April 27, 2023 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music]

[1:03] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign

[2:01] [Music] foreign [Music]

[3:09] thank you [Music] thank you [Music]

[4:14] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music]

[5:20] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

[6:00] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music]

[7:00] [Music] good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's study session of the Boulder City Council I'm council member folkerts and I wanted to start by thanking everyone who's joining us tonight we have two items for tonight's agenda our first item will be a discussion regarding the impacts of methamphetamine in our community and our second and final item will be a policy discussion related to gas-powered landscaping equipment before we go into our work items I would like to outline how the meeting will be conducted I wanted to start by letting everyone know that for our first item Boulder County Public Health Representatives have been kind enough to um stick with us for the 90 minutes that were scheduled for this discussion on this first topic so they'll present and then we'll have

[8:03] time for questions specifically related to the presentation we'll have other staff presentations and then at the end we'll have time for a full Council discussion with staff and Boulder County Public Health let's now turn to our city manager Nuria rubera van dermine to introduce our first item thanks so much uh Lauren or council member folkerts and just appreciate uh some Grace if for some reason my internet comes out cuts out because I'm in a new location um wanted to First just talk about this is an interesting study session because or this portion of the study session is interesting we do not as staff have a particular question we don't need direction this is one of those study sessions that um when we were talking at the midterm check-in was kind of under that vein of what other things do we want to have a discussion about and whatnot and it

[9:01] really came about even before then um when we had the incident at the Boulder Public Library and had to think about mitigation and we had a closure due to meth in the buildings and exposure I will say that um as we talk about it the requests came in initially about what are we seeing what are the impacts that staff is seeing right as we move forward and uh one of the things that we realized quickly as we were um dealing with the issue and at the end of the year was that we don't as staff have all the answers and we rely on some amazing Partners in Boulder County Public Health and they really helped guide us as we thought about um thinking through mitigation remediation what comes next what do we need to do and it's those very steps that so many in community were asking us as we were trying to figure out and maneuver through a topic that is complex

[10:02] and a concerning environment for all in our community as we move forward so I just want to thank our Boulder County Public Health Partners they have always been terrific partners and to kick us off I think I am opening it up to Bill Hayes who I believe is going to be sharing your slides on your own are you going to be advancing your slides or would you like us to oh um yeah let me pull mine up um what's that we could do it either way however you prefer well actually how about uh I have have you uh Advanced the slides that's great then give uh our wonderful clerks team Emily she's on it as always great I figured she'd be quicker than I am so uh thank you uh Council for having us here this evening uh this is

[11:00] obviously an issue that kind of uh came out of left field for us and uh really um has taken up a lot of time and an effort to address and uh with that I'll jump into the presentation here so jump go to the next slide and Bill I'm sorry if you could introduce yourself yeah I'm sorry I forgot so um Bill Hayes I am the air quality coordinator of Public Health um and I'm just going to be talking about the uh issues around contamination and the state regulations for cleanup of those um that's what my group oversees we don't work in the harm reduction side of things uh so the state meth regulations uh in 2003 a report was done identifying the dangers of the chemicals associated with meth production in 2004 the state passed

[12:00] statute that required Property Owners to prohibit access to properties that had been identified as meth affected and then it's on the owner to either clean up that property or to demolish it and next slide and so uh the cleanup standards uh are part of the code of Regulation that the statute drove and we use those cleanup standards to determine if a proper fee is meth affected if it needs to be remediated and then once remediated was it done adequately so the cleanup standard that we most often talk about is the one for habitable spaces there are a few other ones but the habitable space which applies to most is 0.3 micrograms per 100 square centimeter and next slide and so it's important to remember that that state statute um is technology-based the cleanup standard

[13:00] is technology-based not Health based and that's primarily due to especially 10 years ago 15 years ago when this first came about there was very little actual scientific data to show what the health impacts of exposure to methamphetamine contamination was so it was more based on what technology is available to do sampling and to come up with accurate readings for the contamination so the assumption is absolute worst case scenario 24-hour day seven days a week exposure for infants and small children living in a meth contaminated residence and then again because there was so much uncertainty basically about a 300 fold margin of error was applied to that so very conservative standards next and so because they're so conservative

[14:02] we don't need to look at that limit as a threshold above which there will automatically be Health impacts um in most cases you know we see people being exposed to much higher limits and not having um Health impacts and so because of that these standards don't really apply they don't work in a real world situation in a public building where the duration and frequency of exposure is far less and the contamination may not even be accessible to the public so next slide and so Boulder County public Health's role in this so we enforce the state's regulations and rules and started doing that in 2012. we do not perform any testing nor do we do any remediation work typically we find out about meth

[15:00] affected properties from police reports or the Consultants doing the sampling it's now becoming more routine for real estate agents to recommend uh testing of a property at the time of sales and so we're also getting some reports coming in from that channel next and so our role is to review those uh laboratory uh analyzes to first off determine if remediation is required and then a cleanup sampling is performed after uh the remediation and we again look at that sampling again to make sure it was done uh appropriately and that no further remediation is necessary next um so Boulder County Public Health does not recommend proactive sampling um that isn't to say we are actively discouraging it but we only are

[16:01] our duties fall in requiring testing when it meets the regulations um and so we do only require testing on credible evidence and so that is typically a police report that documents the police saw paraphernalia or small people using meth um it's not hearsay we get a lot of calls from people saying I think my neighbor's doing meth and that is not enough for us to require testing of that property and then obviously as we are here tonight Boulder County Public Health serves as an advisory role to the community to help navigate these difficult issues next slide and so um what is the exposure risk in public spaces that's really the big question and um you know as I said that cleanup standard isn't the Threshold at which above you go above that cleanup standard and

[17:01] people will get ill um and so just because we have meth contamination in our public buildings does not mean that we expect people to become ill from that as I said before that exposure is typically infrequent and in short duration and we're talking about third hand exposure and so you know we're all familiar with secondhand smoke so there is second-hand exposure to meth if you were to walk into a public restroom where someone was actively smoking methamphetamine that would be second hand exposure and you could have a significant dose from that I'll talk a little bit of later about what happens if you get that exposure but what we're primarily looking at is third hand exposure someone goes into the public restroom smokes meth leaves and by the time anyone else comes in the vapor has gone typically up the exhaust fans and what we're left with is a residue from that vapor when it it settles and

[18:01] solidifies on surfaces meth residue is very sticky it stays around it's essentially a forever chemical it doesn't break down easily and so that's why in the library in the ventilation system we saw very high levels because that was essentially years of accumulation added on but the good news is that dermal trends for of the chemicals in the meth residue it's not a very effective means of uptake so those contaminants do not pass Through Your Skin Barrier easily so third hand exposure typically means that you've touched it you get it on your hands and now you either put your hands in your mouth in your eyes other mucous membranes and that transfer happens and so it's estimated that you know that level of transfer of contamination is hundreds if not a thousand times less than if you

[19:02] have that second hand exposure and in our public spaces when people are going into public restrooms using math you know they typically are in a stall and trying to Exhale into the ventilation systems um per code bathroom ventilation fans have to directly exhaust outside of the building they don't go and co-mingle with the other HVAC systems in the building so anything going up that vent in that bathroom is going straight out of the building and not going elsewhere in the building and so the highest level of contamination is going to be inside that ventilation system where it is not easily accessible to the public next slide and so as I said secondhand exposure is you know acute and much higher but your body is very good at breaking down and metabolizing the chemicals in math

[20:02] contamination residue and typically you excrete it from your body in a day or two through your urine and so if someone is actively smoking meth and using heavy doses over a long period of time yes there is a cumulative told that it takes on their body but what we see in our literature is that a one-time exposure uh typically like I said your body metabolizes it it's out of your system in a day or two and we don't see any lasting Health impacts someone that is exposed to meth you know they may have nausea headaches dizziness but those will be typically short-lived and not a chronic illness So based on all of this data and I want to give kudos to Gabi hofler on our air quality team she has done a tremendous amount of research in this area I think she's read you know

[21:01] everything she could possibly find on the effects of exposure to meth contamination and everything we see points to meth exposure in public spaces not being a significant health risk to the public Joe malinowski our environmental health director who's also uh on the call here this evening he and I were at the Colorado environmental health directors meeting this afternoon and we had representatives from cdphe Who oversee the meth work at cdphe as well as a toxicologist from the Colorado School of Public Health and they both you know strongly emphasize this same binding that they do not consider meth exposure in public spaces to be a significant health risk so next slide and so current efforts uh you know what are we doing so the Boulder County we actually have our own meth ordinance

[22:00] um we looked at the state statutes and regulations and added to those to basically describe how Boulder County Public Health will in Practical terms Implement those regulations and so we're addressing those now because uh they do kind of paint us into a corner sometimes uh giving us little options for how to proceed and you know as we saw with the public library uh back in December we ended up having to close the library on the coldest day of the year and a lot of our unhoused population use the libraries to stay warm on days like that and so we really didn't feel that you know from a public health standpoint closing the library was the best thing to do we would have preferred that it was open so that people could use it for warming and you know eventually we did get a variance for from the state that allowed us to only close off the bathrooms but we're hoping to update uh you know how we implement the rakes and

[23:00] statutes to give us the flexibility in situations like that to do what is best for public health um we're also working with our housing authorities this is a very big issue for them um you know they have a very high rate of their rental units becoming contaminated with meth and it is very expensive for them to remediate those facilities and so that's a rental unit that's off the market for a considerable amount of time while they do the remediation and it puts a big financial burden on those uh affordable housing units to stay affordable and then next slide please and so as I said oh back one there I think yeah so we're uh as I said you know we're working with uh cdphe we're working with other public health agencies in the area to come up with regulations to update the state statutes and regulations

[24:00] um one of the big things that we talked about today was that the statutes as written were intended for residential application it was you know assumed that we were talking about a house not a large public facility and so the state recognizes that there's a need to update the regs to consider public spaces uh that may end up with having a public uh cleanup limit and a residential cleanup limit that's not something Boulder County Public Health is pushing for because there wouldn't be a health-based uh rationale for raising the standards which makes it problematic and even if they were raised significantly we don't think that that would give us a lot of relief from the remediation that we're trying to do so next slide so rather than have regulations with a higher limit what we're pushing for and

[25:00] hoping to see is prescribed uh maintenance practices that public spaces would use to keep contamination down really focusing on touchable surfaces uh still a lot of learning to be done on you know is there certain chemicals that are better than others when it comes to cleaning off meth contamination so more to come on that and it's going to be you know our custodial staff for the most part that would now be leading the effort to minimize meth contamination so we want to make sure that we're giving consideration to our custodial staff that's coming in contact with the contamination and we also need to realize you know the people that work in these public facilities may actually have you know far more exposure than the general public so things we're still working on next slide and lastly deterrence um folks may have heard uh up in

[26:01] Longmont our colleagues up there are looking at purchasing meth alarms it's a product that's uh kind of still in the beta testing phase from a company in New Zealand but more or less it would work like a smoke detector but instead of just screeching it would actually send a notification to staff in the building via a cell phone app to tell them someone is actively smoking meth in the restroom at that time now you know probably by the time you get there the first one will be gone but it does two things hopefully um you know we longmont's going to be putting up signage saying you know this is what this unit is this is where it is this is what it does and that that just putting up that signage will deter people from smoking meth in those bathrooms but if they do smoke map that also tells you immediately um that you have contamination and the

[27:01] sooner you address that contamination the easier it is the less expensive it is to do that remediation uh Longmont Housing Authority is going to be putting these uh units in their new occupied rental units they will have on the lease people initial that they acknowledge that there is a meth alarm in their unit and they're hoping that you know people seeing that on the lease will either decline signing the lease or um you know if they do move into the unit and smoke meth that they'll step outside to do it which may or may not cause other issues that we'll have to deal with um but right now that's uh that's kind of the leading uh effort in the deterrent range and um we don't actually have any of these in the county yet but really excited to see how that works and we'll certainly uh share back with all of you when we learn about that so that is all I have for you all this evening and

[28:01] um again you know Bill Hayes and Gabby hofler as I said on my game uh probably knows more about meth contamination than any of us in the county if not the state so don't hesitate to reach out with us with questions thank you I'd just like to follow up with the a couple of comments really quickly following Bill's presentation um first I want to be really clear that the collaboration with the city um on the library situation in December went as required and the city did the right thing um it's impossible to change regulatory requirements in real time um so we want to be clear that the actions that were taken at that time were needed um and when bill says that we would have preferred not to close the library um or to take a different remediation path um it is not a criticism of what the city did we were absolutely in support of what the city did um it was just not we all reckon I think we all recognize it was not an ideal

[29:00] solution at the time um also to say that I think that what you really get from Bill's presentation is that this is both an evolving and a complex issue that involves Health it involves housing it involves closure of public spaces the expense of remediation which we know is not insignificant and what we're really concerned about here is that the equation in weighing all of those needs is out of balance and that we're the way that the statutes have been written and the requirements are set up is kind of creating a dramatic over protection of Health at the expense of other community needs without a health benefit to that sacrifice the state seems to agree with us recognize that yes it is out of whack um and uh and this is this imbalance is becoming more widely recognized into their communities so when we say we're working with the state and others to really rethink how we address this Complex Community Health Challenge we

[30:01] recognize that it's probably going to take some time and a process of of really being able to gather data influence and rethink what that balance of needs is recognizing that you know there is never an interest in um putting the Public's Health at risk from the Public Health Department's perspective um finally uh just to kind of really raise that Bill's last point about the uh the meth alarms that Longmont is testing um you know there's going to be a lot of spaces of experimentation that we expect to see in the next months and years in different communities and we're really interested in keeping a wide perspective on kind of what the experience of those pilot experiences are because we do know as Bill notes that there are likely to be some you know new unintended consequences when we introduce new kinds of interventions and so we just want to stay cognizant of that did I introduce myself I am Lexi Nolan

[31:00] at Boulder County Public Health sorry about that thank you Lexi and thank you Bill um does anyone have any questions specifically related to the like clarifying questions for this presentation because Bill and Lexi my understanding is we'll be sticking around for a wider discussion later okay I see Nicole Matt and then Mark thanks so much I'm Bill and Lexi a really great presentation I just uh just want to extend my gratitude to you all and everybody at the county for all this work that you're doing they really create a science-based approach to Public Health program or to a public health problem um I just had a couple of clarifying questions around uh the standards so I'm a little still a little bit unclear on who ultimately is setting the standards for when we have to one test and then to remediate is that the legislature is it cdphe is it a county

[32:01] is it everybody working together where does that come from yeah so um the cleanup standard is a state standard uh and part of what will be a challenge in making any revisions is some of the requirements are in statute summer and regulations so what we really are going to need is a new statute and new regulations and both of those will take time but the cleanup standard is in cdphe's regulations and so you know you know right now that's set in stone we don't have any leeway around that okay and that so that's more at cdphe if it would set those cleanup standards yes doing that correctly and that's that's where the county is working right now with other communities in cdphe to make sure that those are more in line with current science is that correct

[33:01] yeah um definitely it's time to look at what the current science is uh but uh I don't anticipate you know if we were to be able to raise the standards it would be enough to make a significant difference in the number of properties having to be remediated because in most of the residents that we see and we typically get you know one to two of these a week to give you a perspective on how many we're talking about and the levels that we generally see are in the hundreds and not infrequently over a thousand and you know there will be no basis for raising that cleanup standard from a health perspective to a level that would allow those to go unremediated yep okay so is it is most of them you know these one or two a week or are you still kind of seeing more of the places where the drugs are being made is that is that what's leading to those really high levels or no so um for

[34:02] for the last many years it's been entirely contamination from use um it's been quite a while since we're uh aware of any meth production lab in the county you know years ago like so many other things um it can be done cheaper and better outside of the country and brought in um and so you know the reason the levels are high is as I said these chemicals do not break down um so it's it's an additive effect um anecdotally what we hear is that someone smoking meth in a residence just one time will create enough contamination to exceed the cleanup limit so it doesn't take much to exceed the limit but every successive use just builds and builds okay thank you and in this I'm gonna I'll ask this question now and if it feels like a better one to answer during the discussion that's completely fine

[35:01] with me is there any advocacy that we as a city need to think about doing to get some of these regulation and statute change so that our standards are more in line with the science on how meth is transferred how much is the risk to Public Health and kind of what the best use of funds are whether it's remediation for things that likely you know don't have much of a health impact versus treatment or prevention or something elsewhere yeah that that is a pretty big question but you know I will say uh the state is aware that it's time to update the regulations and work is being done on that uh but I don't think it ever hurts for them to hear additional voices encouraging to to move that along because one of the things we heard today from the cdphe staff was they don't have funding currently to do the work necessary

[36:00] to update the regs to do the research to find out you know what the current science says um so you know definitely any opportunity to push for funding to go to that effort would be very helpful okay thank you that's all my questions for now thanks so much thanks Nicole next we have Matt Mark and then Tara thanks Lauren and Nicole I appreciate those questions on the sort of statutory and Regulatory fronts um those disc congruities are definitely kind of concerning so I'm glad that there's a conversation to be had about moving up uh moving to reconcile those differences um my question sort of sticks uh with sort of a theme of uh science-based efforts here which is you know like any experiment or Pilot the more samples you have the better your results are and and um with regards to the pilots in Longmont has there been any discussion about Boulder participating in this to broaden the sampling of these Pilots to really have some better ground truths as

[37:00] to how effective these are or to diversify the environments perhaps in which these are being installed um and so my first thought is like BHP like thinking about that I mean now obviously the Housing Authority in Longmont is doing it so there's related there you know like public bathrooms for us so I'm just sort of curious if there's been discussion about the city participating in this pilot to sort of help broaden the scope and maybe efficacy of of the win earnings that come from it I think that's more of a question to me than to our Boulder County Public Health partner so I'll take that on um because Longmont is doing this on their own when we spoke I meet generally with other city managers and administrators and um the city manager of Longmont had shared that they were doing that they were looking into it it is um it is so early we don't know yet what the pilot will yield and so we have kind of taken an approach to see they're doing just a few and to see where that looks like and if it looks promising then certainly something that we would consider but we want to be thoughtful

[38:00] too about making sure that we're thinking two of the the unintended consequences that come that once you start testing and triggering as you think about that what does that look like and we don't know enough about the mechanisms to know um to we haven't just explored them sufficiently so we are looking on our own we are looking to see what Longmont is and frankly if it looks promising we may end up jumping in sooner or we may be waiting to see what the pilot results are I appreciate the internet is there is there are we talking six months six years I'm just kind of curious what kind of Runway we'd be looking at before we start dipping our toes into this what kind of work I would say somewhere in between um but I don't know when Longmont is getting their sensors in and I don't know Lexi if you know um I don't know the answer to that question do you know Bill no and I'm I'm not sure Longmont knows either yeah as as I said this is a

[39:00] product that's in beta testing so I I I you know they my understanding is you know there weren't any sitting on the shelf yeah so when Longmont put in their order they are manufacturing them now and they've been waiting for a little bit so there's a period right as that moves forward I would just also say that we are um having ongoing conversations with um a collection of housing authorities in the region um to talk about what other kinds of solutions we might find um for that kind of vicious cycle that we have of meth use and Remediation and you know repeated contamination um which uh is is problematic on a number of levels so we're exploring some other options too appreciate that Lexi thanks thank you Matt next we have Mark and Tara thank you um do we have any uh information from any municipality as

[40:00] to the reliability of these uh meth alarms no that's that's you know kind of what we're anxious to see um like I said it's it's a brand new product this isn't anything anyone's ever made before um you know I my understanding is that you know essentially uh it's not so much Longmont as a customer buying them from them but more as a partner working with them so that the company has some real life uh testing data to show um you haven't talked through but uh you know it would be interesting to see you know if the alarm gets triggered and then we go in and do sampling to find out if there's you know a correlation between the level of contamination versus what set the alarm off so do we know what these cost s

[41:00] I don't okay um I don't but we can certainly um get back to you council member mayor yeah um and my my last question is I I don't want to mischaracterize what you were saying so please clarify for me um what was part of your um argument that that meth is less of a public health um issue in certain contexts than we had previously believed and that the standards need to be adjusted to reflect that I mean what did I just misread that well I don't I don't know that we could speak to less than you previously believed but um the critical point that we were trying to make is that context does make a difference because it relates to exposure duration concentration type of exposure and where we particularly see that distinction in context is

[42:01] um in between public spaces and residential spaces public spaces where there's a brief acute exposure um uh usually in terms of touch versus a residential exposure which usually has to do with meth use and where people are residing over long periods of time and having kind of a constant exposure that is not just that third hand exposure but also that first and second hand did I summarize that fairly bill yes thank you all I can say is that I would not like to be part of the library management making that argument to families and and parents yeah um that you know your concerns are overrated because um the meth use is not going to be harmful that would be a a pretty tough sell but uh

[43:02] yeah well um a lot of my work a lot of our work at public health is putting risks into you know perspective what is the relative risks because you know every day we are bombarded with hundreds if not thousands of different chemical compounds you know um most of them not good for us but in modern society you know we choose to accept uh many of those uh what makes this difficult though is um you know it's it's a risk put upon the public that they didn't choose uh and and so you know it certainly makes it more challenging because you know there is no justification for having any meth contamination in a public space uh but the reality is um it happens and uh

[44:02] we want to take steps to be as protective as we can of Public Health uh but also recognizing that we can never get that risk absolutely to zero I I hear you but uh for anybody having to make that argument to a group of parents my only uh comment would be you know vaya con dios um might this be something that might be better for the wrap up at the end or is this you have further questions Public Health that's the end of my questions can I call a clue about the question though it's still question it's not my understanding bill of what you were saying is it's not that sort of the science led us to one set of standards and now we're reconsidering it's that the science did not exist when these standards were set is that correct or did I misunderstand that

[45:00] well you know certainly we don't have nearly as much data as we would like um you know for most of our chemical compounds that we do have exposure limits they come from industrial settings where you know we have a large population of workers exposed to known levels of contamination and we can monitor the health impacts but when you come to something like an illicit drug you know we're not going to sign anyone up for being exposed to that to do a laboratory type analysis of what are the health impacts so it is very anecdotal and as I said these levels were set in 2004 and so you know obviously in in the intervening almost 20 years we've learned a lot more and so it is a good time to go back and say okay what do we know now that we didn't know then and can we make adjustments uh but you know as I've pointed out the regulations were

[46:02] originally written with a residence in mind and and absolute worst case scenario of infants and children who are more susceptible to be a adverse Health impacts of meth exposure and so a child living in that day in day out constantly and so it's it's not appropriate to apply that standard to a public space Tara looks like you're up next I understand about the public spaces but let's say let's take a scenario where we're at Depot Square which is our private uh non-vhp affordable housing and let's say you're a family with little babies or little kids and you start to smell an odor you said earlier that it can't be anecdotal or hearsay correct what would

[47:00] that family then do to make sure that that next door is tested especially if there's no police report let's say they're worried about their family's health and the constant exposure to be let's say next door well and and you know this definitely gets out of my realm of expertise and and really a bit outside of Public Health because that now becomes uh you know personal private rights it's very difficult to require testing of someone's personal residence based on something that their neighbor tells us and we do get those calls right we get those calls very frequently and you know what we say to those people at this time is you know call the police that's really all we can offer because we cannot require we

[48:00] cannot go into someone's residence and require them to test based on what their neighbors said okay we can do and what we do sometimes is we test their residents the complainants residents okay great let's let's uh one more question let's take the homeless shelter for instance in the hearsay world or in the anecdotal World we'll sometimes hear stories that there is Matthews at our homeless shelter do you go and test there it's sort of public correct but not really not yeah and again as I said we Boulder County Public Health we do not perform the testing right yeah that that has to be done by an environmental consultant that is certified by the state to do that testing and so um you know nor do we hire those Consultants to do the testing so you

[49:01] know in the case of Boulder Library the city hired the consultant in the case of you know Boulder housing Partners if they suspect or need testing they hire all we do is look at the test results and determine whether the sampling was done appropriately whether the remediation was done adequately okay so what you're saying is if the boulder shelter would be the one to test yes if if they feel the need to test then yes they would have to contact the Consultants kind of a two-step process where someone can elect to have testing done and the screening sample comes back and that gives you a baseline of information about whether a deeper look at whether remediation is required and it's at that point I believe that public health becomes involved and my last question getting back to

[50:00] Depot square is if they're so sorry about the details of this but I would assume community members maybe would want to know that's why I'm asking since I would want to know if I lived there um in Depot square if there was a police report is it then just Depot Square management that gets to um ask for the testing who can ask for that testing once there's a police Deport at let's say a housing yeah so so once once Public Health gets that report then we contact the property owner and tell them first off you know you are required to now do a preliminary assessment and we advise them at that time that you know should this test come back positive that you will have to um prohibit entry to the property and you will have to do cleanup so uh we

[51:01] advise you know everybody to start planning for that so that they're not doing nothing waiting for the results to come back you know have a plan in place that when those results come back if they are positive you know how you're going to deal with it and what you're going to do we typically you know we don't we can't require it but we do advise that you know if there is a police report if there's credible evidence that there's contamination that they go ahead and prohibit entry to the premises before we even get the test results back but they have to test at that point correct they're under or they don't so they have to yes test once once we have credible evidence of contamination then we can require them to test thank you Tara um and I just wanted to mention for the record that Rachel was able to join us

[52:00] um she had another conflict but great to have her here with us yay um I also had a quick question before we well hopefully quick move on um bill I think you had mentioned that you weren't a specialist in sort of the harm reduction side but I was wondering if maybe Lexi who could fill us in on a little bit of what Boulder County Public Health is doing on the harm reduction side or anything that we should be aware of in terms of what you're working on on that front so we do a couple we work in a couple of other spaces related to math one is really about prevention we have a number of middle and behavioral health programs that work in primary prevention early intervention um and uh addiction um particularly with young folks working to prevent addictive Cycles

[53:02] um in relation to harm reduction um I think you all know that Boulder County Public Health has one of the oldest harm reduction programs in the country dating back to the 80s that is really aimed at reducing disease spread that is aimed at encouraging folks to to seek treatment and Recovery um and that works to um provide an environment where people are not um as susceptible to a variety of harms that occur with addiction our harm reduction program in Boulder County does a lot of different things it provides a needle exchange it also provides fentanyl test strips it provides Narcan interventions

[54:01] we distribute Sharps Containers for personal use as well as in public spaces to try to reduce syringe litter one of the things that we have found lately is that the rates of um uh drug use and meth in particular over the past decade have risen so substantially over the last 10 years nationally um that this is a problem in every single Community across our country at this point and communities that don't have harm reduction programs where they are working to reduce use and help folks get into recovery are experiencing the same kinds of levels of needle syringe litter in their communities that we are but without the benefit of collection

[55:00] and the disease reduction so for instance we are we see even in nearby counties right now spikes in HIV we've had one case of hid HIV identified in our program over the last two and a half years so it really is demonstrating to be effective in reducing disease spread and contributing to reduction of syringe litter I'm happy to answer other questions we do a lot of training we have an enormous list of Community Partners that we work with to make sure that folks understand how to encourage people to use the program effectively including working with the city of Boulder um uh public works department that does sweeps and collects um uh those containers as well as picks up stray needles when we do find them

[56:00] thanks for that Lexi and thank you Bill for your presentation um as I don't see any other questions I think we can move on to our other staff presentations on this topic great thank you council member and and just rest assured that as we continue to evolve and in our partnership we will continue to look at um whether those early detection or other General sensors that are being developed technology is emerging and we will continue to be looking to make sure that we've got what we need for our community uh as we look forward um for now I wanted to switch a little over and if Emily can get our presentation up as well really focus a bit on what staff sees right from a bit of anecdote a bit of data on what we're seeing and really what was striking to me not having been here um years ago was as we were talking about this presentation what a shift staff has seen from 2018 2019 to what

[57:03] we're currently facing um now and what does that look like for staff work as we move forward we've got some great folks that will be talking um we'll start off with our Public Safety folks to give us some data and uh that is data that PD sees in conjunction with their work on Boulder County drug task force as well as data that our fire department sees as they also go out and respond so next slide um and then I'll try to trigger as we continue to move forward so for now I'll ask Daniel to introduce himself and kick us off good evening Council my name is Dr Reinhardt I'm the chief data analyst for the Boulder Police Department I'm here tonight to discuss drug charges drug seized drug arrests and drug deaths um you know the discussion tonight it really includes points about the city of Boulder and the county of Boulder because of the nature and scope of the problems that we're seeing

[58:01] next slide please so in order to understand methamphetamine and Fentanyl problems here locally I think it's important to consider first house bill 19 1263 and so this bill you know passed in 2019 and became active in 2020 and it lowered the penalties associated with possession of drugs like schedule 1 and schedule Two drugs which include methamphetamine and Fentanyl um and because of that you know we really see sort of demonstrably fewer penalties associated with these kinds of drug charges and so this slide you know sort of highlights the shift in 2020 to now in terms of felony charges and misdemeanor charges associated with with these drugs specifically next slide please so the the monthly average overall charges you know has really been higher in 2023 when you combine misdemere and

[59:00] felony charges compared to previous years but really there's categorically different repercussions now because most of the charges are misdemeanors and so the results of those charges tend to be tickets instead of jail time or other kind of more serious consequences next slide please so the Boulder Police Department you know has seized significantly more methamphetamine last year than in many of the previous years combined in the city of Boulder and these data exclude over a thousand grams of meth seized by the drug task force from 2018 to 2022 and over 600 grams of mass seized by the task force in 2023 next slide so seizures I'm sorry yeah seizures of fentanyl have increased year over year in Boulder and this excludes the Boulder Police Department activities like approximately 2 000 fentanyl pills seized in January as part of the

[60:00] recovery of the art theft in Lafayette now these data they also exclude the drug task force seizure of over 10 000 grams of fentanyl from 2018 to 2022 and over 600 grams seized so far this year with many of the larger operations involving our federal partners next slide please so fewer individuals have really been jailed since 2020. there's a combination of factors for that um this the shift in the severity of charges is partly contributable to this as are the kova jail standards changes in 2020 to now and even though we've jailed over 40 individuals this year associated with these kinds of charges you know they're likely to receive less severe sentences associated with that jail time next slide please so in addition to you know fewer individuals really seeing any kind of jail time when they're charged with

[61:00] these these crimes there's also fewer individuals on probation and you see that again year over year over the last five full years next slide please so drug-related deaths according to the Boulder County coroners data have really surged in recent years so far in 2023 in the county law enforcement Personnel are aware of approximately 49 overdoses including several fatal overdoses associated with fentanyl next slide please so drug-related deaths that are solely attributed to meth or fentanyl increased year over year from 2017 to 2021 and then they lowered precipitously last year and that's really due to a combination of drug use so poly drug use associated with those two drugs and other substances something that it's helpful to point out here according to the DEA about 42

[62:01] percent of fentanyl pills that are seized by law enforcement they typically contain potentially lethal doses of Fentanyl and they're increasingly laced with other substances that can make them even more dangerous next slide I'll turn it over to the next speaker with Municipal Court perspective thank you mad if you're yeah I'm going to go ahead and introduce niet um good evening Council I'm judge cook here I'm going to have niyat Nguyen he is our lead net homeless navigator at the boulder Municipal Court he um worked alongside Megan Newton before HHS lured her away from us um but it's got a lot of experience as a navigator in the court as well as previously at the shelter so a number of years working in this space go ahead and yet good evening everyone and thank you judge cook for the introduction and I

[63:02] would like to share some of the perspectives that we've been seeing out on the field with the community program and the first thing I would like to share is the non-engagement um so clients who are actively using met are less likely to engage in services and the reason being for that is they have psychological effects that that Matt can cause such as hyperactivity hallucinations delusion and aggression uh it also exacerbates the mental other health other mental health conditions which makes it harder for service providers and case managers to have a productive conversation with them that could lead to other services and obtaining benefits and then of course the uh there are a few individuals who would rather stay in the streets than engage in the housing process um and then the next thing I would like to share is the barriers to housing so even when a person is willing to engage in Services a history of math use or mad

[64:01] charges on their record could make it very difficult for them to find a landlord uh who is willing to rent to them and the reason for that is I think Bill Hayes mentioned earlier the remediation the cause of remediation for math contamination are very expensive and um landlords are also very concerned about individuals who use math that could exhibit concerning behaviors that could affect the community around them the neighbors um and last thing I'd like to share is the victimization of math so we did a bit of research and we found a study done in San Diego in 2012 that show 43 of met user in the city were trading sex for math within two months of the study that were done and I would like to share a story an example that we've seen with

[65:00] Community College so we had a client who we've been working with since 2021 she's a very very vulnerable uh woman and she generally stay away from accessing Services she only come and engaged with us when she has tickets but uh would not engage any further than that um and she also hangs around different uh men for protection and toward the end of 2022 she came to Community Court and were asking for help with her ID and as she was explaining her situation how she wanted to leave Colorado and how she needs an ID to get into housing she started crying and she said things like I can't do this anymore I need to get out the state but I can't uh then she proceeded to tell us that she was she has been trading sex for drugs and protection from many different men and she could not live like this anymore and I I think the story really showed that how vulnerable some of our clients are on the street

[66:00] um and she's not the only person that's been doing this we uh we know of other people who are doing the same thing where they're trading sex for Math and other drugs and um I just hope that we can do more to help these vulnerable victims thank you thank you Nia next slide please and I think we're turning this over to some of our great experts in housing and Human Services and we'll start with Megan if you can introduce yourself good evening Council my name is Megan Newton I am the policy advisor on homelessness for HHS and I'm going to go over the challenges that both meth and Fentanyl cause in both housing affordable housing that we've discussed a little bit already um and then homelessness as well um as we've discussed already affordable housing providers have identified meth use in their properties as one of their greatest challenges the things they list are the Enviro the environmental impacts and Remediation that we already discussed and then other disruptive

[67:01] behaviors that folks exhibit when they're using methamphetamines some of the disruptive behaviors that we see meth highs May mimic symptoms of mental health including psychosis and so these individuals are difficult to de-escalate so difficult for their neighbors difficult for property managers they're often unable to appropriately care for their housing unit we've seen some housing units where they're in complete disarray they have some boarding Tendencies and it makes the unit completely uninhabitable they sometimes will bring others into their apartment which amplifies the problem and then all these behaviors combined obviously are likely to end an eviction and then result in them being homeless um and as was brought up earlier these disruptive behaviors often almost always have an impact on the neighbors and the communities so we see the behaviors

[68:00] um in these affordable housing communities result in increased complaints to Property Management as well as increased complaints to the Boulder Police Department and in the last year we've seen a significant uptick in the fentanyl use and so there's a lot of concern for overdose in these apartments where individuals live alone and don't have anybody to quickly respond and so I'll transition a little bit to the challenges we see in homelessness meth use and now fentanyl use I think will combine the two are by far the single largest barrier to us getting folks into stable housing in 2022 28 of the folks who went through coordinated entry self-reported substance use we know this number is much higher in the unsheltered population individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness consistently experience higher rates of substance abuse over

[69:00] sheltered population and the unsheltered homelessness is strongly associated with chronic homelessness which exacerbates the issue even more as we've been doing work with the high utilizers the high system utilizers we estimate probably about 80 percent of them either are currently using or previously used meth and or fentanyl and oftentimes our poly substance users so they'll pretty much use whatever is available to them and do the cost of remediation the fear of this these the disruptive behaviors landlords are not willing to rent to this population we pride ourselves in Boulder in being able to problem solve with barriers but this one has has been one of the largest challenges that we've seen but on the flip side of that folks who remain in shelters and on the street are very unlikely to find recovery so that's the challenge that we that we try to balance

[70:00] um also like Matt mentioned this population is often difficult to engage in Services there are behaviors are often more chaotic and unstable and then we lack the treatment options when they are ready so we may get someone who has been to jail and they're sober and they're like okay I'm ready but we lack the ability to effectively transition people on a regular basis we are able to do it sometimes but it's just not consistent enough um and then I would also like to kind of like to point out um I think that was already mentioned but with the increased use of fentanyl in the last year a staggering um comment was made in both the Outreach cons in an Outreach form and by the shelter in that a year or two ago it was highly uncommon to see overdoses it was maybe once or twice a year but now in both the shelter setting and the folks who are living unsheltered it's multiple

[71:00] times a month like weekly daily um the overdoses with the fentanyl use or the fentanyl cut into other drugs are escalating very quickly I think that is it for us in housing or at least on the homelessness side thank you Megan next slide and we will pass it on to your colleague Lucy good evening Council Lucy liberal sta with HHS I am the cert supervisor cert stands for the crisis intervention response team we're the co-responder team that works with Boulder police officers in responding to behavioral health calls in the community so a lot of a lot of what our team sees is is very similar to what Megan and Yacht were mentioning um how meth really creates barriers to engagement it's really challenging to de-escalate people who are acutely intoxicated on meth they can be aggressive unpredictable very paranoid and delusional and because of

[72:01] this also sometimes it's very challenging when we're encountering these folks in the community to come up with a safe place for them to be when folks are at a level of aggression if they've been violent they they're not eligible to go to our local detox um and at times you know we also have challenge changes having them stay at the hospitals and so sometimes we ourselves and the police find ourselves dealing with folks kind of again and again in one night which unfortunately can result in situations that escalate then to the point where people get arrested which I don't think is the outcome that any of us would like to see um again as as uh as Megan mentioned there are limited residential treatment options for folks who are seeking recovery from meth use and I would also say um and some of this was covered in the the hotline but you know meth recovery for meth is extremely challenging more so I think than other

[73:01] substances it really takes over a year for people to experience recovery from long-term chronic meth use probably 14 14 to 18 months is a period of time where folks would would start to see their cognitive processes um repairing and and The psychosis can be quite persistent and even if the psychosis is not persistent coming off of methamphetamine it's like all the color the juice the things that make life worth living are gone the the artificial inflation of dopamine and and folks systems when they're using meth um is is is neurotoxic and um creates a profound deficiency then when they stop using the substance that really takes a long time to heal from it is possible for folks to heal although

[74:00] some people have very persistent symptoms um but I I do want to say it's possible it is quite uncommon in my experience for folks who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness who are also um yeah chronic long-term uses of meth to achieve durable recovery um for some of the reasons that Megan mentioned and I'm sure they'll be more discussion of this later um but yes it people really need to be housed long term in order to recover it's it it is not feasible to think that folks could recover from meth use while living unsheltered people um people who are using math there's often a survival component to it you know meth increases um heart rate it it increases body temperature it increases alertness so for for many folks it is a it's a survival strategy they they can stay

[75:00] warm when it's cold outside they can stay alert at night so their their things don't get stolen or they don't get assaulted you know we've also as nyat mentioned we've also seen a number of folks who are uh you know in situations where they have some really tough choices about their own personal safety and um drug use can play into those choices in terms of you know do I use drugs to make um you know make an experience more survivable um do I exchange drugs for sex with one person because this person will protect me as opposed to not doing that and being vulnerable to assault by many different people these are very rough choices that people are facing and um people really are caught in a cycle of of living unsheltered and using

[76:01] substances with with not a lot of great options for getting out of it um so on that Bleak note I will turn it over to the next speaker thanks next slide Lucy and thank you and and while this is complex and sometimes seems Bleak I think the partnership that we have with tribe recovering homes is one of the great um is is a great result of the partnership that we can do and something that we are doing to sort of address uh this really complex and frankly fast growing problem in our city and we see it nationally we also as a city right we're also Beyond housing and what we see with our unsheltered community and I I just want to point out that sometimes while we're talking about our unsheltered community it is not to put a spotlight on um that Community but they are often the folks that we most have touch points as someone in HHS who is smarter than I am said that there are lots of folks who are using uh meth in other places but

[77:02] they are doing so in the privacy of their own home so addiction is happening um certainly everywhere but we are seeing it more with our unsheltered community just because those are the immediate touch points that we have and to that end I'll invite um Joe you heard a little bit recently about the impact that we're seeing both in our field work and in our city facilities so Joe tediuchi maybe I'll ask you to address uh and as we go through some of those departments that are seeing that firsthand thank you Nuria and good evening Council and I'm Joe tadayucci I'm the director of our utilities department and uh our our department handles the cleanup work associated with the unsanctioned camping in the city and we presented the city council just a few weeks ago on a and provided an update on our public spaces work and I mentioned it then and I'll just

[78:00] reiterate tonight from our team's Vantage Point um who who's out in the field each week addiction is really one of the primary reasons that people kind of get stuck in the cycle living outside and a lot of common themes from my report from what you heard from the prior speakers and there are a couple of photos on the slide that are really common seams during our cleanup in the last year we've collected 5600 needles as part of our cleanup work and and we've just generally been seeing needles increasing over time one thing that I I want to clarify about the needles is that the the majority of them were finding in the tents and and the people who are camping have have their own way of collecting and kind of storing them so when you see that 5600 number those are in terms of Public Safety those generally are not strewn

[79:02] all over the ground there's a small amount of that but they're mostly in people's possession and then as part of our process our team has the portable Sharps Containers that we use and and we collect those needles and and they all end up in the appropriate storage devices and we work collaboratively with the county and so if if you're looking for a trace of positives in our report tonight I think the collection efforts have made a positive difference in the safety of our outdoor public spaces a couple other things I'll mention the themes from our cleanup work again you heard some of this from other speakers but there's a big difference in the interactions that we're having with the people who are camping depending on whether or not in that moment that we're interacting with them whether they're under the influence and we also see a

[80:01] lot of hoarding Behavior as as Megan mentioned a few slides ago so that's that's a report from the public spaces work and I believe I'm turning it over to David from a library Joe David farnan with the library and I just want to stay on the same slide if you don't mind so I just want to talk a little bit about the the library which was well covered uh and extensively covered in the media um so the cost for cleanup the meth contamination library was right around 153 000 that was for testing remediation and the Reconstruction of the main bathrooms at the main library um those libraries restrooms a majority of the main library restaurants are closed for months while this cleanup and restoration was completed as I think you all are well aware the children's bathrooms the the bathrooms the main library and the children's area were not contaminated and those are those

[81:00] bathrooms have been open um since the library has been reopened in early January to children under the age 18 years of age or under and their caregivers um and then you know we did come back to council and request an adjustment to funding um to make some adjustments to the protocol within the library to prevent any reoccurrence um we reopened the library bathrooms I believe two weeks ago um it is with restricted access we have a guard stationed at the door um Library users are not allowed to take any items into the bathroom unless it's something that can fit in the palm of their hand uh no bottles it's a little bit you know it's a little bit like the Airport TSA hopefully not quite um no extreme but it's gone well so far um and just to reiterate on a question of the camp earlier we are not we have

[82:02] not looked at P alert but we have looked at a number of different systems for meth alarms we've even received bids some meth alarms those uh for all the bathrooms within the library systems quite closely uh six figures um to do them and I and I do also believe that um we probably need a simpler solution and it's a the solution that we were looking at is somewhat over engineered I guess is the best way I could put it it's kind of a combination of a um an Apple Watch and one of those SOS alert systems that um you people wear who may need to have alarms go to a report they are unconscious or something like that but that that is probably a solution that said over engineered solution for what we need in the library what we need is a probably more of a system like P alert that we could uh

[83:01] that's simply for Matthews and or drug use uh any kind of carbon uh displacement alarm could help fill the need but I'll move on to the next slide I'm not sure who I'm handing it off to I can take it from here I think we are going to Alley in parks and recreation good evening folks Ali Rhodes director of Parks and Recreation and I do I have similar things to what you have been hearing um what I'll add is that the issues we're seeing in our restrooms um have a significant impact for many in our community the restrooms that are in public parks are their only place for a private restroom and the vandalism that we're seeing has meant that some of our restrooms are closed more often than they're open we have tried to mitigate this with many measures the picture on the right is a grinder that has been installed we have um Sharps Containers in memory of our locations well not highlighted on this slide we did mention it at your safe and

[84:01] managed public spaces updates and I will just add like my colleague Mr tarayuchi that there has been a positive impact we have worked with Boulder County Public Health and have two very large industrial Sharps Containers in our downtown spaces and they have been very successful anecdotally our team reports finding fewer needles in places where they shouldn't be and based on the weight of the collections that have been tracked we think about 68 000 needles have been safely disposed in those sites in the downtown area across the park system we're working with colleagues in facilities to make some changes to ventilation systems learning from the experience at the library at our recreation centers we have made some operational changes to minimize both opportunities for illegal use in our private changing areas but also to prevent um there's a lot of risk to others should there be an accidental overdose in a private space so we have implemented time limits and staff are

[85:00] being redirected to monitor use of those Cabanas we also are working more closely with some of our partners where we had provided pretty free and clear access through our requity Health Equity program access to the recreation centers we now are asking those Partners to work with us to help manage access so that folks are following our rules and mostly we've had some really nice success in the CMOS transition with some of those partners thank you next slide all right and then I will uh Joanne I don't know if uh if you're gonna start us off but really thinking about what does that look like for folks that are working in the field um and working across our buildings as well and we promise we will be ending soon because I suspect there's conversation but I do hope that you're seeing how not just the bleakness of a complex problem but how we are adapting and working with partners and trying to come up with Solutions as we continue to investigate um additional ways to support those that

[86:01] are going through horrible addiction Joanna yeah thank you I'm Joanna Korean director of facilities and Fleet and a lot has been covered and I am the last person with only two slides so be real quick uh just to add to what David was mentioning in terms of cost for the last year we have seen about 60 000 in addition to the 153 000 spent uh related to vandalism and other cleanup issues associated with our unsheltered and illicit drug use we have unfortunately seen as folks were talking about the more aggressive behavior and as a result uh toilet's broken and and significantly broken by meaning they're kicked off the the walls locks glued and destroyed broken windows um fires all of that is captured in some of the pictures on the slide and then we've also had to change some of our procedures with contractors needing to be escorted because of some of the

[87:02] unsheltered activity fees and safety issues and then last slide next slide so just in terms of some of the impacts related to the staff part on the aggressive nature we are having more challenges with some of the staff that are moving between buildings and around the buildings in the field and then highlighting a little bit more on the restroom side we as I think was mentioned actually by the county with custodial services and trying to increase increase our cleaning we have unfortunately dealt with some more threatening behavior by those that they encounter and we've had a number of unfortunate interactions and now we're dealing with some more challenges on the staff burnout and retention both with the staff that are in that situation as well as our contractors and on that note I will turn it back to Nuria thank you Joanna and I don't know

[88:01] if you can bring the slides down I want to turn it over to you council member folkerts but I again I hope what you're seeing is um is really adaptability and a very complex problem it is impacting what we're doing on so many different levels and I hope that we continue to find Solutions not every and while we have highlighted a lot again a lot of the work we have done with our unhoused community I really want to lift up that not all who are unhoused have are struggling with addiction not all who are struggling with addiction are unhoused and so what we are working through is we maneuver are just those contact points that we have and as we think about both the shift that we are seeing that really what we're seeing with meth is a change in behavior that this addiction um sort of brings forward in ways that perhaps in previous years and decades we had not seen and that is really shifting

[89:00] a bit how we're thinking about Solutions how we're thinking about our service offerings how we're thinking about our facilities um so I turn it over to you council member thank you Nuria and thank you for that very multifaceted presentation um I don't think I've ever seen so many directors involved in a single presentation on a single topic um so again I like to start with questions from Council related to the presentations um from Dr Reinhardt judge cook Nia Megan Lucy Joe David Ali and Joanna any questions from oh good we do I was like Nicole would you like to start us off I'll take it personally if you don't have questions thank you no I do and um yeah I know kudos to

[90:00] staff that that was an incredibly comprehensive and wide-ranging presentation and it all really Blended together so thank you for that I have a few questions and I'm not totally sure who in here is going to be the best poised to answer them so I'll leave it all up to you all we've got some other drugs coming up right we've seen real increases in fentanyl in the last couple of years tranq is kind of the newer one that's not quite clear if it's hitting our community the way it's hitting others just yet but I think we can assume it's coming um this is all going to make overdoses a lot more frequent and what does that mean for our First Responders and their capacity to um kind of respond to other health emergencies something heart attacks right traffic accidents that kind of thing if we are now to a point where we're seeing you know maybe an overdose a day or a couple a week what happens as the drugs that are coming lead to more

[91:01] overdoses and is that anything we need to start thinking about um all in but I know we've got the chief calderazzo here as well I'll get it started and see if anyone else wants to chime in but I think part of what we're going to be doing is tracking it because what that may mean is that we're going to need more personnel and more resources in the future um I will also say that I I think the work that BPD does in partnership with a task force to try to get to and prevent drugs from coming into our community is really critical as well because if we can prevent sort of the supply issue then hopefully we can reduce that but we don't always have control over what that looks like and we will then have to shift over to other forms of response Mike did I give you enough time to come on Scream we cannot hear you

[92:16] well that's a bummer um I'm wondering if you would allow me to jump in Nuria while my his Tech and I think there's probably other people Joe especially but people who can comment um I know that um our homeless Navigators are now carrying um naloxone and I believe that there are many other people working sort of on the ground in the city who are doing that as well so I don't think it's going to be exclusively the first responder community and um for the unhoused community in particular quite a few of them also have that in their possession and are using it on each other

[93:00] so I I see the text and and unfortunately Chief I know that you're uh having some technical difficulties but it so happens that you and I have been talking about this at our one on one today and I know that um as we're seeing um uh horse tranquilizers come into the system what we know is that Narcan doesn't work on that and so we will be continuing to work with our Public Health Partners to see what we can do but it will end up um resulting in more calls for service it will end up unfortunately depending on how quickly we can arrive to save a person's life what we may see is more overdoses if we're not able to use uh something a tool like Narcan in the immediate future so I believe that all of us whether it is the city of Boulder or Boulder County Public Health or our partners we will continue to talk about education and awareness and hopefully lifting up programs that can help people

[94:00] who are struggling with the really real impacts of addiction it it is a hard thing to um simply say oh I'm done with addiction now and move forward right that's where again programs are important unstable housing as Lucy mentioned is super important as well as we moved on I see Deputy Chief Red Fern has his hand up Lincoln evening Council deputy chief Steve Redford and Boulder PD um one thing I want to note in this and we're seeing an increase especially in about the last couple years of violence against our First Responders on people who are under the headphones of these sorts of Narcotics we're seeing even when we revive someone with Narcan they're disoriented and they will they will assault our Personnel Fire EMS um so I just wanted to point that out and then the second point I wanted to just share with you is I got a stat yesterday from the commander with the drug task force since council member spear was referencing xylazine or Frank their estimate now is about 20 of the

[95:00] fentanyl that they are seizing is containing tranq and it's a large animal tranquilizer as you may know and so super concerning there and and we're also seeing in Chief Calderon would probably share this as well we're seeing where it will take several doses somebody got back to Consciousness so a lot of impacts on our staffing as well but also concerns for assaults on First Responders I go on to my my next one yes um thank you and uh Nuria you know you talked about how addiction I apologize my dogs have just decided to go nuts but if you can hear them um they're saying hello um you talked a little bit about how addiction is not just an issue uh and a house do we have any sense of how many people who are housed and um have not

[96:00] uh they're not sort of housed after being unhoused who are using meth Fentanyl and these kinds of drugs in our community I don't have that information off I don't know if the team does and I don't want to put them on the spot so unless somebody um opens up their screen I'm gonna assume we don't have that right now I don't know that we could even estimate how many people are uh struggling with addiction behind closed doors Lucy I see you coming up and maybe you have a better response and um if there's more information that we can provide council members afterwards we can we can do that as well Lucy uh yeah thank you for that question council member um I it is a tough question to answer right because sort of we don't know what we don't know if people are using substances in the Privacy their own home you know we may never know about it I I do appreciate the city managers comments that this this is this is certainly not simply a homeless issue

[97:00] um we did analyze we're still in the process of analyzing our 2022 data but we did some analysis um so there's a few different ways that we've looked at it in the data that we collect we we collect data on what's kind of the presenting concern in that situation that particular call we're responding to and when we look at that subset of data it seems when we're talking about methamphetamine use it's generally about 70 um unhoused and 25 housed with 15 of that house population um that we've identified they're at risk for losing their housing and generally they're at risk for losing their housing because of their methamphetamine use um in their home and unfortunately we have had uh several situations like that where we we have seen people lose their housing because of continued meth use in their home however when we analyze the data by just looking at um

[98:01] where situations where meth or Methamphetamine was mentioned in our clinical note we got a larger data set and in that data set it was actually a closer number of about 40 unhoused uh I think 35 housed there was a sort of I think 17 that's unknown so that's part of the clean cleanup we need to do to see where that'll end up Landing but uh it I think it's it is uh it's a little difficult to say um in terms of the population that's housed in using meth how what number of them were previously unhoused we I don't think we have a good way right now of tracking that data I think anecdotally what I would say is uh generally we see that in populations that have been formally unhoused thank you um and then Lucy while you're here I do have a question that I think is probably

[99:00] one for you um you know we're seeing skyrocketing rates of mental illnesses also a lot of increases in economic insecurity both of these things correlate pretty strongly with substance use right so is it kind of a if we're seeing these increases and mental health and and poverty and economic insecurity now does that mean we're looking at even more substance use in a couple years or does that I don't know if it works that way that's an interesting question um I think what I would say when I think especially about the the population of folks that I and our team the team interacts with who are using substances I I generally think about um there's a lot of childhood drama a lot of everybody we can talk about them in terms of adverse childhood experiences and certainly poverty is part of that you know Financial insecurity food insecurity witnessing violence um you know having caregivers that

[100:01] neglected you or were not emotionally attuned all of these things right I I think that that is a huge factor in um the our unhoused unsheltered unhoused population who are substance using as well as many for many other people who are who are substance using who are housed um so I I certainly think about it in terms of um I generally think about things in a Trauma from a trauma lens that's that's where over the course of my clinical experience that's where I see um a lot of things coming down too so I I think in terms of like increasing rates that's um something I see and also why I'm I'm excited that the city is is doing a universal basic income pilot because I I do see that as a an upstream intervention that does start to address some of these social determinants of Health yeah and

[101:00] infern or uh Dr Reinhard um and it's just a question around you know thinking about these changes that happened in 2019 with regard to ticketing versus jailing folks who who have substances are there I assume there's plenty of states that didn't do this and um what are they seeing in terms of outcomes are they in a better spot than we are in terms of outcomes um is it similar um do we do we have any basis of comparison there because the pandemic sort of mix with the data and things councilman that's a really good question unless Dr Reiner has other information I don't believe we had that information prepared for this evening I think it's easily something well maybe not easily but something we can look into and definitely get back to it thank you appreciate that about it Nicole okay Tara yeah Nicole that was a really

[102:01] good last question that you asked um I would like to hear about that um so I had the opportunity to be on the phone with Sam Quinones today who wrote the book on meth and Fentanyl first I read the book then somehow I was able to talk to him it was like a dream even though it's all very depressing it was still you know it was a dream in the sense of what I learned so my quest I do have questions I'll keep the comments for later but my first question is is it seems to me that there's not really current treatment for math it's also like a slow deterioration but it hooks onto your brain so much that you are determined to get more which makes it very difficult if there's not any chemicals that can help people uh get off method it makes it difficult almost impossible according to what you guys all said uh tonight so

[103:00] for the 70 on house that are struggling with meth addiction with no way out do we have any plans that we've seen something working to me it seems like we to get them away from meth the only thing that they can do is to detox which they can't use detox units right because ours because you can't have mental illness so the only way would be to detox for a long period of time and be away from the Allure of Meth that seems to be our only option right now is that true anybody who knows I'll see if uh Lucy or Megan want to talk in Lucy I see you put you showed your screen yeah thank you council member weiner um so it sounds like your question is essentially like what what options are available right now what options are available and what option can we make it capable so obviously everybody challenges tonight that did that was the

[104:02] number one word used by staff so um so what I always like to think of solutions two and so in this book that I read there were certain air there were certain places especially those that were hit by the opiate crisis like Kentucky and West Virginia that have been working on this problem a long time now granted meth took over as the number one drug for many reasons the supply is incredibly large almost non-stop for the synthetic drugs that are out there now um so there are some places that I've seen a little bit of success of course that success takes a lot of time and people do you know regress and then have to try again to get off meth like quite a lot Maybe over and over again so it will be good if we could knew that uh this this we don't have a solution but if we can find

[105:00] a place for people to detox for six months a year however long it takes that might be the only way out for them as of now yeah so I mean I would say right like the county is working on their behavioral health roadmap and and one of the convenience has been specifically on methamphetamine use so that I believe there will be some specific recommendations coming out about that later this summer um and certainly I I happen to be part of that group and and many people were speaking about the need for more um residential treatment that especially for folks who have Medicaid um so you know I would just clarify one thing that you know detox is meant to be a shorter term intervention right that's sort of the like the beginning of the treatment process so people generally don't stay in a detox for a long period of time that's that's kind of um you know the um American Society of addiction medicine Asam has criteria for different

[106:02] levels of care for addiction treatment and detox is just one of those but then they they can go into many different paths after that depending on if there are co-occurring psychiatric needs medical needs um you know if they need a pretty structured residential setting um I so so there are kind of like some well-defined workflows about how that should happen now uh you know in terms of like what's accessible to people um and what has availability that is something we are very challenged with in this state we just don't we don't have the treatment infrastructure to support the need um what I would say just anecdotally from the an admittedly very few stories of people um who have achieved some amount of uh recovery from methamphetamine is is actually there's there's um a fair amount of variability in how they did it so I also want to say that like recovery

[107:00] from addiction is a personal process I I think it's hard to say like here's one thing and it's going to work for everybody there are different Pathways um but yeah I mean I I could I could speak to some of the specific examples if that's helpful but um I know that I mean I think when I fantasize about what you know what could we do about having you know having sort of that long-term treatment that steps people down through various levels of care starting from more structured to less structures so that people you know start to like bring their own life makes their own life in with treatment and they they start to like remember you know learn how to be in the world again does that answer your question or were there yeah so if you were Queen for a Day that's what you would do yeah I agree with you on that um so that brings me to the housing part of this I I guess I've had Rumblings over the past year that somehow we're combining I get that housing first is great I'm

[108:01] not saying it isn't great but the answer to addiction is not obviously not just housing so we have this problem like I've mentioned quite a few times where we're putting people that are addicted um and have those co-occurring disorders into our housing affordable housing units and it's creating Havoc but not only is it creating a habit for the neighbors but they're also not getting enough help that they need either so in my Queen for a Day world it would be to have a way for us to put those people not there but to have transitional housing that we don't have yet or that we don't have enough of is Megan your mind is there anything in my dream that this could possibly be happening so that we don't keep doing what we know is it really working that well I'm not saying that housing first doesn't work I'm saying that

[109:00] we needs to be updated as to what we're dealing with right now in the past few years housing first is what 10 or 20 years old this whole situation is just a few years old and getting worse so I feel like it's almost like an emergency or maybe it is one I know I don't wanna I don't want to be what do I usually do I just uh talking to curl tips so I don't want to do that but it's almost an emergency that we have a plan for housing and for affordable housing that is different than the way we've been going so any thoughts team Megan do you want to jump in or do you want me to uh go ahead I'm more than happy if you want to but I would just as a very good question right the things we struggle with like the the main philosophy around housing first is that folks don't need services to get ready for housing they need housing to get ready for services that if they're living in the street they're living

[110:01] under bridges if they're living in the emergency shelter we're 159 other people are also using the likelihood for sobriety is no so that's the I that's the overall philosophy of getting people stable and then addressing the services so I think that what we've been looking at are you know what we have available do we increase the services to folks who we do house and so not a case manager who sees them once every two weeks but a case manager sees them multiple times a week but the conversations that also are happening currently around this are folks who do go to treatment folks who do like I would support it but get sober in jail where they are doing well we see them and it's night and day um it's like somebody I've seen every day for a year and then they're in jail for six months and they I'm like wow totally different person do we have the support services in place where they can go from A to B and maintain that as

[111:00] opposed to going back to the street and just starting the cycle all over again so it doesn't necessarily answer your questions if they don't have a a perfect solution for it but is the things we're looking at as yes I agree with you it's a whole different from doing doing this work for 20 years and it is a whole different world in the last few so then do we have options for do we have anything on the horizon for so sober residences I know we've talked about this before somebody gets is in jail and let's say they're doing well because they actually have programs in jail I think that you have to be there so meth is so overwhelming that you're not going to say to yourself oh usually you don't say to yourself oh I think I'm going to just admit myself and get treatment because the drug just draws you back so when jelly you have to be there so then there's more of a chance that you can I know the word isn't detox Lucy what what is the word again you see it maintain recovery thank you

[112:01] you can recover so is there anything on the horizon for a sober a transitional sober home I think that's what we're looking at tribe recovery today okay but that's really really what how many people yeah it's like eight to ten in the one house but we're trying to expand it to two to three houses but again yes you're correct I think we will need to continue to expand yeah that's all my questions for you and I know I just wanted to say I know we've got another presentation in the wings and I know this is a complex problem but I'll say that I think you're right Tara like it's all levers right it's not if we had a Magic Bullet right we or maybe that's the wrong term but if we had a magic wand um what would we look like what are the different levers that we would use to address the situation and it is it is um sort of some of the efforts that we're doing with tribe recovery homes it is really thinking about how to prevent

[113:00] Supply from coming in it is how do we continue to provide um more Mental Health Services uh and treat Addiction in a different ways there's so many different things um that we certainly will be exploring the transitional housing that we plan to have as part of the day shelter I think that is another or the day Services Center I think that's another place to think about as we're doing that and and our commitment is to continue to coming to council and share we also have great partners and I want to just note that our partner from Boulder County Public Health remain on the line and we will continue to partner with them on New interventions as we continue to move forward and I see Gabby I think that's you that has your hand up are you able to unmute or is that just a mistake I'm so sorry can you hear me yep I just cannot see you but we can hear you good good I'm glad you can't see me

[114:00] um I just wanted to could you introduce yourself yes so I'm Gabi hopefully with Boulder County Public Health I do all the meth sampling and clearance reviews for the county so you'll see my name on any of the meth affected property letters but um to Tara's question if there's anything on the horizon Lisa Geller with gallener with Longmont Housing Authority did say that they have a community building coming online where they're going to house X I believe X users who are going to live in this live in this community and they're going to have on-site treatment so it's a complete pilot program so I just wanted to let you know that you probably want to connect with Longmont because um I I had no idea they were doing this but um it sounds you know it sounds like they're trying to address it by specific

[115:00] housing for people who they are trying to um you know obviously recuperate and they will have on-site care where they live so I thought you know I thought it was important that you knew that thanks Gabby sure um and I think as we continue I think Lexi mentioned too the this summer hopefully the release of the behavioral roadmap like thinking about those strategies and what's needed there I think all of that ties together I know um as we are part of the regional opioid Council there are strategies that are being thought of there that hopefully will be able to um with the settlement dollars bring in some more resources and as that sort of comes into more Focus my commitment is to come back to council and share where that is going and give you an update on that as well so all good all good questions and we will continue to to a work on the issue ourselves continue

[116:00] to keep you apprised and continue to shift our services to meet um what his becoming um a really complex crisis thank you naria and thank you everyone for that presentation I did promise that we would have time for comments we are really short on time if people are willing to forego that or make them as brief as possible that would be deeply appreciated okay I don't see any hands up so I'm going to oh Lexi yes super quick uh plug for a community meeting an opportunity for the community to find provide feedback on the County Behavioral Health roadmap um will be on June 14th and we're happy to forward that information to the city to help us um get people there to make sure that we are capturing feedback and

[117:00] thoughts about the roadmap that would be fantastic thank you Lexi um and if I don't see any hands oh Nicole it's a question for the county it's just and I can make it fast so um some of the indigenous communities have been dealing with meth addiction for decades um there there was an exhibit at the history Colorado Center on the Sand Creek Massacre they had a t-shirt from 2006 that was a a war against math t-shirt right and I'm just wondering if um especially in some of our connections um with some of the tribes and peoples in the area have we asked any of them for what what practices may be working in in communities because it's just it's a place that has been severely under-resourced and overwhelmed by meth addiction for decades and just seems

[118:01] like a place to try to get some good ideas there too are you looking for a response to that just it just yes or no now I need to um yeah we are working on looking at a number of different priority populations folks that are particularly impacted by different issues um thanks for that note I will make sure that that feedback is incorporated appreciate it thank you Lexi and everyone who joined us for that difficult topic um our next item on our list or discussion is are policy discussion related to La gas-powered landscaping equipment thank you sure I'm actually not good I'm going to send it straight to staff and ask Carolyn to introduce yourself and get us started great thanks and if I

[119:02] could ask um either Alicia or Emily to promote the three folks with agza in their names as well as Elizabeth French with Boulder County who are with us while we do some introductions so um thank you and thanks everybody for for joining us and I honestly I just want to take a moment to just really appreciate my colleagues both at the city and Boulder County for they're just amazing work I mean this is a powerful conversation to listen to and I I just truly appreciate everybody and just wanted to take that moment before we start on this topic so thank you um again and thank you I'm Carolyn Elam I'm a senior sustainability manager in our climate initiatives department and I manage our Energy Systems and air quality work and I'm here to talk to you tonight about a project we started last year on in response to counseling communities requests to really look at our landscaping equipment and the impacts it's having um just want to introduce our team and

[120:00] it looks like we still have a couple that need to be promoted um if we could um why we're joining us but I'll just introduce you we have a City team um I'm supported by Karen Murph who many of you know who's been helping to project manage this as well as Emily Sandoval um who is leading our engagement work but I also want to call out Elizabeth French who is my colleague at Boulder County who has been doing um helping us with a lot of the business engagement and standing up our pilot voucher program and then I want to also take a moment to introduce our amazing Consulting team which is the American green zone Alliance and so I'm going to turn it over to Dan for a second in just a second because I see Alicia has her hand up I just wanted to know real quick Carolyn that we have sent the request so if Elizabeth can hear me if she would just accept our requests it would be appreciated great thank you um I want to turn it over to Dan to introduce himself and his team um because I wanted to give him a little

[121:01] chance um to share some of his background and his journey um to forming the American green zone Alliance and how he came to then work with the city so Dan if you want to thank him thank you so much for taking the time with us tonight yeah sure uh thank you for that Carolyn uh good evening uh council members and and the Boulder Community my name is Dan Mabe and I'm the founder and president of the American green zone Alliance otherwise known as agsa um agsa officially formed in 2014 and uh we are a group of uh industry landscape industry uh folks who worked institutionally um and also had our own businesses using conventional uh type of methods which is uh gas equipment and conventional um like fertilizers pesticides herbicides and such um for some crazy reason uh I decided uh

[122:01] way back in 2004 to go a completely different direction but I do want to say that we do specialize in Workforce Education and Training data and lytics and this is all for the landscape maintenance industry a little bit about my personal background um I started in this industry very very young by happenstance where the man of the house uh happened to be a high volume Gardener as a very young kid I spent my Summers and my weekends doing this line of work of course with these conventional methods um fast forwarding to after I had my own gas business um for a while as an adult I said you know what uh after some interactions about noise that were not really um Pleasant I decided you know what can be done about this so we started this

[123:02] business um as a as a maintenance company and what we call the pre-lithio-ific era um and actually was able to make a business model out of that and then once we dissolved that company we said hey what are the lessons learned how could this actually scale and how could we actually help this entire industry go in more of a low impact direction if you will um and then yeah so that is how we formed agsa and that is how we uh turned out to develop some of the certification uh programs we have and again this Workforce interaction and train to help get our industry going in a more low impact sustainable path thanks so much Dan and I am going to now share my screen and start the presentation let me check it

[124:08] make sure everybody can see the slides okay if I could get a thumbs up perfect great thank you so um again we're here to talk to talk about the project that we've done so far we're going to give you a little bit of background of how the the project was designed and has been progressing um some of our work around studying um thinking about the racial Equity components of this and the engagement that's been conducted so far um Dan's going to share some of his work that he's done around some of the cost and impact analysis on our landscape service industry in Boulder we're going to present some of the potential strategies um that could be considered by Council some of which were already implementing in terms of voluntary programs as as pilot programs and then have some discussion um just as a qualifier when we talk about landscaping services it's a pretty broad category

[125:00] um it's everything from maintaining Lawns Shrubbery trees to some of our forestry industry our city operations maintaining our parks and Ball Fields as well as you know even our maintenance of places such as our downtown spaces like Pearl Street so when we're talking about it consider that broad landscape we have campuses for example naropa and see you in town so it really spans the breadth of that and whatever decisions we make will have impacts across all of those services um these are our questions for Council and I just want to frame this up a little bit you know I think we're all in a place where we need to make the transition to Electric so that's not necessarily the topic we're seeking feedback on it's really more how we want to approach it the timing the different strategies we want to implement on how we can do that in a way that um is successful for everybody so not just the community but also the businesses that serve it um it doesn't have unintended

[126:00] consequences that we haven't really been thoughtful about um so these are the two questions we'll come back to the end but again we want to get some feedback from Council on um you know where whether we should come back with some specific policy actions um and and when and when analysis we might want um to support that did I mentioned we started this project um last year in the springtime just developing a scoping the project bringing our exit team on board um the project really got underway in the fall so right towards the end of our fall cleanup efforts um so when there was a lot of leaf debris cleanup and other activities so damn and his team did a site visit to the town they spent some time out at Western Disposal meeting with landscapers who were disposing of their Landscaping debris that they had collected engaging with them getting a sense for what types of operations happen in Boulder and getting a sense for Boulder as a whole they

[127:00] conducted some shadowing of of a couple of contractors to see how they operate and to start to inform the analysis um we moved on to doing case studies of different jurisdictions um the city had also done some background work on this as well um that then informed some of our costs and impact analysis which we'll talk about tonight we're here today doing a check-in with Council and then based on on the direction we get we may go forward and do some additional analysis and refinement we certainly haven't completed all the engagement we would like to do and then we could come back for further discussion and potential other decisions about any regulatory or policy strategies we want to pursue um so I mentioned the types of Lawns um this is the types of Maintenance we get here in Boulder um or or how Lawns and yards are maintained we have a category of self-maintained by Property Owners um so these are people who own their own equipment and do most of their own maintenance we see this principally in single family residential as well as our

[128:02] campuses and City operations um our campuses will have um staff that do that maintenance versus contracting service within our residential area we do see a lot of seasonal services lawn aeration spring and fall cleanup and then we have year-round Services which we see throughout the community single family multi-family commercial and campuses so all of these categories are or however the different lenses we're taking a look at how different strategies might have an impact um so why are we doing this um there's a number of concerns that we have about the the use of landscaping equipment we certainly articulated a lot of this analysis in our memo the principal concern from an environmental perspective these this equipment um does work in summer months when we have high ozone background to begin with it does produce ozone forming um pollutants it also um uh produces

[129:03] Health pollutants such as volatile chemical organic chemicals or vocs and other particulate matter which is an exposure for both workers and the area around as well as again contributing to Ozone we're hearing the climate initiatives department so we often are here to talk about greenhouse gas emissions I'm really the footprint from the greenhouse gas emissions is really small so we're really talking about the other sources of pollution principally around ozone and health issues ah really when we talk about our landscaping equipment and what we've heard from the community though is the biggest concern is really around noise um particularly we hear a lot about Leaf lower use in the community this seems to be one of the biggest areas of concern this is a chart that I think many have seen that just measures the different decibel ratings of different activities and what exposure can cause in terms of hearing loss and damage um so you see kind of the traditional leaf blowers are showing up there in the

[130:01] 90 decibel rating sporting events rock concerts Sirens are all in those higher end the interesting thing is you know as technology has evolved and our manufacturers are are making newer equipment more muffled equipment we're actually seeing the decimal rating of leaf blowers drop down I think it's also important to note that um you know when we talk about leaf blowers especially a lot of what we hear in terms of noise is actually not the motor or the operation of the the piece of equipment it's in fact the air velocity that's generated to produce the action and one of the reasons gas powered equipment is most cited is because it produces higher velocities than as Electric equivalent so electric does make noise and as electric continues to improve we're likely to hear it get louder um so that's certainly something we want to consider as we think about different strategies we can't simply sell noise simply with um like an electric only requirement we will still have that noise concern the other thing when it comes to leaf

[131:00] blowers in particular we hear about is dust um concerns so as we're blowing debris around there's a lot of particulate matter again that's something that's not unique to gas or electric um so get a sense of what this means in a bowler footprint so I think in our memo we cited a lot of more National statistics and state level statistics we're working with Dan and his team to actually do a bolder footprint analysis and this is just very preliminary um just to give you a sense of what we're looking at what we can bring back in a future date um so Dan did an analysis of what would happen um if we transitioned 100 small businesses and he'll talk a little bit more about what types of equipment this is later um if we converted them to Electric you know here are some of the the statistics of what we might expect to see in terms of of reduced emissions um you know on the carbon dioxide emissions or greenhouse gas emissions side this is roughly equivalent to maybe a few vehicles um per year and there are annual missions on the toxic and pollutants you

[132:00] know these are a little bit more meaningful but real um I'd say proportionately lower than what we might see across the front range on a population basis but we're still refining this analysis we'll have more to come back and Dan could probably answer questions at the end about a little bit more and then again we're showing the difference between handheld and non-hand held um from a definition standpoint you know the non-handled is going to be your um your mowers your push edgers the equipment that's um you know offering more on gasoline than some of the heavier oils and mixed fuels okay uh so as we launched this project and worked with Dan and his team and our partners at Boulder County um to really think about how we wanted the frameless um we had the opportunity to really leverage the city's um racial Equity instrument and really put it to use from inception of a project to its execution and so we shared a lot of this um in in the memo again but it's a six-step process where

[133:01] we start with really defining what outcomes we want to we really want to achieve and then trying to understand where we might have disproportionate impacts what groups are affected how we're going to measure whether we're successfully I'm trying to address our Equity outcomes and then continuing to evaluate that throughout so I'll just highlight a few things we wanted from an outcome perspective you know I think our goal from this project as I said at the beginning is you know not just to reduce the emissions but we really want to improve the health and well-being of everybody um both the community as a whole as well as the workforce we want this to be successful for landscapers we want to reduce their operational cost we want to provide them good wages and transition to the emerging Green Collar Workforce so that's the lens with which we developed this project and and really work towards execution and really Define our engagement as we're thinking about impacted populations I think this is a really important demographic to think about um within Boulder County it's really

[134:01] hard to tell the exact number of businesses that exist because we have everything from you know one individual operating their own business all the way up to you know some larger landscapers particularly those that work in new development and do a lot of the original Landscaping but there's as many as 2000 to 2 500 businesses that work throughout Boulder County and then many of those come into the city of Boulder and provide services here it's it's largely Hispanic both Workforce and ownership um so we it is a really great entrepreneurial entry point we'll talk a little bit more about demographics there but certainly we are talking about a um popular a higher population of Hispanics than some of the service receivers um within the community so we talk about um single-family households some of the commercial and multi-family properties we're talking about um you know largely Caucasian population overall more affluent broadly although

[135:00] we have groups within that I want to highlight so we think about multi-family and Commercial properties which almost exclusively rely on landscaping services um you know we're talking about populations like the occupants there the surrounding neighborhoods the tenants who have to pay Jews that could be impacted by affordability outcomes um and then also business Community Economic Development single family within that class A lot of communities landscaping services as something that is more common amongst more affluent members larger properties within our community it's also a critical service for a lot of our fixed income seniors and some of our lower income households and renters it's something to keep in mind we also have Workforce that lives within Boulder that works within this industry and then of course our public agencies such as our universities our city organization and some of our surrounding neighbors so we'll talk about this in a little bit more detail um we use census data to to try and understand the demographic I will just

[136:01] note um you know there are some challenges in terms of like getting truly quantifiable metrics within the census particularly on the 2020 census because there was a lot of hesitancy of response and we've certainly seen some underrepresented areas even within Boulder um within census block but it gives you a general sense of how large this industry is within our community it's about one percent of total occupation occupants of those living in Boulder and then obviously we have a large industry that serves us from outside I do want to note that when we talk about median earnings earnings potential I think this is a good metric and fairly consistent what we've seen historically um you know so we see you know roughly around the mid 50s as kind of the average median are earning and this includes business owners and Workforce within this category um just to give you an idea we often measure income in terms of area me median income um the 80 Ami or area medium income

[137:00] measurements is where we would consider the threshold of moving into lower income a single family household that is 63 000 and so we're seeing this as average median earnings definitely puts this category into our lower income earners within the community uh one thing in particular as we think about this industry unlike when we traditionally work with commercial industry within our community this is an industry that is a service industry that comes in um from outside of the area and so any actions we take also have effects on um communities where those businesses are located and where those workers come from um so as we look at where a largest portion of our industry is actually coming into the community we do have businesses located in Boulder but the biggest proportion are largely coming from the Longmont area as well as Superior and Lewisville and then we do have some landscapers that come from farther away our Arvada and those areas but and even as far north as Loveland so we definitely want to think about those

[138:00] Community impacts outside of our jurisdictional boundaries as well as how our strategies might want to bring in those partner jurisdictions to help support or Shore up those businesses a lot of um the equipment is purchased in dealers and retailers actually outside of our community as well um I think we we often talk about racial Equity um thoroughly so I'm not going to dive into this but these are certainly some influencing factors that we have to keep in mind especially when we're talking about um a Workforce where we already have quite a bit of disparity in terms of income earning and Equity to start with um which leads us to step three which is really how we gather more and more data um through engagement this is again a very hard to reach industry um because there's not like one source of data um so we've taken a number of strategies to inform this including working closely with the Latino Chamber of Commerce at

[139:00] Boulder County um we've now hosted our first workshop and drawn industry in so that we can make those connections and learn from them again we brought agsa on board with their breadth of experience and 12 years of Engagement done shadowing interviews with local shops retailers in Boulder as well as outside and then we did our community outreach through Beholder Boulder so I do want to talk a little bit about what we've been hearing and the engagement we've done so far I think many people and thank you council members um for elevating our be her Boulder page and also sharing with us any of the challenges we've also gathered input from Community for several years that we've shared with our consultants and brought it to this conversation I thought it would be interesting to see a little bit about who responded um to our be her Boulder page predominantly we had three um tracks you could identify as as a resident you could identify as a property owner you could identify as a business

[140:00] um we had we weren't particularly using the be heard polder page to look to our industry but we did want to provide a pathway for those that we might have reached we didn't hear from many businesses Story We largely heard from residents so I'm mostly going to share with you the residential data I could talk to what we heard from businesses or Property Owners we think you had a very good response rate you know so around 600 of our residents responded I will note um we mostly heard um interestingly enough from um those single-family homeowners that do their own maintenance um so that 85 84 of everybody who responded does their own maintenance and you know about three quarters of those um use electric equipment already so a lot of what we're hearing in terms of feedback is kind of based on their lived experience doing their own maintenance and the successive electric equipment in that we didn't hear as much from those who rely on the service industry to serve them although we did hear from some and got quite a bit of useful

[141:01] information from them the people who responded um about you know 80 notice the noise of landscaping equipment the majority of the folks who responded identify as it causes them a lot of stress or bothers them a lot so again that's the demographic of who we largely heard from again this isn't a statistic be her Boulder doesn't provide a statistical um least significant sampling is just really so we can hear from Community we got a lot of great feedback for example on on how based on somebody feels about equipment and their personal experience how they would rank some of the strategies and I'll talk a little bit about that when we get to the strategies what we heard I won't read this um what I will just say here is we got all sides of the equation in our response so for example we asked a question um how willing are you to pay more for your service if that's an outcome um we had a many people say they'd be willing to pay as much as double we had

[142:01] many people say they can't afford to pay more they already paid too much and people who just simply weren't willing um we heard from from folks who rely on this service um that they really can they need to have this maintenance they can't do it themselves we've had questions about um how we looked at the total impact of electric when we talk about gas you know we're talking about the fuel source but when you think about batteries life cycle yes we've heard quite a bit of great impact there are some themes though um that came through certainly there was Universal support whether you loved your gas powered equipment or left your electric equipment um support for Education Outreach and making sure we're Shoring up small businesses with any strategy we Implement so we heard that pretty uniformly across the board um same thing uh most felt a Salesman would be ineffective again recognizing that a

[143:01] lot of our industry comes from outside of the community or it's easy enough to go and purchase equipment elsewhere we did have widely varying views on whether the technology is ready and what the cost is and then I'll talk a little bit about some of the challenges there um and then from an equity impact um you know there's definitely a different perspective on how these services are being used within the community and what that means in terms of business impact um so we definitely heard a wide range of feedback there and then regulatory strategies range differently so those who were most bothered certainly ranked some of our regulatory strategies higher whereas those who were in the middle we should go electric now really felt like education and Outreach should be elevated all kind of agree that education and Outreach alone is likely not going to drive the transition but it's a little bit more of the sequencing and what to prioritize within our resources um for the business and what we've heard so far from the ones we've engaged with

[144:01] and there's a lot of concern about the the cost of transition as well as for new entrants into the market that original purchase price and the availability equipment um to support them uh Dan to talk a lot more about this but there's certainly a concern about how effective electric equipment is and what that could mean in terms of the productivity of their businesses as I mentioned in the memo um you know there's there's small margins in this industry and so productivity is really important there's a lot of concerns about how they charge batteries and what that means in terms of their operations for example um you know it's one thing to to fuel a gas powered piece of equipment with a can of gas when you start to do electric you have to take these home and charge them you know most of these businesses don't actually have a storefront that they operated operate out of homes and so what does that mean in terms of how they manage that charging infrastructure um there's a lot of concern about out different rules applying in different places these businesses work throughout

[145:00] Boulder County and to other counties and what that means in terms of consistency education of Workforce and then there's also a big concern about losing jobs for small businesses to larger businesses who are better able to absorb some of the costs they certainly see opportunities about you know being able to be seen as a green business about being able to provide healthier solutions for their workers and engaging in the Technology Solutions um so definitely that's that's certainly what we've been hearing from the businesses a few other considerations I think I touched on this um you know we definitely hear about the noise concern as the predominant concern and so as I mentioned electric doesn't solve for that and so as we think about strategies and some of what we'll recommend exploring further or considering for future um gets at maybe more Equitable treatment between electric and gas in terms of reducing noise and again a lot of folks have cited the leaf blower is the principal area concern and

[146:01] as you start to look at the data more broadly across the Front Range for example is actually mowers trimmers and other equipment that actually has the larger footprint so leaf blowers are certainly more very concern locally as some of the data shown for Boulder but when we're dealing with Front Range ozone there's there's issues that are broader um and then uh if we come back with regulatory strategies you know I think enforcement is is a huge Challenge and Dan could talk about some of the you know case studies about this um you know certainly I've I've spoken to communities it's it's really hard you get complaints about somebody using a piece of equipment it's gone by the time I'm somebody gets there to see it um so it's typically treated as a Code Enforcement issue with um where somebody has to report somebody and and provide documentation and follow through that process um so it is a little bit more challenging time intensive I've certainly heard from other communities about a lot of time spent and not a lot

[147:00] of outcomes from it so definitely something to keep in mind um and if we want to pursue that we certainly want to come back and talk about what it means in terms of staff and capacity and City resources um so with that I'm actually going to pass the Baton to Dan to talk a little bit more about um the experiences both um from his own analysis that he did for us as well as what he's learned from working with other communities and and some of the engagement he's done through the core program and so Jan I'll run the slideshow if you could just tell me when you're ready for the next slide sure just wanted to interject a quick time check we did a you know I think we allocated 30 minutes for this and we're getting I think five left based on it's okay if it goes over but if we could kind of go quickly through this Absolutely I'll I'll hit the the very important points I promise okay next slide please okay so uh here you're looking at gas equipment actually operated in Boulder um as Carolyn had mentioned our team and

[148:02] by the way all of our field team members uh the requirement for the for them to uh work for and with agsa is they have to come from the industry they have to have pushed a lawnmower uh worn a gas leaf or an electric leaf blower on their back raked uh cultivated weeded all of that stuff so we have inventoried a little over 40 total Tools in Boulder so far we're coming back two more times we're going to be doing more observations more inventory to really get that initial report um as accurate as possible but let's just take a look at the very right that Echo PB 9010 we came out in the fall and we really wanted to make sure that we came out in the most challenging uh time of year for all businesses to deal with the leave season and basically

[149:02] um what we're going to reveal is that it's most challenging to convert from gas to electric with this one specific tool which is uh the the gas leaf blower but there's there's good news inside of that next slide please okay let's talk about the cost when we look at uh let's just say there's a startup to two people that are starting up a brand new business here one is going to choose conventional tools which are gas the other is going to choose all electric uh tools The Upfront cost as you can see can be up to three times as much startup costs and that also can translate into transitioning a gas operation into electric now we do know and I know from experience when you don't use two-stroke oil you mix it in

[150:00] gas you're not paying those high gas prices you're not doing as much maintenance for your Fleet your electric Fleet over time this is going to be a very good proposition but the caveat to that is are you going to choose the proper uh brands on the market that are true really commercial make that right decision and get those tools to year three four five and sometimes six to to reach your Roi in some cases you can have an Roi on handheld Tools in in roughly two and a half years it just depends on on some variables but again the the carrot approach with with what the city and the and the the county are doing together bringing the cost down of this equipment is going to help tremendously but just keep in mind The Upfront cost of battery is significantly higher than gas now one last thing on this slide when you replace a gas tool

[151:00] you're not just replacing it with an electric tool you're replacing it with a system it's a tool it's a battery and it's a charger if you don't have one of those things it renders the system useless these folks have to use these tools to make a living and then you have to consider battery to gas tank ratio as you can see some of these tools will require multiple batteries to equate and handle the given workload to make an Effective Living with what they're doing now uh next slide please I'm sorry uh one last uh note on that last slide um there could be an added cost for charging infrastructure on top of the cost of the tools thank you Carolyn next slide okay when we talk about the case studies um we go way back uh and and National let's just say a project we did way back in 2014 we went out there and we said

[152:00] hey this is how you should really approach this do Outreach do an education um uh program look for resources to bring the cost of the technology down and you know what it was just too much work for these folks to do that and they went with uh what I would call the the more Draconian uh type of approach where the ban was put in place on gas leaf blowers um and basically uh they created a fine system where people can take pictures of of of other people send it in people will get fines in the mail um police and and other City staff are used uh to approach workers out in the field and it just lacked any type of Outreach and resources the only resources that were given were information about the ban itself and it causes a lot of friction and it's it's

[153:03] it's very hard especially on the small businesses um in other cases cities have used what we call the lead by example approach they um talked the talk uh they transitioned as far as they can go um all of their properties even sometimes under our certification where it's independently verified and then they're going to do robust Outreach uh to the homeowners and uh the the businesses that operate uh within their community and they're going to provide those resources the information sometimes training and then any programs that exist to bring the cost of the technology down and then afterwards sometimes years after they will end Institute a gas leaf blower ban but they will ensure that the industry has not been harmed uh and and that there's data to support that they won't be harmed

[154:02] where the technology is at and then how much resources need to be provided to ensure that uh next slide okay some of the strategies that that we just practice all the time uh boots on the ground engagement uh it is direct we do this nationally but uh We've really had to ramp it up here in California with the core program our teams will go out we will canvas entire neighborhoods where we're holding events and we will meet these folks and directly engage them uh a lot of them may not come to an event but they have been directly engaged they've and educated and then we give them additional resources to help them navigate a process of replacing a gas tool with an electric one these things are demographic Focus sometimes we've been given the task to to reach out to the Spanish-speaking demographic here in

[155:01] California we're particularly good at it we do form those strategic Partnerships with any non-profits Community groups and and definitely let them know hey we need your help can you help us reach these folks we do approach everybody in their language of comfort whether it be Portuguese Spanish Mandarin Korean we definitely have a staff that speak all of those languages and we make sure to cover all those bases and then if there's enough resources I can't stress enough the Education and Training uh if the resources are there because it ensures that there's going to be a safe and then enduring success when we help folks go to lower impact operations great thanks Dan um and I think one of the things I would I'd tag on and I mentioned this in the

[156:01] memo I think is we've looked at some of the experiences we can see everything from um you know really successful positive outcomes and engagement to just socializing fines and penalties as part of the the cost of doing business and driving them out and so that really informed the the best practices um so I won't go into this too much um my slides are working uh we are doing some education and Outreach I mentioned we hosted our first Workshop um in April um I think I mentioned our medal as well we took our Boulder County sustainability Grant and have been working with our Boulder County Pace team to develop a new Voucher Program where you've already signed up um half of our Target through this very first workshop and um businesses I believe we have 14 um who are signed up to participate in our Voucher Program um this is really to start to get us familiar with with how the businesses are working and can we be successful and we have another Workshop coming up in a couple of weeks and we expect to subscribe um the current pilot and we'll

[157:02] report back on progress on that um I think it's we can't really talk about the equipment if we don't also talk about what drives the equipment to use um so I just want to shout out to our nature-based climate Solutions team who's is really leading our education of our community we need to move away from the hyper manicure landscape because this is really what's going to change the Paradigm for our businesses most of them tell us homeowners will complain if their lawn is not perfect and pristine and it really is harmful to them that that's the perception and so we need to address that as well um so the strategies I won't dive into these um too much in the interest of time I know we highlighted them um you know we certainly are recommending business as usual we know there's a concern in the community we know we need to transition um to Electric um policy Focus there's a lot of activity going on at the state level right now to include potential rulemaking um from the regional air quality Council

[158:01] that actually could address a lot of what we're talking about in terms of um potential sales and use bands and really trying to Target that Front Range ozone issue that we want to keep track of and continue to support education Outreach we're definitely doing that we recommend certainly continuing to do that and offer incentives really to shore up our businesses so they can be successful particularly if the state is going to be taking action um we definitely want to educate the community more about sustainable Landscaping practices that's something we're doing through um our cool Boulder and other campaigns um advising and incentives again I mentioned a sales ban wasn't recommended we don't do a lot of equipment sales out of Boulder and a lot of our businesses come from elsewhere um so it really comes down to these potential policy strategies and really what we wanted to talk about um tonight the options certainly on the table are um electric only requirements we've seen jurisdictions just say all equipment must be electric I'm not just a specific

[159:00] device it's certainly something as the technology continues to evolve and costs continue to come down as demand grows up that we certainly recommend um the council may want to consider for adoption um we generally are a little concerned about doing it now because the equipment is so expensive and because of the concerns that it's not going to have the same productivity similarly um gas leaf blower band um would just say electric only again I think we've mentioned there's a lot of concern amongst businesses that an electric leaf blower would have the same performance and productivity um there's a lot of concern we think it's certainly something that the community wants to see though so we do recommend maybe not you know a band this year but something we can come back to um I believe lower band overall I mean again we mentioned um there's concern about noise more broadly buried in this is maybe quiet zones of something to be considered if there's areas of town where we have more

[160:01] concern we can certainly try and identify those and and go into more of a quiet Zone approach or what we think is potentially a good strategy to maybe start to phase in would be more of a seasonal allowance so we see more success where during the heavier debris times in Spring and fall communities have allowed any kind of leaf blower to operate but then banned gas any other time that's helped make some of the transition without having to require as much of the full replacement when the higher performance equipment is necessary so those are the strategies we wanted to talk to you about next steps based on your feedback tonight we can do some additional analysis we want to complete the work we've been doing and we can continue monitoring some of the the activities at the state continue supporting Outreach and then depending on what we hear from you about any potential regulatory Pathways we can come back to council and present additional data so we'd definitely like

[161:00] to hear where there's interest if there is interest and then what additional analysis or information you would need to help make that decision so with that we'll move to the questions or should I take the presentation down um I think the questions are helpful at least for the moment I kind of wanted to preface this by saying you know my idea with how we might move forward with this I'm sort of assuming that we want to take some action on this and I think that one of the ways um or one of the most important things that it seems like staff needs to get out of this is of sort of the list that you've given us which ones there's enough interest in to continue moving forward with and so I would like to encourage that maybe we ask questions now and then we could go through that list and I could pull pull do a straw poll on each one and people could then add any comments

[162:02] they have to that particular item if there's like additional information that they would need to know for sure or that kind of thing is that seem okay with everyone I sort of saw some head nods yes okay so these are starting off with general questions related to the presentation I see Tara and then Juni and so for the discussion maybe let's take the questions down and council member maybe we'll put the questions in chat so that folks have them at the ready that would be fantastic thank you hey upon initial read and also listening to this presentation I've been I was leaning towards the seasonal option but I want to know can you remind us what are the negatives slash unintended consequences that we would see from the seasonal again all right I was putting them in the chat

[163:01] um so I think a few things we would highlight um you know there's still quite a bit of resource that would have to go into a seasonal ban um to educate what is a very widespread um service industry and Community um so it's really more of a resource issue that would have to come into play um and there's a high probability and we've seen this with other communities that you're going to see equipment used outside of its allowable season and so that's going to be the thing we would have to respond to the positive of it again is um you still allow that um better Performance Equipment when it's when it's necessary so it's that kind of trade-off um definitely it would definitely have some significant resource and enforcement requirements that we would have to plan for and we would definitely want enough Runway um to educate and do Outreach around that and prepare community and businesses for that transition because like in the hot summer months

[164:01] when it's the worst pollution wise that would answer that question but tell me the city that did that can you remind us was it successful was it mostly successful I what was that City that did it again Dan you want to touch on that were you seeing some of that successful outcomes I mean South Pasadena is in the process of it sure um so for areas of the country where fall is particularly heavy um we have seen the seasonal approach work well um in the summer months and outside of spring cleanup um the the The Operators now know that the electric technology is adequate for those workloads and those times a year um the reason why the concession was made primarily for fall is because with the electric technology as it stands now you would need uh up to four sometimes

[165:01] five backpack batteries that have watt hour ratings of 1500 uh Watt hours and those backpack batteries uh can range anywhere from 1200 to 1700 each so it it really and and then the those blowers are still not going to perform um as as high performance as uh some of the top gas models uh so you have to pay a lot more and then you're still gonna lose some work production and again uh when we went out and shadowed folks in Boulder uh in the fall when we finished uh when the property was finished we said well this is perfect there's not a leaf on it we ask them is this expected of you and they said yes uh so again a lot of the companies are dealing with this expectation to make a perfect

[166:00] looking property to collect a paycheck so this is why that seasonal approach was taken but it has worked quite well and people have been relatively uh satisfied with it in general of course um all year long would be better all of us would agree I'm sure but right now as the technology stands it's very hard to um it's very hard to to to say hey you need to use the electric in the fall unless you can give them those resources to bring the cost of those multiple batteries down and account for the time the extra time that they would need on the on the properties I think the only thing else I would add on Captain America is um if we're gonna do that seasonal um allowance um they probably still have to make the investment in some electric options um for for the summer months because they're still used um for for more shorter periods of time

[167:01] and so there is some upfront at cost that I would also add to that for for businesses and those considerations uh Carolyn I'm sorry really quick for South Pasadena it's regional because it's in Southern California I would say 80 of the time it's dry conditions although we have 30 inches of rain uh this year thank goodness but um it really does come down to the region and the climate and and those specific workloads that are region specific so they were able to in other places here in Southern California have that band go all year round where electric is just used foreign looks like that was it for you to Juni and then Nicole thank you Lauren I my question is thank you for this

[168:01] presentation it was great um that's probably for or CD staff do we know what percentage of people who do their own Lawns versus small businesses that we have in the community so I think our estimate is that about 70 percent of all properties receive some um some Landscaping service with a portion of that just um seasonal services and then I think it's you know again we know that about um not quite 50 of all residential housing units or our rentals and so you would expect most of your rental properties especially your multi-family or served by Landscaping service providers we have not completely Quantified it but that's generally and then um yeah I think we used you know 100 as a

[169:00] good number for for kind of the single family areas um if that helps no that's pretty good actually um yeah that's that's a lot considering the numbers and my understanding I'm looking at the um the slide when you were talking about the pilot program I thought I heard currently in the pilot program there are 10 businesses is that correct um so 14 are signed up and I think we have space for um around 26 or so okay and I know you answered my question as far as seventy percent of properties use some form of businesses to help them but my other question to you how many businesses are small bits small those small loan businesses in Boulder itself do you know how many are registered with us um we do not know that number specifically um there's there's definitely some out

[170:00] of Boulder that are actually local businesses I've certainly seen a good you know probably dozen of ones advertised what's really hard to tell is is the what I think Dan uses the term micro businesses which are going to be ones that aren't you know aren't necessarily advertising um you know in comparison certainly um you're larger a lot of your larger businesses that are coming in and serving your commercial properties um I I see them mostly come down Foothills um into into town out of uh the Longmont area but those are going to be the ones that are going to serve uh particularly more of your commercial properties rather than your residential areas thank you and my last question is is the chamber involved in any part of this programming or education process um we have not done extensive Outreach to them yet um they're certainly we've been we've certainly did some encouragement of responding to the survey we've been particularly focused on the Latino chamber who has a lot of

[171:00] connections um to the workforce and so that's been our priority Focus um so far um certainly it's definitely as we think about um like a next phase of a better understanding for example if we're going to do a regulatory strategy we need to figure out what fine structure and other things we definitely would want to bring them in um and and better understand the impacts there thank you so much thank you Juni Nicole and then I have a question as well and Mark thanks and thanks for the presentation in the engagement did the workers that we were talking to talk about the negative impacts from breathing fumes or the noise or anything like that because it seems like that's something we hear from residents um concerned about the workers is that something the workers raised who are spending a lot of time around the equipment or do they have protections or just curious about that oh okay so we were able to Shadow two particular companies

[172:02] who we uh became chummy with and uh we shadowed them all day long but we did engage roughly 15 companies and I would say only two out of those 15 and we do get this from time to time say you don't need to worry about my health I'll worry about my health we do get that but the majority actually are like yes this is so much better um and and then also we always point out the not just it's zero emission at the source of operation they're not breathing the fumes yes absolutely that is very positive from the workers but also the vibration uh coming from the industry myself uh I have numbness in my hands to this day I have ringing in my ears um I I can tell you the vibration of uh putting on a gas tool all day is is just

[173:02] incredibly hard on the body itself um I would say the majority of these Electric Tools have are much smoother to operate so we do receive feedback that it's better uh from that perspective as well but the engagement does have to be there and it's things that we sometimes have to really point out and then they say oh yeah but a lot of them just haven't been exposed to commercial electric tools and they really um they just haven't been able to see the difference for themselves but when we finally get them to that point like we did in some of these workshops we were able to point that out and the workers are definitely agreeing that this is better from that perspective thank you seems to speak a little to the education part um and then I think this is more of a question for the city uh staff when we're looking at the environmental impact of things like gas

[174:00] powered lawn equipment and making transitions do we account for the environmental impact in areas where say the metals for electric batteries are mined or other materials you know for the equipment or manufactured um maybe to put it another way when we're looking at these kinds of things are we really just making our decision based on local impacts or are we taking into account local and Global impacts yeah no it's a it's a really good question and I think it's one that you know we flagged kind of in some of the comments that we heard from some Community businesses as well we have not done the life cycle assessment on electric um but certainly the um the number of batteries and then the life cycle of those batteries is certainly an area of concern and could certainly be something we would probably want to look at more closely to fully understand it it's not um a zero a mission when you think about the global impacts of lithium-based

[175:00] batteries for sure yeah so the numbers I showed you were explicitly um the the point source pollutants um that that are derived from the equipment it's used locally thank you and I think um just just one other uh kind of question feel free to punt this to the next section where we're going through and talking about the um the recommendations if we're thinking about policy changes and bans is there anything that we should change think about changing regarding our landscape code to encourage people to create spaces that don't require as much equipment to maintain in the first place yes um I think that's certainly something we're flagging as part of our nature-based on climate Solutions we're certainly within code um we even heard from somebody from one of our historic areas that can't remove their Turf because of the requirements they would like to and and so that's certainly something that um you know when we think about

[176:00] climate resistant drought resistant um ecologically supportive Landscaping there's definitely some transition that needs to occur both homeowner education and and policy and code changes locally thank you um Carolyn if I may I would like to Circle back to the life cycle of batteries just for a quick second um we do have um uh council member we have a lot of data um uh that we've collected for nearly 15 years uh there are batteries uh that are still working uh that are 10 years old and have uh really replaced all of that um uh pollution at the source of operation uh we have been doing a lot of battery repurposing projects here locally in California but we now see an emerging market for repurposing uh lithium 18650 cells and then if they're

[177:04] not going to be able to be repurposed we see that they can be recycled but we definitely acknowledge there's a footprint in um the manufacturing just like there is in in the gas stuff but we always point out after it gets to the showroom floor then we look at that footprint over its life cycle and then we also look at the footprint of both um after its life cycle so you bring up a very good point it's something that always needs to be um right there in all of our sites and we will keep the county and the city informed of all of the um resources and and the emerging business models to collect and repurpose and recycle lithium thank you for that Nicole next we have Mark and Rachel

[178:00] I only have a couple of questions the first one is small but it just has been bothering me on page six of the memo uh it stated that a gallon of or half a gallon of gasoline will create 11 pounds of CO2 is that is that an accurate 0.43 I think um since a gallon of gasoline weighs six pounds and half a gallon would be three pounds how does three pounds end up as 11 pounds what am I missing am I just is there some new dimension of uh uh physics that I'm not aware of here I'm just moving that back I can definitely check on that I don't want to buy that clarification I need to go back and now that's small but um with respect to the possibility of uh encouraging voluntary electric equipment adoption have we costed out how many

[179:01] businesses we would have to subsidize and what that amount of subsidy would be and what the total liability would be to us since it's clearly not funded at this point then would simply be another obligation we'd be undertaking and have to prioritize relative to other obligations we have not done the full analysis I think one of the reasons for doing the pilot is understanding a little bit more about like what the uptake is and and trying to to reach out to more of our businesses so we can get a better understanding of of all the types of businesses that serve um again what we're funding right now we think we can do 26 businesses um out of a grant that we got for um roughly 221 000 but that includes some of the development time so I don't know Elizabeth's what is the total rebate amount um for that program the total rebate and so I'm Elizabeth French from Boulder County Pace

[180:01] um we have about 265 to 300 000 um the boulder counties kicking in what we're calling a cushion if this uh rebate program the pilot is successful we'll put in some sustainability tax dollars to help support businesses who want to participate and even if we run out of funds we'll be able to to help them so that would equate to about 26 to 30 businesses how many businesses of this type do we have in Boulder County or that service this community so we think there's as many as 2 000 County Wide but those would be like that wouldn't be inclusive of you know somebody who um just has like one or two pieces of equipment um so it's what's another number no Dan do you have a sense of that percentage like what would be the small business targets we would typically see um okay so like uh the uh um out of the 2500 what would uh what would um the

[181:02] percentage of the small business of that number uh-huh yeah we're still kind of assessing that um it's something that we're gonna have to do a little bit more um groundwork on uh but it's definitely something that we can produce I think after the next two visits there uh but um yeah we're we just it some businesses they just don't want to be known uh they they just don't uh want to be on the radar and that's that's what it is so we're gonna have to do a little bit more but in California um there is going to be an estimated uh 50 to 60 000 um businesses that don't have business licenses and that's in the entire State of California and that's just a rough estimate I think we can sharpen our pencil like I

[182:02] said and uh after our next two visits there and and try to come up with something that we can extrapolate but to be fair it's not I mean it is an obligation um council member I mean it is something that we would need to consider in terms of of long-term funding my last question is um uh there's nobody in town who who is not annoyed by the sound of the blowers um uh nobody um but in my recollection you've only received a dozen maybe 20 complaints in terms of emails on this subject in the last year relative to the kinds of community interest we saw on the West End closure or occupancy limits or prairie dogs I'm just wondering is this

[183:00] a burning issue that the community really wants to address and do we want to spend a lot of Staff time addressing it at this particular point in time all right I just throw that out as as a question if you have a different sense of the community engagement on this I I'd love to hear it but I don't recall seeing that many people jumping up and saying You must you know you must solve this problem yeah I think um I can probably speak to the um you know the survey again we did hear from about 600 and there's certainly uh more people out there there were people within that I'll just say that said you know they it wasn't bothered or they hear it it's not bothered but um again it's not a statistical sampling your your references to the number of emails received is about accurate um so that's consistent I can just say that that you you have

[184:00] different data than than I think we do um because they're not exactly banging down our door and we're usually pretty responsive um to people banging down our door so I I'd throw that out there's a question yeah go ahead Jonathan I mean I'm not representing that they're beating down our tour um I think it's a good question no thanks thanks Carolyn and councilman Wallach I appreciate the question I just wanted to remind Council this is a this is an item that's come up a few times in the last couple of of council Retreats and I think um as a whole Council has suggested and requested staff do some analysis and bring back some options uh to council and so I think that's what tonight is about we've done a fair amount of research um and and working with our great Consultants to try to give you all a comprehensive view of there are trade-offs in terms of the regulatory options that we have on the table um we we could in fact if Council chooses we could choose the do nothing option and that's certainly within your right to direct staff to do that but if

[185:01] there are additional items that you'd like for us to research so you can provide any policy guidance to our staff team that would be super helpful tonight thank you I appreciate it that's the end of my questions Lauren do you mind if I jump in and colloquy on a previous question mark Ed or posed he just rapid fired and I didn't maybe jump in real quick it was just to answer the chemistry question he had so Mark had that chemistry question about the nearly half gallon equaling uh about 11 pounds uh the chemistry that is as gasoline burns the carbon and hydrogen separate um then two hydrogen combined with an oxygen to form water is a byproduct and then that single carbon combines with two oxygen and since by weight it's mostly carbon when it combines with those two oxygen that's what giving the added weight and so that's why it seems like a half a gallon of gas can somehow create more it's because of the combination of the oxygen that it combines with on the hydrogen and the carbon that creates that greater weight upon combustion when it recombines with those other atoms

[186:00] you may be in the wrong job good for jokes and science lessons thank you Matt um uh Rachel I think got your hand up thanks I didn't even take physics in high school like my mind is blown by that and that Benjamin um so and also to you know cheat a little bit and answer a colleague's uh Mark's last question not the science one I've certainly heard a lot from community on this um at office hours in other places um and from a wide spectrum I would say uh kind of cross the aisle politically so um it I think it is of community interest so just sharing that and then my question and I'm sorry if this was answered um elsewhere I looked for it and I'm I'm just not I just can't find it so um I think it's it's a great implementation of the racial Equity instrument in this project like and and for uh those of us who were on the

[187:01] previous Council like we would often be like did you run this through the racial Equity instrument and people be like sorry we forgot again so this is like outstanding I'm so impressed um but one thing I couldn't figure out is um where you cite I think a couple times that 80 of workers are Hispanic was that 80 percent also hold true of the owners of the industry because we're talking a lot about the the financial impact um on on this industry and so I'm just trying to figure out is that 80 static across owners and and and the people doing the job and part of that ties into I think mayor brackett's um hotline post about um you know who who sort of bears the brunt of the exposure and you know your description of um you know hand um numbness years later is is poignant so I just want to understand that aspect of the racial Equity instrument don't you want to take a swing at it I mean it's well yeah I know I got a small

[188:01] number no definitely want to chime in on that um you know you you got Boulder has companies that um have embraced the electric and are making a business model out of it uh a company Eco um Eco lawn and garden uh I'm I I believe um they have Hispanic and and other workers uh working for them but since they're all electric their work environments are so much better if you will um but that is going to go back to the owner operator percentage how many of these companies are going to be owned and operated uh by minorities and again we know that roughly or we estimate roughly 80 percent of the front line workers definitely are Hispanic uh the percentage of ownership out of out of

[189:02] that we do not know yet and and again that's something we're going to be working with Carolyn the city the county um on our next few visits and then um other sources to to try to get a more accurate number on that but it's important to note though that the front line workers we would we would estimate to be 80 percent at least 80 percent Hispanic thanks for that so yeah that's um sounds like there's there's my question can't yet be answered in terms of I've I assume that the 80 did uh apply to to the um workers out in the field but I wasn't sure if if that Financial ramification of you know buying the new equipment and such was also an 80 um okay so okay don't thank you for that because out of the 15 uh or 15 to 16 companies uh that we were able to interact with I would say half of them are Hispanic owned

[190:02] interesting okay thanks so much that's my only question thanks Rachel um and I had one question which was your staff um in the recommendations on for the sales ban I was not recommended um and the one of the reasons for that was because gas equipment is easily obtained in adjacent communities and I was just wondering if you could maybe expand on that a little bit more like do would we expect a sales ban to harm Boulder retail establishments like are people buying a lot of these lawn equipment like if these I'm it was mentioned that these businesses are mostly located outside of City Limits so it's a little surprising to me that to some extent that it matters whether the city bans them or not

[191:00] because I would assume a business in Longmont is probably buying equipment in Longmont um and it seemed like this would mostly target potentially residential um you know home owner purchases and that that might not be as susceptible to shifting locations and so I was just wondering if you could um expand on your thinking a little bit and maybe address that question yeah and I think Dan I think in our visits to Like Home Depot and McGuckin's um and Ace like you don't even find gas powered equipment there to begin with largely for the residential applications um so I think I think it's really more of it would be it wouldn't have much impact it's not so much that it would be a harm but um the the net outcomes and and the work behind doing a ban uh wouldn't necessarily have an effect is more of the the issue just because um either it's not currently sold or

[192:01] um if people wanted them they can you know just go well Lewisville is considering it but you know could just go to the Lowe's in Home Depot in Lewisville as an example or um the one up in Longmont if they wanted to so it's it's those two trade-offs they think you would add down to that piece from your conversations with them yes absolutely um you you do have a a couple local businesses that have been there forever um I I think it it could could impact their their business and it would be like first of all um when you ban gas um we we've seen the supply chain issues especially supply chain issues for the uh truly professional and Commercial battery uh platforms if you will um and that is where um you can get um a particular uh manufacturer who who

[193:01] may not be commercial grade uh but say that they are so there's a there's a lot of implications to just uh saying we're just going to ban gas tools now in California we are very air quality challenged and we know you you all have uh similar challenges uh but they really had to go in there and understand uh what category of source small off-road engines um should be and could be banned and um you know it's something that has to be done through a process of discovery but most most of the business owners say this is going to negatively impact them now it's important to also understand that in California it's Banning the sale of equipment this category of soar uh 25 horsepower and smaller but it does not ban the use so at least for the immediate a lot of the lawn and garden

[194:01] shops obviously they feel that they're going to be busier than ever with repairs and keeping these gas pieces of equipment going for a long time when we do our projects and we inventory gas we run into tools um blowers they can keep these things going for five six seven years mowers sometimes up to 20 years they can keep these uh pieces going so it it's not as straightforward and as it seems and um you know it's it it's something that um it could negative impact business who rely on selling electric and gas tools thank you for that and that is specific to the commercial and professionals not homeowner right and we do have shops in Boulder that are selling all right

[195:00] commercial grade okay thank you um all right I think we are to the end of questions um I was thinking that we could start with maybe the most obvious question which is are we interested in pursuing any of this um because as Mark brought up you know maybe this isn't something that we want to move forward with at all so before we go into the detail of all the other questions I'd like to sort of straw poll to see if council members are interested in moving forward with any of these recommendations I got one two three four five six okay um

[196:00] and then also to try yes Junie how we feel okay my next question was going to be also in an interest to streamline are there people who want to move forward something other than just the staff recommended list of options just because they've already laid out a list of recommendations and if we all want if there's a majority of buy-in for that I think that we might not need to go through everything in quite the detail so if you would like to pursue something other than just the exact recommendations that staff has laid forward please raise your hand okay there's only two people there so um

[197:00] it seems like everyone did you want to bring in a question now or I didn't know question I was just gonna make two comments but this can wait okay wait for the end all right um so does anyone want to add it seems like there's a majority that are interested in moving forward with staff's recommendations as they are laid out in our packet would anyone like to add any further detail or comments around any of those items Juni would you like to give your comment now or wait till after oh that's good that's good um I just want to tell you that yes it's it would it's great to pursue policies to address both leaf blowers and mowers um but I

[198:00] I don't know how it works in California I only can consider Bolder as it stands and to just have a complete ban what does that mean especially now that we have the pilot program and there is only 14 small businesses in it I think even though I am I consider myself us an environmentally small e-environmentalist um but I think we would need to expand the program more and ensure that there is more access before we just go to the band and I know the city is probably already thinking about this so I know earlier I asked you the question about the chamber and you already mentioned that you're working with the Latino Chambers so I would say continue on that work to find ways to incentivize access to electric mowers and leaf blowers and also I appreciate what I heard earlier when it comes to educating

[199:00] um those small businesses and also currently there is actually a bill going through the legislature which is Senate Bill 16 that offers credits and incentives for the purchase of electric mowers and leaf blowers so I think again I think it is a great program 14 people is a great start to the pilot program but it needs to be expended before we can go to a complete ban and also I know you mentioned to me earlier that more than 75 of properties currently in Boulder utilize some type of small businesses to help them keeping a clean lawn um I think the other 30 as well we have to find ways to incentivize them to also use electric mowers and that again would require us to incentivize the purchase of these type of electric

[200:00] um devices or appliances and the thing is even good for people without incentives people I know you showed us some of the um as part of the conversations that you've been having with communities some people are willing to pay more but some people can't afford to pay more so I we have to consider that in the bands as we are moving to uh offer more options to community members thank you thank you Nicole uh Matt or sorry thank you Juni Matt you were up there but no yeah I just yeah I just put I I was taking a call and put my hand down as you were doing it just move the line along my comment will be pretty quick just to maybe offer Clarity of what maybe the majority of council was moving toward which is kind of uh this sort of lead by

[201:02] example phased approach over time and allowing those staff recommendations to best fold into that um and it kind of encapsulates what uh Aaron or you know mayor Brockett pointed out in his hotline so I just want to give credit to to the mayor in terms of him pointing that out as well and that was his so I just want to get in a quick sentence say that that's I think the direction that we were maybe all agreeing to but just to put it in a tight bow around it um but hopefully that's maybe a direction we'll go thank you Matt Nicole yeah I just wanted to um it's not really a change but sort of a little going in the same direction just that as we're thinking about policy changes and things to really think about what what could we be doing with regard to Landscaping right and the way that we're encouraging people to landscape and you know if we are focused on education around electric Landscape Maintenance equipment

[202:01] thing about education related to xeriscaping if we're looking at policy changes around landscaping equipment look at policy changes around Landscaping as well right just to to kind of go in in both directions with those things as they're similar so slight modification but I know you're already thinking about it and you know and working in that direction I would just like to see us kind of doing both of those things if we are going in those directions thank you Nicole Rachel thanks Lauren um just a couple things and I'm told that the the proper science branch that I lacked understanding of is chemistry and not physics so sorry Boulder I know neither of them um I I think following up on on both Matt and Nicole um you know continuing to focus on um who Bears the brunt of the burden it's it is the workers and also uh to the extent that we are allowed to

[203:00] look at it in terms of air quality impacts you know the um Mark said earlier you know I don't know anybody who likes the sound of of leaf blowers and I gotta say in my neighborhood I don't hear them like I'm I'm not in a in a a nicer I guess uh I don't know a more affluent neighborhood where we have a lot of leaf blowers so I don't hear them and I think that that the air quality impacts are are already felt um you know inequitably in in places where there's a lot of other noise pollution such as as near highways and so let's be mindful as we run through that Equity instrument um who who's who's paying the bigger uh cost already and and who's who's going to to continue to pay that and so also um I guess in in keeping with the Landscaping look I I guess I have some concerns about um sort of really slow walking this due to the ramifications that it's going to

[204:00] have on on business owners and I don't want to be insensitive to that but I also like I think back to you know the the um issues that we have had with uh closing coal mines nationally and things like that like it's still the right thing to do to um stop a pretty big um harm be it noise or environmental pollution and so we I don't know that we want to not do the right thing because um a certain few dozen or hundred people um are going to be um out of pocket I think the better better answer there is to help make sure that they're not and um and you know retrain people in jobs as we were doing looking with coal mines and things and if we really get where we want to go with Landscaping people are also going to be out of jobs so like I think we we should we should kind of make haste doing the right thing because uh there is a a pretty big harm that that comes from these type of of uh lawn equipment that are not electric so

[205:01] I think that is all of my comments I I support where staff's going I just would like us to think creatively about how to get there faster because um I think the people paying paying the price are likely to be um kind of Downstream of of those who are benefiting from from the economics thanks thank you Rachel um I also had a couple of comments so I understand you know some of the issues around the commercial grade sales versus residential sales and things like that but I also think that having a sales ban in place is a good way to Signal a change in policy um because I think you know there's also the impact of the equipment and the manufacturing and all of that and the sunk cost of that I think is significant

[206:02] to people and so I do think that at least for residential equipment having you know looking at a ban might be a piece of the education puzzle um and maybe that maybe it doesn't apply to commercial grade equipment or something like that but that's just my two cents on that um I was going to summarize other comments that I hear but I see Tara's hand up okay Bob yeah I was just um I was I was I was following along and then you lost me there Lawrence I'm kind of confused I guess I'm not sure that there's there's a huge difference between commercial grade and red Central grade I'm sure that there are landscape companies that use smaller equipment that we all might think of as residential grade and I know there's bigger stuff that's commercial grade but I'm not sure there's a super bright distinction between commercial and residential and and I think for all the

[207:01] reasons stated both in the memo and tonight a ban on sales is not going to be particularly effective um because it's going to be so easy for anybody to get around that by simply buying equipment someplace else so it seems to me like we're kind of down to a decision do we want to have have bans on uses not on sales now we can have a long discussion about how quickly we phase that in and what education and BuyBacks and rebates and so on and so forth but but I think I'd probably stay away from distinguishing between commercial and residential and distinguish and also stay away from distinguishing between sales and use I think we either ban use whatever the phase-in is or we don't but I'm not sure that banning sales is going to be particularly effective would you not ban sales if you are Banning use well I mean you ban ball with conventional and use um but but what we really care is use right care about is use yeah I guess you can allow sales in town but Ben used

[208:00] but then I guess who would but who would go to Boulder to buy equipment that they can't use in Boulder yeah I to me it seems like ultimately if we are going to ban use we're probably also Banning sales and that it might make sense to initially ban sales in like the years leading up to Banning use and just as you're moving forward maybe this is a question for our experts then I know California banned sales but that's a whole state people probably wouldn't want to drive over to Nevada to buy equipment but given how porous our borders are in the back that we're surrounded by other cities that wouldn't have bands staff recommended against a band of sales but what is what do the experts say about how effective that would be as a first step to a Ultimate Fan of use I mean I I would offer I think it certainly does send that market signal I mean I think that's it would be its

[209:00] principle purpose I did want to note that there is discussion at the state level right now about potential sales ban and so there's also this option to um monitor where that heads um obviously that's the most effective um right so if it's a Front Range it's um it's it certainly is going to and and they're obviously going to Target residential first um and Commercial and and those types of things I just wanted to flag that and then Dan anything you want to add to my response yeah um put my I'm sorry my glasses uh Bob um I I would say if if um you're going to ban the sales um I definitely leave some off-ramps in there uh just in case supply chain issues um um come about uh this is fairly new here in California and uh the California air resources

[210:02] board definitely has uh off-ramps to Pivot uh should there be such issues um I believe so um I I would just make sure to to you know just have those um off ramps if if you were to move forward with some type of ban on sale and then the distinction between uh residential and Commercial uh we know about it we we know the components used in the PCU boards and the battery Management systems and the cells themselves you just really want to look to the warranties um and then that's going to tell you all you need to know there's a lot of equipment that's getting out there where in the fine print it says the commercial warranty is 90 days and then uh are a year and then the professional brands are going to be two years three years and up to six years and some of them are on batteries as well

[211:05] thank you um Tara because the state is working on this now and thinking about and probably going to do some things I I think we should go with what staff said with that phased approach and do a wait and see and let the state take the lead on this I mean unless you want local control just kidding that was a joke from last week thanks yeah we appreciate it thank you too soon Tara too soon too soon anyway that's my suggestion that we go along with what staff said which by the way was really great it was a great presentation and really thought well thought out especially the racial Equity part because I was really struggling with you know how much to push um because it is so important but also it's the livelihood of people so I appreciate all the work you put into it so I go with that door door number one

[212:03] thank you Tara Bob I just have a question Kara because I I didn't drag her out this time um so are you saying that you would not do any either sales or use bands in Boulder but you'd sit back and see if the state acts sometime in the next few years or no good question I'm so tired no wonder it didn't make sense or would you be okay doing both in other words we'll start start bands here locally obviously um lapse us that's great and that's the most most effective as Dan said but but get going here locally and then and then also Monitor and push the state is that what you're saying thank you so much for making me say what I'm saying I appreciate it I'm not trying to put words in you always want to make sure what I am saying is I agreed with the staff's phased approach and what they said but as far as Banning sales I don't think we should do it doesn't seem to make sense it's it's like we're known as the Banning people that our

[213:01] government like one more rule one more you know no sugar no no I'm just kidding but I'm really not kidding that I don't want that to be our reputation when it doesn't make sense of just Banning for the sake of banning when the state is considering it and that's what would have the biggest impact in terms of banning equipment did that even make sense we were successful in nudging the state on guns so I just want to keep in mind that sometimes Banning is a good thing so what are you saying you agree with Lauren are you not agreeing for it I didn't follow Lauren so I'm in favor of moving forward with uh with sales or use bands on whatever phase and approach the staff recommends but and in parallel uh nudging the state I think yeah at the same time good okay so I'm gonna summarize the recommendations that staff has made and the additional things that I have heard so just to make sure that we're all on the same page so staff has recommended a policy these

[214:03] following strategies a policy Focus where we would advocate for state level action sales bans tax credits um educational and Outreach sorry education and Outreach where we would encourage voluntary electric equipment adoption and business education education and Outreach on landscapes so through cool Boulder and future initiatives we would grow Community understanding of sustainable Landscaping practices advertising initiatives such as driving Market transformation through education and financial assistance

[215:23] restrict which types of equipment could be used when I also heard um sort of a well Matt sort of had this lead by example um with the phased approach a staff laid out which I think yeah anyway it's what we all agree to um I also heard support for landscape changes I would in terms of our regulations and what's required around Landscaping I would agree with Nicole on that

[216:00] um especially if we're doing other educational Outreach initiatives around Landscaping it seems like a great time if we're going to do a code change to fold both in together in terms of education and Outreach um from Rachel I heard a focus on bearing who a focus on looking at who Bears the brunt of these changes as we move forward and I had my recommendation on ban of sales that did not get a lot of other support so my summary of our discussion this far if there's anything anyone wants to add or feels like I didn't properly convey Bob and Juni well um some of these are things to do now like you know education and lobbying the state and some are like we'll get around to it in the future I want to know what the future is is the future like one year from now or ten years from

[217:01] now because I don't think we're being responsive to our community we we have 81 percent of the people who were surveyed said that these things are very annoying to them um I received I've received six I went back and kind of received 60 emails from community members over the last six months so notwithstanding Mark's comment that not a lot of people care about this I think a lot of people do care about this so I think if the newspaper article tomorrow is yeah Council said let's do some education uh and we'll get we'll think about these other things in the future I I don't think that's a response to what our community's asked for so I'd like to take some action out and construct staff to go forward we can have an interesting discussion about whether the future is measured in months or years or decades but let's let's move forward here I I it feels like we're just kicking the scan down the road I appreciate that thank you Bob um Juni and Tara thank you I think for me based on the conversation staff recommendation is

[218:00] fine but I still believe that we have to do a better job at increasing access and ensuring that again those businesses have I understand we have the program the pilot program we need to expend it further um my understanding there's three hundred thousand dollars in the program I would urge the city to um continue its partnership with whether it's the chamber or other groups to um to expand that program so that if we're heading to ban to a ban is that you know people steal they can do it right we can just assume that oh yeah let's just ban let's just have a ban on use uh or sell and then you expect community members to come up with what what was the cost um I saw earlier eight to ten thousand dollars and or commercial equipment but if it's a

[219:00] one for personal use it's still going to cost a lot of money so I think we have to do a better job at incentivizing these um these type of equipments yes there are bills that are coming forward to help community members with them but ultimately if we're going to have a band we have to think economically how is that going to impact community members and I understand some people are thinking oh yes it's the environment yes it is the environment but ultimately it's going to impact community members as well so we have to take a multi-prong approach and the way we look at this let's have the band great but what does that mean for community members who can't afford to just buy a piece of equipment when we have that ban as well thank you thank you Juni um and I had a follow-up question from sort of what Bob was saying Carolyn I was wondering if you could maybe give us a little more information about what you guys were thinking when you

[220:01] said future consideration is that something that might is there any plan for bringing that forward or is that like that six months future is that six years future um you know I think from our recommendation um we would we would recommend any kind of regulatory strategy um be a phasing so of course um our preferred option would be to start with more of a seasonal um restriction um and still allow gas powered in the in the heavy debris Seasons um timing on that we would want to have enough Runway um to do the you know I think to to junie's point to do the education and Outreach um so it could be something that we signal for a date in the future so we could take it up sooner put it on the books as a date that gives us some of that Runway to do that Outreach and education um so like I wouldn't recommend a band that's effective in 2024.

[221:02] um I think we won't be successful I I and I think we have to expand a lot of resources um to make that happen but it could be something that's farther out and then that could be replaced or you know like it could be even I'm gonna come up with the number but let's just say in three years it's a it's a seasonal restriction um by 2030 it's electric only um would be a sequencing or um it's electric all equipment I think um I think when you were going through the summary we'd recommend either just focusing on the leaf blower or electrical equipment not one or not not both of them but just thinking about which one is the preferred um based on on technology and so those are those are kind of the two choices but starting um not with a full um electric only requirement and allow for that seasonal um until until the technology continues to catch up a little bit

[222:00] be our recommendation and I don't know if you've already covered this and if you have I'm sorry but could you remind us when do we expect to have information back from the pilot program that we might use to sort of understand better what the impacts would be on businesses and I don't know Elizabeth do you want to speak to that or I can I just want to give you a chance to share kind of the hard work you've been putting into this thanks Carolyn um so we're definitely we're in the beginning phases right now we're in development with um creating contracts with local retailers so we've not shelled out any funds or any equipment out so we're really at the beginning stages and we've got a lot of hype and momentum um I think that we're definitely going to survey folks after and I think this gives us a good opportunity to get through those sort of fall months with with the most load in terms of work

[223:01] um so I would say we'd have a good guess um come January or so give them a chance to use the new tools we'll survey them afterwards especially when they have a little bit more time to get their feet under them after a busy season so I would say January okay thank you for that I see Tara and Nicole Maryland so you do want to do a seasonal approach that's what you're saying I think if we're going to take a regulatory approach I mean I I just want to be honest there's a there's gonna be like if we want to bring forward a regulatory strategy then we need to bring in our enforcement team to have that conversation about what the resource needs are going to go with it um most of the communities that have gone this way you know have dedicated enforcement staff Associated specifically with this and and I definitely want Council to be informed by by what's going to be necessary and kind of what on those outcomes would be

[224:01] because it is a lift um and so I I also appreciate the fact that um Council has heard from community that there's a desire for a band so if we're going to take a regulatory strategy that would be our preferred initial one um because we think it's the one we would have the greatest amount of success with the least amount of impact we would create more familiarity with Electric Tools during the the less stressful seasons of of the summer months um and create better trust and capacity within the landscaping business to make that ultimate transition towards electric so if there's a regulatory strategy desired then we would recommend a seasonal ban as opposed to me saying I'm recommending we take a regulatory strategy I think personally it's a significant resource lift that I think I also would need to balance against some of the other

[225:00] um opportunities or needs um and so I think there's some fair questions about where this is in in the stack of what we want to dedicate staff resources towards thank you Sarah and Carolyn um I also see Jonathan you came off mute would you have some anything you want to add well um yeah thank you councilman Brokers and I I forgot to introduce myself earlier Jonathan Cohen with the climate initiatives department and I I really want to appreciate um Council taking the time to to have this good conversation and I was just going to try to move us into at least what I think our our next steps and then maybe you can question or correct me if I get this wrong I think that what I am hearing is there is a really good support for what I'm describing as the No Regret strategies so these are the things that we're going to do regardless of of any regulatory approach so that's the incentives that's

[226:00] the education that's working with the state to really Drive transformational change at scale I'm looking to see what's going to happen at the state level with respect to a potential Regional wide ban on sale those are all things that are going to continue to be in motion where I feel like we're getting a little bit hung up is this binary question of do we want to move forward with some regulatory policy related component we which would look like one of three things a ban on sale a ban on use both as if we talked about a little bit earlier and as what staff was trying to describe as we felt like there was appetite both in the community and on Council to actually move in that direction and I think what Carolyn and what you heard tonight is we're not ready to go and we would not recommend a full ban on sale or use at this time we would want to phase it in and so I guess what I would try to summarize is it what I am hearing is that there is an interest in moving in that direction in which case what we would do as staff is

[227:00] to go back and potentially bring back to you what it would look like in terms of actual language to do a seasonal ban and then council could have that conversation does it go far enough for you does it not uh or does it go too far and that's where I think maybe we can have a conversation of do we actually want to look at going a little bit further with a sales ban or you span and does the phasing and the timing of that phasing work for Council so that's at least what I'm hearing and I would love someone to to tell me if I got that wrong um but Nicole I'm sorry if I jumped in in front of you I see that your hand is up well can I maybe just take a kind of a temperature on the room on that one I think that what Jonathan laid out um makes a lot of sense um is there interest in having staff look at bands of some kind and the phasing approach related to those bands can I asked my question first Lauren because it is how I'm going to answer

[228:00] that question okay thanks and thank you Jonathan I think you did summarize uh really well and Lauren you as well my question is Jonathan if you all were to go forward and look at you know creating a band setting some policy around what that might look like what does that take you away from because I know you all aren't sitting around twiddling your thumbs waiting for us to give you work to do so what does that take away or is it something that can fold in I I I think Carolyn is waiting very patiently to see her I'm going to answer this because this this I I will admit this has taken up a lot of Staff time up to this point to try to do this initial analysis thankfully we have great Partners uh with agsa no question in the county um I think the next phase in looking at a regulatory piece is probably not a huge lift but I also want to I want to counter that that that is paired with all the stuff that I mentioned that we want to continue to move forward with the incentives and I think we want to make sure that um we're also looking at this really

[229:01] critical issue of if we're going to go to some enforcement mechanism who's going to be doing that enforcement are do we have the capacity to actually do that I would say right now today we don't um the whether that is something that is a policing power whether it goes uh to our our code enforcement officials so we want to think a little bit about that so there is some internal work we'd want to do with the attorney's office and with our um uh our Planning Development Services to Department to really understand capacity so I I think it is it's going to be a left no question um but again if this is the direction that Council wants us to go in that's I think why we were trying to land on this Middle Ground of a based approach because I will tell you going to a full-scale ban um sometime relatively soon in the next year that's going to be significant and we are not resourced to do that yeah if I could Club I can't do the word if I can add to what Jonathan said you guys are like me um you know we've been um to this point

[230:01] we've been managing this largely internal to The Climate initiatives Department um you know if it comes to a regulatory strategy we're not the enforcement arm and so we haven't been leaning um heavily on our um colleagues and police and code enforcement um to to truly help inform this and so you know I'd certainly want to look to them as as to what capacity um they can deliver in terms of helping structure um something and put that thoughtfulness in so I wouldn't want to speak for them tonight I mean but that would be that would be um who would have to come into the conversation for the lift part of it um so we can certainly check back on I mean I think if it's if it's an important thing we will certainly do that I just wanted to to just name the fact that we're not exactly speaking just for ourselves um here when it comes to the capacity concern so maybe it's a slightly different question maybe it is actually do we have support on Council to look at what the

[231:01] trade-offs would be just or a ban and if there are any other you know what kind of the timeline might look like and what impacts that might have on other Council priorities or work that staff has and I know we're going to start budget stuff soon and we I know folks have been kind of putting in priorities and things there just wondering if that's something that may come up then or if this is a separate issue I see Matt anything else Nicole no just just that question of whether you know this is something that could fold into as we're having our budget discussions and things that because I know there's all kinds of unfunded things that we're going to be talking about when we get to that fun adventure this year so I was just looking for sort of a point where we could come back and and get some of that information

[232:00] [Music] okay um Matt and then Bob um I think we're kind of circling a little bit here so I just want to make sure to bring us home a little bit Jonathan summary I think was the best Cliff Notes version of the memo possible um and clearly because I I want there's a chance to give staff credit they have hit this from every really every possible angle so I I want to give them due credit for for taking the time to do that and and it's clear they know this way better than us and I think this is a great place for us to impart our trust on staff we give them that approval rubber stamp it and then let them March back and if there's questions or Forks in the road as they do that analysis I trust that they'll come back to us um but but I think we're getting a little too caught up on on too many of the nuances of ban or not band that let them continue their

[233:00] work and take the direction they've gotten and I think they've gotten it so I think we're right there I think we just need to kind of give the thumbs up of yes um and and March along thank you Matt yeah I mean I I think it there's still the question to me of I I think the answer is yes but I just want to make sure that we do actually want um to have staff move forward with looking at a ban or considering that right like because that does sound like it is going to take time and it's not a Direction we want to go down unless there's Council support so is there support for sorry am I just I'm tired at this point yes Nicole I know I think we're all getting tired apologies um so but I think that's kind of what I

[234:00] heard Jonathan you say yes to Matt's point right that you can kind of do this without putting tons of work into it and come back with some information in parallel with all this other stuff am I is that right okay so you don't need any more feedback from us we got it we're good I'm talking to to Jonathan I I'm okay yeah okay great I'm good if you are all good and it sounds like staff is good yeah I mean I think from a general timing um and I just want to test this out with with Council I think it would be great for us to um maybe provide an update as the pilot progresses and um you know some of the policy actions we're seeing and some of the the rulemaking we're seeing out of um the regional air quality commission is this year um progresses and use that to inform it and complete our analysis with Dan and then we can provide that update and then

[235:01] um schedule what would be a follow-on conversation but also just share some information through there an information packet or um other updates that we can share does that is that in line with um what we're hearing I see head shaking I'll take that as as guidance so thank you that's helpful thank you all right oh ignore are you I apologize Bob was trying to get back in there he is all right I was Rob I thought you were done I thought you're like I'm out of here no no I I I left my gas powered um laptop behind so I had to rely on batteries and unfortunately my battery died let's not ban gas powered laptops anytime soon [Laughter] we're going to invite you to every

[236:00] meeting because you laugh at all of our jokes well I did not laugh at Matt's dad joke I'm sorry [Laughter] it hurts all right all right on that note I think with no other items on tonight's agenda I would like to close this meeting at 9 54. thank you all thank you all nice to meet you [Music] foreign