June 7, 2022 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[5:48] well good evening everyone and welcome to the june 7th 2022 meeting of the boulder city council we're going to get started with a couple of announcements and then call the meeting to order

[6:00] so first announcement is about covid19 vaccinations uh testing for information and provider locations for free 5019 testing please go to www.vocode.org testing the boulder site is 2445 stazio drive that's open seven days a week from 8 am to 6 pm and if you need a vaccination for vaccine information and provider locations please go to www.boco.org cova vaccine and for our second announcement all right council meeting day change uh beginning on july 14th 2022 after our council break city council meetings and study sessions will change from tuesday to thursdays with the start time remaining at 6 pm so this new meeting day will change some board and commission meeting times and the public comment sign up timeline for example the planning board the new meeting times will be the first third

[7:01] and fourth tuesdays of the month at 6pm for the board of zoning adjustments the new meeting times will be on the second tuesday of the month at 4pm the design advisory board will meet on the second wednesday of the month at 4pm and the public comment time sign up timeline will open friday before the meeting at 8 a.m and close wednesday uh before the meeting at 2 pm for a total of 5 days and more information about the transition and its impacts can be found at boulder colorado.gov announcement slash council dash meeting dash day change okay with that i will go ahead and call this meeting to order and alicia can we do the roll call please yes sir and good evening everyone councilmember benjamin president mayor brockett

[8:01] listen council member focus present mayor pro tem friend here council member joseph president spear president wallach here weiner president and yates here mayor we have our quorum great all right well next we're going to go into a juneteenth declaration to be presented by council member benjamin matt please take it away thanks aaron um really appreciate it um i want to first say this is incredibly important for our community and for communities across the country and so it's just great pleasure to be able to read this declaration and recognize juneteenth independence day as june 19th 2022

[9:00] june 19th is the oldest celebration of the emancipation of enslaved african americans and is so named after the events that took place on june 19th 1865 in galveston texas on june 19th 1865 union soldiers led by major general gordon granger arrived in galveston texas with news that the civil war had ended and that the enslaved were free reactions to this were ranged from shock to jubilation news of the end of slavery did not reach the frontier areas of the united states for more than two years after president lincoln's emancipation proclamation of january 1st 1863 and months after the conclusion of the civil war even after word had spread some slave masters chose to withhold the information holding them as slaves through one more harvest season juneteenth is an example of african out of america's commitment to liberty and june 19th is celebrated and recognizes the historical significance of the end of chateau slavery

[10:00] in the united states as a whole many african americans continue the tradition of celebrating juneteenth as inspiration and encouragement for future generations and for more than 155 years juneteenth day celebrations have been held to honor african-american freedom and while encouraging self-development and respect for all cultures the fight for freedom does not exist in a vacuum and the struggle against oppression and for sovereignty is one we collectively share and are inextricably linked to juneteenth celebrates the unity and mutuality of american liberty realized which makes juneteenth a celebration of freedom and justice for all americans not those not just those that were enslaved and their descendants the faith and strength of character demonstrated by former former enslaved african americans remains an example for all people of the united states regardless of background religion or race the late lula briggs galloway of saginaw michigan author social activist curator of african american history and the

[11:01] originator of the interim juneteenth creative culture center and museum in saginaw michigan galloway successfully worked to bring national recognition to juneteenth independence day and encouraged congress to pass a resolution in 1997 in honor of the day in continuation of those efforts miss oppo li spent years lobbying congress to make juneteenth a federal holiday former educator counselor lifelong social impact leader and considered the grandmother of juneteenth miss lee stood alongside president joseph r biden as he signed the juneteenth national independence day act on june 17 2021 which officially recognized juneteenth day of observance making june 19th a federal holiday this year the city of boulder joins the federal and state government in commemorating jupiter as an official holiday this year the city will observe juneteenth on monday june 20th in celebration the city's human relations commission is co-sponsoring local events throughout the weekend in partnership with the naacp boulder county and

[12:01] executive committee african-american culture events boco and their second annual boulder county juneteenth celebration this five-day affair will include flag raising ceremonies across boulder county workshops and celebration events for more information please visit the executive committee for african american cultural events webpage at ecaace we the city council of the city of boulder colorado declared june 19 2022 as juneteenth and recognize the historical significance of juneteenth support the continued celebration of juneteenth to provide an opportunity for the people of the city of boulder to learn more about the past to better understand the experiences that have shaped the nation and encourage the people of the city of boulder to observe juneteenth day with appropriate ceremonies activities and programs and the history and the plight of african americans and all that was endured during chateau slavery

[13:00] wrecking reconstruction jim crow and civil rights movement is an example of pure resilience this declaration underscores the freedom with dignity for every human being as a governmental body we oppose and reject any form of oppression and pledge to support our community members and local entities working to achieve equality and protect human rights and with that i believe that we have some members of our community from the naacp i think we have dr deandre taylor and madeline woodley here to accept this declaration yes and thank you hello everyone thank you so much for having us hello my good friend uh councilman woman joseph it's good to see all of you and uh thank you so much for this amazing um dedication dr taylor uh is a project director he also served

[14:01] last year as our project director of course we were virtual then we are in person and for those people that are not able to come we are creating a virtual production as well so i'm going to stop here and um have dr taylor the recipient accepts the award in the way he chooses absolutely and thank you so much miss woodley and thank you to the uh council of the city of boulder and as the proclamation stated um june 10th is about resilience but more important it's about celebration and it's about doing what's right and so as we go into to continue to this year 2022 as we're faced with many things on our agendas on our personal and professional lives we want to make sure that we continue to think about that resilience and so when we all face hardship in our many different ways we want to think about this particular moment and this is

[15:01] american history black history is american history and we want to remember and pay respect and have deference to what was the history of this nation as we think about leading and as you all as members of a city government really thinking about doing what's right and i think that's really important as you all are facing uh the the trials and the dilemmas of being leaders in this in this boulder community always think about and just think about to yourselves doing something for a very long time and then actually being free and then not hearing about until two years later think about one that you believe that probably took place but then think about the courage that happened after that and so i implore all of you as you are leading in boulder to continue to have the courage to do what's right and with that i want to say thank you we invite each and every one of you to attend any of our events of course we have the wonderful flag raising ceremony that boulder being

[16:01] uh not only one of the first last year that did a flag raising ceremony but also it's joining in this year so we really appreciate the city of boulder and support and councilwoman uh joseph we always appreciate your support as well and so with that i want to say thank you i'm looking forward to many more and again uh happy juneteenth thank you thank you again i'm neglected to uh uh honor uh my good friend mayor brockett he's my tenor you guys know his things right so all right thank you so much and of course amy kane uh one of my daughters and uh thank you thank you again for this honor and please please please join us it's particularly on the 18th i'll just mention this one because we're honoring kids kids ages 10

[17:01] through 21. we're going to create the baddest choir you have ever heard they're going to be dancing we have dance classes by formal dance teachers uh music instructors we have african drumming african dance uh they're gonna learn how to play the drums it's gonna be an amazing time it's at the longmont museum from 9am until 3 p.m we're going serving lunch with a great reception to follow you got food fun we want to honor the kids we want them to come out and have a good time but yet learn something thank you thanks again fantastic thanks so much for that madeleine and so so glad ms woodley that you could be here and join us and dr taylor uh really appreciate you being here thank you for your inspiring words and look forward to seeing you at some of these juneteenth events in a few days it'll be a wonderful time and so thank you and take care all right well that was fantastic uh

[18:01] next uh we have another declaration um this is a declaration about immigrant heritage month and this will be read by council member wallach so mark please thank you mayor um as i like to note as the grandson of four immigrants and the husband to a daughter of immigrants this declaration resonates strongly with me uh immigrant heritage month celebrates the generation of immigrants from every corner of the globe who have built our country's economy created the unique character of our city and are linked in a shared history immigrants have come here to work to learn and to find freedom and shelter they're an important part of colorado's history and continue to keep the workforce competitive businesses innovative and the economy strong in addition to economic contributions immigrants bring diverse perspectives and experience experiences that make for a unique

[19:00] social and cultural influence fundamentally enriching the extraordinary character of our community immigrants have been steadfast leaders not only in securing their own rights and access to equal opportunity but have also campaigned to create a fairer and more just society for all yet despite these countless contributions the role of immigrants in building and advancing our nation has frequently been overlooked and undervalued throughout our history and continuing to the present day approximately one in ten boulder county residents is an immigrant and this exceptional group of people adds to the variety of languages customs and cuisines which con which contributes to the cultural diversity enjoyed in the city we the city council of the city of boulder colorado declared june 22 2022 as immigrant heritage month and urge all to join in recognizing the distinct value that lies in welcoming people of different backgrounds and

[20:00] treating all with dignity and respect thank you thanks so much for that mark do we have anyone present tonight to receive the declaration i don't believe we do but perhaps staff can correct me on that i don't believe we do okay okay no worries uh but very important glad that we designate the month of june for this very important occasion thanks to all okay um with that we are now going to move into open comment so um ryan will you be sharing the guidelines with us tonight yes we'll plan to share those guidelines they're coming up now and we welcome community members who are here this evening to share perspectives and to want to make sure everyone knows the city has engaged with me members to co-create a vision for productive

[21:01] meaningful inclusive civic conversations and that this vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members and staff and council as well as democracy for people of all ages identities lived experiences and political perspectives on the next slide please we want to share a few examples of rules of decorum found within the boulder revised code and some other guidelines to support our time during this evening we'll make sure these are upheld during this evening and that all remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city business no participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person obscenity racial epidemics and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct the meeting or prohibit and participants are required to sign up using the name they're commonly known by

[22:01] display that name and audio testimony will be allowed this evening thank you okay thanks very much for that ryan all right so let's get going each uh speaker will have two minutes to speak and our first three speakers and apologies if i get your name wrong are ramsey abueta donovan smith and gabriel edmondson hi everybody my name is ramsey abuela i have a degree in neuroscience and i work in clinical research and i'm here to speak in favor of city council passing a resolution to decriminalize psychedelics in boulder over the past few months we've organized numerous members of our community to speak up on their personal stories on how psychedelic medicines have helped or affected them and it's about time for city council to recognize the power of these stories we've had two neuroscientists a few therapists a healthcare worker the

[23:02] founder of a scientific research nonprofit and so many more upstanding members of our community planning on speaking up today and in the future we have a video testimonial from a pediatrician that i will privately email to city council it's clear as day that these medicines are helping so many people and that their continued criminalization stands contrary to anything that is sensible and just that is why i ask city council to review draft language for a resolution that will decriminalize these substances by making them the lowest law enforcement priority which is the same model as applied by oakland and santa cruz california ann arbor michigan cambridge massachusetts and about a dozen other cities around the country denver led the way in 2019 by decriminalizing psilocybin and two years later released a report indicating that no negative effects had occurred after decriminalization you can read the report online and you know what i'll just email the report to all of you it's about time that boulder follows suit and progresses towards this positive change boulder is already a

[24:01] cultural and research hub for psychedelics with a flourishing legacy community that has shown itself to be a responsible steward for keeping safe containers for the responsible use of these medicines let that boulder live up to its legacy by having city council vote on a resolution to decriminalize psychedelics i will email all of you draft language that you can give feedback on let's give this resolution on the agenda and bring it to a vote thank you thank you ramsey next we have donovan smith gabriel edinson and schuler silva hey folks my name is donovan smith um i'll be sharing why psychedelics should be decriminalized here in boulder i'm going to be really vulnerable and get pretty personal with you about some heavy topics but i promise it's relevant to jump right in i grew up in a house where my queerness and being gay wasn't celebrated but shamed because of religion i hid and i hated who i was i was so confused i internalized the shame and by my young adulthood my story was filled with depression self-harm suicide

[25:02] attempts anxiety substance abuse and ultimately a methamphetamine addiction when i came out and left the church at 21 years old my entire worldview was shattered without religion what does life mean why am i here i was thrown into the wild to fend for myself i turned to existential philosophy cosmology eastern religions and sociology for answers but i only found more questions i was lost it was actually my first lsd experience almost five years ago that started me on the journey of learning to be okay with the existentialism and reframing it as a curiosity for life the unknown and connection it changed my life since then it has taken years of painful lessons therapy and the best support system a human could ask for in order to heal but integral to that healing has been micro dosing psilocybin mushrooms they have helped me to recover from addiction and stay clean from something that wants to kill me create more space between negative thinking what is actually true about who i am and my place in the universe settle into my most authentic

[26:01] self heal from trauma and think freely without the crushing weight of depression i can't help but smile when i think about all of this my story has molded me into a mental health advocate i work in community mental health here in boulder human rights activist and a loud voice in the lgbtq community i am so grateful for how far i've come and who i am today psychedelics have played an invaluable and vital part in my story i hope to one day live in a world and a city where folks can engage in these plant healing practices and feel empowered to do so without fearing the law i am whole and such medicines like psilocybin can help other people in boulder learn to be whole too thank you donald next we have gabriel latinson schuler soa and patrick murphy hi everybody my name is gabriel i'm a physical therapist in colorado um i want to thank you for this opportunity to speak my goal here like those before me is to speak in favor of

[27:00] decriminalizing psychedelics and boulder uh by sharing my personal experience with psychedelics which began as a recreational experience in college with fun in mind but the incredible insight i unexpectedly gained through that experience solidified my decision to become a physical therapist so that's what i did after several years in practice however i was concerned about that choice i had made i contemplated leaving all i was doing was following the orders of doctors who felt the job of a pt was to chase pain which means to focus on the area of the body where pain was experienced and eliminated never looked for the source and people returned again and again for the same issues as a result so i decided to do a bit more work on looking at that source and the treatments became much more meaningful often created more sustainable changes but something was still missing because i needed to deal with the patient's mental states the fears about how the injuries would slow their lives down how

[28:00] the scary reports from the mri would lead to irreversible changes or future surgeries how they would certainly get out of shape and be incapable of taking care of their kids or grandkids so i immediately introduced the mindfulness-based stress reduction program began referring to psychologists and other mental health professionals when people were open even better results emerged as a result of that but it was until a patient discreetly mentioned that she had used psilocybin and as a result transformed the way she saw herself and her injury that i realized this was a missing piece of the puzzle i have admittedly explored these substances personally many times since then always with the goal of helping me gain further insight into myself to understand how they can be integrated into an efficient and effective treatment model if ever made available and undoubtedly the conclusion is that they can so with the research quite compelling the safety apparent and the need more urgent than ever i would urge the city to consider being on the forefront of this change and work to maybe your your

[29:00] time is up but thank you very much for your testimony next we have schuler sowa patrick murphy and harleen singh hello my name is skyler soa and i'm the founder of connection through compassion and i'm grateful for this opportunity to speak in favor of boulder decriminalizing psychedelics i was raised by emotionally unavailable parents and felt disconnected from life to the point that i did not desire to exist on this planet five years ago marked the explosive ending of a codependent and unhealthy relationship i was in with a woman i relied upon to give my life value and purpose the following five days after that were the most disconnected i felt and i entertained thoughts of ending my life instead of ending my life i decided to eat five grams of mushrooms containing psilocybin by myself in my apartment over the course of the next eight hours i processed and released trauma and discovered my connection to life i visited my childhood experiences and

[30:00] remembered how wonderful i felt when i caused a person to smile my experience with mushrooms that night resulted in my invention of kindness cards and the formation of the non-profit connection through compassion one year later to date we've given away over 50 000 handwritten kindness cards and i actually wrote a kindness card into tonight to show all of you but um realize that we we're not uh permitted to have video so it just says um thank you for being here um and i really mean that i'm very glad that we're all here on this planet um psychedelics have really supported me in knowing how valuable i am and how i desire to live my life thank you very much thank you skyler sorry for getting your name wrong and now we have patrick murphy harleen singh and taylor weekly oh and i'll just mention scott if you're listening um you can certainly email us the the thing that you mentioned if you'd like to share that with us thanks

[31:02] okay my name is patrick murphy i've lived in boulder 52 years the planet burns floods and dies while boulder fiddles with climate change i know you've heard me say that many times i say it repeatedly because it's true and it's based on the observation of past performance which is often the best indicator of future performance in addition current observation of the boulder excel advisory panel meetings demonstrates that it's just a checkbox and a propaganda process where approaches are described selected and rejected based on what the leadership wants and the 17 citizen members are often rich people who have gone carbon free using lots of money sales people with their own agenda or non-experts who supported the muni and have no real capacity to critically review what they're being fed the few independent thinkers on the panel have little weight it's a conformational bias bubble slide two

[32:02] there's no room for direct confrontation and resolution of simple warped concepts such as the authentically additive force and the in-state limitation that clearly demonstrates ignorance of what climate change is an isolated bubble is clear since the multiple communications i've sent to the panel have not received a response from any of the 17 members i have lots to learn but i've learned how boulder a town i dearly love has managed to fail on climate change it's a combination of exceptionalism combined with arrogance years ago in person i asked the former mayor suzanne jones what was plan b if the muni failed she stated confidently that boulder had a plan b c and d that was false unless plan b c and d were to succeed at plan a so i ask you what if plan b fails and boulder rejects giving more money to the same folks who led a failed muni

[33:03] thank you thank you patrick next we have harleen singh taylor weekly and celeste landry hello hi everybody um am i heard yes okay all right hi my name is harleen singh and i worked at a private medical office for a few years and i'll be graduating with my bachelor's in ayurvedic medicine in a week and i'm speaking in favor for decriminalization of psychedelics in boulder i recently had a experience with my mom and sister actually we did some psychedelics with a third party therapist and we uncovered a lifetime of subconscious patterning that we have towards each other within one night because of like how malleable your experience is when you're on psychedelics and um

[34:00] like i've seen my my own sister like treat me like she hasn't treated me since she was like a little kid you know just like googly-eyed and happy and there's no wall between us and um i was a little worried it would be gone the next day but it was the same the next day it's been the same it's been two weeks now and it's the same now it was almost like a switch flipped for her so um i've never felt closer to her or myself or my mother and you know you hear about these therapies but it was really cool to really experience it firsthand and really powerful and something that i just completely did not expect to happen happened so um yeah that's pretty much it so yeah thank you for listening thank you next we have taylor weekly celeste landry and evan rabbits hi my name is taylor i live in netherland and work as an esthetician which means i'm also a therapist for

[35:00] many boulder inhabitants it has come to my attention that people sometimes need help addressing the more difficult parts of life or fall into depression when they can't find the specific help or tools they need that being said i am speaking today in favor of decriminalizing psychedelics in boulder this is not just about recreational use and having fun this is about giving people with mental illness the chance that a happy and fulfilling life without the use of mostly harmful medications and their side effects psychedelics actually promote neuroplasticity and neurogenesis in the case of someone that has suffered depression for years the overwhelming stress and sadness they experience literally atrophies the neurons in their brain prematurely aging them and their brain making it harder and harder to pull themselves out of their depression or even find joy in little things

[36:01] one psychedelic experience has the power to rewire their brain chemistry parts of the brain that usually have no contact actually talk to each other forming new neurological pathways this gives the opportunity to be open to trying new things meeting a new friend making time for a therapeutic hobby like yoga or meditation anything new and exciting to give them reassurance and get them out of the same depressive loop we're at a very pivotal point in the evolution of our collective consciousness and i believe that decriminalizing natural substances is exactly what is needed to cultivate a more unified loving and healthy community thank you for your time and consideration it really means a lot taylor next we have celeste landry evan rabbits and then i understand making coles is withdrawn so then sherry hack

[37:18] so last year mic is open you're able to begin will there be the slides if we have them we'll go ahead and pull them up in a moment do you want to do evan next and that's my phone okay sounds good why don't we do evan and while we're looking for your slides so evan can you go ahead please having your mic is open you'll just need to unmute

[38:02] evan rabbits 42-year resident let's talk about boulder exceptionalism philosophy professor matthew harris threatens mass murder at cu god king chug him trump and his son are revealed as abusive sex cultists while real buddhist win bruce burns himself to death to protest climate arsonists like our drill maybe drill governor cu hires trump insurrection attorney john eastman and fire scientist that liv helmig for studying oil and gas emissions cu invests student money in oil and gas sealing their climate fate yet city government caters to governor polis cu shambhala excel all the 800 pound gorillas

[39:00] boulder where the roads are crumbling swimming pools are half closed and half the city department heads have left since 2019 but there's always millions to persecute the homeless and prevent people from using direct democracy to solve our own problems and problems caused by directly by government the new city administ the new city manager city attorney and city i.t director have their jobs because we exposed their predecessors lying cheating and defrauding taxpayers of half a million dollars all to try to kill our online petitioning for direct democracy which we voted overwhelmingly for in 2018 yet the new administration told boulder county democrats a pack of lies when asked why the city wouldn't give adequate notice that the online petition

[40:01] system has been fixed people aren't using it because they refuse to tell people it's fixed and waited months i'll document the lies next time as if you can thank you evan um so celeste unfortunately we have not received uh any slides from you that we can find uh apologies for that would you mind just doing an audio testimony and then following up with the slides through email i can do that is it time to start please do okay good evening council members um in my brief two minutes i'd like to say three things about elections the first point is about using accurate vocabulary when discussing voter turnout the decline in turnout between two different types of elections is actually called drop off for instance we see it we notice a

[41:00] decline in turnout or drop off between presidential elections and midterm elections both of which are held in even years we also noticed drop-off between even-year elections and odd year elections drop-off should not be confused with disenfranchising voters the second point that i'd like to make is about moving council elections to even years the stated goal of such a move is to increase voter turnout which i think we can all agree is desirable however there are other perhaps unintended consequences of moving elections to even years that might run counter to the stated goal consider that the drop off in the remaining odd year election contests will likely be exacerbated impacting a few different kinds of elections including school district elections and remember that more than half of our property taxes go to the boulder valley school district state fiscal ballot measures county and city ballot measures and special

[42:00] elections and speaking of special elections by moving council elections to even years we're more likely to see special elections in odd years to fill council seats as sitting council members seek higher office such as state rep or county commissioner or just go to work for a member of congress and finally the drop off from presidential election years to mid-term off-cycle years introduces a new political calculation for council elections that doesn't exist now i don't have enough time to fully make my third point but i will send you all via email two possible ways to level the incentives to run for the new directly elected mayor position that i think you'll be interested in thank you for your interest thank you for that celeste now we go to sherry hack john banishak and lynn segal uh regarding a safe and welcoming

[43:00] community here are some things for your consideration the founder of the hanuman yoga festival chose to relocate the festival outside of the city boulder this year for the first time ever due to concerns about safety and conditions in the area near boulder high school in the boulder creek at a previous city council meeting i warned of businesses moving out of boulder like they are in seattle due to crime and public safety and now it's happening another issue related to boulder high school is on 4 20 apparently two men were trespassing on boulder high school property and issuing threats which was the cause for the lockdown that day they were contacted by police but walked away and were never searched or positively id'd and in the last two months we've had several incidents in boulder such as on june 2nd a man was assaulted with a skateboard left bleeding from the head a woman with a history of multiple felonies that were dismissed caused a fatal accident and stole a car someone got a finger chopped off with an

[44:01] 18-inch machete on pearl street mall a woman was seen yelling profanities and swinging a heavy chain at people at a local park a mother and son were threatened by a registered sex offender at a local park a man exposed himself to a father and daughter his 13 year old daughter on a ghost creek path another man exposed himself at a vet clinic on north broadway there have been broken windows at both multiple locations including our municipal building and there have been other incidents of people swinging hammers and axes and threatening bystanders and twice older fire was called twice on may 23rd to two guys who had a fire going by their tent at boulder junction they had an 18 machete in plain view city council has a responsibility to ensure public safety in our community it's not to advance one's personal

[45:01] political agenda thank you for letting me speak thank you sharon next we have john vanished lynn siegel and holly carlson good evening and thank you for your time i understand that the boulder city council is still considering the west pearl street closure between 11th and 9th street there was a recent article where richard foy one of the designers of the pearl street mall was asked his opinion about closing west pearl between 9th and 11th and mr foy stated that we specifically did not design pearl street to be longer than four blocks and after we designed it there was something like 400 municipalities that designed pedestrian malls some were six or eight blocks but the bigger they are the faster they fall they died there's only a dozen left the rest have been returned to car tires and

[46:00] combustion engines so we did it right and we created a circulation around it with through streets and easy parking statistically it would be a big mistake to extend the closure it affects the whole mall it puts it in the category of a longer mall which the data says are the ones that failed most quickly when city council considers this we asked the council to reopen to vehicle traffic we also asked the city council to limit the number of parklets in the very limited number of parking spaces on west pearl at one of the last meetings where this was discussed there was some proposed limitations about the parking and the use of the parklets but i can't seem to find where those limitations are published i would submit that as part of opening pearl street west pearl street between

[47:00] 9th and 11th to traffic it uh the the less parking spaces there are the less accessibility will be and the limited accessibility is really causing the problems that have caused the restaurant owners to overwhelmingly ask the city to reopen pearl street thank you thank you now we have lynn segel holly carlson and emily reynolds stop me if you can't hear everything clearly alpine balsam where's the timer there we go alpine balsam do not take it down repurpose it the old hospital um whittier when are we gonna get news on what was the cause of that you know i'm riding my bike there every day i have to ride along the traffic in the dark with no

[48:00] light on my bike and you know it why not why don't you just open up the walkway there there's no distraction the thing is not going to fall down and cause liability like just open the sidewalk there so that i can freaking ride my bike um regarding li tech and oz these are schemes that will get us to have more affordable housing okay based on much much more unaffordable housing so it doesn't help us out be careful what you wish for we don't need war in ukraine we've got it plenty of it in boulder and it's called wealth inequality um i'm opposed to you consent consent agenda on the sewer on f until you appropriate how much growth we're going

[49:01] to have here to do all the sewer do all this water you know to over and burden our our culture with too many people by um excessive growth um and excel energy 20 25 we need to get out of it you know i went through living hell about this tree that fell on my electric line and excel will not tell me if i'm responsible or if they're responsible they won't even let me know so i have to file a claim and all this stuff anyway done bye thank you then last two speakers are holly carlson and emily reynolds

[50:01] emily reynolds your mic is open you'll just need to unmute [Music] uh the update on the safe and welcoming spaces program has notable lacks specifically next steps includes zero additional actions to counter the campers illegally occupying and fouling public spaces such compassion for our transient population in this document but little for protecting citizens from the public safety threat they represent no one is suggesting a mean approach to clearing encampments but many would like to feel safe in parks public spaces bike paths and trails boulder alone cannot deal with the constant influx of transients there's a huge number of agencies addressing this but zero mention of inpatient drug treatment and mental health care

[51:01] the aclu didn't sue neighboring towns for their zero services instead they chose the easy target boulder with lots of services when they drop the lawsuit in exchange for what the majority on council wants designated campgrounds overnight parking day shelters the towns with no services will continue to send their homeless here to boulder we lack an effect an effective approach to solving this health safety and criminal issue i'd like council to take direct action denial is not a strategy boulder rights are not safe thank you so much thank you holly finally we have emily reynolds uh that was emily reynolds um i think i just spoke uh did you hear me sorry

[52:00] yes we heard you thank you okay apologies we had the names wrong thank you thank you all right are we all done then ryan that is uh why did we hear from holly carter i don't believe go ahead ali yes that's me good evening council needing to have oversight on affordable housing in boulder needs to be looked at and needs to be done immediately living in one of boulder's first and smallest income restricted complexes that was built in late 2015 known as depot square we are currently under a violation both structurally and fire code we have not had regular maintenance done in over two and a half years why is this we are ran by a multi-million dollar property management company called avenatt capital management we are constantly

[53:01] having to do the legwork for our property manager in order to get anybody to listen to us it has been the residents who have done the legwork in order to get certain sectors within boulder to get out here and to look at our issues still we are still waiting to get actual work done residents have not had any work done to their units repairs or whatnot in over two years 75 of our building may be occupied at this moment we are we are losing more than not we are currently lacking power in our parking garage for going on a week which poses many safety issues as well as we have an issue with crime and car theft within our parking garage which is attached to us yet we are the only affordable housing complex within boulder that pays 75 per vehicle to park our vehicle in there as well as we do not have the first 15 minutes free in this parking garage and every other parking garage owned by the city of boulder does i wish you guys would take this issue a

[54:00] little more seriously especially if you're pushing affordable housing because as i see it as an actual resident you have a major crime issue and a major issue with the property management companies that are running them as they are running them into the ground they are not taking care of them they are ignoring the actual issues at hand and you're going to have bigger issues than smaller ones when push comes to shove sooner than later i thank you for your time and have a good evening thank you for that holly and i appreciate that okay that brings uh open comment to an end do we have any staff responses mayor if i can i'll say that because it also came up at cac that staff is looking to bring up a study session on our safe and managed public spaces work so please note that we'll be bringing that um at the next cac as we're scheduling that and then perhaps a bit because i'm feeling a little vulnerable tonight myself i just wanted to thank those callers that shared their

[55:00] stories those personal reflections are touching and are heartfelt and i just want to say it's so courageous when you um when you share your stories in that way and one to say i appreciated it um okay we've got a couple council members nicole and rachel i just wanted to echo nuria's comments i was feeling a similar appreciation for the folks who are willing to share about their struggles with mental health to get across some points to us so thank you to everybody who was willing to speak to us tonight on the really personal topics definitely rachel yeah i had just a question about the last speaker holly um who sounded like she was describing possibly some code violations in affordable housing units and just wondered if staff could follow up with her i believe she has emailed council members in the past and offered to give us tours um to sort of see the area which i'm hoping to go do but i

[56:00] just wondered if if maybe there are code violations if if a staff member could follow up i appreciate that and i know that chris has popped up and is able to respond if you'd like chris sure good evening council chris jones interim director of community vitality we can certainly follow up with our partners at avinath investments they share ownership of the garage at depot square with the city um and so we do have a relationship with them i would defer to planning and development services uh regarding any code violations uh that might need to be inspected in the building but we can certainly follow up uh regarding any challenges that are existing in the shared ownership parking garage thanks for that um and again i'm sure we have her email from sign up but if not she's emailed counsel so i can get that for any staff that needs it thanks well and thanks for that rachel i was going to bring that up as well just so we can let ms carlson know like what would be the avenue for her to contact city staff to express

[57:00] concerns about potential code violations we do have a council form but happily uh i can take mayor pro tem's offer up and if you send it to me directly i'm happy to make sure that we follow up great thanks so much tara yeah i also wanted to say thanks holly for coming on and i'm concerned about the theft and crime in our parking garages of our affordable housing units and i'm wondering if somebody can look into that as well is there any solution to that problem um i will again i'll i will follow up with our property manager that we um collectively work with uh to manage a number of issues at the depot square garage specifically this has been an ongoing topic um related to some some behaviors that we're experiencing at that location in particular um which has been um quite challenging for some time but we'll

[58:02] certainly follow up and can provide some written report once i hear back from the property managers thanks so much for that chris okay i think that's it rachel and terry your hands are still up did you have anything else okay all right i think that brings us to the end of open comments so alicia could you take us to our consent agendas of course sir our consent agenda is item three on tonight's agenda and includes items a through g wait do we have any council questions or comments on those items not hearing any maybe emotion motion to pass the consent agenda second okay mark were you going to make a

[59:01] motion or just something else i actually had a question on the outdoor dining program um i i am assuming and correct me if i'm wrong that passage of the outdoor dining program does not fully um resolve the issue of what we do with the west pearl or does it uh correct this is not uh um we're not attending to west pearl closure with this process we're looking at the city-wide outdoor dunning pilot program first once we have tackled that particular element of the west pearl closure then we will be we're planning to come back to council in september um uh a study session on september 8th to specifically talk about the downtown vision uh planning process and how that relates to future possibilities for west pearl perfect and i had one other question

[60:01] with respect to utilities can i mark you mind if i just chris i felt your language sound a little ambiguous there you just clarified the outdoor dining is not making any statement for against the closure of west pearl right this is a separate issue correct right okay thanks for confirming that i'm sorry go ahead mark and i had a question for utilities um uh we're going to have a five percent uh increase to fund as i understood at the the eight million dollar capital expenditure uh we're going to have some degree of increase for the two bond issues i assume uh obviously we're going to have an increase to finance um cu south and my question is do we have a full schedule or projection of let's say in the next five years what kind of increases we're going to be looking at in total because we tend to look at it project by project and five percent here seven percent bad twelve percent there um do we have a

[61:02] full breakout of what we're going to be looking at over the next five years for um increases in our water bills joan yeah good evening uh mayor members of council mark thanks for that question every year in our budget process we bring forward a six-year capital improvement program and i don't have the number off the top of my head it's i think it's 30 or 40 projects that are in there and we collectively for each of the three utilities have a rate increase for the for the following year that council is acting on in the budget and then we show three or four years out in advance for each of the utilities so um we we definitely will be bringing that information if you would like it packaged differently than we typically do we'd be happy to look at that well i i would just like it packaged

[62:00] in the aggregate not not project by project so we can see exactly what is planned for the next five years or six years or whatever period you choose to look at sure and and maybe we can follow up offline but um we we do for each utility uh present the rates in aggregate okay thank you okay all right yeah i also have a question about the outdoor dining i'm chris i remember that we were talking about the module modular units and whether or not we were going to allow non-modular units did we come to a conclusion on that or are we still up in the air on that um we are not we're neither at a conclusion um or up in the air we do have uh four vendors who've responded to a request for proposals that all have some form of modular type infrastructure that um restaurants can choose from if they are

[63:02] selected as our pre-approved vendors that does not preclude restaurants ability to pursue a revocable permit for something that's not one of our pre-approved uh structures but the process for that will take longer um so we're trying to make sure we have an expedited process uh for restaurants that uh want to get this done quickly if there are restaurants that have something different in mind there still is our standard revocable permit review process it just is not going to be as as quick and i certainly i don't want to speak too much for planning and development services they're our key partner in the approval of these permits um and so hopefully i did not misspeak um in the work that we're doing to try to thread the needle on on what's possible in this process i think you hit the right balance chris thank you

[64:00] thanks okay sheriff that answers your question then we do have a motion and a second on the table and we have a roll call vote um alicia should we do that yes sir thank you we'll start this vote with council member folkert yes joseph yes spear yes wallet yes weiner yes yes yes benjamin yes mayor brockett yes and council member folk i think that was it you skipped friends friend that's right thank you yes mayor pro tem friend thank you the consent agenda items a through g served passed unanimously thanks so much alicia

[65:00] right we have one call-up check-in i believe yes sir thank you and again my apologies mayor pro-tem on our item four tonight we have our call of check-in item 4a which is the vacation of a 20-foot wide utility easement at 2150 folsom street that is referenced under case number adr 2022-00105. anybody want to call this up i've seen lots of shaken heads okay it doesn't look like there's any interest on that so i think we can move into our public hearing all right sir our public hearing tonight is item 5a and it's the consideration of six proposed ordinances related to firearm restrictions in the city of boulder those ordinance numbers referenced for the record are ordinance 8494 8525 8526

[66:00] 8527 28 and 85 29. very good and we have a couple of proposed changes to our rules of procedures should we go ahead and take care of those now i'm seeing nodding from theresa so um we have a couple of proposed motions one is to suspend our council rules and procedures to allow for video testimony from congressman the goose uh bob yeah i'll make that motion um congressman very much wanted to speak to us tonight about um at the public hearing that we're about uh to launch but unfortunately he well it's his job he's in washington he's got some meetings tonight so he was kind enough over the weekend to tape a video tape for us i know we normally don't take videotapes from community members but like the fact it's congressman and i think he's gonna have some very important things to say i'd like to move that out for councilman august's testimony that we suspend our rules uh that normally don't allow videos and listen to and watch uh congressman

[67:00] video tonight second great um so you don't see any hands raised for discussions maybe i can just call for a vote uh matt i i just want to make sure in process even though we suspend this will we then afterwards reinstate that rule ahead of public uh ahead of public comment i would try to make the motion to just have an exemption for congressman august is it just the exemption okay that's that's what i meant meant to say but that's what my intention is right so one one time exemption this is a show of hands so i'll just say all in favor all right that looks unanimous okay we've got one other one somewhat similar we have um several of our legislative representatives that are interested in speaking to us tonight but we're only available at the ap 8 p.m hour

[68:00] so we're looking potentially for a motion to set a specific time of 8 pm for our invited elected local legislators to speak at that time yep i will uh make that motion to invite our local elected representatives to speak at 8 pm tonight we'll second that motion all right any further comments on that seeing none i will go ahead and call for a show of hands in favor of this one all in favor very good that's unanimous and so just uh procedurally then the way this is going to work is that we're going to do a stack presentation we'll do council questions then we will go to the public hearing and what we'll do is we'll start with the video testimony from congressman degoose and then we will go to our list of 29 speakers who've signed up until we get to the 8 pm point at which point we'll pause the list of public speakers and then go to our legislators and then resume the rest of our

[69:00] signed up public speakers so unless anybody has any questions on it rachel your hand's still up um very good let me hand it over to uh theresa luis i believe you all are going to present to us tonight yes thank you mayor members of council teresa taylor tate city attorney um i'd like to invite luis to to lead us through a conversation presentation um first outlining how we got here giving a bit of historical context and then in a an overview presents these six ordinances council has seen them before um but we feel like it's important for the record and for the public that we walk through what each of these is going to do tonight so um with that and acknowledging his excellent hard work i will turn this over to luis good evening council members i'm luis toro senior attorney uh emily could you start up the

[70:00] the slideshow thank you and uh as we stated in our memo there's six proposed ordinances and they're designed to address assault weapons large capacity magazines trigger activators and ghost guns and otherwise regulate the purchase and sale of firearms in boulder in ways calculated to reduce threats to residents public places and the risk of impulsive suicide or crime posed by easy to obtain firearms and uh to that end we have these six ordinances move to the next slide please i want to talk about the long journey to today's hearing uh in 2018 there was a mass shooting at a high school in parkland florida and in response to that city council passed ordinances that banned assault weapons and limited large capacity magazines to 10 rounds that led to state court litigation that went on for a couple of years and resulted in 2021 with an order from the boulder county

[71:00] district court saying that our ordinances were preempted by state law which said that municipalities were not allowed to have their own gun regulations now we had a very plausible argument that that violated the home rule amendment to the colorado constitution that we had the authority uh to do this notwithstanding what the state legislature said but the court ruled what it ruled and the next item on the list i almost felt like i could just put the date and everybody would know what i was talking about but on march 22nd of 2021 boulder joined the long list of cities that have been victimized by a mass shooting incident when 10 of our neighbors were killed at the king supers on table mesa the the ruling and the shooting and other events led to the state legislature revisiting the preemption statute and revising it to basically authorize municipalities to have their own gun regulations as long as they're stricter than state law not looser

[72:00] and that went into effect on june 19 2021 we had asked the court of appeals to declare that the uh to vacate the ruling and uh from the district court and then say that it was moved because of the new statute and the court declined to do so after that we voluntarily dismissed the appeal as moot because of the new statute and with direction from council move forward with these ordinances we had a steady session in february 22 uh 2022 when the council went through various possible ordinances and gave us direction to proceed with the ones that we're talking about today and if we can move to the next slide we've uh want to acknowledge that we've had assistance from non-profit groups that are very expert in this area and they've helped us to draft these ordinances they're every town for gun safety and the giffords law center to prevent gun violence and i i want to acknowledge their uh great help and uh without which we wouldn't be here

[73:00] today uh next flight please we also have a goal you know you know ideally the state would regulate uh a lot of this but but they've given authority to cities to do it so we're doing it and we hope to work with our neighboring jurisdictions to have some consistency in gun laws across jurisdictions and we're working with boulder county the city of louisville the city of lafayette and the town of superior to try to get some consistency among our neighboring jurisdictions and these laws and not everybody is going to pass the full package that we're passing but we do hope to have a bit of a safe zone here or a safer zone with some of these laws so if we can move to the next side please now i'm going to walk through the various ordinances 8494 was the is the first one and the the longest one it in many ways is similar to the 2018 ordinances as far as banning assault weapons and limiting

[74:01] magazines to 20 to excuse me 10 rounds or fewer and also banning rapid fire trigger activators such as bump stocks some of which are being regulated by the federal government the ordinance will also reenact our enacts again are raising the age of to possess firearms to 21 subject to existing exceptions for minors to possess firearms it also adds a new severability clause which uh is really a a legal protection in the event that a court were to declare some portion of our ordinance to be invalid where this is expressing council's desire to preserve as much of these ordinances as possible and as much as of our code relating to weapons as possible if any portion of it is struck down by a court and finally we're allowing people who own assault weapons as of july 1st of this year to certify them with the city and continue to possess them as legacy assault weapons

[75:00] so long as they possess a certificate issued by the city that shows that it's a certified legacy assault weapon and i want to be clear that the city does not maintain any record of who has a certificate it's it's just that if uh if there's a need to show that a person is lawfully in possession of a legacy assault weapon that the certificate will show that but the city does not maintain any sort of registry or record of who has these certificates next slide please ordinance 85 25 relates to possession of firearms and sensitive areas and it prohibits possession of firearms in three general areas city properties uh public demonstrations and and polling locations kind of the civic engagement wanting to protect civic engage civic engagement from possible intimidation by people who are carrying firearms uh we're also preventing lit liquor and firearms from mixing the prohibiting

[76:00] firearms in places where liquor is consumed then it's for other facilities we're allowing firearms to be possessed only with the explicit permission of the operating authority and to be consistent with state law we're requiring signage to be posted where carrie is prohibited next slide please ordinance 85 26 is the ghost guns ordinance uh it's ghost guns or guns assembled from kits are manufactured on 3d printers that lack serial numbers the the federal government is beginning to take steps in the in this area but in the meantime the city will be prohibiting these uh it's only a civil offense unless there's an intent to sell or distribute and then it becomes a criminal offense next slide please 8527 is the open carry ordinance and it generally prohibits or open carrying of firearms in public places there are some

[77:01] exceptions to comply with state law and there's also the uh the uh ability to carry an unloaded firearm in an uh locked opaque case and also we're exempting from the open carry requirements private security guards in the course and scope of their duties next slide please 85 28 and 85 29 both address the risk of impulsive purchases of firearms that could lead to suicide or crime one will require signage and gun shops warning of the dangers of gun ownership in english and spanish a lot of this information is not commonly known but that possessing a firearm actually makes you more likely to be injured but by a firearm than than not having one and we're making the public aware of that fact uh 85 20 or excuse me 8259 is a 10-day waiting period similar to that that's in

[78:00] other jurisdictions before taking delivery of a firearm uh 10 days begin from the initiation of the background check so if the background check takes a couple of days that counts as part of the 10. and both of these are designed to address the problem of impulsive crimes or suicides then the last slide please and uh this is just the to show what the language of the notice that's going to be required to be posted at gun shops will say then that's the information that we're requiring to be provided so that's the summary of the various ordinances and i think we can take the slide down emily unless the council wants has any questions and wants to keep it up thanks so much for that luis and very much appreciate all of your work on these ordinances uh bob question thanks for that luis that was very helpful and very concise i have a question which i think i know the answer

[79:01] to but i know the number of commun community members have asked us and so i wanted to say it out loud and hear the answer from you or teresa yeah on the list of places where uh sensitive places where guns are not allowed or only allowed with the consent of the property owner one of the things that was maybe noticeably not listed under ordinance 85 25 is public schools can you speak a little bit about about that and what protections may already be in place on public school grounds yes the the rationale i can address that the rationale for not including public schools is that the boulder valley school district is creating its own set of regulations that will apply district-wide and so we didn't want to duplicate efforts and potentially have one set of rules for schools within the boulder city limits and one for schools elsewhere in the district so the the boulder valley school district uh it's my understanding it's going to have its own firearm restrictions thanks louise and i um am i correct in um understanding that even currently

[80:01] before they make whatever changes they're about to make the guns are generally prohibited on public schools in public schools just like other property owners are allowed to bar guns my understanding is that they're already prohibited at the public schools great thanks louise that's all i had any other questions mark just two quick questions when we in 85 25 when we limited a public carry in uh in certain places did we give any thought to health clubs uh which get a large number of people i think that was mentioned but it and it did not uh get put in the drafts but that's that would fall under the general category of uh places that are allowed to prohibit or where it's uh private businesses which are allowed to prohibit firearms if they want to okay and my other question is um

[81:00] uh with respect to ghost guns uh we've made violations a civil offense um and only in certain cases a criminal offense what was the thinking there well i think that it's so uh the um not everyone who uh necessarily possesses these has an intent to use them and there are kits and so forth and or people buying parts for legitimate reasons and so we wanted to make sure that that we didn't you know accidentally ensnare someone who was buying parts for legitimate reasons and have them uh face criminal liability but if you intend to create to if you intend to manufacture a gun then it becomes a criminal offense okay thank you rachel yeah one question um on the you mentioned required signage a couple slides ago luis um and not the required signage that's

[82:01] its own ordinance for gun sales but if you're concealed carrying i think um in sensitive areas you mentioned required signage and i'm just wondering like we've flipped the default basically in some places that it's going to be presumed not to you're not going to be able to have um to conceal carry in sensitive places if you're one of the listed categories and in some listed categories you can't uh overcome that default even if you wanted to as a business owner so who's gotta display the signage i'm just trying to figure out is it you know if you're in one of those categories where you can't exempt and you don't have signage what happens if you're in the category where you know the default is is flipped to no guns if you don't have the sign up is there is it assumed that that you can carry there i'm just trying to understand what that required signage is for this it's it's to provide notice and it's it's something that we will uh assist assist businesses in getting going we'll

[83:01] you know the city will initiate creating the signage and help them get it posted so for every business in those categories they're going to need a sign unless they opt out that's correct and we're going to help with that okay yes right any other questions all right well then seeing none we can move to the public hearing and start with a testimony from congressman news then after that we'll go over our guidelines good evening mayor brockett and distinguished members of the boulder city council thank you all so much for the opportunity to speak with you at this important city council meeting i regret that i can't be with you in real time but my duties in congress require me to

[84:00] be in washington i'm proud that tonight you will consider six pieces of important gun violence protection legislation that will undoubtedly make boulderites and coloradans safer our colorado communities as you know have experienced the tragedy of the gun violence epidemic time and time again from columbine high school to aurora to last year when 10 precious lives were taken at the king superstore on table mesa as we continue to grieve for the families in buffalo and valdez we recommit ourselves to putting an end once and for all to these devastating tragedies enacting meaningful gun violence prevention legislation at every level of government will save lives i applaud you for the actions that you are considering tonight these decisions take courage they take leadership

[85:00] and i pledge to you that you will always have a partner in me in my office as we work at the federal level to do the same thank you so much for your service to our constituents take care [Music] all right well very much appreciate congressman abuse for his testimony okay well before we go to the general public uh ryan could we just go back over our or whoever's maybe it's sarah sarah i think it's if you can go back over our um guidelines for publications my name is sarah huntley i'm the director of communication and engagement for the city and because we anticipate we might have some folks testifying tonight who are not familiar with our processes and who may have come in later to this meeting we thought it would be a good idea to just quickly go over our public participation guidelines i am going to share my scope somebody has shared it with me thank you so much already i appreciate it i'm seeing some of those boxes though emily but um i'll work my way through it

[86:01] so here in the boulder community we have been working with community members to co-create a vision for productive meaningful and inclusive civic conversations our goal here is to encourage everybody to be able to testify regardless of their age identity lived experience and political perspective we want those diverse perspectives to come into the room but we're also looking to support the physical and emotional safety for community members staff council and participants in this process if you are interested in more information about this vision and how it was created we have a lot of information on our website on the web page you can see on your screen you could go to the next slide please we do have some very specific rules of decorum that are found in bolder revised code specifically in support of this vision and these will be upheld during this meeting and during the next period of public comment so all remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to city

[87:00] business so in this case related to the ordinances that luis just spelled out no participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person we do prohibit obscenity racial epithet and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability of conducting this meeting participants are required to sign up to speak using the name they are commonly known by we did require participants to sign up in advance as is customary with our city process and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online with the one exception of congressman goose which council approved earlier this evening all testimony on this matter will be audio testimony i do believe we have some legislators speaking as well at eight o'clock and we will if we are not through the public hearing we will pause for them to be able to testify and then we will return to our usual practices and with that mayor i think i have

[88:00] completed um going over the guidelines that you requested thanks so much for that sarah all right well we have 29 people sign up to speak each person will get two minutes of testimony and let's get going we've got megan voss christina gardner and lee fisk okay i've got a megan here i'm going to allow you to talk megan you can unmute yourself but if you could just identify yourself by your full name that would be appreciated thanks my name is megan voss can you hear me we can um can we just wait for the timer to come on the screen please so folks can follow along with how much time they have thank you good evening city council members thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight i'm joining you as a boulder resident an educator and a mom of two children who attend elementary school in bvsd i live in south boulder a quarter mile from the table mesa king supers on monday afternoons during the 2020-2021 school year

[89:00] my daughters attended an art class at tinker arts studio in the table mesa plaza and i grocery shopped at king super since there was no school on mondays in bbsd march 22nd 2021 was the only monday all semester that we were not a table mesa instead because it was spring break i was playing outside with my daughters when the shooting occurred we spent the afternoon listening to sirens and watching helicopters circle the store before the king's super shooting i did not realize just how devastating gun violence would be for a community as a whole of course i knew it was traumatic for the victims and their immediate friends and family but i did not anticipate the continued persistent trauma for my family and for many families in our neighborhood over a year later the shooting still comes up daily for my family both of my daughters have have had anxiety about their safety and the safety of our community over the past year and two months after the shooting i felt powerless whereas many members of the community

[90:01] channeled their grief into activism i was stunned and immobile now wrecking now i recognize that this was an understandable response to trauma now however as gun violence continues to affect community after community i feel compelled to speak up although there is no single ordinance that conv that can prevent a massacre like the ones in boulder buffalo and uvalde the package of actions before you tonight makes substantial progress towards keeping firearms out of the wrong hands and in particular raising the legal age of purchase to 21 and requiring a waiting period before a purchaser takes possession may have prevented the deaths in buffalo and uvalde in conclusion oh i apologize your time is up but thank you for your testimony next we have christina gardner lee fisk and haley brown there with me for one moment please

[91:03] okay christina you should be able to unmute correct can we get the timer up please thank you so much thank you city council members my name is christina gardner and i live in south boulder as a mother of three a teacher and a monsterman action leader i've been in the gun violence prevention movement for the past five years i'm also a member of the everytown survivor network due to the murder of a dear friend and colleague who was killed in a domestic violence attack involving a gun as a resident of south boulder i also know the heartache that follows a mass shooting in one's neighborhood i also know that the gun violence happening across our country is preventable if legislators take action such as these ordinances that are grounded in evidence-based research as an educator and parent i want to ensure that we are doing all we can to prevent all gun violence prohibiting firearms in sensitive places fosters safer spaces and also recognizes the continued trauma that survivors of gun

[92:00] violence deal with when repeatedly exposed to the open carry of firearms similarly requiring waiting periods and raising the minimum age of purchase to 21 is backed by solid research data shows that 18 to 20 year olds commit gun homicides four times higher than the rate of adults 21 and older likewise introducing magazine limits and prohibiting assault weapons can help prevent mass shootings and reduce the devastation of daily gun violence finally the proposed 10-day waiting period could have a substantial effect on gun suicide rates since it helps create a buffer between someone being in crisis and having access to a gun this is important when understanding that 90 of suicide attempts with a gun are fatal compared to four percent of those not involving a gun in the years since 10 people were murdered at our grocery store mass shootings and everyday gun violence have continued in staggering numbers and the toll is immense over a hundred people shot and killed every day not a single week in 2020 has passed without at least four mass shootings and 232 mass shootings from january to the end of may this year we must not

[93:00] continue to let a lack of effective reform be the status quo in our community our state and our country thank you for introducing these ordinances and please pass all six thank you christina now lee fisk haley brown and stephanie greenberg you should be able to unmute now lee yes can you hear me yes just get the clock there you go good evening my name is lee fisk i'm a boulder resident mom to two young daughters and on the leadership team the local chapter of mom's demand action as we all know two adults and 19 children were murdered by gun in uvalde texas on may 24th in their classroom days before the end of the school year all those parents families loved ones who said goodbye in the morning and never got to see their child again we all feel the heartbreak and anguish of those families we are all reminded of so many mass shootings now a daily occurrence in this country

[94:01] including those in our own state like aurora and columbine and our own backyard with the tragic loss of 10 members of our boulder community in the king super shooting last year since uvalde only two weeks ago there have been 33 more mass shootings in the united states we all feel angry and powerless to create change when we have a senate unwilling to take action but the truth is we are not powerless here tonight we have the opportunity the responsibility to take action i want to thank our boulder city council members for taking seriously the threat that guns without appropriate common sense regulations pose to our community and i implore you to pass the six local ordinances under consideration tonight with the passage of sb 256 local officials in colorado can now protect their communities from the devastation of gun violence by passing common sense gun safety laws you as our city council have the power to keep guns out of sensitive places like schools prohibit assault weapons in high capacity magazines and better regulate gun dealers

[95:01] not only can you save lives in our community but by doing so you can also set a powerful example for other municipalities we know that cities and towns across the country are watching to see what boulder will do without a doubt passing these ordinances here will encourage local gun safety regulations elsewhere as a mother and a gun violence prevention advocate i ask you to please help us turn our collective heartbreak into real action that will save lives please pass these ordinances thank you thank you lee next hayley brown stephanie greenberg and katelyn russell hello can you hear me yes all right um thank you for giving me a moment to speak my name is haley brown and i live in boulder right next to howard houston park uh with my husband and my seven month old daughter i'm here tonight to speak in support of the package of six ordinances related to firearm restriction within the city of

[96:01] boulder there have already been over 200 mass shootings this year in the united states 200 200 instances of four or more people being killed by a firearm in a single incident this number doesn't even reflect the number of accidental deaths homicides or deaths that have occurred this year from suicide by a firearm according to the cdc an average of 633 coloradans die each year from gun suicide and it makes us the 17th highest state in the nation we have to take action our federal government may be immobilized but you our local officials have the authority to take meaningful action we don't have to wait in boulder for another instance of gun violence at one of our schools or at another one of our grocery stores by passing common sense gun safety laws you're protecting our community you're protecting my seven month old daughter who in just a few years i'm

[97:01] gonna send to boulder valley schools and i checked this morning we are zoned for columbine elementary and i'm so excited i can't wait for her to go to school and meet her classmates and learn and thrive but i also want to do whatever i can to keep her and her classmates safe research shows that firearm restrictions like the ones you consider tonight can help prevent mass shootings injuries and fatalities and reduce the devastation of gun violence each of the six ordinances will have a direct impact in reducing gun violence together they'll make boulder a much safer community so please vote yes on each of these ordinances and thank you again for letting me speak thank you hayley next we have stephanie greenberg caitlyn russell and rick healey stephanie i see you here with your first name when i turn you on if you could just fully identify yourself before you address counsel i'd appreciate it

[98:06] my name is stephanie greenberg and i'm a 40-year resident of boulder i'm representing myself as well as colorado faith communities united and gun violence which is an organization of 47 faith communities as well as the colorado coalition against gun violence whose membership consists of over a dozen diverse organizations i urge city council to pass the entire package of evidence-based gun violence prevention measures together they represent a comprehensive approach uh to this public health problem that we face here's just here are just a few reasons why first assault weapons and the accessories that maximize their lethality are rarely used for self-defense and typically used in mass murders they are designed for the battlefield and have no place in civilian life second people between the ages of 18 and 20 commit 16 of murders but comprise only four percent of the population it's also an age group characterized by impulsivity preventing

[99:01] this age group from buying firearms will help to decrease mass murders other homicides and suicides which are so often acts of impulse third city-owned spaces such as parks playgrounds open space recreation and community centers are all places where families with children tend to congregate allowing guns at these location locations presents risks that no family and no child should have to encounter fourth firearms without serial numbers often hold those guns do not require a background check and cannot be traced by law enforcement they are frequently owned by those who couldn't pass a background check and are found by police at an increasing number of crime sites fifth in this era of almost daily mass shootings the open carry of firearms in public places unless by law enforcement or private security guards will often and unnecessarily provoke fear and intimidation and finally requiring a 10-day waiting period before a buyer can take possession of a firearm affords an

[100:00] opportunity for anger and interpersonal conflicts to to subside people driven by impulse to attempt suicide we'll have an opportunity for the crisis to pass and to obtain help this cooldown period which guns too often take away thank you for that but thank you so much for your testimony next we have caitlyn russell rickely and ari freila mayor i am not seeing a caitlyn russell um as i mentioned to you earlier we do have one phone call in listener and i've been i unable to rouse that person by text message so do you mind if i just um unmute that person quickly to see who that is on our list okay i am trying to talk to the person who's called in with an 882 number if you

[101:02] could press star six and unmute yourself and just identify who you are so we make sure we call on you at an appropriate time that would be helpful you are unmuted but we can't hear you um you may also have to press the unmute button on your phone if you have one andrew o'connor can you hear me now we can i see you both in the meeting virtually on computer andrew and by phone just needed to see who you are i will allow you to speak when we get to you would you prefer for us to use your phone audio or your computer name um phone i would prefer to do it this way okay then i will come to you as soon as we get to you we just couldn't tell who the caller was so bear with us for a few minutes okay thanks and we'll get back to you andrea all right okay so i'm not seeing it caitlin right so no caitlyn russell caitlin you

[102:00] can join later and we'll slot you in if you can instead next we have rick healey then ari freilich and kathleen ashworth i'm sorry mayor i'm not seeing a rickely either i do know we have ari here ari i will go ahead and give you the option to unmute good evening hello we can hear you okay great um thank you for uh this opportunity to speak with you uh my name is ari freilich i'm state policy director for giffords the gun violence prevention organization like the former congresswoman gun owner and gun valve survivor gabby giffords wanted to express our strong support for this package of gun safety ordinances which would implement some reasonable but critical protections to ensure boulder is doing everything it reasonably can to keep its residents safe from gun violence last year my organization was proud to help pass state legislation to reform

[103:01] colorado's firearm preemption laws and empower local communities like boulder to enact the sort of gun safety reform measures proposed today measures tailored to the needs of this community and residents hunger for stronger efforts to address the leading cause of death for children in this country a lot of people were recently reminded in the most horrific ways imaginable why gun safety policy matters so much we saw a gunman perpetrate indescribable horror in a classroom in texas with an assault rifle that this proposal would effectively finally prohibit in boulder he was equipped with 30 plus round large capacity magazines that this proposal would prohibit he purchased those weapons immediately on the day after he turned 18 whereas under this proposal boulder would require civilians to reach the age of 21 and implement a 10-day cooling off waiting period this measure would help limit access to the military-style weapon weapons nearly using nearly all of this nation's deadliest mass shootings and which have been used to perpetrate the vast majority of public mass shootings it would limit access to other normally dangerous devices like bump stocks that

[104:00] were used uh by a gunman in las vegas where he shot bullets to the bodies of nearly 500 human beings the proposal would regulate untraceable and serialized ghost guns to ensure that people who can't pass a background check to buy a gun including miners can't just circumvent their laws by having diy gun build kits shipped to their doors anonymously with no regulation background check or serial number i think i'm going to run over time so i'll just abbreviate here at the end and say to be clear these proposals will make an enormous difference the second amendment is not under threat but we are in states that have enacted measures like these children are half as likely to be shot to death compared to the national average thank you for your time i urge your support for this package thank you ari now we have kathleen ashworth elizabeth smith and jill grano unmute my name can hear you okay my name is kathleen ashworth i have been a resident

[105:01] of boulder since 1996 i am co-chair of saint john's gun violence prevention network st john's episcopal church boulder i'm also a member of colorado faith communities united to end gun violence and i'm a member member of giffords colorado chapter of gun owners for safety i am in support of all the gun ordinances proposed by the balder city council today i'm going to speak briefly about ordinance 8494 i would like to talk about assault weapons why do people want to ban assault weapons because they have been used in some of the most deadliest mass shootings in history including sandy hook san bernardino pulse las vegas sutherland springs el paso boulder and now buffalo and uvalde trauma physicians say exit wounds can be as big as an orange

[106:01] why do people want to ban large capacity magazines holding more than 10 rounds large capacity magazines have been used to increase the death toll in mass shootings including at the aurora movie theater shooting and the king super shooting wideband rapid fire trigger activators to circumvent the significant restrictions on machine guns the gun industry has marketed devices that can be attached to semi-automatic firearms and accelerate the weapons rate of fire to rates approaching automatic machine gun fire these devices including a bump fire or bump stock and trigger crank devices were designed to skirt the limits of the federal law why raise the legal age to purchase firearms from 18 to 21 years of age individuals between the ages of 18 and 21 commit gun homicides at four times the rate of those over 21. any states which have been limited i'm

[107:02] out of time sorry thank you for listening thank you for your testimony next we have elizabeth smith and then jill grano is not present so lisa sweeney moran and then can you hear me yes um good evening council and thank you for allowing me to speak my name is elizabeth smith i am a relatively new resident of boulder um and i am also an attorney and i wanted to quickly share my experience in my former home state which has shown me how crucial it is for boulder to lead on this issue and how closely related culture and economic prosperity are my family and i moved here from a rust belt state in the midwest one whose economics prospects continue to decline as the economy continues to move away from traditional manufacturing into

[108:00] technology and service the state is losing population and talent especially younger people who are leaving for places like boulder and denver and all along the front range to find good jobs and a good lifestyle my experience in my home state taught me how directly prosperity and culture are related over the past 20 years i have watched the culture of my former home state regress in tandem with its economic prospects as companies left businesses downsized or closed in came the individual rights rhetoric of gun culture it was all their leaders had to offer all good people many good people followed them off a cultural cliff of anger and fear boulder cannot afford a culture that pretends we are back in the wild west it

[109:02] is home to a major research university campus several federal labs and a growing biotech industry 21st century culture and economic activity need common sense gun regulation to thrive and everything that is proposed is common sense if you lead people will follow and we will i'm afraid your time is up but thank you so much for your testimony okay and joe grano is not present we can slaughter in later she shows up so lisa sweeney moran then lynn siegel and kathleen salmon hey al uh i speak to you tonight with a few hats as the executive director of two shelters here in boulder that support women and children many of whom are the victims of violence as the vice president of the boulder valley school district board of education and as someone who grew up here in the city and has lived here for the better part of 42 years

[110:00] but most importantly i speak to you tonight as the mother of two young children of course like all parents do i do everything i can as a mother to keep my kids safe but there's always a place where my reach ends and the community has to take over and gun violence is one of those spaces one of the areas where i have to count on you to help me keep the people i love safe and to keep our shelter residents safe and to keep our students safe so i'm asking you tonight pass every measure you can to limit guns and gun access in your community and thank you so much for the time and dedication you've given to this issue thank you lisa lynn siegel kathleen salmon and then brett f stop me if you can't hear perfectly well um i thought it was rather disingenuous for joe nagoose to say he's in washington dc and he can't be here this is a zoom meeting

[111:00] it's 9 19 at the time that he spoke i'm sure he didn't have other meetings he had to go to then i just thought that was kind of interesting and revealing um you know what the other f word is fear don't go there don't go there bad word the worst possible curse word is fear we need no guns i'm not supporting any of this tonight because we need absolutely no guns anywhere all the way up to nuclear which is where the big f word comes and which is where all of our affordable housing wills are happening because we're sending all our money to fight somebody in new in ukraine we're going straight back to 1962 with the cuban missile crisis shame on us nationally internationally and locally

[112:02] know what trump said after that shooting in texas lock the door you can stop intruders guess what the intruders were in texas they were they had to find the janitor to unlock the door so that they could go in and shoot the guy what a joke um as far as long distance issues alyssa bought his gun in arvada so what we need is not just denver we need the whole world to say no to any firearms what you know and bob yates and matt benjamin said they have guns i'm stunned that you could admit it when the fact is it's more dangerous for you to have one what an admission your time is up but thank you for your testimony now we have kathleen salmon and that's brett foth i believe and then rachel daly

[113:03] mayor kathleen salmon is here she's an on an older version of zoom so my only option for unmuting her is to promote her to panelists i can do so and we can ask her not to turn her video on and just testify if you're willing to approve that that's fine please proceed kathleen you're going to get a quick blip on your screen and it's going to say you're promoted to panelists please only turn on your audio thank you for doing that i appreciate it my name is kathleen salmon and i am speaking in support of the six ordinances tonight i am a licensed clinical social worker and i have also been living in boulder for the last 10 years i i work with children and their families in my private psychotherapy practice here in boulder um both after the recent uvalde shooting

[114:00] and the local shooting at king supers i counseled many of the parents that i work with on how to address tragedy with their children i also counsel the teenagers that i work with around their anxieties that they too will be shocked while at school no child or family should be having these conversations about these short sorts of tragedies and no one should be afraid to go to school sb 256 declared that officials of local governments are uniquely equipped to make determinations on regulations of firearms necessary in their local jurisdiction jurisdictions i urge you now to pass all the six ordinances that are being considered tonight all six would assist in preventing mass shootings and gun violence and suicides as a mental health provider i can speak to the fact that passing ordinance 85 29 that adds waiting periods to firearm sales will reduce suicides suicides especially by young people are

[115:01] often impulsive if the purchase process is slowed down it will give so many people an opportunity to also slow down and make a different decision or for a professional family member or a friend to intervene thank you for your time tonight thank you kathleen next we have brett frost rachel daly and andrew o'connor it will just take me one moment to return kathleen as an attendee okay i see brett brett you should be able to unmute brett if you can hear me you should be able to unmute yourself there you go can you hear me now we can all right hello everyone i'm speaking with you guys tonight because i want to bring some real common sense to these common sense

[116:00] gun laws as city council members you guys have no right restricting our second amendment right especially while allowing boulder to be a sanctuary city criminals from around the world can come here without being pursued it will be a big mistake to start restricting legal citizens rights to defend themselves far more lives are saved each year by guns than taken by guns everything you everything you guys are voting on tonight is just virtue signaling in case you guys forgot criminals don't obey laws nothing being proposed will stop mass shooters and according to statistics it might actually cause more mass shooters to target boulder according to a study done by the crime prevention and research center 89 percent of mass shootings between 1988 and 2019 occurred in gun free zones during the same time an fbi study stated that 88 of mass shootings were premeditated meaning they were planned when these angry individuals see these signs saying gun-free zones they and other criminals will target these places knowing there won't be anyone armed there to stop them if another mass

[117:01] shooting happens in boulder at one of these gun free zones the victim's blood will be on your hands thank you for letting me speak tonight okay thank you brett next we have rachel daly andrew o'connor and judy schlower hello council my name is rachel daly i live in gun barrel here in boulder thank you council for your important work on gun to prevent gun violence by enacting common sense laws in our community many will say what's the point boulder is merely 20 square miles in this very large nation but i disagree change must start at home in our backyards in our schools and in our neighborhoods we have to act in the capacity that we can and i am proud to see that you're doing that here in boulder tonight i have two daughters that go to school here in boulder i'm sad to say that my

[118:01] kids ages 12 and 9 don't feel safe at school this is gut-wrenching but not a subject that can be shied away from this is the reality of the world they are growing up in the truth is i don't feel safe either i don't have all the answers but i do believe that sensible measures like the ones that you are considering tonight are an important start thank you for your work thank you rachel next we have andrew o'connor judy square and terry crook andrew i'm going to turn on your phone since you requested to be able to testify you may have to press star 6 and or mute on your phone to be heard star six should get you to unmute there you go um can you hear me now we

[119:00] can um hello thank you for allowing me to speak tonight my name is andrew o'connor and i'm a former public defender and drug court attorney i'm a boulder county resident and most importantly i'm the father of a 14 year old daughter who attends bbsd schools i worked on the original assault weapons band there is a sickness in america it is our gun cult which has no counterpart in any other advanced democracy republican politicians the gun lobby and gun makers are complicit not only in weakening gun laws but also glorifying firearms and encouraging their sale sales of assault style weapons generate the highest profits of any other guns i am sick and tired of worrying about my 14 year old daughter getting shot at school we don't have to live like this america is a country with more guns than people and where many teenagers can purchase a military-style assault weapon

[120:00] before they can legally buy a drink or cigarettes republicans blame everything else but guns for mass shootings the us is doing it all wrong all such explanations ignore the obvious rejoinder that our culture is pretty similar to canada australia new zealand and britain and these countries don't have anywhere close to the same level of gun violence that we have with england canada australia and new zealand can solve this mass slaughter of innocence then so can we please pass these ordinances tonight thank you thank you next square terry crook and kevin larussa jody i see that you're in the meeting you're here as your first name only we do ask that you give your full name before you testify after i unmute you okay can you hear me we can okay my name is jody schlower

[121:00] um thank you all for considering this gun violence prevention ordinances i'm a boulder resident and mom of two four years ago when 17 students and teachers at marjory stoneman douglas were murdered i mourned here in boulder i went to high school in parkland and was crushed by this news i felt pretty alone as this was much more personal for me than it was for my friends and neighbors unfortunately that all changed last year when boulder had a personal experience of 10 lives being lost to gun violence and now today it's even more common to have a personal connection to gun violence tragedy then it's not there's a lack of rules on guns statewide and nationally it almost feels impossible to get anywhere but more of us need to stand up and speak out for what is right this is about gun responsibility not controlling law-abiding citizens guns the fact that local municipalities can enact their own laws now stricter than the state laws shows that we can make

[122:00] progress we must start locally and put on the pressure on colorado legislature statewide to pass more life-saving laws i appreciate the members of the city council considering local action today bob yates spoke on behalf of her of a responsible gun owner and that is much appreciated we need more responsible gun owners to speak out for what is right thank you all for your time thank you judy next we have terry crook and then we have three people who don't appear to be in the meeting kevin larusso janine harrington and kenneth cancion if they appear later we can slot them back in uh so we'll go to terry and then um katie funny terry we can hear you trying to speak but it is mostly it's all static i don't know if others are experiencing the same

[123:00] problem can you try again similar problem i'm going to suggest mayor that we go to the next speaker terry i suggest you leave the meeting and come back in again and we'll call on you in a little bit maybe test your microphone in the meantime because we can't make sense of what you're saying okay let's go to katie farnam then and then i think it'll be time for our legislators oh hello um my name is katie farnan i am a resident of boulder and a mom with two kids in bvst i am a grocery shopper and i have nothing to say except pass these ordinances and thank you for doing this it is a good step um one thing i will say the majority of violent crime in the u.s is home grown for those who found it necessary to bring citizenship into the

[124:00] conversation thank you wish that katie i actually got a couple more minutes let's do bruce parker hello i am bruce parker and i have been the deputy director about boulder county since november 1st 2021 if i were testifying on behalf of myself i would share with you the ways that my life was forever changed due to my father being killed in an act of gun violence when i was two years old but today i am here to speak to you on behalf of out boulder county and lgbtq plus people in boulder and beyond we need to look no further than the pulse nightclub shooting that took place in orlando florida on june 12 2016 to know the very real threat that unregulated access to firearms posed to myself and members of my community the lgbtq plus community 49 people died that night and more than 50 were wounded

[125:00] transgender and gender non-conforming people have been uniquely impacted by gun violence since 2013 nearly two-thirds of fatal violence towards transgender and gender non-conforming people have involved a gun the overwhelming majority of those victims were black transgender women under the age of 30. guns impact lgbtq plus communities not only through mass shootings or acts of random but gun violence lgbtq plus people are more likely to commit suicide because of their harsh treatment by society the number one use for guns in the united states is suicide suicide accounts for six out of every ten gun deaths in our country here in colorado it's three out of four far too often even well-meaning people talk about these problems like they have no solutions when we know some of the solutions and we know the solution can save lives you're considering six measures tonight that can make a huge difference in decreasing gun violence in our communities on behalf of outboulder county and the lgbtq plus community

[126:00] i'm asking you to please support all six of those measures help keep us all safer particularly those of us who are at a higher risk of violence and suicide thank you for your leadership and thank you in advance for voting the correct way to protect people like me in this community thanks so much bruce okay i see we have representative judy in mobile present and as well as representative edie hooton and let me just ask uh let's see um i wonder we could we get maybe a motion to allow our legislators to use their video um as well because i believe we only accepted congressman goose before i moved so moved second motion in a second can i get a show of hands great okay um so let's see i my eye fell on um edie first so edie thank you uh representative putin so much for joining us and uh one when you go ahead and speak to us thank you

[127:00] thank you mayor brockett and thank you everyone for um who's joined the call and to our council members for these proposed ordinances um i'm sure that everyone here is familiar with what they do and a few of them were triggered by legislation that was passed after the king super shooting senator fenberg and i uh were sponsors of one bill and that's the ban on assault weapons the sale of that and a few other things in boulder county and representative mobley carried another bill but clearly we're quite supportive of the ordinances and we encourage council members to vote in favor it's very important that we locally exercise the authority that we have to protect our communities to the extent

[128:00] that we can and i think it's worth noting that i have not received one email uh or one communication over social media and opposition to these ordinances which i think uh may be an indication um there is some positive movement uh taking place not only uh in the state but nationally and i'll let other i'll let my colleagues speak to their experience with that i will say as a legislator i have observed many times the value of local action especially when communities uh take action that is quite similar the way it percolates up to the state level and uh informs state legislators and

[129:02] motivates them to take action and how states do the same thing when they act in coordination on an issue and the way that impacts activities at the federal level so i think it's just an important reminder for everyone that um this action at the local level will make a difference and especially that we now that we've got louisville and lafayette taking the same actions and we know that uh other communities around the state of colorado will do the same thing too so um with that i want to thank the council members again for offering these ordinances and um for councilman benjamin and yates for their excellent guest editorial in sunday's paper that really

[130:01] was an uh absolutely a perfect summary of uh what these ordinances are attempting to do the gravity the situation and how impactful it is for us to act locally so thank you very much everyone for your time and um with that i defer to my colleague representative thank you and thanks for inviting us to come here and talk today i just want to express my deep gratitude to the city of boulder for leading on this issue and we already see that leadership really matters because the boulder city council started and already superior louisville lafayette and other municipalities are looking at following suit and also i think that i want to echo what rep hooton said

[131:01] which is that the state will also follow your lead once we get uh enough cities telling us you have to act and it is a little bit more complicated for us because there are more of us and we have more people who we have to get on board before we can get things passed but i am incredibly grateful and honored to be a member of this community and to have you all representing us on this issue so i just want to touch on the thing that is the most meaningful for me and that is this waiting period so several years ago my son was having a mental health crisis and he decided he was going to buy a gun to kill himself and we found out about that he went to a gun shop he did a background check paid for the background check and just by luck the background check did not come back instantly but just to be clear for anyone who doesn't know we have instant

[132:01] background checks here it you normally can buy a gun in about 10 minutes his background check did not come back instantly his father and i went to the gun shop and begged them please don't sell him this gun and they showed us this is the gun he's gonna buy here's how much it costs here's the paperwork and we don't actually have a legal mechanism to not sell the gun but we persuaded them by crying and yelling and begging and they wrote on his paperwork don't sell the gun but they told us he seems like a very nice young man and under normal circumstances we would have no reason not to sell the gun and i believe that that little bit of luck on that background check saved my son's life and so i do hear people saying well what does it do to act locally but here's the

[133:01] thing even if we saved one kid and that kid was your kid or my kid then i think it would be worth it and i don't think there's a parent out there who wouldn't agree with that and so again i just want to say i really applaud you for taking these steps and they will save lives and it's not everything we need to do but it is meaningful thanks thank you so much for that representative is very powerful all right we also i believe um have senator steve fenberg with us as well can we bring uh senator penberg online senator you are a panelist so you may unmute and turn on your video yourself great um thank you uh mayor brockett and thank you uh uh council and everyone who has been working on this um on this issue uh you know i

[134:00] i'll echo a lot of what has already been said but you know the the context in the background here is no state as far as i know prior to colorado has actually uh repealed a state preemption on uh on on having local communities pass ordinances around gun violence prevention this is something that the gun lobby and others have shopped around state by state in the 90s and early 2000s and colorado was the first state in the country to to reverse that obviously as a state even though we are a western state sometimes you know seen as a libertarian-minded state we have passed several really smart uh common sense i think life-saving policies at a state level

[135:01] when it comes to gun safety i'm sure several have been mentioned and folks are very aware of them whether it's the red flag law the universal background checks which we even expanded recently safe storage requirements requirement to report lost and stolen high-capacity magazine bans several pieces and i do think many of them are working in concert with each other to to collectively create an environment that has saved a lot of lives there's one law that we passed a year ago now that i think uh is going to end up being one of the most impactful and that's the one that i'm speaking about which is the repeal of preemption and uh that's that's where you come in and that's why the work that you are doing is so important because we knew that even if we passed all of the laws that we wanted to at a state level

[136:00] it's not going to be enough and um we really need to empower local communities to have these conversations based on what is needed uh what they are seeing on the ground and what they think is right to keep them and their citizens safe and so what's happening today the discussion in boulder is exactly what we wanted to happen and i think it's really important to recognize that this has been an incredibly thoughtful uh exercise uh on your on um on your part this is not a knee-jerk reaction um once you were given the ability it's not like the next day you rushed and just passed a boilerplate ordinance but clearly you have thought about this you have coordinated with other communities discussed with uh experts and with folks who have been victims and this is what is needed to go above and

[137:00] beyond what the state has done uh what uh the community has told you is important uh and that will result in creating a safer community and it might not be what works everywhere but i think we will see uh over the next few years community after community along the front range uh replicating a lot of what um you are discussing here and i think that's incredibly important because um the the landscape when it comes to how we think about guns and the role that they play in our lives and the the violence that can result from them it's different in every community to be honest i mean it is guns are different in sterling colorado or brush colorado or um in delta county versus boulder and that's okay but with that also means that local

[138:00] communities should be able to have that discussion about what is best for their community based on that relationship so i think a lot of communities are going to learn from this um they're going to replicate it and i think that will have a bigger impact than even just uh in boulder um and as others have said and i know representative immobile has said this it you know the the idea is partially not just because some cities and communities are different from one another and so you should have that ability and that right to have that discussion at a local level but you can be a laboratory to help influence the state to know what are the best practices how do waiting periods get implemented in a way that will save the most lives how can we be smart and strategic about banning uh weapons that have the ability to cause incredible havoc and harm and murder um

[139:00] those are the the the pieces that i think you are going to learn that we are all going to learn from this experience and is going to act as sort of a laboratory for smart policy that i think will result in saving uh many many lives down the road so um you know again uh what you were doing with these this ordinance is incredibly powerful incredibly important and um i will say uh is exactly what the legislature had in mind when we passed the bill to give you the ability to to have these community discussions and to pass local ordinances um because that's where this discussion really should live uh you are closest to the citizens in many ways um that we all represent and um you should be able to uh do uh what is i would say is the fundamental uh function of of government especially local government and that is to to keep

[140:03] uh your community and citizens safe um and that's what you're doing today so i applaud um everything that you were doing uh it is it is incredibly important and again is following exactly in line with what we have in mind um and what we think uh as as legislators who voted for that policy um is exactly the types of policies that uh in ordinances that will result in lives being saved and that's at the end of the day what matters um so thank you so much for for your work thank you for uh the discussions you've led and been a part of um for for a long time now but especially over the last year and a half or so um it means the world to me and my family as as residents but also as a public servant knowing that in many ways the the baton has been handed to you and uh it'll it'll come back to the state because there's a whole lot more work we have to do at a state level as well um but this is a partnership and and i'm excited that that it's happening in this fashion so thank you uh mr mayor and

[141:02] thank you council well thank you so much for that senator fenberg or i should say uh senate president uh fenberg um so we're just so grateful uh for your words and uh for your actions so really appreciate very much all of three of you being here tonight representatives and senator fennberg and let me just say you know after the horrendous tragedy at the king supers in boulder last year uh the way that you all sprung into legislative action immediately uh was really inspiring and a comfort to us in dark times that you took very seriously the horrific tragedy that we suffered through and gave us the ability to enact our own legislation which we're now moving forward with right now so just our gratitude is very deep so thank you so much very good well uh that ends the uh legislator portion of our public

[142:02] testimony and do we have uh terry crook back uh sarah we do let's give it a try and see if his mic is working okay can you hear me now we can i'm sorry it's miss crook we can hear you now oh now we can't we could hear you loud and clear when you asked us so whatever you were doing then do that again please well terry i apologize i'm afraid you're you're not coming through it may be an internet problem on your side or i don't know what some kind of technical difficulty i'm afraid we're gonna have to move on maybe we can try one more one more time a little later okay our next three speakers are pamela mcmillan tina pittman with

[143:01] wagers and eric budd hi my name is pam mcmillan and i want to first thank council members for the opportunity to speak as a mother of two young daughters in boulder i speak in favor of the six ordinances to prevent gun violence according to the cdc gun related injuries became the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in 2020. this statistic is sobering and sickening to any parent only fueling our anxiety for the safety of our children after every mass shooting i feel nauseous when i drop my kids off at school and i have a knot in my stomach all day as i worry about their safety we should not have to live like this our kids should not have to fear going to school to learn parents and children have endured enough trauma from these acts of gun violence

[144:00] and it is past time to implement stronger gun laws we should have taken action 23 years ago after columbine i want to thank you in particular for reproposing an assault weapons ban and banning bump stocks research shows that restrictions on assault weapons can help prevent mass shooting injuries and fatalities and reduce the devastation of daily gun violence parents want also want an ordinance that prohibits open carrying of firearms in public places we shouldn't have to worry about a firearm when we take our kids to the playground allowing guns in parks where children play at crowded demonstrations or other sensitive areas puts us all at risk we have the opportunity to make boulder a safer community to live by passing all six ordinances boulder will become a more attractive place for people to raise their families thank you for your time and your commitment to improving the safety of our community please vote yes on all six ordinances

[145:03] thank you and next we have tina wagers eric bod and fred martin hi there can you hear me yes i'm um tina piven wagers clinical psychologist and teaching professor emerita from cu boulder and also happy to represent mom's demand action tonight i wholeheartedly support the proposed gun ordinances currently before the council and i'm delighted to see our community move towards these important steps lately we've heard the argument that mental health not guns is to blame for the tragic gun violence we've experienced i want to say a few words to explain why that is an unproductive conclusion scientific studies repeatedly find that people with mental illness are more likely to be victims rather than perpetrators of violence in numerous studies mental illness is not a reliable predictor of violence towards others

[146:00] including an important study from the fbi focused on mass murders only a tiny percentage of people with serious mental illness ever commit violent acts current research on violence is much more focused on factors like childhood trauma angry thoughts personal grievances life stressors and disinhibition none of which are mental health disorders but the most compelling evidence against a mental health gun violence argument is this about one in seven people around the globe have one or more mental or substance abuse disorders including the us indeed rates of mental illness in the us are comparable to those in many parts of europe and australia however the rate of gun violence in our society is 25 times higher than in countries with similar economic development and social conditions blaming gun violence and mental illness further stigmatizes a population that's already struggling and is just unhelpful from a predictive or explanatory standpoint access to guns greatly increases our risk of societal violence thus i'm thrilled that our community is focusing

[147:00] on the actual problem through these ordinances that will do reduce easy access to guns thank you thank you tina next we have eric budd fred barton and eric walls uh thank you council eric budd i live in boulder um i really appreciate city council taking on this issue and it's one that's really something that's been been led by leaders in the democratic party but this is something that really benefits everyone in our city and it's so important so thank you and i also want to thank reps um edie hooton julia mobile and senate president fenberg for speaking i think it is part of their work that is enabled this night and they said that and i strongly support you all passing these measures uh including the assault weapons ban um and i do also want to put a little pressure back on our legislators that um

[148:00] while we've seen we're seeing action from boulder we're also seeing action from louisville and lafayette city councils tonight which is really exciting but there are certain things that we simply should be doing at a state level which i think we should be looking at an assault weapons ban um you know it's it's something that we've experienced here in boulder we know that um we know the limits of what we can do in our own municipality we saw this with a mass shooting that we had last year with a gun that was bought in colorado outside of the city of boulder and i'm asking our legislators to do more and so i really appreciate you all moving forward on passing these measures and continue to put this in your state legislative plan to have the city of boulder be an advocate for more protections at the state level thank you so much thank you eric now we have fred barton eric walls and then uh jennifer mapley

[149:03] hello uh did that work yes oh um great so um this is fred barton um i'm a boulder resident now for about 18 years father of three boys and i'm as at least two of the city council members a responsible gun owner i am opposed to the measures that the city council is considering i didn't have much time to prepare a nice long you know two minute long speech because i only found out about this about an hour before the meeting i this issue unlike some of the others that have been discussed so far in the meeting is a very divisive issue for our community there's not been nearly as many people participating in this discussion as there has been in the previous discussion mostly because people probably don't know about it i would highly suggest and recommend

[150:00] that instead of making a unilateral decision on something that is so divisive to the community that the city put the issue to a ballot measure and allow the city the individual citizens of the community to determine their viewpoints and have a voice in deciding which way the city decides these issues as an aside i know of for during the crime wave of the pandemic that we had there's many people that are negatively affected by these uh potentially by these issues i know of an 80-year-old woman who was robbed twice in one day came to buy a gun in a gun store because she was so concerned and had she been made to wait um she wouldn't have felt nearly as safe for the you know hours later that she got robbed or attempted robbery again um so sort of in closing i'm opposed to these measures being decided by the city

[151:01] council i think that all the citizens should be allowed to vote on this themselves um that's all i have thank you fred thanks we have eric walls and then jennifer mavery and then we'll check on our previous speakers right here i'm sorry mayor i'm not seeing eric walls in the room i can go to jennifer maprey she is here good evening council my name is jennifer mabry i'm a boulder native and live in south boulder i was at king supers and table mesa just four hours before the slaughter i'm here to urge our city council state and federal officials to take steps like australia to reduce to work to eliminate eliminate access to assault weapons intended for war you our leaders have failed us and failed two generations of children who don't have fancy white gloved lawyer on k street to

[152:02] fight for their rights for freedom innocence or life our city and our county and our country need to turn off the spigot of sale of these mass assault weapons and offer programs for buyback and destruction of these assault weapons that are already in circulation we'll never get control of the situation if we do not eliminate guns entirely these ordinances are the least that we can do and they should be a start not a finish i urge you to pass these six ordinances thank you for listening to me thank you jennifer um sarah do we have anyone else who had signed up but wasn't present earlier i'm just taking a quick look i am not seeing anybody we still have terry crook but i'm not sure that the situation has improved we could try one more time if you would like let's give it a real quick try

[153:00] okay terry do you want to try to unmute one final time no i'm so sorry i would like to invite you to send your testimony into counsel there is a contact counsel form on the webpage and i'm sure that they will all be interested in in reading your thoughts apologize we haven't been able to make the audio work tonight okay well with that that concludes our public testimony and i just want to thank everyone for weighing in and giving us your thoughts there's some very powerful statements we appreciate everyone for joining us so it brings us back to city council for a discussion on the matter um we've got rachel with our handouts um i'm just ready to make a motion if it's time but if anyone has the discussion i will hold it please do i welcome the motion rachel and we can discuss it from there thank you i knew that we adopted the following

[154:00] ordinances relating to gun violence prevention 84 95 85 25 85 26 85 27 85 28 and 85 29 wait a second my second rachel's motion very good uh rachel do you want to speak to your motion yeah i would love the opportunity thank you um and i do want to say i've got covered right now so my voice is a little bit out and i thank you all for bearing with me last year boulder joined an ever-growing list of cities traumatized by mass shooting violence this event has left an indelible mark on our community so i first want to take a moment to remember the community members who we lost last year trollana barkoviak suzanne fountain terry lyker kevin mahoney lynn murray ricky olds nevin stanisich denny stong officer eric talley and jody waters

[155:02] they're never far from our hearts the ordinances under consideration tonight are intended to reduce gun violence in our community and i hope that in taking this action we honor those 10 individuals as well as all others both within and outside of boulder who have fallen victim to the gun violence epidemic plaguing our country each proposed ordinance falls within the realm of acceptable limits on gun ownership as defined by the us constitution is refined by u.s supreme court decisions such as dc versus heller and is prescribed by colorado state law i believe that our number one job as elected officials is to safeguard our community members and these ordinances can help us to do so so i will be voting yes on all of the measures i also want to thank a few people governor polis senator fenberg and house representatives and mobile and hooton as has been discussed previously i'm deeply grateful for the part that each played in the state of colorado repealing preemption which enables cities including boulder

[156:01] to enact gun laws to best protect our communities to my colleagues as well as to the 2018 boulder city council simply stepping into this politically fraught space can be tough and i am sincerely grateful for everyone's willingness to be here i also want to thank city staff who do all of the real work in the city and i want to thank giffords in every town for providing guidance and support along the way on this journey thank you to congressman goose for speaking up a second time in favor of gun violence prevention efforts here in boulder and to all of our community members who've emailed and testified and supported these efforts i'd like to especially recognize survivors here in boulder i'm sure that every time you speak up in honor of your loved ones or about your own harrowing experiences it exposes a never healed wound so thank you for stepping into that space gun violence continues to escalate in a maddening trend upward that is daunting to watch and horrific to experience

[157:00] but shrugging or turning away and accepting a worsening status quo is not okay implementing common sense gun laws is the right thing for us to do i'm frankly frustrated that it is left to cities to enact these laws that the federal government or at least state governments could and should be doing boulder alone cannot create all the protections needed to keep our community members safe from all forms of gun violence but voting on these ordinances tonight is what we can do for our community banning assault weapons large capacity magazines rapid fire trigger activators and ghost guns prohibiting open carry in public places raising the age to purchase firearms from 18 to 21 prohibiting deadly weapons in city buildings and other sensitive areas requiring critical information to be shared out with potential gun purchasers at the point of purchase and instituting a 10-day waiting period are all ordinances that can save lives right here in boulder and these measures will be all the more potent and effective as cities throughout the region enact their own ordinances i

[158:00] applaud our neighbors in superior lafayette and louisville louisville i think got in ahead of us and has passed their ordinances unanimously within the last hour and cities around the state who are also taking up gun violence prevention ordinances in the wake of preemption being repealed together i hope that we can make the city of boulder the county of boulder and all of colorado an even better place to live i am really proud to be part of this council which is willing to reject the status quo on gun violence and i hope all of my colleagues will join me in voting yes on all of the ordinances tonight thank you all thank you for that rachel uh bob would you like to speak to your second i would thank you aaron like um like rachel i want to first thank the organizations and the people who helped us prepare this legislation we are indebted to gifford's law center to prevent gun violence and to every town for gun safety both organizations assisted us in drafting

[159:01] these ordinances based on best practices they were seeing around the country i also want to thank the local chapter of moms demand action for their tireless advocacy over the last several years i want to thank the hundreds and hundreds of boulder residents who wrote to us bolstering our courage i want to thank all of the people who took time out of their lives and away from their families this evening to speak at our hearing tonight and i especially want to thank city attorneys teresa tate and luis toro for their drafting revising and steady legal advice aided by our able assistant taylor ryman but i want to say my biggest thanks to my city council colleague and my friend rachel friend rachel has lived and breathed gun violence prevention for more than four years long before she was elected to the boulder city council as a community member in 2018

[160:01] rachel was the leading champion for the gun violence prevention legislation that we passed that year since joining council rachel has been tireless in advocating for sensible gun laws to keep our families and our community safe and rachel not only led the formulation of boulder's legislation legislation that we will pass tonight she has been a steady and reliable resource for the communities around boulder who are passing their own gun violence protection legislation prevention legislation some of them acting this very night rachel i know that you have only another year or so left in council but the legislation that we will pass tonight will be your lasting legacy i will be voting in favor of all six pieces of gun violence prevention legislation as a lawyer i believe that these six ordinances have been crafted to comply with state and federal law as a responsible gun owner i believe

[161:02] that these ordinances are not unduly burdensome on those who want to own guns safely these six ordinances identify dangerous and unusual weapons vulnerable potential gun users and sensitive places where guns used inappropriately can do the greatest harm i do not need to repeat the statistics on mass murder using firearms domestic violence shootings gun suicides or accidental deaths they are stated well in the ordinances themselves they were cited in the op-ed that matt and i published on sunday and in my newsletter yesterday and we have heard them from our eloquent speakers this evening simply stated guns in the wrong hands or in the wrong places kill tens of thousands of people each year many of them children the ordinances that we will pass tonight will be our modest attempt

[162:01] to try to save some of those lives but it will take far more than a set of ordinances passed by the boulder city council to save the lives of another forty thousand people who will likely be killed by firearms in the united states over the next twelve months it will take courage and action by cities and counties across our state it will take courage and action by our state legislature and our governor and we'll take courage in action by our congress and by our president but perhaps more important than government action saving lives will require the responsibility of gun sellers gun owners and the family and friends of vulnerable people intent on hurting themselves or on hurting others we are responsible for the health safety and well-being of each other that's what makes us human

[163:00] my mentor the former president of colorado state university taught me this humility is a recognition that your life could collapse in an instant as we pass these essential gun violence prevention measures tonight let us be humble let us recognize that with the simple pull of a trigger anyone we love could be taken from us in an instant let us try to remove that threat let us come together and learn to live safely and peacefully thank you thank you for that bob um what did anyone else like to speak to this i see mark casa's hand up thank you mayor um before i begin i'd like to second bob's comments especially the thanks that he's offered to our colleague rachel friend and the work that she has put into this

[164:01] subject for so many years and yes this will be your legacy rachel and and a well-earned one in the past few weeks buffalo and valdi like boulder have become members of a club that no city wishes to join those that have become victims of senseless mass violence as a member of that unhappy club it is appropriate that today boulder takes actions to address the conditions that permit such violence to occur but first let's be clear we're not taking away guns people have the right to possess guns to defend their homes to go to a firing range or to hunt all we are doing is taking measured and reasonable steps to make it less likely that guns will fall into the hands of the mentally disturbed or suicidal and less likely that there will be easy access to weapons of war to commit the atrocities that so many communities have experienced the late supreme court justice anthony

[165:01] scalia noted that the right to bear arms quote was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose unquote he was correct today we take careful and limited steps in the spirit of that language and in the recognition that the obscenities of king supers pittsburgh buffalo uvalde and sandy hook among so many others should be unacceptable to a civilized society as elected officials it is our first and highest responsibility to keep our communities safe today we take a significant step in support of that obligation accordingly i am very proud to support these ordinances all of them the necessity to act is clear our power to act is also clear and today we shall act

[166:01] for the protection of the city we call home thank you thank you mark nicole and matt it was really hard to sit here and listen to all the testimony tonight i think i saw some of you likely in a similar place of struggling with that um it really brings up all the times uh in our own lives where we've been touched by gun violence where our lives and those of people we love have been torn apart and so i will be i will be supporting all of these ordinances tonight but i wanted to thank everybody who was willing to overcome their own fear and trauma to speak to us tonight to advocate for the safety of our whole community there were a few things that some folks said during the public hearing that i wanted to lift up that just really resonated with me

[167:00] rachel daley said we have to act in this capacity we can andrew o'connor said we don't have to live like this and jodi sklar said more of us need to stand up and speak up for what is right we can't solve national problems but we can make our residents our community a little bit safer we can do what we can with the tools that we have at our disposal to protect our community and ultimately that's really what i feel our job is on council to keep our community safe to the best of our ability that's what we're doing here tonight and i just want to echo everybody else's thanks to staff um to my colleagues who have been working on this far longer than i have and just thank you for everything that you've done to move this forward and keep our community safer thank you nicole matt and then i'll call on myself i'm going to put my hand down

[168:01] um i uh thank you aaron for the opportunity to uh say a few words and um i certainly i think take the space to recognize the emotion that comes through talking about these things and as nicole put it the testimony was was raw and heartfelt and um necessary for the subject we're dealing with and have been working through for a long time and we've had daily reminders of why this is so hard and especially because of having gone through ourselves in our community um i want to you know absolutely echo what bob said in the just unequivocal gratitude towards rachel and her tireless work over the years i'm not sure we would be here if it weren't for her leadership um and and not just leadership but the empathy in which she drives for the change that has you know led us to these moments so so i thank you for that rachel and thank the previous councils for for building the foundation from

[169:01] which we can work from tonight um i also want to thank my colleague bob yates for standing with me and talking as responsible gun owners for why we feel that these ordinance do not infringe on the second amendment and that it's going to take more responsible gun owners to stand up and say enough is enough and to hopefully tip the scales to this long-standing meaningful change not just here in boulder but through the state and hopefully around the country so i'm hopeful for that and as ari said it earlier the second amendment is not under threat but we are and these ordinances i think are a step in that direction boulder is still grieving the loss of 10 family members friends neighbors and co-workers and we will be for a long time and so i support these six ordinances wholeheartedly because um doing nothing is an endorsement of the status quo and that's not something

[170:01] that um i'm willing to live with thank you thanks man i'll just offer a few words i'll start with the the thank you so bob did a great job of listing all the people who've worked so hard on this so thanks again to to staff uh who've done this i've worked so hard on this and and to call out rachel as well rachel for your tireless work on this it's actually how i first met you was when i got a phone call you know on this this topic four odd years ago and you were a tireless advocate then and you continue to be uh and thank you for that and then i i also want to call out from our uh effort in 2018 to ban assault weapons uh jill grano council member jill grano and because it was her initiative that first brought this forward in 2018 so i'm grateful to her for starting us along this path um as say you uh you know gun violence is a scourge on our society you know tens of thousands of people are killed by gun violence every year and and last year we were visited by that scourge in our in our

[171:01] own city and the king super shooting when we lost 10 beloved community members and we've seen horrendous tragedies happen over and over again in our country and after so many of them no action is taken and i do very much appreciate our legislature and our governor stepping in and passing new legislation uh to address uh these issues and to give us the ability to act here locally and so i'm very proud to be part of a city council and part of a community that supports us to say that thoughts and prayers are not enough that we have to take the actions that we can with the tools that we have available to us so i'm very proud to support these ordinances today they will make our community safer and um thanks again to everyone uh for everything we've done for this effort and i'm looking forward to our vote tonight and i think this may be the time for it does

[172:01] anyone want to offer any final comments before we move to that lauren thank you aaron i just wanted to echo what so many people have already said you know like any important issue i think that you know gun violence is too big for our community to solve on its own but like these other important issues it's also um you know weighs too heavy on us to not move forward with in the ways that we can and to do as much as we can i'm so proud to serve on council with all of you to take on this issue and so proud to be a part of this community that brought you know forward so much bravery tonight thank you for that lauren all right uh alicia i believe we have a roll call vote in front of us that is correct sir thank you

[173:01] we will start this roll call with mayor pro tem friend i'm a big ass councilmember joseph yes spear yes wallach i am proud to vote yes weiner definitely yes yates absolutely yes benjamin enthusiastically yes mayor brockett yes and council member focus yes mayor ordinances the six ordinances related to gun violence prevention that include ordinance 94 85 25 85 26 27 28 and 29 were passed unanimously and adopted

[174:02] thank you so much for that alicia thanks so much to my colleagues here i have a tear in my eye this is a it's an important moment and it takes courage to pass measures like this so thanks again so much to everyone to help who's helped to make this happen okay well that concludes uh our agenda item here and um alicia do we have anything else uh for us tonight no sir that was our last action item on tonight's agenda very good any final thoughts on the meeting everyone anyone i want to say thank you all for the kind words that was a little too much i'm really proud of us no more than you deserve rachel uh tara i want to agree with what lauren said and just i'm so

[175:01] we're deeply touched and thrilled to be a part of this tonight i know i didn't say anything but as you all know um my sister is one of my sisters best friends jody waters was killed in that shooting and i'm not going to say that we feel better but it is at least something and i'm sure it means so much to so many of us that were unfortunately touched by that uh affected by that not by that day and um i'm thinking about officer talley and how brave he was as well at this time and um i'm just really want to give each one of you a hug and the community as well thanks for being with us for supporting us for so many kind words and for a wonderful civic discourse thanks chad

[176:00] okay we'll see no others um i will go ahead and gavel our meeting closed here at 8 50 p.m thanks so much everyone have a good night

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