November 17, 2022 — City Council Regular Meeting

Regular Meeting November 17, 2022

Date: 2022-11-17 Body: City Council Type: Regular Meeting Recording: YouTube

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Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[5:00] good started then um if I hope we got Channel 8 ready to go and we're recording the meeting so welcome everyone to the November 17th 2022 business meeting at the Boulder City Council this would have been a hybrid meeting but because of the weather we're virtual so thanks for everyone for their flexibility on rolling with that I'm going to start us off with an announcement which is about code Vex 19 vaccinations so for information provider locations for free covid-19 testing please go to www.voco.org covet testing the boulder site for that is a 24 or 45 stasio drive it's open seven days a week from 8 AM to 6 p.m and for vaccine information and provider locations you you can go to www.vocode.org covered vaccine that's our our one announcement there all right so now we are going to roll into the call to order

[6:03] which I will now do hereby call this need order and at least if we can do a roll call please yes sir and good morning every I mean I'm sorry good evening everyone and CAC Brian all right let's start this roll call with council member Benjamin present mayor Brockett president councilmember faulkers present Joseph present spear present Winer present and Yates here mayor we have our quorum thanks and we'll just note that council member friend is a cons smart cities conference and council member Wallace is out of town for for uh personal matters so we'll be back next week or in two weeks our next meeting right so now I would like to request a motion to amend

[7:00] the agenda to remove item 3K which is acceptance of the October 27 2022 study session summary that's going to come back in two weeks with some minor modifications and then to add item 8C discussion on Council appointments to the library district trustee selection committee so moved second we have a motion and a second all in favor use your hands okay that's unanimous the agenda has been amended all right so now um I'll just talk about what we're going to do next here our Council rules and procedures call for the mayor Pro tem to be elected at this meeting in November but we do have two uh excellent candidates and we do have two absences tonight including one of the candidates council member wallet so uh in order to have a full set of council members present for the vote

[8:01] we are now going to call for a vote to suspend our rules and procedures to defer the election the mayor Pro tem uh to December 1st and then to extend the term of the mayor Pro tem for two weeks because that's also in our rules and procedures that it's for one year and finally to continue the public hearing for the mayor Pro tem election to the December 1st 2022 regular meetings so I would request if anyone's so willing to get us started with that first motion or I can do that myself so moved I I think we probably need to be to State it out if you don't mind all right yep let me let me pull it up here um so I make a motion to suspend the council rules of procedures section 4B to defer the election of Mayor Pro tem to the December 1st 2022 regular meeting then would you like me to to incorporate the other one into that as well I think we're doing them one at a time okay attorney in Cornerstone do we have a

[9:00] second second okay we've got a motion a second this is a roll call vote Alicia please yes sir thank you we'll start this roll call with council member Joseph yes spear yes Winer yes yes Benjamin yes Brockett mayor Brockett Brock is good enough yes and council member Focus yes the motion to ex to suspend the council rules of procedures in reference to the mayor Pro tem election to be deferred is hereby approved unanimously thanks for the vote to seven to zero anyone like to take the next one sure I'm happy to um but believe this is yeah this is one

[10:00] beat um so I make a motion to suspend the council rules of procedures section uh four D to extend the term of Mayor Pro tem for two weeks until the election at December 1st 2022 meeting seconds another roll call at least please we'll start this with council member spear yes Winer yes yes Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes councilmember folkerts yes and councilmember Joseph yes the motion to suspend the council rules and procedures related to the term of the mayor Pro Tim is hereby approved unanimously very good somebody like to take the third one since we're taking turns I'll do this one

[11:00] I move that we continue the public hearing for the mayor Pro tem election to December 1 to the the December 1 2022 regular meeting in a second got a motion a second this one we can do is a show of hands so all in favor the motion on the floor there you go Matt did you wanna okay that's unanimous there that's seven to zero all right so thanks everybody for working through that and I didn't neglect information our other excellent candidate is uh council member spear I will take do that vote in two weeks thanks everyone for your patience and moving through that and now we can go on to our uh declaration for small business Saturday read by council member Yates great thank you so much and I believe that we have Sharon king um here um to receive this uh virtually receive this declaration I'll introduce Sharon here in just a minute so I want to read the Declaration on behalf of council for

[12:01] small business Saturday which will be November 26 2022. the city of Boulder celebrates our local small businesses and the contributions they make to our local economy and our community according to the United States small business administration more than half of Americans own or work for a small business and small businesses contribute about two-thirds of the nation's new jobs each year small businesses are particularly important in Boulder where 90 of businesses have fewer than 20 employees according to a national research study a majority of consumers understand the importance of supporting the small businesses in their community on small business Saturday and two-thirds report that the day makes them want to shop or eat at a small independently owned business all year long not just during the holiday season as Boulder and communities everywhere recover from impacts of the global Health crisis the city remains committed to supporting

[13:01] businesses while keeping the community safe our community is thankful for the businesses that serve the community the many Frontline workers that safely operate the shops and restaurants we love and those who shop and dining locally this season and all year round advocacy groups as well as public and private organizations across the country have endorsed the Saturday after Thanksgiving as a small business Saturday therefore we the city council of the city of Boulder Colorado declare Saturday November 26 2022 as small business Saturday and we urge the residents of our community and communities across the country to support small businesses and Merchants on small business Saturday and throughout the year and with that declaration I want to introduce I hope she's here in is a panelist Sharon King Sharon has been the head of the um small division Business Development uh uh Center here in Boulder for I don't know how many years for a

[14:01] long long time and she has helped so many small businesses get launched and to survive particularly through the the pandemic and I want to maybe turn it over to Sharon to maybe say a few words about the importance of small business Saturday coming up and also just the importance of all small businesses here in our community Sharon thank you very much Bob so um I'm here it's really an honor to be here on behalf of of course all of our small businesses and Boulder sbdc Small Business Development Center this is a mouthful and but also all the partner organizations that collaborate with us and support those businesses and and the city that has been a key partner especially during covet so we want to thank the city and Council for the long time support that you've shown I I do want to say that the Declaration for small business Saturday is especially meaningful because it

[15:00] demonstrates that the city and Council really do recognize that small businesses are such an important part of our vibrant economy and we know that they come in all types including the folks that you're going to be acknowledging next some of whom we know um they're scalable and high growth and can become very important parts of the bigger picture economy in our area including the local companies and they're the ones would think of when we think of small business Saturday the restaurants and retailers and service businesses and I just want to Echo the um the Declaration that I hope I see you and for all shopping local on small business Saturday and every day um and there's another group that we don't always think about and it's the folks that are launching and growing a micro business sometimes they're

[16:00] creating their own job or a couple of jobs for folks they know and it in many cases that small business can be a bridge to economic sustainability so all these pieces go together it all knits well it's an amazing experience in Boulder it's been I've been very grateful to be part of this um this is all very important to the health of our economy to our amazing quality of life in Boulder and so again I want to thank you for this recognition and for the long time support that the city and the council have shared for small businesses thanks so much Sharon for that and for your many years of service to our small business Community we're extremely grateful and we will see you out there on small business Saturday okay thank you take care and uh next we're going to go to council member Joseph for a declaration for the

[17:01] Colorado companies to watch month thank you so much mayor Brockett and I'm actually using multiple screens in order to keep us afloat so please bear with me for the past several years we've taken a few minutes at City Council meetings to recognize Colorado companies to watch Colorado companies to watch is a unique program that recognizes outstanding second stage companies that play an important role in creating jobs generating Revenue developing new technologies and supporting the local economy worth noting second stage companies are small businesses that are passed the startup stage and focused on growth rather than survival each year from over 1 000 nominations 50 businesses formed throughout the state or recognized as Colorado companies based on their success and strong

[18:00] potential for growth their exceptional entrepreneurial leadership their Innovative products and processes their economic impact Community enrichment and positive corporate culture this year we are recognizing both 2021 and 2022 Colorado companies to watch winners from Boulder these small fast-growing businesses represent a variety of Industries including Aerospace bioscience cyber Security Financial Services manufacturing natural and organic products and software and they reflect Boulder strength and Innovation and Entrepreneurship Boulder is proud to be the home of these businesses and we appreciate all they do to support our community and local economy we're inspired by their Visionary leadership endurance and their

[19:02] resilience four of the companies being honored today are able to join us after the Declaration the Declaration is read each of the companies Representatives will introduce themselves and provide a brief description of their company and the four that are here tonight are represented by Beth crawdell from inside designs Trent Hein wolf 4 Jack Elston from black Swift technology and Ryan born from cloud campaign so here's the Declaration Boulder color Boulder Colorado companies to watch month November 2022. the governor of Colorado initiated an annual Colorado companies to watch award program in 2009 to recognize second

[20:00] stage companies with high potential for future growth from more than a thousand nominations only 50 companies from throughout the state are selected for the award each year since the program began 125 of the Colorado companies to watch or these have been from Boulder and 2021 in 2022 companies to watch honorees include 12 companies from Boulder 8 Z real estate black sweeps Technologies Cloud campaign Darwin biosciences double helix Optics kick further packed picnic robotics role recovery rule 4 and stream these 12 Boulder companies represent a wide range of Industries and are among the most Visionary Innovative successful

[21:02] and an impactful entrepreneurs in the state the boulder economy benefit from the jobs these companies provide the expenditures they make and the wages and local taxes they pay Boulder benefits from The Innovation and and entrepreneurial Spirit of these companies in their involvement in the community the city Council of the city of Boulder Colorado declares November 2022 as Boulder Colorado companies to watch month thank you mayor brocketts thanks so much for that Janine and so I'm now going to call on the four folks who are here in the order that they appear on my screen to say a few words so uh Beth Krill from Insight designs maybe you can start off by selling us a little bit about your company thank you of course my name is Beth

[22:00] crodel and our company Insight designs has been making websites and apps and doing custom programming in downtown Boulder since 1999 so we are actually in our um well we've just finished 23 years in downtown Boulder and uh we love the the lifestyle and the balance of work and life that that Colorado and Boulder afford US it's great for recruiting and what we do on a daily basis is solve problems and create e-commerce sites and websites for government organizations we do the Boulder County website the El Paso County website and uh sites for Brands like Crocs and spider and other ones that you've heard of and we also make apps mobile apps native and otherwise and yeah we we really enjoy our work and we enjoy doing it here in Boulder surrounded by lots of other uh smart outdoorsy people and we are thrilled to

[23:02] be honored by the Boulder City Council and we were also thrilled to be chosen as a Colorado company watch so thank you thanks so much Beth appreciate you being here in downtown for the last 23 years that's a fantastic record next I'm going to turn to Brian Bourne from cloud campaign hi everyone it's an honor to be here we proudly employ about 30 employees here in downtown Boulder we're a software company that builds a digital platform that's used by marketing agencies to manage social media for their clients but yeah thanks again for having me here thanks Ryan appreciate the introduction to Cloud King campaign and next uh Jack Elston from black Swift technology yeah much appreciated thanks for having us here guys um I'd like to thank Sharon as well uh we're one of the people the companies that have benefited from a lot of the programs that she's put together at the sbdc

[24:00] um been in Boulder since 2011 started the company basically in our apartment I'm not sure it was zoned for that so don't hit me for that please but uh just building autopilots on uh on our coffee room table um and since then we've expanded to do a lot of very interesting things we use unmanned aircraft systems for all sorts of different scientific campaigns we've worked with NASA I don't know uh we've done campaigns where we've sampled hurricanes in fact having participated on the one most recently had a two launch aircraft go down into that we do volcano observations with the USGS uh we've done fights over wildfires so that's something a little more pertinent closer to home here um and then we've also done tornado chasing Arctic Ice surveys we do a lot of work as far as atmospheric science to help with climate change monitoring and we're getting more and more into helping with methane detection and Remediation so excited to be here in Boulder it's been there a long time and I don't have any plans to leave anytime soon fantastic stuff and a zoning enforcement official will be in touch with you shortly about your past uh offenses just

[25:01] kidding just kidding and now we'll finish up Trent behind from rule four howdy I'm trying Hein I'm co-ceo of rule four and we are just starting to celebrate our fifth year in business here in Boulder um we're a cyber security consultancy and I I want to thank Council and the city for making Boulder such an amazing place at the end of the day we're a people business and Boulder just like Beth mentioned uh Boulder allows us to attract the very best talent in the world uh so so thank you for all of your efforts and uh thank you for this recognition and honor that's great to hear Trent thanks so much well really appreciate all of you uh being here and congratulations again for your extraordinary work that's been uh recognized by the governor so take care and have a good night okay that was really cool uh now we are going to move to open comment and so I believe Ryan is going to go over our public participation

[26:01] guidelines here thank you my name is Ryan Hanson I serve our community as an engagement manager and I want to welcome all the community members who are here this evening uh here to speak an open comment or public hearing and I want to be sure to share that the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive meaningful and inclusive Civic conversations this Vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members staff and Council as well as democracy for people of all ages identities live experience and political perspectives for more information please visit the link on your website and next slide please we'll share the following examples of rules of decorum found in the boulder bias code and other guidelines that will be sure to support throughout this meeting all remarks and testimony shall be

[27:00] limited to matters related to City business no participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person obscenity racial epiphats and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct the meaning are prohibited participants are required to sign up to speak using the name they're commonly known by and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online and currently only audio testimony is permitted on line and want to note that if you have a presentation please wait a few beats for that presentation to come up the presentation will come up before the timer and then your time to speak will begin thank you thank you Ryan all right so we've got uh 20 people signed up for open comment and folks will each get two minutes and you're welcome to speak on whatever topic you choose other than one of the two public hearing topics so please do not address uh the 6500 annexation Arapaho

[28:03] annexation or the Disposable bag fee but anything else is fair game our first three speakers are Patrick Murphy Leslie Rhodes and Michelle Michael Zoo my name is Patrick Murphy 2A and 2B passed with about 70 percent of the vote but the muni had similar results and remember how that ended so here we go again the planet Burns floods and dies while Boulder fiddles with climate change I watched the boulder Excel advisory panel on Monday and was impressed with excel's efforts and saddened by some panel members that are still baffled especially with respect to the topic a Renewables connect that Excel has offered as a subscription Boulder could have subscribed to this Ultra economical connection to Renewables a decade ago

[29:01] but the muni lust blinded us with Promises of tons of income the illegal taking of customers and properties outside of Boulder and lies about zero stranded costs slide two Boulder's current climate leader was spending about 70 percent and up to 85 percent of his time working on the muni instead of actual carbon mitigation 50 to 40 percent of the current climate action budget is paychecks and there's no honest cost benefit analysis that gives us a true cost per ton of carbon reduction I want carbon reduction fast and honestly documented No Such Thing exists in 2A or 2B the recent claims of Boulder's carbon reduction tied the fact that most of that's due to excel's additional Renewables not Boulders separate actions what we're getting is a road paved with good intentions and we already know where that road leads slide three

[30:00] fewer employee paychecks more solar incentives wind incentives which Boulder has never offered wrecks which Boulder denigrates an energy use reduction or what we really need oh yeah and someone solely informed The Advisory panel what Renewables connect really is please thank you thanks Patrick I've been informed that number two Leslie Rhodes number four Holly Carlson are not present so our next three people speakers will be Michael Zoo Jennifer Rhodes and making calls foreign city council uh my name is Michael I'm a boulder resident and tonight I'd like to talk to you about tennis and Boulder uh so tennis facilities right now in Boulder are aren't matching the needs of older residents So currently we have a lot of uh pocket Parks so with two courts that are distributed throughout the city and that really doesn't support adult leagues Regional tournaments to CU

[31:00] women's and Club teams high school teams Junior and adult drills uh and families and seniors and you know if you're a casual tennis player that plays a couple of times a year probably works fine uh but if you're you know want to play with any regularity it's pretty difficult and actually it's gotten to the point where players uh that are based in Boulder actually are playing in Longmont Lafayette Arvada uh Broomfield they're actually driving back and forth uh to play and actually other teams from around in uh surrounding towns won't even come to Boulder to play tennis matches because of the poor Court conditions or the inability to find core time uh add to that also we don't really really have great year-round facilities and we don't have lighted courts so you know starting in October for me I have a nine to five and the sun sets at 5 45 I really can't play uh starting in October um if you look at public rec centers you know pickleball has gotten really popular which is great pickleball is a great sport but it does mean that tennis court availability has you know uh become even more of a problem than it

[32:00] was before and private facilities have an average five-year wait for uh clubs around Boulder and substantial yearly Financial commitments and initiation fees and that five-year wait means that you know if you're a kid who's 13 and this has happened quite a bit and you discovered that you'd like to play tennis well by the time that you can actually get to a club you're going to be too old to play as a junior um and with the impending closure of rntc the Rocky Mountain Tennis Center next year and it's 15 courts five of which are really great indoor courts uh wheelchair CU club and women's junior senior National tournaments and the 200 plus members of rmtc are going to have really really limited options so uh we're not just here with problems we're also here with a potential solution and uh my ask is that the city council police work with the boulder tennis Association and the racket Force community in finding a land for a new facility and uh given the demand in Boulder for uh tennis your time is up but we've okay comments and feel free to send us that document too thank you now we have Jennifer Rhodes

[33:00] making Kohl's and then Travis Coley isn't present so we'll go to Shannon Derby after that so Jennifer hi my name is Jennifer Rhodes I'm here on behalf of the specific group of parents for safe zones around schools my petition which has over 1500 signatures and her parent group is for enforcing safe zones and stiffer penalties within the zones our group is organized in met in small groups the D.A chief of police Municipal Court members of bbsd and we've been in touch with some of you I have three topics one the sharps container adjacent to Boulder High I'm all for a Sharps container because clearly we have a drug problem but placing it adjacent to a school is just asinine you're basically inviting drug users to come closer to the school to deposit needles whose idea was that two no day shelter or similar facility has demonstrated any measurable success at any ending or alleviating the cost burden of homelessness why go directly against the recommendations of Housing and Human Services director Kurt fernhaber why do you think you can stop

[34:00] a national crisis alone speaking as a psychiatrist who treats the mentally ill you need to collaborate with the entire County to get improved addiction and Behavioral Health Services simply moving people from the creek to the shelter for the day is not going to make any measurable differences three Municipal Court is enabling a percentage of the unhoused to continue to break the law without consequences he met with Municipal Court I asked them if someone has 50 citations for camping engages with a court and the prosecutor finds out that there was a warrant out for his arrest for a violent crime would they report him to PD they said no they repeated they don't believe in consequences they said that they were more interested in they were not interested in consequences for repeat offenders and would not explore the concept of enhanced penalties with exclusionary zones such as school no consequences I asked what would they recommend then to parents like myself who have teenage daughters walking to school and around town they recommended teaching my daughters how to identify unstable people and avoid them teach my 12 and 14 year old girls how to protect themselves basically I want those of you who have little children to think about what this

[35:01] approach means for your kids 10 years from now how will you feel when your kids are walking around the city without you holding their hands okay thank you Jennifer uh we've got making calls and then Shannon Derby and then Leslie Rhodes is now in the meeting yeah making calls one year ago Boulder City Council asked the developer of papillio to provide more and smaller housing units at the site of Folsom between Spruce and pearl you also wanted for sale rather than rental units that were smaller and less expensive papillio has done what the city asked presenting the revised project to planning board November 1 slide two please in the new proposal there are many more units that will be smaller less expensive and for sale there were 64 units before and now there are 101. there were eight affordable

[36:01] units before and now there are 28 and there were 18 for sale units before and now they're 101. but there's something that may kill this project a requirement not imposed on a rental project mainly that half of the affordable units be built on site that site review Criterion was adopted with good intent five years ago but housing staff will tell you that no developers have been able to surmount the financial hurdles presented by that single provision side three please to make this project a reality you will have to call it up on concept review repeat your support that you uttered last year for the density of the project including the fourth floor and without a mid-block connection from Spruce to Pearl and without preserving the 1970s tire store also instructs staff to provide a special ordinance for you to pass that rezones the property to mu3

[37:00] and also permits and this is the most important Point permits cash and lieu for all of the affordable units the housing prices crisis slide four please calls for prompt action please enable this project which was not welcomed by the three senior planning board members and ask staff when they bring you the site review revisions in December to remove the provision that makes it impossible to do a four-story for sale housing project because of the penalty exacted for affordable housing thank you thank you again uh next we have Shannon Derby Leslie Rhodes and Kendall chicken bar good evening everyone I am here also to talk about tennis in the city of Boulder my fellow board member

[38:00] Michael spoke with you earlier and he gave you lots of information very well done I want you to feel what it feels like to us right now feel sad it feels frustrating we feel like we're banging our heads against the wall trying to work with Parks and Rec we feel like we're losing something that's important to us and we want you to hear how it feels I have a hundred-year-old client who still plays tennis with no public places to play with rmtc going away she can't wait on a wait list we have kids that want to play we have middle-aged people you can't see me but I'm plenty middle-aged we can't find a place to play we're trying to work with the city we want to make something happen and yes Michael gave you our ask we want to come up with a way to make racket Sports pickleball paddle tennis

[39:01] regular tennis everything in Boulder we want to make it spectacular my friend Kendall is going to speak to you also this evening because we care we're passionate we're passionate about what we do and we're passionate about our city and we want you to feel that also and we want you to work with us we need you we have a lot going for us we've been working on it but we need the city we need your help and we want to work together and we look forward to making that happen thank you I think you can now we have Leslie Rhodes Kendall chittenbar and Julie Berliner Leslie you're muted there we go is that better yes yes um hello my name is Leslie Rhodes and

[40:02] I'm here this evening as a participant in the group to initiate safe zones for schools and kids um approaching this concern from the perspective of a mother and a school social worker a child's School experience doesn't just start and end within the bounds of school property their well-being actually begins from the moment they step outside to go to school this applies to all students from all backgrounds and socioeconomic circumstances as a school social worker I've worked with all demographics and various types of neighborhoods and the first thing I do is get to know the surrounding area of my assigned school to understand the environment from the person unless that we lost you you know what's going on with Leslie not

[41:02] only are these students but they're still children everyone in this room can agree we value children of all ages in the community and we want to ensure they're safe and that they feel safe how we go about this issue might be it for a debate but our objective is the same this is not one group's battle rather it's our agreed upon Collective Mission from parents to law enforcement to city council to bvsd no one wins if safety isn't the priority I don't win when my 14 year old tells me she walks the long way from the bus stop to the front doors of school because she doesn't feel safe walking the most efficient and direct route the group I'm representing this evening has data-driven evidence to support our request and we're proposing objective measures to address this problem please take a look at the objectives again if there's an issue you can get behind on this help us rally for it if you notice a sinking Point bring it to us with an alternative starting point

[42:01] let's just really try to collectively work together to make the areas around all schools safer thank you Leslie your time is up uh now we have Kendall chitten bar Julie Berliner is not present but Leslie but Holly Carlson is so we've got um Holly and then the rose Berkman so candle I know you're able to say okay hello can can anyone hear me yes yes uh okay thank you I'm sorry about that uh Tech issues um uh first allow me to introduce myself my name is Kendall chitamber I'm one of the managing owners of the Rocky Mountain Tennis Center one of the Decades longer long committed tennis providers of uh uh um uh the Boulder

[43:01] Community uh I gotta say my backhand's pretty good I'm not a public speaker I'm more comfortable coaching Center Court of the US Open this being here so bear with me uh that said I I am absolutely honored uh to to be here to talk to you today um even briefly because this subject is so vital to me I hope it will be to you too it's still available uh so many of us in the community uh Michael and Shannon my my friends um in the tennis community uh spoke earlier about it um I've been privileged to be part of this community since 1999. my daughter went to Foothill Elementary Casey Middle School in Boulder high school she's a two-time state champion 5A tennis for for Boulder High first girl in history to win the State title uh uh in Boulder um and uh for Boulder high and and so it was she and we as a family owe so much to uh the the family community here in Boulder and it's just it's a privilege to be here to speak on behalf of the sport um I've had a chance to see uh tennis through a particular lens that's what I want to discuss briefly um we've been running a um a

[44:01] well-intentioned tennis community called Rocky Mount Tennis Center for um uh since 2012 it was the Millennium Harvest House before that we specialize in everything I've taughtens of recreational Juniors uh high-level aspirins College uh potentials uh we started a program for athletes with disabilities in wheelchair tennis um and that's one one thing I'm most proud of is our high performance sense program which integrates able-bodied kids and kids with disabilities I've got I'm I'm actually speaking from our tennis bubble right now I've got a a one of our best wheelchair tennis players she played the US Open Juniors this year just very exciting moment um for us but it's also a sad moment as as Shannon uh Illustrated earlier um we're about to lose our facility um our goal is to work with the city of Boulder with Parks and Rec with uh with CU um Partners you know BTS time is up but if you could email us the rest of your comments we'd appreciate that please

[45:00] thank you okay now we have Holly Carlson loraz Bergman and Travis Laberge good evening city council when Boulder says that housing is for everyone and safety is for everyone that is a Lie the only thing that the city of Boulders seems to care about and throw their money at is a homeless drug addict with a lengthy criminal record that is who can get a house I am a single mom I have been sitting here and running this debt or beating this debt Force far too long I will say you guys are going to see me now go Legally Blonde the brunette Edition when I take on avanath with the eviction Court myself because I'm going to list the individuals in the boulder government entities that are considered useless Kurt bernhaver director of Boulder housing senior compliance management of vets Shelly Connolly Boulder's eviction prevention program director Jay Allen homeless policy management Vicki Ebner

[46:02] Boulder housing partners program coordinator Karen Armstrong bridge for justice Joel Hayes you should probably get rid of that program also Bob Yates you don't care about me and my house I don't care about your newsletter so please stop sending it to me because it's as useless as you sitting there and not doing anything and as far as Nicole and the Lauren woman you guys as women you do not have a clue what goes on out here because if you did and if you actually walked around Goose Trail and got to see the needles the garbage the feces the nonsense that goes on here continuously I think we would start sitting here and going yes we are going to add eighty thousand dollars to the budget to pick up the trash because I'm really sick and tired of living around it and the idea that affordable housing and the safety nets that are provided are actually here for people like me who work and pay taxes is an absolute lie and pile of garbage unless I'm a drug

[47:02] addict or a sexual predator which you have 47 of them who use the boulder homeless shelter or the jail as an address thank you for doing nothing most of you are failures except for two of you and you know who you are good day oops that's probably um I'll just remind folks from our rules of decorum that we ask people not to make personal attacks on community members or staff members and just remind people about that as we move forward with the rest of the testimony we have uh loraz Bergman Travis Laberge and Gary Pollard or even yes thank you for your time council members my name is liraz Bergman Turner and I'm

[48:00] a resident and homeowner in the Ridgely Hills neighborhood my small business has been in North Boulder for the last 11 years I love Boulder I moved to this neighborhood where I am right now um two years ago for the quality of life for the view for The Quiet surroundings and tranquility let's get it straight I support affordable housing modular homes and Habitat for Humanity wholeheartedly but I will not support a project that will hurt my own and my family's quality of life the 6500 Arapahoe Factory and Manufacturing project is preposterous per Preposterous well you got what I what I meant it's um it's trying to Aid one section of the population while hurting a few others the whole zoning issue sounds to me like a small loophole for the bvsd but it's it could be a great hell hole for us it feels to me and many

[49:01] others that this proposed Factory project bluntly disregard the residents of Ridgely healed neighborhood disregards the Columbine mobile home park residents that will need to endure the heavy traffic disregarding the wildlife in the open space habitat in the open space buffer the sombrero Marsh the environment disturbances the severe noise and light pollution the unnecessary fumes and and dust my job is not to find the alternative place to have this project running my job is to protect my lair the quality of my family's life is at stake here and the value of my property is at risk as well the phase one environment uh site assessment found no evidence of significant impact on the quality of human environment I want to see a full transparency regarding all reports I would love to see a report from an acoustical engineer that will show me that the noise will not produce uh that the the factory will produce will not impact the marsh habitat or

[50:02] disturb my Monday to Friday 7 A.M thank you for your testimony and I'll just note the the public hearing on 6500 repos coming later this evening we will remember your test when we get there I was a little slow there if anyone else is speaking on the 6500 repo and open government I'll ask you to wait till the public hearing uh but thank you for your testimony uh and now Travis Laberge uh Gary Pollard is not present then relieve Turner and Mark Grassman can you hear me yes thank you my name is Travis leverge and I'm the executive director and founder of prolando school of musical arts carlando's been providing Outreach in Boulder for almost 20 years we've been offering music lessons and classes in the dairy Arts Center for over 15 years at a council meeting last month I outlined many of the Outreach programs Orlando provides to both the residents due in large parts for General operating

[51:01] support we received from the boulder Arts Commission as I said last month Arts organizations need more funding to provide better programming to otherwise does not happen General operating support is the Catalyst that makes this possible understandably the Arts commission enforces a rigorous vetting process through a competitive Grant application cycle to ensure that funds are only being given to organizations that meet a high threshold of quality value to our community and financial transparency however because of limited funding not all organizations that meet these stringent criteria are funded having missed out on General operating support in a previous granting cycle by just 0.24 points we at prolando understand the frustration when funding constraints not program impact preclude you from delivering that programming I urge city council to allocate as much funding as possible from the artha funds to support other Arts organizations who like parlando are making a significant impact in our community by providing services that simply aren't available

[52:00] through any other source Additionally the office of arts and culture has ample data demonstrating that the return on investment for funding the Arts is dramatic giving money to the Arts is not charity it's an investment in our community that more than pays for itself please fund the Arts as aggressively as possible to share our community will be richer for it thank you for your consideration in your time thank you Travis that we have um review Turner Mark Grassman and Matt Hess yes hi good evening can you hear me yes I'm also speaking about 65 under the rapper proposed Factory I don't know if you want me to wait here and go go now if you could wait till the public hearing review then we'll get you slotted in there thank you for your flexibility sure thanks great thanks uh so now Mark Grassman Matt Hess and Lynn Siegel

[53:06] can you hear me now yes uh thank you for the opportunity to speak to the council tonight my name is Mark Grassman and I love to play tennis I'm also disabled I'm here to urge the council to consider more Public Funding for tennis courts in the city I've been a resident for over 40 years and have played on public courts regularly during that time there are courts at the local recreation centers and public schools but they are often not accessible to wheelchair tennis players when I learned that the Rocky Mountain Tennis Center had a program for wheelchair tennis it was a real gift I have been able to continue a sport that I love and it has significantly improved my Rehabilitation it has come to my attention recently that the tennis courts at the Rocky Mountain Tennis Center will be lost due to Redevelopment in the next two years and the tennis courts at CU South will be lost due to the University's plan

[54:02] development the wheelchair tennis program at Rocky Mountain Tennis Center is the only one in the state that features coaching and sanctioned tournaments their courts are accessible and they provide instruction and regular playing opportunities for wheelchair tennis while they are a private Tennis Club they encourage and accept non-member participation in their programs another one of their programs reaches out and promotes tennis Outreach programs to local schools for children that are disabled or less fortunate hopefully the Rocky Mountain Tennis Center will be able to continue its programs that benefit so many people in the city and the university and will be able to replace its Tennis Courts at CU South the dozens of tennis courts associated with these entities will soon be gone I encourage the council to begin researching the possibility of a public-private partnership to build a facility that will increase tennis opportunities in Boulder for everyone as well as the disabled an excellent

[55:01] example of this kind of project would be the Apex Tennis Center in Arvada they were able to secure public support to build a facility that includes both indoor and outdoor courts with handicap access thank you foreign so we'll have Lynn Siegel Kelly Dornan and Mark reichen can you hear me yes please stop me instantly when you have any problem hearing me perfectly clearly thank you um I've run for city council and for boards back in 2003 but you know these days I couldn't do it I don't have the time I follow eight City boards and the and city council and you know where you're failing here it's so horrible with this how the 8 000 square

[56:00] foot house that's being demolished at Flagstaff and Baseline um this historic home the and it's your responsibility but I hear since it passed straight through landmark's design Review Committee which is not recorded and and has full Dominion they have more power than the city council that is stunning to me that's the end of our landmarks in Boulder you know if things like this can happen when we lose James Hewitt and Marcy Cameron right right at the same time as well institutional knowledge is gone and so is our landmarks the things that make this city visually you know rememberant of all of the history here um so regards Folsom and Pearl this is horrible history in the making um I know that you wanted to get things

[57:00] cheaper for for you know people who are less able to afford but you're making it much worse by not agreeing to the original concept plan by agreeing to go higher makes things more expensive in Boulder which is exactly what the developer complained about in the first place so this is a catch-22 situation it's a paradox you're making things worse by trying to make them better all good intent but it's it's the opposite of what you're in can what you're actually going to get out of it um my friend said today went out East Walnut and saw jobs everywhere and just for rent signs and that's what we've got to stop balance jobs housing done then your time was up thank you for your testimony now we have Kelly Dornan and Mark Reagan and Fran zankowski mayor bucket it does not look like Kelly Dornan is in the meeting I recommend we

[58:00] go to Mark Reagan okay Mark your turn good morning good afternoon everyone can you hear me can you nod your head if you hear me thank you uh I'm having flashbacks now because I was a city hall reporter all over the country uh back in the 1970s and 80s and I'm looking at your faces and thinking wow thank you so much for having to sit through this um every every month twice a month whatever it is I'm here to really plead with you to help us uh in the Arts community in Boulder receive more funding I sit on the board of the boulder ballet and I think that I was thinking a long time about what I wanted to say to you and it really goes back to my own history I grew up on the south side of Chicago and really fell into a bad crowd in um my teenage years and my

[59:00] mother was extremely depressed my father was away from the house and I think my life was saved by the Arts a friend of mine dragged me to audition missions for a musical at my high school and from that point on the Arts really Lifted Me Out of the kind of misery I was in and so I guess I wanted to ask you you know to really think of the Arts as more than just something that is marginal or that is just charity alone the Arts really changes people's lives in this city I'm on the board of the boulder ballet I know we haven't received funding in the latest round and I pleading with you to at least give us some consideration with the new monies that are going to be released we employ people in the community we employ a lot of dancers and we've really struggled through the pandemic to make ends meet and we've been around for such a long time we're celebrating our 40th anniversary uh this year and yet we have

[60:02] no funding uh and we really really need it so I wanted to just kind of summarize by saying this is a wonderful City that deserves a wonderful ballet and a wonderful Arts community and again thank you all for your service I appreciate it thank you Mark our final speaker is Fran zankowski thank you thank you unmute thank you as publisher at Boulder weekly and a little self-promotion here uh bold is only truly local newspaper thank you for your small local business declaration this evening I'm also a member of create Boulder I just have two points to make tonight in these past few meetings you've heard many stories from Representatives Arts organizations as a small business person I do have a deep understanding of the difficulties

[61:00] and struggles during this tough post-pandemic economy our City's Arts organizations need more assistance than currently budgeted operating on insufficient funds is a reality for many small to medium Arts organizations this past September we uphold the weekly published an in-depth Arts guide leading off with this quote from Lori Preston at the Museum of Boulder quote I'm going to give you a little slice of reality and that is we lose right now fifty thousand dollars a month we at Creek Boulder are requesting three hundred thousand dollars additional for rehearsal performance space rentals artists and general operating support is equal percentage increase of funding is not the same as equity we need to do more to bring these Arts organizations up to parity with high inflation bringing Arts organizations up to survivability is

[62:01] essential when we have done such an investment we will make it possible that perhaps in two or three years our our or God I can't speak tonight I'm sorry our Arts organizations can once more flourish and bring bold at a high level of creativity arts and culture we promote as an essential component of Boulder's high quality of life thank you so much good night thank you friends I appreciate that all right that brings us to the end of open comments so I will turn to uh City staff to see if there are any follow-up comments thanks mayor um I want to take a moment to apologize to staff I recognize that the work we do as a city can be controversial and I certainly recognize there can be differences of opinion as we go about our work we welcome feedback and criticism at any time and hope that what we hear from

[63:01] Community only makes our work better but the individuals who work for the city are amazing professionals who are doing their best to serve the community in the best way that they can and I just want to say I see the work that each and every one of you do and I am proud to stand with you in service foreign having said that um I'll ask our Parks and Rec director Ali Rhodes to address what appears to be a hot button topic tonight tennis well before uh Mary just thank you for that statement I just want to Echo that uh from from the mayor and I'm sure members of council how much we appreciate the incredibly hard work and high quality work of City staff thank you mayor I'll ask Ali to discuss uh tennis who knew it was going to be a Hot Topic today I guess you do well we know we're we're very aware that it's a topic in the community uh good eating everyone I am Ali Rhodes I serve as the communities Parks and Recreation director and luckily we just finished a

[64:01] community-wide process to provide direction for how we provide services and so everything I'm about to tell you comes from the recent and unanimously approved Parks and Recreation master plan um so first I want to make sure everyone's aware we are engaged in this conversation we're paying attention we know that both tennis and pickleball are growing we know that folks are very concerned about a level of change in the the service in the community given the Redevelopment at the Millennium and giving potential changes at CU um and so you know while we know from our Master planning process most community members think we have the right number of tennis courts for folks like those you listen to tonight there's a lot of concern and so here's what we're doing first around the condition and quality of the current courts we have 28 courts that we operate maintain and starting with 2023 we've reallocated 200 000 a year to take care of those courts better we're behind in maintenance and we're going to try and do better with that um we have lighted facilities uh at both

[65:01] Tom Watson Park the East Boulder Community Center and the North Boulder Recreation Center so just making sure folks that is that is part of the portfolio so that you can play outside of work hours um the master plan also directs us to maximize benefit through our joint use agreements with the Boulder Valley School District and we've done that so as we've worked and we have a recently updated joint use agreement we've talked to the school district and their tennis facilities are designed for high-level tennis play and they've committed that they won't be painting pickleball lines on those Courts for some of the high-level players you heard from tonight those pickleball lines are not preferred and so the school district courts will will not have pickleball lines we've also tried to secure Community Access to courts through that agreement so that they can be open to the community now um a key tenet of the Parks and Recreation work is Partnerships I have had multiple meetings in the last six months probably with Folks at Rocky Mountain tennis center with Folks at Coburn development who are the developers at the Millennium with Folks at the boulder tennis Association and

[66:01] the newly formed Boco pickleball club we have told all of them that we are interested in this conversation that we would love to determine if and how we should partner on a racket facility in Boulder um the ask of you tonight was to direct us to to give them land I would ask you not to do that and allow us to be thoughtful in the conversation that we're engaged in where we will do a level of service analysis to determine if and how we should be a part of this conversation and then we can talk about if there's any land that might be appropriate there is no concept planned currently in our system that that indicates the need for a racket facility and to repurpose any land should be thoughtful and should include Community conversation it's not something that's going to happen quickly and so we've asked for folks patience ways that they can support the conversation is to consider the requirements such a facility might have um one of the speakers tonight mentioned some of the models Apex in Arvada is a great model Steamboat has a great facility that was co-created with community members exploring those models and helping to think about governance

[67:01] and operations would be a great way folks can support while we do the work we need to do to be thoughtful stewards of public lands thanks Sally that's good to hear you're working on it thanks for that update that you're listening to the community any other follow-up from Council on open comment Nicole thanks yeah um I just wanted to to kind of remind the community and maybe all of us that were a city of over 100 000 people and I don't think we're ever going to be able to agree on anything especially issues that are as complicated as something like homelessness but whether we like it or not we're still living in community with each other and attacking each other's commitment to our community doesn't help achieve our share goals nor does dismissing each other's concerns I really do hear people's frustration with our homelessness situation we all see it too many of us are on the bike paths multiple times each week we see

[68:00] everything that the community is seeing as well and I really genuinely wish that we had the resources to make things better with a snap of our fingers but just because we don't have that it doesn't mean that our city staff is actively trying to avoid addressing our challenges we are all doing the best that we can right now with what we are given and I just want to honor that and you know again apologize as Nuria did to our city staff I really hope that as we move forward and as a community we can continue to discuss these heart issues in a way that recognizes that we're going to move forward a lot faster if we're working as allies rather than as enemies thanks for that Nicole Lauren thank you Erin um one of the community members brought up working with the county particularly on human some Human Service and homelessness issues um I believe that we are in the process of trying to schedule a meeting with County

[69:01] Commissioners can someone confirm that that's correct yep scheduling is in process okay great thank you um I also wanted to hear a little bit more making Coles brought up um that there's a site review criteria requiring half create requiring um when there are four sale units on a property that half of the affordable units be provided on site I was wondering if he could go into a little bit more detail on that just something that I wanted to fly and understand a little bit more asking for a city staff member to provide some details on that oh I was wondering if mankin could maybe I mean if he's still here got it sure yeah and making if you're available we've got a question for you and Lauren uh or for all of us if we do have a question for a commenter please

[70:00] just raise your hand at the time and I'll call on you okay sorry that time but we give dryness as possible to get making this I am still here there you go I'm making hello I'm sorry I didn't hear the question oh you had just mentioned um a site review criteria about half of the affordable units being required to be built on site um it's just not a rule that I was familiar with and I was hoping you could maybe provide a little bit more detail about that I will and for staff just a quick reference it's 9-2-14 h2k and it's in this it's part of the site review the criteria that was adopted five years ago with the intent that of councils saying if we're going to let people build residential units on

[71:02] a fourth floor we need to require them to put half of those units half of the affordable units on site of the project and it's that particular provision while it was enacted adopted with the best of intent that has made it impossible to build for sale units residential units in a building that is four stories and I just mentioned that because the site review criteria are under revision and we'll come to you next month that one of the things staff could do to address the housing crisis is to have one of the that Criterion be pulled from the site review it would be simple with a with a for sale project like we're talking about with 101 units the cash and lieu would be 7.5 million dollars that's seventy four thousand dollars per unit if that were paid into the affordable housing fund which this development

[72:02] apparently would sustain it could produce even more affordable units because then it could be combined with latex money and as we know from past studies paying permitting developers to pay cash in lieu actually produces more units for a given amount of money than it does um uh by requiring or by building on site and the final thing I'd say is worth 101 units If This Were a rental project the cash in lieu that would be required would be only 5.9 million but because of the provision that I mentioned the cash in lieu would be seven and a half million in a for sale unit and but anyway that's that's the problem so I just urge you to look at it in December when it comes forward we have to address and quickly too these perverse

[73:02] incentives that we have that keep us from building housing for people to live in thanks man I was wondering if maybe someone on staff could address because I know some site review criteria are more taken on balance um is this particular criteria one that is mandatory Lauren you know what I'm going to table it for another time well because we're considering a call up on that in two weeks okay so I wonder if this could be a question that could be answered ahead of that period and we could discuss it at that time Mercury thank you is that good thank you chair first I wanted to thank the tennis community for coming tonight and for telling us about wheelchair tennis I

[74:00] never heard about it before and so I find it really interesting and um that sounds like a big Community need so I'm hoping that we can all work together to to solve some some of those problems and secondly I want to thank some of the people from the Arts Community for giving truly moving uh testimony tonight it's terrible okay uh not seeing any other hands raised I think we can move to the consent agenda we should you could talk to us about that please all right sir our consent agenda tonight is item number three on the agenda and it consists of items a through J because item K was removed very good and I think we had an intention of calling out item I um which is a performance valuation salary adjustment for the city manager City training municipal judge so I just wonder if we might go to that before we

[75:00] take General comments and that's uh Nicole and Judy you've been running now yes yeah thank you um we just um had a few uh comments to make and then I just want to open up a space for anybody else who would like to add anything um so overall the evaluation process for our city council employees confirmed what many of us already knew our employees are doing excellent work for us and for our city we're so fortunate to have the three employees that we have you are all leaders in our community and beyond your staff your co-workers and peers across the region clearly respect you and are very grateful to work with you so thank you for all you do for our city and for the innovative ways you approach your work I wanted to also say on behalf of Juni and me thank you also for your patience with this evaluation process which had more than a few hurdles over the past year council member Joseph and I are working on a Lessons Learned document and some process improvements to make sure that future iterations of this

[76:00] committee can move forward in a more efficient and timely manner so everyone look out for that we want to make sure that we're better supporting all of our employees in our work because we recognize how valuable your work is to council to City staff and to the whole community council member Joseph would you like to add anything foreign thank you very much I just want to reiterate uh that we do have wonderful Council staff and I'm so proud to have our city manager and City attorney and the municipal court judge as part of the leadership of our city and I am honored to have been part of this process as well and um we look forward to continuing the conversation as well with city council and these three Council staff and leaders in order to best improve the process which will eventually be incorporated as part of the retreat agenda so thank you

[77:03] thank you Nicole and Jenny and I'll just add that between city manager Mary Vera vandermeid and City attorney Teresa Taylor Tate and municipal judge Linda cook we have a dream team of head employees here at the city and I'm just deeply grateful each and every day to be able to work with you in making our city a better place so thank you so much for everything that we do and also appreciate Nicole and Juni for your hard work on the evaluation committee and also knowing that we've got some improvements to discuss to come in for next year which yes I appreciate you looking at that improvements anything else in this one just thanks to everybody again for doing the evaluations and participating in the process and to staff and everyone who participated thank you [Music] all right uh any other comments on the consent agenda Matt um Bob and I are aiming for the same thing

[78:00] here uh we'd like to take a moment to talk about 3G um with regards to the item about uh arpa spending and in particular I wanted to sort of uh draw some attention to um the uh what you might call here the public health reserve and what's sort of currently in there and wanted to sort of ask some questions of Staff about um what that's being spent on so if we could take a few moments to do that I just want to make sure if that's indeed where Bob was wanting to go since I saw his hand up as well foreign I guess I'll ask some questions but I just want to Aaron is there anything you want to clarify before we jump go ahead ask questions yeah so um in there um in the public health reserve section that's uh 3G it says at the end there that there's a remaining uh balance of about 547 321 for the public health Reserve to the um and I'm just curious is there any current plan to ex to spend that money

[79:01] outside the proposed and and really specifically you know of that 397 000 for other sort of services are those who are existing programs or are those just deciding what to do with it now and there's really no set place but we're sort of hoping to spend that money on those particular areas of interest and the reason I ask is because there's clearly 150 000 designated for the Arts and if there's things that aren't really specifically designated to be spent on I'd like to maybe think that we're maybe open to move that number around a little bit and perhaps the hopes of of providing a little extra support to our Arts Community um so I just sort of wanted to give some clarity from staff on that good evening Council um Mark Wolfe senior budget manager uh happy to address your questions Matt um so what you're referring to just uh so we're all on the same page as we had a balance as you mentioned uh leftover from tranche one so dollars that we appropriated initially um from our arpa allocation we set aside about we set

[80:01] aside a million dollars um through that public health reserve and I have spent some of that the remaining balance as you mentioned a little over 500k and our discussion at a couple of our budget meetings um was Council directed us to look at other uses and so we did some work granted over a shorter period of time but um tried to meet what we felt were some council's comments and discussion from those meetings and so the 150 that you're alluding to is one of the proposed uses of that balance would be to bolster two of our Arts funds one specifically related to artists hiring incentives and venue affordability one for artists hiring incentive excuse me and another four venue affordability and online events and so those are two

[81:00] more specific methods that we're suggesting and then the balance of that so a little over three hundred thousand would be in the realm of almost 400k for basic human services needs and so there's a little bit of flexibility there just because um you know we don't know what we don't know is you all are familiar not only are we dealing with covid but many other sicknesses it seems over the past several weeks so having that flexibility to be able to react to community basic needs over the coming months um there are a few specific areas that our HHS staff is suggesting uh specifically related to food security financial assistance um uh Health Services related to vaccine and testing if if we need that so um that's the the split there's certainly flexibility in terms of receiving some Council feedback and Direction on that but those are the

[82:00] suggested kind of reallocations of the public health Reserve at this moment appreciate that Mark I I didn't want to I mean I certainly have some ideas and thoughts but I certainly love to defer to hear from Bob and I see Nicole's hand before I I weigh in anymore is that okay Aaron sure okay you can get a bob and then the calls uh thanks man um and I've got some ideas too but let's get maybe do questions first I I'm just kind of following on Matt's training there Mark if you want my stand on the line uh so all of the almost 400 000 that's kind of left over in that um the million dollar uh Public Health Reserve from France one um when would you come back to council for I guess what would be front four um to potentially uh spend that last four hundred thousand dollars yeah so it's a good question because that um the public health Reserve was appropriated already

[83:00] um we're seeking Council feedback now so if you are supportive of those um uses then we would go ahead and use as needed under those two categories the Arts dollars are a little bit more urgently going out those others reserved for those um basic needs as determined by HHS if you'd like another layer of of review that would be something that we'd want to capture certainly on December 1st got it okay that's that's helpful uh Mark and and so we kind of are allocating that whole 547 150 to arts and then 397 000 just as HHS determines over the coming months sounds like without further console input uh that's helpful and then kind of a related question if I add up the numbers from page 21 of the memo I come up to about about 19.8 million dollars around round numbers of arpa funds that have been been or will tonight be allocated is

[84:01] that am I directionally correct there uh I'd have to double check whether that sounds about right and I see recall that we got 20.1 million in arpa funds so there seems to be like 300 000 still left over to allocate uh they're they're uh there is and I believe we have covered that um one of the one of the suggestions in uh the memo and I'm trying to find the exact number here uh is to bolster our uh winter shelter uh support so that we had talked with financial strategy committee a few weeks ago uh and again trying to be responsive to some of the discussion at um our budget meetings uh are proposing a little over four hundred thousand dollars to bolster um shelters uh temporary shelters during um the winter season uh so I'll triple check the numbers but I

[85:01] believe that with this additional appropriation would close out um our total arpa allocation okay that's helpful that's helpful explanation I just not track in the numbers though because that's not what the memo the memo seems to to add up to 19.8 19.9 I don't see the extra three or four thousand maybe in words later on but it's certainly not in the table so you're saying that if we pass this tonight at first reading in a couple weeks on second reading then all of the 20.1 million dollars in arfa money will have bet allocated and we're done talking we counselor done talking about our posts that we were saying that's right our intent is that we would be fully committed for arpa okay um there must be an inconsistency that I guess I'll say in the memo and have to be critical but there must be an inconsistencies table 21 doesn't seem to say that table on page 21 doesn't seem to say that I don't doubt that you have some words later on that says and by the way the last 400 000 is going to go out to this other thing but it doesn't

[86:01] unfortunately doesn't say that um in the table so that's what I was relying on um okay so there's two 400 there's two 400 thousands the 400 000 that's left over that you want us to give HHS for future spending as they see fit and another three or four hundred thousand dollars that you want us to allocate to HSS for winter Sheltering over and above what's already been allocated is that what you're saying correct and apologies for uh the inconsistency on the number there I will get counsel and answer as to um cleaning that up you are correct on those numbers so we're re we're reallocating 547 yeah and change from the public health Reserve within that 400k with about 400k would be for those basic uh service needs there's an additional separate four hundred thousand dollars within the tranche three recommendations which are for uh winter Sheltering okay

[87:00] we can also get this worked out in detail in an email response before public hearing on the first I'd say that uh yeah I I agree from a Clarity standpoint Aaron but we're being asked to prove this on first reading and I think if we were going to ask for a change in things it would be more polite to do that now rather than doing that second reading first and third reading so I'm I think what Matt and I are trying to get to is the number one understanding and number two to the extent there are changes to be suggested or considered by Council I think we want to try to get those on the table now rather than forcing a third reading into January so that's just what we're trying to get at okay good well although I'll just get get out your questions your points today that's that's great but and that maybe we could just ask Mark click if we wanted to make changes that second reading is that a problem from a timeline perspective okay yeah and and then my final question I'll stop and yield to Nicole and Tara um uh when do we do our first adjustment

[88:00] to base on the 2023 budget roughly um normally it is scheduled in the May time frame I'll just note that um with the uh ballot items as they played out we'll be doing a special adjustment likely uh in early February okay great thanks Mark so that's it for now it's not uh nicoleman's here yeah and I just um just in the order of questions I don't need answers tonight but um what I'm wondering about with the the Arts funding um is whether HHS has what they need because when I was talking with some folks from HHS about it um they had sort of already thought about using these funds for basic needs and so just that I'm I'm wondering if they are still able to do what they were going to do and apply for the grants they were going to apply for and all of that um with the uh the the slight reduction funds my other question is just around

[89:02] the ways that um that one of the things that I so appreciated about the arpa funds allocation process was how it was grounded in equity and addressing that the needs of the community members who were most at and so I'm just wondering um Within These programs that the extra funds are going to is that already baked in um to the process or is there something else that's going to need to happen to kind of fit with that overall theme of the arpa fence yeah thanks for your question Nicole I I think um we did the best we could on short notice to follow the criteria that we outlined um with council at the beginning um certainly there's some flexibility there related to basic needs going forward um and I know that Elizabeth Crow is on this evening as well um I believe the the recommendation that we came to will provide what what we feel like we need going forward there's always more need than dollars we have available but certainly as it relates to

[90:01] the use of these are dollars and I'll just mention uh Bob uh apologies that table on 21 that total the 19.26 is is inaccurate that those that column actually adds up to 19.6 and I I'm able to make that change for um the final packet so apologies for that thanks uh Tara first I wanted to thank uh people working on this because one of the most fantastic parts of this um this um arpa memma was the attention-paid child care and really people don't often bring that up but I'm just really thankful how much time you put into this for that and how much money we're allocating towards child care so thank you so much about that uh for that really important thing and the second thing is a question is both the boulder fill and the boulder

[91:01] ballet said they didn't get funding and I don't know much about the details of the Arts funding do you can anybody say why that is and if it is true is there any way that we can get them funding or is that something the city doesn't do it doesn't sound like it's um a great thing because those are two institutions that are really superb and I feel like we should help them yeah appreciate your question and I'm installing and I see Chris Jones popped up I'll let him answer that good evening Council Chris Jones interim director of community Vitality normally I would uh also deflect to Matt shazansky because he knows the exact details on on the nuances of funding for one I think it was the boulder ballet there was a criteria change and they were just under the line um and I think that that was that was the issue there and then the boulder fill if I remember correctly

[92:00] um they didn't actually apply there was something that changed in the past and they didn't apply for the the general operating funds having settled that I want to make sure I get you the correct information and we can respond uh via hotline after this to make sure that I have spoken correctly because there were some nuances with both of them and I can Circle back with Matt um after we've we get through this arpa conversation and make sure that we're thinking about those organizations and the others that we've heard from in how these uh dollars are spent thanks Chris um okay so Mark I'm going to come back to you and ask this it sounds like there's some potential interest in changes if we were to make changes at second reading would that be a timing problem I'm just I'm just thinking about potentially deferring so we've had a chance to think about them more and hear from the public and public hearing and all that kind of stuff yeah I appreciate the question mayor um so what we're doing something a little bit

[93:00] um nuanced and I'll just explain that for the purposes of your question the second adjustment to base so that will be an additional appropriation but we're not actually appropriating the dollars for arpa within the proposed ordinance so if you wanted to make changes to the arpa recommendations or suggest some changes and have us follow up at the subsequent meeting we could do that and you could move forward on the ordinance itself and go ahead and make those Appropriations on December 1st so we would essentially separate out those two items if that was council's Will got it so Matt and Bob Wood suggest is it maybe you get some proposed changes out on the table right now listen since you're heading there and then those can be considered along with some additional fault information for staff uh for a second reading on on December 1st would that work great uh Matt uh thanks Aaron I appreciate sort of the the time to sort of uh spend on this

[94:01] we've certainly been hearing a lot from the Arts Community um and you know we're coming towards the end of our ARP of money and meeting those needs of those uh disproportionately impacted from the pandemic so it's nice to sort of try to finish that off well um so the proposal I'll make with regards to the public health funds is um just kind of a modest one and it would be simply just um moving from one side to the other uh about another 100K to get to get the Arts up to 250 000 and that would pull that remainder down um on that HHS Reserve down to 200 roughly 297 000 and so uh that would just sort of bring a little bit more balance and I think you know as we've heard you know certainly from the Arts Community one of those bigger issues is affording rent like we've heard from Nick Forrester at eTown we've heard from a number of other venues that artists getting into the very venues is is increasingly expensive and we know how much those rents cost so we need to sort of make sure there's enough money to actually have impact and so

[95:00] um so so making sure we can pad that a bit is helpful plus the urgent need um to help the Arts because they are lagging in their economic recovery from other Industries so because of that urgency I'd like to build boost that up and and not ignore the HHS needs but I think as those needs arise coming up maybe down the pipeline perhaps we can backfill that either through our other reserves or through ATB if we need to um but but in terms of urgency I'd like to slide a little bit more into the Arts in order to accommodate those urgent needs especially going into performance season in the holidays and then shortly thereafter so um love to see if we can get some uh thoughts on that appreciate it thanks man Bob yeah I support um that's a proposal I you know I know this is zero sum and um you know no one wants to to favor one um very needy um any great need in a community uh sacrifice one for for another I saw not we're not trying to pick winners and losers here we do have several millions of dollars actually the vast majority of arpa is

[96:00] for Human Services which is great and it's appropriate and that's exactly what arpa was for but I think as Matt suggested um we do have um Human Services needs quite frankly in the Arts Community they just happen to be people who whose jobs it is to provide um a service to our community on our service Community oftentimes they are at the lower end of our economic scale both the organizations and the artists and so I think Matt's modest suggestion of an extra 100 000 for the Arts Community um which really in my mind is really a human services need that that needs to be uh satisfied is an appropriate one uh considering how much it has been allocated for other Human Service needs so I I agree that taking it from 150 to 250 for those very specific Parts programs supporting folks that are still struggling to recover is is the right thing to do thanks thanks Bob I'll just note I think Jenny got kicked out of the meeting and needs to be elevated to panelists if somebody could do that please uh Nicole

[97:00] yeah I just want to say I don't um support the proposal to move additional funds beyond what staff has sort of said without um more of an equity assessment that this is going to be in line with the other our priorities and the way that we approach that and that's not anything against the Arts Community I think in my initial proposal before I kind of realized that these funds were already your March for basic needs I talked about basic needs for the Arts Community with these funds I would just really like to know that this is going to be done in a way that is supporting those who were kind of most affected by the pandemic that's in line with the way that we've allocated the majority of these other funds in terms of the process so just adding some comments there thanks Nicole and I'll just call myself here um I appreciate the advocacy from the member of the Arts Community event here tonight and uh thanks for Matt and Bob and bringing this up and I look forward to considering this a second reading and we'll make a decision on these matters

[98:01] in a couple weeks so if nobody else to get Nicole did any another arpa thing or are we done yeah this was a separate one but the last call on on arpa going three times okay great so uh Nicole uh something else on the consent agenda yes yeah um I this is just about the hotline post that I sent out like three seconds before it was a little more than that but shortly before the meeting I just wanted to apologize for sending that out with such short notice um made a little note about it weeks ago and forgot to follow through with my action item until I was looking at my notes tonight uh what I really should have started with and so apologies to all of you to Nuria and Carl sorry for adding a little extra spice to um your evening but what I should have started with was the question of when we would be revisiting these issues um I kind of assumed that it wouldn't happen in this legislative session but I didn't actually ask that question to see if um what you all had in mind so I wanted to

[99:00] ask that question before following up on anything more [Music] thanks Nicole Carl are you available I think I see you here as a panelist yeah hey uh mayor Brockett um so the answer is no in terms of we're not expecting any legislation to be introduced or to be considered that would go to the issue uh to either of the issues that you're you're mentioning um however if they are introduced by bringing this back to council for consideration in February I think that would be ample time for the city to play April and trying to influence any legislation that has to do with the city's authority to to limit camping or on the issue of Health Care reforms so short we don't expect any issues to come up on this but uh nonetheless by addressing it in February it shouldn't be too late to play a role in such

[100:01] matter okay so let me just make sure I'm understanding so it sounds like then this will come back to council for a discussion in February about these two kind of remaining issues on our legislative policy agenda and we can discuss at that point and make a decision if we're going to modify the agenda that am I understanding yeah yes and and apologies for losing light in the background here um so yes when we come back in February I will make sure that these two items are front and center for Council to to consider okay thank you yeah and I retract my last minute hotline okay thank you for your flexibility Nicole and uh Carl I think can we would we have a chance to check in on that at the legislative the intergovernmental Affairs committee as well before bringing back to council absolutely I intend to convene the committee sometime before going to

[101:00] council and we'll make sure that this is part of the conversation all right Nicole good enough Lauren I had a question about a different consent agenda item if that's okay um item 3D Rachel had sent out a hotline post that um sort of ask the question around the staff member talking about doing engagement to answer the question of do we want more affordable home ownership units or affordable rental units and um she had asked how that fits into other community engagement processes that we have

[102:01] um ongoing I saw that a number of other questions she had asked had been answered but this one I was also curious about and I was hoping someone could address I'm looking around I don't know that we have staff to do that but what we'll do is go back if not in the hotline and address it the same way we have the others we want to make sure we get the answer so we'll be sure all right thanks Lauren way to speak up for an absent colleague and seeing no other hands I wonder if someone might be interested in making a motion wow that's a quiet group so I will step into the Gap I'll call on myself and I will move the consent agenda

[103:02] items a through J it's gonna leave me hanging got a second anywhere all second all right uh and this is I believe a roll call vote so at least we have a motion in a second all right sir thank you thank you everyone we'll start this roll call with council member Yates yes Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes councilmember falkerts yes Joseph yes spear yes and Weiner yes the consent agenda including items a through J is hereby approved unanimously

[104:01] all right thanks everybody dealership we could roll on to our call up chicken please all right sir thank you our call of check-ins are item four on tonight's agenda for a is the landmark alteration certificate to restore front porch and replace rear Edition with a new rear Edition at 429 Highland Avenue contributing property in the Mapleton Hill historic district pursuant to section 9-11-18 of the boulder Revised Code 1981. any interest in calling this one up or questions not seeing any and Judy I just wonder I want to make sure that you've made it in successfully uh or you're able to speak and such thank you yes and I just voted did you hear me yes I heard it too yeah great thank you just wanted to be sure glad to have you here uh okay I'm not seeing any hands up so

[105:00] looks like there's no interest in calling this one up all right sir next on tonight's agenda we have our public hearings item five and that is 5A is the public hearing and consideration of the following four items related to a petition to Annex a property generally located at 6 500 Arapahoe Road with an initial zoning of public and it's referenced under lur 2021-00032 first we have the annexation of the western portion the first item under that heading is the motion to adopt resolution 1317 setting forth the findings of fact and conclusions and then second related to that property we have the second reading and consideration of emotion to adopt ordinance 8550 which is annexing to the city of Boulder the Westerly 19.097 acre portion of the property next we have if the ordinance 8550 is

[106:02] adopted the second section of that annexation is the easterly portion item one for that particular set of properties is the resolution 1332 motion to adopt setting forth to findings of facts and conclusions regarding the annexation of the easterly 28.882 acre portion and the second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt ordinance 8553 annexing to the city the easterly 28.82 acre portions of the property and if the ordinance is 8550 and 8553 are adopted the fifth item to consider is the consideration of a motion to approve an inter-governmental agreement between the city of Boulder and Boulder Valley School District number r e 2 and substantially the same form as provided in the attachment to the staff memo for the purpose of constructing an

[107:01] affordable housing modular Factory and authorize the city manager to execute such IGA in any and all additional documents and or agreements necessary to affect the transaction that was a mouthful thanks Alicia all right uh so we will have Spanish interpretation services tonight for this public hearing so I will now turn to our language Access program manager Manuela cincuentes to go over how to select your preferred language Manuela thank you mayor um we have we should now have um interpretation activated and so if for those of you who are on Zoom please go to the bottom of your screen and you will find um an icon in the shape of a globe and click on that icon and select English or Spanish I'm now going to say the um okay just became activated

[108:00] um and I'm going to say the same message in Spanish English English or espanol Spanish we also have a slide with some instructions for speakers some guidelines if you can please speak slowly and pronounce your words clearly if you are reading um your notes please read slowly if you have a headset with a microphone please use it during this section as it greatly helps the interpreters and please um once you are discussing things if you can wait for the person who's speaking to finish and then um so so as not to interrupt or speak over the other person that would that also greatly helps the interpreters Yoda

[109:09] is thank you thanks so much thank you to our interpreters this evening we appreciate that then before we dive in I just want to check in on one matter with Council here uh so our our Council rules say that if there are 15 or fewer speakers they're allotted three minutes of speaking time at the time of sign ups they were exactly 15 so folks were told that they got three minutes we've since added two people so total 17 but I would propose still allowing people three minutes because that was the amount they were told that they had so just want to check and make sure that's okay with Council before proceeding okay let me see some thumbs UPS all right so folks we'll have three minutes to speak when we get there thanks for

[110:00] confirming that and so uh Mary I'll turn it over to you to get this started please terrific thank you mayor and I'm going to go straight uh to shabnam Vista who's gonna take us through a brief presentation there's additional staff to answer questions later on but Chapman sure thank you uh good evening my name is Sharma Vista a senior planner with planning and development services and I'll be presenting on the annexation tonight oh just a moment you're bringing up your own presentation I am yeah okay great please let me know if you're able to see it on the screen yes thank you okay good evening council members um

[111:00] today I'll be presenting on a request for annexation of a 47.9 acre property with an initial zoning designation of public located at 6500 Arapahoe Road in terms of the review process land may be considered for annexation if the proposal complies with the state and annexation State annexation statutes as well as the policies of the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan the comp plan provides a framework for annexation and urban service provision within the city it states the city will actively pursue annexation of substantially developed area 2 properties um and then if a property is annexoning will be established consistent with the land use designation in the bbcp additionally an annexation agreement is required to establish the terms and conditions of the annexation for this particular parcel a series annexations required this occurs when

[112:00] the partial does not meet the 1 6 contiguity in its entirety um and is therefore fixed in portions concurrently to achieve contiguity through approval of two separate ordinances uh since this has been a lengthy process I just wanted to provide a summary of the different processes to date so the annexation negotiations have been ongoing since 2018 and an application was filed in July of 2021. planning board reviewed the proposed annexation and initial zoning on September 6th of 2022 and the board voted to recommend Council approval of the request with two suggested conditions regarding the height as well as some sort of a neighborhood agreement for noise and other impacts um the annexation agreement sent a

[113:00] council as part of this meeting and this meeting packet has been modified based on the planning board recommendation and includes the height condition and I'll talk about that later in the presentation on October 6th Council um held the first reading and the adoption of resolution 1316 and tonight council is considering um or its council is for the second reading considering adoption of in order resolution 1317 ordinance 8550 adoption of resolution 1322 ordinance 8553 and approval of um an intergovernmental agreement between the city and the school district um in terms of the public comments staff received a number of comments um and noticing of the application has been consistent with the land use code written notification was mailed to all Property Owners within 600 feet of the

[114:01] proposed development um and then the notice was also posted on the property and this is all consistent with the typical indexation application made to the city and then a neighborhood meeting was also held on September 29th on the bvst campus uh and the notice for that was sent to property owners and households within a thousand feet of the property of the proposed project property in terms of the project site it's located south of Arapahoe Road and East of um City properties where ecocycle and other recycling facilities are located north um there's some River Mars to the south of the property and the site is in the site is located in area two of planning areas map of the bbcp and area two is the service area for where City annexation can be

[115:00] considered in terms of the bvcp land use the properties designated as public or semi-public which anticipates uses including Municipal and Public Utility Services educational facilities and government offices as well in terms of the proposed proposed zoning the applicant is requesting a public zoning which is consistent with the existing conditions of the property within the city the p district is described as public areas in which public and semi-public facilities and uses are located again without limitation governmental and educational uses in terms of the existing conditions so the property is currently connected to City Water and Sewer facilities in 1964 the city passed an ordinance granting

[116:00] Water and Sewer Utility Services to bbsd on a revocable permit basis and it limited the use of those services to certain uses and Facilities on the property in 2022 essential kitchen was added on the property extending those city services which was one of the triggers for this annexation along with the proposed affordable housing modular Factory that's a partnership between the city of Boulder housing Human Services Flatirons Habitat for Humanity and Boulder Valley School District currently the site contains the Arapahoe Ridge High School campus the boulder Tech Educational Center bvsd offices and the Thorne nature experience and um the Central Kitchen so moving into the annexation terms annexation is a negotiated process most parties seek development potential or city services

[117:01] and the school at this time already has the city services and is not seeking additional development potential in light of that this is just a brief overview of the annexation terms that have been negotiated at this time um so bvsd will pay storm water plant investment fees they will comply with the city regulations regarding flood and the current city outdoor lighting standards there is an agreement that states future owners are not sovereign and must meet City inclusionary housing requirements and comply with City Zoning the bvsc will provide land for a 10-year period to operate the factory and then they will comply with the city's Charter height limit additionally council is proving the

[118:01] intergovernmental agreement today for the affordable housing modular Factory um we have staff from housing Human Services to go over that in detail but just wanted to highlight the um some of the agreement terms that talk about potentially looking at noise packs as well as quiet hours for the neighborhood and um the operating hours will be Tuesday to Saturday between 8 and 4 P.M again we have um staff who to provide a presentation and additional information as well uh so there were some questions at CC from Council and just wanted to address some of those here so the first one was Some Noise concerns I just want to point out that this is included in the IGA that the city will hire acoustical Engineers to understand what the noise impacts might be in terms of lighting this is included in

[119:03] the annexation agreement and the the Boulder Valley School District will be required to come into compliance with the current lighting standards within 180 days but this is not applied to any future amendments or co-changes me to the lighting ordinance Outreach to Columbine mobile home park that's located in the county along 63rd Street um so our community engagement staff was able to reach residents on how to sign up and speak at the hearing and that we can provide interpretation today and then notice was sent to Property Owners within the mobile home park during the 2021 public notification as well as during the September 29th um meeting and notification for that as well and then lastly there is the um open space Board of Trustees letter that was submitted to

[120:01] um submitted to council as well and there I believe there's someone here that will sign up to to speak to that as well during the public testimony so in conclusion staff recommends approval and action in the form of the Motions shown on the screen thank you thanks so much so just from a procedural standpoint if we could have questions for Shop number of our city staff at this time and then I believe we're going to hear from the applicant uh after that the bbsd and we can ask them questions at that time so stick to City staff questions for the moment Bob yeah um uh indicated that maybe a presentation by um housing Human Services relating to the IGA should we wait for that or if we have questions about that should we ask those now sure you know why don't we get all the presentations done thanks for that much

[121:00] female hand it over to you and then we'll ask any and all City staff questions thank you very much mayor uh Jay segment with housing and Human Services um if you could pull up my presentation pretty please so we want to provide a little bit of uh contact for the affordable housing modular Factory and partnership um and also talk in more detail about the intergovernmental agreement uh so with that I'll just jump in provide a little bit of background next slide please so just so we all understand what we're talking about so this idea of Zero Energy module um it so all electric basically very efficient um uh appliances lighting from a very tight tight envelope good ventilation high quality materials but the key piece is that it's on the fixed Foundation very different than a mobile home or manufactured housing next slide

[122:01] and this started back in uh 2019 uh there was a city together with the Colorado Housing Finance Authority energy Outreach Colorado is as well as the Colorado habitat Affiliates basically uh commissioned the study to say is there a demand for modular housing in Colorado and not only did that study find that there is a demand for it particularly for mobile home replacement but it could also be used for single family multi-family as well as infilm uh next slide please so modular is really only limited by your imagination is a good way to think about it is each module is a Jenga block and you can configure that block in pretty much any way that you see could possibly imagine next slide and you should be able to play the video

[123:00] I think hopefully foreign there you go so um this is an example of a modular home two duplexes being set in a single day this is up in the mountains Grand County um but it's just one of the great benefits of modular construction is that it limits the impact to the community so a traditional build like this could take anywhere from three to four months or even seven or eight if it's a traditional habitat build the great thing about modular is that Foundation can get poured in a single day as you can see these two duplexes got put up in a single day next slide and the other benefit of modular construction doesn't look like a mobile home or other manufactured housing types there's a lot of flexibility with how you can configure it and the finishing touches as well next slide

[124:02] so this partnership um obviously to help produce much needed affordable housing but it's also a great opportunity to provide Workforce training for both Boulder Valley School District students Susan Lithgow the executive director from habitat is here the school district is here they'd love to talk more about that if you'd like to learn more next slide but this is an example of the students from bvsd this is a habitat build at Powell Park and traditionally there's been a very strong collaboration between a habitat as well and the school district and the idea is this modular Factory could help strengthen and grow that Workforce housing component of the bpsd programs next slide and the the initial Genesis of this project has to do with Ponderosa mobile home park next slide like you're all familiar without the city purchased it

[125:01] back in 2018 uh that park has experienced an infrastructure failure all that infrastructure has been replaced at this time um and a lot of those homes are fairly old and certainly in need of replacement so this modular construction is really intended to allow those residents to move into fixed Foundation very energy efficient very healthy new modular homes those homes will be permanently affordable to extremely low low moderate and middle income households in perpetuity of course and most importantly it will allow those residents to build wealth over time next slide so the the roles of this partnership the city housing and Human Services is providing funding to construct and equip the factory flat irons is managing the facility uh they'll procure all the materials provide Logistics and organizing the volunteers and ensure that the students are integrated into

[126:02] the operations the school district has agreed to provide the land for a period of 10 years and use the operation as a teaching facility and the school district has agreed in in the igac specific language to make a good faith as effort to renew that lease at the end of 10 years next slide so we looked at um sites for the factory different city-owned sites throughout the city we also looked um on private land throughout the county and really settled on the school district property and as you can see here in yellow it's it it is on the southern edge of the Southern portion of the site to the north um 63rd is over to your left hopefully from somewhat familiar with the site by now after seeing all the slides uh but

[127:00] we also hired a consultant to look at a feasibility analysis for citing the factory on the property and this was really the only site that was viable next slide please so as you can see here it's zoomed in a little bit more there are these dashed lines on both sides of the proposed facility and those are overhead power lines that converge to the north so we've tried to move that factory as far north as possible away from the marsh away from the neighborhoods but those are options were really quite Limited next slide so why modular just really important to emphasize the the ability for Habitat to basically take their model and move it indoors it helps increase the production particularly of home ownership opportunities um and our hope is that this is really going to be a lower cost higher quality product a lot less waste

[128:02] in the manufacturing process there's less exposure to weather volunteers and workers are not out there in the freezing cold or the brutal heat workers safety has definitely improved in this factory setting there is everything is that nobody's up on ladders everybody is on scaffolding doing work at eye level and as I mentioned probably the most important benefit is it minimizes that disruption to the community in terms of long-term Construction next slide so this just gives you a sense of what the factory looks like it'll be a net zero building parallel solar array at the top um and it will be very well insulated and with all electrics so there will be electric forklifts electrical heating cooling that allows us to make sure to keep the doors closed during the summer as well as the winter next slide

[129:02] and this just gives you a sense of what's inside the factory next slide not very easy to read so we simplified a little bit but just to give you a sense all the materials building materials are delivered through the exterior doors uh they're stored around the interior of the building so there's no visual clutter on the outside and everything is is basically assembled in along these lines so we have a ceiling and the roof the walls those are set into place and the the modules move through these different positions the plumbing is installed the electrical as you go from right to left you go to drywall uh paint and finishes doors windows trims everything gets done inside the factory so even the appliances all the furniture um in the final clean to get stored the two in the factory two to three others are stored on the outside and transport

[130:00] all at the same time next slide so a little bit about the activity that you can expect the capacity our consultant has told us is about 50 units a year but because we're relying on volunteer labor it will really be closer to 12 to 15 homes each year so that's about one each week and the number of deliveries are actually quite um small in comparison with the current operations at the campus so the small delivery trucks we expect about one to two per week um the large semi trucks those are about one to two a month um and the modules as I mentioned once they get completed or stored and they will get delivered every two to three months and the number of people working in the factory too is about 15 to 20. uh those workers and volunteers will all Park to go out to the north access the site from 65th

[131:00] um and as javanaugh mentioned the The Factory hours are Tuesday through Saturdays next slide so a little bit more detail on the intergovernmental agreement uh Zoo nodes dependent on Council annexing the property uh but it's real intent is to outline the roles and responsibilities for the construction and the cooperation um and most importantly I think what we've tried to do is make sure that it responds to what we've heard from Neighbors concerns about the impact's potential impacts to the marsh as well as to the neighbors um and this is what we've heard from the community since the spring but also most particularly at the September public meeting so certain things that we have agreed to is to hire an acoustical engineer we will do that to better understand the potential noise impacts from the factory operations uh our commitment to reduce eliminate backup alarms I think what we heard loud and clear that the neighbors

[132:00] are already impacted significantly by a lot of drug activity backup activity from the Eco cycle from the Central Kitchen from other operations happening in that area we would like to be a good neighbor so we have proposed to eliminate all backup alarms and rely on flaggers instead we've also designed the factory layout so that delivery trucks can don't back up at all it can go circumnavigate the building and we've established the operation hours quiet hours and have committed to meeting both city and county noise regulations um in the shop that I'm mentioned we um the light in building Heights concerns those are addressed in the annexation agreement next slide so the the factor is is there's still a number of steps that need to be complete after um potential annexation uh and Adoption of the intergovernmental agreement there

[133:00] still needs to be finalization of the lease there's financing that needs to be um uh obtained to for any potential Gap funding there is we're still in the Civil design phase the architectural design phase but we also have to go through the permitting as well as getting the factory licensed uh to coming up with detailed Factory operational designs uh at the earliest we would be able to even begin construction is probably February even March of next year um and then if everything goes well uh we could be potentially equipping and Staffing that Factory uh the following year around the same time next slide and that is the conclusion of our presentations thanks so much for that Jane uh do we have anything else from City staff before we go to council questions soon let's do those questions I can see Bob's hands up

[134:01] Jay that was an excellent presentation I had a long list of questions you answered almost all of them so thank you so much for anticipating them I have just a couple of lingering ones Jay um you mentioned the capacity was about 50 module homes per year but it may run only at about 12 to 15 just because of limitations on students and volunteers which I understand and it looks like um some of the initial um modular home builds will will be for Ponderosa I think that was 73. so just doing the math in there it sounds like the first at the rate of 12 to 15 per year sounds like the first four or five years will be mostly dedicated to building housing for Ponderosa is that a fair assumption uh yes I should have mentioned that in the presentation but that that's great and then since there's a 10-year lease I assume that there'll be capacity even if it's only at the 12 to 15 unit there'd be capacity to build modular homes for um other places that are not ponderos in other words if opportunities come along whether they're City low-income housing

[135:01] opportunities or maybe just even some commercial opportunities for modular homes other places I assume that that would be kind of one of the customers so to speak of the Factories at a fair assumption absolutely I mean I think this city Boulder is the first priority habitat is the second priority but we've also talked about the potential for multi-family housing um it could also be used to build um adus that could be easily dropped into someone's backyard so there again the options are pretty Unlimited that's that's great that's helpful Jay and then finally my final question I'm sure there's others and that's just around the access to the property both during the construction and then then when it's operating in in uh supplies are being brought in and and uh and then modular homes were being brought out the backside 63rd streets is a long kind of circuitous way to get over to this corner you have to kind of come down south from Arapahoe and then across near the near the marsh and kind of scooching

[136:01] around some buildings and so on so forth and of course going by the Columbine mobile home park as well it just was curious um there isn't another entrance to the property a few blocks farther east um I think at the at the curb cut it at um Arapahoe it's called 65th Street I think 65th Street technically bends to the east but there is a kind of a long um uh I also called a road drive whatever um there on the east side of all the those bbsd buildings that goes all the way down to where the modular home Factory would be is there any reason why either during construction or during operations that wouldn't be the the natural Ingress egress it looks like it's maybe a third or a quarter of the distance of Arapahoe and it wouldn't run by the marsh and it wouldn't run by the mobile home park Azura is there a compelling reason why that entrance wouldn't be used yeah I would hesitate to speak for the school district um but we basically they are the landlord so as the factory operators

[137:00] we'll do what they request but it the rationale I think for separating the traffic is that they would um like to separate uh the campus traffic which is primarily um you know individual Vehicles versus more industrial traffic so big trucks um keeping those on 63rd so there aren't those conflicts uh but Glenn sugru is the senior planner for the Boulder Valley School District and if if it's appropriate now he's happy to go into more detail or if you want to wait till later Aaron if it's okay do you mind if answers that question well can I just ask Jay are they giving a separate presentation or are they just here for questions they're primarily here for questions but Glenn did have a few words that he wanted to just share okay we'll go ahead Glenn maybe if you could answer this question and then maybe a little later on we'll give you the chance to say a few extra words yeah uh the um it's a good question that is a more direct route uh but we do uh right now

[138:02] 65th as you call it it's a very heavily used area we have high school kids from the Arapahoe and Tech campuses going in and out we have uh our constituency coming to the site for uh you know various testing and signing up for um programs and things like that we have our employees so it's a very heavily used entrance at certain times during the day so um so you know we really can't commit to leaving to to uh having a lot of the traffic from the factory going through there um and much of our our maintenance Fleet and uh deliveries to our warehouse in our Central Kitchen I go through that back entrance as well on 63rd um and that's not to say that those entrances can't be used and that once we get our traffic pattern set and the factories built that we can't look at uh relieving some of that traffic off of 63rd but we

[139:00] just really can't commit to pouring all of that traffic through there with those potential conflicts uh in our day-to-day operations thanks Glenn that's that was very helpful um uh Aaron that's all I have for now probably got questions after the public hearing if people don't mind just follow up on that um so Glenn then what I'm hearing is that there's potential willingness you know in maybe in a year or two as we look at the track traffic patterns to maybe reevaluate the the question of access off of 65th Street is that right well you know I can't imagine it ever being used completely for the factory at all times just because it is so heavily used but we may be able to um to look at times and and the operation of the factory and and look at that and come to some agreement about its use all right well I appreciate that flexibility and maybe I'll just turn to hella for a legal question like if that ended up being a direction that we were able to go sometime in the future would we revise would we need to revise that IGA to allow some additional traffic on

[140:00] 16th Street yeah that would be my recommendation it could either be done through the annexation agreement or probably a little bit easier through the IGA and I'm going to ask one more question about the floor and then Matt I'll let you go sorry uh but as I understand it the the volunteers would still be coming on 65th Street the traffic that would go on 63rd would be the one to two smaller trucks a week and then one to two larger trucks a month did I have that right that's correct okay great that's the end of my follow-ups thanks for indulging me Matt I didn't want to get I just wanted to colloquy on the the 63rd piece if I if you don't mind Tara um so so I I did that I drove that spot every day all summer taking my son to Thorne uh nature Camp um I'm a bit skeptical of anything larger than a school bus really making that turn um I'm sure you've studied it in detail but that is a that is quite a tight turn

[141:00] um and not much room for air given the corner there with the storage and also then the fall off to the marsh so um and then you've got kids playing um uh all the time so I'm I'm a bit skeptical that that's the right place to be especially with the larger stuff I know school buses can do it but those bigger trucks I'm very skeptical of so I I would be very encouraged to see a different route for those larger trucks having done that drive myself all summer um Sarah I have two questions the first one is I did take a drive out there and went into one um some of the neighborhoods and it's closer than I thought it would be so I visualized a loading dock that was open and said you would surely hear that but Jay am I did I remember correctly that you said the doors the windows everything would be closed that's correct yep you guys know

[142:01] I'm sorry any loading docs as well no loading docks um so basically the doors will only be open dirt for deliveries of materials um and for the removal of the completed modules okay yeah okay my second question has to do with the letter from osbt that had four points I know some of the points were addressed in your presentation is there gonna are they all going to be addressed or do you want to address any of those or do you feel like they were properly addressed um I I would say the vast majority were addressed I can go through them individually I think there was a request to um uh to treat or basically ensure that the access road that the storm water was treated um and but that hasn't what did not make it into the final annexation agreement

[143:00] uh all right sounds Tara like you're done so that and I speaking of conflicts on 63rd Street I heard a rumor that foreign nature experience was actually planning on moving in the not too distant future does anybody knows is that correct I can speak to that yeah uh so they're moving their Administration uh offices uh off they're currently they're running some of their programs in their Administration in that building and they're building a new administration building I believe in Lafayette and they're going to be moving into that their programs uh will still remain there got it thanks for clarifying that Terry you still got your hand up anything else okay not seeing any other questions for City staff Glenn I guess I'll turn to you to say a few words as representative of the applicant of the school district I I really didn't have a lot to say I think that the package uh is is pretty thorough uh and shavna gave a good presentation I just I just wanted to

[144:01] kind of reiterate how we got here uh the school district um built started construction on the Central Kitchen uh some years ago and that triggered uh the Water needs for that facility triggered the need for this annexation um unfortunately we were halfway through construction when that was discovered uh so we had to come to an agreement with the city to allow construction go forward and uh if we followed through in good faith with the annexation agreement and that is the primary reason why we're here with our annexation uh process uh is to fulfill that commitment uh and in parallel at that time we were also exploring what Jay was talking about with our Tech program which we already have constructions trade element to that and so I know housing and Human Services in our Tech program and other administrators have been talking about this exciting opportunity to combine these two that our program with this

[145:00] facility and as per as I went forward I think we at some point it seemed to make a lot of sense to put these together on the same annexation packets and uh and that's where we are today and that's really all I have to say but I am happy to answer any more questions if you haven't thanks Glenn of course we deeply appreciate our continuing partnership with bbsd between the city and bbsd any follow-up questions for Glenn uh let's see none thanks Glenn we may get back to you with more questions or comments later on I appreciate you being here that's good for now and I just also want to note that um Susan Lithgow the executive director of Flatirons Habitat for Humanity is attending tonight so if anyone had questions for her since they are a player in this uh feel free to speak up now or later say during our comments if you have any questions for her but uh for announcing no more hands I

[146:02] think we can go to public testimony uh Ryan do we need to reread those uh rules of decorum uh happy to pull those up and read them again thank you thank you Emily thank you for pulling this up uh and to to confirm that the city has set out to ensure that we have productive atmospheres during our open comment and public hearing we appreciate the speakers and community members who are here this evening uh to reiterate you know this Vision supports physical and emotional staff for community members staff and Council as well as democracy for people of all ages identities lived experience and political perspectives more in this decision may be found at the link here on the next slide please

[147:01] I'll share a few examples of rules of decorum found in the boulder revise to code and other guidelines that support this vision all remarks and testimonies shall be limited to matters related to the business no participation like threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person obscenity racial epiphat and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct the meetings are prohibited participants are acquired to sign up to speak using the name they're commonly known by and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online please note that currently only audio testimony is permanent online thank you again for joining us this evening thank you Ryan all right so we've got uh 17 people signed up to speak three of whom are pooling so everyone will get three minutes uh since we are did make a slight exception to our rules a couple who got transferred later uh except for one the pooling person will get five so

[148:02] we got uh David Sue Cindy Warren and then Joseph riccio is the cooling person so David hello yes okay uh for disclosure I'm a Boulder County Planning commissioner but I'm speaking only as an affected neighbor uh in 2019 I lived in the city and had the opportunity to vote for you uh some of you and I'm asking for your help now the issue before city council with this annexation is should an industrial Factory that operates on weekends be allowed in a public Zone near residential areas the answer is no manufacturing use is not a use by right or allowed under special review under public zoning by city code manufacturing uses explicitly prohibited under public zoning this plain and important fact is completely missing from the staff packet

[149:00] and presentation to city council even though it should be front and center there is no justification for allowing an industrial Factory in public zoning proponents of the industrial Factory May argue that what is before the city council is merely the annexation and not the proposed Factory that defies common sense is not a good faith argument we just sat through a 12-minute presentation by Jay and parts of the packet are devoted to the proposed Factory it's tied together the approval of the annexation includes approving the IGA the IGA specifically includes the factory the approval of the annexation includes approving proposed ordinances which also incorporate the IGA in the staff packet to planning board the project description stated that the proposed project is a partnership between Boulder bbsd and Habitat for Humanity that's the industrial Factory the city cannot separate consideration of annexation from consideration of the industrial Factory

[150:01] so approving the annexation means you're approving manufacturing use in a public Zone CD annexation code also requires considering not just the initial zoning at the time of annexation staff does go through motions of this analysis but the analysis makes little sense staff somehow concluded that public zoning is quote appropriate for the proposed use of the site end quote even though the proposed use is manufacturing and prohibited in public zoning staff analysis also said that terms and conditions will ensure future development respects existing Lifestyles and densities however a factory operating on weekends near residential neighborhoods is not respecting existing Lifestyles and densities staff also States quote any future development will be required to meet City standards end quote this is directly contradicted by the IGA where bvsd asserts its sovereignty status the staff analysis is not objective view of the proposed project the analysis of the

[151:00] annexation requirements presented to city council is deficient and does not allow city council to make an objective determination on the annexation manufacturing uses explicitly prohibited by city code city council should reject the annexation thank you thank you David now we have Cindy Warren Joseph princeio and Andrew Morley can you hear me yes some Ferrero Marsh is the critical wildlife habitat it's also a naturally formed saline wetland in a non-coastal area this is a very rare type of marsh in this part of the country the marsh was formed thousands of years ago I have an elderly friend whose great grandfather told him Buffalo used to wallow in the marsh this is a very unique habitat and has a long and meaningful history perhaps the city in bbsd don't appreciate the importance of the marsh in any event they've taken numerous actions which demonstrate their lack of concern the factories a few

[152:01] hundred feet from the marsh they're building the factory of metal which is an excellent sound conductor they did not and are not involving an acoustical engineer in the design of the factory they plan to run large vehicular traffic on 63rd Street Which is less than 20 feet from the marsh and this traffic will be very heavy thousands of trucks at least during construction visitors to the marsh and children visiting Thorne access to complex via 63rd and will be endangered by the large trucks and trailers the Mars wasn't mentioned in the annex annexation agreement there is no mitigation plan for the marsh no environmental impact study was performed and the September 22nd city planning board document States the factory will have no negative impacts on the marsh the statement is unconscionable and untrue the marshes and noise sensitive environment and the noise associated with construction and Factory opposition operation will be very significant Additionally the amount of traffic and activity during an effort construction will be overwhelming for a wildlife environment Wildlife will also be impacted by light vibration fumes all

[153:00] mentioned in the County planning and permitting document from September 2021 also have noticed the city regulations that protect the environment at every other location in Boulder from being that are except this one in this collaboration between bvsd and the city the land is owned by bvsd and bvsds exempt from city regulations thus the city can circumvent their own rules for example the city can build a manufacturing plan in a public zoned area adjacent to a critical wildlife habitat this would never be allowed to happen elsewhere and it's truly shocking that officials are willing to let it happen here and importantly in this no rule scenario there's no protector of the interests of the marsh this runs counter to Boulder's widely publicized pro-environmental stance and raises questions about the validity of that perception and discussions regarding some Bruno Mars at the open space Board of Trustees meeting November 9th the trustee stated this just feels to me like a Requiem for Sombrero yes it does and many citizens agreed only city council has the power to protect Sombrero Marsh at this time you

[154:01] can delay voting on The Factory tonight and take time to evaluate other possible sites including Land close to the proposed side which has less environmental impacts if you vote Yes tonight construction on the factory will begin shortly in the Marshall very likely fade away this will be a terrible loss for Boulder please reevaluate potential construction sites and support the relocation of the factory some of our marshes and historic and unique ecological site please don't sacrifice the marsh for a factory that could be placed elsewhere the fate of the marsh is literally entirely in your hands please save Sombrero Marsh thank you Cindy now we have Jose Prieto who's pooling with James Warren and Edith Sedona and we've confirmed that they're present so just we'll get five minutes and after that as Andrew Morley and Alex Cassidy so Joseph hello my name is Joseph prisio I live next to Sombrero Marsh in unincorporated Boulder County I'm here online to express the view that the school

[155:00] district campus at 6500 Arapahoe have is an unsuitable site for constructing the proposed modular home Factory the large manufacturing facility will extend to within 100 feet of Sombrero March open space which in turn abuts four County residential neighborhoods as you've already heard all the residents in the area still recount Native American folklore describing a time in which bison would wallow in the salty mud flats but that was then and this is now the proposed manufacturing facility will introduce a new level of use and a new industrial type of use in a look location presently having relatively low use intensity to quote a county planner the use may not be consistent with several Boulder Valley comprehensive plan policies the route along which all traffic will travel for factory construction and later operations namely 63rd Street south of Arapahoe Ave will pass within feet of both the wetlands and the Columbine Mobile Home Park which is one

[156:01] of the four impacted neighborhoods near the Thorne ecological Institute 63rd Street merges into paved and unpaved spaces between buildings and the travel route assumes less definition this general area includes two former bus fueling stations that held buried fuel tanks during closure activities contaminated soils were encountered both Tang pits these incidents in a separate environmental incident in 2020 illustrate that any industrial activity creates some potential potential for soil and groundwater contamination to qualify for a hot loan for factory construction the city commissioned the phase one environmental site assessment report for the factory site the report sought only to identify recognized environmental conditions indicating the presence of likely president's presence of hazardous substance on the factory site it found none on the factory site

[157:00] from this city staff has issued a statement that the project will not result in any significant impact on the quality of human environment this conclusion is not justified by the limited scope of the phase one study the process of site grading will require several thousand round-trips by Earth moving equipment all of which will travel along 63rd Street passing by Columbine in the wetlands construction vehicles will emit glaring light during Dawn and dusk loud sounds and fumes that will affect the Columbine residence which include children vehicles used for later Factory operations will have similar effects some of the similar effects an alternate route namely 65th avoids Columbine and the wetlands 65th is signalized short concrete paved and Resident free it avoids the Foreign Institute instead skirting District

[158:00] buildings district offices and a campus Side Road project proponents maintained that 65th is not viable because of existing traffic congestion however directing all traffic along 63rd shifts the entire traffic burden onto the Columbine resonance an isolated and vulnerable group and for this and for environmental reasons also 63rd Street is also not viable the district campus has serious traffic issues which the manufacturing facility and expanding District functions will only intensify if an equitable traffic solution cannot be found it is reasonable reasonable to conclude that the proposed manufacturing site is unacceptable council members this evening you are considering a motion to approve an IGA with the district for the purpose of constructing a large manufacturing facility close to Sombrero Marsh which are both residential neighborhoods I respectfully respectfully ask that you

[159:00] resolve tonight to post loan approval until traffic studies yield an equitable traffic solution and until a full environmental impact statement can be prepared thank you well thanks very much Joseph now we have Andrew Morley Alex Cassidy and William Blatz good evening everyone my name is Andrew Morley I'm a resident of the reserve neighborhood and I'm here tonight to express my deep concern with and strong objection to the proposed plan between the city of Boulder and bdsd regarding the annexation of the land and construction of the modular home Factory at 6500 Arapahoe the neighborhoods and homes adjacent to the proposed tax we would be significantly negatively affected by the construction and operation of the factory at this location the inside the factory loud noises and external lighting associated with the factory and the truck trailer traffic on 63rd Street which

[160:02] significantly detract from the desirability and value of the homes around the proposed Factory most importantly the construction and operation of the proposed Factory is environmentally irresponsible the construction noise traffic and lighting associated with the proposed Factory would have a significant negative impact on the adjacent environmentally sensitive wetlands and Associated wildlife I implore you to find another location for the proposed Factory this location is simply not an appropriate location for this type of facility however if the city and bvsd choose to ignore these ejections and proceed with the annexation and construction of the factory the city must at least ensure the following conditions are imposed on bvsd through the annexation agreement or the intergovernmental agreement one employ a sound engineer make every possible adjustment to decrease the

[161:00] amount of sound emitted from the factory to build a sizable and aesthetically pleasing noise reduction fence barrier or embankment around the factory to mitigate noise and place Evergreens on the opposite side of the fence or barrier to mitigate noise and appearance three have trucks and trailers enter the area directly from Arapahoe Road rather than 63rd Street 63rd Street runs within feet of Sombrero Marsh and the additional traffic noise and Emissions would severely negatively impact the wetlands the wildlife and the residents in addition it seems to me that directing lots of additional heavy truck traffic with lots of toxic emissions through a socio-economically less privileged neighborhood is unfair and possibly discriminatory and exposes the city and bvsd to potential liability four make sure the wetlands and Sombrero Marsh are protected by a significant

[162:01] buffer such as Evergreens or a physical barrier in any areas adjacent to where increased truck traffic is expected eliminate the use five eliminate the use of backup alarms six consider noise when making decisions about waste disposal seven do not allow the factory to operate on Saturdays eight change the appearance of the factory to approximate that of the school and nine postpone the plan construction start date so there's time to make changes to the factory with regard to these issues thank you for your consideration thank you your time's up appreciate your comments uh and just wanted to pass along a reminder from our interpreter Elena to speak slowly to all the testifiers um one year so we can thanks so much now we have Alex Cassidy William Platts and Mary Bachmann can you hear me yes

[163:01] all right good evening my name is Alex Cassidy and uh I applaud the efforts to address affordable housing needs and of the area but the way you've gone about facility facilitating this project is really really troubling among other things appearances really do matter and having City employee Jay sugnet working on behalf of BFB vsd is a massive uh behind the scenes conflict of interest so the various uh aspects of this project that are troubling are the way that it was concealed from area residents for a long period of time and residents were completely excluded from both the site selection and design uh processes you know the building scale and increased intensity on the site the city of Boulder has a promise of community engagement posted on the

[164:00] website that was never followed through on with any of the communities surrounding uh this site and then the thing that we've heard a lot about which is the heavy traffic to be routed on 63rd Street adjacent to Columbine mobile home park and Sombrero Marsh so one of the things that I heard uh when I recently spoke to somebody who has first-hand knowledge of the factory site selection process it was explained that building on bvsd land was a huge bonus for the factory allowing the project to skirt around compliance with almost all of Boulder's land use regulations um maybe that's something that Jay forgot to mention but uh it's quite surprising and shocking to learn that those regulations are seemingly for everybody except this

[165:00] project um the zoning well David talked pretty clearly about the zoning and then the traffic and environment at the very least an environmental impact assessment and traffic study should both be completed for a huge project like this Factory um heavy traffic should be routed on 65th and not 63rd where it will adversely affect residents of the combine Mobile Home Park and uh then a traffic study uh yeah traffic study that includes the construction should be completed and it's not enough to say that you're going to get an acoustic engineer involved you also need to take the recommendations of the acoustic engineer and involve them wrap them into the project um and also Gathering water off of the road 63rd there uh and treating it means

[166:01] that that water is being robbed out of the marsh um I'm out of time but we need barriers too thank you thank you for your testimony now we have William Platz Mary backman and Scott Beckman hi this is Spill plants can you hear me yes okay good uh I think this is a very good project but in the worst possible location uh in addition to the points that have already been raised uh another feature that we found out about is that regalia Hills forms a natural Amphitheater that reflects sound back towards the marsh and amplifies it we learned this when we were working with XL Energy and they brought in a sound engineer to analyze it uh it's there's residences in close proximity on four sides there's also open space and the

[167:02] throne nature experience and the marsh I'm also worried about the contradictory information being put out by the city you're now talking about 12 to 15 homes per year in a zoom meeting we had in September they were talking about one every six weeks that would be about eight per year but then in a subsequent meeting with bdsd in November we were told it could be more like 80 homes per year and based on the phase one environmental assessment it says it could actually be more like a hundred homes per year so we're getting all kinds of different contradictory information we're also told that there will be no noise issues because they'll keep the doors closed and they will disconnect the backup alarms on vehicles and forklifts I don't think that's feasible when you're gluing and painting and staining that you're just going to keep all the doors closed and people are going to be coming and going there are going to be deliveries we looked at a

[168:02] similar Factory down in Denver called Simple homes and it's a about 50 percent less in size but it puts out lots of noise fumes having that right near the marsh open space would be would ruin it I've also contacted the Native American rights fund and they put me in touch with the Arapahoe Nation older was the center of the Arapahoe Nation until they were driven out however they still consider its sacred grounds and the sombrero Marsh is the last pristine Native American land left in Boulder it would be a major loss to ruin it and the Arapahoe nation and the Native American rights fund are receptive to helping so I this could very well end up in court and I wish you would consider some other locations uh bdsd has a facility for their buses close to campus that isn't an area zoned for industrial use it

[169:00] looks like there would be room for the factory there directly across the street is Belmont power plant they have a large open space that used to be used for coal storage I'm sure they would be receptive to donating part of that land uh for the factory and that's about a 15-minute walk from campus it would be close by familiar time is up but thank you for your testimony now we have Mary backman Scott Beckman and Ryan call hello this is Mary Bachmann um I also go by as Marisha Bachman and I want to thank you um Council for being available to listen to our concerns as unincorporated Boulder constituents um and I would like to just address you know thank everybody who has participated as our neighborhood um I do want to reiterate that the idea

[170:02] of having this modular Factory here within our neighborhood is um it's disappointing and it's detrimental to our location of selection selection of where we chose to live um I've heard a lot of conversations about the road but I also want to incorporate not just 63rd but also Arapahoe um I understand there may be some reconstruction of it but I live off of West View and that is our access in and out and that is incredibly congested as Boulder has grown I've lived here my entire life I lived in the city and now I live in an unincorporated but I have seen the the amount of people driving in and out of Boulder and so now you no longer can have specific times of when people are commuting in and out I've also witnessed as a neighbor here Arapahoe Rich high school students speeding Out Racing out intimidating

[171:00] many of the residents that are trying to pull out of the way that Glenn had you know responded that they used 60 the fifth but they also have a little outlet that allows them to go off to the side heading out heading East on Arapahoe these are concerns of mine for for predominantly safety I don't feel safe driving home very often because people on 63rd must turn um to the left or to the right to the right if they have to go into Columbine otherwise they could use it as an emerging line to continue on out of Arapahoe it's very very dangerous it's also a lot of traffic so that's my point on that I am also concerned very much about living right across the street from where the constructions can be meaning open space my backyard butts up to that open space so the noise level

[172:00] will be there I'm very opposed to having the facility run on a Saturday that is my time that I can enjoy my home my peacefulness my neighborhood the sombrero Marsh being able to walk in open space and not having that noise resonating onto you know my Saturday weekend so that's all I have to say everybody else said everything wonderful for me thank you for your consideration thank you for serving Boulder City and I'd like it to be a Unity with this city of Boulder Boulder Valley School District Boulder housing Partners as well as Ridgely High originally high hills thank you thank you thank you Mary now if Scott Bachmann Ryan Collin Mohan almasa hello um so I'd like to thank the council for the opportunity to speak and I'd like to especially thank members of the council who have come out over the previous

[173:01] weeks to inspect the logistics of this project what you may not have seen or experienced is the sound in sight that this project would entail as Bill put it um the marsh and the open space are an Amphitheater all of our homes on the opposite side of this proposed Factory are actually above it and sound essentially travels unobstructed we appreciate that the proponents of the factory sent out notices to homeowners within 600 feet but honestly it wouldn't matter if the homes were within 600 feet or 2 000 feet the sound travels everyone is implicated as well as the fact that if you've looked at the site of the factory itself it is actually elevated um it will be above the marsh and basically in Clear Sight of everyone in the neighborhood like a ziggurat on the hill

[174:00] and so it's quite obstructive like others who have spoken I think I speak for my wife too that we do support the idea of the factory we support the spirit of collaboration between the city and the school district and Habitat for Humanity that's for a great cause but we do not support the location of the factory we've already heard a great deal of concern on legal grounds environmental grounds um the grounds of us as neighbors the factory could still serve its purpose even if it's moved just a short distance away just even across Arapahoe it could still serve as an educational facility it could still serve the less fortunate of the community who would receive these homes and we asked the council you know if not to reject this annexation to at least delay it and give strong consideration to nearby sites so that everyone can still win particularly

[175:01] you know the neighborhood thank you thank you Scott and I understand Ryan call is actually going to speak on the next public hearings so we have Mohan amasa Lynn siko and Chuck Hardesty Mohan your mic is open you'll just need to unmute claw can you hear me yes hello Mr Mayor and the council members uh thank you for letting me speak here my name is Mohan I live on the 1402 Meadowlark Drive just nearest uh to the factory I'm a proud ball right ball remains where nature and environment is valued a brand of trust and high standards and that's I speak of that to all my friends outside of Boulder anywhere in the

[176:01] country where quality of life matters I like to share a few thoughts about the factory building affordable homes is a great cause in fact the as a taxpayer I'm supportive of the 8.5 million dollars towards this project but we're trying to solve one problem by creating two other problems that makes no sense to me by harming the wildlife at some brighter Marsh but hurting the quality of life in the neighborhood area if I ever wanted to live next to Industrial Factory I would have moved to Commerce City there are plenty of factories why would I move to Boulder I feel this is betrayal of trust and morally unjustifiable we should not be treated as unworthy because you're trying to help homeless by putting this Factory in our backyard

[177:02] and hurting the quality of life here I kindly request moving the factory to out of the city where uh Less in into Interruption to the life life of the people as well as the nature with that I hope you you all are hearing the concerns expressed by our neighbors and seriously they consider uh making changes or moving the factory thank you for the opportunity thank you Mohan now we have Lynn Siegel Chuck Hardesty and Karen holweg this land can you hear me and tell me if there's any problem instantly thanks this land is a Playa geologic formation formed by wind and or land subsidence um Sombrero marsh and a factory should not be built anywhere around our open space some bro is the city of Boulder

[178:01] open space and I was very upset with the fact that I heard about this at planning board on in September 6th I think and open space Board of Trustees I went to a meeting last week and they hadn't even heard about this so this is an example of you know I follow these eight City boards it's horribly time consuming as you can possibly manage three of them conflict with each other so that's a problem but the city needs to integrate its different processes I thought it's great that now you're going to think of having a council member go also be involved with ex-officio being at the board meetings as well as different boards representing you know like planning board and landmarks board having people going between the two because the city's working against itself in so many ways

[179:00] they just don't know what one board's doing and how that's affecting another board planning board being of course the most significant but um I thought it was kind of ironic also that Jay segnet mentioned that you know and I love you know I followed Green Building for 30 years this is great you know modular housing is fabulous um but it was ironic that he said that in one of the solutions of manufactured housing is that you don't have a house you know you're not impacted next door when someone's building a house next door and you've got the cement trucks and you've got all the stuff there it's all done in a central place but then ironically it's impacting a Marshland a national margin you know I mean uh not National an Open Space City Marsh our public space as people have

[180:00] mentioned the public zoning this is what happens when you grow Bolder bigger than it's supposed to be grown I'm horrified that we approved CU South that was an underhanded uh under the table negotiation and agreement that should never have happened illegal it's blatantly illegal that it happened in the first place it's going to hugely impact growth and development in Boulder and cause more demand for more situations that we're in experiencing this evening so I say absolutely no to this location I love manufactured housing but certainly not here and certainly inform osbt before you make moves like this done now we have Chuck Hardesty Karen holweg and raviv Turner hello uh can you hear me and are my

[181:01] slides up yes and yes all right thank you Boulder County ordinance says its citizens require protection from excessive unnecessary and unreasonable noise the factory project has all three we will be inundated with the sounds of backup beeps dirt moving and pounding on the 35 foot high nearly football field size steel building for not just eight but 11 hours a day for most of next year this will be much worse than the kitchen construction we endured imagine the noise of thousands of large trucks for the residents of Columbine take a look at the slide here the mostly quiet area we have for daytime walks in our retirement and listening to bird songs has the potential to disappear forever the eight doors and four windows were recently shown facing us to the east will let out sound even if they are closed this configuration is much worse

[182:00] than the single north-south drive-through I heard earlier this will guarantee that we will hear saws and nail guns instead of birds the only question is how much overcode it might be especially when production is ramped up next slide please next slide please an acoustic engineer should have been hired first not last please ask Jay why he has refused request for this for a year he won't tell us it is because there will be too much noise or too many dollars to fix simple calculations show just one 100 decibel nail gun or saw with the door open is approximately the full 50 decibel periodic code limit in Meadowlark with 20 workers noise from many possible quieter tools still adds up why is keeping the openings closed in the FAQ but not in the draft IGA we will have no recourse if not written please ask why did staff who said this project

[183:02] was okay for open space in March know about the approximately 20 000 cubic yards to fill and thousands of big trucks on 63rd for most of the year did they say okay before the change from 65th to 63rd the FAQ portrays 12 to 15 houses as a minimal disruption per year increasing to 50 to 80 multiplies the noise and trucks to extreme disruption if this precedes at all especially with no more restrictions you are agreeing to majorly disrupt the neighborhood for most of the 2023 and forever to degrade our quality of life and home and improving Ponderosa is sacrificing Columbine the neighborhoods the open space and Marsh and students at the Nature Center who won't see any loyal Wildlife that has been scared away neither the neighborhood nor BF bvsd asked for this Factory that belongs in an industrial Zone please stop imposing

[184:01] Anonymous thanks for your time and consideration thank you Chuck now we have Karen holwig with Eve Turner and Harry Potter I'm Karen holwig and I'm here tonight as chair of the open space Board of Trustees to present a statement unanimously approved by osbt at a special meeting on November 14th the board would like to remind council members and the Boulder Valley School District of the value of some Borough Marsh and to underscore the requests the open space and Mountain Park staff made regarding this matter Sombrero Marsh is a unique and valuable Wetland both the Boulder Valley comp plan and the Boulder County comp plan clearly State the environmental significance of the marsh the city began acquiring the marsh and its surrounding wetlands in the 1990s and in 2005 city council designated

[185:03] Sombrero Marsh as a habitat Conservation Area Sombrero Marsh is a rare Alkali Marsh that supports a variety of microorganisms insects and Wildlife and is a vital part of the Rocky Mountain Flyway next Slide the city of Boulder has invested more than a million dollars in acquiring and restoring the marsh in essential parts of the small closed base and Watershed that supports the marsh run off from surrounding developments continues to compromise water quality and water quantity in the marsh and osmp actively manages the marsh to address this next slide natural areas like Sombrero Marsh have received more attention of light due to the well-established contribution these places make to the community's sustainability and resiliency in the face of changing climates and the need to sequester carbon and

[186:02] preserve biodiversity each year important educational opportunities are provided to thousands of Boulder school children and adults at Sombrero Marsh as a Cooperative effort by Boulder Valley School District Thorne ecological Institute and the open space and Mountain Parks Department next slide osbt supports osmp staff's previously submitted comments provided during the development review period there were four requests that prior to construction or reconstruction of any Structure Parking Lot or other Improvement on the bvsd site that one osmp staff will be consulted to mitigate lighting and noise impacts to Wildlife and resources on the adjacent March two that bvsdn8 or HHS will satisfy the recommendations outlined in the applicant's natural resource assessment dated October 15 2021 including

[187:02] consultations with U.S fish and wildlife service and three next slide please that bvsd paved this road extension from 63rd Street across the site to City standard including storm water control and otherwise improve the road as approved by the city and finally four provide additional information on the current and proposed future vehicular access and traffic flow around the site and propose changes to Historic drainage patterns to help staff better evaluate impacts and benefits to City interests thank you for your consideration of this matter thank you Karen appreciate that looks like we have a question for you from Bob Yates hey Karen thanks so much for that Karen do you mind if I ask you a couple questions foreign still with us

[188:04] sorry here we go Karen it's okay if I ask you a couple of questions sure uh first of all thank you so much for to you and for all the open space Board of Trustees for for putting together that letter and sending to council that was really really helpful um I wanted to address the third and fourth point in your letter um which I think both relate to the to the 63rd Street which we were talking about a little earlier and I suspect we'll be talking about born in a few minutes here if um if if the access the Angus and an egress access um to the factory for those small trucks a couple times a week in those big trucks a couple times a month was shifted from 63rd Street to 65th Street and that is away from the marsh would that start to satisfy um the third and fourth uh concern that the open space Board of Trustees raised in their letter uh we discussed that in in the board and

[189:00] um felt it was more appropriate for staff to be involved in the technical decisions about that uh which is what number three and four say as you know um so that's the best I can tell you but the the uh as you can see from that last Slide the location is you know very close between the fence that demarcs the northern boundary of the marsh and the road right and maybe I'll this is a better question to address to Dan Burke when we get him on here in a few minutes but I guess I'm asking for more of a sense of the board Karen um it sounds like the sense of the board on was that closeness of the 63rd Street Road to the marsh was of concern is it your sense based upon the discussions you've had with your colleagues on the open space board of trustee that um getting that front traffic off of 63rd and away from the marsh would be advantageous just from the board's

[190:00] perspective uh the board was split in their view of what we should ask as a board as opposed to what staff should negotiate okay thanks I'll save that for for staff when we get them on thanks Karen thanks thanks Karen for representing the board uh last two speakers are raviv Turner and Gary Pollard yes can you guys hear me yes um thanks for the opportunity to speak to the council members I think uh other people already addressed most of the points that I wanted to make my name is raviv Turner I'm a concerned resident at Ridge leels and while I support affordable housing modular arms and Habitat for Humanity I do not support the full-blown Factory at 6500 Arapahoe Avenue in the midst of Power Residential open space area with a really limited

[191:00] Community input other members already talked about it um we do have the right for peaceful enjoyment of our homes here at Ridgely Hills uh and are deeply concerned about various aspects of this project and lack of transparency uh specifically uh combine Mobile on Park residence on 63rd Street will be crashed with traffic traffic this was already mentioned lack of transparency and Community involvement in the factory side selection and planning process which goes against the BBC policy of community involvement in the decision making uh third is the impact of heavy traffic noise the new night lightning on the sombrero Marsh wildlife and open space which again goes against Boulder's poor environment policies um the ongoing heavy machinery noise plastic films vibrations new Paving and Lighting in the areas and the last concern around Factory operation on Saturdays and the previous days refusal to negotiate a good neighbor agreement um in addition I'd like to request that Boulder's noise ordinance 953 exceeding

[192:01] decibels some levels prohibited being forced if when the factory takes place here um I would also like to understand why the um recommendation by the Boulder County Planning Department from September 9th 2021 I didn't get included in this project and last I would like to request a traffic study be completed for the campus and for landscape barriers to be added thanks for the opportunity to address the council members tonight foreign ER can you hear me yes uh this is Kathy Taylor I'm speaking on behalf of Gary paler who's sitting here with me the plan for annexation in order to build the modular housing factory in east Boulder was Far Downstream before a few neighbors received a small postcard quite frankly speaking tonight feels futile the people behind this 8 million dollar Enterprise have the influence and a

[193:02] vested interest in its completion the impact on open space and the sombrero Marsh pollution traffic and noise are all obvious obstacles and have been previously mentioned but still in the already crowded Industrial and Commercial East Boulder area the factory will most likely be built we have lived on Meadowlark Drive for 32 years and it is personal for us we had hoped to live out our lives in our home without being squeezed out by dense industrial growth Boulder is an ever expanding City with exponential growth and no slowing down in sight as companies continue to expand into Colorado and especially Boulder it is astounding that the best place to build a factory manufacturing 50 to 80 homes a year would be on school property in a congested commercial area adjacent to a residential neighborhood many neighbors have done their homework our understanding is that there has been an ongoing lack of transparency and a

[194:02] conflict of interest on the part of the project managers please deny this annexation and encourage the factory proponents to continue their search for a suitable property away from a nature preserve and a residential neighborhood if the first five years are dedicated to refurbishing Ponderosa how much would it cost to purchase homes versus building the factory and who is going to enforce the truck volume also thank you so much to the council members or other council members for acknowledging the very close proximity to residential homes thank you so much please consider thanks very much for that and with that we're going to bring the public hearing to a close and I'm going to do a time check here with folks we've been sitting for a long time I'm going to propose that we ask any follow-up questions we have from the public hearing and then take a five minute break and then come back for deliberations does that work for folks

[195:02] some generally nodding heads say that one more time Erin say that we ask any follow-up questions we have from the public hearing followed by a five-minute break followed by Council deliberations generally Notting heads up Bob you got your hand up and then Genie yeah thanks Aaron I just have one follow-up question and then we can we can go to comments of the Break um and this is probably I don't know to Jay or to Kurt um you know we talked a little bit in our early questions before the public hearing about this access of the one or two small trucks a week in the the egress of one or two large trucks as they take the mobile homes out or modular homes out one or two trucks a month so it sounds like a pretty low volume we talked about the the debate between uh 63rd Street which of course is a long convoluted street that is next to the marsh and next to the mobile home park in 65th Street which at least on my Google Map is much much shorter route and it doesn't go by the marsh or the mobile home park um I heard what Glenn said as far as

[196:01] access to their their employee parking and so on and so forth but a couple trucks a week um doesn't seem like a much um so I guess that was a lead-up to a question to either Jay or or Kurt um do you guys have a view or a feeling on on on this on 65th Street versus 63rd Street as we're as we're trying to kind of uh talk a little bit about this we eventually we'll have a discussion with Glenn about this I know that that he has an input I kind of curious what our city staff says about that uh thanks Bob uh Kurt fernauer director of Housing and Human Services and uh Jay may have something to add as well I think from uh from the uh from the use of the factory perspective um it certainly makes sense to have that track traffic go up and down uh 65th um versus 63rd um as you mentioned the traffic um from the the truck traffic isn't

[197:00] significant in uh in volume um the individuals that will be working in the factory will be parking in the same parking lot that the students and staff uh Parkins I don't really think that's uh an issue and I haven't heard that as a concern either um uh I I my assumption is with the low volume of of trucks um My Hope Is that we would be able to figure out what those schedules look like of uh uh you know what the busy times of the day are that Glenn had mentioned and maybe uh you know coordinates around that but um it's been you know Glenn can speak for the school district but it's been their intent to try to keep truck truck traffic on one road and vehicular traffic on the other road so um that's uh that's where we are at this point I don't know Jay if you have anything to add from the from the staff

[198:00] perspective nope I don't that's fine and internet if you indulge me can I ask the same question of of um Dan Berk if he's available or somebody from the open space um staff I know Karen Helwig was quite gracious in deferring to staff so I'm gonna um pick her up on that Dan and if you would mind answering my question my early question about um just as Jay and and uh sounds like Jay and and um uh kurd said that they would be uh probably a little more happy with 65th Street than 63rd Street um because 63rd Street does go by the marsh do you have a preference yeah thanks Bob danberg director of the uh open space and Mountain Parks so our city staff uh uh did participate in offering comments and uh uh during the development review process to uh other City staff and yes the uh some of the traffic flow uh pattern on 63rd uh was definitely uh a point that we were re-raced that we would like to see addressed in some form or fashion and

[199:01] mainly Bob it was uh around a potential dust um that may be produced on that road based on uh traffic patterns I believe at the time that the staff uh provided input we didn't have a really good feel for what the traffic patterns would be uh uh as it turns out the traffic patterns are going to be fairly light during the operation uh we we weren't considering uh during the construction of the facility itself so our staff didn't weigh in on the first year of sort of building the facility uh so dust accumulation as well as storm water where they uh uh issues around the 63rd Street that we've raised and we provided such possible solutions as Paving or ensuring uh storm water conditions uh that may uh accumulate from uh from the road be be mitigated so those were our our concerns around 63rd Street um as it turns out the use of 63rd

[200:01] during the operations itself is is fairly light um uh uh uh so um but ideally uh there could be there could be improvements to 63rd Street that probably would address the osmp concerns but if if 65th was the access those improvements would might not be necessary uh uh I think that makes sense to say that yeah thanks Dan that's it for now thanks thanks Aaron Judy Ontario thank you I just have a question I was looking at I was hearing some of the comments made by at least one Community member about the environmental study and I saw that there's an environmental assessment on page 21 of um of the slide so I'm wondering is that

[201:00] not the same thing but it does um on the slide it said required action so it's it's not yet undertaken so I'm wondering just to be clear that is something that will be done yes uh thanks for the question so yes uh that was actually was done last year so it's a requirement for receiving any sort of federal funding and it's something we do typically very early in any sort of process so the the environmental impact statement that phase one was complete and has been approved by the state okay so that's already been done I think um yeah that question just came up earlier and also I'm very surprised that so many people spoke against

[202:01] this particular um issue tonight and I hear there has been some Community engagement done but nonetheless my question to you is is this going to be ongoing and continuous and also um how much weight did you give to community feedback yeah I I can try to answer that as best I can um you know we have heard the concerns uh for quite some time and it was taken into consideration in the design of the building for example um all the HVAC equipment is on the north side of the building so all those fans that that um what will make noise to heat and cool the building those are away from the neighborhood um we have designed the building like I said to avoid the use of backup alarms

[203:03] um we have tried to ensure that it wouldn't be visual clutter so we uh basically said we're not going to store any materials on the outside of the building everything is done inside um the you know initially we were going to build a simple metal building but I think we wanted to uh respect the potential impacts of the noise operations on the marsh as well as the neighbors um and that's when we switched it shifted to a net zero approach so I and I would just say in terms of ongoing um as I've said before and as we've communicated with the neighbors we do want to be a good neighbor and I think the school district has really stepped up too at the August September 29th meeting Rob Price who's the superintendent uh game of operations he came to the meeting and you know he basically was addressing neighbor concerns that they've been raising honestly for years about backup alarms

[204:01] trash pickup during very early hours of the morning so I think that the the relationship has improved it may not be to the level that will satisfy the neighbors but like I've said we've committed to being a good neighbor thank you and also it's so interesting to me I was looking at attachment k it seemed to me even with I mean the comment made by Bob and if we decide to move forward with this particular agreement and annexation it seemed the rules are very very restrictive or at least the way I read it um of what bvsd is willing to do and not willing to do even uh it seemed to me I mean we're talking about Improvement to traffic and it doesn't seem to me based on my

[205:00] reading other people could read it differently that there's much that they're willing to um to give in to that so I'm just very surprised by that as well to me um because again there are people in the community who are concerned and the idea and the hope would be that um they would be willing to make some changes so I'm wondering I'm just wondering um at least how how does the city intends to engage that process in a way that if there is more feedback um that we give that you know bvsd would be willing to I suppose take on those feedback but from my reading they're not it doesn't seem that way was was there a question there Jenny to

[206:01] the staff member yes yes I I mentioned I feel I thought that's from my reading of the uh attachment K that bvsd is very um and the language it seems that they're they're not in any required District Improvement or dedication concerning access to from 63 along sombrero um they're saying that basically they will not accept certain changes um because they've already looked at uh different entrances and access so if they're not willing to take on at least I want to know what will the city do in in a in their engagement with BTSD to ensure that some of the community feedback that we're given that they will take them knowing that in this document they are saying that they're not necessarily willing to take any more feedback yeah

[207:01] staff number one take a crack at the answering that I know Teresa so um I see Glenn popped up as well and I want to invite I want to make sure Glenn has an opportunity to speak to this um and then I would invite hella penawig from my office uh to it to address this as well in the course of our negotiations and what further negotiations might look like without trying to run the meeting mayor right so Glenn if you want to uh your an opportunity you've been offered okay sure I can take a shot at that yeah um the negotiations how long did those go on um hello do you know a year uh from when we started at least so you know the one of the major considerations the school district had was of course our sovereignty uh under State Powers um and maintaining our uh those powers are those rights that have been granted

[208:01] to us by the state um and also interruptions to the um operations on our campus so again coming off of 65th you know we have a lot of families accessing that we have a lot of public uh one of the reasons we rebuilt the Ed Center that we have now was was for Public Access because our old building was very poor in that regard uh so you know we have high school kids coming in and out of there and that's why we generally try to Route especially during Prime hours and people are coming to and from the sites uh through that back road um so that is I can say that that is a major consideration of ours it doesn't mean that we're not willing to talk about how we can do some things a little differently and tweak it so that we can minimize those impacts but it is going to be hard to open up that 65th route in its entirety uh at

[209:00] all times given that public need that we have at that site hello did you want to call on to that yeah I can I can speak a little bit about the negotiations and Juni you're correct you read those comments correctly the negotiations I found them difficult um that they were a little bit different than in other annexation agreements that we typically see because there were different motivations on the parties typically when we have an annexing applicant they seek additional development potential under CD zoning or seek city services like water and sanitary sewer the district is not seeking those things so the timing of this annexation moving forward right now is mostly driven by the desire to establish the modular how the housing Factory here and as you can see City

[210:00] staff was Desiring some additional conditions in the annexation agreement that the city that the district was not willing to agree to um so the agreement that you have in front of you now is the compromise between the position of the city staff and the district and if if you would like to see additional requirements and and that were not previously addressed that staff may have proposed then then I would recommend that those tried to be incorporated into the agreements and go back to the district and and discuss them thank you very good can you use that answer your question it does thank you so much I was just looking at the language and the annexation and it it just says so much it's so restrictive and I just don't see how Community feedback will be

[211:00] incorporated in the future because of the language and you mentioned okay do how how do we go back or whether there is an opportunity to go back um to the drawing board at least have these communications yes but that would have to mean that the language for instance I'm looking at the miscellaneous where it says that the district takes exception to any listed conditions that states the annexation agreement will require again all these type of languages are restrictive even though at the end it says that hopefully this is going to be a collaborative effort uh to protect public health safety and the welfare of community and also ensuring the mission of bvsd so I understand that but at the same token is how do we ensure that our community is if we're moving forward tonight that at least community is heard as part of this process

[212:02] so that's my thought and yeah for now thank you we can address that in in our discussions right so that's and I will note that the attachment K from bbsd was from um over a year ago and a lot of negotiations have happened since then so those were not their final words on the subject but but your points are well taken um Teresa and and I guess part of what I want to highlight here and and how I invite you to um to contribute and Glenn said this bvsd is a sovereign state entity and so they don't have to give anything right and so so we're we're coming to the tables as as equals in many respects um and so I think it's important context to think about when we when we think about like we can come forward with our community desires and wants and concerns and and our list of wants

[213:03] um and we also have to understand the negotiating position that that's what I would offer thanks for that Teresa I'm hoping we're done with questions here in a minute uh we need to do a time check and and get a break here but if we have a couple more Sarah yes I have questions only questions right now promise so my first question is probably for Jay Jay how come there were some very interesting comments coming from the neighborhoods and I'm wondering why we would wait to have that acoustic engineer come after the fact rather than now I don't I don't know that I understand I guess to follow that up with let's say that the acoustic engineer comes after the fact that says wow this is loud then what happens do we we just say thanks

[214:01] for your input or do we have a plan for what to do if it's too loud and also have you considered uh trees planted to absorb some of the sand or some other noise mitigation factors like that other people uh from the neighborhoods have mentioned or do you are you going to wait to see if there's even a reason to do that and let's say that we find out there is a reason to do some noise mitigation um is that gonna what is the enforcement mechanism or do we just say we'll try our best so I guess when it comes to noise mitigation the neighborhood would probably feel better if we said if it if there is if there is a problem with noise we are going to do something about it and then my last question is is have you considered not opening the factory on Saturday that's all my questions

[215:02] okay I think I I got all that I had to take notes um so back to the acoustical engineer um so since the September 29th meeting I think it was loud and clear from listening to the community that that was extremely important to them um we began immediately to try to identify acoustical engineers we have um unfortunately they're extremely busy right now so I've only received one proposal and I'm waiting on the second proposal but the idea is that we would have that um study done before we finalized the design of the building uh and so there are things that we can do um it you know and I think the neighbors have pointed out a metal building with installation doesn't necessarily equate with the sound barrier um but a lot of it depends on what type of equipment is being used in the factory so say a nail gun probably one

[216:00] of the louder things um theoretically we could switch from pneumatic to battery operated which would be significantly quieter so there are operational things that are designed things that we could change um to basically understand how we can reduce the potential noise impacts um the the trees that question so just to be clear trees do not do anything for noise um but it is visual um and we did discuss this with parks and open space uh since this is a grassland trees aren't necessarily appropriate on the grasslands but um bvsd has expressed the willingness to plant trees on their side of the property line as a visual barrier as long as it doesn't again interfere with their ongoing operations so we'll continue to explore that um and then the enforcement so basically we have

[217:00] committed to um following both city and county noise regulations um so and others can talk more about how that works but the you know basically we've made that commitment and um the neighbors will be able to call us on it um and then finally not opening on Saturday um so I think habitat could probably better answer this question but um Saturdays is is a really important volunteer day um of course habitat doesn't work out doesn't have operations on Sunday but um so that's why it's Tuesday through Saturday and if you want more detail I'm sure Susan would be more than happy to elaborate does that answer all your questions it does and I do want to apologize for being blunt you know my blunt mannerism because thank you for not taking me in a bad way okay Lauren thank you I just had two um my first is

[218:02] and maybe this was in the packet I apologize it was a big packet this week um I was wondering if I could get a little bit more detail about the community engagement and Outreach that was done specifically for the Columbine Mobile Home Park what's up Mom do you want to start and then I can follow because there's two different pieces we did notice for um the annexation process but then housing and Human Services also did uh notice for the uh in a separate Community engagement for the modular Factory and did you get very much feedback through that process either of those no um I don't think we received any feedback um when the public notification was sent out for the application back in 2021

[219:00] okay thank you but um I can talk more about what we I mean what we heard so we um for the modular Factory we have held that public meeting uh September 29th at the bbdf bvsd campus we did send out notice we did beyond the 600 minimum we did to a thousand feet of the property and that did include every resident of the Columbine Mobile Home Park um and the notice did include the um in Spanish the option saying that translation services would be available at that meeting um so the meeting on the 29th I believe we have I want to I didn't count specifically but it was close to 30 people um and we spent about two and a half almost three hours um basically Fielding questions concerns um and then we went out um stop with the residents and we walked to where the factory was going to be

[220:01] um and continue to talk about it so um we did get quite a bit of feedback um you've gotten lots of emails um and like I've said we have made an effort to try to incorporate as much as we can there's a q a in your packet that tries to respond to those concerns um anyway hopefully that helps give you a flavor for what was done thank you um my other question was regarding exciting you mentioned that you know because there are converging power lines the building couldn't be moved any farther north but it looks like they're actually is a fair amount of space between the easements and the proposed building and it could be slid farther north just based on that single constraint and so I was wondering what other constraints might have come in to play um I we pushed our civil designer on

[221:03] this point specifically but it's not just where the easement is but it's also a step back from that easement so we're we're Within um inches actually of that easement so they're like I said there isn't really an option to move it any farther north okay thank you all right very good great questions I probably should have had a sticker or break before the questions uh but thanks for hanging in there everybody so we also need to do a time check uh so I think here's what I'm going to propose we should at least delay Bob in my update on sister city visits later on uh Bob Capri said that the um I think the couple other things under matters are probably time sensitive but let's see how long our discussion takes us I have um I have hopes is still doing the Disposable bag feed but it will depend on how long our conversation will happen so our folks do we want to try to get

[222:01] disposable bags done tonight or do we want to try to let those folks go home quick comments Nicole I was thinking yes I was just going to offer that I could do the Dr Cog update another night uh as well and that might let our transportation staff go to bed before we keep them up too late if we decide that I'll take that are we okay continuing on disposable bags Matt just in case it's worth for anybody paying attention isn't just worth noting that bvsd and Saint brain went on delayed starts so just for those with kids thank you for the public service announcement good to know I'm fine with pushing the uh plastic bag or back to a different day is that a question do you have an opinion on that well mostly a question and I'm just waiting I think for Jonathan to get promoted because I'm asking staff if there is any kind of time sensitivity I'm not aware of myself but

[223:01] um I just want to make sure that um that there's not I'm hearing that perhaps it's not ideal but as long as we get it done this year it would be preferable so okay all right and by the way you can promote Jonathan anytime if you want to marry it's within your discretion as the city manager uh Teresa oh you're muted excuse me okay um uh veronique fan game from my Offices here and uh would definitely understand the timeline of when we need to come into compliance as we have until the beginning of the year Bernie do we need to do this site let us know 30 days we have 30 days like it it takes 30 days for an ordinance to become law unless we do it on an emergency and Vero I'm sorry please go ahead yeah we wanted to get this started by uh

[224:01] an effective by January 2023 and we really need to communicate um to the businesses beforehand to make sure that there's an understanding in the community of what the obligations are um so our staff members think it's okay to push back to the next meeting but we can't really delay much longer than that well but the next meeting would be a study session so um December December 1st but it's already very cool that's right yeah I'm gonna say let's try to keep it on because I because the time sensitivity if and let's see how our discussions go are people okay with that given the time sensitivity all right I'm seeing on his heads let's go ahead let's take a six minute break let's get back here at 9 46 and see very soon thank you

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[230:23] foreign [Music] so I've just been informed that interpretation services are ending for the evening sorry my dog's caught in the background

[231:02] so it's ending before we're done deliberating I guess I'm not seems like maybe it should continue until the end of this entire item uh thank you Mary Mary Brackett um in conversation with our language Access program manager uh recommended that some of the deliberations I had uh may be able to be shared with Spanish-speaking community in a more condensed format um if there are people uh who are listening to Spanish tonight it seems like it might be helpful for them to hear it in real time do we know if anyone's currently choosing the Spanish option uh there is no one who is in the zoo meeting that has not spoken English or or written English so we do not believe there are Spanish speakers here this evening in that case or are we okay I'll just look to our staff leadership or we are right with that okay um we are mayor thank you

[232:01] okay then we'll interpretation services are done for the evening thanks very much to Elena for doing that for us tonight thank you um okay so deliberation time so I'm hoping we can be efficient in our discussions and what I would like to start off is by saying does anyone want to propose any amendments to the ordinances and agreements that are in front of us for discussion by Council so let's start there uh Bob I have a one word Amendment there's only one word two numbers actually one number on a change of three and well five and the IGA I'm just going to do this for the benefit of the lawyers section two subsection B sub subsection 12. and then below that g 2B 12 G the IGA

[233:02] my proposal is to change the number 63 as in 63rd Street to 65th as in 65th Street that's the only amendment I'm proposing I heard earlier Glenn's concerned about how long this AGA has been in negotiation we heard that a few weeks ago when this Council raised the concern about height limit and we were told it could never be done and uh lo and behold it got done in a few weeks which was great and I understand Glenn may or may not have authority to agree this change tonight and that's fine if he needs to go back and check with uh the superintendent or with the school uh board that's fine we can park this but that's the change that that would re that would be required to earn my vote to approve this I would not approve this with the 63rd Street access there's one or two small trucks a week one or two big trucks per month I'm very concerned

[234:02] about the impact on open space as the open space board and the open space director indicated um and I'm concerned about the mobile home park to the West Columbine Mobile Home Park and 65th Street is like a quarter of the distance um the 63rd Street transverses so I I get Glenn's concerned that we have uh car traffic for the high school and uh the bbsd employees it seems to me with one or two deliveries per week uh something can be worked out as far as deliveries at seven or eight o'clock in the morning or or other times a day it seems to me this is not an insurmountable problem and the impacts on open space and the impacts on the mobile home park are are potentially significant and so that would be the amendment that I would propose in the amendment that would be required in order for me to support this entire package thanks for that Bob did I hear that was that 12g was that the right subsection

[235:02] oh you're muted there uh you're muted Bob sorry 2B 2B 12g uh and for for those who are following along that's on page 58 our packet of the memo packet um the IGA and it's two or three pages into the IGA and it's 2B 12g changing 63rd Street to 65th Street and I think I'm not trying to play a lawyer here maybe Ella or Teresa could tell me if there's other changes are necessary but as far as I could tell that would be the only change necessary to affect the Ingress and egress in and out on 65th rather than 63rd great do you mind just reading that one subsection just so everybody knows exactly what we're talking about sure 2B 12g like just the contents of that subsection oh I did which oh the whole thing okay I got her in front of me actually I think hold on a second thank you for that Erin understanding your question so in 2b12g

[236:01] um it reads currently deliveries all materials in Supply deliveries to and from the factory along with trucks used to deliver completed units off-site shall Ingress and egress off of 63rd Street does the entire provision so I changed that to 65th Street very good so um maybe I could just uh check in with Council uh it's a it's a it's a concise proposal checking with Council to see how many people would be interested in pursuing this amendment just do a show of hands here uh we got that looks uh unanimous I believe so it looks like we're all interested in that so rather Bob I think I thought you summarized the issues at hand uh well so I don't know that we need to pile on on that and so maybe what I might ask is we'll first check with with hella if if or or Teresa if this is a legally admissible uh Amendment and then

[237:02] we could turn to the school board to hear their opinion to Glenn yeah it's um it's a negotiation it's a contract so you can certainly make that proposal and yeah I would recommend that you check in with Glenn and as you pointed out Bob the IGA does have to be approved by the school board and and it has not yet the annexation agreement has been approved by them but this agreement has not yet and if you want to make the whole package dependent on it then I would recommend to continue all of the Motions that you were supposed to consider today to the next meeting or I guess to a time when the school board would have had a chance to review The Proposal thanks Hela and so Glenn we're going to put you on the spot here uh to to ask um you know what what next steps would be to considering that proposed amendment on our part well the formal steps would be to

[238:02] um yeah first start with staff and and talk with them and um and then ultimately yeah I think amendments would have to get by the school board for ultimate approval um they are the final Authority on on that um I do have to say that access on 65th was one of the big issues for the school district early on and consistently um the school district um has held that we can't have that Interruption to our operations we are willing to commit Ron I shouldn't say not willing to commit but we're willing to look at it operationally I think there are things you can do I think as you suggested off hours Saturdays uh we may be able to come to some agreements on that at an operational level but I think in terms of having something in black and white that we have to do um I think is it's it's something that

[239:01] through the negotiation I think we're pretty consistent that we that the school district was not willing to accept that thanks and uh I'll just respond then I'll call on Jeannie so appreciate that explanation um but you know there could be a discussion of of operational aspects to that uh 65th Street access so um but I think we are very interested in it so uh junior then Lauren thank you uh I just kind of lost where I am because again this document is so big and I was looking at it as far as the traffic in the area and um maybe what I wanted to know as well which I'm not sure I saw in the packet or maybe I did and missed it as well is what are some of the drawbacks meaning between 63rd and 65th and I'm looking at

[240:01] it on the map as well um meaning what would be some of the challenges and do you think those challenges could be over came we overcome them and yes I think we have to look at every Avenue whether it's weekend hours um in the evening again I think community members have concerns and I want to know more about this and also we did hear a lot of community tonight um and um yeah I think part of it involved engaging more people as well I think as part of this process to ensure that we're not only hearing from one voice uh in one community thank you thanks Judy Lauren

[241:01] thank you um I just wanted to kind of share two thoughts on this I'm I understand the concern with having more impact on a egress and Ingress that's already highly utilized but if this site didn't have access to 63rd I don't think this is a conversation you know we wouldn't I doubt that there would be a question of whether or not this project gets built just because it only has access from 65th you know people build bigger things and Tighter more complicated areas all the time um but I understand that the school district has its own needs and desires Dan did mention that you know osmp's requirements were to upgrade 63rd Street

[242:02] and wow I think that I would prefer to see 65th utilized if the upgrades were made to 63rd to pave it and provide the storm sewer all that um to make it meet City standards I would be I would find that an acceptable solution as well okay thanks for that Lauren so um are there any other modifications that people would like to see to any of the agreements in front of us all right I'm not seeing any so I think what we have in front of us is a proposal then to uh I think what we would do would be to continue this item and send a request to the school district and the school board to take

[243:00] access off of 65th Street instead per Bob's requested Amendment and uh I'll wait to hear back from them in terms of the acceptability of that proposal and I guess we would have our negotiation team participate in this discussions I believe and Teresa maybe can clarify that and then I'll go to Genie yeah happy to Mayor so I typically under Robert's Rules you would continue to a date certain um and so I I invite Council to to think about a motion to continue to a date certain on this item does depend on the other party though so we can always continue to date certain again okay would um maybe the second business meeting in December would that perhaps be the time to do that to give enough time for a back and forth to be considered

[244:02] nobody's I apologize mayor I I guess I was waiting to see what the I don't know what the calendar of the school board is right and just to see if that seems like it would be timely but again to uh Teresa's point we can certainly come back at that day and say we've either come back or not or we've been able to negotiate or not we have to move for another one so that's can certainly be a a pin for an update um but I you know Glenn I I guess I defer to you on what the your calendar looks like if that's enough time I'm just I'm confirming right now I think we're second and fourth Tuesdays for the board but I do want to double check that yeah I just uh looks like the next meeting is um December 13th

[245:01] yeah it is um yeah it's typically second or um yeah the second and fourth Tuesdays uh but I I don't think we're meeting on the 27th I want to give Junior a chance to speak here she's got her hand up and then just a point of clarification thank you so much I think there's more than one proposal actually on the floor sorry I don't know what's going on outside um Lauren's proposal was also if the school district was willing to make some modification and I won't I don't want to speak for her but that was one proposal that she brought forward as well so if ultimately the the the school district is not willing to go with Bob's proposal is Lauren's proposal a proposal that

[246:02] they would be willing to go with Lauren were you putting that forward as uh I have an alternate point of negotiations yeah I get I guess I just wouldn't want this whole deal to break down over one thing and I can see there being two different ways to solve the problem and while I do agree that the 65th option is in my opinion better from City in the community standpoint I would be open to the other option as well Matt since we're throwing out what are the desirable options I I think the lowest for me is is 63rd so I'm going to stick with where Bob's at but but for a place of perhaps middle is uh repurposing the

[247:03] inlet on the west side of the education center East side of charm that just runs a straight shot at parallel 65th but when you look at it is is low traffic low impact on parking and really subverts the impacts on Columbine subverts the impacts over on Sombrero Marsh so if somehow 65th is just Untouchable I would really prefer another on-site mechanism for Ingress egress that still does not touch 63rd I think that is the least desirable uh option here it is concerning that the site is deferring its impacts onto our housing and our open space and not taking the impacts internally to itself so um I think that's the most appropriate or is one of those two options okay so that's that's a possible alternative there so what

[248:01] here's what I might propose is to say that um I think we have a strong interest in seeing the access taken at 65th Street and maybe there is a willingness to talk about operating characteristics of that maybe maybe we don't put trucks through there for example on exactly the time that people are arriving in the morning you know that that might be one you know concession or something like that I I might suggest that we we say okay we're willing to talk about Alternatives 65th Street is a strong desire and we would if that's if there's some issues with sometimes a day maybe that could be explored before laying out a menu of three or four different options what do folks think about that getting like two subtly nodding heads um yeah I mean you know we're sending feedback back for to for things to be negotiated

[249:00] on right so this is not a motion per se right so we we don't have to make a motion on the exact thing but if people want to add additional things they'd like to see included in the negotiations maybe speak now but I'm gonna I'm gonna leave that there for now as a potential summary on the other hands okay all right so Theresa do we need like five separate motions to continue this thing or or can we just have one motion to continue to evade certain um let me just take a peek at my agenda so I believe if you wanted to make a motion to continue item 5A in its entirety that would be sufficient okay and then since we could recontinue this at any time I'm going to suggest that we continue to December 15th which does give the school board time to me and if they need additional time we can defer it further but let's let's plant that flag and hopefully our negotiations can be successful by them

[250:00] well I'll make the motion I move that we defer the public hearing under five a to uh December 15. second very good all in favor show of hands for continuation that's unanimous there we go okay well uh Glenn thank you for sticking it out with us um and well of course we're not 100 in agreement right this minute we continue to Value the collaboration between our organizations and hopefully our our teams can get down and resolve this last uh point and we can bring this to successful conclusion thanks very much thank you okay closing out that one and I I think we got time for our disposable bags yeah let's press onward excellent I think uh oh did you need to say something in the show Alicia yeah

[251:01] just need to read it into the record yep uh next item is item 5B on tonight's uh agenda under the public hearings it's the second reading and consideration of emotion to adopt ordinance 8559 I'm ending section 3-2-6 exempt property and services and chapter 6-15 disposable bag fee BRC 1981 exempting the Disposable bag fee from the city's sales and use tax and aligning the carryout bag fee with Colorado law and setting forth related details thank you I'll send it straight to Jonathan great thank you neria Alicia you're so good at that um good evening mayor council I'm Jonathan Cohen with climate initiatives so uh given the late hour I'm gonna give a really brief intro and then do a quick handoff to Jamie Harkins who's going to give in who's going to give tonight's presentation um I did think that it might be useful for those watching at home to give a bit

[252:00] of a high level overview of why we're here um though we don't plan on going through all the details we did with Council when we first discussed this item with you all on August 18th so really at a high level we've been discussing the necessity of of updating our City's disposable bag fee to be compliant with the recently passed plastic pollution reduction act so you might recall the Colorado Colorado legislature recently adopted the bill for the purpose of reducing single-use plastic pollution in the state of Colorado so the new law has four main components which Jamie is going to talk about in more detail but tonight's ordinance and hearing deals specifically with the first provision of the bill which sets a 10 cent bag fee at large retail stores Statewide which takes effect January 1st of next year and that's why we were a little bit urgent about trying to get this done tonight so the second reading of the ordinance um that's necessary to bring our code into alignment with the applicant

[253:01] upcoming state law really uh relates to the Disposable bag portion so Jamie's going to walk through staff's proposed language changes that were shaped by Council feedback at your August 18th meeting and and lastly I just wanted to mention that there was a lot of interest from a few council members in August to talk about the broader issue of single-use plastics and I just wanted to assure counsel and the community this is a high priority for the staff team and we do plan on coming back to Council in 2023 on other Alternatives so we look forward to hearing council's comments and any additional feedback from the community during tonight's public like hearing So Jamie take it away thank you so much let me one second share my screen here hey can uh you confirm that you're seeing my slide all right thank you so much all right thank you Jonathan and good evening

[254:00] mayor and Council okay Jim I just want to mention that you're uh yeah I think your note slides are on too hold on we don't want that I practiced this earlier I think I shared the wrong one hold on how about that yeah we're good thanks all right please interrupt me if it switches again all right so as Jonathan mentioned this item is the second reading of the proposed ordinance 8559 which makes changes to the Disposable bag fee uh to align it with the state's plastic pollution reduction Act so as a reminder Boulder's disposable bag fee became effective July 1st 2013 so we're coming up on 10 years now and it is a 10 cent fee on all plastic and paper carryout bags at all food stores regardless of size which is currently

[255:00] about 33 stores retain four cents of that fee and they remit the other six cents to the city and then um to provide another overview I know we talked about it August feels like a long time you know since then but the state's plastic pollution reduction act or the ppra was adopted in 2021 and as Jonathan mentioned it does have four Provisions the first to take effect is this Statewide bag fee and it begins January 1st 2023. the fee is a policy floor or a minimum and cities May impose bag fees in a broader way or at a higher level if they choose to do so the amount is the amount of the fee and the split in the state law is exactly the same as Boulders current bag fee program the main difference which we talked about previously is this small store exemption that is in the plastic

[256:00] pollution reduction Act and this exemption is really more of an independently owned store exemption in order to qualify a store has to meet all three of these criteria to be exempt so they have to operate solely in Colorado have three or fewer locations and they cannot be a part of a franchise or Corporation or partnership that has a physical location outside of Colorado so if they meet all three of those they they qual they fall into that definition in the state um as a small store so the example I gave at your August 18th meeting for why this exemption is complicated is that a store like McGuckin's Hardware which is a larger store that appears to meet this these criteria would be exempt while smaller stores like Pharmaca are part of a larger Corporation and would not be exempt even though they use fewer bags the um this exemption just introduces a lot of inconsistency and confusion among consumers about where they'll encounter

[257:01] a bag fee and where they will not so as a summary Boulder's fee applies that all food stores regardless of size so it is currently collected at some very small stores and the ppra's minimum bag fee applies to all stores that do not qualify for that exemption and this inconsistency is the inconsistency is the exact reason we had to open this code back up and make adjustments to our disposable bag fee so the city has about 100 to 150 stores that we estimate do not meet this exemption so Home Depot Nordstrom stores like that because they are not food stores okay so as I said this inconsistency is why we're coming back this evening and at your August 18th meaning Council supported the staff recommendation to

[258:01] align the two policies by adding all of these large stores covered by the state law into our bag fee program on January 1st 2023 since that is what is required by state law they have to do that regardless and then to trans transition our fee to Citywide covering all stores at a later date to allow for more implementation time so tonight you're considering proposed ordinance 8559 which would accomplish this goal I'll review at a high level the changes that we're making in this ordinance so first up it amends chapter 326 clarifying that the whole disposable bag fee is exempt from sales tax this is just a clarification it's not a change to anything that we've been doing and the rest of the ordinance amends chapter 615 and it includes updates and additions to the definitions that's probably the meatiest of the Amendments you see in the ordinance uh in order to

[259:01] align all of our definitions with the ppra and then a reference to the state's single-use plastic bag ban was added to our ordinance and this was because we wanted to clarify the intent of our fee after that January 2024 date as class some plastic bags at the large stores are phased out we wanted to explain you know that they should keep collecting the Fiona their bags so we did add that reference the proposed ordinance also amends the allowed uses of the fee Revenue remitted to the city since the ppra does allow broader uses of that Revenue than we had in our code it does allow it's still waste reduction but it does allow us to use it for General waste reduction education and programs and then finally the ordinance amends what I talked about earlier the applicable stores to reflect that stores who are not small

[260:00] stores should begin it's very confusing this ordinance I want to recognize that for y'all and um so any stores that are not small stores should begin collecting the bag fee January 1st 2023. and then the remainder of the stores have until January 1st 2024 to begin collecting the fee so this date was proposed in this ordinance to give smaller stores a large lead in time as well as to give staff additional time to support them in the implementation process it also was a date that our finance department suggested in that it aligns with the business renewal um business license renewal process so we'll just make all of our lives on the city side a little easier with communicating with businesses because this is a lot of stores you know I think we estimated it somewhere up to a thousand so by aligning those dates it makes the process a lot more streamlined to bring them into the program

[261:00] so this approach will result in a bag fee that is consistent across the city easy for consumers to anticipate and it is in line with programs in neighboring cities such as Louisville Denver and Netherlands all of their bag fee programs are Citywide all stores so I also wanted to quickly highlight a few things that we discussed on August 18th that have not changed in this proposed ordinance the 60 40 split between the city and the stores does remain the same in this ordinance um really in recognition of the positive benefits bag fee Revenue can have in our community compared to being retained by mostly large corporations the majority of the bag fee is kept by you know very large larger stores and so we did think there was more of a community benefit to having that money come into the City and spent on the community and then the fee level also remains at 10 cents in this ordinance

[262:00] staff was asked by Council to look at the prevalence of bag fees at levels higher than 10 cents as well as in an ideal level if you will for a bag fee to impact Behavior so I did some research and what is available out there really shows that most back fees around the globe are at that 10 cent or lower level and that those levels do show very significant reductions in bad use so it's just very clear that the fee level alone is not the only factor that impacts consumer decisions and another factor that came up in this research was the stalience of a tax or a fee excuse me and that means how visible or transparent um a tax or a fee is is to the consumer when they're making those decisions and staff feels that the prevalence of this fee now becoming Statewide rather than just a handful of our communities along

[263:01] with the education efforts that I know so many cities are about to embark on because we are trying to coordinate those efforts and get consistent messaging out there so all of that together we do feel greatly increased the salience of this fee and really further reduce bag usage and so because of those reasons um we are leaving the feed proposing to leave it at 10 cents and we did put in the memo though that staff will look at this annually we'll evaluate how the fee is going and see how um the pro is progressing and if we deem it appropriate we may propose future fee increases as part of your Annual fees ordinance as part of the budget cycle so you would see that and consider that in future years finally I did want to provide some additional information related to the implementation costs for the smaller stores I did talk to a few store owners who expressed that there would be little to no cost to add the bag fee into their

[264:02] system the actual nuts and bolts of collecting and in their computers they said the only real cost they could see is the additional administrative costs of course for their accountant to track and remit the fee to the city the retained portion of the bag fee was all always designed to provide an offset to this cost and I did look at um recent Revenue we've gotten in by store and took a look at what stores are retaining um out of the the group of smaller food stores that we have in the fee program right now and I would say based on their size it varies greatly but they are retaining anywhere from at the very low end twenty dollars a quarter up to about six hundred dollars a quarter that smaller store size and so really it depends how many obviously how big their bags are how many they use but that um that retained portion is meant to offset that administrative cost and I did put in here on the slide a picture of our

[265:02] sample return form just so you can see it's very very simple we don't ask them to track plastic versus paper it's just gross number of bags and there's uh no other tracking necessary and finally we are uh very open to using existing bag fee Revenue that we have um in our account to provide additional support next year with any other costs that arise with training anything that you know we could do small grants some way to really um in addition to our advisors really help offset any any implementation costs that arise so our next step should Council move forward forward with this proposed ordinance tonight is to um communicate the back fee changes to businesses which will include updated science training materials and other resources we are getting them all loaded up on the dedicated web page uh we'll also be continuing to distribute reusable bags

[266:00] through our partners and to the community as well as educating the community about the bag fee and of course those additional provisions of the ppra that take effect in 2024. we'll also be exploring the financial assistance I just mentioned as well as bag lending programs and other incentives that Council was interested in at our office at your August 18th meeting so I do have motion language here um but of course we are here in veronique Van game who is the City attorney then worked on this with me is here to answer any specific questions you have about ordinance language or the program or anything else so I will stop sharing for now thanks so much for that Jamie really appreciate the presentation and the concise summary of what we're considering tonight I've got Theresa up so I'm very happy to introduce Council to veronique Van geem in my office it's

[267:00] her first time before Council she has done an excellent job advising climate initiatives all around and particularly on this backfeed ordinance and so I just I want you to welcome her and you know I tell you to take it easy but she listen she can stand Toe to Toe with you so there we go thanks Teresa veronique we're so glad to have you welcome to the team and welcome to your first council meeting I wish I could tell you this will be the last time that you'll be in a council meeting after 10 o'clock at night but I cannot promise that so hopefully you don't mind too much great so uh questions for City staff before we go to the public hearing we've got Matt uh yeah thanks Aaron and veronique welcome uh yeah it's a good way to get indoctrinated into the business by uh having a late meeting sort of par for the course um my my question centers around uh and Jamie you mentioned a few different numbers for stores and I was trying to parse out which one so I'll try to make

[268:01] how many stores do you estimate would be considered exempt and so how many are we actually folding in to this new ordinance that would otherwise be sort of in that exempt stage you mentioned mcguckins as an example are we talking two or three or or more I'm just sort of curious of the magnitude of what's going to get folded in yes um I'm just looking to see my last packet I I think I remember it um really this estimate um council member is based on me coming through a spreadsheet and what I know about stores in Boulder or not um and we think about 100 to 150 have to start January 1st in the state law and we do think the remaining stores we would be bringing in are anywhere from like 800 to like 900 smaller stores all right so that was that roughly a thousand you mentioned earlier so I just need to keep up so it's late but thanks for clarifying for me all right I am seeing no one else with

[269:02] their hands up in which case we can go to the public hearing and I think we've had our uh decorum rules twice today so probably don't need to do that again and so I'm just bringing up the uh the list of people who are signed up got it we've got three um so we have Lynn Siegel Maxwell Gulliver and Ryan call everyone will have three minutes to speak we can get started with Lynn I support uh bag fee of a minimum of two or three bucks a bag this is ridiculous I don't care what other states are doing what other cities are doing that's the cost of plastic in the environment

[270:00] and let me tell you the problem here is you're directed at the wrong thing entirely this is not off topic 770 Circle and a state of 8 000 square feet was approved for demolition with the landmark's design Review Committee built up Flagstone fireproof on the open space at Baseline and Flagstaff just north and just east of that intersection adjacent to two other historic homes so there's also the about that's off topic a little bit two other historic homes that are very related to it intimately and this was demolished without any oversight with an unrecorded ldrc it cannot be

[271:01] the landmarks board has authority over the city council and it never went to Jonathan Cohen or Jamie Harkins or anyone with sustainability this house is being demolished it's obscene that Boulder is allowing something like that and that's a whole hell of a lot more than a bunch of plastic bags at 10 cents a bag so that's where you need to have your eye on the pie for carbon footprint right carbon footprint let's let's expand our view a little bit plastic bags or Flagstone a flagstone Fortress being carried off into the landfill all of the truck trips that that's going to take and building a new house for someone who from England who bought it

[272:01] as a second home they're going to demo it and build a second home stunning stunning indictment of Boulder policy stunning indictment of city council to allow this to happen in Boulder unacceptable unbelievable especially considering that one of those three houses that it's it's part of the Triad a professor I mean not a professor but a worker at NBS worked on the Saturn V and there were many reasons to preserve that house but the first one is carbon footprint done now we have Max volgulver and Ryan call thank you I just want to make sure you

[273:01] can hear me and then I'll proceed yes thank you my name is Max Gulliver I live on 48th and Arapahoe here in Boulder I was born and raised here and I've been privileged to call Boulder home for all of my nearly 32 years of life I'm also speaking to you tonight as an ecocycle Community Eco leader I've worked in many sectors including restaurants Agriculture and Retail and I have both bachelor's and master's degree from CU Boulder I care deeply about the city of Boulder and the communities and ecosystems within this issue is important to me personally because I always hope to help my hometown to maintain its beauty and to improve the quality of life for current residents as well as future Generations Fuller has already enacted a plastic bag fee since 2012 which is now 10 years there's no reason we shouldn't be forging ahead to continue being a leader in the state when it comes to Plastics like regulation and legislation we simply cannot do enough too early best time to act was yesterday the second best is

[274:00] today especially when it comes to materials like Plastics which will long outlive any and all of us now more than ever we have to implement systemic change to turn off the faucet and the stem the flow of plastic conduct consumption this blush especially of unnecessarily unnecessary plastic items like single-use bags these items are just used for a few minutes and then contaminate our water soil and food for decades we cannot wait the plastic pollution crisis is only getting worse plastic production is predicted to quadruple in the next 30 Years which if that continues we will have more Plastics in the Ocean than fish by weight I hope to one day show my children the beauty of my hometown of Boulder Colorado and proudly point out that when it was most crucial we chose to go beyond simply keeping up with Statewide standards and instead lead the way in striving towards a cleaner and brighter future please vote Yes on this ordinance 8559 nothing we use one should pollute our community for hundreds of years

[275:00] thank you Max last speaker is Ryan call all right can you all hear me all right yes great good evening city council my name is Ryan Carl and I have the privilege of representing Eco cycle tonight Eco cycle strongly supports ordinance 8559 which will create a more consistent bag fee across Boulder every day my colleagues and I abdicate for the reduction of single-use plastics we spend a lot of energy dealing with and thinking about single-use plastic bags in particular if you stop by the Boulder County Recycling Center sometime you'll see why not only do signal use plastic bags disrupt Recycling and composting systems but they are also the most commonly found item in litter pickup events along Colorado's waterways nothing we use for just a few minutes should pollute our environment for years and years the best way to address the plastic pollution crisis is by reducing Plastics

[276:01] in the first place expanding Boulder's bag feed to include all businesses creates an incentive to skip plastic bags city-wide now I could spend all night talking about the issues with single-use plastics and why we should reduce them that'll sum them up in just a few words litter microplastics fossil fuels toxic chemicals plastic waste is a systemic issue and ordinance 8559 is a systemic solution this ordinance goes beyond the state level law the plastic pollution and reduction act which goes into effect next year it's important to note that this ordinance phases in small stores and gives them a year to learn about the program train employees and Implement a fee collection system the city of Boulder is unquestionably a leader in zero waste efforts and once again has an opportunity to be a model for communities across Colorado that want to reduce single-use Plastics when the 10 cent fee was first passed in 2012 the city saw a 68 reduction in the

[277:03] use of plastic bags by passing ordinance 8559 how many more single-use plastic bags can the city of Boulder reduce I wish you all a Happy Colorado recycles week and you know who to call if you have any questions about waste related issues thank you all for considering my perspective thank you Ryan for your testimony for sticking out with us tonight all right uh ends the public hearings I'll bring it back to council for discussion we'd like to kick us off come on folks we've got some energy left in you Matt and Nicole not from a lack of being late but this is awesome this is this is the right thing to do it was well thought to close the loophole and bring us all into some level of consistency and to stay true with our values on our climate goals and and trying to reduce plastic waste so

[278:00] it's just kind of like yes yes and yes all around um so yes we like to add comments but it's kind of also just a no-brainer to say let's pass move on and you uh Jamie and Jonathan Pat yourselves on the back because you did a great job and this is a good easy lift so thank you guys for the hard work to get that done you're here Nicole yep don't have much to add I was gonna say some similar things just to thank you this was kind of a complex puzzle to put together and you know just wanted to notice that and thank you for all your work to get it done I'm good uh anyone want to make a motion as well as positive comments Lauren I was just gonna make a motion can I make a motion to adopt ordinance 8559 amending section 3-2-6 exempt property and services and chapter 6-15 disposable bags fee BRC exempting the Disposable bag fee

[279:02] from the city's sales and use tax and aligning the carryout bag fee with Colorado law and setting forth related details a second very good except that point Lauren you phrased it as a question I think I would like to it's like Jeopardy we're not on Jeopardy here all right uh motion a second any other uh follow-up things I'll just call on myself here and just Echo the the thanks on a job extremely well done I appreciate the analysis and taking this positive step forward to get us away from the Disposable plastic and other bags and then just my one thing is to say I look forward to your reevaluation of it in coming years to see whether the fee perhaps should be higher so look forward to keeping an eye on that all right uh we can now call for a vote we've got leash I lost track what kind of vote are we taking here we're doing a roll call Sir all right okay great we'll

[280:00] start this roll call with council member Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes councilmember Folkers yes Joseph yes spear yes Winer definitely yes and Yates yes ordinance 8559 is hereby adopted unanimously oh that was a squeaker well I'm just glad we we didn't throw this item away tonight and instead continue uh to make it happen so thanks so much for staying with us tonight great thanks so much Council really appreciate it very good um so we made up a little bit of time I I mean Nicole do you want to just go ahead and give a quick update on Dr COG um I can accept that uh Transportation staff went to bed and so if there are any questions I may

[281:01] miss that um also it is something that would be nice to have everybody here um so you know folks are are up for doing it another time that would allow us to have transportation staff who are experts and sounds good and I see Teresa raised her hand we gotta continue the meeting okay so we're very close to the end of the meeting that's right so if you want to take up another item it would require a two-thirds vote all we're doing is volunteering for the library district thing which is time sensitive so if I could maybe get a quick quick vote on continuing for one more item one more item only promise US yes uh okay can I introduce the item the so um so our last item here since we're not doing the sister city update is a discussion on Council appointments to

[282:00] the library district trustee selection committee so this is going to be two council members and two County Commissioners who are going to come together to um to review and appoint the first set of Library District trustees and this is going to be operating on a pretty quick timetable I I hear that the first deployments need to make be made pretty quickly this will be a fairly substantial time commitment um and so if we have uh whoever volunteers tonight with just two were set um but we will Point them formally on December the December 1st meeting and consent and I'll just call for for volunteers you know I'm gonna I've got uh Matt Nicole and myself good morning Matt let me just say oh I I was virtually saying I'm interested uh hence my virtual hand um I don't know if there's anything you

[283:00] said yeah I mean I've been a supporter of the library's Library District the formation and I think this is a great opportunity but um happy to do it I think uh all the forehands here are all equally awesome and qualified to do a great job in appointing it I think it'll be hopefully we can from uh Library commission and keep it rather simple and go forth so I think we're in good hands either way okay real quick Nicole Lauren yeah I was just going to say what I would be honored to do it um I love our libraries they have a very very special place in my heart um and been kind of following the district for a bit um and also you know Aaron I know you said the timeline is is fairly quick just um my work is settling down a little bit for for the rest of the year so I feel like I could carve out some space for it on short notice [Music] yeah I Echo a lot of what's been said I think

[284:01] um you know I've been a really big supporter for the library district I also being on the Consortium and sort of working with the county on that and minimum wage I just feel like there's more potential to have overlap and important conversations very good and I'll appreciate everybody raising their hand and I'm interested I've been um working on the library district for four or five years and uh I'm interested in seeing seeing it through this next step in the formation process so I'm interested in participating so maybe what I might suggest um we can't get the four of us in a room offline but maybe we could have some one-on-one conversations and see if you know maybe there's one or a couple of us who maybe decide uh maybe step back um and is that all right Teresa if we do one-on-one conversations or I can simplify it I can there's great people already on there so I'm happy to step

[285:00] aside and make it uh two of three okay appreciate your flexibility Matt Tracy you want to guide us a little bit here uh I I I do if you would be willing to let City staff facilitate those conversations I I think that might um help us avoid any kind of open meetings um concern great Lauren I'm happy to make it easier also let you and Nicole um take it okay you're you're very kind and generous as is Matt um so thanks t-boats have been if that's right then Nicole and I will remain and we can have a motion to point us on the December 1st meeting just a question do we um do we know that um Rachel and Mark are not interested so this has been on the agenda and they both sent emails about this meeting so

[286:02] uh I well I confess I have not asked either of them individually that was on the agenda and um and they did weigh in on the meeting no that's great and I think it's great that you and Lauren are willing to do this and maybe Steph could just check in with with uh Rachel and Mark just to so there's no surprises on December Laura Nicole I'm sorry wherever it was Nicole and and uh and Aaron maybe somebody has to be checking with uh Rachel and Mark when they're available there's no surprises happy to do that thanks so much for pointing that out okay uh anything else I think we're done with that item that'll come back on December 1st um any last comments on tonight's meeting Nicole you're needed thank you reaction times are getting slow um I just wanted to lift up Rachel's hotline comment about the information item in the art the RFP for the

[287:01] navigation Center that's going to be going out um sounds like in December and I wanted to Echo some of what um Rachel was saying in her post about wanting to get on the same page with regard to what the goals of the center are for example the memo referred to ending homelessness which I don't remember being kind of the goal of the center that we all agreed on and also had a comment that the center was unlikely to draw people out of public spaces but that seems the opposite of what we were discussing back in January as one of the the useful aspects of this so I was wondering if there's any way we can fit in a discussion before the RFP goes out just to make sure we're all on the same page about what the goals of this Center are because I would hate for an RFP to go out um with you know goals that are a little bit um misaligned with what we thought foreign I'm seeing a lot of hands pop up I will just say that we could just take that as a straightforward scheduling request to have a short conversation about that at a future meeting so I'd rather not get into the substance of it tonight but if y'all if anybody else

[288:01] wanted to weigh in on whether we schedule it or not yeah thanks for clarifying Aaron that was what I was trying to get to great great okay I see the hands people are good with that so um can we consider this a request to CAC to schedule a short conversation check in on on that um in some soon to become meeting Maria yes we can actually my hand was raised about something else but um absolutely we took it as a CAC request so happy to consider that and um I know staff saw that as well so okay very good thanks Nicole what did you have your hand about my hand was just about and I know that we uh sent uh press release I believe out but just a note that we will be delaying um our opening of City operations for two hours so we will not be open until 10 o'clock and if conditions deteriorate further we'll send out another message but just wanted to share that okay thanks very much

[289:01] any last thoughts okay well thanks everybody for a productive meeting the apple is closed here at 9 45 pm take care and stay well wishing all of you a Happy Thanksgiving oh yeah we're not until Thanksgiving Happy Thanksgiving did you say 9 45 or 10. I was gonna say that's 10 40. I heard 9 45 too it's 7 45. I was hopeful wishful thinking 10 45 for the record done at 10 45 PM all right Happy Thanksgiving everyone bye everyone everyone thank you [Music] [Music]