October 6, 2022 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[3:03] [Music] is all right okay I I think I think we're about ready to get going Elisha do we have what we need to get started yes so Channel 8 is ready we are on air and we are ready to go well I will give a hearty welcome to everyone to the October 6 2022 meeting of the Boulder City Council and it is such a pleasure to have the public with us let's give a it has been a very long time since we've done this together with with people with

[4:01] us we're so glad that you could join us and uh we have had a bit of a tradition During the covid period of starting off right before the meeting with a dad joke and we want to just continue that so I'm going to turn to council member Benjamin to kick us off here it's a little different when there's only nine of us to respond to it that's for sure but it's worth to start with a little levity what did the fishermen say to the magician pick any card any card all right it's okay to groan it doesn't matter and with that um so we will go into a couple of announcements here so uh covid-19 vaccinations and testing so for information and provider locations for free covid-19 testing go to bocode.org covid testing and the boulder site for free testing is at 2445 stazio drive

[5:01] that's open seven days a week from 8 AM to 6 p.m and for vaccine information and provider locations you can go to boco.org covid vaccine and as I said already welcome back to public participation participation in Chambers so uh with the public being back in Chambers starting tonight we want to remind you that we are offering the public to participate both virtually and in person so you're asked to indicate on open comment and public hearing forms if you will be speaking virtually or in person in-person speakers will speak first and then virtual speakers will follow all speakers are listed in the order in which they signed up now speakers do have the option to change their location preference if needed by contacting the city clerk's office at city clerk's office at bouldercolorado.gov prior to the start of the meeting and with that I can't actually gavel it started because I want to go I will call this meeting to order

[6:00] and if we could do roll call please Alicia all right sorry we'll get that gavel to you here immediately I apologies all right we'll start tonight with council member Benjamin present mayor Brockett thrilled to be here council member Folkers present mayor Pro tem friend here councilmember Joseph hasn't arrived yet council member spear president wallink here weiner present and Yates July I'd like to be here mayor we have our quorum fantastic and um Juni has informed it she'll be here any minute so we should see her shortly okay so we're going to get started with a couple of declarations the first declaration is indigenous people's day declaration to be presented by council member folkerts and take it away Lauren thank you with indigenous people's day coming on Monday October 10th the Boulder City Council extends our gratitude to

[7:00] community members who developed the indigenous people's day resolution their Collective and collaborative hard work in 2016 set a crucial foundation for the city of Boulder to reckon honestly with its past and for how we can honor serve and celebrate indigenous Nations and Indigenous communities and Indigenous organizations in the Boulder Community the Boulder City Council which adopted indigenous people's day resolution in 2016 and continues to guide City indigenous related work believes it is critical to underscore key acknowledgments in the resolution along with additional information we have learned implementing the resolution indigenous people in Boulder respect the interdependence of all humanity and living things and celebrate a vast and Rich living tradition through ancestral recognition and diversity of knowledge and perspectives including sustainable practices

[8:00] indigenous people in Boulder have in all parts of America's endured centuries of Cruelty exploitation and genocide Boulder has benefited and continues to benefit directly from Indian Removal policies that violated human rights broke government treaties and forced many people from their Homeland for example Arapahoe Chief Niwot and other Arapahoe people told a party of gold Seekers camped in what is now known as Boulder that they could not remain on indigenous land as defined by the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie however those men stayed after gold was found west of Boulder in January 1859 many of those same gold Seekers helped found the boulder Town company on February 10 1859 in violation of the 1851 Fort Laramie treaty

[9:03] in August of 1864 nearly a hundred Boulder County residents mobilized into company D of the third Colorado Cavalry of U.S volunteers at Fort Chambers this company of a hundred men trained at the Fort before participating in the Sand Creek Massacre on November 29 1864 from which the boulder troops enjoyed a hero's welcome upon their return among those killed in the massacre were women children elders and Chiefs including Niwot and chief White antelope today Boulder is honored to be home of several prominent native organizations including the Native American rights fund founded in 1970 which is the largest non-profit Law Firm dedicated to asserting and defending the rights of

[10:00] Indian tribes organizations and individuals Nationwide the resolution also States the city acknowledges that those now living on these ancestral lands recognize that harm was done and acknowledge that we have a shared responsibility to forge a path forward to address the past and continuing harm to the indigenous people and the land as we mark this year's indigenous people's day we must Rec we must ensure ongoing work to acknowledge and address the past to help Inspire education and reflection and initiate meaningful action to help support indigenous Nations communities and organizations this work is Guided by the city's indigenous people's day resolution the city's racial Equity plan guidance from the American Indian Tribal Nations agreements the city shares with tribal Nations the open space and Mountain Parks master plan and engagement with indigenous communities and Indigenous

[11:00] organizations in Boulder community members can learn about ongoing indigenous related projects through the city's website we the city council of the city of Boulder Colorado declare October 10 2022 as indigenous peoples day we urge all community members to begin or continue the process of listening to indigenous peoples reflecting on the indigenous presence in the Boulder Valley that has existed since time immemorial and learning about the violent colonizations of indigenous lands while the city is collaborating with tribal Nations on several ongoing projects we know we have more work to fulfill the indigenous people's day resolution and help support indigenous Nations and Indigenous communities and organizations in Boulder we value their guidance and the opportunity to listen and learn from all of them as we reckon with and address our past with the hope that it will make our Collective communities stronger and

[12:00] more resilient thank you thank you so much Lauren and we look forward to celebrating together on indigenous people's day in just a few days uh do we have anyone here to receive this declaration okay actually I do need to ask for a motion to amend the agenda here to make a couple of changes we need to remove item 1C the Colorado companies to watch month declaration we're going to do that in a few weeks and also to remove item 3F which was a second reading of ordinance 8547 about policies and procedures in the event of a drought that's going to be a public hearing at a meeting later in October and then finally to add item 3i which is consideration of a motion to appoint council member Wallach to the Colorado Municipal League policy committee so moved second motion second all in favor all right very good so the motion is

[13:00] duly agended duly amended uh the agenda is that is okay well Juni great timing so thanks for coming on in and we've got a declaration to be ready are you up for it here am I the first one I thought there were three others uh you're the second one so it's the ayurveda Declaration to be presented by councilmember Joseph thank you either way thank you so much and welcome [Music] good evening everyone I'm a little bit out of breath but we'll do our best day October 23rd 2023 October 3rd 23 2022 the aim of your Veda day is to create a sense of awareness in today's generation and promote your Vedic principle of healing in society

[14:00] your Vedic medicine also known as your verveda is one of the world's oldest holistic whole body healing systems it was developed thousands of years ago and what is today India it is based on the belief that health and wellness depend on maintaining balance between the mind body and spirit your Vera has grown in popularity recognition and familiarity among mainstream culture integrative medicine and media the practice of uvetic medicine has a valuable contribution in our community and helps people to live healthier lives welcome we welcome you to now join us and taking the uvira day pledge I pledge to make your Veda an integral part of my daily life and thereby enable good health and well-being for myself my

[15:01] family and my community and harmony with nature from the mayor Aaron Brockett if you all would like to say a few words please feel free wonderful thank you so much appreciate the council and and all the effort that went in but you're going to want to pick up that microphone and hold it up I can pick up and speak into the microphone uh who here has heard of ayurveda all right nice I love it we're in Boulder uh so yes appropriately right after the indigenous people's day declaration uh ayurveda is the indigenous medicine from the South Asian continent India Pakistan Afghanistan Nepal this this whole region is where this comes and it Bears similarities to indigenous medicine practices from all over the planet

[16:00] but it is the unique geopolitical history of this region that lets these teachings this whole system uh come to us mostly fully formed from the The Vedas which are some of the most ancient written records that we have left for Humanity and so uh Prema and I are representatives of kalarama which is the Colorado ayurvedic Medical Association and we are one of the most active and engaged uh collectives in the country when it comes to promoting ayurveda and protecting its history and pushing it forward and we are big Believers in the power of ayurveda to solve many of the health crises facing our nation right now what are the epidemics we have obesity we have heart disease we have inflammation these are lifestyle conditions that modern biomedicine for all its magic and miracles and life-saving Technology doesn't know how to deal with and so

[17:02] ayurveda as this lifestyle approach to health and healing has what we need to work in tandem with modern biomedicine and so that's what we're here doing that's what we're celebrating we have a conference in Boulder this coming weekend the Colorado ayurveda conference focused on Mental Health one of the precepts of ayurveda is that there's a unbroken Spectrum from the subtle Realms of the psyche into the physical body and and so food and mood are intimately interconnected so so our conference this weekend is focused on on ayurveda for mental health and Colorado ayurveda.org is where to find out more information thanks for your time and attention thank you [Applause] great thanks for that so we're going to move into open comments now and as we mentioned before we're going to have the in-person speakers speak first followed by the remote speakers people have two

[18:01] minutes to speak I'll give three names at a time so if you all can kind of cue down here so that you're ready to come to the mic when it's your turn um I am going to ask Alicia one question I did hear that two of the people who are signed up for open comment meant to sign up for the public hearing are we able to switch them from one to the other I think so we've already taken care of that if if someone is has not been contacted about that to let us know okay the names I got were um Dan creel and Nate urandi so okay if we can just make a note of that please yeah we I don't think we were notified of that so we can actually move them if you'd like you know now so that would that would be great okay good so number 10. it's number 10 and number 11 who want to be in the public hearing for the budget instead of open coming all right and they'll they will have to go to the bottom of the list but we can move them thanks so much okay great so um and Ryan are you going to give us our guidelines

[19:03] absolutely we will go ahead and have those pull slides pulled up and welcome to members of the public who are here today we appreciate you being here I want to share that the city has created uh with community members a vision for productive meaningful and inclusive Civic conversations we want to make sure that this Vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members staff Council as well as democracy for folks of all identities there's more information available on this website and we'll move to the next slide please we want to share the following examples of rules of decorum found in the boulder bias code and other guidelines that do support this vision we want to make sure that these are upheld during this meeting any 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

[20:00] person obscenity racial epiphats and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct the meaning are prohibited and then we appreciate that folks have signed up to speak using the name they're commonly known by and with our online participants we will have audio testimony only so we welcome folks who are here in public this evening as you are coming up to the podium please make sure that you're speaking about two fingers distance from the microphone to make sure that all an audience and in zoom and our council members are able to hear you thank you thank you Ryan all right our first three speakers are Glenn brillinger Travis Hugh Cully and Evan ravitz and mayor I'd just like to note there are public hearing speaker lists for those that want a copy over here on the

[21:01] table just in case anyone's looking to see where they fall into the rotation and find it right there if you want Glenn good evening I would like to begin by thanking mayor City Council Members city of employees in the city of Boulder for this opportunity to speak my name is Glenn brellinger and along with my partner Diane Hastings we own braungardt Aviation the maintenance facility at Boulder municipal airport we are a highly risk adverse business that is operated there for over 30 years in compliance with all city regulations including voluntary noise pavement processors thank you performing federally certified airplane inspections repairs and maintenance to Boulders aircraft owners who appreciate our core values of safety quality and community they're in a good standing tenure at the boulder airport we have willfully contributed to the community in several many ways but most of all during its time of highest needs Opening Our Hangar

[22:00] to help the Boulder Hill harmonic Orchestra have a 2021 season donated our time and space in 2013 the First Responders for the boulder flood and then 2020 again opened our Hangar doors for the First Responders of the wildfires that threatened our city in our history of operating our small business here in Boulder we have never seen the current conditions of Interest or intensity from the council or Community about our airport while we are grateful for the much needed positive attention the safety risk mitigation and communication for the past few years were highly Disturbed of the impacts to our business through actions taken by the city towards the entire airport business Community as a result of one tenants disrespectful actions regarding noise abatement this current negative and restrictive environment further compounded by comments about closing the airport is significantly impacting our business our livelihood and our employees it's affecting our ability to

[23:01] positively contribute in responsible community-minded and environmentally conscious ways of growth at the airport and it's affecting our ability to continue our Legacy of meaningful community so Glenn I'm sorry but your time is up but if you could email us your full comments we'd appreciate that so we can learn more about the issues at which you speak you would like a further conversation thank you now we have Travis Hugh Cully Evan ravitz and Patrick Murphy who am I communicating with it

[24:00] sorry this is a test I'm not seeing any advance [Music] yeah okay it was the other ones we're working too it's trying to go back oh I see it's like a directional okay this is a little tricky guys um right and she can also designate them if you like all right I'll tell you when to go okay first slide it is on the recommendation of Dr Harvey Nichols that I come before council with my questions and comments concerning the Marshall fire I believe the 12 tribes Community deserves full presumption of innocence the Marshall fire should not become a crucible

[25:00] to test the legitimacy of their faith or our procedural Justice the mysterious fires that occurred in our vicinity have occurred in the past there have been many mysterious fires on the Front Range of Colorado let's step back next slide in 1957 there was a plutonium fire at the Rocky Flats weapons facility that went unreported that's mysterious next slide on Mother's Day 1969 a plutonium fire at the same facility endangered the very habitability of the greater Denver region releasing thousands of pounds of fissile material into the environment plutonium is pyrophoric pyrophoric material can automatically combust under many conditions the sudden combustibility of the Front Range is a more is more urgent than cancer next slide detectives may only have to look to history to find the origin of the Marshall fire

[26:01] let's review next slide the Marshall fire was mysterious in three ways one we do not know how the fire began two we cannot explain how the fire traveled three we cannot explain why water would not contain the fire next slide what if there is a simple answer to these questions in 2012 Kristen Iverson writes there is no emergency response plan to protect the public in the event of a major disaster at Rocky Flats next slide today that still holds true that is why I'm calling on city council to commission the testing of Marshall Mesa and the surrounding area for Alpha emitting particles so your time is up but please do email us the rest of your comments thank you thank you we have Evan ravitz Patrick Murphy and William gretz Evan ravitz North Boulder everything here looks like an

[27:00] infomercial as Mark called part of the last show from your declarations to the falsehood every meeting that the city has engaged with Community to co-create a vision for participation when actually Council cut our participation from three minutes to two less than any other big city in Colorado in 2017. mayor mayor Brockett has shown his insincerity in five years he told council at least four times we should open a legal camp for the homeless like Denver has eight of he's had a majority on Council to make it happen but has renegged Aaron's betrayal and council's acceptance will directly result in more deaths amputations and misery this winter as you cannot prepare for the cold if you're being evicted every few days

[28:02] Nicole asked On The Hotline why persecute the homeless because that's what downtown Boulder and Governor polis want a downtown Boulder board member told me quote downtown Boulder runs the city polis told the media he was happy when a homeless camp near his Penthouse was swept away again mayor Brockett is looking to move up in politics and wants a job with the governor like former Boulder Mayors will tour and Sean McGrath and county commissioner Elise Jones and disgraced City I.T director Julia Richmond we're just there stepping still Aaron told me we lack employees to open a camp of course you've West wasted our employees time and millions of dollars just this year chasing the homeless from Camp to Camp over and over the idea that a day shelter is going to

[29:02] result in less night camping is another city joke thanks for your comment seven now we have Patrick Murphy William gretz and Linda quickly my name is Patrick Murphy 2A or not 2A 2B or not 2B those are the climate action questions pair of no's are a good answer I'm a botanist clinicologist and I've lived in Boulder 53 years unless you're dead you've noticed that climate has changed fast why on Earth would I oppose spending Millions on climate change I'm opposed because it isn't being spent wisely and there's no reason to believe that'll change remember the 30 million dollar Muni that didn't work the new climate inaction leader is a leftover from the plan a Muni what's missing from the plan B climate action is a cost

[30:01] benefit analysis an honest external audit and good logic first money Boulder got to keep all the leftover money when the muni ended most of that money doesn't fully end until 2025. the muni was a big mistake and the current climate in action has gone bad again next comes cost benefit what's the percent of budget that's employee paychecks more than 40 percent but more likely 50 percent or more since they're hiring more people exactly how much carbon is being reduced by hiring 18 or more people a simple cost benefit analysis will answer that in a way that all the mumbling in the world won't change we need an actual cost benefit analysis not a long list of the good things they intend to do or paper plates they recycled keep it simple audit the true cost per ton of carbon reduction fast and honestly documented is what I

[31:00] want carbon reduction No Such Thing exists in 2A or 2B 2A has a long list of good intentions collaboration hot air and zilly excuse me zillions of trivial goals that fail the cost benefit analysis as if an honest cost benef analysis were ever done next time Boulder's bad logic thanks Patrick now we have William gretz Linda Quigley and Tim Thomas William gretz all right not seeing I think that brings us to Linda Quigley then he just pulled the mic down there you go I speak today against the dividing up of the job of governing

[32:01] to other non-governmental bodies that have then got a right to tax or pocketbook like for the Library District I think of myself as a library champ Champion but abhor this idea of undermining representative democracy and letting a non-governmental agency at my pocketbook how can I vote them out when they're not elected this is a navigation of governing by the so-called progressives and city council done in a manner to get at the funds the city has already collected to run the library those would be freed up and I watched as you considered possibilities last Tuesday before our election has even taken place this non-democratic way to run our town I'll happily join hands with anyone in both the council out that feels unable to govern within the bounds of democracy where I elect those who taxed me I seem

[33:00] to remember that as a rallying cry during our revolutionary history no taxation without representation it's simply irresponsible the library lives within a bigger context but don't cut the pie up isn't there a biblical story about this with a child in dispute isn't there a child's fairy tale about the goose that laid the golden egg you don't cut it to pieces to take out your favorite part you kill the hole thank you thank you Linda now we have Tim Thomas Valerie love and Jonathan singer and mayor if I may um just ask the public as you approach the mic feel free to adjust your microphone so people in the back can hear you thank you Tim Thomas Boulder Colorado Boulder housing partners and crime

[34:02] sometimes the topics are separate sometimes they're intertwined BHP is the official public housing agency of the city of Boulder it is the second largest PHA in the state only Denver has a larger one I live in a BHP complex my 80 year old mother lives in the apartment next door I'm her caregiver one of them she's lived there for about 15 years I've lived there for about two two and a half over the last several months our small complex of just a few dozen Apartments has seen a rash of crime we've had one car at least two bikes two catalytic converters a propane tank all stolen from our property are adjacent to it and just recently a plant off of someone's porch we just assume that we will continue to be victims

[35:02] and this weekend there was a violent exchange of gunfire at 1 30 in the morning in front of the sink have you seen the video online have you seen the picture of the long gun that was recovered by the police thank God no one was killed approximately 30 minutes later a suspect was seen brandishing a weapon in a different part of town we need law enforcement and we'll talk more about BHP and its moving to work program later during the budget hearing other residents throughout BHP are too afraid to come and speak to you thank you thank you Tim [Applause] I appreciate everyone's demonstration of support that brings us to a past piece of decorum that we actually need to add back into our descriptions now that we're in person which is that we ask for

[36:00] people in so that everyone feels respected and appreciated equally to not make applaud or say yes or no to when people are speaking but if you want you can do a little bit of jazz hands but we'd ask for no applause or booze or anything like that thanks so much everyone uh now we've got Valerie love Jonathan singer and Kathleen gold normally we send tobacco do we have Valerie here I'm sorry is is Valerie love present you're on you're on the list you're up right now our presentation okay called the next speaker so we should be ready okay well let's do Jonathan singer and Kathleen Galton Tony Sarge

[37:05] good evening I'm Jonathan singer I'm the senior policy program director for the boulder Chamber of Commerce and it's great to see you all in three dimensions and I'm glad that we still have some one-dimensional dad jokes so uh wow okay that did better than yours we're gonna we're gonna have to team up on this later so all right so um so the reason I'm here actually has to do with the September one meeting uh and it also dovetails perfectly with your budget meeting as well so I figured I'd take a little bit of time uh this evening instead of a lot of time later on this evening but the conversation uh on homelessness is something that the boulder chamber has been paying close attention to and really seeks to be an active engaged partner there's a common denominator that you see on the issue of homelessness and that is that there's an extreme desire for for safety and stability whether you're a person experiencing homelessness whether you're a business owner that's trying to make sure that your staff is able to work

[38:01] well with your community your customers and people who are experiencing homelessness and possibly even suffering and struggling with mental illness this is a common denominator that doesn't have a silver bullet solution what I did notice in the conversation on September 1 is there are some opportunities at the state level that and at the regional level that provide some of the solutions that will get us to some of these answers with hundreds of millions of dollars coming in through arpa to the state government to be given out to local communities this is a time to strike where the iron is high and while we're asking for the city council to act we're also operating in a way that offers our assistance as well the boulder chamber Works closely with the Northwest chamber Alliance which includes the Boulder County Latino and lgbtq Chamber of Commerce as well as the towns of Louisville Lafayette Erie Superior and Broomfield and we seek to have a conversation host

[39:01] as many um opportunity host as many voices as possible and come up with those Creative Solutions with you and actives and active engaged partner so with that uh we look forward to the conversation tonight and just know that we will be there to work with you thanks Jonathan do we have Valerie's presentation great so Valerie if you want to come on up thanks for figuring that out yeah thank you it got put in the junk folder for other staff um hi Aloha my name is Valerie and um I'm here to talk for the children there you go welcome to Boulder so next slide next so we came here because we thought it was a beautiful place to live and a safe place to raise our children

[40:00] next but we were very wrong my children live in fear every day they go to Boulder high school they're terrified my daughter is suicidal children are killing themselves at Boulder High they're afraid to go have lunch in the park they're afraid to walk by the creek what are you guys doing about it what are you guys doing about it all of us we owe them better in New York they had the broken windows Theory which helped clean up New York and helped prevent more deaths visible signs of disorder and misbehavior encourage further disorder and misbehavior Boulder is a magnet for drugs and violence you just saw it on Saturday night next slide thank you

[41:00] they're scared next they don't feel safe their child their children their childhoods are robbed they can't even go to the park with their friends and have a picnic next slide that's right behind Boulder high school next slide I'd like more time because this is taking longer to push these students are being chased and harassed walking to school next do we need a shooting like this past weekend in order for you to take Serious action one more slide because this is the slide that I'm going to start putting on social media and I'm going to make flyers of it and it's going to be awesome next one

[42:01] overdose death enough is enough one more there you go welcome to Boulder free camping free bikes and shopping carts no jail time hey and guess what lots of drugs and needles thank you blood will be on your hand if there's more debts next we have Kathleen Galt and Tony Sarge and then we'll go to Virtual folks thank you Kathleen Galt on September 16th midday my oldest daughter who was born here in Boulder is now 45 pulled up in front of the boulder library to drop off her family's books her just turned eight-year-old offered to drop the books off in the drop-off box got out of the car approached the front doors of the library well and I was going to go around to drop off the box was approached by a woman who had been sitting on the bench she yelled at him hey little boy come

[43:02] with me he said no she ran after him she lurched at him and tried to grab him he wet himself my daughter and other grandson got out of their car which was right in front of the library and yelled at the woman and asked her to stop my daughter called the police officer and then she witnessed the same woman and I have a lot of compassion I'm assuming the woman was homeless I volunteered at the uh uh Boulder homeless shelter for a couple years but the woman then approached another woman and child another man and child who took his son's skateboard and was going to hit the woman and then approached a handicapped woman getting out of her car now I know you guys are trying to work on this I lived here in the 70s and over the last 10 years I've come back and forth from Ohio you guys know the problem I know you're trying to work on it but little children should not be

[44:02] afraid to come downtown to the library you need to get it fixed I called Gene Patton out at the Boulder Police Department today that had a Personnel she said you're down 30 officers get some officers down there man they should be down there in front of that place full time I encourage the public to report these incidents to do police reports I also encourage you to pay your police officers more you know they put their lives on the line they start out at 60 69 000 a year here in Boulder none of them live in Boulder City proper I know you guys are trying to do something but man an eight-year-old child should not be afraid to come downtown to go to the library thank you Kathleen now we have Tony Sargent one more in-person person which is Mara madiria thank you so much members of the council I'm Tony Sarge I'm grateful to be here speaking with you tonight uh before your

[45:01] discussion later this evening about eliminating local taxes on necessary Health products such as diapers and menstrual products for the city of Boulder um as a parent of a sweet 18 month old we spend about eight eighty dollars a month on diapers as a household with two women who get their periods we spend about 25 dollars a month on tampons and other supplies we are lucky enough to be able to shop at Big retail stores or even get subscription Services which saves our family money and keeps these costs as low as possible not all families have this option though new data from the Colorado women's health and hygiene access service conducted this summer told us that 57 percent of coloradans with young children struggle to afford diapers 57 and 47 of people currently menstruating are experiencing menstrual hygiene product poverty I'm so grateful that earlier this year Colorado state passed a new law exempting these items from sales tax

[46:00] by eliminating these local sales tax from these items families can save valuable dollars towards these items especially our families who are lowest income additionally three of Colorado's largest cities Denver Aurora and Fort Collins have also eliminated sales tax for these essential products so I am urging you all to consider the conversation today and move up Boulder towards doing the same thank you so much thank you Tony no Mara madirio good evening thank you very much for letting me have the time to talk to you and everyone in the audience I'm speaking on behalf of the Arts and funding for the Arts I want to thank Boulder Arts commission I want to thank BCAA and other the community center everybody who supports the Arts in Boulder and I know you all do and so I'd like that continued and hopefully improved I run a underserved music education program that we teach for free

[47:02] we teach seven different instruments and we teach the underserved youth of Boulder we've been doing it since 2015 and it has been funded by the city and our private donations of our company we see this as a tremendous thing to help lift up the underserved Youth and make them a part of the community instead of being pushed aside and not being helped in any such way and please remember that the Arts are what make boulders special yes we have the beautiful foothills and that's great and we have a beautiful town and we have problems like every other town in the country but the Arts are what make us special and so we'd like to make sure that you vote for that that you help with any way that you can and know that all of us who are artists and do what we can to help the community we'll make it better thank you for your time thank you Mom now turn to our virtual speakers we have

[48:02] Mary feltinski then Lynn Siegel and Ryan Welsh can you hear me yes good evening my name is I'm a boulder resident and tonight I'm speaking on behalf of Boulder County Public Health where my staff and I work with teen parents some of the most vulnerable families in Boulder I'm actually calling you from the Anderson Farms pumpkin patch giving young families in our program a break to be outside and celebrate fall you also have an opportunity to give Bolder families a break tonight a tax break two months ago a law with strong bipartisan support went into effect exempting essential hygiene items like diapers incontinence products and menstrual products from Colorado sales tax several cities have already followed

[49:01] suit we're very pleased that Boulder City Council is taking this issue up for discussion tonight removing sales tax on these essential items would lower the effective cost of diapers tampons and pads often these topics are deemed too embarrassing or inappropriate for public conversation thank you for normalizing the conversation babies women and girls other people who menstruate and elderly people require these products to go about their daily life with dignity these sales tax fall disproportionately on people who can least afford them including women struggling young families and older adults on fixed incomes if you wonder if small changes can make a difference for needy families just think of how many times in the grocery store the mother or elderly couple ahead of you in the line ask the cashier to put something back because they're total exceeded their funds that day Boulder doesn't have to figure this out how to do it on their own today the

[50:01] women's Foundation of Colorado launched a tool kit for communities to join their don't tax dignity campaign they want to spread the good work that's been done at our legislature to municipalities around the state we encourage you to follow the lead of bipartisan legislators and municipalities throughout the country and Colorado and exempt essential hygiene products from sales tax thank you thank you Marion now we have Lynn Siegel Ryan Welsh and Chuck Hardesty would you stop me if you can't hear clearly we can hear you thank you yeah um I would really like to see the slideshow and I don't buy that it's because security that I can't see the slides because I'm virtual I'm not vaxxed I don't want to be in spaces when I don't have to be and I don't think this is fair now what I want to talk to you about tonight is about the landmarks board and

[51:02] the landmarks design Review Committee these are the the when when an application comes in for some kind of a landmarking issue it comes to the ldrc first it oftentimes just gets passed through or sometimes it might have to come back to the ldrc with some revisions or if it's kind of controversial it goes to the landmark's board for hearing now the landmarks board is recorded but it is not available until 28 days after the meeting happens the landmarks design review committee meetings are not recorded at all so everything in them happens under the radar I saw two situations going on there one was for some windows that some woman that's a historic preservationist that's done 19 historic preservations wanted in the little Russia section

[52:00] Floral Park to add some windows thirty thousand dollars very expensive windows and she was cut off by the landmarks board well the there's two board members that meet for the ldrc she was cut off she spoke some about her windows but when she tried to speak a little more she was cut off now sometimes it's excusable because if it's going to go to the landmarks board anyway then they have to stop the person from bringing it up at the time um instead I don't feel she got enough time to argue for her windows and she got passed to the landmarks board so she's going to be cold until December trying to get Windows and what time is up but please email us the rest of your comments now we have Ryan Welsh and Chuck Hardesty good evening councilors this is Ryan Welsh based in Boulder I assume you can hear me yes

[53:00] yes awesome first of all I'd like to uh just express my condolences to the counselor who lost a family member this past week um I'm also sorry for the unwarranted vitriol you've had directed towards you especially during a tough time that's not fair um so I'm disappointed that I feel the need to be here tonight instead of putting my baby to sleep but I'm also concerned about the city's recent actions I'm even more concerned about what those actions might indicate for the city's future choices a few weeks ago the city failed this community by closing Westboro Street to people and again filling cars giving Community spaces to Vehicles effectively taking them away from our kids is not people-centric action and it's certainly not Progressive in the time of climate crisis when we should have an entire downtown core of car free community spaces like other cities in the world we failed to keep two extra blocks you might think we can Club a Mac from Community Vitality in the spring but we shouldn't even have to fight for just two blocks these should be permanent spaces for people along with 20 more giving Community vitality's clear

[54:00] disinterest Community spaces and Community input perhaps it's at least time that we remove parking from their purview I'm disappointed that we again have even more parking downtown sorry and then we might see future actions or inactions in favor of vehicles over people you might have guessed that I'm also concerned about a Broadway multi-use path one of the few north-south baltaze paths said everyone aged 880 can currently use with relative safety you know CU plans to run their new conference Center's traffic directly over this protected path will the city and Council sit back and let it happen I hope not and I hope this is a place my daughter can exist safely outside of a car when she's older from here on I hope all that can move forward more spaces for our kids and fewer spaces for our cars one of the few things actually most likely to harm or kill our kids I'm frustrated that we've done so little when we could do so much more thank you thank you Ryan last speaker is Chuck Hardesty hello Hunter can you hear me it is my

[55:02] single slide oh yes and yes thank you all right good evening hear about some concerns about potential habitat Factory you're going to hear more about later the story keeps changing and communication has been very poor a month ago the planning board was told about eight houses a year with a few more possible after a learning process September 12th letter from Jay sugnet said 50 to 80 a year up more than 10 times or 10 times meeting last week's handout said 12 to 15 a year with options to increase capacity to 50 a year does this mean 24-hour operation heard a while ago that doors would be away from close neighbors heard recently from habitat drive-through doors south to North finally see drawings last week with several garage doors facing close Neighbors on the east

[56:01] Net Zero Energy is not noise zero there is resistance to hiring an acoustic sound engineer I don't know why thermal insulation is not the same as noise insulation nail guns and backup beeps are much more piercing than background traffic it will not be easy to fix if not designed with sound requirements in mind perhaps impossible to fix with all the doors facing the neighborhood and less recently changed no hours or noise restrictions are in the written agreement given all the changes should there be a do-over with the planning board seems like there's been a bait and switch we understand that once the annexation is done all controlled by the city is lost it seems there should be several written restrictions in the agreement about the hours eight to four a.m Tuesday Saturday meeting all the County residential noise requirements that are tighter than the city and limits during the construction of the factory we heard all the

[57:02] construction noise from the new kitchen facility that's further away than the factory and would still be hearing and we still hear the not operational noise it does not seem right that a school district will be changed to an industrial park right next to a presidential neighborhood Charles thank you for your consideration thank you and just a quick clarifying question are you talking about 6 500 Arapahoe Road that we're considering later uh yes I am okay thanks for clarifying right uh so that brings our public hearing a public hearing our open comment to an end so I will turn to staff to see if we have any responses thank you so much mayor and a I want to just appreciate as this is my first meeting with the public it's just so good to be here in person with everyone and just so appreciate that appreciate everyone who shared their comments I did want to um talk about two things and I I want to say because I want to address I know that we've been thinking about the violent incident that happened on the hill I just want to say that we take

[58:01] this very seriously and I want to appreciate the quick action by our police department they have been working uh closely with CU and we will continue to think about how to address some of the issues that we're seeing in our community and the other issue I wanted to talk about in terms of West Pearl and Street program in downtown I just want to say that I'm excited that we have the process subcommittee kicking off hopefully with a vote on consent and we will be continuing to talk about what that looks like in community please know that we hear folks and we are committed to continuing to have an engagement process about Place making and creating additional spaces for our community to come visit so just wanted to say that out loud thank you Nuria and speaking of the quick action by the police department that has included two arrests I believe so appreciate the efforts in that area I mean yes we got Junie Rachel

[59:01] thank you I have two questions but I want to go first to that question about the arrest um has there been more information as to what happened or were the did these uh what happened who are these uh perpetrators or how did this happen I think community members would want to know more I don't want to speculate but um at first I thought okay are these students who are they community members are they people from other parts of the city uh the state so I just wanted to know more and do you have that information eventually to share with community new microphones I appreciate the question I I want to make sure I'm not speaking out a turn and I'm actually going to ask um our folks in BPD to share what they can as we continue to have an ongoing investigation good evening members of council city manager Steve Redford Deputy police chief so as we know it is an ongoing

[60:02] investigation so there's some things I can't disclose but what I can disclose I can't get right into the mic please sure what I can disclose is as of this afternoon we did make a second arrest we made the first arrest uh the next day after the person that we were involved with that night was released from the hospital both suspects have been charged with two counts of attempt first degree murder they're both in custody on a five hundred thousand dollar Bond for this specific incident none of the involved people that we're aware of are students in fact we believe the majority of them do not reside in the city of Boulder one of the big questions that we've been asking and trying to determine is what Drew these folks to Boulder and then subsequently to engage in this criminal Behavior one of the things that we did learn is there were some words exchanged between two groups of people and then some shots were exchanged our officers were on foot in the area literally around the corner dealing with an issue at a fraternity uh

[61:01] we're notified of the call and when they came around the corner they actually came around and interrupted this uh this dispute where shots had been fired and officers took took Swift action that we believe probably surely prevented additional harm which is exactly what we would expect of them there's much more that will come out we're reviewing a lot of video surveillance we're reviewing and we still have witnesses that we are interviewing and again we're encouraging anybody that has information that my might have been in the area took video to come forward because we believe we have a good picture of what happened but we're still piecing together to get the best picture possible thanks that's very helpful did you have another one thank you so much and I have to say when I saw the pictures I was really sad actually living in Wilder it's such a beautiful place and um seeing those footages were really really saddening to me my next question is has to do with something that Evan ravitz

[62:00] mentioned and I wonder if maybe uh we went from three three minutes to two minutes for our open comment I think he mentioned and I wonder is that you know maybe have we talked more about this letting Community know because I don't remember us going from three to two or maybe there's just a misunderstanding Thank you I might address that because I this this was a change that that I think either right before I got on cancel made my first year on Council that um that Council changed the number of minutes that were allowed um and the number of speakers so no time recently but but it has been a few years that that change was made thank you I think that's right Mitchell I just wanted to thank Ryan Welch for his humanity and empathy and also most importantly for calling out really inappropriate online trolling which I don't really think any of us should be putting up with in this world also

[63:00] welcome back everyone it is good to have you it's hard to speak really passionately live on topics and so it's it's great to have you all back thanks no other items then we can move on to our consent agenda Alicia all right thank you sir as a reminder item F was removed from the consent agenda with the motion to amend the agenda so tonight um is item number three we have items a through e n g through I wait and I was added is is the amendment as well and I believe we're going to have a brief presentation about item e about the 6500 Arapahoe Road annexation do I have that correct yeah I'll ask staff to come forward and talk about it

[64:01] who do we have on deck for this one it may end up being Brad I don't know Brad appreciate that good evening Council good evening Council Brad Mueller director of planning and development services I believe we have shebnam actually on the virtual so she'll be making presentation and I'll be available for comments thanks Brad thank you Brad good evening council members are you able to hear me yes um all right great thank you so I'll go ahead and share the presentation for tonight and if you can just introduce yourself please yes absolutely

[65:01] so uh good evening council members my name is shabnam bista I'm a senior planner with planning and development services I'll provide a brief presentation on um the process to date for the annexation of 6500 Arapahoe Road so the project site is 41.7 acres and it's located south of Arapahoe Road East of the current Boulder City Limits in north of Sombrero Marsh in terms of the process to date the annexation negotiations have been ongoing with the school districts with the Boulder Valley School District since 2018. the annexation application was filed and routed for a review by planning and development services in July of 2021 um since uh there were continued negotiations regarding the annexation agreement terms the planning board

[66:01] public hearing wasn't scheduled until September 6th of this year so just last month at the public hearing planning board added two conditions um or proposed two conditions regarding the height as well as a form of Good Neighbor agreement to the annexation agreement um on September 29th so last Thursday there was a neighborhood meeting held at 6500 Arapahoe Road regarding the affordable housing modular Factory uh today is the first reading for the ordinances um and then the second reading and public hearing for this item is scheduled for November 17th staff recommends Council consideration of the proposed annexation at this time um in terms of the two conditions from planning board um those have not been agreed to by the school board at this time

[67:01] just to provide a brief overview of the annexation terms um additional details it can be found in attachment e of the packet which is the annexation agreement itself um I'll just highlight a few here and so the annexation agreement states that bbsd is a sovereign entity and um the any construction remodeling Renovations will be permitted through the state and not through the city of Boulder pvsd will pay storm water plant investment fees they will comply with City floodplain regulations and Outdoor Lighting standards um future owners of the property that are not the school district will be required to meet the city's inclusionary housing requirements as well as comply with City Zoning and uh bbsd will provide land for a 10-year period to operate the affordable housing modular Factory so during the um Council agenda

[68:02] committee meeting there were a couple of questions that came up um Council and we have provided some responses here so in terms of the question about the 10-year lease the time frame is a state limitation on how long School District can lease their property it's something that can be renegotiated at the end of that lease term in regards to the site access after lengthy negotiation staff determined current access is suitable and future improvements to Arapahoe Road will be it just at that time and lastly the Boulder Valley School District responded to the two proposed conditions by planning board and that was forwarded to council through the hotline email I also want to note that we do have Kurt fernhaber Jay sugnet from housing department if you have any questions and we also have a representative from the

[69:01] school district present tonight for any additional questions and that concludes my presentation thank you thanks so much shabnam do we have questions for staff on this up and I've got one thanks can you speak a little bit about the two conditions that planning board asked for yes um so the two conditions that um came up through planning board discussions um one was regarding height limitations and um it's a board members felt that it would be important to impose the height condition and I can kind of share let me see here so I just have the two um so if the property will be continued to be owned by Boulder Valley School District all the buildings on the property would be limited to the city's chartered height limit which is 55 feet

[70:01] and um this was something that I believe was part of the Sea of South annexation so it was a conversation among the planning board members to possibly um include that so the buildings could not be built you know higher than the 55 foot limit that we have now and then the second condition was that the school district was will work with residents in a budding residential neighborhoods to establish regular communication and some kind of an agreement with reasonable consideration noise impacts Etc and that I believe came from the uh the num a large number of public comments that we had during the public hearing from neighboring homeowners who were concerned about the the noise impacts of the construction as well as the the operations of the actual Factory itself and this was something that was um I think additional deep details were

[71:00] provided during that neighborhood meeting on September 29th and um Jake and Jason can speak more to that as he was presenting at that meeting so thanks Jeff and um I think you indicated your initial presentation that the school district has not agreed to those two conditions request by the planning board is that does that mean that they haven't been asked where they were asked and they rejected both conditions they were asked and then they provided rejecting the the conditions response was no on both of those yes that's correct okay and final question annexation is discretionary by the city council right in other words we can approve or disapprove an annexation at our discretion is that correct I believe that is correct is that great can we still don't get that right yes annexation is a legislative act and at the discretion of council great thank you thank you and I had one follow-up question I'll go to Mark which is about the lease term

[72:01] thanks for speaking to that have we discussed with them at all adding in language to say that you as the term ends that we'll have discussions about potential renewals so we establish some intention there yeah um I'll defer that question to Jay segment from housing all right Jay are you on virtually I'm here good evening everybody jaystagnets with housing and Human Services um yeah so we have had a conversation with the district and have been uh and will continue so it'll really depend on how successful the factory is and how well the students are integrated into the factory um but I think the school district was pretty um concerned about including language that could possibly violate uh state to state requirements so we'll continue to push that but um they I don't have firm answer for you sir

[73:01] okay well I appreciate you addressing it thanks Mark um can you uh go into a little more detail the the School District sent us a letter or actually yeah they sent a letter that says that the district is not a desire to unnecessarily prolong the annexation process by renegotiating the annexation agreement can you tell me what that process would be that that is so drawn out and difficult so I would suggest that's a great question to ask the district themselves okay Glenn degroo is here if you if you would like to hear from him directly certainly would ah yes Glenn sugru I'm the district's senior planner so the process you know it would essentially be looking at it as a renegotiation we've been in the negotiation process between two governments for well over for over a

[74:01] year is that better is that good okay just speak right into it so we we've had it been in a negotiation process uh for you know over a year now to do this and and these conditions from The District's perspective would be you know we have to re-look at those and reprocess those conditions before we could accept them at all and that process would involve coming back of course the staff level going through Administration and ultimately any land use land decisions uh have to be approved by the school board themselves um I I think in this situation getting through that process and not having the wording or those conditions changing would be I think a long shot frankly I think that uh the sovereignty issues will continually come up with the school district and those that's a very high threshold for us to

[75:00] voluntarily give up and so I think that process could you know it could take a while and and I think the district's preference is to keep the process this process the annexation process moving I I'd like to respond to that and I want to preface my comment uh by saying that when when I start drafting legal documents that is a dangerous thing however I took a look at the annexation agreement and the height limitation issue could be resolved by adding all of eight words to paragraph 10. and I when you say this is a very complic complicated drawn out process I am hard-pressed to understand how that is and we can discuss this more at the at the public hearing on November 17th but I I am

[76:02] I am not seeing the the issue the way you are seeing the issue um and and basically your letter says we have no contemplation of uh going above 35 feet we'd never do such a thing but we can't tell you that we would never do such a thing and I find that to be problematic I'll stop there um so that we can discuss it more at the public hearing well and I would just say I I did from what I heard from you I heard it is more of a lengthy process rather than many words that you would need to change exactly yes I understood that correctly um and if I'm well I have the floor um and well the second item about Good Neighbor agreements that particular requirement wasn't something that that you wanted to agree to specifically but I did hear a commitment from the district to continue doing public Outreach and and just that you wanted to do it on your own terms did I understand that correctly well we are a public

[77:01] entity and we have multiple avenues for for uh for the public for input and we've reached out with neighbors about there were many considerations in the last meeting outside the realm of the annexation and the modular factory and we're working to resolve as many of those as we can now thank you any other questions Rachel and Jenny oh we got a whole bunch you respond to each other like can I comment on Mark while we've got our school board representative I don't have any question for the School Board District representative any more questions for no okay so I guess we'll thank you for for addressing the the question and um so I think uh yes if people don't have further questions we could go into a discussion on this item so if you get comments or do you have a question okay let's go for a question so my question is for staff as mentioned in there it said that there was going to be compliance with the flood flood regulations as well as the city's

[78:00] lighting ordinance and so I wanted to just double check with with with Brad and staff on um if we were to subsequently modify our lighting order ordinance past an approved annexation would those rules carry into that annexation or does the annexation lock into the current uh version of our lighting ordinance not a future change that that may come down the pipeline in some discussions we're going to probably have about outdoor lighting and street lights and that sort of thing uh Brad Miller with planning and development services I believe it would be subject to that the then current code in the case of both floodplain and lighting we can confirm that for second reading but that's my understanding and I'm getting a nod from very reputable people thanks Brad appreciate it okay so comment setting Rachel you were first up well maybe I'll try and reframe it as a question for staff just so that Brad can like hop right back up or it might be

[79:01] for Kurt for however I'm not even sure but um you know to Mark's point about eight you know eight words being needed in an annexation agreement in in my um peripheral experience with annexation agreements sometimes sometimes things are given and taken and so it's not necessarily a matter of eight words but if you if we're to make a demand then we also have to give something back and there's back and forth in exchange of sort of value so I'm just wondering was that is that something that staff wants us to discuss was it discussed is it a very simple thing to add eight words or is it likely to be a a thing this is Brad again I hate to play the new guy card but I'm going to go ahead and do that right now which is to say that my understanding is that there's been actually years of discussion around this um I would say in in my experience too on any kind of negotiation um sure there's always your once you

[80:00] open that up again there's going to be back and forth uh I don't disagree that it's a fairly straightforward uh change to adopt those things I don't have a good frame of reference for how difficult that is uh to go through the school processing and such but I can certainly say that given the history and length of history as I understood it we concluded as staff that it was at least appropriate to put this out in front of council at this time for maybe just this discussion about whether it is ripe or not okay Junie I think you did you have something oh thank you well I'll just uh a last word here so I think if if we approve the consent agenda as written it will not include those two conditions requested conditions from planning board I'll just say I we will have a public hearing a number November 17th where we'll have a chance to hear from the public on this matter but I'm certainly comfortable moving it forward without those two

[81:00] conditions at this time and we'll take it from there from from my opinion yes yeah I'm not comfortable I'll vote Yes to move it forward to it to a second reading because we're not going to get substantive comments but I'll just say to the school District it would be my intention to vote no a second reading unless the height limitation is built into the annexation agreement you've got six weeks to do it if you're in Rush it'd be good to get started tomorrow I'll just throwing I don't feel personally that's necessary so there's a division of opinions but we can continue to have conversations yep Mark I will also vote to move it along and intend to vote no on that basis and I'm always happy to share my my drafting skills and you know it's really not that hard it took me five minutes to to do that and that's only because I work really slowly so Rachel I mean it almost feels like we're doing a straw pull here I'm confused can it

[82:01] are we Crossing Lines if I'm like if I were to say well now we've got two on that side and one on this side and I'd like to even if you could give us some guidance on how we might proceed I I'm not aware of a rule that prohibits what's happening right now it's our best practice welcome back everyone share that you know the the space that we're talking about is is there and and the school board does not intend to to go over 35 feet but you know it's not like a Prime View shed or area that I'm super concerned about with uh edging over the height limit a bit so I my intent would be to vote Yes if I could say that so what it what I might ask for in terms of clarification to staff as we can continue discussions I wonder if we might have a straw poll on whether a majority of council felt like this point should be renegotiated um yes mayor and Council that that could be appropriate at this

[83:00] point I would point out that you have a public hearing scheduled and certainly um your preliminary thoughts on how you might vote are subject to the record right and and so subject to the materials put in front of you and any public comment received and so um I think in the spirit of knowing that these are preliminary thoughts certainly you could move forward in that vein yeah and what I would say would be this would not be a final determination but whether we would be requesting staff to renegotiate this point right now is that a reasonable way of framing it it seems appropriate to me that you would want to know that um because if it is the will of counsel that this be renegotiated then you may well want to do that before a public hearing so if folks are do you I do have a question because part of I've read the memo in I certainly don't want to speak about it

[84:00] publicly if that's not um was the purpose but my can we hold them accountable assuming they say they agree to the 35 let's say different Administration for VST and the future decide you know what we don't want to we don't want to uphold this agreement what can we do at the end of the day yes so um a distinct it's important to make a legal distinction here between whether the school board is required to follow our land use code and the answer to that is it's it's certainly possible that they're not required to do so however if they enter into a contract then that contract governs and so contractual promises can be enforced and an annexation agreement is a contract Brad did you want to offer something yeah I did just want to say if there is some sense of renegotiating absent any other

[85:00] specific Direction our only point that we would bring forward to the school board would be the two conditions the planning board brought forward so just for clarification purposes uh I just wanted to add that it for clarification purposes for staff and perhaps uh nod that you're giving to the school board it is perhaps right now helpful to know without perhaps even a straw poll but these are your concerns knowing that we will have time at second reading to discuss more there will be continued conversation and if there is desire to say ah could be supportive but this is going to be a deal breaker for to me it seems like that is in the vein of the comments that you're offering so in other words you're not to take a formal action but just to sort of leave it at the comments level that we've got so far I can certainly live with that but Matt I'm just not I'm not comfortable going that far down until we've heard from more of the community I I just I think

[86:00] that's really out of form for us to do that um predetermining some outcome based on something I don't know I'm not quite comfortable for that at this juncture so I'd love to just stick with comments rather than what your intended vote would be I I think we should avoid that yeah well I wasn't proposing what your intent about would be but point taken so let's just say we can leave it at the comments that we've given we'll hear from the public through emails through the public hearing and then we'll have conversation from there that's all right yep Nicole I just wanted to make a comment as somebody who works in a large state bureaucracy um eight words in an agreement is not five minutes it really is a lot of time and so I just want to empathize with everybody who's been working on this agreement for years recognizing that it's not necessarily A straightforward thing to make this change at this stage of the process fair and Rachel and maybe we can wrap this up okay I'm wrapping it up just one

[87:01] of one of the things that I highlighted in the agreement was that bbsd agrees to pay the city storm water plant investment fee of approximately 2.1 million dollars and to council member Spears point when you go to renegotiate it's it's going to be a bureaucracy and and there's always give and take and so I you know we'll ask for two things but then they will ask for us to give two things and so I just just want to I guess preface that what we would be asking for may be more complicated than than what it sounds like okay all right well why don't we move on now and so we have an entire consent agenda so do people have any other questions or comments about any of the other items on the consented consent agenda can I make a motion I would love that all right I make a motion to uh pass the consent agenda second oh dueling seconds uh we have a motion in a second did you want to make a comment go ahead this is on I think 3E for process subcommittee appointment am I in the

[88:02] right spot consent here I think oh sorry 3H now um just that there may be some Community confusion around a sentence in their discussion of policy issues and specific potential Street designs including determinations if possible permanent future street closures shall not be part of this subcommittee's purpose and those are reserved for the full Council so I just didn't know if maybe Teresa or Nuria wanted to explain sort of whether that's usual standard for subcommittees or any cause for alarm foreign Pro tem and I will say um I don't believe it's cause for alarm I believe that that is language that we've seen used before and former process committees we want to make sure that um the full Council weighs in on determinations of policy decisions moving forward uh and that the process subcommittee which we're excited to have two volunteers who raised their hands

[89:01] can help staff as we continue to think about what the next steps on a full-throated engagement of this work is thank you for that clarification right do we have a motion in a second at least should we have a roll call but yes sir thank you we'll start this real call with mayor Brockett yes council member Focus yes mayor Pro tem friend yes councilmember Joseph yes spear yes Walling uh yes but I abstain on I as I'm an interested party thank you sir weiner yes and Yates yes and Benjamin you forgot me oh councilmember Benjamin thank you being on the end here it's easy yeah and my apologies it was not intentional no I know it's all good and councilmember

[90:00] Benjamin uh so yes but abstain uh no actually I don't abstain for anything yes we're good yes all things all right thank you again welcome back all right so the consent agenda items a through e and G through I are hereby approved unanimously thank you Alicia we have one call-up check-in over one check-in I believe that is correct so that is item four on tonight's agenda item 4A is the vacation of a portion of a water utility easement at 28.51 Valmont Road any interest in calling this up no interest can move on into our first public hearing of the night all right sir so this is our public hearing item five on tonight's agenda and I will of course not read all the titles and summarize that it is a consideration of the following items relating to the 2023 budget first we have the introduction and first reading of the ordinance 8535 adopting the

[91:02] budget for the city of Boulder for the year 2023 item number two is the introduction and first reading of the ordinance 8536 which is establishing the 2022 city of Boulder property tax meal levies item number three is the introduction first reading of ordinance 8537 appropriating money to defray expenses and liabilities of the city of Boulder for the 2023 fiscal year and item number four is our introduction first reading of ordinance 8538 amending chapter 4-20 and sections 3-8-3 of the BRC 1981 changing certain fees and setting forth those related details thank you and I'll just note for the benefit of the people here in person that will have a count we'll have a staff presentation we'll have Council questions and then we'll go to the public hearing and then conclude with council discretion in the vote so Nuri if I can hand this off to you thank you

[92:00] so much mayor and I was just going to appreciate Alicia because that was a mouthful it's great off um I'm going to send it to our CFO Cara Skinner right away but I just wanted to make it to thank Council for their thoughtfulness as we continue to get questions and comments and how engaged you have been in this budget process so we would just really appreciate all your attention to what is really an important milestone for any city as we think about our Budget moving forward so with that Cara thank you Nuria and good evening Council Cara Skinner Chief Financial Officer so we are here and we're pleased to present the first reading and public hearing for the 2023 budget and we will start with a presentation on Mark wolf senior budget manager and I will have a brief process overview and recap but we really will focus on follow-up from the study session as well as some staff and Council proposed budget changes and then find finish up with some discussion about future budget considerations and potential long-term

[93:01] funding strategies and then as mayor indicated we will go on to the questions hearing and discussion slide so we'll start with a brief process overview and recap and we just want to ground that the sustainability equity and resilience framework really guides all of the city's planning processes including the budget process and the resource allocation that is determined through that process and the budget process is depicted by this figure here and it begins in January with a priority setting and then you'll see in the dark blue circle this is where we are today so after a long journey we are here with this first reading and public hearing and we want to revisit as we did at the study session what were some of the major assumptions in drivers as we developed the 2023 budget it was really

[94:01] important for us to look at these first because they impacted the revenue that we would have available both ongoing and one time to fund priority projects and needs so one important that we started with is that we have a less cautious retail sales tax forecast and that did provide more ongoing dollars for programs and services than would have been available if we had stayed with the risk posture we have had the last two years we also um are programming to spend down ending fund balance after reserves for one-time priority projects and pilot projects this budget also achieves council's goal of a 20 general fund emergency Reserve level and then with our new opengov budgeting tool we wanted to share again that what we first did was build a 2023 base budget that included of course some

[95:00] adjustments to base that were made during the year this year as we tried to restore programs and services quickly as revenues allowed and we made another of many other budget changes to be more strategic and our departments always reevaluate their budgets and and their programs and services and make some adjustments and that is included as part of that base budget so we have that base budget before we then considered new enhancements or new Investments so as we develop our 2023 budget we start with Revenue so uh for 2023 the Rev total revenue across all funds is 491 million and that is a 3.6 percent increase over 2022. and then the expenditure budget for 2023 is 513.5 million so as noted that is

[96:04] more than the revenue budget and that is because as we discussed in uh September we are planning some draws from fund balance to fund one-time expenses and pilot programs so the difference between the revenue on the previous slide and the expenditure budget here is that draw from fund balance this slide shows total uses and it's we know it has a lot of information but on the left side of the slide is total uses across all of our departments and programs and the largest piece of the pie you'll see is utilities that's water Wastewater flood and storm water and so you can look and see that that is the largest and then Transportation police housing and Human Services and fire rescue but then we also like to show the pie on the right without utilities because that gives you a little more granularity of those other

[97:00] programs since utilities is so large so on the right hand side you'll see a little bit more depth then this slide we wanted to present again this shows how does our 2023 budget compare to a pre-pandemic budget if it was adjusted for inflation so the purple bars there are the approved budgets with the 2023 being the proposed or the recommended budget and then the light blue is starting with our 2019 budget our pre-pandemic budget we grew that by inflation so the blue bar is what the 2019 budget would be if it just simply grew by inflation so you will see in 2023 our proposed budget has not kept up uh to inflation by this measure and here we show the general fund we often focus on the general fund it's the largest fund and the fund over which Council has the most discretion because all of the dedicated funds have specific

[98:02] purposes and uses so the general fund for 2023 is 188 million and you'll see there that some of the large pieces of the by pie here are Public Safety including police and fire housing and Human Services and a number of other and then you'll see there that General government slice we have added a little detail there of what that accounts for and that the large things there are transfers to other funds including our general fund funded Capital program that's a big piece of that and then Insurance costs and Debt Service and some other city-wide contracts and such and next slide and now I'm going to hand it over to Mark Wolfe our senior budget manager figure out the mic all right good evening Council Mark Wolfe senior budget manager excited to be with you in person tonight I will discuss uh the our recap

[99:02] of our 23 budget and some additional information to help guide the discussion this evening to begin the section I'll recap some of our process improvements I'll highlight our commitment to Center our budget around Equity I will highlight our investments in our course services and City staff and review some of the key proposed investments in Council and Community priorities uh we have displayed this slide before we are in the process of implementing what is called budgeting for Community resilience we'll have to figure out a good naming scheme we have a number of different terms for this basically we're improving the budget process and so we have taken a number of steps since last cycle including aligning our budget around programs what you see in opengov is a reflection of that we have also adapted our strategy strategies

[100:01] internally to help with decision making part of that is beginning to articulate our intended outcomes for all of our investments in our budget and including those key performance indicators which will happen over time and lastly as you and Community is aware we have moved to opengov we were tapping into a portion of that capability so really excited that to continue to roll out that software as a new transparency tool as I mentioned it's a multi-year process so with a focus on transparency and our new tools this year improving our decision making process overall it goes a long way to set a new foundation for our budget process improvements as we move into your two and three our Focus will be in developing those key performance indicators the metrics around how do we know we're hitting our intended outcomes so you'll see more and more of that going into the 24 and 25 process

[101:02] in 23 these foundational process improvements will help center our budget now in the future around our Equity goals there are several specific investments in the 23 budget that that continue to implement our work in this realm including stipends and program programming related to our Community Connector program restoration of neighborhood grants with a portion set aside for manufactured housing communities pilot program which we've talked about for a non-law enforcement response program restoration of Older Adult Services at the East age well Center which started this year working on Partnerships to provide additional support for Community immigration services and enhancing Community literacy and Outreach through the boulder Library additionally we have made Investments not only in core operations which I won't go through the list on the right

[102:00] side of the screen which is significant just again keeping some of our core operations uh going including Water Resources risk management Patrol Services Etc but also investments in City staff as we have highlighted in the past we couldn't do the work without City staff and providing services to community so we've made a number of investments in the 23 budget including making sure that we're keeping up with the cost of living and other pressures on employees we continue to look at Citywide retention and recruitment strategies some that are included in the 23 budget and some that will come later into 2023. and we've shared this slide before I will not share all of the slides that we went through in a study session on our key Investments but just to highlight for Council and Community this evening 2023 recommended budget includes

[103:00] approximately two million dollars in Wildfire resilience and emergency response efforts it establishes a new pilot program for a non-law enforcement Behavioral Health response team we are providing operating support dollars for the proposed day Services Center for the unhoused community we're extending and expanding our efforts related to safe and managed public spaces we are advancing a key infrastructure projects including several projects under the Community cultural culture resilience and safety tax such as Fire Station 3 and continued implementation of our facility's master plan including development at Alpine Balsam I'll also note that we have many other 2023 budget highlights captured by goal area on the on the online open gov portal under the 2023 budget by goal area which can be found from the city's main web page

[104:00] all right and I'm as I mentioned this evening uh so we had a very nice discussion with Council back in September it's been about a month we've been able to take some of your feedback and provide additional information a lot of which is included in the memo this evening we've also heard from community over the last several weeks which was great we'll learn more this evening so we wanted to provide some additional information to help set context for this evening's discussion uh the one area where we did hear clear Council consensus uh back in September is uh in the area of additional trash management strategies so as mentioned the 2023 recommended budget provides 1. million dollars to extend and expand the safe and managed spaces program this does propose to include an additional encampment cleanup team which would be managed out of utilities it's a general fund expense this team could manage some

[105:04] additional strategies which Council Council indicated some support for the specifics we worked on over the past several weeks especially our safe and managed spaces team utilities did a lot of leg work we got some feedback from Council over the past several weeks which framed a proposal this evening which would be added to the recommended 2023 budget so starting with the first is looking at Sharps and needle collection so hot off the press as a couple days ago the slide says a grant is being explored we did receive a grant of seven thousand dollars through a Boulder Community Health for a large container site for collections at 9th and Canyon we are exploring additional locations for sharps and needle collections another proposal is for enhanced campus related trash management there's been some discussion related to move in and move out times especially on

[106:01] campus and managing some of the large trash items currently there is a program where the onus is on property owners to expand the number of dumpsters and the time of trash the days of trash removal The Proposal is here is to have the city essentially pick up costs to expand the number of dumpsters in the number of trash removal days during those periods of time that cost is up to 55 000. and then another proposal is to install on a trial basis a large bear proof dumpster or dumpsters within the downtown core the cost is about nine thousand dollars per dumpster so our total recommended budget addition uh this evening is eight eighty thousand dollars for these strategies out of the general fund gives us some flexibility um within those different areas as proposed in the area of Planning and Development review this was something that came up

[107:00] as a topic during study session uh we did want to reiterate what is in the 2023 recommended budget it does propose an additional eight positions in planning and development services in building permitting development review and comprehensive planning it also provides additional contracted assistance funding so non-personnel as needed staff is hopeful that the additions of these staff and process improvements this year will be able to meet permit performance standards later this year so basically what we're trying to say is that the 23 recommended budget does provide enough resources at this point to meet those standards if that's not the case then we'll be back to council with an update and potential future resources another area that came up both at study session and I know Community is interested in is the arts and culture

[108:00] budget the funding for arts and culture is driven by the community cultural plan or CCP which was accepted by Council in November of 2015. the plan sets a target of 2 million for the division budget by 2024. the 2023 recommended budget for arts and culture is 2.5 million which meets that CCP Target a year ahead of time within that 2.5 million dollar proposal for next year is a 1.8 million operating budget uh 330 000 per year for arpa enhanced General operating support grants so that's a million over about a million over the 22 through 24 and then 400 000 capital budget for annual public art and signage installations and that's a combination of general fund dollars uh through our general fund capital and ccrs and uh noted here that staff will continue to work with the Arts commission to address emerging needs and

[109:00] guide a community process as we get ready for the renewal of the CCP another area of discussion is in basic needs in human services so we did want to provide a full picture there is a two hundred thousand dollar enhancement proposed in the 23 budget that's in the context of larger a larger constellation of basic need support in the community the total funding proposed for basic needs in HHS is 6.9 million within that is 5.9 to support Community investments in early childhood education legal services and case management 950 000 specifically goes to support rental Child Care financial and food assistance these are programs including epress or the eviction protection and rental assistance program which is approximately 540 000 proposed in 2023. the 200 000 would be adding so it's a

[110:00] part of that 6.9 that would uh bolster the uh Human Services fund that that fund goes out to organizations that provide that basic need and preventative service support and in addition to that 6.9 million we do have nine hundred thousand dollars appropriated as we need towards basic needs as well we have had a couple questions from Council related to the timing on the proposed day Services Center and the operating costs again we have proposed 750 000 in the 23 budget for operational expenses knowing that there's some uncertainty on the location and the type of facility that Community process is underway we know that Capital costs will be necessary that is not currently programmed in the 23 budget but we assume we'll be back to discuss that at some point uh because of the uncertainty on the timing there's likely operational savings that would be created if the

[111:00] Center opens any time past January 1st what staff has done is have a discussion about potentially tapping into those operational savings at this time we recommend maintaining the flexibility to to have the 750 available for operational needs or other needs as they arise but we can talk about that a bit later what happened where am I going is I had to get used to a whole new setup over here all right so we have a couple staff recommended budget changes um one of which we discussed so additional trash management strategies that would add eighty thousand dollars to the appropriation and the general fund and I'll just note this evening that our goal is to try to get you a final number for appropriation for your ordinances so that we can go with Final on second reading so that we'll be doing math we've got a bunch of people

[112:01] downstairs beneath us running the figure so we'll make sure that's clean for you when you're ready for your motions so eighty thousand dollars would be added to the general fund to support those additional trash management strategies we discussed last month we received the guaranteed maximum price on fire station three uh as we you all are aware with inflation um that number came in higher than what we had anticipated in the 23 recommended budget so what we need to do is add 1.5 million to the ccrs fund in order to complete that project since we released the recommended budget we received updated Accommodations Tax projections from the boulder convention and visitors bureau that does match what we're seeing year to date so that is good news by contract and how we handle the CVB annual contract they received 20 percent

[113:00] of the annual accommodations tax revenue 100 of the food tax revenue So based on the updated projections that contract value goes up in 2023 so that is the the increment and that is offset by the revenue coming in so we would need to change the general fund by that 335 216 and then we found an error we were pulling in the wrong Boulder Junction fund instead of the amount that is listed in your ordinance it should be 250 000 and we'll show that in a moment but that is just a correction and so um without any other additional changes uh what you would need to do to have a final number this evening is uh have a general fund total appropriation of that 188.4 which is slightly different than what is in the recommended budget for the ccrs tax fund that would go up by the 1.5 mentioned

[114:00] for the Fire Station 3 and then we need to correct the Boulder Junction Improvement fund and then you may remember as we discussed in September what we asked Council to do if there were substantive changes to the budget proposed to put those up via hotline so that we could essentially work on those and bring those forward this evening council members Spear and Wallach went ahead and did that so I will yield to them to advocate for their various changes but just to summarize for council member spear what she suggested was one-time dollars to support additional basic needs either through arpa or the operational savings that we discussed from the day Services Center reallocating a portion of Patrol and traffic Services budget for additional preventative measures especially in the area of bike and cattle converter thefts additional strategies to connect people to services this was specifically associated with the current Community

[115:00] Court model and then a proposal to reallocate or remove the additional proposed encampment management team and then for council member Wallach a number of clarifications related to ccrs and other budget items and we did provide those in in memo and direct hotline response and happy to address others that we missed this evening some concern relates to the time it related to the timing of the proposed the Services Center and whether or not that funding was appropriate in the 23 budget some concern and requested clarification related to the timing of the airport master plan and Associated Capital Improvements and other miscellaneous funding suggested suggestions for Wildfire resilience arts and funding strategies to address long-term funding needs and speaking of um long-term funding needs so just to reiterate a few points that we made in September and highlight a couple new ones there are ongoing funding implications based on how we're structuring the 23 budget we continue to

[116:02] have a number of underfunded and unfunded needs we talked about that when we discussed the library reallocation we would like to work with you and the financial strategy Committee in aligning our master plan process with our budget and then we have a number of expiring taxes a couple of which will be considered in November and there are some uh what we're saying funding opportunities but certainly items to put on your radar that will be a part of the discussion over the next year um you've seen this before but just to put a pin on it we have a number of items that will require ongoing funding that we're using our one-time flexibility just to make sure we get started this year or in 2023 we will need to revisit these conversations related to day Services Center Behavioral Health response Recreation services and safe and managed spaces as we move into 2024 budget planning and we are um taking advantage of the opportunity with arpa to invest in a number of key

[117:02] areas again these are likely needs that extend beyond the amount of funding we have or the time that we have to spend these funds and the last Slide the this evening is just to point out some of these funding opportunities or future conversations that this council is likely to have we've already talked about Library budget reallocation if that district is created in November same thing with new climate tax in addition to that we have an expiring 0.15 percent general fund sales tax and we would like to start that conversation early that's an important general fund tax to support General operations uh there are as we've heard this evening and testimony additional state and federal opportunities through our the federal infrastructure bill um I will highlight that we are proposing a Citywide Grant position in this budget and that will help access some of those funds we hope and then reviewing uh dedicated taxes

[118:02] and the authorized uses of those dedicated taxes it has been some time since we have done that research on what is required through voter action or through our Charter or code and looking at any areas that we might have some flexibility given the number of dedicated taxes that we have and then lastly looking at additional Partnerships to leverage the city dollars that we do have so all of those items will be things that we'll be working through you and the financial strategy Committee in the coming months and I believe that's where we'll stop we do have a very um busy slide for the motion language when that is ready but for now we'll yield to questions well thanks so much Mark and Carr it was a dense presentation but efficiently presented packed full of great information so appreciate that Council questions I got mark yeah I do have a few questions but before I start um thank you so much for your response to my hotline it was extremely

[119:00] substantive and the answers were very strong and terrific and I appreciate that um and if I might uh if you can pass on my uh congratulations to judge cook I think her answer in terms of the standards by which we would judge the community Court funds I think was was spot on so my questions are as follows first with respect to the Firehouse did we at all explore the concept of value engineering to deal with the cost overruns as opposed to Simply putting in more money yeah I will have to yield to somebody either in person or virtually I know that the guaranteed I'll stall while somebody comes up but the guaranteed maximum price comes in while working with the general contractor and I believe that's a part of those discussions but Joanna crane is here and I'll let her answer sure

[120:01] all right am I speaking loud enough everyone can hear I'm Joanna Korean I'm director of facilities and Fleet and so absolutely actually we did a lot of work on value engineering um and we also looked at our contingency we looked at lots of different things unfortunately what we saw was an increase just across the board um unfortunately we're seeing that with every sort of construction project as you can imagine yeah yeah okay thank you um do we have a plan for replenishing fund reserves across the Departments since we're kind of scooping them up and using them this year yeah we we do generally and Carl might want to add to this I I think we do expect uh fund balance after Reserve after 2022 just with operational savings some salary savings that that will help I think what we were taking from our

[121:00] discussions with Council and FSC over the last several months is to try to program those dollars the fund balance after Reserve where we could and knowing that we have the flexibility in one time that's why you see a number of Pilots number of investments in capital projects is to try to utilize those resources that we had available without without drawing down to a point that would that would be of concern as far from a financial perspective and Mark two might have follow-up follow up on that because my understanding is that we're fully funding our reserves right so the reserves are fully funded but we're not allowing fund balance to accumulate necessarily over budget do I have that right that's correct okay and I and I would just add that yes we um we did an estimate for what we think 2022 might finish when we said what would those ending fund balances be after reserve and more programming to spend those down but we could very likely finish 2022 but you know with more savings than we even anticipated you know we've had challenges as have

[122:01] many employers retaining and recruiting so there may be some additional dollars and then I'll just also add that those fund balances and the emergency reserves for the general fund are just held in Mass they're not really allocated by department so they're just held for the general fund and all of the programs and services essentially that the general fund supports just two more um is there a particular reason why the flow of federal infrastructure dollars seems to be so slow I mean we were sort of waiting for the spigot to open um and can you tell us what's happening yeah this information is a little dated but so my understanding of the federal infrastructure bill is that some of the programs were in existence and so those dollars will flow quicker although those are likely to be through the state where we would be going through our normal kind of Grant process to participate a

[123:02] lot of regional projects would be a part of those programs the infrastructure Bill also created new programs and so I believe there's a process where it's Federal program creation and so on and so forth and that that does take some time I I do think it's important to say that we have not had at least from a from also speak from a finance perspective the staff time to really look deeply into what funding opportunities are coming sooner rather than later I know our transportation staff has certainly for those types of projects but that's that Citywide Grant Position will certainly help and hopefully be able to start right away in 2023 to act access some of those dollars but but it has been slow and other cities have been experiencing that as well okay thanks and my last question I I thought I recalled a number of about seven hundred thousand dollars uh to deal with family homelessness is that a is my recollection fuzzy on that or is that about the number

[124:02] that sounds familiar but I'll I'll see if there's somebody in the crowd that could help us out anybody Vicki Ebner coming down as you can see Council we are full with leadership at all our levels at the meeting and so they will be coming in and out periodically watch enough time Becky good evening Vicki Ebner HHS that was presented as part of our annual update in September however we did not receive a full recommendation I'm sorry a full request from the family home assist team we are investigating options to look at a partnered approach with County which would likely be an allocation of Human Service funding thank you I think that's an important area so that's all I've got okay uh I've not seen anybody else I'll pop in with one and when we talked about

[125:00] um alternative trash Solutions uh well first of all thank you for looking into that and figuring out some some options I was glad to see those presented in the recommended budget and the changes to thanks for that one of the things that we've talked about um at least offline was like the possibility of a program like where you'd have um you could hire folks experiencing homelessness to help pick up trash around the community and so programs like that I know have been successful in some some other areas like you know Albuquerque or Portland are we looking into that at all for for this coming years that possible option yeah there's Joanna I'll let her answer hi thank you for the question I'm Joanna Bloom deputy director for utilities um so it's not something that we would immediately put in this budget but we are looking for um looking at programs to consider for 2023 including those that would um potentially build a skill or be more Innovative than the current programs

[126:00] that we have even though the programs that we have are great but just to see how we can build on that and and evolve the programs so um it whether or not that among others is one that we would look at we were definitely open to looking at options well I look forward to your analysis of that when you come back with it great thank you yeah Lauren I also saw in the memo that we had it mentioned um voluntary voluntary incentives for the trash pick up around the hill I don't know if that was thought of as a separate or similar program to what Aaron just mentioned it is that it's sort of in the same place where you're thinking about what that might be and how that might be implemented for church so I think generally speaking and I'll let others time in as needed but I think there's kind of themes of what we'd be considering one is we just we have a sense or a spirit of openness in terms of what we're looking at I know there's we're doing pure City comparisons to see what other folks are

[127:00] doing that's working and also what what we could make our own um I think we need to do further integration on our end to figure out the mechanics of what specifically would be successful here and I know those conversations are already happening and will continue so we need to just look at those a little bit closely but more closely but for sure I think we are open to investigating what would be successful and what would meet the needs of the community um and I I have just one more on the same line um so there's also mention of either 20 to 40 new dumpsters on in the Hill area and three large bear proof ones downtown are you like I'm just trying to imagine where those would go are you thinking that that's just supplementing what um commercial properties are providing or is that something that would be separate and on um city property somewhere yes to the so we think there's two separate categories the the larger

[128:00] number the 20 to 40 on the hill would be coincident with CU move in move out periods and we would need to identify those locations and the idea being that um because there's more frequent pickup during those move-in move out periods that they would be there for a temporary stretch we would kind of do a blitz and then and then move them the three downtown the bear proof would be more permanent and we would need to work with um within our own department but also with any external Partners but the idea would be to focus on those corridors that were most frequently in along Boulder Creek so for example like at the Justice Center but we wouldn't need to work that out thank you thanks thank you I have a I have a a question and comment to make about basic needs I find that word that term a little bit um not very clear to me and part of the

[129:02] question I'm looking at slide 23 and even when I was reading the packet on page seven I was thinking okay what does basic needs really include what does it include and it mentioned legal services and I'm wondering legal services for whom thanks for the question and I you're not going to take that one I am not going to take that one I'm gonna tag after me just one second thing I see Elizabeth coming down come on down good evening Elizabeth Crow with HHS so some of the legal services that we invest in through HHS include immigrant legal services and legal services for community members experiencing domestic violence and who need other services organizations like the Colorado Legal Services bridge to Justice immigrant Legal Services Center

[130:00] organizations like those so all benefiting community members who are low income or experiencing other disparities like racism heterosexism violence Etc thank you so it's technically a set aside outside of the because you do have 950 000 for eviction prevention but it's other services relating to that's because she's in the family yeah and we primarily uh provide that those Legal Services through the Human Services fund through a competitive fund around process although we do have a multi-year channel and most of the organizations I just mentioned are in that track we also provide some of those Services um invest in some of those Services through the Health Equity Fund thank you can I make a comment s will come after that okay thank you thank you I do have a question um and and it's sort of an overarching

[131:00] question that I think will invite more conversation for another day beyond just this budget discussion but um essentially I'm I'm worried that housing first is not quite working the way that we would hope it would be working um I've always thought that there were sort of gaps in who gets you know selected for housing and now I think in in keeping with testimony from Tim Timothy Thomas I believe it was tonight um you know we're sort of asking uh affordable housing operators to succeed without enough Staffing um that would help people living there to succeed so I think we need a much deeper bench in terms of an array of housing options including lots more living situations with more intensive Staffing such as group homes and even staffed safe outdoor spaces I'm going to bring this back to the budget trust me on this um and a question so I would like to see funding for more dense settings like group homes aggressively pursued I've heard from a state representative and

[132:00] tonight we all heard from Jonathan singer that there are just tens of millions of dollars sitting there waiting for people to apply so my question is is one grant funding position enough given that we want to get at this money before it expires good question I think we can start on the grant position so what we're envisioning is the is the city-wide Grant position there will also be a dedicated resource pending our discussion next week for ccrs as well and so those two ideally will work in tandem as a little office to look at those grant opportunities I do think it would be helpful to have a conversation at some point about prioritization in pursuing grants so you know depending on what the the appetite is of council I will see but you know until we have a chance to I mean hear your support for those positions but also have an idea of

[133:02] what the priorities are and develop a work plan and so on and so forth so I'm sorry that didn't really directly answer that maybe it might be enough but it depends on our discussion with Council thank you for that I'll hold the rest for comments well it just follow and I assume that we're applying for Grants without that dedicated Grant position right I mean I'm sure people in different departments are applying for Grants all the time I was just going to say that that there are folks already in our organization that do a great job at looking for Grants a lot of them in HHS who are phenomenal and I think that we always this is never the only bite at the Apple right like if we as we get to do some of this work and if we see that we need more support we will come back to you and talk about it but for now this is where we're starting and I think that we're in conjunction with a conversation about prioritization we think that we're currently in a good place as this moves forward but we certainly know that we can always come back to you just I would just add a caveat of my

[134:00] understanding is this money is is time limited and sort of has a an early expiration date I don't know if if Kurt or Jonathan singer even is still here Vicki I see Vicky standing so regarding the joys of being short regarding the uh specific homelessness grants while there are multiple million dollars uh quite a large fraction is is earmarked towards some of the large campuses that are being put in regionally we have been working with the county and the local nonprofits to determine a strategy on what makes sense for whom to apply for what specifically the city of Boulder is planning on going after SB 1378 to help furnish and support the day service center we have allocated quite a bit of arpa funding toward the building home program

[135:01] which gets to what you're talking about that deeper bench which is around housing retention we our housing exits team at HSBC has Homeless Solutions for Boulder County just met today one of the conversations was about group homes transitional housing some of those other pieces of that puzzle and how we can make those be reality I'll do one more follow-up is HSBC applying for some of those grants independent of us or is the county is that is that what that means so HS HSBC is a collaborative it's not an actual formal organization so we deploy a divide and conquer methodology so the county applies for some things on behalf of the group the city does for some and in other cases some of our nonprofit organizations apply directly clear up some acronyms by the way HHS is housing and Human Services and HSBC is the Homeless Solutions for Boulder County the collaborative organizations

[136:01] that work on ending homelessness in our County right any other questions I got Lauren have a Parks and Rec related question um so in the comments from boards and commissions there was a concern about the budget not being enough to reduce um or to avoid reductions in the community benefit Recreation subsidies and I was wondering how much what kind of budget allocation it would take in order to um not see those reductions hello I'm Jackson Height a business services manager for Parks and Recreation getting a little closer than Mike yes absolutely this is better um we received about 1.6 million dollars in general fund subsidy to the recreation activity fund

[137:01] um this was about a 2.1 million dollar ask that we did have um so the 2.1 million dollars would allow us to provide a full community benefit programming this would provide full community benefit programming as it stands right now we are maintaining our current surface levels which includes financial aid assistance and continuation of the requity program this would be a continuation of the requity program and our financial aid program yeah we got that last bit does it answer your question and Lauren if I might just add uh to that so the way that the budget is proposed for 23 is it maintains as Jackson said the current level of service so there are no cuts to our service it does raise the question about future funding which we've pointed out that in order to maintain that level of subsidy for those programs for our work

[138:00] related to equity programming we do need to have a larger conversation about the the permanence of the general fund subsidy so I I think in Jackson you can correct me if I'm wrong the board's concerns is that the the 23 budget doesn't solve that permanently and we acknowledge that okay so it would accomplish it for 2023 but then in future budget Cycles we'll that will be a recurring question okay thank you not seeing any other questions so I think we can go ahead and move to the public hearing so uh just a couple of notes about changes to the sign up list uh we had Joshua Pollock was uh signed up for in person but it's actually virtual so it'll be the last virtual speaker and then we had Dan creel and Nate urandi who originally on the open comment list but willing to speak to the budget so they are the last in-person speakers we've got a total of uh 21 folks so that'll be two minutes each if you are pooling you will get five

[139:02] although you will have to have the people you're pooling with present in the meeting okay so uh and please do queue up as as I call your your name the first three speakers are Brooke Harrison Holly Carlson and Emily Reynolds hello get that mic down a little bit is it working yep oh nice okay Rick Harrison Boulder resident I'm here to support the requested funding for safe and managed spaces program and Boulder Police Department the intent of the safe and managed spaces program is not to solve homelessness and in encampments but to keep our public spaces clean and accessible by this metric they have been widely successful collecting 106 tons of debris and addressing 389 camping sites council person spear is correct we and we clean up one area people move to another but this is not a failure of the

[140:00] program or of BPD but a systemic failure in our approach to homelessness to the best of my knowledge none of our homeless Services have solved homelessness yet it is not being proposed that they be defunded it's also not unreasonable to try a pilot program like the Austin Violet bag program or the Tacoma and Elk Grove Pay to clean Pilots but these are not a substitute for an organized and reliable cleanup crew while questioning the funding for successful programs there's a push to reinstate programs that have failed in the past such as a day shelter in downtown porta potties the allocation of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a day shelter still in the planning phase is fiscally irresponsible consider instead investing those funds and expanding drug treatment and Mental Health Services finally I Echo council person wallach's dismay at the at the below inflation increase to the police department's budget we have a growing crime problem in Boulder Chief Herald needs money to

[141:01] recruit and retain officers she also needs money for technology and for training we're not as bad as Chicago or San Francisco but are we going to wait until then to act please fully fund the safe and managed spaces program BPD and reallocate the day shelter funds thank you Brooke Holly Carlson Emily Reynolds and Garrett Baum council members I'm commenting tonight on the 2023 budget of 11 million dollars for affordable housing investment that's what you guys had on your website I'm a single mother of Two and a resident of Depot square a dilapidated affordable housing building Depot Square maintains a multiple City voucher units and has made the news several weeks ago on September 9th because tenants and who have lived in two of our units were operating a meth Fentanyl and bike chop shop for several years and we're in possession of guns and other stolen

[142:01] property yesterday an arrest warrant was finally issued and hopefully these two neighbors will not go out of jail they have spent the last month continuing their operations in Depot Square since the SWAT team busted in their door September 9th this situation continued for years despite repeat tenant complaints two Boulder housing partners and the management company abnath Capital Management there are other serious ongoing code violations and criminal activity in and around Depot Square I worry daily for the safety of my two children and whether we have been living in a building contaminated by Meth my arrested neighbors had a long history of criminal activity drug addiction homelessness yet were housed with families seniors and disabled community members through our City's housing first program how is this considered to be safe in addition to the crime apartments in Depot Square are not being maintained and the elevators are current are often not working I am the one who has to call boom properties to get them fixed I am the code officer I am the property

[143:01] maintenance manager for my building and I get paid zero however I am bullied constantly by avanath Property Management to the point now that they are trying to evict me so I do hope that the services you guys offer through the community and through your courts through the local courts here actually help me because I've watched two residents who were good tenants not only get financial assistance through Boulder and get legal help through Boulder they went through the court system and still got evicted so what did that do for them but Nolan void Council when you decide to spend the 11 million dollars please do it wisely we'll send you additional comments thank you and come meet you meant that you guys have let do this for two and a half years thank you now we have Emily Reynolds Garrett Baum and Scott Crosby good evening Council nice to see you in person this evening

[144:00] regarding Boulder's budget for 2023 we must not allow our public spaces to further degrade by limiting the budget to clean up the tons of garbage use needles and human waste the utilities Department's re request to double their budget for cleanup of encampment waste and Hazards is more than reasonable an even higher amount would ensure that residents students and visitors don't have to step in it so to speak or meet the guy with the machete on the creek path it's absurd to pretend that if we give them money they will clean up after themselves giving money to addicts to clean up their own mess is an incentive to create more trash to get more money what will the city's liability be if someone gets stuck with a needle or harmed the claim is the program's not reducing illegal camping please note that's not the purpose of this team their goal is

[145:01] to keep our public spaces safe clean and managed and the tons of trash cleared are proof that they are doing just that in a compassionate manner to say that the program doesn't work having not spent the first year funding is ludicrous if we use that Progressive logic we might well close down the scores and scores of houseless programs because none of them are reducing illegal camping though some counselors want the police out of cleanups the cleanups are dangerous and the crews want them there with to deal and to help with hostile aggressive campers also these cleanup folks include people of color and formerly homeless why take their jobs away another unintended consequence of this mindless idea I'm not in favor of rewarding illegal camping or eliminating all consequences and accountability

[146:03] cray-cray thank you Emily and we have uh Garrett Baum and I understand it's not pooling time and so then after that will be Scott Crosby and forced hunt thank you you get into the mic please can you hear me now you meet me in person you've received six six correspondences from me since late August and six of you including the city manager have totally ignored and avoided me or your constituents it's time for you to start listening to your constituents rather than ignoring them I own a building in Boulder on the hill that has been vandalized more times than I can count I have to pay Crews to clean up human waste on an ongoing basis I have tenants that have been forced out of business because customers are afraid to shop there I have invested millions in your community I pay almost 80 000 a year in property tax and get absolutely nothing

[147:00] in return falling apart sideways sidewalks graffiti finds no snow removal broken windows broken doors and theft Boulder is broken your policies are destroying our community students are leaving businesses are closing and leaving long-time residents as well as new ones are leaving your failed policies have the effect of encouraging people to migrate to Boulder to commit crimes with no fear of being caught or Consequences gun violence public intoxication public illicit drug use illegal camping harassment of community members vandalism and theft no big deal in Boulder take seriously the health safety and wellness of your community tell your judges you want them to follow the letter of the law incur and incarcerate criminals speak with the sheriff and work with him to assure that there is ample space space to adequately incarcerate criminals if you do not then you continue to encourage criminals and maybe even previously previously non-criminals to begin commuting

[148:00] committing crimes as there is no punishment you become Portland Chicago Minneapolis or others that is not a compliment Chief Herald deputy chief Redfern and your entire police department want to protect and serve the community in forcing the laws approve the budget for the police approve the budget for the cleanup of illegal encampments and force your laws take care and protect your community now if Scott Crosby Forest hunt and Sherry hack all right thank you uh please increase the budget to fund the police department so they can restore safety on the hill speak into the mic please oh please increase the budget to fund your police to increase safety on the hill and throughout the Boulder Community so local business can be successful and parents can feel free to let their kids roam I'm a 1990 CU graduate my son graduated

[149:01] in May I have a special needs little brother that would be homeless if it wasn't for my family and I I know tough love works I am speaking on their behalfs I have been managing and leasing the Boulder Hill property for over 10 years we have a real problem now the hill is not working worth investing in by local businesses and community and Community visits to the hill no one wants to visit the hill anymore it's too dirty it's too scummy people businesses are closing left and right rosenberg's is about to consider closing their lack of success should be a real massive wake up for all of you that is the exact type of tenant that most Boulder rights would want to be locating here in Boulder in Colorado and they can't make it and they can make it on the at Five Points the so-called uh terrible place of Denver you guys are worse than that um safety at a minimum is a requirement is a requirement the city must provide just that just safety

[150:02] in my opinion the city has reduced uh police budgets to where they're not supporting and then they're not supporting the good police officers they are spread too thin and no one wants to be a police officer anymore can you blame them you tie their hands and don't let them enforce the law worse you empower the homeless and the drug addicts Colorado Springs has improved their home their downtown homeless problem just by making it a privilege to be downtown not a right to their homeless favorites and homeless have no deterrence from being arrested because they are released on their personal cognizance bond that they don't care about but most of all it discourages the police to enforce the law because they know they'll just be released thank you you have a real problem and you should be ashamed because it's on your watch thank you Scott I've been in foreign Force time is actually a virtual speaker so we'll get back to force later on in the public hearing so we've got uh Sherry hack Susan Smith and Linda quickly

[151:02] I'm a long time Boulder resident Public Safety is a big concern every day we see more and more crime here last week we had a librarian attacked in the main library where she suffered a head and spine injury shortly after that we had three separate violent incidents on the hill in two nights there was also thirty thousand dollars in Damages when businesses had their Windows broken this senseless violence is devastating our city I read the budget document and I want to talk about councilwoman Spears suggestion to reallocate or remove the budget for additional encampment cleanup this is a bad idea and here's why I have personally seen progress in areas where encampments have been cleared however there is opportunity for more progress to be made better enforcement and cleanup would cause those who want services to seek them out and those who don't want services or who choose to commit crimes should be held accountable for their actions our laws

[152:01] should be enforced not ignored the money allocated to enforce those laws shouldn't be reallocated or cut the trash and toxic waste at these dumps requires a specialized cleaning team with a police escort because it's dangerous work we have a recurring encampment behind Boulder High School do you on Council really think it's okay for our school kids to be so vulnerable to what happens there just this week a young girl was chased on her bike by three men behind this from this camp the budget document stresses the importance of businesses in Boulder and the tax revenue they generate how long before business owners get sick and tired of the vandalism and crime and move out taking taking their revenue with them keeping the public safe and working towards the best interest of older residents should be your number one priority with this proposed budget this community newsletter outlines what your job is as city council and what it is is to hire certain officials to

[153:02] oversee departments responsible for city services and one of those is keeping but if you you can email us your Edition keeping the public safe I email you all the time thank you thank you all right we've got Susan Smith Linda Quigley and Tim Thomas we stipulate the city council recognizes in response to the critical distinction between homeless and transients the latter who come from other states and countries who do not want to better their situation are criminal addicts of illegal drugs and substance and result in 88 of crimes we are suffering in Boulder enabled by solely by your destructive policies you are stealing appropriated fronts from our homeless while they are frightening frightened to go into shelters and and our last in line for services and residents are terrified to walk the streets bike paths and live in their homes we demand this this thing should be recognized and acted on immediately Council Boulder

[154:00] used to be known as the best for everything now we have the appalling distinction to be the best city for illegal in campus and services for hazardous Nomad transients unacceptable you are currently spending millions of dollars which does not not include a massive amount of resulting expense and less than 500 at best go to our actual homeless residents unsustainable stop stealing from the homeless do you rationalize rules for ye but not for me how do you live with yourself submissive destruction we demand that you first home home Foster shelter fee fondle out your bikes properties bodies to be destroyed ravaged and solid to become a toxic waste thump of needles feces garbage and render your residence a Haven for criminal activity and demise stop violating victimizing and terrorizing the residents of our community stop them from misappropriating our tax and grant money you are investing from our

[155:00] wholeness it is time to wake up not woke up counsel and prioritize Public Safety restore restore productive residency laws that eliminate transients recent day you Center stop misusing and abusing our police as pest infestation and sanitation controllers stop reaching your civilization your time is uphold you can email us your additional comments please stop your time is up it is no more compassionate to enable humans you're not respecting other people's time everyone else only has two minutes for a cutter kerosene to a narcissist or weapons to a mask killer it is not compatible time is it please stop all right uh all right and hopefully other people

[156:01] can stick to the two-minute limit here so um everyone has the same amount of time to speak so we got Linda Quigley Tim Thomas and Mary Madeira um when we were virtual I used to write everything down that I would say to because we had two minutes and it felt much worse than Indianapolis 500 it's the town I grew up in I think there's this pent up desire to talk to you because you felt like our stealth Council for three years and I'm not saying you intended that but it just doesn't feel like you've been there we write emails they go into a black hole we don't know what you think but we see policies that aren't working if you know of a single

[157:02] Progressive Run town where policies like we have are working please tell me I'd love to go visit and see what it is we missed because I have this same problem I'm disabled I don't want to bike down a path and have a bottle of urine thrown to my head I don't I don't want children to run through a gauntlet to get to school it's not working God bless you for caring about people who have lost their homes Nicole God bless you but you cannot lose core services like safety you know and just having clean spaces for the public all of us that built all these bike paths that built this beautiful town we can't lose those

[158:01] if it feels like that's what we're doing and I haven't read a single word of what I wrote but um thank you for your time thanks Linda I've got Tim Thomas Mary Madeira and Jennifer Rhodes um several people including my former city C Professor have asked me why don't I run for Council I've been involved in local Politics on and off for almost 25 years because I don't want to set myself up for failure you're getting a first look at over a half billion dollar budget there's only two major problems with our budget process putting the budget together and spending the money specifically the city's budget has pretty much been on autopilot as long as I've been following it it mainly consists of last year's budget plus some percentage putting it together maybe view some some

[159:01] of you think it's immoral to charge sales tax on food in this time of outrageous inflation your finance department would probably inform you that you can't do it because it would affect our bond rating you got to dig in proposed zero-based budgeting I understand the nuances spending it if we're not paying attention to what we're spending our money on a couple of months ago I wrote an op-ed piece and the Daily Camera suggesting that City employ an independent city auditor the Denver independent city Auditor's website says that an independent audit function serves as a tool for good government transparency and accountability one of the main things that they do is performance-based auditing all the questions that you're asking right now an independent city auditor would have given you the answer let me give you an example Boulder housing Partners is part of something called the moving to work program it's a demonstration program

[160:01] that only about a hundred housing authorities in the country are involved with it gives them great flexibility to use operating funds and Section 8 funds together mixing them together the Section 8 is tied to the place there are tiers for your income and your rent some of them start at 38 going up to 46 percent when the federal government says that the affordable housing is supposed to be 30 percent that's all I got to say okay thank you Tim Mary Madeira Jennifer Rhodes and Zoe Rhodes Wallen Mary has informed us that she does not want to speak again sir thank you okay Jennifer Rhodes then hi um I'm here tonight because um my daughter told me the other day that she does not feel safe like yeah I'm here today because my

[161:00] daughter told me the other day that she does not feels my 14 year old daughter goes to Boulder high and my 12 year old daughter they both bike together and they go to school down the bike path They Ride one and a half miles in broad daylight my daughters told me the other day that they do not feel safe biking on the bike path any longer and they want to take Arapahoe instead to get to school because they are constantly accosted yelled at blocked and they do not feel safe it is unacceptable what's happening in the streets today I'm a psychiatrist in the community and I know from data on substance abuse that substance abuse and violent crimes are very linked and Associated that is an indisputable fact crimes will continue and things will go very awry if something is not done my kids my friends kids I small business owners residents visitors to this beautiful Town feel unsafe walking in

[162:01] public areas that is unacceptable the basic rights of Boulder residents should be a priority we should feel safe in public spaces we have to make our public areas safe the ask that my kids can get to school safely seems like a very basic ask and the city is failing thank you Jennifer we have Zoe Road swollen Lisa Spalding and Sam you hi um I'm Zoe Rhodes wollen I'm a ninth grader at Boulder high school and I bike with my younger sister on the bike path every day to get to and from school recently I've made the decision to bike

[163:00] on Arapahoe because I no longer feel sick safe biking on the bike path this is because men who are who are hanging around the bike path have yelled at me made lewd comments ask for me to give them a ride jumped out in front of me blocked my path yelled at my sister and just made us feel unsafe this is not how it should be I we should feel safe riding a bike to school on a bike path for 10 minutes in the middle of the in morning and four in the afternoon thank you appreciate you coming and talking to us tonight we don't get too many high school students so thanks for participating I just wanted to plus one that too that was great Zoe thanks for being here uh Lisa and then Sam you and Dan Creel

[164:05] Lisa Spalding I'm speaking on behalf of the University Hill Neighborhood associations I'm oops the University Hill Neighborhood association's executive committee residents of the Hill are terrified by the growing gun crisis in our neighborhood it was a miracle the two police officers were nearby and rushed to the scene of the shootout at 1 27 a.m last Sunday they prevented the death and serious injuries that would surely have occurred without their intervention it was a miracle because our police force is down by 29 Patrol officers both students and long-term residents are frightened guns were pulled at a Fourth of July party this year and later that night a shootout occurred at 14th and Euclid students are now reporting armed home invasions and armed disruptions at Greek

[165:00] parties the situation is spinning out of control but the funds allocated to the police department in the 2023 budget do not even cover the rise in inflation how many fraternity boys have already armed themselves for self-defense we need more police not more armed citizens police expect the new Hill Hotel people expect the new Hill Hotel being constructed at 13th and University and the CU Conference Center to revitalize the hill business district however the business district will never improve if this influx of criminals with guns continues Denver Mayor Michael Hancock earmarked 8.4 million to fill 188 open officer positions in his proposed 2023 budget hiring police officers is highly competitive and Boulder would need almost 1.3 million to match the money Denver wants to offer please revise this budget and allocate sufficient funds for

[166:01] our Police Department we depend on you to keep us safe and to support economic Vitality in our business district thank you thanks Lisa all right we've got CMU Dan kriel and Nate urandi thank you good evening name Samuel and age 55 uh 30 years you speak into the mic sir please yeah 30 years ago I came here for study in my master's degree in civil engineer my daughter also graduate from the CU and 15 years ago I owned Rosehill Wine and Spirits it's a small liquor store only 800 square feet and then we have a great team over here my employee in five seconds they can identify a fake ID even though they even they know the signature is incorrect so you know this team you know we run like 15 years and till recently we

[167:01] really really suffering a lot of homeless people and really fighting our employee our employees really afraid to go home after work so I need to buy the paper spray a little one paper spray for them two years ago and now you know what I need to buy the bear spray I don't know anybody know about bear spray I'd like to speak they just spray to to be able to defend themselves that's that's a shame you know for as a business owner we are so scared and the law enforcement if we don't have a decent budget for them we will not get a proper Police Department and who's going to protect us so I need to what I need to look into the eBay or Amazon to find a two leader or maybe even bigger paper spray for my employee or for my store that just doesn't make sense you know we if we don't have that kind of a law enforcement to protect us

[168:01] then you know what the freedom is not this country the freedom is for the homeless thank you thank you Sam creel and then Nate urandi is our last in-person speaker yes my name is Darren crio I live at 2037 Walnut Street and apartment complex 26 Apartments and in the last year we haven't been complaining to the police and Boulder housing Partners about the drug and chop shops and specific apartments and it's taken a year to have anything done and that's just not right for the tenants that live there that aren't doing the drugs or chopping the bikes and

[169:00] all the other neighbors in our neighborhood and we do need to fund the police but they need to be able to do something instead of just having their hands tied so if you guys really need to do something with the police so they can help them say make sure that this community is safe thank you thank you Dan Nate urandi kudos to you for pronouncing the devil L like a y that that is missed by a lot of people so can everybody hear me well enough okay great um so Nate urandi my wife and I have been in Boulder since 1993 the past four plus years next to the 2037 Walnut Street complex that Dan just talked about um and 2037 is a qualified Section 8 housing I don't know the exact terminology um but I'm here as a concerned neighbor

[170:02] for a lot of the tenants that are in there like Dan you know there's a number of tenants who have been assaulted verbally and physically and do not feel safe in the complex due to the criminals who use their units for drug dealing drug use bicycle shops and more it seems like a common theme that we're hearing today over the weekend I spoke to a female tenant who was really distraught she's a rape victim and she's been threatened to the point where she actually told me she wasn't sure if life was worth living still um it's a very very real and clearly uh points to a failure of the current system you know the police force is aware of all the documented behavior and has been very helpful to the extent that it's been able to and despite the scarcity of budget and resources with which it operates so thank you officers very much for your tireless support

[171:00] I'm respectfully asking that you consider a material increase in budget being provided to combat decisions and policies which have de facto lowered the quality of life at 2037 and other section 8 units and therefore to the surrounding communities and it's happening to the lowest common denominator the current situation just isn't working it's neither resilient nor sustainable as an example increased budget could fund Social Services to the tenants who are trying to do something with their lives so rather than giving a handout to those who abuse the system let's change the focus to providing a hand up to those who are deserving of the gesture again like Dan and other tenants thank you thanks Nate right we're going to move to our virtual speakers our first three are Lila hickey Claudia theme and Lynn Siegel although I understand Claudia is not in the meeting so we may need to skip over her so Lila hello Council and staff I signed up to

[172:02] speak tonight when I heard that the alternative slash Behavioral Health response program was on the 2023 budget it has become increasingly apparent to any attentive member of our society that when police come in contact with distressed individuals awful awful things happen and jurisdictions that are genuinely interested in improving outcomes have reached the same conclusion police services in America do a great many things that don't actually require police presence usually to the detriment of all involved Boulders critical incident response team has had a great many successes since it launched in December 2021 and very few police escalations increasing funding for this work is an obvious Next Step that will probably end up saving the city money both by avoiding the exorbitant cost of Emergency Services interactions and by reducing the likelihood of future police violence and abuse related lawsuits on a similar note I'm delighted to see the day Center receiving funding we must do more for our unhoused folk both as a

[173:01] moral imperative and because it simply makes sense as a way to provide services that convert much worse outcomes finally I wanted to express appreciation and support for counselor Spears suggestion that we reallocate funding for encampment sweeps it's misguided it's ineffective and it's incredible to me that we do not recognize this for what it is a toddlers pushing peas around their plate in the hopes that it will appear they've made some measurable impact except in this case we are playing with people's lives I urge counsel to put its money where its mouth is what tangible quit change will the people of Boulder get for this 1.3 million dollar item and when I say the people of Boulder they don't just mean the ones living in million dollar homes I mean one ones who live in tents as well thank you for your time thank you Lila so we have Lynn Siegel and then Heather Contessa has withdrawn so then Charlene Hoffman

[174:02] my that's quite an indictment why didn't indictment I would approve this a budget if impact bees were imposed properly Stan Weaver reminded me last night that they were 120 there was a quantification done of all the impact these developer having his unit made and it's a hundred and twenty dollars per square foot years ago it went all the way from nine dollars a square foot to thirteen dollars a square foot this is a problem I'm not going to approve any budget I'm not going to suggest remotely any budget without you doing something about the fundamentals now I got to tell you about a house that went through ldrc and got passed for demolition it's an 8 000 square foot estate

[175:04] at the at the junction or Baseline and Flagstaff 8 000 square feet 6.1 million bucks 1.29 Acres someone just bought it as an empty lot because ldrc passed it right through for Demolition and ldrc isn't recorded and doesn't see the light of day I'm the only one that goes to the meetings so as long as you're subsidizing things like demolitions of Estates in Boulder you got a real problem and the Public's not seeing it so think about that this one woman in little Russia you know Floral Park wanted to put some windows in for thirty thousand dollars and she got kicked to landmarks board she has to go to a hearing and this demolition got approved it's an estate it's rock

[176:02] solid it is fireproof it's a beautiful house from 1941 that's been completely redone your time is up but please email us your additional comments right now we've got Charlene Hoffman Angelica Alexander and Forest hunt hi this is Charlene from the boulder convention and visitors beer 's Bureau on behalf of our board of directors which includes our local Hospitality community of hotels restaurants breweries Arts organizations CU and downtown businesses we want to express support for more funding to adjust the homeless situation in Boulder all these organizations rely on tourism and visitation and we feel the problem is getting to a Tipping Point needing more budget priority before we suffer irreparable damage because of the homeless encampments down by the Boulder Creek visitors and residents don't feel safe and it's cast a very dark cloud over one of our City's

[177:00] crown jewels in Key Community assets therefore we've had to remove all marketing related to the Boulder Creek from our website and we've discontinued the distribution of our Boulder Creek brochures recently I witnessed homeless people down on pearls spitting on passers-by urinating on storefront windows openly smoking marijuana just outside of restaurant entrances and even one man aggressively not letting two women pass while demanding money there have been two managers recently assaulted inside the dushanbe tea house by a homeless person once while a wedding was going on and their employees are no longer allowed to walk alone to their cars at night it's really becoming a safety hazard and the tea house is also one of our greatest Assets in this situation is tangibly affecting our destination brand and time machine folders attractiveness we as we know the lack of Tourism during the pandemic has had a big economic impact and we need that economic

[178:01] visitation to help keep older thriving and we're not saying that all homeless people are criminal we know it's a very complicated situation but we do ask for your support for more funding for the safe and managed Space Program which supports enforcement cleanup and the downtown Ambassador team thank you for your time thanks Charlene Angelica Alexander then Forest hunt and Joshua Pollock is our last speaker thank you so much for the opportunity to speak today um so safety should obviously be our before most concern but that includes protecting our residents which does include the homeless from unnecessary police harassment we should be making older the Envy of their cities so effective and useful our police are um our policies right now are not moving toward that goal we need to allocate more towards alternative programs uh that don't focus on jailing and punishing people but uh from moving forward

[179:01] um and also I want to point out that increasing police funding may not actually help because often it just does not prevent crimes only stops it after it occurs uh multiple Australians have shown that to be the case I would love to send those uh for further consideration and also to help make decisions on that but we must consider science not just feelings in uh preventing crime for a homeless population the housing first method has proven to be effective but we are undergoing a housing crisis so I understand that that would necessarily be difficult but uh in that place we need resources to be allocated to programs that improve long-term outcomes and reduce inefficient and effective ineffective plans like the ongoing camp cleanups that do nothing to actually solve the issue they just um as I said earlier push these around like peas on a plate um with doing otherwise is just wasting taxpayer money you're not solving the issue you're just trying to cover it up and make the city look nicer and not solving it long term we need to ensure people have safe places to use drugs so they're not littering those needles and

[180:01] then we don't have to clean them up in the first place they need places to go to the bathroom to prevent feces in the first place and I would suggest moving beyond day shelters to also have 24-hour shelters especially as we approach winter which would get those people off the streets instead of shuffling them in during the day and then at night they're still let out under the streets they aren't don't have somewhere to go um we need to be more efficient about how we allocate funding reduce negative police interactions and improve positive outcomes for Everyone by using methods that have actually been proven to work thank you so much thanks Angelica I have Forrest hunt and Joshua Pollock Forest your mic is open you'll just need to unmute I'm sorry can you hear me now yes thank you as a expert in the commercial and and working with businesses for

[181:02] years I think that keeping a active and open commercial and streetscape and commercial landscape in the community is important to keeping businesses thriving and also it helps build a community that helps you know uplift and build a positive influence against homelessness and drug abuse and crime violence so we're asking that you fund the police to help against the violence that we've seen um the homelessness the problems that we've all seen and to keep businesses thriving in the community um specifically the hill but also throughout Boulder um as a slippery slope we've seen other places obviously Denver it's prominent 16th Street Mall we've watched it for two years when there's vacancies people congregate and there's problems There's issues and it leads to a snowball effect

[182:02] that influences the rest of the community so that's all we asked and that's all I have thank you thanks Forrest uh Joshua Pollock's our last speaker hello Council thank you my name is Joshua Pollock I am the owner of bridge and tunnel Restaurant Group that operates rosenberg's Bagels Cherry Soda Shop among others in Denver um I'm a CU graduate and so my love for Boulder in the hill attracted me to open my businesses in 2021. um I had high hopes for the hill being a place where all members of the community come not just college students but families people that live on the hill people that live in North Boulder and what I found was what a lot of people are talking about today um there's vagrant communities and crime

[183:01] on the hill that make in a non-attractive place for people to travel to it attracts other types of nonsense and crime um I've lost countless amounts of dollars and employees that have to clean up feces and urine daily as part of their daily routine coming into work because they feel unsafe coming in early in the morning to a bagel shop and my heart's broken for it today I had to make the hardest choice of my life and I've closed spoke businesses permanently and I will no longer be occupying a business on the hill because the police do not have the funding they need to patrol that neighborhood I know that the the homeless situation is complex and cannot be solved with one budget Act but a mere police presence on the hill will really curb a majority of these issues and hopefully Attract it to another business and make it the retail Corridor it was when I first went to Boulder Colorado

[184:01] it's a sad day for me it's a sad day for the people who have been patronizing my store even though they have to walk over people passed out on the sidewalk with needles sticking out of their arm and and I really wish it could have been different for me but without you funding this I don't see any other business taking my place thank you for your time today thank you Joshua all right so that's the end of our public hearing I want to thank everyone for taking the time to come and speak to us tonight I'll just see if we have any follow-up questions from Council before we move into discussions thank you man um from what I'm hearing from Community member and this is a good faith question is the issue funding for the police or is this an HR issue because I'm hearing several things I'm hearing we're 29 down it's hard to hire then I'm

[185:00] hearing we need to fund the police so which one is it you can start from a budget perspective so the proposed budget for police in 2023 is approximately 42 million that's up from the 22 approved budget which is 40.5 million it's about one and a half million dollar increase included in that one and a half million dollar increase is about six hundred thousand dollars in enhancements it's primarily in technology enhancements there's a couple Staffing additions but largely the Staffing conversation is related to the police master plan process and that'll come forward over the next several months I will note and invite Chief Harold if she'd like to add I believe we were making good progress as it relates to the vacancies that has been an issue across the city over the past year plus but I believe there's been decent progress made in filling a lot of those vacancies more recently I wonder Chief

[186:00] or deputy chief would one of you like to come up and address that question of vacancies I think there's a lot of interest in the question absolutely good evening Council mayor's Herald police chief um excellent question uh right now we are down 29 police officers and I think that what you're hearing tonight from the community is uh you know the the natural breakdown of a police department that has been down police officers for the last two and a half years and we desperately need to get those numbers yeah we desperately need to get those numbers up um because it's taken a toll as you can see the community harm that we are seeing is real um and so we have an aggressive recruiting strategy uh just today we had 20 applicants come in and go through all the testing um and then next next week we'll have another 20 come in it is our desire and our hope that we can fill these positions as quickly as possible but keep in mind even if we

[187:00] fill these positions how long it takes to train these officers so if I can say anything with the community tonight is that I didn't hear anything that is not true this community is seeing things that they have not seen before and the complexities of the calls for service are different than they have been in the past and our allotment right now is 190 for our police department but through the master plan like Mark indicated our workload analysis indicates that we're down 10 to 15 on top of that and so we'll have those conversations moving forward I hope that's helpful councilwoman Joseph do you mind if I follow up just Chief well while you've got you hear you know we've heard reports from community members like the young woman Zoe you talked about fearing for her safety you know along the Boulder Creek path can you tell us some of the work that the department is doing to to help with those situations yeah absolutely

[188:02] um we try to prioritize workload um we have developed a completely new and Innovative policing strategy to prioritize these issues and respond um to these issues like the hill I just hope the community understands that all of our specialized assignments have been dramatically reduced and so to answer your question mayor this is now it becomes an issue of prioritization and allocation of these scarce police resources right now but we are out we do mandate over time um we do have strategies but obviously this takes a toll on the police officers because we are mandating so much over time so we are out there in Mass actually a lot of times when we don't have Manpower we ask our SWAT officers to go into soft uniforms and Patrol the bike trails as much as humanly possible

[189:00] I hope that answers your question mayor I appreciate that appreciate all the hard work folks are doing thank you Matt thanks chief that was helpful two questions Chief some way of follow-up one is um can you speak to the challenges that maybe some of your your colleagues other Chiefs of police are having to recruit officers up and down the Front Range the same for for different reasons but this isn't just Boulder it's not the region it's not the state it's National we are in a policing crisis for several reasons the murder of George Floyd has impacted policing um but the pandemic like other positions were not immune from what everybody else is feeling with a workshop Workforce shortage but I will tell you on a positive note if you don't mind is that people are choosing Boulder Police Department because of the work that we are doing

[190:00] and we are getting older applicants that are choosing Boulder uh because of our master plan process because of the Innovation and the technology advancements we're making so that's a good sign I am just pray I'm just praying every day that we can we can get these 40 people through the door because that's what I'm trying to do and uh it's tough but yeah everybody's going through the same thing everybody thanks Chief you started to answer my second question um which was how um competitive are we here in Boulder on on compensation you mentioned some of the things that that would draw people here for econon economic reasons but but um can we talk also about the economics how are we doing compared to cities up and down the Front Range that we're competing with to get officers I think we're very competitive salary and benefit package I think that we lead in this region in a lot of those categories and I'm in you know constant communication with the city manager on

[191:01] what other cities are doing to attract police officers and um so you know we Nuri and I talk all the time about what else can we do to attract talent to Boulder because I'll be honest with you I'm competing against every agency in the state of Colorado and so you bring up a really good point and ongoing with budget and Nuria on what else we can do to attract talent and I don't want just any officer a lot of people are downgrading the qualifications right now Denver is is is one of them I refuse to do that policing is too important I want college educated I want diverse candidates I want people that want to be ambassadors for this community so my expectations are higher but I refuse to lower my expectations for police officers too important of a role thank you that's helpful it is thank you chief thanks for answering these difficult questions I know this wasn't normally

[192:01] your night um oh that's all right I appreciate that Chief um so it's really just kind of a follow-up to where Juni was on her question and maybe just sort of add some granularity you mentioned that we're down 29 officers up of the budget that's a that will be available in 2023 uh how many of those 29 will you have the budget to support all 29. okay so I mean that's awesome because I just want to make sure that it you have the money and we're just now trying to fill those seats but you've got the money you need to fill 29 and when we hopefully get there we can talk about the others but I just want to help with the community thinking that throwing money is is at policing when we're still trying to fill the Gap with the money that we already have allocated is maybe not the solution at this moment we got to get our officers here now right right is that what I'm hearing unless Mark and Cara tell me no we don't have the budget but I I believe we have the budget okay is that correct Mark that's correct and I just want to highlight the work that

[193:00] you're doing with the police academy I think that's when we can lift that up I think that's going to be really awesome so I just want to highlight the work you and sheriff and and Cupid you're doing on that because I think that's going to really help us out a lot yeah and I just talked to the attorney general at the uh one of the foundation Awards I was at he's very supportive and of course I have to have his approval for it um and chief Joker tonight at CU have been working hard on this because I think it'll be a game changer for us Tara first I want to thank all the community members that came out tonight especially our community members from affordable housing specifically thank you Dan and Holly for speaking tonight so and Tim sorry Tim he's my good friend chief I was wondering if you could talk about the situation in the affordable housing and what we can do as a council a city to stand for and be there for our

[194:00] affordable housing community so that they feel safer one of my concerns is and I know this might be out of your purview but please explain to the community what happens when people are arrested for let's say drugs job shops Etc and then they go back into their units to torture to make everybody's lives miserable actually that are trying to have a good life and do good for themselves in our affordable housing community what can we do to help them uh thank you and if I can just say council member weiner that uh the the tenants that spoke from these units that we're talking about these were undercover investigations that we made a lot of progress with and we're working with Boulder housing Partners on solidifying solidifying a strategy to do more of this work and but it's it's so resource intensive

[195:02] because you really have to spend a ton of resources on investigative product and confidential informants which we're willing to do so we're going to be developing a strategy with Boulder housing Partners um and I feel bad because on this particular case that you heard about tonight it did take uh almost 21 days to have an eviction and that was after our operation so that tenant continued on with the behavior that was exhibited in the first place which must be horribly frustrating for the community and so we continue to work on these issues and I'm I am hoping we just had a meeting two days ago with Boulder housing partners and we've agreed to work together on these issues because it must be horribly frustrating for people that are trying to recover from addiction and all the issues and then to have this constantly occurring and uh

[196:02] so for my seat and I'm not Kurt fernhammer but I I think caseworkers need to be explored here in Greater detail I hope I didn't that's also um at 2037 one of the people she doesn't have enough support she has a mental illness and she doesn't have enough support from Mental Health Partners or whoever there's just not enough backbone housing first isn't enough so I'm going to agree with Rachel on that we need to do more than just housing first is great we just we're at a point where we have so many other issues and unintended consequences you know my favorite phrase that we really have to pay attention to it yes fair point and I just I really appreciate Chief you answering these questions about and responsive to the community concerns we are on a budget discussion here so I'll just encourage us to focus in on the the dollars and cents here that we're we're approving tonight um but do we have any um other follow-up questions before we go to discussion

[197:01] I forgot I've lost track of time dollar and cents yeah so another question is is I was thinking about do we have enough detectives because we have a big bike crisis too right so how what are we going to do do we have enough money in the budget for detectives is that what we need that's a great question and actually uh Nuria just approved us to hire for civilian uh investigators to supplement the work that's being done at the detective level and I think that will be very helpful and they can kind of pick up all of the leg work that's needed on a lot of these cases that we have but I will tell you bike theft is down and I know that's a big Community concern but we've invested heavily in bike theft in fact our crime prevention officer is right there and he is working day and night on crime

[198:00] education crime prevention with the bikes and education so we're doing a lot of good work in a lot of areas and I would encourage you all we have a new strategy that we've unveiled and it's called stratified policing you should all come and check it out because it's really powerful where police officers Focus their time crime is reduced there's no doubt about that and you know how I feel about this we don't even have to rely on traditional mechanisms arrest mechanisms to make crime go down I'm just really struggling right now down 20 of my Workforce so crime is stabilizing in a lot of areas because of the work of the dedicated men and women in this Police Department it's about the budget I promise I'm not helping either I'm I'm not helping at all I'm sorry the bike underpasses are looking a lot better so I think because I drive I'm being good and I'm on my bike a lot now I even recently

[199:00] locked it although I did forget the combination that was a struggle but um um so I have a question for you do I think more money and that's why I'm excited about increasing is going to help to continue to help manage our spaces make our bike path safer by the way Goose Creek wasn't looking good today but that's a set of seven sorry about that where's Joe on vacation or something yeah so do you think as a professional that increasing our budget for managed safe and managed spaces and clean up will help even further without a doubt okay thanks Chief can we move into discussion so I want to check a couple of things one is we we want to do we asked to do a time check around nine o'clock we are um we are running over schedule here so

[200:00] I'll encourage folks to be disciplined with their comments on the budget we do have another public hearing after this one so um hopefully we'll we can be somewhat expeditious but of course is a very important topic as well that deserves a full hearing so I'll uh open up for Council discussion people feel free to make uh General comments if you do have specific proposals for things that you would like to see changed you can get those out on the table we can discuss those and if anybody wants to put one out we can certainly strong have a quick discussion about in straw poll whether Council would like to move forward with any of those if they're proposed so open it up for General comments or specific proposals or what have you I got Matt over here first I'll I'll start with some softball high level stuff and because I'm sure we'll dive into the weeds which is what we're here to do um so uh one thing right off the bat is just when looking at so as I thought mentioned the study session I like the open.gov and I know that we're only scratching the surface in terms of its potential to deliver the information at

[201:00] everyone's fingertips the way they want to see it but two specific things that I would hope to sort of just Elevate is one when we're looking at budget it's helpful for us to always be able to see the actual versus proposed going back years so that we actually see where in certain we're either not spending money or overspending money on a departmental level because that I think helps some of us understand where our Trends are I know that's hard building it back in past budgets without using this portal so I know that's just a back data problem but I think just going forward the actual to proposed is really really helpful um for us to understand those those nuances um and then the other is just better search functions um you know we all maybe have different words in which we would describe the same thing um and so you know you might just start with how we normally do it in the budget process but add you know a dozen keywords to it and Elevate that search because I know some folks have asked me how do I find blank and then when I tell them the the acronym or the word they go yeah but that's not the way I thought about it so just I think those are just user interface functionality things just

[202:01] high level stuff I think we can get there but if we can Elevate those I think we'll make it easier for everyone to assimilate the great information that's at our fingertips so but thanks for the great work that you guys did on that next thank you thank you and thank you staff and everybody in all the Departments for all of your work to put together this budget it really I think does a nice job of reflecting a lot of our values I wanted to kind of put a specific proposal on the table I know that housing and Human Services is putting a lot of money into basic needs support already and I just want to say that for right now given where we are coming out of covid with inflation Rising with costs going up with rental going up now to me is a key point for us to invest in a little bit more even more than we already have there and I had sent out and hotline the

[203:02] idea of taking a bit of money from the public health emergency fund that I if I'm understanding correctly Finance you can you can let me know if I'm not it's really just sitting there it's not allocated it's just kind of hanging out we have seemed to just have decided we're moving past covid and what can we do with that money to try to help alleviate some of the effects of covid and some of the things that folks are experiencing right now just to give you one story that really kind of hit me last week related to the need for basic needs I was hearing about somebody who is a worker employed housed they actually even own their house outright and they due to some medical issues and some work issues related to the medical issues they had not been able to work for a little period of time they had a job they were back they didn't have any

[204:01] more leave this person was so thrilled and excited because they had just found out that they could pay for their groceries and installments and that to me indicates a significant problem in our community when people who are housed and working are unable to pay for their groceries without paying in installments so in my mind using some of this money now is kind of a case where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure there are a lot of folks struggling we've got people who are on the verge of losing their housing of not being able to afford food and basic needs that I know we're doing we're investing more already and I'm not sure that we can really reach the need that we have in the community right now and I would like to see us consider using some of this Public Health Emergency funding that is just sitting around not really being used to alleviate some of the impacts that we're seeing in the form of additional rental assistance child care

[205:01] assistance some of the the keeping families housed funding which I believe is ending in December if I'm remembering correctly from no it's not okay seeing some shaking heads but maybe just boosting some of that funding really just trying to do what we can for folks in the community who are really struggling right now with how much costs are increasing and how wages are not keeping up it will affecting start so Nicole I believe you're speaking about if I understand quickly there's a in our arpa funding allocation there's uh five hundred thousand dollars uh currently yeah can you clarify that again uh Council appropriated a million dollars uh for a public health Reserve uh we did begin tapping into that for various needs related to covid the most significant uh was funding a vaccine incentive for employees I believe we're in the ballpark of having about 500 000 available in that in that Reserve that is already appropriated so you don't

[206:00] need to make any changes so the budget as proposed this evening we would just need that direction and then I'll point out that we are back in front of you again you'll be very sick of us by the time we get to the end of the year in November for a second adjustment to base where we were planning to discuss in part arpa so another opportunity but certainly welcome your comments and direction this evening to clarify we'll never get sick of seeing you in a car up here you all are too amazing did you okay great um okay so what I'll do is I'll ask for any proposals and we'll kind of have a list so that we can consider them kind of holistically so we know all the things that people might be suggesting uh maybe before we dive into this specific ones Mark um well first I I have a question when when we talk about rental assistance do we include the funds that are being generated by the newer uh ordinance because that was supposed to be about a million and a half dollars and it seems to me all of that is not being factored and I

[207:00] I understand some portion of that is for legal representation but I'm curious as to how much of it becomes available for actual rental assistance yeah that that's correct I believe there's multiple sources for rental assistance and arpa has helped supplement that I believe the number we quoted earlier 540 000 was directly related epress funding for that type of assistance but I'll yield if somebody from HHS has a different number thanks Elizabeth hi again Elizabeth Crowe housing Human Services that's about right um so we do have um staff who are at eviction Court every Friday intervening and steering community members over to the county as necessary and tapping that Empress funding to make that available and so budget does include that moving forward we also have a little bit of flexibility with other funding to move it around to

[208:02] effa to help folks intervene through that channel and you know provide other rental assistance that actually can go out through our Older Adult Services and Family Services directly for people who qualify in that way all right thank you and just to clarify the newer was the name of the ballot initiative and that's become Empress right it's just for the community understands I had two comments on the budget of this like appropriate time to do it okay um the first one is really is not technical it's just I really think that that a little bit of narrative would be helpful for people who are um perusing the the budget and um are not strange enough as I was to try to delve down and and and understand as much as I tried to others it was and there were times when when I found it to be a little bit fruitless um I think I'd made some mention of those you know the the capital

[209:00] expenditure program for open space goes dramatically down um it's not a good thing or a bad thing it would be nice if people could understand what is happening um the the airport is going up five times uh in in terms of budget it would be nice to understand what's going on I don't mean to treat us I you know but a little bit of narrative on a department by Department basis I think will help people understand you know the major changes and variations that are occurring from year to year having said that I I think the budget is a terrific piece of work and I really congratulate you for all the hard work that you put in um if I were to make a specific recommendation for increased funding I I think it would be for family homelessness because I think you get very good bang for the buck when you provide assistance to a family I think you probably have a good Prospect of their utilizing that

[210:04] assistance and recovering because family units are are important and and parents are going to try to do the best they can for their children so I I tend to think that we underfund family homelessness a little bit and we could do better there but having said that I do think it's a great budget and I do congratulate you um thanks Mark and just just to follow up on that that point that that is basically what I'm talking about with this public health emergency fund is to use it for exactly that sort of thing we heard a couple weeks ago that family homelessness is one of the biggest predictors of future adult homelessness right so this really is a case where putting some money in now when we know that the the folks in the community that support families experiencing homelessness and people experiencing um need in our community they're telling us

[211:00] that people are in a worse place now than they were before the covid pandemic I think we really need to listen to that and there there are groups there are ways we can do that as you mentioned Mark to really put some more money there I think this is kind of coming back I don't know if we were going to talk through the proposals and then kind of do it or just get them all out on the table okay all right yep but yeah agree Mark Matt is over there Marcus over there all right that's my dad's name it works um well so I want to uh Circle a little bit back to what Nicole was sort of referencing about the public health reserve and and really with regards to thinking about the two most disproportionately impact sort of Industries or workforces which were really the restaurant workers and also artists in our community and so if if we really do want to unlock that that half a million dollar or that half a million dollars to support certainly I think some of these efforts that Nicole was talking about which I think are good ideas I'd also like to see a large chunk of that really go to some of that

[212:00] immediate need for our Arts Community I know we're increasing that budget but they're hanging by a thread and we and others like I mean we had the you know the restaurant act came in to cert you know rescue restaurants well there isn't hasn't been much of that to rescue our Arts community and I think an immediate injection of a couple hundred thousand dollars would really lift them up while we start to think about those longer term support networks as they kick in as we have funded and others think come into play so I think there's an opportunity have a yes and where we can support certainly those in need but the other groups in need to like our artists as well and sort of that immediate emergency funding aspect sounds like we're jumping ahead a month which is a good thing so you've given you guys a little bit of advanced Direction and it sounds like what you're looking for tonight and two weeks from now is to approve the budgets in front of us but you're also letting us know that we've got another five hundred thousand dollars in this emergency fund which is available through arpa which you're going to bring back to us in about a month to talk about how to spend

[213:01] on it and and so as long as we've gone down that path and we're doing November's work in October I want I want to Echo what um Matt and um Mark and Nicole have said I think that um that using some of that money both for family homelessness relief and also for support especially of our Arts organizations I realized that arpa has strings attached that it needs to be for Recovery that's what they are and I think an arpa is um but um so we don't just put it into programs or ongoing programs we need to look for people in our community business in our community that are struggling or still struggling to recover and as bad identified there's restaurants that are still struggling to recover there certainly are families as Mark and and Mark and Nicole have said and then there certainly are Arts artists in this community that are struggling to recover so just previewing our November discussion I would like to to see those types of things um it has been funded by the 500 000 that you're going to bring back to us I

[214:00] know that's not tonight's discussion because we're we've kind of gotten off the budget a little bit but as long as we're talking about it I wanted to to agree with my colleagues good other thoughts Genie I did have a question actually about the timing on the day Services Center and on slide 24 it mentions staff recommends flexibility to tap into funds as necessary to facilitate opening the facility and I'm wondering is it the 750 000 or is it a different fund because I couldn't tell whether it's a different source of funding you're thinking about tapping into as needed it's the 750 000 that we've proposed in the in the 23 budget okay thank you uh I just wanted to comment I agree with Nicole and I think that's a great idea to use that money to help community members who are in need Families my only thought is 500 000 is not a lot of money

[215:03] and I would want to know exactly how you intend to spend it because you know you've talked you've talked about basic needs today right and it means different things so what is it that we're spending that money on that will give us the biggest bang for buck and also that you know bring into the conversation that Equity aspect because I hear you know different people have different ideas who it should go to who should be the beneficiaries so who will be the beneficiaries would be really helpful thank you thank you um so one of the um increases that we're looking at is um an increase from 1.5 million for the both for the safe and managed

[216:01] spaces team Urban Park Rangers and downtown ambassadors to 2.8 million which is almost doubling that program you know those programs budgets um as one-time fees and sort of as pilot programs to me I I would prefer to see us running more of a variety of Pilots as opposed to like pre-picking winners um I still feel really strongly that the downtown area needs more public restrooms um as was brought up in public comment mental health and Addiction Services we could really use some expanded help in that area um and while I really appreciate the trash proposals that you brought forward to me they don't feel as well thought out you know because they were a recent ask and you know you guys did great work but

[217:02] I would kind of I would like to see us hold some of that money and think and have you guys come back with some additional proposals for ways that we might run other Pilots or more details around those Pilots to make sure that we are trying a variety of solutions to these problems excellent do you want to maybe drill into do you have specific numbers that you're thinking about or well so I mean I guess so we the the increase is for 1.3 for those three programs plus there's the proposal for that eight eighty thousand right for the trash or I'm sorry I might not be right on that yeah yes so for me both of those sums of money are sort of

[218:01] things that I would like to think through a little bit more before we officially sign off on moving forward with them so you would like to not allocate the 1.3 million additional plus to 80 000 additional and instead go to the purposes you're describing yes okay thanks for clarifying that if I can ask a follow-up clarifying question I know that when we were talking about additional trash options one of the things that we did mention was about bathrooms an additional bathroom options like in the downtown or in other parts of town that didn't make it into the proposal can could you address why we didn't include anything for that yeah thanks mayor so we looked at that I think where staff was at and certainly I'm happy to invite Parks and Rec staff to expand on this that the total cost of of owning and maintaining those bathrooms is is pretty substantial so we weren't prepared with a funding source in the 23 budget for that knowing that there are some opportunities for

[219:00] future discussion as we consider the future of Civic area and other capital projects within the downtown area but it is um it's pricey I think it's a million dollars million and a half dollars over 10 years to maintain just one public bathroom so that that was some of the reasons why we're focused on some of those less expensive strategies than might have some impact in 23 and leave the the restrooms for a broader conversation thanks Ellie did you want to add to that I see you came down sure thanks for clarifying that other proposals Cheney and then we'll go to tear just a thought a thought um yeah I I was very surprised as well by the eighty thousand dollars for uh the trash um and then I thought it also said something about what CU students moving in and I was thinking well is you

[220:00] helping with that at all and I'm thinking why are we carrying that cost ourselves and based on the math I did a quick math on you said well it's very expensive to maintain a bathroom right half a million over did you see a 10-year period That's about 50 000 a year it's a million yeah I think a million and a half was the number that that we have got it right million million a million over 10 years over 10 years so that'd be a hundred thousand dollars okay and the initial expense of um installing the capital costs okay thank you Tara forgive me for not knowing this but we did have a very big packet so I have a quick question I'm I'm thinking about that um those two girls the two teenagers from Boulder high that and how they were affected what the problem was is our mental health

[221:00] um services are not where they should be and I know we need to depend on the county but can you just remind me if there is anything in the budget that we're doing for mental health or is that all the county there are I'll invite HHS staff up for that I know we have some investments in arpa as well but Elizabeth has more detail yeah correct again uh November discussion in October um so we are going to be providing an update in the arpa discussion for about 2.5 million that we have that we would like to allocate to mental Behavioral Health and we are in really close contact with the county who's also making their ARP allocations and is is working on a regional county-wide strategy and so we're constantly in contact with them about that process so so we do have some plans to utilize the zarpa funds to really support Workforce

[222:00] um to try to help our local agencies large and small to attract and retain staff make sure they have what they need and to try to expand Services as well so you hear more about that hopefully very soon on an ongoing basis again we utilize our Health Equity Fund and our Human Services fund to support a lot of mental Behavioral Health programming through organizations is again diverse as mental health partners our primary Mental Health Center all the way over to queer asterisk El Centro mestad out Boulder County that that are really integrating a lot of mental Behavioral Health into their services so hopefully that's helpful do you think that we have enough help for the people in affordable housing that's a theme for me tonight by the way in the area of mental health for those that live there um are they supported well enough um I think it's safe to say that um and to Echo the chief

[223:01] similar to a lot of other Workforce areas there are not enough people it's a national Workforce crisis right now with mental Behavioral Health and that's being experienced by all of our agencies here in Boulder as well so I think they're they're working very hard we know they are to meet the needs of all of our community members including those who are low income and have additional challenges in receiving services and it's not enough and so um we're mindful of that and again in close contact with our local agencies and trying to use what dollars we do have to help support that if I could follow up um and we and the area of substance abuse support we're standing up a meth treatment home correct and is something that we're actively in progress on that's correct yes yeah so we do have some other efforts in that area as well thank you for that Matt

[224:00] um thanks um so this is kind of a comment and and perhaps also maybe to invite Joanna or Josh to come up from utilities to talk about it as well um with regards to the 80 000 for the enhanced trash This was um not really half this wasn't not thought through it was actually sort of data driven because of seeing increases of the trash pickup in the downtown Corridor within about those week to two weeks of move in and move out in May and August and so seeing a spike in not just the trash but the number of larger Furniture like mattresses and other Furniture it became clear that these things were being brought down from all of the trash and stuff that was just being deposited on lawns from students along the hill and down in Goss and so it was sort of thinking about trash Upstream no pun intended dealing with Boulder Creek but dealing with the trash upstream and saying if we can prevent the trash from getting down to the creek that's just less that the crews have to work on to deal with to begin with so it was really trying to work Upstream on

[225:01] the trash aspect and so when you think about the investment of 80 000 to hopefully eliminate and dramatically reduce in just a small fraction of a couple weeks it makes a lot of sense to try to do that otherwise just ends up in the creek anyway which is where it's unsightly and people are struggling with with all the trash down there to begin with so um there's sort of there was it was with purpose and intent yeah thank you my issue is not with trying to reduce trash during those periods um the part of that proposal that I found most intriguing and also you know that I'm most excited about was the voluntary incentives I think that to the extent that we can not have things go into the trash stream at all is really the direction I would like to see us move and so the you know the budget was talking or the the dollar amounts we're talking about trash can

[226:00] locations dumpster locations and I would like to see more than that and I for me I don't feel comfortable approving the budget for the trash can locations when I feel like this other piece to me is more important and I would like to make sure that if there if we can do something on that front that we have budget reserved for that I appreciate that but Rachel did you have um yes so it I mean it sort of feels like we are um just tossing out fantasies so I'll give one as well um a little bit of a broken record for me but when I was on the uh encampment clean up day tour one thing I noticed was like you know and and the team is is very compassionate and and lovely with the people that that they are um moving along uh some of them they knew

[227:01] well and were like oh hey Johnny I hear you you got a voucher coming up in a couple weeks and you know it's not his real name but um just that that level of knowing and I I saw someone else that I'd seen from years ago who said that they're you know they were number eight on the list or something and so I think there are some people who really are have been here a long time and are are um sort of camping in ways that are are inoffensive and and not um in line with some of the things that we're hearing in public testimony tonight and I'm I'm super sensitive to that and I agree with the person who said you know our our brand matters like we are a to some degree a tourist town and we pay for a lot of the services that we're talking about from our sales tax and those dollars so we do need to I think have um a a safe and clean Creek and um bike path area it's it should be safe to be in those areas that should be a no-brainer so my question is could we take some of that money and and

[228:00] pilot you know some people who who are living in a way in an encampment that is kind of the the kind of sanctioned encampment that we want they're they're cleaning up after themselves they are when we're giving their trash bags out they're the ones that have them clean and and not move them along in the same way could we gather data on do those people succeed more in housing after they leave that those spots um could we pilot some people who have been here and and you know somehow could be prioritized for a place uh that that would have some of the the trashes and and restrooms that we're talking about and and that wouldn't be you know all over but not a full-fledged sanctioned encampment but sort of a pilot of people are not at the creek and and not on the paths and and waiting for for vouchers that they've been in line for for quite a while that there's my fantasy asked for five hundred thousand dollars thank you all for listening

[229:00] I was going to ask about a dollar amount did is there somebody who could address that concept there's Kurt good evening Council Kirk fernhaware I support housing Human Services okay get right into the mic there Kirk wow um so um uh thanks for that uh Rachel um so so there are things that we're we're working on now um related to that as well um you'll know that judge cook and her work actually gets people um into hotels as soon as they're on that housing track and close to housing we also do that that at the boulder shelter a little closer wow so the the boulder shelter as well [Music] um does that so we're a lot of the residents that we're putting in hotels

[230:03] are also residents that are you know close to that housing acceptance or close in that process um so that's that's part of the process that we currently have with residents that are um we're we're assisting with into a housing first approach um individuals who are deciding to live outside though that makes that more difficult so rich was the proposal to allocate five hundred thousand dollars to to piloting a place where some of the people would then you know be be not living on the creek it would be a lesser impact and and maybe we could make Headway with some of the people who are still there and causing some of the behavioral issues that we're seeing and

[231:00] and some people could be living um sort of unharassed and unmoved by the city and and sort of stabilizing and then hopefully moving into housing mayor oh sorry because maybe we could hear from Larry before we so yep I just want to say that to the extent that again we're having November's conversation currently what I'm hearing is ideas of what we could spend potential pool of money on there will be trade-offs in those conversations because we can't do everything that everyone has thrown out and we should look at every the all the requests through frankly the equity Focus that we try to do when we have been doing arpa decision so I think the quick answer is we hear you we will bring that back to FSC and we will bring that back to council so got it but well I had Lauren for okay yeah go ahead so there was something also on the slide with regards to the trash stuff and I believe there's an ordinance that exists currently with regards to property

[232:02] renters or rental property owners on the hill in other areas that they are required to clean up trash on a given set of days is I see Joanna stepping up so I just want to clarify that we if we have something on the books that kind of has either been neglected and we haven't been doing or may require more resources to make the ordinance effective so I just wanted to get your thoughts on that yeah thank you again Joanna Bloom um so climate initiative actually is kind of the ambassador of that program and then we enforce it through code enforcement but my understanding and Teresa definitely chime in if I get it wrong but um the ordinance is in effect and it does require that rental property owners on the hill and pay for trash during the designated period for six days out of the seven day period during the this designated period so it's called The Six Day review and it is born by rental property owners and it is in effect and it happens somewhat coincident with

[233:02] move-in and move out periods every year so this would be tacking on um a service on top of that existing program that we are enforcing any other specific proposals for changes I've had conversations with community members over the last couple of weeks as well and my understanding for instance we're just talking about people who are dealing with mental health issues and also substance abuses and Narcan is available through the pharmacies and also the um the university and housing and Human Services at the county level but my understanding it's still not free let's say if you don't have insurance is that correct do you know

[234:00] we'll invite somebody that might I would not want to speak out of turn but we'll check on that um I can say that correct about the county really running that program we're also um likely to be allocating some resources to that program through the opioid settlement dollars Nuri is our representative on the opioid Council and that's one of the many plans for some use of those funds thank you that was my actually thought in question was that maybe we should allocate some money to give access to those without insurance but since that's that's already been done thank you right you're cool yeah it's just um it's a it may be more of a reflection on um some of the points that colleagues have already raised and I'm not sure if it's not related to asking for different pool of funding somewhere do I raise it here or do I raise that later

[235:02] would I guess well I'm trying to get specific proposals out on the table so if if it consists of that then yes and if it's not maybe we'll hold off just a little bit a little bit it does have a specific proposal component but it's not yeah but it's not asking for specific money to go somewhere okay um so this is related to the safe and managed spaces program and when this program was approved for the first time there really weren't any outcomes that tied into our homelessness strategy and I'd really like to see those indicators of success this time around before approving more funding I know that our Sam's team is doing work to build relationships and to try new things that are more than just picking up trash and I'm not opposed to investing in more of these Innovations as some of my colleagues talked about what I'm opposed to doing is giving more funding without some clear outcomes that tie into our homelessness strategy when we have limited budgets and a crisis like

[236:00] homelessness that we heard is having such big impacts in our community tonight we need to be laser focused on Solutions with every dollar that we're spending we're talking about investing a total of 2.8 million dollars in encampment Management in 2023 and I want to know that what we're going to get in terms of typical metrics we use to measure success in homelessness for this extra 1.3 million dollar investment is is leading to success in things Beyond just trash pickup because every interaction that we have with someone experiencing homelessness even just picking up trash is an opportunity for connection to services and ultimately to a pathway to housing and an exit from homelessness when our funds and resources are limited and when our whole Community housed and unhoused is struggling as much as it is everything we need to do needs to connect people with Services I know there's a lot of interest in this approach I just want to see some measurable outcomes with a plan for

[237:00] keeping up with Rising need before saying yes to this funding so I would like to see a plan before approving this additional 1.3 million dollars in funding that has the following characteristics integrating our safe and managed spaces work with our overall homelessness strategy to the highest possible degree for example by making sure that everyone can provide the most efficient path to accessing services I would like to know what are the measures are of success that we're looking for Beyond tons of trash picked up how many people are getting housed because I know it's more than zero how many people are starting to pick up their own trash because I know that number is fairly significant as well how many people are just being moved from place to place how many people are connected with Services we ought to be able to track this information because it's in the heads of people who are out there doing this work and that will tell us if we're moving in the right direction with this additional investment beyond what we put in place a year and a half ago I'd also like to see a plan for Innovation with regard to trash and bathrooms I know there are some great

[238:01] ideas that are being tossed around that the utilities team has some ideas about like handing out trash bags to people picking them up when they're full storing people's belongings while they're at job or housing interviews educating people who are living in our parks on how to minimize their environmental impact I want to see these documented and I want to know what the plan is for implementing them in a way we can see whether or not they're successful so that when we come back to this conversation in another year we have some idea and I know that we're talking about key performance indicators already I think for me this is a critical place where I'd like to see it because we're talking about increasing the amount that we're spending on encampment management to 2.8 million dollars that's a large amount of money and so I really want to see some measures of success there Beyond just trash pickup um we know that homelessness is increasing we know it's going to continue to increase at least I do based on what I'm seeing what I'm hearing about from a lot of our providers we need to find a way to coexist with

[239:01] homelessness in a way that does less harm to everyone involved and to our public spaces and a 1.3 million dollar investment if we think about it the right way could go a long way toward meeting that goal if it's done with an eye toward more connections to services and housing thank you thanks Nicole so and just to well and just to to tease out in terms of a proposal it sounds like so it's maybe less about dollar amounts and more about metrics and integration is that is that what I'm hearing yes that's right that I would like to see more integration of services with our overall homelessness strategy and I'd like to see some clear outcomes related to homelessness the way that we typically measure them those are the things I'd like okay appreciate that and Miriam I just wanted to add real quick and I know that we're hopefully trying to wrap up because we got another item um is to just say that I appreciate it uh councilmember Speer please know that the the Sams group has actually really been working hard with our it partners

[240:01] and I try to lift up our it Partners too they've been doing phenomenal work to really get to some of those metrics we hope to share some of that soon we've talked a little bit about it in the past but we too want to make sure that the work that we're piloting actually has outcomes attached to it so you will see that as we continue to progress in that effort great okay I'm going to make last call for specific changes proposed changes to the budget Tara way back when I first got one wheel first for newbies on Council remember one of my proposals was more lighting Natalie here more Lighting in the panels so and I know that this is not as vital as everything else it's obviously but I just wanted to make a plug and I don't even know I know how expensive expensive it is to retrofit some of the older tunnels is that on the horizon for anywhere in the near or far future that we can start working on that the new tunnels the lighting is awesome I'm sorry underpasses the lighting is awesome but those older

[241:01] underpasses can we do something so dark in there hi I'm Natalie Stiffler interim director for transportation thanks Tara um we are kind of evaluating our lighting needs across the system and we don't have any concrete plans to make retrofits those would be very expensive projects that would need to go into the CIP but as you said we're trying to make improvements that we can with the existing infrastructure that's out there good enough okay all right so uh like last call has been issued and all right no there was no more takers so here's what I've got um so I've I've got um from Nicole about um well let's first of all there's things in the arpa category right so we've heard um several different ideas about how funds in the 500 000 Public

[242:01] Health Reserve could be used uh for different things Nicole mentioned uh moving some of that money to basic needs um Mark talked about uh helping with prevent or assist with family homelessness which Nicole was like yeah that's part of what I meant which made sense um Matt was talking about Arts funding additional Arts funding I heard some agreement on that from Bob and then Rachel mentioned the about allocating money to different approaches to Camping like camping options and so uh is this something so that with this arpa funding what I'm hearing if I understood correctly was that this is not a decision that we make tonight as part of the budget um but perhaps these are ideas that we can leave you with to help shape in a month or so when you come back to allocate arpa funding um how we do that do I have that that's correct I have that right okay great so there's there's that and then um we have this specific proposal from Lauren to

[243:00] not approve the 1.3 million dollars for additional cleanups but to instead dedicate that to some additional pilot programs in this kind of area as well as to not approve the 80 000 in recommended trash new trash kind of approaches so do I have that right yeah and again it's not against the trash it's just with hopefully with a also look at what potential voluntary incentives that might involve got it and then I had from Nicole a request to include with any additional cleanup efforts better integration with our overall homelessness strategy and getting people housed in development of metrics about the success of the program and there is one more thing which was to kind of piggybacking on Lauren's thinking around having a plan for the Innovations and the the new things that

[244:00] I know that folks are already trying but just being real specific about what they are that we're trying okay very good so then what I'll say is are are we are we comfortable saying about the arpa funding to send send the staff off to think about with these ideas that we put forward are people comfortable with with doing that I'm getting generally thumbs up the question is whether staff is comfortable with the input that we're giving them because it's pretty much all over the place I saw some nodding heads I thought I appreciate that I'll take a quick stab at it and maybe Cara and Mark want to jump in but similar to any kind of conversation we have about dollars right we don't have an unlimited amount of funds and what we really tried to do when we tried to do it with arpa is to look at it through a variety of lenses a variety of prioritizations we will come to the financial strategies committee with that and hopefully then from there we'll get some input and we'll come to the full Council as we move forward

[245:00] great thanks for that and I saw General support for that and I'll just say I I think these are great ideas and I know we don't have it infinite funds but I look forward to running it through kind of equity lenses and staff capacity lenses and those kinds of things and seeing what we come up with in those areas right so good good on that um and then I guess next I'll I'll go to Nicole's it's not a dollar proposal per se but the Nicole's mentioning about the better integration of the cleanup with our homelessness strategy metrics and then the last thing you said as well and and I'll just say I thought those sounded like positive directions to move in but wanted to open the floor to see if people wanted to disagree with that or or Echo it or yep okay uh Nicole people like like that idea so well said um well put metrics yeah I think be really valuable absolutely okay so that that brings us to the the the last kind of specific dollar proposal you're you're the one who's really requesting

[246:01] different dollars to Lauren so you get you get to stand out that way um of not approving the additional cleanup funds and instead look into other pilot programs and and also not not move forward with the eighty thousand dollars in additional trash pickup funding that you'll mention not that you're Pro trash we get that so maybe thoughts on this and we don't have to talk about this for an hour but you know I welcome uh your ideas very much but I'm wondering too as when you come back and let's say we decide not to allocate that 1.3 million what does that really mean right because we had a lot of community members who testified today or at least who came before us and explained some of the challenges even though we've already we already have a pilot program going we've been trying to clean up and people still are dealing with a lot of issues in the community so what does that would look like and what does that really mean if we did not allocate that 1.3 million does it mean

[247:02] what what does that mean what will happen right well we get more community members coming in and say things all worse so I think that's about balancing uh what what does it really mean that we're trying to do as well but I welcome the idea of trying to find better Solutions because here we are we've allocated money we've been trying to get a hang of this issue and we're still seem to be a little bit further away and community members are still very concerned they cannot walk the bike path I mean those pictures that this Community member brought before us she didn't make it up right she went there on the bike path and saw all these you know those uh what's going on over there and then she showed it to us so maybe as Lauren mentioned other Solutions what are those Solutions is it is it Rachel's idea of having this pilot program if that's the solution let's get to it so that we don't have to deal with you know community members coming in here and

[248:01] saying that we're not even scratching the surface of this problem thank you and yeah and I'll call on myself in a minute here but Terry you go ahead and then I'll go I'm pretty sure the community members that all spoke wanted more money for safe managed spaces because they asked me and I know but anyway um I think what they're I think you're right it's not solving the problem but if we didn't have that first of all we don't have an I mean I when I bike I see loads of trash now on on Foothills Parkway by the um railroad tracks I mean you all bike so you see that mess so there's plenty of trash to be still picked up but I feel like those community members are saying yes we need to solve some of our problems with crime and mental health and also we need to increase what we're spending on safe and managed bases I'm pretty sure that's what they would

[249:00] say but correct me if I'm wrong great so can I call myself and then hand it over to you okay great so uh no thanks uh junior I thought that that was well said um and Lauren I appreciate you raising the issue but I I think fundamentally we're dealing with a sanitation issue here I think we have really significant problem and it's not just trash you know trash can make me think about litter you know we're talking about you know use needles sometimes or you know human waste we're talking about some things that really do constitute Public Health real public health issues um in terms of the the trash and the kind of contamination among along our creeks and and waterways and some of our other public spaces so I I well I feel like this additional funds for for cleanup makes sense because we do I think have a really significant problem with that that this will assist with now is it ending homelessness no it is not ending homelessness right that's an enormous issue that we're trying to

[250:01] tackle in any number of ways including with new initiatives in this budget that we're devoting significant additional resources to right so we have to keep at the our work on minimizing and ending homelessness it's super important but as as we continue to work on that problem I think it's also critical that that we keep our our public spaces at a level that's you know a minimum level of cleanliness that doesn't present a public health risk so I think that this program has has made progress in this area and I think it's worth continuing on and adding some additional resources in I really appreciated Nicole's points about integration with it so that's it well the trash and sanitation issues are significant and we need to address them you know much of this is about interacting with folks who are experiencing homelessness and how can we better integrate reaching out to people offering them Services getting off the streets you know at the same time that we're working on these these cleanup programs so I think those ideas were absolutely fantastic and I totally support them but I would continue to I

[251:01] would take staff's recommendation of the increased cleanup funds both the 1.3 million for um that originally proposed and then the 80 000 in additional trash options which I appreciate you bringing forward and then but at support Lawrence talk about other Solutions and like I heard the interest in potentially um uh hiring uh folks experiencing homelessness to help with trash pickup which I think could be a potential one there could be others let's keep working on these ideas but I support the budget as proposed that's all I got Mark well I I will second what the mayor has said I I am supportive of increasing funds for that I I we've gotten a lot of emails on it we've heard a lot of testimony this evening and while this will not solve or cure our problems with respect to homelessness it's doing something and one of the things that that you have to hear from this testimony tonight and from some of these emails is

[252:00] a growing sense of discontent anger and even despair at our inability to make progress on what is the the largest problem affecting our community today I have no illusions that you know the additional funds for cleanup are going to get at any of the root causes of homelessness that would be a silly thing to say but it's doing something it's trying to make the community a little safer a little cleaner hopefully that will be the case by putting some additional resources towards towards cleaning and I think it is also at least an initial down payment or a first step to dealing with the frustration that so many members of the community are experiencing because they don't feel safe they're seeing things they ought not to be seeing their children are seeing things they ought not to be seeing and so I'm going to be supportive of this I'm always receptive to new

[253:00] programs if we if we have them but I don't think they should be at the expense of something that is concrete and available and we can undertake it quickly so I'm going to support that so we'll take another comment and then we'll do a straw poll on this idea here in just a minute but uh well I appreciate your comments uh Aaron and I agree with them I think what's important for perspective is on when I did my walk with uh with the crew in one day six thousand pounds of trash was picked up six thousand and that was just the north side of Boulder Creek from this building to the Justice Center I mean it's just it's a whopping amount of volume and so if we stopped that or didn't increase that uh effort I mean it's just it it becomes insurmountable so I think it's really important we do with what we know works for the problem at hand which is trash cleanup and the way to do that is to have more trucks and to have a crew that can sort of work both sides of the creek or go to other areas so so it's really vital that we

[254:01] think about it in those areas I love the some of those Concepts I'd love to see them more cooked but these are known solutions to take care of the trash issue both when they're at the creek and Upstream we have an ordinance that's already on the hill let's support that expand that to get the trash out of there so it doesn't end up down on the creek where we're then having to clean it up a second time so I think all of these things are going to get us where we need to go incrementally it's not going to solve the bigger ales as you point out Aaron and and but we're going to put in the work and I know we're going to make those Investments as need be to to help really try to tackle homelessness in a meaningful way in this community we'll continue to do that but I don't think jettison the trash cleanup to try the other things in this instance is going to get us where we need to go yeah I just wanted to clarify my point earlier that I really do want to see some of these outcomes specified before approving this additional funding so for me my approval for this extra 1.3 million dollars in the budget is really contingent on the the things that I

[255:02] mentioned earlier about having data and metrics I think you know this I we are collecting trash yes absolutely and we also don't have a control condition so this is sort of an experiment with with no control and that makes it a little bit hard to see what would the situation be like without um I know we're already late so I'm not going to get into kind of the reasons why happy to talk with anybody individually about that otherwise but you know I think our initial down payment for this program was in March 2021 and what I'm really curious to see now is what what has changed what is different um and I really would like to see what it is we're going to be looking at for outcome measures before moving forward with additional funding I think that it is an opportunity to build relationships and connect people with services and really move us forward but I feel like what I was seeing people say back in March 2021 is very similar to what people are saying here tonight

[256:00] and so I'm curious where did that you know three million dollar investment get us was it the right place and is is what are we going to be seeing different with this extra 1.3 million dollars so I'm glad that folks are you know agreeing that these are good good to have I really do want to see it either way but for me I really need to see some of those metrics before approving this additional at least a plan for the metrics before approving additional funding all right thanks to that Nicole and so obviously we're not going to develop that on the Fly tonight um I don't know is there time before second reading the budget to start to work on that as you're or are we going to have to say you know would like you to do that but you're going to come back with it at some future future point so I appreciate that I'll get back with the Sam streams as we're looking at it we have not finalized all those metrics so if the conversation I appreciate the Candor of it is that your support is conditioned on that we may not be able to meet that but we will happy happily share and maybe just send out a hotline on where we are and the kind of things that we're

[257:00] looking at that I can commit to just one follow-up on that if we were to not approve it in the budget is there still a point early next year where after folks have some time to develop some metrics and think about Integrations with homelessness strategy that y'all could come back to us appreciate the question so the 1.3 million is tied to a few different programs it's the expanded encampment cleanup team so that isn't in existence yet so that could theoretically be delayed the other two are existing extensions so the one is the downtown ambassador program and the other is the urban parks ranger program so both of those involve staff either outside of the city or in inside those would have to effectively and we have the internal employees on fixed term positions if funding wasn't wasn't approved in the 23 budget quick follow-up can you remind me how

[258:00] much was just for the additional encampment cleanup team I think 570. it was around six hundred thousand dollars okay yep um then I think just sort of a modified proposal holding back on that six hundred thousand until we have some some metrics um and some Integrations and some clarity around what it is we're going to be trying that's a little different so uh Lauren's proposed I think was to not fund the 1.3 million 11 600 000 but would yeah sorry my assumption with that was because it was an ex they were both listed as expansions that it was not cutting existing positions so that was not my intention um so just the 600 000 then for the additional yeah okay just a point of clarification I've received the number uh 715 000 is the number for that team okay thanks for that all right so if we can straw pull this um right and then we

[259:00] can I think we'll be about done so uh people in favor what Rachel I'm sorry I don't I don't want this to continue either but and I'm sorry if this is already answered with the 700 000 coming in-house how did that compare with what was being spent when it wasn't in-house like it wasn't we were still cleaning up encampments right so there was still it wasn't I assume we would just take it back out house out out out of City how else damn 1018 feels late um so just wondering what what is the actual dollar difference in in bringing it in-house versus yes Outsourcing we currently have an in-house team that's in utilities um this would add a second team uh to that and part of the 715 is Staffing a part of that is other expenses so additional trucks for instance those would be one-time expenses so I think that breaks out about four hundred thousand dollars

[260:00] in ongoing 301 time so that you know potential some savings if we had to hire some outside help for certain larger cleanups but it's essentially just to double our capacity great so 300K in one time and 400k annually ongoing about yeah okay okay so uh straw poll Lawrence proposal to not spend the 710 000 additional for the for the additional crew so I guess uh every raise your hand if you support a proposal to not spend the money hey throw your hands up if you're okay well a certain point we do have to take a vote on something but I did not see majority support for the proposal um and then separately to not spend the 80 000 on the newly created trash so you can raise your hand if you're in favor of not spending that money okay we got we got a couple two two and a half I feel like that eighty thousand dollars is

[261:00] for students and that's part of the reasons why I felt that how is cu helping and I don't see the necessity of putting that money toward that particular program without knowing what is cu doing as well as a partner so that's why I would not support it okay thank you thanks for clarifying but perhaps we can also reach out to see you because more partnership in this area would be I think fantastic okay so um we didn't see majority support for those those were the specific proposals on the table so I think we now I think we've got the majority is saying to adopt the budget as proposed so I wonder if we could get motion language up on the screen you can so um sharing over here there we go so the first two are the easier ones uh these are ordinances 85 36 and 85 38 they're the second and fourth ordinances that you have on your

[262:01] agenda these are the mill Levy that's setting our Mill Levy and the fees so those are not changing based off of the discussion this evening and and then the second are a little bit more complicated and then I took a shot at a third bullet point on the first one so the first one 85 35 is your budget so that sets our estimated expenditures so we have the correct numbers so those will will need and Theresa will kick me if I'm wrong on this we need the exact number so that you can do you can approve that same number on a second reading in two weeks so that's why those new numbers are in there on both the first one again is for the estimated expenditure because that's the budget so our plan uh in spending for 23 the third bullet is some direction related to the performance measure so you can take or leave that because I did that literally while we were talking and then the second one is 85.37 that is the appropriation ordinance for each fund so

[263:00] you need the exact dollar number for the appropriation for the funds that were changing and again the three funds that we're suggesting changing based on the discussion tonight is the general fund appropriation the ccrs appropriation and correcting the Boulder Junction Improvement fund take a crack yeah I just I have a question do we have to read every word that's on a suggested motion language screen to Teresa I'll make a motion um and I'm going to read it all unless you tell me I don't have to could we just say the ordinance number and then say with the language as proposed I would like to make a motion to order published by title only ordinance 8535 adapting a budget for the city of Boulder Colorado for the fiscal year commencing on the first day of January 2023 and ending on the last day of December 2023 and setting forth related details

[264:01] with the noted staff amendments setting the total general fund estimated expenditure of 188 400 343 cents the total Community culture and safety tax fund appropriation at 30 million 561 or a thousand is that a debt and 200 no 248 and correcting the Boulder Junction Improvement fund to Total appropriation at 250 000 the new Total estimated expenditures across all funds of 582 million one hundred eight thousand nine hundred six dollars and noted direction to develop additional performance measures integrated with our homelessness strategies related to safe and managed public spaces and number no do we have to vote on these separately Alicia or can we do them as a group you can do them as a group sir because they were presented as a group and you also can do a show of hands for two motion to order published by title only ordinance 8537 appropriating

[265:01] money to thank you to free expenses and liabilities of the city of Boulder Colorado for the 2023 fiscal year of the city of Boulder commencing on the first day of January 2023 and ending on the last day of December 2023 and setting forth related details with a noted staff Amendment studying the general fund appropriation of 188 million four hundred thousand dollars 343 the total Community culture and safety tax fund appropriation at 30 million 561 248 dollars and correcting the Boulder Junction Improvement fund to a total appropriation at 250 000 the new Total appropriation across all funds 582 million 108 thousand nine hundred six dollars come on keep going there's more uh and a motion to order published by title only ordinance 8536 establishing the 2022 city of Boulder property tax malabies which are to be collected by the county of Boulder state of Colorado within the city of Boulder in 2023 for payment of expenditures by the city of Boulder County Boulder state of Colorado and

[266:01] setting forth related details and a motion to order published by title only ordinance 8538 amending chapter 4-20 and section 3-8-3 Boulder Revised Code 1981 changing certain fees and setting forth related details yes have a drink of water do we have a second all right we got a motion and a second um do we need any further discussion or can we move to vote all right move to vote you can say it now or after um I'll just explain myself because again lesson I learned a while back um I I will be voting now um and I don't want that to dismiss the amount of work that's been done this budget is transformational where I'm really concerned is that we spent three million dollars a year and a half ago on a program that was intended to be helpful in a number of regards here we are a year and a half later looking at

[267:01] spending another almost three million dollars total that includes the 1.3 million dollar enhancement to a program that we still don't have measures of successful outcomes and how how we are kind of integrating this with our overall homelessness strategy and I'm not able to support the budget with um without some of that information duly noted right all in favor raise your hand looks like we've got a seven vote in all post all right okay well um thank you so much I knew an incredible amount of work went into this and so appreciate I think how you've listened to the community how Have you listened to council and come up with I think is as Nicole said a transformational budget so thanks so much to all the staff members that are here for all of your incredibly hard work

[268:02] so we got to talk timing here we generally agree not to start items after 10 30. it's 10 26. uh or I think I've heard that planning staff is game for doing East polar subcommunity if we are game I am personally I am not I I I think starting a 40 minute which will not be over in 40 minutes uh hearing at 10 30 at night is frankly absurd um not a question of whether we can do it of course we can do it we ought not to do it [Music] um if it can be moved to another evening we ought to give it the full consideration it is due and not have a bunch of people nodding out and at home and here duly noted we do have staff who've been waiting all evening for this I will say well maybe they would have been here anyway you said through the that the

[269:00] gripping budget discussion I agree with Mark I don't think we should start this at 10 30. I do note that we have a special council meeting scheduled for next week which has a very very light schedule on it I know that Aaron you'll will be gone um you could send in a hotline post with your thoughts although I suspect the outcome will not be a controversial one but I'm concurring with with Mark I'm also working on 11 hour time difference right now so I'm really really tired of myself um I may go into the kitchen and not come back um so I would I would kick this to the next meeting okay there is room on the next meeting I'll say um maybe I could offer an alternative because what we didn't mention is the thing at the end which is regarding um diapers and menstrual products which is 15 minutes so can if we are we good taking that on but maybe pushing the because I don't want to skip both and if that allows staff to get chewing on that then we give them that opportunity is are you guys okay doing the 15 on that

[270:00] yeah friendly and good I just want to say we keep doing this to staff where where we have you stick around really long and then we kind of cut cut off the presentation and things so I sort of feel like you all stuck around for us I'm willing to stick around for you I also think that they're I think there's only a couple people who are on for the public hearing on the next item but I think there are a couple members of the public too and I think it's we do have two members signed up for the public hearing but we let's decide quickly good oh oh can we do a straw poll to know who's interested in sticking around I mean after this yeah mayor so if you want to continue

[271:00] um if you want to take an item up after 10 30 that would require a vote that is a majority if you um if the council wants to agree to extend the meeting past 11 o'clock which with a 40-minute item you may consider that that would require a two-thirds I so I I'll stayed for Steph and for the two members of the public who signed up and have been waiting around but uh all in favor oh did we make a motion I was just going to make a motion if it needed to be done I'd like to make a motion to extend the meeting and dig into the next two items second all in favor we got a majority I apologize guys we're so tired but we can be two-thirds yep so but we can be expeditious come on down Alicia do you want to formally get to the next item alrighty thank you our next item on

[272:01] tonight's agenda is the flip my pages item 5B the consideration of a motion to approve the following items related to the east Boulder sub community plan we have four items item number one is the second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt ordinance 8544 which is amending sections 9-2-19 on rezoning we have item number two consideration of a motion to adopt the bvcp land use map changes for the East boat or some community plan item number three is the consideration of a motion to amend chapter five of the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan and item four is the consideration of additional amendments to the east Boulder sub-community plan with eternal gratitude we will pass that over to Kathleen King thank you um great to be with you I will be quick

[273:00] and um I'm excited to talk about East Boulder again tonight so uh am I close enough to that mic am I coming through okay great um so my name is Kathleen King I'm a principal planner in the city's comprehensive Planning Group tonight we have a staff presentation to walk through the four items that council is considering I'm happy to take any clarifying questions after the presentation we will move to a public hearing related to the bvcp updates and a proposed ordinance and then um Council will move into deliberation and decisions the four items for council's consideration tonight are first an amendment to the comprehensive plan which will add a summary of the East Boulder sub-community plan next we'll look at updating the bbcp land use map to align with the land use plan included in the East Boulder subcommunity plan

[274:00] this is a first step in the implementation of the plan and then you will consider an ordinance that will amend our rezoning criteria to help implement the sub-community plan finally uh Council what will consider whether to make any additional amendments to the sub-community plan so the public hearing on plan adoption has been completed we did that in May so tonight's hearing is really focused on updates to the bvcp and the proposed ordinance as a reminder Council held a joint public hearing with planning board on the East Boulder subcommunity plan on May 3rd planning board moved to adopt the plan with amendments on May 5. City Council also moved to adopt the plan on May 17 with some of the proposed amendments in the addition of new amendments so planning board considered those new

[275:00] amendments this past July and also approved land use changes and moved to recommend the ordinance you're considering the plan with the 12 amendments included in the packet is considered adopted by both bodies so tonight if Council moves to make any additional amendments to the plan staff will revisit planning board as both the board and city council must adopt the same amendments to finalize the adoption process if there are no additional amendments the plan is considered final and we can move fully into the implementation phase so the first item for consideration is the summary of the sub-community plan chapter 5 of the comp plan includes summaries of significant area and sub-community plans council members received a copy of the summary as an attachment to the memo in your packet this is another item where both planning board and city council need to approve

[276:00] the summary for this update to be included to the bbcp planning board approved the summary on July 19th the next item to consider is a change to the Boulder Valley comprehensive land use map the bbcp land use map depicts the desired land use pattern in Boulder and is intended to serve as a guide for future land use and transportation decisions the land use map is different than the zoning map but does offer guidance for zoning considerations all Property Owners whose property is being considered for a land use change and all Property Owners within 600 feet of a property considered for a land use change were notified by mail of the proposed change and and the public hearing dates around 20 community members contacted staff with questions about the change and clarification around the differences between land use and zoning the process and criteria for changes to

[277:02] the bbcp land use map are outlined in the comp plan land use map changes related to a sub-community plan can be conducted anytime and require approval by both planning board and city council the changes should meet the criteria described in the comp plan this criteria describes that the proposed changes must be consistent with the policies and intent of the comp plan not have significant cross-jurisdictional impacts would not materially affect growth projections that were the basis of the comp plan um don't materially affect Urban Services would not affect the CIP and would not affect area two or three boundaries in the comprehensive plan staff finds that the proposed changes meet the criteria and planning board move to adopt the land use map changes on July 19. along with the land use map changes staff has prepared an ordinance for

[278:01] council's consideration that will help implement the sub-community plan into the future the ordinance amends section 9219 of the boulder Revised Code which describes criteria for rezoning the amendment provides staff planning board and council with the tool to make sure we can implement the plan when considering individual rezoning applications without this in place our rezoning could move forward without consideration of the sub-community plan staff anticipates that we have a lot of work ahead of us related to code updates and rezoning considerations so this amendment allows us to make sure that if Redevelopment occurs concurrent with the city's development of new regulations we can still work with projects to implement the vision of the plan um so here's where we are with plan adoption the plan itself has been substantially adopted in May

[279:02] um Council put forward three amendments for planning board's consideration two of the three were approved and all of the Amendments which have been adopted by both bodies are included in the packet the amendment that did not pass was related to language Council proposed be added to policy H1 concerning rezonings of properties located along Western Avenue West of 55th Street Council proposed this amendment to ensure Redevelopment in the area supports compatible uses the northern neighbor to these Parcels on the other side of the railroad is a heavy manufacturing site currently home to cord and Pharma concerns described for potential residents of this area included noise and Light planning board really had a very robust discussion on this amendment and considered a variety of alternatives to the land use map to the place types

[280:00] map thought about different densities and tried to figure out you know a way to maintain the number of units that the plan was proposing but maybe not um include a residential mix in this area ultimately the board chose not to adopt the amendment to policy H1 believing that a well-regulated future mixed-use development in the area can be compatible with a heavy manufacturing use to the north developing those tools and making recommendations about zoning changes in the area is really our first charge in implementing the sub-community plan our team is currently considering zoning options and we will be studying choices to move this forward bringing recommendations to planning board and City Council in the next year additionally to support the TDM focus and infrastructure needs of the 55th and Arapahoe station area we will also begin

[281:01] working on the establishment of a general improvement district or another similar type of organization to help implement the adopted 55th and Arapahoe station area plan so I have some suggested motion language um hopefully that was pretty quick but I I we can move to clarifying questions um or the public hearing thanks Kathleen that was very informative but also quick so appreciate it great um so I'll kick off if I'm in with a question I get a couple questions so we've we've heard from some uh property owners in the area of concerns that that there they fear they might not be able to develop the plans they already had under their existing zoning but just want to see if I have this right so my understanding is that any potential future rezonings would be optional for these Property Owners right so that they can hang on to their existing zoning if they want and then we're still developing the

[282:01] zoning standards that will apply there will be public input into that process and so we'll be able to hear from our all parties as we develop those additional zoning standards is that all correct um so yes we are moving forward with putting together zoning recommendations and we'll include the public in any um form-based code updates we make or zoning recommendations that we would make we don't have a recommendation yet whether we would um pursue a general rezoning where the city would actually initiate a series of rezonings or whether we might have you know like a preferred zoning map and if a property owner wanted to rezone he could he or she could come in and um work with staff to to pursue that type of rezoning so it could happen in two ways and we don't have a recommendation yet okay but we'll be heavily involving the public and property owners and any other interested

[283:01] parties throughout that whole process yes and any rezoning um anybody within the general area gets noticed there's a public hearing at planning board a public hearing at city council so there'll be a lot of opportunities great other questions yeah if I can follow up on on what Aaron said one of the concerns of property owners is that they they don't want to be in a position where any expansion of their current operations would be rendered non-conforming because of a zoning change can we give them any assurance that if you have a business now you will have the opportunity or the possibility of expansion if that's your desire um and still be consistent with with the the zoning yeah I think you know the vision of the plan is that we are expanding the types

[284:02] of allowed uses in this area not that we would be restricting any of the current uses so does that answer your question if that's what we're doing yes it does okay and I think that's an important thing to say to the the property owners that they're not going to be out of business for inability to expand that's right okay all right I think I'm just going to kind of echo but maybe say it a little differently but to be clear this isn't a down zoning right no okay no and and you know kind of coincides with what we talked about with site review when we're doing that criteria about creating more predictability and I think that's maybe the concern here at least or at least mine anyway with regards to these business owners is just creating an environment where there's some more predictability especially in an area that might be seen as going under acute Evolution uh still providing some some predictability I think is really essential so I think that the language that was certainly brought forth by

[285:00] Aaron in the hotline I think is a helpful way for us to kind of allow some of that predictability so they can make plans for their future so I think that's a good direction ahead so thank you great you know just like I figured I'd come in comments and put forward that proposal that I had in our discussion period yeah but but thanks for calling it I'll get to it here before too long um good any other questions for Steph okay seeing none then we can go to the public hearing and so I didn't see one there we go thank you all right we've got two virtual commenters uh we've got Lynn Siegel and Mark painter so each one of you will have three minutes to speak since there are fewer than 15 speakers and we will start with Lynn Siegel thank you I do not support this plan

[286:01] I do not support CU South this is growth for the sake of growth it's not infill it's not the city is not doing anything about what we heard tonight from all the people about the homeless issue and problem the city is not addressing this in a fundamental way there's greater growth wealth inequality as exemplified by the 8 000 square foot estate that's being demolished below the radar of the public because you don't even record Landmark design review committee meetings you say you don't have enough money to press the record button this is obscene you want to create more wealth and equity tear down a perfectly good 8 000 square

[287:02] foot estate then you do not need East Boulder sub-community if you do things right and you make the developer pay then I could approve something like this but you don't what you do is make the problem worse and then react and this is my money and I can't afford the rising sales tax you know I mean not the rising sales tax the right the rising property tax on me and everyone else is making it more and more and affordable in Boulder with your wealth inequity for 311 being supported with seven City subsidies 300 parking spaces and then the developer

[288:00] just decides to sell off their affordable housing element at Brewhouse cash and move I was there for all those meetings late Into the Night about all the details they were going to have nine car shares and all of the things that this great senior community at Brewhouse was going to be and then they can just turn around and sell it I don't trust the city of Bolton it's obscene what's going on here and it's no surprise that there was this indictment tonight by so many people and it's long-standing and it goes on year after year after year no change I won't accept East Boulder sub-community plan it's growth for the

[289:00] safe growth just like see you soon you can email us any additional comments you have now we have Mark painter good evening uh I'm trying to figure out what I want to say at this point because uh you all stole my thunder while making the confirmations out um I'm Mark painter I've been an attorney here in town for over three decades and uh you obviously have my letter in the letter from uh Jeff Wenger from WWE Reynolds uh the commercial property owners on the task force strongly supported creating all these incentives and and the right to have housing in this area um in furthering the comp plan uh as you've noted Our concern really is that as written right now an owner could be at risk that a proposed say 5 000 square foot expansion of industrial building

[290:00] in order to keep a valued tenant could end up being conditioned by the city on also including housing in the Redevelopment uh that wasn't a possibility that uh the the commercial property owners thought um uh was there uh coming out of the task force uh though they definitely believe in incentivizing housing as an option and that's great where it fits with adjacent uses it's financable based on there being demand for it and it's it's appropriate um the owner I just I want to make sure that um the reason I'm participating this is just to make sure that there's good direction and reassurance going forward into the rest of the process that those owners that do have plans over the coming years for their properties are able to pursue those plans uh and if it does make sense and if the incentives are there or even if it makes sense

[291:00] without incentives to include housing that that's an additional option not a mandatory requirement for the development of properties in those industrial zones and since I think you've covered those issues if you can just provide that direction to staff as we go forward in the rest of the process we would appreciate it thank you so much thank you Mark all right so that brings us to the end of the public hearing the and so we'll close public comment and bring it back to council for discussion if you all don't mind if I just kick things off just because I did send out some proposed amended code language this afternoon on hotline and do we have that available Kathleen for display yes I do and the intent of this is um is to just be more specific about when we

[292:02] would consider or when we would not consider a rezoning request right because the the staff requested the original code Amendment so that people wouldn't rezone before we had the standards in place to to govern the future rezonings right so um I just asked for some additional specificity about when we would consider when we would not and worked with a planning department and Helen panel with the attorney in that area to come up with proposed updated language so happy to answer any questions or discuss about that but just wanted to get that out there comments if we had a court stenographer I would say just repeat what I said earlier in questions because it was basically a comment but love what you did on the hotline so yes okay great thanks I can call it myself so I'm seeing some nodding heads and such uh but anyway I

[293:00] think it's fantastic we're we've already adopted the plan right but now we're doing the associated land uses and and these standards so exciting to see this moving forward just to to Mr painter's point in some of the emails that we got you know the the intention the plan as written does not prevent people from making small additions to buildings and certainly we'll be working with the public and Property Owners as we shape the rezoning standards to make sure that I think the intention is to give flexibility and options as we move towards a more multi-use housing oriented future in this area but not to not to prevent people from kind of following through the plans they may have had for a long time so I think that is the intention and when we get to the rezonings we'll we'll make sure that that's implemented that way as well this is my certainly what I would say um but I'm yeah go ahead Nicole I just had a question on that um Aaron just just so that I make sure to understand um is what you're proposing does that affect in any way kind of the overall amount of housing that we're expecting

[294:01] to get out of the sub-community plan um how does that how does that change anything in terms of the housing units that we're looking at it does not at all I it just I think expresses an intention that that the the plan is to give people options as we move towards that more multi-use future but it is does not affect the amount of allowed housing in the plan at all and I guess it's it's not so much the allowed housing but the housing that we're going to get out of this is there does does it affect the housing that's going to come out of this so if we do this amendment um Can people just decide to not do housing um I think if a property owner like that owns property currently zoned industrial had a plan to redevelop it as industrial property in the next year or two yes they would be allowed to do that so you can bring forward a proposal that does not include housing it's allowed under the current zoning but that's not anything different from what the plan States

[295:02] to answer your question um so if people don't mind maybe I can make a motion but with this language there's a lot of words uh yes if when I make a motion can can I say with the language as proposed on the hotline email from this afternoon oh my mic's been hot the whole time you heard all those crazy things you said yeah um uh yes because the hotline is a form of public notice so the language did go out to the public in advance therefore you you could reference it in your motion um I will go ahead and make a motion to amend the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan to add a summary of the East Boulder subcommunity plan to chapter five approve the bvcp land use map changes for the sub-community plan area including the new mutod land use designation and adopt ordinance 8544 amending section 9 219 rezone and BRC

[296:01] 1991 by adding rezoning standards to implement the East Boulder subcommunity plan and setting forth related details with the amendment that was sent out on the hotline this afternoon second any further discussion in that case if you do a vote all right so this roll call vote we'll start with mayor Pro Tim Fred yes councilmember Joseph yes spear yes Wallach aye Winer yes Yates yes Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes and council member Falcons yes Orton and state four items pertaining to the east Boulder subject community plan was hereby all approved unanimously

[297:04] thanks so much and congratulations thank you so much we did that in 25 minutes all right that's that's pretty good so can we have one more item that I think we can power through in less than 15 as well yes sir that's item number eight on tonight's agenda 8A the discussion on eliminating local taxes on certain products such as diapers and menstrual products in the city of Boulder Rachel I I will I think we can do this in two minutes I'm basically asking for a straw poll to see if we would like for staff to look into following the state's lead on um not taxing dignity so there's a movement to end taxes on period diaper and incontinence products some of our peer cities have already gotten on board with this and I believe staff has a brief two-slide presentation maybe for this and they've done some back of the envelope estimations for how much it might lose

[298:01] Us in tax revenue if we stop taxing these products foreign so thank you and I can pop up the presentation if you need but it was sent out to hotlines we'll go close to that we we have the presentation but the information was sent out via hotline so I'm just here to answer questions if you want or we can show the two slides prop we're speed reading tonight so maybe no slides and let's see if anyone has questions my only question is for the public and the recording it might be helpful to have the two slides up in case people want to review this at another time and see it so anyone re-watching this later might want to see them that's right give us a quick moment and we will get those slides up

[299:00] do you have this one okay if you like carrots okay I'll go quick so this is the information that was provided in hotline and we have done a preliminary estimate on the potential annual annual revenue impact if we did exempt these products from sales tax that's 236 thousand

[300:02] dollars that's across all of our sales tax funds so the general fund would be a little less than half of that we just put up there our methodology we followed the Colorado Department of revenues methodology we we would need to do more work with regard to our demographics and such and more analysis to get a a more specific estimate but that's a good estimate for right now and we also looked at what other municipalities were that we surveyed or reviewed have gone down this path and there are three that have already exempt the hygiene products and two that have been exempt the incontinence uh products and the diapers but we do know other communities are considering this as well I'll just ask a quick question so if we give this not a five next steps would be to do a better analysis and then work with City attorney's office on draft language for exemption ordinance

[301:03] to be an ordinance and then would there be an adjustment to base to remove collections or does that is it just if we did it you know if we did it effective January 1 or something like that or I don't know if we could do it that quickly probably it probably could be straight pretty straightforward um and yeah we would just maybe reduce uh the budget by that amount but I think that the budget is sufficient that there probably wouldn't need to be any expenditure changes because I think we have enough Revenue coming in that there's that much wiggle room yeah I agree okay good oh just a quick question I'm wondering Colorado City's exemption data is of 16 municipalities we know there's more than 16 municipalities in Colorado so I'm wondering this is just the preliminary work that we did we are mindful of not doing too much work until we had another five from Council so this was just and I have a

[302:03] I'm in full support and I'm wondering is it going to cost us as much money to do this research are you going to hire a consultant because if it's only five two hundred thousand dollars why are we doing more research on it when we know it's good it serves the public good so I'm just trying to understand that a little better and we can follow councils late if you don't need much more research we wouldn't do much more research but I second Juni what yeah yes I had Nicole and then work yeah I think that that takes care of one of my questions which is what is the work that would be lost if we did this or postponed right um and you know I think kind of just another question in general is this we can think of it like a 230 000 ish investment right um is is that the right place you know to make the difference that they were wanting to have I mean I think these are these are sort of the bigger questions I'm supportive and um I think that these are just questions we need to be thinking about every time we're we're

[303:00] spending money um and I think the other question that I have is how does this fit in with some of the other thinking that finance and the city are doing around other revenue streams right other ways of getting money because I've heard well I know we've had conversations I've heard it brought up in the past sales tax is not the nicest way to generate revenue for our city it really is a regressive tax it is hitting the people who need the most support the most so I know that we're already thinking about you know how how we can change our Revenue stream to be more Equitable so I'm just curious how this fits in with that I agree I think it's been on our plan and agenda to work with the financial strategy committee to to examine our Revenue mix and examine it from various perspectives and so looking at how what products we tax the exemptions what are other Revenue sources that we could

[304:00] possibly contemplate in the future but that is work that is on the agenda yeah Mark and then Rachel oh can I can I just follow up on that um so what what I would love in pursuing this is also um taking in some learning and knowledge about how we can do this for other things as well I have an issue with taxing food for example basic human need those kinds of things right so I would love if we could use if we move forward with this think about how this process can be applied to other what I would consider kind of basic needs in the future Mark um I I'm supportive and I don't really need to see a lot more research provided you can give me some assurance that the the 200 plus thousand dollars is not really 500 plus thousand dollars I mean if there's a degree of uncertainty on your part then it's probably worthwhile doing a little more analysis if you think that that the numbers you've cited are at the upper end and it's highly likely that

[305:01] that it's going to come in lower then I would say we could move forward without looking at it in any more detail but at some point um it looks like real money and I would just want to at least know what that is and and not be surprised that we have to suddenly do an offset to something else uh in order to do this I would still be supportive but then you'd want to know what the offset is um so I guess I leave it to you to tell us whether or not uh you know the number that we were just looking at is is at the high end or um we might get a surprise if we did a little more analysis something's a little hard to you don't know what you don't know but we definitely think just with our retail mix in Boulder there's probably a good chance that for example diapers are potentially being purchased at big box stores not in Boulder so we think we may

[306:00] be overestimating with respect to those because people buy them in bulk and um and so for the um other two products it's really a demographic look because we use the Colorado methodology but that's for the entire State that's called demographics and we don't know if our you know I think we just would have to look more closely but I can't imagine that it would be double my gut tells me it wouldn't be double would a Year's experience give us more information would we have any idea would we know would would what give us more ideas a Year's experience I think it would be challenging to discern okay and if I may I just wanted to clarify that the kind of research or additional work would I mean I I would assume that we would just want to make sure that we're coming to you with the right numbers but what we wouldn't do is continue to survey municipalities continue to do more of that research I

[307:01] think that's what I'm hearing right like it's it seems like there is support move forward and then we just need to make sure that we're giving you the right monetary financial information what that impact is yeah I don't need to see what would okay they're doing elsewhere something we could support Rachel then Matt and then maybe we can vote if it's a vote I don't know um just wanted to say that the information I have that is that these taxes fall disproportionately on people who can least afford them uh including communities of colors color families struggling financially and older adults on fixed income so hopefully the one thing that I would hope we would get back is that it gets run through the racial Equity instrument I assume it would but just flag of that thanks and thank you everyone for considering um so I'll just add um a personal experience to Kara's Point um having just recently got a kid out of diapers myself big box bulk diaper purchase was was how it was done so I'm almost certain we're we're over over on

[308:00] that um can I just go ahead and just say like let's can we just move straight to ordinance can that be my suggestion for us to vote on not study and just let's just drop hole going straight to making an ordinance get in front of as soon as possible and move this on and provide some folks relief yeah so I'll run with that to say that to the point of not needing lots of extra research right so I think if if we do a naught of five it could be about bring us an ordinance with better numbers right so a little more research on the numbers but yeah I don't think we need a study session on this if council's is approving for example okay all right so this is a not a five so I think we do have a vote to pursue this and ask staff to bring back an ordinance on this question so all in favor okay that looks like everybody thanks Rachel for bringing this forward you're welcome and is this a good time to say happy birthday to our City attorney in an hour tomorrow if we if we drag it out can we sing happy birthday I don't know should I make a motion to extend

[309:00] the meeting just for Teresa oh that's a good point let's keep this going it's probably going for another hour and then we can really celebrate um mm-hmm did you have something cheating and to make before the end of War meeting earlier and I think this is a theme that I've heard in a lot of the public comments uh Andrew and the public hearing as well which is that people feel like they're not being heard uh and I'm wondering whoever's on the community engagement I wonder are you looking at you know we just recently got a new system on how people send us emails and I can say to you I've just heard something but I have a hard time knowing when someone is sending an email to me or whether I should respond before it was much easier for me to respond to emails and knowing that this email was to me and I went through the website and I looked around people can pick us individually but I

[310:00] wonder does this new way this new website the layout does it make it easier for community members to reach out to us or harder thank you okay I don't want to get into all discussion it's late I think maybe if we can take that as a question and maybe we can ask engagement and Community maybe take to CAC that we have an engagement update on that yeah so I think that that would be the direction here thanks for bringing that up Genie and Matt did you have something um so just uh and bummer she's not here but um tonight was the first and last night for a Daily Camera news reporter Deborah swearington she is leaving the Daily Camera so ironically she was working this beat from the beginning of the pandemic and had effectively never stepped foot in this building to cover council tonight was her first and her

[311:00] last night she'll be leaving the paper um if she's out there hopefully she's sleeping um but if she's listening we wish her the best of luck in her new Endeavors and appreciate all the great work that she has done covering the sometimes great work and sometimes monotonous work that we might pull off but anyway thank you for your uh for your tireless work and we look forward to seeing you again soon Maria do you when you reply back on that city council it still does a reply all when you don't want to okay so uh yes so best luck in your future endeavors Deborah uh and thanks for all your coverage over the years all right so folks we're gonna go ahead and gavel the meeting closed at 11 10. thanks everybody foreign [Music]