wanting us to take the barriers down those are things we just don't know and i'd like to get a little more analysis on that before we make the final determination as to whether it's open close seasonal not seasonal um i you know i'm delighted to be in the matrix but i i think we need a little more conventional guidance and analysis in terms of coming to those conclusions by the way matt can we can we call you neo now sorry nickel and bum and then okay

[218:00] thank you i'm just going to start out by following juni's example and saying that in the decision matrix i am also a yes for um outdoor dining and a no on the the west end closure um and you know i think this is really hard for me because i really love i love being down there i love the idea of closing off streets i love the idea of having more of our city that doesn't have vehicles in it um and you know i agree with rachel and lauren that change is hard right so if we were to go to a place where we're ending the seasonal closure or sorry ending the vehicular closure when the emergency order ends or sometimes shortly after while we think about how we could do a bigger vehicle closure right that is hard it's a bit of yoyoing for the businesses that are there right if we were to ultimately go back to deciding yes we do want to close some of these areas

[219:01] but one of the things that was coming to mind as i was thinking about this and preparing for the meeting tonight is uh something called the marshmallow test that we use a lot in uh in cognitive psychology and neuroscience and i wonder what it is you know that we would gain if we put some more thought and time um even even if it meant reopening to vehicles right but if we put the thought and time into creating something really intentional downtown where we could address some of these access issues where we could give businesses some time to prepare for what what might be a longer term closure that that feels right to me i really think that we could get something wonderful here where we could close off more of those streets downtown or make them have less less car traffic or things like that if we allowed you all some time to think about how to do that in an intentional way there was a part in the packet that i

[220:01] just loved about allowing staff to pursue a holistic broad and intentional vision for downtown boulder coming off of the east boulder sub community plan discussion last week too just really gave me a sense of what we can do as a community when we put the time into it and i love the idea of putting some time into it but i also think that opening it right opening it back up is the right thing to do while we make that decision and um i just just sort of one one other comment along those lines um we have so many crises that we're trying to deal with right now housing wildfire homelessness all kinds of things um adding something i i don't even think we can add something to the work plan right now right you were talking about it being a future work plan item in the memo so that that is on my mind as well that this is a long-term thing that we're headed toward but i think we've definitely gotten some feedback from the community that it's something that they

[221:00] would like us to explore bob um some of you know that i i like and kind of groove on boulder history this conversation reminds me of the conversation the boulder city council had in these very chambers in 1976 about whether to close pearl street um and there was a huge raging debate and businesses along pearl street said no don't close pearl street you'll put us out of business and where will people park and lots and lots and lots of stuff and now we look back 50 years later and we've got um probably the most successful pedestrian mall in the world now does six blocks is six blocks 50 better than four i have no idea i'm not an expert in these things but but um these very discussions were happening 50 years ago um and i suspect they'll be happening um for at least a few more months um i guess i'm i come out where matt and rachel and a few other people do i don't know what the long-term solution is but i guess my inclination because we

[222:02] have businesses that are are out there they've been made investments we have community members we seem to have a majority of businesses and community members who are supporting continued closures i guess i would i think we have a lot of work to do you have a lot of work to do sorry but i would keep it closed until we make those decisions if we can make those decisions in four to six months that's great if it takes longer than that then we should do that rather than reopening because i i suspect if we reopen we will never close it again i mean it we can we'll be talking for years and years and years and we will never close it again so let's seize what we have we have people who've made investments we have community majority community members the majority of businesses who like this notwithstanding the two or three emails we got today um and and take the time it takes if it takes two months that's great if it takes two years that's fine we should keep this closed until such time as we can make an informed and thorough decision along those lines a couple things that i

[223:00] would like to get um from your team chris um include some more detailed tax info because as matt observed in another convention visitors bureau observed the last businesses to recover are restaurants and they're lagging hotels and other hospitality industries and so i think the tax information we had was kind of um aggregated i'd like to see more detailed information about um i'd like i know we don't disclose tax information on a per business basis as confidential and you keep it confidential but i'd like to understand on a per restaurant basis how are they doing compared to 2019 using 2019 as the baseline on a business by business basis because i think we aggregate west end of town versus east end of town you're there's a lot of masking that's going on businesses are closing um there's more restaurants in the west than there are on the east so to say that the west is slow in recovery may just because the fact there's more restaurants there and so i would look at on a restaurant a

[224:00] business by business basis and have that analysis done i'd also like to um you know mark made a comment there's a lot of businesses that have closed on west parole there's a lot of businesses have closed on the breaks there's a lot of christmas businesses have closed on east parliament we could rattle through them all and i don't know who wins that competition but we we have a lot of businesses have closed so i think i'd like a scientific analysis rather than an anecdotal one about which businesses have closed and where rather than just kind of saying well this one closed so that one closed let's let's go through and take the time and do that scientifically i would like us to evaluate access because i think there is a solution there i don't think access is super super important arguably the most important factor we need to consider here because we have members of our community who cannot avail themselves of this wonderful thing then we haven't done our jobs but i think there are solutions there where we can allow all members of our community to access this really really cool thing and i wouldn't want a lack of creativity to stand in the way

[225:00] and say well geez we couldn't figure it out so i guess we're just going to have to throw hands up and walk away and then finally the other thing i'd like to have more information about you know we've kind of thrown seasonality in in the middle of this almost as like a compromise point like it's well if you don't want yes you don't like no how do we just do this seasonally and that doesn't make a whole lot of logical sense to me i'd like to hear the logical reasons why seasonality is a good thing because seasonality occurs to me involves at least two transitions per year and that's a lot of work and a lot of effort and a lot of expense so i'd like to understand why seasonality is a good thing maybe it is a good thing but i haven't heard that i haven't seen that yet other than it's halfway between yes and no and i want i want it to be a little bit more um rational than that i'd like to know why is why is seasonality a better thing for businesses and a better thing for the community maybe there is but i haven't heard him yet so that's where i am so i'd say long i know that was a long-winded answer

[226:00] i'm agreeing with those who said let's keep it closed until we figure it out okay i think i'm the only one who hasn't addressed it yet so i'll just say i mean this this is a challenging one because uh there's a difference of opinion right of the businesses that are located down there um and people have seen some have seen some great successes with the current situation some have seen some real challenges i've spoken to some of those restaurant tours and and i get that i i will say that of community members that i've heard from i i think just about all of them that i've talked to uh have really enjoyed the outdoor uh dining and the the west pro close to cars i feel like it's generally been a popular thing in the community um and and personally i love having some additional space that's that's not um available to cars and that's it's a pedestrian area so i i think that's really lovely and has been really successful so i and i think that if we we have an opportunity to to collaborate and co-create a vision for this area that can be unique not just you know the

[227:00] pearl street mall 2.0 um but but that you know could incorporate some uh european concepts like rachel was talking about like they're parisian market streets they're like closed in the morning because they're the vendors are out selling all the time then they're open for deliveries for a few hours and then they close it again and their tables out all evening you know so i think there there are a lot of potential different possibilities for this area that could be unique and really beautiful and wonderful that does take a little bit of time to work on so i i'm going to end up i think rachel and said said it well and then i think bob some you give the one sentence which is let's i i would say keep it closed while we figure it out but i with the caveat about access which is i think a really really important one tara spoke to that well and and i think the possibility of an in like something quicker along 10th street i think is really interesting like are there are there more tactical interventions that we could make that would only take a few months to figure out that would get us you know

[228:01] 10 handicapped parking spots and six pick up and drop off spots in in a as a way to allow people with mobility challenges to be able to get close to this this wonderful area of town so that would be my my ask while we try to figure out larger things is to see could we do something in in the shorter term um with that and i think so that's my bit um which way to follow up just a clarifying question for nuria sure and were you rolling your eyes at us that's not the question i'm just seeing a lot of ass and we'll talk about that in a minute all right great um so my question i don't i hope is not an ask but at the retreat i had um lifted up as one of my five like covid silver linings and one was working through uh outdoor restaurants and and west end expansion and i i thought i was told that's already part of the work plan so just want to clarify because it was said like we're not adding to the work plan and i my understanding is this is on

[229:02] it is in general terms and i appreciate the question truly uh rachel i think that when we were thinking about it we certainly were thinking about initially the asks that you all had posed to us is what happens with outdoor dining it seems that we cannot speak about outdoor dining without speaking about the closure of west end and that is a bigger conversation and i want to be really honest about that it i too appreciate it i think that's a really good thing i think what you have given us here is really good direction that there is a general desire to sort of open up streets more and to allow for more creativity and to look for other options not just downtown but frankly in other neighborhoods and in other parts of the city but i gotta say that as we're looking for that and this is again good direction to go there is the practical concern and i try to be very honest with everyone there's a practical consideration of what needs to be done there are state laws that regulate what we can or cannot do in certain places we will need to get business compliance on fencing and containment or they will start to get

[230:01] tickets not by us but by the state regulators there is we have to work um and figure out a part it was easier to do in covid right figuring out what we need to do post covid when emergency orders aren't there um is going to be something that we're gonna take back and figure out how to come to you all with an ordinance that can fast-track something but it will not fast-track everything and then there's the bigger conversation frankly and i think i know bob and i have talked about it and you all have mentioned it there are larger conversations to be had here about the future of downtown and the vision for downtown and what does that look like and some conversations that happen certainly well before i arrive but that are much more intricate and involved and there are things that are simply we don't have the capacity to do in this year's work plan so what i'm hearing in the in the conversation and when we talked about those silver linings and i think i started with that is that we knew that the outdoor pilot on the right now in downtown was

[231:01] something that we could probably come forward we were working on that we're going to move forward how do we get to the other aspects are something that we also want to move forward because we have certainly heard from you all and from community members that some longer term more expanded beyond downtown vision of what does it look like to have this kind of outdoor dining all around i won't say the name of it but my favorite beverage place is one that actually is not downtown and is currently occupying a parking structure so i have warned staff to let me know well in advance before i have to clutch my pearls and figure out what the future of that looks like but i think that we know that we want to move forward in a different direction and part of that will be saying we're not going to do it now our work plan is we've got to build that conversation and that engagement with community and figure out what exactly you want us to do in the future which will be broader so some things we're going to do now some things we're going to continue to look at but even if we had all the capacity in the world to start now i think this is a

[232:00] project that is a longer duration than would allow for the short term i don't know if that answers that question correctly it's helpful context so we all kind of spoke to this is a complex topic and you heard that in our words i i heard probably five people who would like to keep this open um while we're exploring the next phases uh people tell me if you disagree with having gotten that gist well i think of it as keeping it open to pedestrians so um keeping it close to cars um while we figure out next steps did i get that right it seemed like a kind of a bare majority on that one um but recognizing that this is a complex topic with pros and cons and and we we've got to figure out some next steps and we'll work on it together appreciate that and what i also heard was come back to us often and right i think that's our next step is getting more information continuing to work on it figuring out step by step one of our

[233:00] next steps will be what happens if we don't have a reason to keep emergency orders uh viable past august what is our next step and we'll want to talk to you about it we'll also need to talk to our cao staff about what does it mean to get an ordinance fast tracked and figure out what it looks like for particular areas so we hear you when we should come back and we will try to do that as fast as we can appreciate that we do have one last question but judy would you like to speak first no not to that question i think my comment is i know earlier you mentioned that you did talk to the businesses in the area of the west world is that when you come back to us with that information i would like to see specifically those businesses how they are impacted because bob just asked you to bring back tax information bring back tax information for these businesses how they are impacted as opposed to the whole because it's going to be skewed because there's more businesses in other areas so we

[234:02] need to know the impact of keeping this particular area close to these businesses thank you tara i would also like to know from the businesses there's going to be a difference in summer versus winter in january and february and i'm super concerned about january and february coming up again i know bob that you can't see any reasons why to close change things seasonally but you know i think we should we've talked about this because i don't understand why we would close west pearl or keep it open close it close it to cars in the winter when that's when we really need when it's really cold and snowy and when a lot of people want to do takeout and want to grab things quickly and nobody's going to be walking around in sub-zero temperatures are very few people are so that's why i would like us to still consider seasonally opening

[235:01] west pearl to cars in the cold months i'm just going to say that and i think we can talk about that when we come back to it next right i mean that's that we've not precluded that did i see him nicole are we on the last question about additional community engagement but first i think teresa's got something before we get too far down the road of sales tax disclosure i just do want to be clear that you know we can break that aggregate information up in some granular ways but what we're not going to be able to do is to give you individual numbers for businesses the law simply prohibits that it would be very informational but we can't do it but what we can do is look at what different kinds of granular ways can we break this up perhaps by geography perhaps by month that kind of thing so just wanted to make sure we were understanding your expectations and able to meet those thanks for clarifying that all right last question what additional community engagement is council desire

[236:00] moving forward regarding the pilot program and the temporary west end closure to vehicle traffic nicole i know i kept bringing up the racial equity instrument every time we've talked about this i think so far i am really interested in having that applied especially to the west end closure um and just to to let you know where i'm coming from um to me i'm hearing that this is a pretty significant ask to figure out what we're going to do long term as well as just to maintain the closure right and what i think about is who's benefiting from that and who's not benefiting where in our community are those resources or could those resources be directed either in ways that are more aligned with our work plan or more aligned with our racial equity goals because when i go downtown there's a specific group in our community and visitors who are using downtown space it is not a space that feels welcoming um to uh to certain groups in our community and so when i think about engagement

[237:00] that's that's what i'm thinking about is if if we're going to be keeping this closed if we're going to be working on that area how are we designing it in a way that's going to draw more of our community downtown and how can we really make it a truly public space for our community just calling my myself i think finding out who it benefits i think is a really important question so thanks for that part of that nicole and then i i just say i i would love to get a little bit of a better sense of of the community as a whole i i don't know you know i know you're busy so but but you asked the question so i'll just throw it out there um is is to get a sense from from the general population of people in all demographics and and you know what would you love to see um with outdoor dining and in the west end yes juni i just want to thank nicole for her comment it i subscribed to them and

[238:00] maybe part of that as well is to think about minority and small businesses that are in that area and the impact of the closure on them but thank you nicole for bringing that up any other thoughts on this sir all right seeing none then chris how we doing what do you feel like you've gotten some direction oh oh yes i won't ask whether you like the direction thank you no this is exactly the conversation we need to have um i would say that there are still a lot of unknowns um but and um as nuria mentioned while none of this is in the work plan we do have a number of folks who know that we need to to be figuring these things out and a lot of folks from a lot of different departments have been spending a lot of time on top of their regular work plans uh to bring this work to you tonight um and it sounds like we'll be back again in the not-too-distant future to to keep

[239:00] the conversation moving so we will look forward to sharing future results with you in the not-too-distant future well and we appreciate that work over and above and beyond very very much and i think the recommendations you made the analysis you provided were fantastic so huge kudos to your and to the whole team and everybody who's been involved thank you yes and thanks to the folks who are still here they've been taking lots of notes so if i didn't quite capture it i know that they did so thank you to the community vitality team especially yes thanks so much all right well with that we got one more item left which is which i i guess is just basically me to get get to kick this off in lesson or do you want to frame it at all well all i wanted to say i think the last time we met about the library district there was a conversation about perhaps staff touching base with boulder county thank you chris with boulder county and the commissioners and invited you to

[240:00] participate in that conversation mayor and perhaps invite you now to um share with your colleagues what that update would be thanks so much and i'll just frame it for folks i'm going to provide information about that discussion then i will be asking for some feedback from council on on next steps but um hopefully that can be relatively quick so um commissioner claire levy and i met together along with um chris messchuck and michelle krizik from the county commissioner staff um and you know we had a good conversation where we talked through all the different issues involved with the library district um i think as you may have heard at their at their meeting they did not pass a resolution so of course we passed a resolution by vote of six to three to form a library library district they did not pass a resolution at their meeting and what i heard from claire was that they really are looking for a funding model where the city is still responsible for a large percentage of the funding for uh the library out of its general fund so um they they she mentioned the uh a

[241:02] one mill uh as a number that would be acceptable to them for a library district uh you know we as you know our resolution included a 3.8 mill number although it doesn't necessarily have to be that number that goes on the ballot but i in our discussions i said my understanding is that you can't really go below three or maybe slightly over three and still fund the library district out of the mill levy sorry fund the library system out of the mill levy for the library district so she indicated that there was maybe some flexibility on the one mill number but that three was essentially right out and i think she did have a chance to talk some to her colleagues um in the last few days and that seems to be a consensus position of the commissioners not a formal decision but seems to be generally where they're leading we also had the question of well if we if we didn't form a library district but but we continued funding it from the city's approach could the county contribute some funding because i think as we know one of the goals of the the

[242:00] district project is to align the users of the library system with the funders of the library system so hey could the county potentially contribute some general fund money of theirs um i did not hear interest in in doing so it sounds like the county commissioners are not interested in providing a a general fund contribution to the library system um and for for reasons having to do with that being primarily property tax based across their entire county so um i think where we ended up was uh with uh maybe as i read the majority of city council that passed that resolution of needing something in the three range on the mill levy and the commissioners seeing one to maybe a little bit more but not close to three so it's not it's not seeming like we're getting anywhere uh unfortunately so that's that's sort of the i will call it say the disappointing news i have to report is that we had a good conversation we worked together in good faith but at the end of the day it seems like we're still um quite far apart so um

[243:00] i think in unless i think a majority of council would like to direct us next to say you know what hey fine let's look at 1.5 mills as a valid alternative uh we probably are not going to be able to go the the resolution route with the city and the county so that's what i got um questions are rachel do you want comments but sure i'm happy to hold my comment until after questions any questions first who do you want to no no i i guess uh just getting straight to the point i would probably just put it to bed we're too far apart and and i would um you know give the library champions the direction or whatever they need to know that we're not gonna be able to do this with the commissioners thanks i thought it saw matt but yeah well i mean i i don't know what the library champions are gonna actually do so they may put something on the ballot regardless of what we put forward maybe we come to some agreement they'll still maybe do their thing so without predetermining that outcome i i am curious if they're because claire did mention um in our con

[244:02] when we were in a joint meeting that the 2.72 was of interest because she had the argument that as assessments go up that money goes up and is that even a baseline for us to even have a starting place is that that's that mill covered the existing costs of the libraries just from a basic baseline and are you saying that they can't even go over 1.5 i was just trying to say is is there a place to get to just can we get to a basic operating and then all the extra stuff is to be determined at a later date as it you know maybe accumulates money well so let me be clear the the the interest was in one mill and there was a uh an intention that was said we could maybe talk about something larger but not close to three that's that's what i heard so i threw out 1.5 as an example but that actually was not a number that was used by by claire another commissioner you were in there if you feel that it's just too far apart we're done i agree with rachel we just put it to bed and let the library champions take this to the voters and see what happens and cross that bridge

[245:01] any other comments mark um has anybody spoken to the library champions do they intend do we know if they intend to put it on the ballot they they sent out an email to a listserv that indicated they were going to start collecting signatures so i would assume that's their intent but i haven't i don't have that directly from them it's not a heavy lift on the signature collection um so i i assume if they want to do that they are free to do that yeah they are and to be clear i mean i i read that same email and it does seem like the those library advocates intend to bring forward a petition if we cannot go the resolution route but that would be out of our hands right that would be independent uh individual citizens moving that forward but it does seem like they intend to do that so i guess unless i'm hearing differently um unfortunately this would be the end of the resolution route so great work everybody and attempting to make that function but doesn't look

[246:01] like it's going to work out this year with the commissioners and um yeah and things in particular we had we've we've spent a lot of staff time david farnan and his group and chris chuck other people across the organization put a lot of effort into getting us to this point but we'll see what happens next so but thank you for all of your work staff appreciate very much all right so i guess that's what we got on that sorry i don't have better news on that one but any last thoughts for tonight's meeting seeing none great to be back together in person good meeting everybody appreciate the discussion and at 105 all gavel is closed [Music]

[249:27] you