June 1, 2023 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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

[1:13] foreign [Music] foreign [Music]

[2:12] [Music] foreign [Music]

[3:14] thank you [Music] [Music]

[4:11] thank you thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music]

[5:04] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music]

[6:07] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music]

[7:26] foreign [Music]

[8:13] thank you foreign [Music]

[9:14] foreign [Music] foreign and welcome to the June 1st 2023 meeting of the Boulder City Council I'm going to start us off with an announcement

[10:00] and that is that the 2023 boards and commission's meteor recruitment period is now open from May 29th to July 2nd 2023. accepting applications for we are accepting applications for the following boards or commissions the beverage licensing Authority the Boulder Junction access District parking the Boulder Junction access District travel demand management the downtown management commission the landmarks board and the University Hill commercial area management commission so you can find a board and commission descriptions and vacancies online at www.bouldercolorado.gov sports Dash commissions and if you have any questions or need assistance you can talk contact the city clerk's office at city clerk's office at bouldercolorado.gov or call 303-441-4222 and with that I will go ahead and call us to order and ask if we could do the roll call please Alicia yes sir and good evening everyone we'll start our roll call

[11:00] tonight with council member Benjamin present man Brockett present council member folcrits present friend here Joseph present spear present mayor Pro Tim Wallach is absent council member Weider present and Yates proud to be here mayor we have our quorum excellent well speaking of proud that was not a coincidence we're going to begin tonight's meeting with a pride month declaration to be presented by council member Nicole Speer for everybody in the audience I don't know how much this will come through for folks watching from home we did our best to address in an assortment of rainbow colors to show our pride tonight so joining in with everyone else in the community who is celebrating the beginning of pride month more than 50 years ago patrons and

[12:00] supporters of the Stonewall Inn in New York City resisted police harassment that had become all too common for members of the lesbian gay bisexual transgender and queer lgbtq plus community out of this resistance the lgbtq plus rights movement in America was born during lgbtq plus pride month we commemorate the events of June 1969 and commit to achieving Equal justice under law for lgbtq plus individuals Boulder has a diverse lgbtq plus community that includes people of many ethnicities religions and professions and we consider diversity to be a Community Asset that enhances and enriches the lives of every resident worker visitor and student in our city lgbtq plus individuals are our teachers Baristas volunteers check workers current and Future Leaders and Elders they keep our community going while dealing with the anti-lgbtq plus bias and discrimination that persists even here in Boulder and that is growing

[13:01] across the country we are grateful for the work of local advocacy groups such as out Boulder County Oasis and the pride office at CU Boulder and for other local organizations such as queer asterisk and a queer Endeavor that support our lgbtq plus community members many of whom have intersecting marginalized identities that are not always honored and celebrated in our city although other states and even the United States Supreme Court are taking away or limiting the rights of lgbtq plus individuals and Families advocacy from the lgbtq plus community in Boulder County and allies across the state led to some significant victories this year our legislature ensured that our state will not cooperate in investigations of people who travel to Colorado for Reproductive or gender affirming care and attempts to change our state constitution to restrict lgbtq plus students privacy and access to life-saving community connections failed as did a ban on transgender athletes participation in sports we thank everyone in the lgbtq plus

[14:02] Community who continues to work to keep yourself and our community going in many respects there have been profound successes in the rights protections and general Community acceptance of lgbtq plus people in the past 50 years so as our city celebrates Pride this month we not only honor our lgbtq plus communities and advocacy organizations for their continued work to achieve equity in our systems we also restate our commitment to this ongoing work to promote and protect everyone in our community regardless of gender or sexuality we the city council of the city of Boulder Colorado declare June 2023 as pride month and urged all residents to respect and honor the diversity in our community to celebrate and continue building a culture of inclusiveness and acceptance and to stand up against Injustice in all its forms foreign we had a lovely flag raising ceremony

[15:02] downtown earlier today to raise the pride flag at Pearl and Broadway so thanks to everyone who's able to attend that all right our next declaration is for National Gun Violence Awareness Day presented by council member Rachel friend while I read this and dads monster man actions moms and Friends uh I might cry okay all right here we go I'm Rachel friend and I'll be reading the National Gun Violence Awareness Day declaration June 2nd 2023 every day more than 110 Americans are killed by gun violence on average there are more than 16 000 gun homicides every year and Americans are 26 times more likely to die by gun

[16:02] homicide than people in other high-income countries Colorado has an average of 930 gun deaths every year with a rate of 15.6 deaths per 100 000 people Colorado has the 22nd highest rate of gun deaths in the U.S gun homicides predominantly occur in cities with more than half of all firearm related gun deaths in the nation occurring in 127 cities cities Across the Nation including in Boulder are working to end gun violence with evidence-based Solutions protecting Public Safety in the communities they serve is the highest responsibility of our Council support for the Second Amendment rights of responsible community members goes hand in hand with keeping guns away from people with dangerous and violent histories Council and Law Enforcement Officers know their communities are the most familiar with local criminal activity and how to address it and are well positioned to understand how to keep community members safe in January 2013 hadia Pendleton a teenager who marched in the presidential inaugural parade and was tragically shot

[17:01] and killed just Weeks Later should now be celebrating her 25th birthday to help honor hadea and the more than 110 Americans whose lives are cut short every single day and the countless survivors who are injured by shootings Every Single Day a National Coalition of organizations has designated the first Friday in June as National Gun Violence Awareness Day the idea was inspired by a group of hideous friends who asked their classmates to commemorate her life by wearing orange they chose this color because Hunters wear orange to announce themselves to other Hunters when out in the woods and orange is a color that symbolizes the value of human life following the king supers Table Mesa mass shooting on March 22nd 2021 in the city of Boulder we renew our commitment to reduce gun violence now more than ever and pledge to do all we can to keep Firearms out of the wrong hands and encourage responsible gun ownership to help keep our community safe so we the city council of the city of Boulder Colorado declare June 2nd 2023 as National Gun Violence awareness day

[18:01] and encourage all community members to support their local communities efforts to prevent the tragic effects of gun violence and to honor and value human lives with that I'm going to turn it over to Jean Bucci and it is a huge honor to be up here with you all thank you for all the work you do and I'm gonna hold the microphone thank you council member friend mayor Brockett city council members on behalf of the boulder group of Moms Demand Action for gun sense in America thank you for this declaration of June 2nd as National Gun Violence Awareness Day as we all know the epidemic of gun violence in our country is causing tragedy and heartbreak daily including a tragedy at our own Table Mesa king supers it is incumbent upon all of us to work together to bring an end to these preventable tragedies we wish to thank the Boulder City Council for its leadership on gun violence prevention you have taken bold action to address this issue you have not backed down even when subjected to

[19:00] personal insults and threats of lawsuits the Slate of gun violence prevention ordinances passed unanimously by this Council in 2022 has served as a model for our state and will save lives we also want to acknowledge and honor the brave survivors of gun violence who keep coming forward to tell their painful stories and keep doing the hard work of advocating for an end to gun violence as the statistics cited in the proclamation show there is still much more work to do Boulder Moms Demand Action thanks the boldest Boulder City Council for its continued attention to this issue and we look forward to continuing our work together thank all right thank you all right and our third and final Declaration of evening is for the sinks 100th anniversary and it is my honor to present this one

[20:04] come on okay the sync 100th anniversary June 14 2023 so the sink restaurant is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year a significant milestone for one of our City's most iconic establishments a beloved spot for locals to gather eat and drink for the past 100 years it is also played an essential role in building and showcasing Boulder's personality as a university town at foodie destination over the years the sink has been a hot spot for University of Colorado Boulder students from notable alumni like Robert Redford working as a janitor to being featured in films like Woody Allen's sleeper the sink has been an integral part of college student experiences in Boulder the sinks famous sink Burger has been

[21:00] recognized by numerous National Publications like thrillist Zagat and Food Network the sink has also been featured on Food Network's Diners Drive-Ins and Dives and man versus food putting Boulder's culinary scene in the National spotlight starting to get hungry did you guys bring anything this cozy burger restaurant and bar has been a part of Boulder's history for 100 years and it's Unique architecture and colorful art covered walls make it an attraction for visitors the sinks storied history includes transforming from a college bar to a well-loved deli then into a vibrant restaurant attracting notable visitors such as President Barack Obama Madeleine Albright and many others the sink has also played a role as a community convener and is a must-see for tourists it is one of the longest running businesses in Boulder and has been a focal point of the Hill for Generations past and present owners Mark and Chris heinrichs have given endless hours and expertise on various Community boards the sink is one of the largest employers of Imagine participants and a long time

[22:02] supporter of University Hill Elementary so we the city council of the city of Boulder Colorado recognize and celebrate June 14 2023 as the 100th anniversary of the sink and appreciate the institutions its owners engagement in our community and its contributions to Boulder's cultural heritage we underscore the importance of local restaurants like the sink that contribute to our thriving communities and economies thank you and congratulations [Applause] I'll give you a chance to say a couple hours well we just want to say thank you for letting having us in the community it's really been an honor to be part of the long and storied history of the sink and for over 30 years Chris and I have been shepherding it along until it's joined us recently to join the ownership and uh you know it's just really an honor to be part of the city so thank you do you have anything coming up son yeah thanks so on June 14th we're going to have a

[23:02] historic documentary shown at the Boulder Theater and then we over the summer we'll have a fac party on the last Friday of each month on September 2nd we're going to have a street party and then in late September we're going to open an installation at the boulder Museum so we look forward to seeing this [Applause] all right and with that we will now move into our open comment period so if we could have Brenda please go over our public participation guidelines good evening everyone I'm happy to be back on Virtual space in council chambers to provide you with information about our public and open comment periods this evening uh so if Emily you

[24:02] could share the slide that would be great um the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive meaningful and inclusive Civic conversations this Vision supports the physical and emotional safety of community members staff and council members as well as supporting democracy for people of all ages identities lived experience and political perspectives there is more information about this vision and about the community engagement process that we use to arrive at this Vision online if you go to bouldercolorado.gov and type productive atmospheres into the search box you will find everything and more that you might want to know about that process next slide please and the following are examples of rules of decorum found I'm going to move to my other screen so it'll look like I am not looking at you but I am

[25:01] um I just can't read the type of the following are examples of rules of decorum found in the boulder Revised Code and in other guidelines that support this vision and we will uphold these tonight during this meeting all remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters relating to City business and during our public hearings to the specific topic of the public hearing no participant shall make threats or other forms of intimidation toward any other person obscenity racial epithets and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to CR to conduct the meeting is prohibited participants are required to sign up to speak using the name you are commonly known by and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online currently only audio testimony is permitted online if you do plan to speak tonight and you appear online I will let you know if your name

[26:01] does not appear as it is registered and and then we can get it changed for you in-person participants are asked to refrain from expressing support or disagreement verbally or with Applause with the exception of declarations as you've seen tonight traditionally support is shown silently through American Sign Language Applause or sometimes we call them jazz hands so we appreciate you giving me a moment to read through these again I know some of you have heard them before and we appreciate your patience and I think we are ready to move into the in-person portion of open comment and then we'll go to Virtual thank you thanks so much Brenda all right we've got five people here in person and four virtually each of you will have two minutes I'll announce three names at a time and if you can get ready to speak please so our first three in-person speakers are Darcy Lopez Evan ravitz and Phoenix Liu

[27:22] hello there my name is Darcy Lopez I am the union stored at Table Mesa king supers and I am on the negotiations committee for jcfw local 7. grocery store workers help feed the community we go to work through pandemics natural disasters and waited at bus stops when it is 17 degrees below zero we survive mass shootings and we go back to work weeks after we also live with our parents family members roommates and partners in order to afford rent in Boulder my son and I both work for king supers we live in an 834 square foot apartment

[28:00] and we don't have a car 13.65 an hour 65 cents an hour means a 40 hour a week employee qualifies for housing and food assistance in Boulder and also can't afford take out there's a grocery store merger on the horizon that will be the largest grocery grocery store merger in history if the deal goes through Kroger will own six of your grocery stores we're talking about a company who we went on strike with and we got the best Collective sparkling bargain bargaining deal in recent Kroger history um that being said uh within six months after we got our raises many of our workers rents went up as much as 300 a month the raises simply don't keep up with a raising cost of rent in this town with the company anticipating the merger hours at both Safeway and King Soopers

[29:02] are already on the chopping block people working 50 to 60 hours a week at my store to pay their bills which they shouldn't have to work 50 to 60 hours a week to pay their bills they can't work overtime anymore and many workers are not getting 40 hours a week meanwhile we are all paying much higher prices at the grocery store there's a rumor flying around that you're going to table this issue please do not table this issue this is blowing us off and not taking it seriously Darcy I apologize for your time's up if you could email us the rest of your testimony please we'd love to hear it um all I have to say that is as a survivor of a mass shooting tabling this issue is very disrespectful and I take it personally thank you now is the time okay very good Evan ravitz then Phoenix Slough and Sonya bent

[30:01] hi there's one country in the world that for Century has enjoyed more government by the people than all other nations put together with people now voting four times a year on citizen ballot initiatives that anyone can get on the ballot and voting a fifth time for candidates that country is Switzerland with one of the world's lowest poverty rates the highest median net worth and the highest newspaper readership because people can do something about what they're reading their high-speed trains run on time and the country avoids Wars half the U.S states also have direct democracy but there is a simple reason it hasn't made us nearly as successful as Switzerland it is much easier to get on the ballot in Switzerland than in any U.S state for two reasons one less

[31:01] signatures are required proportional to population in Switzerland than any U.S state about half as much as Colorado the Swiss can leave petitions unattended in stores and offices but here each person's signature must be witnessed and notarized which in Colorado now costs about two million dollars Boulders first in the country online petitioning solves the same problem but with much better security since people and politicians here couldn't be trusted with leaving petitions unattended as Switzerland here citizens are infantilized not empowered by deceitful and manipulative governments the result is Trump and contempt for government in 2018 oil and gas hired petitioner harassers paid petitioning companies to stop petitioning and hijack petitions

[32:01] online petitioning solves all these problems and doesn't more stop obstructing it thanks Evan Phoenix Lou Sonya bent and Ruth nawatney do we have Phoenix in the audience not seeing Phoenix let's go to Sonya bent good evening my name is Sonya Bend if you can speak into the mic I'm sorry speak into the mic okay the time didn't start yeah okay okay good evening my name is Sonya Bend I am here to speak about why a good neighbor agreement is necessary if a homeless Center opens at 1844 Folsom Alexander the Great said there is nothing impossible to him who will try a good neighbor agreement is possible if we all try Mark Wallach at the previous council meeting said just because something is

[33:02] hard doesn't mean you shouldn't do it the reason it is important to have a good neighbor agreement is because it will contain information about why the center will exist and what they will be doing and address the concerns and expectations of residents and businesses my point is we need to set standards we need to set rules expectations and consequences we need to address the fear anxiety and distrust a good neighbor agreement will allow all parties to work together Kurt fernhaber does not want to place work into doing a good neighbor agreement because it is too hard too time consuming things may change programs and impacts may change these are not good reasons that is why a good neighbor agreement is necessary if a homeless Center opens at 1844 Folsom I know I live next door my point is Kirk can say XYZ today and

[34:02] six months from now he can change it a good neighbor agreement will protect the community from this if you were living next to a homeless Center would you want a good neighbor agreement my guess is yes then follow the Golden Rule treat others as you would like to be treated please direct Kurt to do a good neighbor agreement thank you for your time thank you Sonia you're welcome last in-person speaker is Ruth nawatni hello my name is Ruth nawatney I am a rising Junior at Boulder and I am here because I am concerned for my community speaking on behalf of my interests and those of my college-aged peers I believe it is of the utmost importance that the council addresses the wage practices in this area it is widely understood that call at a college degree carries a price tag in

[35:00] the range of tens of thousands of dollars is normally expected that this is that this financial undertaking will be offset with the wages with higher wages in the future but it is becoming more clear that college a college degree does not guarantee the security it once did college students are struggling to make ends meet in this city and as long as these business practices are allowed more young people will be forced to choose between their base their basic necessities and their education I believe that instituting a self-sufficient wage at 25 an hour is a good way to start we are all aware that Boulder is an expensive place to live and there is very little little affordable housing for undergraduate non-freshman raising the minimum wage would benefits working students who are struggling to pay the rent MIT reports that the living wage for a single person with no children in Boulder County is twenty dollars and sixty cents an hour the U.S census in 2020 found that the average monthly rent for one person in Boulder is approximately Seventeen

[36:00] hundred dollars therefore if I was working 40 hours a week 48 Hours a year before tax I would be spending approximately 52 percent of my annual earnings on rent alone but I'm a student and I'm unable to work full-time since I am pursuing a degree I'm not alone in this struggle either in order to make the city more accessible for everyone Boulder's wages must reflect its cost of living increasing the minimum wage in Boulder County would be an incredible step forward towards towards making a more Equitable community it would help mitigate the increasing financial burden that college poses and would allow for an overall better quality of life for all of our neighbors thank you all right moving to our online speakers our first three are Carolyn alerting Lynn Siegel and Kate Kelly Carolyn you're up this is Carolyn ellardine can you hear me yes great I would like to say that it would

[37:01] be pretty unnecessary to give up on raising the wage in 2024. the current minimum is unrealistic and unsustainable given the cost of living and last week several dimensions of the wage issue received insufficient attention first the data-driven and well-precedented nature of the coalition's potential plans became buried beneath emphatic calls for Prudence more research and Community engagement all good things that are in fact part of the coalition's ongoing work which draws upon local data as well as studies from throughout the us on this topic there was a suggestion to hire an economist to perform a so-called independent analysis ostensibly on the very same public data here I urge Council to learn from recent missteps and avoid relying on expertise from any one person particularly in a research area famous for the over-representation of white male and

[38:02] class privilege second greater emphasis should have been placed on the incremental legally regulated and constantly self-reviewing nature of the plans under discussion but reasonable remarks often pale in comparison with reactivity here I refer to the use of infantilizing language like the word phooey ableist terms like crazy and exaggerated and violent rhetoric describing the wage being quote rammed down throats finally there was no discussion of the advantages to business a higher wage alleviates turnover a central problem in expensive locations like ours particularly in hospitality industries and a higher wage increases consumer spending so please make this the city of Boulder's bottom line thank you for your time thank you Carolyn now we have Lynn Siegel Kate Kelly and James look yeah Lynn you need to go back to three

[39:02] minutes each 45 minutes you know you you need to hear from your public um my catalytic converter was stolen that's thirty seven hundred dollars that's less money I have to pay in sales tax revenue to the city of Boulder my homeowners insurance went up from fifteen hundred to thirty five hundred and one Fell Swoop I I thought it was because seven years ago I needed a roof didn't get the roof put on no it's because of inflation it's because of the state of Colorado it's because of people not being paid enough in their jobs as people have told you today you need to raise the minimum wage we the rising tide brings all with it um Caroline Miller you need to reconsider her I I don't know what the deal is with open space Board of Trustees um I think she's got a good gripe and there are back door deals going on with the city of Boulder I find that all the time with the city council um with regards to Excel Energy the rate

[40:01] increases way not good I testified yesterday there was great testimony um regards to my homeowners taxes property taxes there's um three it went from three thousand to six thousand this year um it went from 900 000 to 1.34 million and it's just not sustainable because these taxes go straight back into higher rents for the king supers people you need to balance jobs and housing because the more people that are in service industry coming into town without balance there's more and more of them you're getting more and more light-tech funds and federal tax subsidies and giving more and more parking lifting parking restrictions and height amendments to the big time developers in town that are building three and four million dollar condos all over um that this is not sustainable it's not good for the city of Boulder and you all

[41:01] know it I say this at the risk of stating the obvious do the right thing bye thank you Lynn now we have Kate Kelly and then James look thank you members of Boulder City Council my name is Kate Kelly I am the boulder lead organizer for New Era Colorado as an organization that represents and works alongside the young people of Colorado and as a young person myself we believe that all people deserve the opportunity to thrive not just survive setting a regional minimum wage with an implementation by 2024 based on the self-sufficiency standard for Boulder County will Empower young people with the Financial Security to live and build community in Boulder the current Statewide pay is nowhere near enough for someone to support themselves in this County with the skyrocketing pace of rent the crushing weight of student debt and juggling competing schedules between school and work young people are not able to keep up for young people in this County our research and data visualization map on housing affordability found that of the over

[42:01] twenty thousand young households renting sixty percent of those households are paying unaffordable rent which is defined as rent that costs more than 30 percent of someone's income additionally our polling data we LED this year shows that young people often forego many basic necessities such as grocery is in healthcare in order to afford to keep a roof over their heads no one should be forced to go hungry or ignore their medical needs in order to live in Boulder County we do not have the privilege to wait for city council to implement a minimum Regional wage any longer young people need Solutions now or risk their health and ability to call Boulder home by raising the minimum wage young people will be able to invest more where their life is young people are an integral part of this community and they need a city council who represents their needs in our 2021 youth agenda listening tour money was noted as the second common most common barrier for young people to not being more involved in their communities how much you make should not determine the level of involvement you get to have where you live young people are revolutionary and their vision of the world and their the drive they

[43:01] possess is one that benefits whole communities do not be mistaken young people are paying attention and it's opportunities such as these where they can see who Champions the issues that impact them thank you for your time thank you Kate our last speaker tonight is James look okay good evening Council I have a short statement regarding the use of motorized e-bikes in the very specific areas surrounding Wonderland Lake while e-bikes may be appropriate on Trails east of Broadway with a relatively flat and open terrain they are not suitable for the Wonderland Lake Area the Wonderland Lake paths already have significant pedestrian traffic especially small children strollers leashed pets and joggers I do not believe that the typical e-bike user will differentiate between areas where e-bikes are permitted and not permitted therefore it is highly likely

[44:01] that if e-bikes are approved for any portion of the Wonderland Lake Trail system they will be used throughout this area my concern is primarily with preserving the public safety e-bikes due to the increased weight may have difficulty achieving reasonable stopping distances increase stopping distances and reduce maneuverability may not May Pro is an unreasonable risk to pedestrians especially in crowded environments which might include tourists and visitors unfamiliar with the area the combination of increased speeds limited visibility on the trails and potential unanticipated interactions with children and pets creates hazardous situations that can be reasonably anticipated allowing e-bikes on Wonderland Lake paths with significant existing pedestrian traffic could increase the likelihood of accidents

[45:00] potentially resulting in legal claims for the failure to provide a safe environment for pedestrians despite the known risks thank you very much for your time thank you James in just a note we're actually going to have our public hearing on e-bikes a little bit later but we will keep your comments in mind when we get to that point okay so that concludes open comment I'll turn to staff to see if there are any staff responses um no I just want to thank people a lot of different topics brought today and I wanted to thank thank Sonia for your comments I want you to know and I know that the topic of the day Services Center has been one I want to thank um council members Yates and Weiner who have met with Community along with staff I heard that was really productive and we will continue and my commitment is to continue to talk with community and to neighbors to make sure that we are moving forward in a way that understands the issues and the concerns and we're trying to address them as best as possible so thank you

[46:00] great very good any city council comments well I guess I'll just throw in one I appreciate the folks who came to speak about the the minimum wage tonight your comments are well taken uh we did discuss this at our study session uh last week there was some disagreement but I think um near correct me if I'm wrong we are working on the topic of the minimum wage it looks like implementation is coming in what kind of a time frame we are I think from the from the direction that we got from Council is to continue to move forward there is support for our continued work with the Consortium uh we were asked to then go back and scope what it would look like to move this forward and what timing and what lift that would be to create this and put this as this is now on the work plan so we will come back to council with a scope and that scope will depend on what ability our partners may have to support some of the work so that it's not obviously just city of Boulder since City Boulder cannot enact on its

[47:02] own a regional minimum wage it really is done with our partners and so that work is ongoing um and we will be bringing it back to council I don't know the exact date but I will certainly follow up with Council and let you know thanks for that all right well thanks again to everyone who came and spoke to us this evening and we will now move to our consent agenda Elisha please agenda is item three on tonight's agenda and it consists of items 3A through 3G questions or comments on the consent agenda fair enough okay I'll move the consent agenda duly moved do we have a second second Motion in the seconds if we could have a roll call please Alicia yes sir thank you we'll start tonight's roll call with council member weiner yes

[48:00] Yates yes Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes council member Focus yes friend yes Joseph yes spear yes the consent agenda items a through G are hereby approved with a vote eight to zero right thanks very much so if we can move to our column check-in please yes sir our call-up check-ins are item four on tonight's agenda for a is the call-up consideration of a review and comment on the proposed site development plan for New Vista High School proposing to replace the existing School building at 720th street with a new approximately 74 000 square foot two-story High School new sports field and enlarged parking lot and updated access this is reviewed under case number lur 2023-00017

[49:04] thank you and I believe we have a short presentation on this we do and Shannon is virtual with us today so I will pass it on to her great thank you thanks so much good evening council members I'm Shannon Muller the case manager for this item and development services department so I'll just provide a quick overview of the call up being considered tonight this particular review is being done pursuant to State Statute and not through the city's typical review processes Colorado revised statutes 2232 124 listed here requires the Board of Education of a school district to submit a site development plan for review and comment to the Planning Commission or governing body quality prior to construction of a new building state law doesn't further describe the process or specify the review criteria so staff has approached this review process similar to a concept plan using

[50:01] the typical review criteria and focusing on the policy considerations in the bbcp so similar to a concept plan no approval or denial is the property is a 12 and a half acre site located northwest of the intersection of Broadway and Baseline it contains the existing New Vista High School facility including existing buildings parking and recreational fields the underlying uvcb comp plan land use is primarily public reflecting the current High School use and the zoning is rh5 where public schools are allowed by right The Proposal is a replacement of the existing building with the new 74 000 square foot two-story building the school district has determined that the existing building is no longer able to adequately serve the needs of the High School population the replacement buildings would be located adjacent to the existing building and following completion of the new building the existing building would

[51:00] be demolished the parking area in the southwest corner of the site would also be updated with the new one-way pickup and drop-off Lane updated access points additional parking and new bike parking at the planning board hearing on May 16th the board thanked the school district for their presentation and for sharing their decision-making process and they provided feedback on the site development plan including on the proposed energy efficient School design the proposed site layout and the proposed vehicular parking changes the board approved a motion to draft a letter to the pbsd Board of Education that would incorporate the staff memo and summarize and note the board's input on the school design a final draft of that letter will be transmitted to the school district following the planning board's review of the May 16th meeting minutes so in terms of the review process the

[52:00] city can review and comment on the first this proposal per state statute but it is not a decision-making body on the island the school district is not required to undergo a site review process and is not subject to the typical review process is under the city's land use code new construction Remodeling and renovation of schools is permitted through the state and not through the city if Council chose to call up this item a public hearing would be scheduled at an upcoming meeting and representatives from the school district are here tonight should Council have any specific questions on this item and that concludes the fact presentation the happy answering questions thanks so much Shannon questions for staff okay so seeing them for establish would invite the school board or School District representative if you wanted to say a couple words to us feel free or we may have a question or two for you is somebody present from the school

[53:01] district they are we're just needing to promote them okay should be joining us panelists no yeah good evening uh I just got in this is Chris stapenigan I'm the executive director of the bond with Boulder Valley School District thanks for joining us Chris um Lauren did you say a question for the applicant um looking through this application one of the things that struck me is that you know New Vista is a um you know has kind of an inspiring educational model that isn't a typical and to me this building didn't quite match that level of inspiration and I was wondering

[54:00] if the applicant might be willing to have conversations with our design Advisory board or Transportation board to help um you know push forward some both the design aspects and the sustainability aspects I think that our boards have really great ideas on a lot of those things and that that conversation could be fruitful yeah um so we have gone through a lot of iterations of design this started back in 2021 with a a committee group talking about the future of New Vista we talked about um what would be the best option moving forward would this be you know renovating restoring the building that was not really bound to be costly or sustainable and we've gone through design iterations for um you know higher sustainability we think we have a very high energy efficient and good Sustainable Building um we are at right now nearing 100

[55:02] construction documents um I think it would be difficult to at this point entertain different design ideas but we would be you know happy to share what those efficiencies are um if you're near I guess I'm now curious about the timing of coming in front of council if you're near a hundred percent design documents that doesn't feel like it it makes this conversation feel very performative um I I would agree with you um we were we were asked to come forward with uh and present to counselors I guess be here for these questions um we we haven't experienced this before so um maybe Shannon can speak to that more Shannon can you weigh in on the timing perhaps of when this uh review with playing Wharton council is happening yeah I think that um the city had been

[56:03] uh communicating with the school district regarding the state statutes and what's required under under those and communicated back and forth a bit about that and determined that it was an item that needed to go through this process and so when we received the um the requested documents we tried to move it forward as quickly as possible to to planning board and through the process that's why it's before you tonight sure Nicole and then I got Matt I just wanted to follow up a little bit on Lauren's question um Chris I my oldest child was at Creekside when that school was being redone and if I'm remembering correctly that process had a ton of Engagement from the school Community is that has that already happened at this stage so

[57:01] that you know folks in the school parents students teachers have already weighed in on this it absolutely it has this started back like I said in 2021 we went through a lengthy process that involved students parents community members District leadership principal staff we had meetings to and evaluations of outside groups on the site and the building and this was unanimously voted once presented the Board of Education and the committee members that this was the route to go and sorry and when you say this is the route to go do you mean these specific design documents or something higher level uh for the replacement of the building um and we are in in uh consistent communication with community and um in a district on on design and um how we're how we're proceeding okay because I think maybe our questions are a little bit more about the specifics of the design rather about the

[58:00] kind of larger decision about replacing the building yeah we've had uh design advisory uh Team meetings throughout the whole process we've been in design for well over a year um and so yes everybody has uh been uh fully in the know and weighed in on the design process Matt queued up and then Matt do you want to go ahead and then I've got Tara and then Rachel um I'm gonna I'm gonna sort of follow where Lauren was I think her questions were poignant but but Chris some of your last statements I think are a little concerning for me that you that Community has weighed in um and there's been a lot of that dialogue this is the first word hearing about it so I I I take I'm a little concerned that we as the representatives of 107 000 people are are hearing about this when it's at 100 completion and that doesn't feel like there's been that type of Outreach to where the broader Community again you're a sovereign state entity and we respect that but we have Partners at the University that also do their work we're brought in at a much

[59:00] earlier level um just to sort of have that conversation make sure we're all in the right place play page trying to build a really good sustainable well-looking community and so I think there's just a a few red flags that sort of come up there and and I'll sort of echo where again my colleague uh council member folkerts was was sort of pushing and I guess the question is is why you know we're talking there's gonna be some design questions here it seems moot obviously but why didn't why didn't the district push the envelope because it seems like it doesn't meet the Boulder Valley comp plan in terms of our general design standards in terms of how we're trying to push the envelope and it doesn't also seem to meet bbsd's green plan when you look at that and so I'm just sort of wondering why why we didn't if we're building this for the next 50 to 70 years why does it seem like we're it's building something that was form and factor from 20 years ago not something that's for tomorrow and the next generation and Matt um there's where I'll say it does follow the Boulder Valley School District's Green Building principles that were adopted by the Board of Education and we and we have engaged Community we

[60:01] have a constant communication we have a bond page there is communication engagement throughout the school throughout the community uh surrounding that um I I do apologize you haven't been uh involved with that but um we do work hard at communicating our processes involving the community okay thanks for that Chris I guess I'll just we'll just need to keep in mind as Council we with that bbsd is a separate I know I'm getting to you is is a separate entity right so we you know this is not something where we have control over her telling them what to do but hopefully there is the potential for us to have a few comments that might be considered even at this late stage obviously not redoing the building entirely but perhaps there are some some thoughts that could be taken into account with that in mind I'll go to Rachel thanks um and thanks for being here so when and I'm not sure I have the right numbers because we are getting um informational late and some of my questions weren't answered but my big concern reading our packet was the

[61:01] um number of parking spots and and planning boards um concerns around those and so I would like to know if my numbers are right was it 150 or 160 parking spots possibly for about 300 student enrollment it's actually 117 that's including the electric vehicle charging stations the disabled parking spaces and In the Zone by Boulder parking stancers 9-9-6 with 1 to 300 we would actually be really permitted to build around 250 so we're well below the threshold and the point of the parking lot is really to right size it for the usage right now and we've done traffic studies on this as well to allow for um lower Q going in and out of school better traffic flow and it was really important to us to maintain the partnership for this Taco shuttle which

[62:02] will not be interrupted during any of the construction process that we have and so a lot of consideration was taken into the parking lot and the size the design and how many students are at New Vista it's 300 just over 300 your numbers are are pretty accurate and I guess when I look at it I think you know maybe roughly half the kids don't have driver's licenses yet so like you know 150 potential drivers if every student drove with 120 slots spots including faculty it just seems like a lot of parking um support staff in and out and volunteers the parking lot is pretty jammed um if you've been there during a pickup or drop off in in parking spots or a premium and I get that it's more of a Regional School where people you know kids are going to be coming from places like Superior and um Lafayette so I get that it may need more parking but it if memory serves it it doubled the amount of parking at a

[63:00] time when we're really looking to encourage um people not to drive and so like having almost one a school with about one parking spot for student seems um dismissing the mark to as Matt said build something for 70 years from now when we know we're trying to move the other way um it doesn't sit quite well with me um so and and I don't know that it does meet you know sort of the loftier goals that we have as a city a county and as a as a school system so I don't know if there's value in calling this up I guess is it I don't know if that's maybe a question for Shannon like what will happen if we call this up given that we don't have any power here my understanding is the school district is obligated to make changes to the design it would it would be something that'd be fitting for grade and provide feedback on but it's not necessarily A

[64:00] requirement as my understanding those are all my questions great so let's see if we can get close to finishing here I have a couple specific comments but does anyone have a desire to call this up which is our approximate question here tonight Lauren yeah well while we can't affect your you know require changes to this process I do think that um given that this is sort of the only chance we have at making some requests and understanding it in detail if they were willing to meet with our boards and commissions I think I would prefer that but it's not I don't hear that willingness and so for that reason and because you know schools tend to have a pretty you know this is going to be something that's in our community in an important place for the next 50 years at least um

[65:00] I would like to have a motion or I would like to call it up fair enough Rachel if that's emotion I would like to Second it I'm also interested and it would also point out that it's just at a very um kind of Prime intersection right near Chautauqua and I understand that we have City involvement with the the shuttle and stuff so yeah given this there one chance I'd be interested in learning more maybe have a couple more questions answered and also maybe we have a chance to sort of telegraph to the school board or whoever will does have power to vote on this that they might want to look at some of the changes that we're interested in Lauren do you mind phrasing in the form of motion just sweet I make a motion to call this item up original did you want to say I do second okay okay I'm going to support the motion as well I'm hearing enough concern from my colleagues I realize that the school board um School District doesn't necessarily need to listen to what we have to offer but

[66:01] it sounds like we have some things to offer and I hope they do listen and I think this is for the reasons that Lawrence did it's an important enough project that I think we should weigh in it's important to the community it'll be it's a building that will be here the last one was here for 70 years the next one may be here for 70 years so let's make sure to get it right I'm sure the um The Architects and the other designers have worked diligently on this according to what are standards the school district has but I think we'd like to live weigh in with our community standards as well Nicole I'm not going to support calling this up just because having seen how the district has gone through with one of these complete School rebuilds in the past and the amount of work that comes from the folks in the schools the teachers the students the families who are there I am comfortable moving forward knowing that that that the folks within the community who are going to be using this building have weighed in I'm calling myself here if I made so I I appreciate the comments that have been made I think given where the design is

[67:02] in the process I don't know that we would affect much by calling it up so I'm not going to support the motion I am going to take Chris if you don't mind I'm going to take the opportunity to offer a couple specific comments and if we end up calling it up I'll say them again then but is um absolutely and I just want to say is what I heard would be willing to change the design if we want to meet with your your members Your Design Team um and specific I'm happy to meet with them and hear the input um I just want to make it clear how how close we are to completing design documents so thank you thanks for that so uh my couple specific comments are uh as I heard your point about the how why you've engineered the parking lot the way you've done it does still seem like a lot of parking and one thing that I feel like there's a little low on is the bike parking it seems like um there could be the opportunity for substantial additional parking but my my biggest comment would just be to give additional

[68:02] circulation opportunities for students arriving by foot and by bicycle it does seem like they're a little bit on the margins of the of the driveway right now as I read the plans so if there's perhaps an opportunity to include some dedicated arrival and exit points for cyclists and pedestrians I think that could be really valuable I am the proud parent of a former New Vista High School student I know what great work it does for its kids and and my kid did take the bus home most days since it was leaving on foot a lot so that those are my primary comments anything else before we go to a vote do I have an opportunity to respond to that yes please so those are uh owner furnished and those are really at this point just kind of spots designated where we can put those aren't solidified right now okay and we are looking at um supplying whatever number I mean we're still working with the school on this where we want to put these how many we want to put so that access that you speak of and the number

[69:00] um again we're not at 100 we're close we've still got a couple weeks to go but um yeah we we are still looking at that and plan on still evaluating anymore great well maybe you can keep those comments in mind as you move to that point Tara hey Chris that's I can't see that far but because we might never talk again I'm just going to say one comment I might as well well I can since who knows if we'll ever meet and that is I was thinking about Boulder High School the kids and they were um complaining that their bikes get stolen a fair amount after school and I'm wondering if you would consider because we would love to get kids on bikes if you would consider safe and secure ways to to lock up your bike so looking into some of the newer I know it's off topic I'll never talk to you again so I'm going to talk to you some other time about it to just keep it in mind okay all right absolutely not related to the school site

[70:01] I meant it for this course thank you okay okay so what I was saying is is for New Vista which by the way I live right near there and um I would love to see some new and innovative ways for the kids to lock up their bikes now that we have the opportunity to look into that because I know it's a concern for some of the kids and it's not easy for them to keep buying new bikes if their bikes get sold thanks we hit the school district have the same interests that's a great comment and I apologize for misunderstanding it's a good thing I forgive you I know all right thanks okay so uh can we yes Lauren in case my motion doesn't pass I would like to make a couple of comments about what I would like to see on the design side so um as several people mentioned the parking space count I do have concerns about that being um it feels High to me the connection to the bike path I would really like to see a connection that goes more from the

[71:00] multi-use path to the school itself that seems like right now the connection is across the north side of the property and is pretty um circuitous it seems like it there would be an opportunity to make that connection at the south side of the property instead um I would also you mentioned that the building is sustainable but there are things like a you know the boilers and 95 efficient boiler which is nothing special in today's construction standards right that's typical or um below the bar I would strongly encourage to look at geothermal heating and cooling or and also structural systems that would provide carbon Storage storage such as mass Timber along with solar panels and sod replacement where possible thank you okay and I got Matt or Genie hasn't

[72:00] spoken yet so Junior if you want to give a quick comment we'll go about and then we'll go to a vote thank you I just wanted to say I will be in support of the color chicken so thank you for making your comments Lauren thank you man thanks Aaron you know I I it's I think doesn't um surprising because we have an exceptionally full docket for the next few months on our regular business meeting so at least my concern is calling this up sure I'm interested but I I don't know what we bump and how we squeeze it in we are literally full to the brim and so I think my my saying yes to a call-up would be really contingent on are we able to start really converting some future study sessions to really start to get through some of the business that we've committed to our community to get done here before this this particular council's time is up so uh my yes is kind of on that are we going to be really converting study sessions to make room for this conversation um so we're not doing five hour Council meetings between now and November okay and with it Rachel I would just say that um I don't believe

[73:00] this Council has yet scheduled any extra meetings like we used to have some some would be met on Tuesdays and Thursday meetings so if we need to make some space uh for things like this I think we can come in on an occasional Tuesday we'll leave that to CSE but Jenny you've just said you'd leave it to CAC well I mean the city managers here good chime in as well as to whether that would add under pressure to the CD itself thank you I would say the extra meetings are something that happened during the course of um any any term we would certainly try to accommodate that as much as possible we would also be committed to looking at those study sessions that we have coming up and if there's something that we can do by way of an IP we are happy to do that as well to make space as long as um as long as that's understood in terms of what the priorities are so we can certainly accommodate that if that is the will of council with that if we can move to a vote I believe it's a show of hands yes okay all in favor of the motion on the table

[74:01] one two three four five six right all not in favor right so that passes six to two um so uh Chris thanks for your attendance here tonight it sounds like we got another hearing coming up before too long and we'll be working with you all at bvsd to get that scheduled kind of related this is probably directed to Nuria or maybe Brad I know Brad's in the room I kind of like to know not tonight but at some point in time how we got into the place we are tonight because we're obviously very uncomfortable about the place that that um where the school district comes in at virtually 100 design and we're being asked whether we want to call it up or not so something got missed there either the school district waited too long to talk to our staff first half way did you want to talk to us but but um a ball was dropped and I'd like to know why I appreciate that I'll just note that um the director of planning and development services is on a well-deserved vacation so he's not here but I will certainly uh Circle back with staff and provide you

[75:00] with that information uh in terms of timing and provide some clarity happy to do so thank you okay well Chris thanks again for your time tonight we appreciate it thank you all right and with that if we can move to our first public hearing please Rachel did you have to follow up oh yeah why don't we read it into the record and then I'll turn to you yes sir thank you our public hearings are item five on tonight's agenda 5A is the second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt the following ordinances that would amend the voter revised code to allow e-biking on certain open space Trails we first have the staff recommended ordinance which is ordinance 8575 and then we have the osbt recommended ordinance which is 85.76 before I turn to City staff ritual if

[76:01] you'd like to I've I'm going to recuse and go home to have a great meeting everyone all right all right okay well then Nuri if you could get a starter please uh thank you mayor and I first of all I just wanted to thank we have gotten a lot of email on the topic is an important topic for this community and want to thank everyone for the time and the thoughtfulness for the information for the perspective shared I will send this to our director of open space and Mountain parts for a preliminary framing or a conversation as we kick it off great thank you Nuria good evening Council uh Dan Burke director of open space and Mountain parks and while our staff Casey French and Marnie ratzel get settled in they're going to be taking over the bulk of the presentation and facilitating some discussion with Council for this item but with that I just want to provide some high level uh context setting and

[77:00] first I'd like to just point out that you know as land managers and those responsible for open space system we are very cognizant and obviously daily aware of the fact that our system is very Dynamic and there's changes that are happening sometimes they're subtle and they happen over time on our out on our system and sometimes these changes might be more dramatic and and uh and happen in the moment's notice such as in the case of fire and flood uh but it's uh but it's the dynamic nature of our open space system that's that really demands that as stewards that we remain uh Vigilant and really able to adaptively manage those changes uh based on the circumstances that we're seeing and sometimes these changes don't necessarily happen on our system they may be happening externally but yet they impact our our management uh uh decision making nonetheless and that is really in the case of e-bikes for there's been some significant changes over the course of the past few years in regards to the

[78:01] definition and the management of e-bikes externally off off of our system that do impact us as land managers of the open space system and that is really one of the reasons why we're here tonight it's been nearly a decade since we last visited you about open e-bike use on open space and so those changes that have happened over our last few years is one of the reasons why we would like to come and revisit that uh discussion with you a decade later uh uh about e-bikes on open space um I also just want to acknowledge the fact that the staff's recommendation is is has not been aligned with the open space Board of Trustees recommendation and I want to point that out and acknowledge that it's the first time in my five years of 10 years director that we uh the board and the staff is sort of quote unquote failed to come together in a unified recommendation to council and of course we always strive to do so and

[79:01] in this case that that was not uh the outcome and I want to acknowledge that it's one of those topics that open space system sometimes generates where there's strong opinions uh within Community within the board and the staff and even the board themselves was split on this matter and of course we heard from a wide variety of community members on all sides of the fence on this and I personally respect and I can understand all the different opinions that came forward throughout the year that we've had these discussions so we with that I just want to say that we strive to come in unity with our board and this is one of those examples where we just weren't able to come to that conclusion and so after you hear from staff we will have an opportunity to hear from board members as well so with that um I uh uh Casey and Marnie are going to walk us through a presentation that has that as staff we really feel like after hearing from Community after hearing from all five of our trustees after

[80:00] hearing from our staff that I feel our recommendation strikes are reasonable and balanced approach to this matter so with that I'm going to turn things over to Marnie ratzel tonight tonight thank you can you hear me now okay great good evening Council I'm Marnie ratzel principal planner and the project manager for this effort and I'm joined tonight by Casey French the planning and design senior manager for osmp who's going to be co-presenting with me this evening so as you know tonight's agenda item is to consider an ordinance to allow e-biking on open space trails and I want to give you a quick overview of what's on deck for Council to make an informed decision on this item first we've got the staff presentation and then we have two members of the open space Board of Trustees who are going to speak briefly about the board's feedback on the staff recommendation next we'll answer any clarifying

[81:01] questions from Council Members before we open it up for a public hearing to invite Community feedback and then we'll be ready for your Council deliberation on the item before you uh first I'm going to kick it off with um giving council members an overview of the background and the planning process and then I'll turn it over to Casey who will step through the staff recommendation and then I'll wrap it up with a couple of the management Alternatives that we considered so for the background Dan kind of teed us up a little bit the city began allowing e-bikes on paved multi-use paths that comprise the boulders Greenway and transportation system in 2014. um the local ordinance that's been in place has continued to prohibit e-bikes on open space managed trails and also requires disposal of open space land to another city department or a partner

[82:01] agency to allow e-biking in 2017 state law amended the definition and regulation of e-bikes to no longer classify them as a motor vehicle and also allows both class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes on multi-use Trails unless prohibited by a local ordinance because Boulder has a local ordinance that was adopted in 2014 the state law didn't impact the city's open space Trails however many of our neighboring land managers assessed and now allows e-bikes on some of their open space trails of note is that several osmp trails are interconnected with the city's Greenway and transportation multi-use paths as well as Regional Trails managed and maintained by Boulder County Parks and open space who allows e-bikes on their planes trails Additionally the U.S fish and wildlife service manages Trails on Rocky Flats

[83:03] National Wildlife Refuge which will connect Boulder County's trail system as part of the planned Rocky Mountain Greenway and Colorado Front Range trails so this map is a map from Boulder County and it shows which trails e-biking are currently allowed and not allowed on so that what you see here is the green Trails allow e-bikes and those are managed by our partner agencies and the red trails are City open space land are on City open space land managed by osmp and as you can see you can our trails are interconnected with Boulder County and other City managed trails the current inconsistency and regulations create some operational challenges for the Department as well as for visitor compliance some examples are the Lobo and IBM connector Trails where osmp Trails cross

[84:01] back and forth between jurisdictions and contribute to challenges with visitors with visitor experience and Trail users knowing understanding and complying with inconsistent regulations so the primary objectives of allowing e-biking on open space Trails include improved access for community members of more ages and abilities to enjoy open space trails providing consistent visitor experiences across interconnected Trails where e-bike regulations currently differ more adaptive management by considering alternatives to disposal of open space managed lands and supporting broader City climate goals by reducing the number of vehicle miles traveled to reach local Trails which would in turn help preserve ecosystems and habitats that make up City open space land okay in terms of the planning process

[85:00] osmp's evaluation of e-bikes began about a year ago in the spring of 2022 and it included an engagement window over the summer additional analysis in the fall and consideration by the open space Board of Trustees in the winter I'm just going to cover a few highlights of each phase of the process last spring osmp staff completed an activity assessment using the process in osmp's visitor master plan which we call the VMP and that's a planning document approved by Council in 2005. so the VMP outlines the set of considerations shown on the left side of your slide and an in assessing these considerations staff determined that e-biking does not differ from biking and could be managed similarly to biking activity which allows biking undesignated trails as such we identified three management alternatives to not allowing e-bikes

[86:03] alternative a would allow e-bikes on all trails that allow biking and that represents about 35 percent of osmp's Trail Network alternative B would allow e-bikes on osmp planes Trails which are located east of the Broadway Corridor and it would also allow it on Boulder Canyon Trail and this represents about 22 percent of osmp's Trail Network an alternative C would allow e-bikes on interconnected multi-use trails that allow bikes or 16 of the trail Network having identified these we next identified criteria to evaluate and develop preliminary ratings for each management alternative and the status quo option the Alternatives were rated using a gradient scale from most to least in terms of meeting the criteria assessed that you see here on the slide and this helped inform a preliminary

[87:02] staff proposal of alternative B staff identified alternative b as the preferred alternative because it best achieves the objectives it increases opportunities for visitors of more ages and abilities to access and enjoy City open space provides a consistent visitor experience and regulations which are easy to understand comply with and enforce and may contribute to City climate goals with minimal impacts to Natural Resources visitor experiences visitor safety and the trail system in the summer osmp shared the management Alternatives and the preliminary proposal with the community during an engagement window We Gather Community input through two different survey instruments first we had an online engagement questionnaire that was posted to be heard Boulder and it received over 2300 responses which as I understand it still

[88:00] is the highest response rate the city has received on a public engagement survey to date additionally osmp staff conducted an on-site intercept survey at a subset of open space trails and as you can see the overall results of both surveys indicate that a majority of respondents support e-biking on open space Trails over not allowing e-bikes in terms of management Alternatives the online engagement indicated support for the preliminary staff proposal of alternative B and open space visitors that responded to the Inner Space intercept survey had preferences that were more evenly distributed with a slight proportion a slightly higher proportion indicating a preference toward alternative a next in the fall staff shared the community feedback with the open space Board of Trustees and at that time the

[89:01] board requested the additional information that you see here to support their consideration of a final recommendation some of these items included several comparisons of the survey data a summary of unique ideas that we heard from the community more and more information on enforcement and Trail and e-bike characteristics so next staff presented a staff recommendation to the open space Board of Trustees comprised of two components the first was a policy recommendation to city council to allow class 1 and Class 2 e-biking as a passive recreational use and allowed only on certain Trails as designated and the second was to provide feedback to the department on the regarding the on the ground management approach to implement the policy and a staff preferred alternative to designate and manage e-biking on Trails identified as alternative B

[90:03] as Dan talked about in his introduction the board considered the staff recommendation over the winter and they made several motions that resulted in a split vote among board members the motion that passed did not support the staff recommendation as presented instead it recommended that Council make a finding that operation of an e-bike is not a passive recreational use on open space land but that e-biking would be allowed on open space Trails only to connect to enable connectivity and contiguity where a multi-jurisdictional Regional Trail requires access to a segment of open osmp managed Trail so to develop the staff recommendation presented to council osmp considered several factors in addition to community and board input we also considered peer agency experience the Department's experience with biking

[91:01] and results of the management Alternatives evaluation and ultimately the department continues to support a recommendation comprised of a policy change to allow class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes as a passive recreational use on certain open space Trails were designated by the department and to implement the policy by designating and managing Trails outlined in alternative B which includes planes trails that allow biking and the Boulder Canyon Trail okay now I'm going to turn it over to Casey to share more about the staff recommendation Bernie so first I'm going to speak a bit to how the staff recommendation is organized so as Marnie said it's organized into two parts um and the first part is the policy decision of allowing e-biking on open space I mean this requires Council approval and it has recommended ordinance language associated with it and then the second part has to do with

[92:00] where the department implements the policy so the second part is not part of the ordinance language and this is because the on-the-ground management actions or the where it doesn't require Council approval but we are very interested in seeking counsel input to the department on that another reason for this approach is that guidance on policy is a generally more static in nature while the on-the-ground management actions in this case the trail is designated for e-biking might benefit from an ability to more easily adaptively manage in the future so in terms of how to make these policy and on the ground management changes I'm going to go step by step through the staff recommendation or the process on the how and there are four steps related to changing the policy which includes the legislative finding repealing and existing repealing the existing ordinance and then amending

[93:00] um the code regulating vehicles and analog bikes and to create a new ordinance and I'll go through each of these in a little bit more detail in the upcoming slides and then there's only one step to implement the policy which is the departmental designation so um to I'd like to start to explain the intention of the legislative finding and I'm going to begin with some background on the charter so Charter One seven so Charter section 176 states that open space land shall be used only for certain purposes and one of those purposes is passive Recreation and the charter does not mention or allow for any exceptions to those uses and it also does not define passive Recreation a passive Recreation is defined in the council approved osmp visitor master plan or VMP and it defines it as non-motorized activities that achieve the criteria that's listed here on this

[94:00] slide and we recognize there there's debate on whether e-biking meets the non-motorized component so in support of the staff finding that e-biking meets the criteria here that's listed on the slide and in the VMP council could make a legislative finding that e-biking is a passive recreational activity so the intention of the legislative finding is for Council to specifically find that e-biking is a passive recreational use of open space and that aligns with our policies the benefit of this approach is that it explicitly draws a connection between allowing e-biking to our Charter and the criteria in the VMP uh moving on to step two which is the recommendation to repeal code section 7525 this section of the code prohibits e-bikes and requires disposal of open space and it must be either repealed or amended to support this policy change the recommended approach is to repeal

[95:01] and replace um instead of amending because as indicated by the seven the current code is located in Title VII and this is the traffic code section of the VRC most other open space related codes and regulations are in title eight which is focused on Open Space Management so we think it would be better to relocate it there in chapter eight steps three and four would make other changes to title eight uh step threes to amend section 836 uh this this section currently regulates motor vehicles and analog bikes on open space lands and staff recommends amending it to include regulation of e-bikes and then step four is to add the new ordinance that contains the actual legislative finding to allow class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes on certain designated trails in terms of the implementation process to designate Trails for e-biking this is a function already designated to the osmp department in Charter section 171 A

[96:02] and B um and as we previously described staff's preferred alternative is the plains Trail and Boulder Canyon Trail and in terms of adaptively managing osmp would continue the long-standing departmental practice of seeking input on major Trail decisions in the future um and now I'm going to turn it back over to Marnie and she's going to go back go over some other Alternatives we considered and then wrap it up thank you Casey other Alternatives the open space Board of Trustees recommended approach to reflect the Motions made by the open space Board of Trustees staff prepared and alternative ordinance that's included as attachment B with your memo we've identified some conflicts in the language passed in the osbt motions that and these are currently reflected in the ordinance of 8576. these would

[97:00] need to be resolved if council's interested in pursuing the osbt approach um we have described what those conflicts are and I'm happy to walk through those uh suggested changes to ordinance 8576 that would resolve these conflicts if Council would like we can talk about those during q a if you'd like in terms of what the osbt recommended approach might look like on the ground this map represents an initial estimate of which open space Trails might be included with the implementation of the recommended approach by the open space Board of Trustees it would allow e-bikes on about three percent of osmp trails the osbt also considered a motion that failed two to three which provided operational guidance to the department in support of the staff preferred alternative of B but also included the addition of Chapman Drive Wonderland Lake and South Foothills Trails West to

[98:01] Broadway this alternative has been coined alternative b-plus and it would allow e-bikes on about 25 percent of osmp's Trail Network while alternative b-plus would provide more access than the staff preferred alternative it requires additional messaging to support osmp operations and our visitors and community members in knowing and complying with regulations uh we also want to acknowledge that there could be increased challenges with enforcement with this approach but in terms of Trail characteristics the additional Trails identified in alternative B plus are similar in nature to the plains Trails included in alternative B so to wrap up in support of the staff recommended approach osmp requests Council make a motion to adopt eight five ordinance 8575 to allow e-bikes on

[99:00] open space as outlined in this slide and also in your memo and again in terms of operations the staff preferred alternative is to initially implement the policy to allow e-bikes on planes trails and the Boulder Canyon Trail outlined an alternative B of course we welcome Council input on where the department would plan to implement the policy and where we'd manage Trails for e-biking so that concludes part one that's the staff presentation and before clarifying questions we do have the two members of the open space Board of Trustees here I'll turn it over to board chair Dave Coons and then you'll hear from Vice chair member Michelle Estrella fantastic well Dave thanks for being here if you can come address this please thank you Marty good evening mayor Brockett and members of the council and and staff we

[100:01] appreciate the opportunity to speak to you on this item this evening I'm going to actually ask Michelle uh to lead off the discussion with uh excuse what no yeah so Michelle will lead off the discussion and then I'll I'll follow did you all want to arm wrestle over who goes first do an arm wrestle over who goes first I'll my pronouns are she her hers thank you all for being here tonight um as is mentioned I am the vice chair of the open space Board of Trustees and I am here to speak on the minority dissenting position of the osbt as was mentioned we were in the minority in February 2023 not sure that that would

[101:01] be the case today nonetheless um I would like to speak to our position I am privileged enough to be a resident of Boulder for going on 18 years and I would do want to qualify that I own a cargo e-bike and I was an early adopter and can still be seen in town with my elementary twins on the back of my bike going across the path so full disclosure there and and by the way it is a Class 2 bicycle with a throttle which to get started is is really important by the way um so first of all I want to thank staff and the community for weighing in on this very complex topic staff has been working on this for years Saints here and you know you know we had a 3-2 vote it was a split vote and you know but I just want to reiterate the fact that the

[102:01] minority position really supported the staff recommendation but felt that it didn't go quite far enough in meeting a city of Boulder's goals I do have a presentation I don't know where that is I don't know if I was supposed to pop it up it's okay but there is a map that and I'm terrible at Maps Dave knows this that has uh yeah staff recommendation yeah thank you on the second slide yeah has the staff recommendation in blue but there's a plus sign on the ones that we're calling b-plus at this point which has just a couple of additions um so you know why b-plus you know clearly so I can go to the next slide thank you um Equity Equity demographics in this community are changing and we need to acknowledge that you will hear people debate uh you know the definitions of an aging community and an aged community and how

[103:01] people have different viewpoints on that this is Boulder we're always going to disagree on certain things and that's healthy um but you know we thought that b-plus harmonizes and large a large part of this is because of uh be the standard alternative B harmonizes the surrounding land managers um and and reduces confusion because I think people want to do the right thing here but are not clear on what that right thing is there was overwhelming support and you'll hear debate again about that for alternative B but we think I'm sorry alternative a which allowed for e-bikes on all of the trails that allow bikes in general but be we thought that b-plus was a healthy compromise and a good starting point it also allows for understanding the rules so that would help with compliance um it enjoys uh it allows the ability to con to the community to enjoy open space safely and to travel to and from our

[104:02] Trail heads and enjoy our Trails safely um and and move across town so the addition that we have proposed trying to keep this down is Chapman Drive it's a wide road and it is a natural extension to the Boulder Canyon Trail it provides a safe Loop of the South Boulder Foothills sorry South Foothills and Wonderland Lakes Trails provide the only safe north-south biking route in North Boulder I will admit that I have accidentally taken that on my my cargo bike with my kids trying to go to soccer this is well before I was on open space Board of Trustees so okay um but but it was an accident I was lost that happens all the time but the last thing I want to add before my time is up is that we thought that this doesn't go far enough we would like and it wasn't part of the official motion but we did have it in our minutes that we would like to see a pilot of single track Trails West of Broadway and and that was

[105:01] similar to what Jefferson County had done thank you thanks so much Michelle and um that ticket will be in the mail shortly okay all right great uh Dave you're up thanks again I do appreciate the opportunity to speak to you tonight um however it Grieves me deeply to come before you tonight to talk about the open space Board of Trustees recommendation on allowing e-bikes on a permitted as a permitted use of open space trails and that is because a seemingly routine question of what constitutes an appropriate use of open space trails in fact camouflages some fundamental issues and concerns first and foremost is the apparent disregard underlying the recommendation to allow e-bike use on open space Trails of more than 50 years of precedent as to

[106:00] the intent and definition of the term passive Recreation used in section 176 of the city Charter voted on and approved by the electorate of Boulder in 1986 codifying the mission and purposes of the city's open space program established by a vote of the citizens in 1967. every open space Board of Trustees and every city council since the Inception of the Open Space Program in 1967 has supported and adhered to the use of the term passive recreation in the city charter meaning human-powered non-vehicular non-motorized and non-mechanically assisted activity with two exceptions one being horses and the other bicycles and then only where that use is specifically designated open space Founders and framers knew exactly what they were doing by not permitting or allowing motorized vehicle use of open space under the rubric of passive Recreation

[107:01] they understood that Motors in natural areas would completely change the environment the experience and the perception the being in a special place recommendations contained in the three motions of majority of the open space Board of Trustees to council proposed a phased approach to assessing the impacts on the open space system where connections with multi-agency managed rails and City paved trails that is for example Greenways to promote management consistency are monitored and evaluated before any decisions are made to expand the use of e-bikes on Trails east of Broadway and Highway 93 as exceptions to the open space non-motorized recreational uses listed in the city Charter finally the essence of the board's majority recommendation to council is this discomfort with the city attorney's office opinion that the charter language can be changed or Modified by a quote legislative finding or by legislative

[108:01] Fiat by Council we respectfully disagree with this interpretation of the process to change or modify the city Charter and in our motion to council recommend a process that is in keeping with the intent of the program's Founders and years of precedent and Community Support we understand that a role of council is to interpret the city Charter but when that interpretation fundamentally changes the intent and purpose of the charter language that final Authority must be the community's citizens we believe that fundamental changes to the Charter for example approving Motors on open space require a vote of the people circumventing that requirement and the process to achieve it may ref result in future unintended and potentially Grievous consequences thank you for consideration of the recommendations of the open space Board of Trustees thank you Dave all right so does council have questions

[109:00] for staff or for either of our osbt Representatives I got Jeannie thank you very much I just have a few questions and I when um and my first question is actually for the members of the board and my first question has to do does B plus incorporate be at a lower level and did B plus had any type of community engagement and then my third question is I hear and maybe I misheard that staff mentioned that with B plus um there would be some issues with compliance and needing of additional messaging what I just heard earlier that b plus will actually lead to more compliance so I'm just a little bit confused about which is which so any type clarification

[110:02] would be helpful thank you Michelle I think that's for you since you were talking about b-plus all the different options we did here now staff laid out three options a b and c we heard additional input from the community asking for additional access on trails in which that they access the north of town and in completing that loop on Chapman Drive I think you can find those in the compension how do you say that word of comments and it is an addition to b-plus okay I'm sorry is in addition to the staff recommendation B which is what we're calling B Plus thank you so can I ask one more clarifying question before I go to the compliance part because my understanding what I heard earlier and also what is in the memo

[111:03] uh B plus is 22 that's b b is 22 and B plus is 20 about about 25 and you know don't these are these are rough estimates okay um given the time thank you for that and how do you um you mentioned the compliance Port that b plus somehow actually helps with compliance how well I think that um B plus um sorry alternative B is clear in comparing it to the osbt recommendation because it is includes planes trails and uh Boulder Canyon um I think that Wonderland Lake and um serves an important Transportation need of the community and uh I think that that can the compliance can be solved by appropriate signage can I so here's what I hear it was ABC ABC but B plus came out from

[112:00] what you got from the community feedback from the community it leads you to b-plus correct okay thank you correct questions um I was wondering if in the staff presentation there was a comment on how B plus might be more difficult to enforce and so I was wondering if you could expand on that a little bit or what you yeah I I think um yeah so it's really hard to get this uh so the Alternatives that the department came up with through our core team of subject matter experts at the department um first taking a look at all all Trails allowed bikes that's a um in in determining if there was a subset having a geographic boundary really can help with our messaging as well as help with our community member to understand the Broadway Corridor

[113:01] um from north to south has historically been a corridor that's been identified through other open space Biking For example and it really can help our messaging and this came both from our Outreach and Education team members as well as our Rangers we landed on a geographic boundary would be a lot easier to comply with and for people to understand and know oh and I have a follow-up question on that so like Michelle I have occasionally ended up on Trails where I was not supposed to be partially because Google will map you through them and so I was wondering if you guys have done any Outreach to try and um have you know like how we can have Tollway notifications if we could have like this is not a e-bike friendly route or something like that when with Google

[114:01] mapping we can certainly coordinate that and look into that with our RIS staff do our mapping and integrate with our our mapping systems I know that they do kind of collaborate um on on some of that so we can mention that to them and see if we can enhance that and make it more clear for visitors thank you yeah um and then along the I had another question around sort of motorized things I understand that the regulation we're looking at is specifically around Recreation but I know that in some areas that they go so far as to not allow like motorized maintenance equipment do we allow motorized maintenance equipment in our open space sure so um well we have Motor Vehicles right and they they can be used in operations for operations of open space and how they are allowed is that um

[115:02] the motor vehicles were allowed when open space lands were managed by the mountain parks department and so this use has been grandfathered in and it existed prior to the city establishing the provisions of the open space Charter and BRC 836 does have the vehicle regulation which allows Motor Vehicles just for operation you know for operational needs or for you know for Trailhead parking um and so there's just not a regulation in the BRC or Charter that's specifically you know states that motor vehicles are not allowed right like it's silent doesn't say that they're not prohibited and then by ordinance we regulate them and like when we're doing Wildfire mitigation do we use chainsaws or do we you know try and go the old-fashioned way and hand saw things well I'm not on the Femme crew but I'm pretty sure they use chainsaws okay thank you

[116:01] Tara and then I'm curious I'm not sure I read the packet a few times but I could have missed it tell me more detail about what happened in in Jefferson County a lot of people are talking about Jefferson County can you be more detailed as to their findings especially how it really how it's the most relatable relatable to our parts of open space open space in Jefferson County both allow e-bikes Jefferson County is a little bit different and I think that that's a direct response from the Community member feedback that they received they allow class one e-bikes on uh oh crap uh I don't have it in front of me but I believe they allow class one on on their soft surface Trails class two on their hard surface Trails um and that is the feedback that they got from their Community one of the things

[117:00] that Jefferson County did also is they they uh allowed they did a pilot and they allowed uh people to try e-bikes they interviewed people before and after when somebody hadn't ridden an e-bike they were a little bit more apprehensive and after riding an e-bike they felt more comfortable with with that vehicle and and that activity uh co-existing with them and then they were addicted to it like me I'm sure I can add a little bit to that um that since they've added e-bikes to their system they haven't seen they've reported no increase in concerns um or conflicts and um and then in Boulder County Parks and open space which is also very similar I just wanted to say to um they found that since they've implemented that the speed doesn't really differ by bike types

[118:00] um and so I just thought those were two relevant things to add to that and one more question speaking of speed for class three and four which can go I guess 27 or 28 miles an hour how would we not how would we able to not have class three and four I don't think there's a class four I think um there is I looked on the internet but it could be not true because you know the internet um well Colorado when they did their state law change um identified three classifications with class three being um the one that can go faster um and in terms of allowing them it would be um you know education Outreach enforcement and working with our partners and our partners would include those that sell e-bikes as well to help our community members know and understand one one good tool that we've used throughout this engagement process is we've worked with our website uh team

[119:05] and when they pull up the trail map there's a box that comes up that says the city is considering allowing e-bikes for more information go here that kind of messaging is a pretty good point of sale to let people know what where they can and can't and what types of vehicles and e-bikes they could use couple of quick questions from me and then I'll go to Matt after that um so so in other words so just to repeat the so the other jurisdictions didn't see an increase in complaints or conflicts after allowing e-bikes did how about an increase in accidents or the severity of accidents because I've heard concerns from community members about that um actually they haven't uh really they don't really have much in the way of accidents um occurring so they're not seeing increases they're not increasing in citations they haven't increased in

[120:02] any medical incidents or complaints in fact those that use e-bikes have what we've heard from our Rangers from other agencies is people are thanking them good and um we've gotten a lot of community emails who's who that have been upset that we would allow bikes for the first time on the South Boulder Creek Trail on the white rocks Trail but I think they're misinformed those currently allow non-e-bikes don't they that that's correct they do allow um the South Boulder Creek Trail and white rocks Trail are both multi-use that allow bikes analog bikes today right so because we're not proposing to add e-bikes anywhere where bikes aren't currently permitted that is correct okay one little detail on the Wonderland Lake area so there's a loop around Wonderland Lake and I would say maybe three quarters of it is open space managed and then there's the southern quarter which

[121:01] I believe is on Parks land and there's a paved multi-use path in that section so as a Parks paved multi-use path would that currently allow e-bikes in that section that's part of the greenway system that already allows allows it on that segment or if we would need to coordinate that with Parks and Rec to finish that Loop you know so it's not um doesn't have conflicting regulations right on on the part of the trail okay yeah maybe or maybe we can look into that a little bit we can think all those perks multi-use paths do allow e-bikes currently but can you look that up uh if it's on Parks and opens or if it's on Parks and opens I'm sorry open space in Mountain Park land then no but if it's on Parks and Rec land then yes I should be precise it's Parks and Rec land actually right it would be okay very good and then um let's see I think that about covers it so thank you for all of you and by the way the presentation was uh information

[122:01] packed and also pithy so I appreciated that thanks all right we'll go to Matt thanks Aaron uh yeah I was just going to Echo um how solid that presentation was and I appreciate the sort of long Runway the staff has done um to sort of get that information that's nice and digestible and quite complete my question kind of piggybacks a little bit on what Aaron was just asking and sort of as staff was mentioning that we haven't seen those impacts in our sister cities I know there's some concerns here but evidence would maybe dictate that those concerns may not actually come to be but is there a plan and or commitment by staff to monitor um some of these trails and therefore if we were to see accidents or other negative impacts would there be a willingness to adjust accordingly if those were to occur not saying the work given that other communities aren't seeing them but but I just want to make sure there's a willingness for us to look and adapt if we need to uh absolutely um bikes are allowed we have a holistic approach to manage for e-bikes we

[123:01] currently as a department we do a lot of monitoring um and that's my ring but my phone's off so uh so um first e-biking would be added as a new activity category uh for our visitor surveys that we do on a regular basis um and we ask the activities that people primary activities and so we would include e-biking on that and that would allow us to quantify and detect any changes in activity as well as if we identify any issues and those issues could could come up through some of the feedback we get through those visitor surveys we all know that community members also can reach us individually as well as we can learn from our Rangers if there's any issues so monitoring yes education and Outreach targeted enforcement are all at parts of how we would manage

[124:00] for e-bikes thank you for that did I answer everything you know my question thank you great and so just a quick follow-up on it so visitor surveys that could that could uh if somebody for example experienced a negative interaction but that didn't include a collision they could report something like that that's part of it and they do and we actually do track um uh we track uh interactions between users and um I think it's around 95 of our interactions between bikers on our system today are positive with other users on the OS on the open space system great well thank for all those excellent answers so seeing no other hands raised let's go ahead to our public hearing we have 25 people signed up to speak each person will have two minutes of a lot of time unless you're pooling time in which case you get four minutes and just uh remind everyone about our rules of public participation just to please abide by those as you're speaking

[125:00] so we've got about 50 50 in person and virtual start with our in-person folks our first person to speak is Karen holweg who is pooling with Gretchen Hein and Cindy Carlisle can we just hear from Gretchen and Cindy that they're present for the pool and discretion I don't see our former colleague Cindy Cindy Cindy's online but I'm not seeing her name listed online Cindy if you are one of the folks who is online could you use the raised hand function just so that we know that's you yeah there we go reflect that thank you you are all clear caring for four minutes thanks before I start could you pull up my slides please by the way our next speakers will be Sally Greenwood and Kristen Marshall thank you I'm Karen holwig and I'm a city resident and former open space board member city council approved the transportation

[126:01] Department's pilot allowing e-assisted bicycles on certain hard surfaced multi-use paths as shown in this slide in 2013. I want to review your with you the decisions by the open space Board of Trustees since that time and on my next slide and on the other slides you'll see quotes directly from the archive minutes of the open space board in 2013 osbt passed on a 4-1 vote a motion stating that the use of e-bikes on open space paved paths is not appropriate under the charter and recommended that staff begin investigating a possible disposal of paved multi-use paths on osmp land that principally serve a transportation function next slide a year later the trustees approved on a three to two vote the disposal of 12 small non-contiguous paved Parcels of

[127:01] open space Trails which primarily serve a non-open space purpose giving their maintenance to Public Works Transportation an example is the cement path along the Broadway in front of nist where bikes go about two years later staff suggested to osbt the disposal of an additional 20 osmp paved Trails but after extended discussion the trustees rejected this proposal because these Trails primarily serve open space Charter purposes their Trails like Bobolink obviously by 2016 there was a clear distinction made with the board clearly concluding that one e-bikes on osmp pass is not appropriate under the charter and two if osmp Trails primarily serve open space Charter purposes they should be held and continue to be managed by osmp that those trails are distinctively

[128:00] different from the Department of Transportation trails that serve a transportation function next slide in 2018 down in Denver the legislature passed a new state law as staff is noted saying that local authorities can produce regulations for e-bikes and it was reiterated that in Boulder e-bikes are prohibited on osmp in August 2018 there was a written information item in the osbt packet about Regional coordination on e-bikes and it stated that e-bikes will continue to be prohibited on osmp lands including the oscp osmp sections of the County's Lobo Trail next slide so here we are in 2023 and the open space Board of Trustees has recommended that in keeping with the charter trails close to Boulder like these be retained as multi-use Trails safe for enjoyable

[129:01] pedestrian use and that to address the issue of connecting multi-jurisdictional Regional Trails like the Lobo Trail and National Wildlife Refuge Trail an exception allow e-bikes on the osmp segments of the trails so that we can make regional Trails contiguous I hope that you'll seriously consider and approve this recommendation tonight to enable the 85 percent of osmp users who prefer hiking and walking to continue to enjoy open space Trails like these I'm sure it's clear to you that when it comes to e-bikes on the city's open space policies under the charter they have those policies for years have been very different from both the city transportation and mobility department and the Boulder County open space policies in many areas like dog regulations there are differences thank you

[130:02] now we have Sally Greenwood Kristen Marshall and Catherine Smith I'm here to support the open space board recommendation affirming council's 2005 decision to prevent motorized vehicles on open space it is beyond ingenuous to consider electric bicycles as passive Recreation I urge you not to diminish Boulder commit commitment to a most treasured asset of open space the opportunity to be on Trails without Motor Vehicles I've hiked and biked open space since 1991. open space has been such a benefit to me as a boulder resident and a point of Pride to brag about

[131:00] a hike frequently and like poking along to bird enjoy the scenery and photograph flowers I'm not reassured that I can enjoy Trails shared with vehicles traveling at 15 miles per hour my top speed is maybe two further I'm hard of hearing and oblivious to barkers who approach me from the rear and assume I hear them so far I've avoided accidents but only because hearing friends have hauled me out of Harm's Way I trust the open space boards recommendations and find the professional staff's opinions alarming for example sections of the white rocks Trail are far too narrow to support pedestrians and bikes passing comfortably do not assume on my behalf that at age 80 I Lust For Speed on electric bicycle

[132:02] in order to enjoy nature on the contrary I and many peers relish being pedestrians yeah we have Kristen Marshall Catherine Smith and Richard Harris thank you Council suggestions to allow e-bikes on additional nature trails in the boulder open space reminded me of a hot sticky and Sleepless summer in Albany New York decades ago I was an undergraduate and I opted to take the cheapest apartment I could find unfortunately it was right across a motorcycle bar so you get where Sleepless comes in

[133:02] and I understand that motorcycles are different than e-bikes I also understand that the wildlife in Boulder County is different than the wildlife on my old Neighborhood in Albany New York I think I saw pigeons um let's see rats cockroaches and students those are the primary species they were not endangered but there are species in open space which are endangered and which are sensitive and would be impacted by motorized bicycles

[134:01] e-bikes e-bikes are not ecological bikes they're e-bikes right so it's a distinctive difference so um I asked the city council to recognize that nature has rights I've heard several times that we manage the city parks let me correct that we are part of the city parks we are part of nature let's respect that and please do not extend motorbikes into Natural Parks thank you thank you so much um let's see now we have Catherine Smith Richard Harris and Catherine Harris

[135:04] good evening my name is Catherine Smith I'm a former resident of of Boulder City and a resident of the county now I'm very appreciative of the space that we have throughout the county and particularly Boulder cities commitment to our natural environment and to all the things that live here I wanted to talk a little bit tonight about the difference between going to and going through and to me people who are going through a space have another destination in mind and those are people who are seeing the open space as a way to transport themselves from place a to place B that is very different from a recreational user who is going to that space to feel the air to hear the bird song

[136:03] to smell the air to see what is living there to admire the wildflowers those are completely different uses and I think as we've seen in the presentation they're recognized as different uses and regulated quite differently I think that is part of why the open space Board of Trustees is giving you a different record recommendation is because they are looking at the people who are going to the space I also share the concern that the city Charter does not allow for an interpretation that passive Recreation allows motorized transportation and agree with the concern that once you open that Pandora's Box how are you going to distinguish the unicycle which I did see a motorized

[137:01] unicycle the scooter the class threes from other modes of Transit Richard Harris and Catherine Harrison Davis thank you I'm speaking for plan Boulder County and taking off my mask thank you for doing this in person right in that microphone please certainly whoops oh it's falling off if you break it we'll send you the bill so I'm speaking for plan Boulder County to start over and I've wasted about no can we start back to two minutes please okay so um plan Boulder County supports the open space trustees recommendation regarding

[138:01] e-biking on open space Trails the trustees reiterate the decisions of previous boards happening since 2013 asserting that e-bikes on open space paths are not appropriate under the charter and secondly they amend the section of the boulder revised code on motorized motorized vehicles by making an exception to allow e-bikes where a Regional Trail requires access to a segment of osmp trail to enable connectivity well still meeting osmp's protections and visitor management goals the trustees find the city Charter states that one of the allowed purposes of open space is Preservation of land for Passive recreational use the 2005 Council approved visitor master plan states that passive Recreation is defined as non-motorized activities and

[139:00] that motorized vehicles are not considered passive Recreation the 2019 master plan finds hiking as the most popular activity on the city's trails with 85 percent of adult respondents saying so this and I point out that the staff's recent online questionnaire and incept intercept surveys did not reach this variety of open space visitors and thus underestimated uh the views of hikers open space staff reported in 22 that overwhelming majorities are concerned about the speed conflict overcrowding and increased visitation that e-bikes will cause we request the council adopt the trustee's views e-bikes are not a passive recreational use under the charter the open space master plan and other documents they are there therefore not an appropriate use thank you

[140:00] thank you now we have Catherine Harris Dave Sutherland and Patricia Billy I'm Catherine Harris 2645 Briarwood Drive I just bought an e-bike to Tool around Boulder I also walk on open space Trails about four days a week I would never think of riding my e-bike on these trails our city Charter section 176 states that our open space is for Passive Recreation passive Recreation is defined as non-motorized activities for heaven's sakes ebikes have a battery motor on them what could be clearer I walk on open space Trails for the beauty

[141:01] the quiet for a respite for ref re reflection it seems like many people in our culture today are anxious and perhaps quick to anger where can we find calm and our better selves how can a person find respite and relaxation when there's a fear that an e-bike may come up at any moment behind us what about walking with a child or a dog which way do we jump some people are advocating a long list of basic changes to the heart of our open space Charter in order to open the door to e-bikes on our trails contrast this with the simple and sensible recommendations of our open

[142:02] space Board of Trustees our open space board recommends one exception to the Charter to allow e-bikes to connect with a Regional Trail the board recommendations whoops I um I urge you to follow the recommendations of our open space board thank you thank you Catherine now we have Dave Sutherland and Patricia Billiken Wendy Sweden hi everybody I'm Dave Sutherland I'm a boulder resident for nearly 25 years I worked for the open space and Mountain parks department in education and Outreach and in that time I took literally hundreds of groups of people out onto the open space system for educational programs of all ages from preschoolers to seniors in that time I've come to know the open space and Mountain Park system

[143:01] intimately and I've come to know the visitors very very well over all of that time and it's in that context that I want to urge you not to approve e-bikes for open space and Mountain Parks trails a lot of people have already talked about the city Charter and I just want to say chipping away at the charter is a slippery slope and I urge you not to start down that slope once you make exceptions for one piece of motorized Recreational Equipment you might find that you're making more exceptions and where does it stop but really what I wanted to talk about tonight was about equity and that I think e-bikes are actually despite all the hype not dedicated to equity the reason I say that is a lot of people use open space kids doing nature study people on horses people with dogs on leash people with dogs off leash groups of people seniors people who maybe have disabilities and let's be really honest here electronic bikes can go 20 miles an hour or more how are you

[144:02] going to keep the class 3 e-bikes off of Open Space I can tell you as somebody who works in education and Outreach for 25 years education and Outreach isn't going to do it and I would ask you to think about how effective was the vision zero 20 mile an hour speed limit I'm sure there's a lot of education and Outreach whereas the enforcement ain't going to work you're going to have you know people going all kinds of speeds out there and in addition it's pretty easy to Jimmy the speed limiter on an e-bike if you do a simple web search you get a whole bunch of sites come up with do-it-yourself instructions to disable the speed limits on an e-bike so Equity is about driving other people off the land because you have 20 mile an hour machines out there I just want to say that something that goes 20 mile an hour on a trail with kids dogs and seniors who can't hear it's not passive Recreation thanks Dave Patricia billig Wendy sweet and Steve pomerance

[145:04] for the last uh 35 years I've made my living as a scientist developing sampling plans and surveys and things like that analyzing the data and then using that data to make decisions that's basically what I've done for years and uh I want to make and I'm also a former open space trustee I want to make two points tonight to urge you to go to support the open space trustee recommendations first of all first point is oh you didn't start the timer no good catch that okay all right now I'm starting um know your data before you use it to make a decision I can't I do this on a daily basis talking with agencies with corporations with understand where that

[146:00] data came from before you use it to make a decision the unfortunate news is that a lot of the graphs and things that you were looking at from the online survey do not represent what the boulder general population thinks about this and I think you've gotten some inklings about that and I can't go into why and everything right now all the details but it doesn't represent the general population in Boulder there is no way that it does because of a number of reasons um the good news is you do have a contracted statistically significant survey that was done along with the master plan in 2019 only four years ago less than four years ago that show demonstrated that 85 percent of the people in Boulder prefer hiking and walking on open space

[147:00] you should use that um so so don't don't vote for e-bites e-bikes on open space thinking that you're doing something that the general population wants because you're not um second thing on white rocks I was just there I go there like every month and since it opened and just recently I was there and this point was just made but I'll just say because I experienced it again last week middle of the week middle of the day not a holiday not a weekend what was on that trail toddlers horses bikes seniors high school kids and we were all there and you're going to add something like the points have already made to that that's crazy and it's irresponsible in my opinion thanks Patricia all right our last two in-person speakers are Wendy sweet and Steve pomerantz

[148:07] hi my name is Wendy sweet and I'm the executive director of the Boulder Mountain Bike Alliance and a 30-year resident of Boulder I'd like to thank osmp staff for all their hard work in this eve e-bike evaluation BMA believes that e-bikes are compatible with passive Recreation and we are very much in favor of opening Trail connections that will allow for more people to safely get around Boulder out of their cars throughout this e-bike evaluation process we have asked that osmp conduct a pilot program to study e-bikes on single track Trails we have not asked for this not because staff did not do their due diligence in finding e-bike Studies by other government agencies rather we asked for a pilot program because this is Boulder and in Boulder people want to see for themselves there have been several public comments before me suggesting that e-bike usage on City open space will displace other visitors will lead to more visitor

[149:01] conflicts will have harmful impacts on Wildlife will negatively impact trails and other speculations but the vast majority of e-bike pilot programs and studies to date do not show these concerns to be valid including the e-bike pilot programs by Jeffco and Boulder County while staff will not be going forward with a pilot program BMA strongly suggests that the city move forward with this process using adaptive management practices with measurable data what will success look like what will failure look like what metrics will you use to determine this if there are issues that need to be mitigated what will those mitigation processes look like emotional feelings by a few people against people riding bicycles should not be a factor in allowing this use on our open space lands not wanting to share open space with different types of visitors or having one's experience change from a past level is not a data metric the mountain bike Community is all too familiar with bubble processes based on guesswork fear and speculation including

[150:00] the West TSA process that continues to unfairly prohibit bikes on over 100 miles of Trails West of Boulder let's make this decision based on facts and data thank you thank you Wendy that last in-person speakers Steve pomeritz Steve pomerance 335 17th Street I'm 81. I still ride mountain bikes I've been riding mountain bikes since mountain bikes first existed and I support the open space Board of Trustees recommendation however I would further limit it to say no single tracks no electron no electric bikes on single tracks and so I mean hit a few points here first the legal issues around this the approach that's recommended by staff won't stand up and I suspect you guys will end up in court um the uh areas that are necessary for transportation most of them aren't I ride a regular bike too and you can get around fine you don't need to use any of those trails

[151:00] nobody seems to be talking about the effects on wildlife and animals uh and plants if you've ever ridden on a single track on the weekends here in Boulder you know that bikes are going off the trail all the time because there's too many of them already and these are human-powered bikes you imagine what would happen when you put a bunch of e-bikes out there in addition tripling the population of bikes they already Drive most of the hikers off on the south end of town and so it's going to just get worse you got to realize e-bikes make it a lot easier to go out there and do it so there's going to be a lot more people and it's already bad nobody wants to go out there and ride on the weekends except people that can't do anything else with regard to this notion somebody proposed a pilot of on single track Trails West of Broadway you want to revolt you're going to have one I mean people are going to start putting sticks through people's spokes over something like that and compliance there's no enforcement

[152:01] now so you know it's going to get better who's going to pay for that and how are you going to do it radar gun says open space folks going to have to be out there with radar guns and ticket books it's not a good idea don't do it thank you thanks for that Steve I'll just maybe a reminder to folks to not talk about potential violence being done by one person to another that's it's already happened so all right that ends our in-person speakers and we'll now go to our virtual speakers whom our first three are Francis hartog Ruth Wright and Lynn Siegel we have somebody you think maybe if you can come over and talk to the clerk maybe and see you should be able to be heard now hi I'm Francis hartog galenaway in Boulder I've lived in our city for over 40 years raised two kids here served as an open space trustee and worked as a natural

[153:01] resources Environmental Lawyer I do urge Council to adopt the open space Board of Trustees recommendations their approach provides access to key Regional Trails which is an actual Plus for a being in climate change while maintaining the important precedent that e-bikes are not a passive recreational use open space under the charter open space master plan and other documents as an open space trustee I experienced the I have to say it full court press because of our minds will be on basketball tonight the mountain bike allows to access our open space for their sport like the majority of people who visit open space three foot and enjoy seeing Wildlife I express concern than about the effect of high-speed bikes on wildlife and humans alike Wildlife already was suffering from an onslaught of dogs that were under neither boys nor site control now Council would introduce this new use to our overburdened open space lands e-bikes are twice as heavy as regular

[154:00] bikes Newton's Second Law tells us that poorest people's mass times velocity so do the math combine that with possibly less experienced riders or writers new to our Trails we are a tourist destination not only will this present an unnecessary danger to others but will displace pedestrian users it's a slippery slope what's to stop a future Council from making another legislative fighting to impose their favorite sport on our precious open space the city's collected taxes for over 50 years based on understanding this money will be used to carry out the purposes of open space in the charter it's a violation of the public trust to use those lands for other purposes thanks for your service to our community thank you Francis our next speaker is Ruth Wright but I'm getting reports that she's not in the meeting Ruth if you're out there if you can raise your hand and let the moderators know but since we're not seeing right now I

[155:01] will come back to you if you come into the meeting later and so we'll move on then to Lynn Siegel then Larry McDonald and Dana beve well I thought that Boulder was an athletic community I don't get it I don't get it health means lugging Along on your bike with human energy no I ride my bike all over the place I don't take it up in the mountains in the mountains I walk I hike I don't this is an athletic community and they're capitulating to electric bikes what gives you know the open space is in deficit 300 million who knows what and you're going to legislate who's going out on these e-bikes you know

[156:00] there's one thing I can say elders developmentally disabled in some way should be able to go on electric bikes I do think that but clearly they are not passive is the sky blue you know um where do you want to go where are you going wherever you are there you'll be and people can walk and they can hike and they can get better health and better you know more exercise doing that um I I mean I can't say anything else I agree of course with Steve pomerance everything he says is like gold

[157:00] but this is so clear so obvious um do the right thing do not even think about allowing electric bikes except for the disabled thank you Lynn now we have Larry McDonald Dana bovey and James Morris my name is Larry McDonald I have lived in Boulder I have for a long time um thank you uh it's by this time of course you've heard everything that I wanted to say has been said so you know I'm just going to try to try to do my thing but what I want to say is you have a threshold question that I don't think you're really acknowledging which is do you have the authority to do what you are proposing to do I mean you've heard from many of us that in our view we just don't believe that the idea of motorized

[158:02] biking on open space is passive Recreation and despite what the staff has told you in its packet um the the charter does Define passive Recreation it does it on the basis of examples it says hiking photography or nature studies those are pretty obviously passive kind of activities it then adds the possibility of a more active recreational activity um such as biking by special designation and I think that reflected the feeling of those who drafted the charter um that they were uncertain about whether the those kind of activities really were suitable for open space now we have of course allowed those um and um you know we kind of tried to work with that um I think the directors of the charter terrific I'm hoping Ruth will be able to join us tonight set out a very clear

[159:02] vision of the management of open space lands for their preservation and enjoyment I just don't see any way that that Vision included recreational uses of motorized vehicles of any kind as a form of recreation I speak from some experience I served on the osbt board more than 20 years ago I took my responsibilities as a trustee quite seriously I thought the use of the term trustee really meant something am I done yes Larry your time's up cool that was hard to believe that was okay it was fast thanks for your testimony and I see that Ruth Wright has joined the meeting so if we could bring root forward please very YouTube there we go

[160:02] okay uh Ruth is coming shortly here okay go ahead hey you can start talking my name is Ruth Wright is it important to note that over the last he has developed a system of about 300 miles of bikeways for bikes and e-bikes since 1967 when Boulder passed the first sales tax to purchase of open space lands the city has been acquiring lands to build our open space and Mountain Park system in addition as we envisioned we now have almost 47 000 acres of land at 150 miles of trails in addition it is important to note that over the last 40 years the city has

[161:01] developed a system of about 300 miles of bikeways for bikes and e-bikes in 1986 77 percent of the voters passed a charter amendment to provide permanent protection for open space section 176 says quote open space land shall be acquired maintained preserved retained and used only for the eight purposes listed which include preservation of land for Passive Recreation I have been asked what we mean or meant by passive Recreation when we helped write that Charter Amendment well it simply means that on open space people have the opportunities to hike watch wildlife in the habitat that we have preserved take photos and videos do everything that does not scare away the wildlife nor damage the equilateral heritage regarding the issue of e-bikes on open

[162:00] space in my opinion using a motorized vehicle that can go 20 miles an hour cannot be categorized as passive Recreation and At Any Trail that is open for use of e-bikes will no longer be used by Walkers and hikers especially those with children instead of looking for and observing Wildlife they would be on the watch for speeding e-bikes I strongly hope I strongly urge to accept you to accept the recommendations of the open space Board of Trustees they acknowledge that we all need to abide by the wise words placed in the charter years ago provide exceptions to allow e-bikes on Regional trails and with the reverence and respect it deserves just trying to make sure the rules are the same for everybody but thank you so

[163:00] much for your testimony Ruth and for everything you've done for our community over the years um okay coming back to our list it's uh Dana bovey James Morris and Laura Thompson hi um my name is Dana bovey and I've lived in Boulder since 1974 and I've always cherished our open space lands and it's a thrilled to follow up after Ruth actually our nonprofit group studies Raptors on lands that include Boulder open space we often study Eagles along the white rocks nature trail to consolidate time I'll state that myself and our 501c volunteers and members strongly support um are strongly are strongly opposed to staff and osmp's alternative B recommendations e-bikes should not be allowed in open space Trails I believe

[164:01] there's only four designated nature trails in Boulder and the white rocks Trail is one of these four my experience with e-bikes when I'm observing and studying Raptors on County Trails has been harrowing and honestly really upsetting sometimes on Trails like white rocks and focus on birds and I'm often startled by e-bikes as uh not in white rocks but on County Trails startled by e-bikes as they whiz by quietly fast and without warning I have real fears about a run-in and a trip to the hospital by a collision by one of these heavy and fast-moving bikes in no way do e-bikes conform to the city's Charter that requires trails to be used by non-motorized vehicles for quiet recreational use and nature studying observation um e-bikes they're a great asset I'm glad they provide access for so many along the 300 miles of bikeways in the city of Boulder but nature trails like

[165:00] white rocks and the South Boulder Creek Trail should allow plenty of space for safe and peaceful nature observation study as I said a collision without these massive bikes at 20 miles per hour is not a peaceful or safe experience please vote no on alternative B and tonight I didn't hear any survey results on document on visitors that had negative experience experiences with e-bikes I feel like that um Dana your time is yes I'm afraid thank you thank you for your testimony now we have James Morris Laura Thompson and Linda and days George's hi I've been in Boulder for 50 years biking to work and biking to see you I was chair of the Sierra Club group Indian beats group and the Colorado chapter when we were trying to get support for this for open space taxes I wore a bear costume at Broadway waving signs to try

[166:02] and get people to vote for open space I walked bike birdwatch look at wildflowers go with friends via bike and on foot at South Boulder Creek in white rocks I support the Board of Trustees recommendation we should not weaken City Charters Sutherland knows way more about what people want than the Boulder Mountain Bike Alliance does open spaces for wildlife and people there's a history of the destruction of wetlands by motorized vehicles open space and I was surprised like tonight there was a motorized gasoline engine on the Bear Creek path um I'm often surprised as I commute on that path and on Boulder Creek path electric bikes come up behind me they're quiet they do it at underpasses and curves and they're going uphill fast often they're inexperienced and Reckless there was a commercial electric bike tour on Bear Creek one day going fast in

[167:01] a bad accident at occurred before an underpass with blood all over the bike path people don't follow the laws just a week and a half ago in the evening I was bit on the sanitized Trail by someone who was exercising their bike at her dog at night and she likes to do that completely off leash off voice control just ran up and bit me so I don't want electric you know I go bird watching I like to listen to frogs and owls it's what makes Bolder okay it's the wildlife and it's friendly people I don't get those with electric bikes so please stop this and electric bikes are not good for the environment you burn coal and natural gas excel's spending more money to improve the Pueblo power plant another 34 minutes your time is up yeah I know bye but thank you for your testimony okay we've got Laura Thompson Linda Andes George's and Dorothy Cohen

[168:02] good evening um so I'm Laura Thompson I own a home in the cottages at Wonderland Lake on most days and often multiple times a day I walk my dog on the trail around the lake daily hundreds of people walk and run in this area people come to observe and photograph the many species of birds that spend time here some people come to fish some come to do yoga or to meditate in the spring and summer I can hear birds singing crickets chirping I see baby bunnies running around while deer Gather in the fields truly this is a magical place unlike many places I've ever been in the world in the past months I've observed an increase in the number of people flying through on electric bikes twice not once but twice I've almost been hit most recently it was at dusk by a group of teens on electric bikes buzzing through

[169:01] at full speed that same night there were other teens repeatedly doing donuts with their electric scooters on the dirt stirring up dust while disrupting the calm several of my neighbors have shared that they too have been close to being hit there are some bends with lower visibility on the trail that surrounds the lake and I believe that motorized bikes and scooters on this Trail particularly at higher speeds are dangerous please understand that I am not anti-electric bikes I am adamantly against electric vehicles including bikes and scooters on the trails at Wonderland Lake they simply do not align with this space a space that is quiet it's peaceful it's contemplative a space used by people of all ages and a space that is a natural habitat I respectfully ask that you do not permit electric bikes or electric scooters on the path around Wonderland Lake and preferably not on any of the trails in the

[170:02] Wonderland Lake Area thank you thank you Laura now we have Linda Andy's George's Dorothy Cohen and Michael Browning hi can you hear me yes my name is Linda Andy's George 8417 Stirrup Lane in Longmont this will take me just over two minutes so hang on to the handlebars I'd like to begin with a few personal Bona fides for context after our family moved here in the early 90s I quickly joined three City organizations bcna the city trails committee and Boulder bike commuters I became dedicated to doing most of my city commuting including grocery shopping on my little Fisher trail bike in 96 when I joined the open space board I commuted from 55th Street to attend our Wednesday night meetings so I do understand the pleasure of bikes as well as the environmental urge to get more people on them but setting aside all the atrocious impacts

[171:00] that motorized biking could wreak on our net our native botany and fauna important as that is and to the Charter unless we have a referendum I'll confine myself to addressing the very mistaken supposition that this will get folks out of their cars here is what I know when we lived in town near Baseline of 55th our community had 50 houses despite the fact that there was little traffic then nobody but me ever biked to work or to trailheads now we live in a county neighborhood of 50 houses many many residents work or shop in Boulder but there are only three of us who bike and I can say with confidence not a single resident besides myself will ever consider commuting 12 to 15 miles to go to work or to recreate on city trails who would have add a half hour to a morning commute to do this as for e-biking in the wind rain or cold nope not going to happen this week my son and I took a sunny

[172:01] stroll around Wonderland Lake among the many Walkers and dog walkers were four bikers they passed us in a blur of speed excessive given the crowds and not one uttered on your left or rang a bell faster e-bikes will be a recipe for badly injuring someone a deaf person a small child the loose dog lawsuits will ensue your time is up alternative B thanks thank you for now we have Dorothy Cohen Michael Browning and Jim Knotts my name is Dorothy Cohen and I've lived in Boulder since 1974. and I use the Open Space Mountain parks on a regular basis I used to go to some of the trailheads that had bikes and I don't enjoy being passed by bikes we have to go off the side of the road and I'm concerned that if you allow e-bikes that us hikers are not going to enjoy it anymore

[173:00] one the what everybody has said about having um wildlife and if if the hikers have to go off the trail we're hurting the flowers I think there's no point in having e-bikes on trail on on Mountain Spokes open Trip open space Trails keep them on the pavement it's good to get to places or to do exercise on pavement not on the open space that I've noticed in the past that where bikes go and especially if they go if it's rainy that there's ruts in the road e-bikes are much heavier and there's no reason to have e-bikes you know on the open space if somebody if you think a senior needs to have transportation to get to to a Trailhead let them Park their bike let them put bike paths or something by uh things so people can lock up their bikes and get

[174:00] out and walk that's what the open space is there are trails that I don't use anymore because there's too many bites on them and I don't enjoy being uh almost you know they don't give you any warning that they're suddenly right upon you today I went hiking um on the um goswalk Trail up by the the um Yoga Retreat Center there and there were 11 of us we had one woman who was over 90. there's no reason that people shouldn't be able to hike on the open space and not have uh e-bikes there thank you now we have Michael Browning Jim Knopf and Charmaine kleiber good evening my name is Mike Browning I've lived in practice law in Boulder for over 30 years the staff wants you to make a legislative finding quote unquote that e-bikes are allowed as a quote passive

[175:00] recreational use on open space trails this is because they see many benefits of allowing such use and there may be some such benefits but it's noted by earlier speakers you have no authority to make such a legislative finding you did not pass the open space Charter nor did any previous other previous City Council the charter was made law directly by a vote of the citizens not by any city council let alone this one you cannot interpret amend or ignore the Charter's terms or make any suppose legislative finding about its meaning any more than you could with respect to a state statute or a Denver city ordinance or provision the U.S Constitution they would simply be meaningless when the citizens of Boulder passed the open space Charter they did not give the city council authority over open space lands they created the open space Board of Trustees to manage and protect open space they knew that a political body like yourself would be forever tempted to fudge on The Limited uses allowed for

[176:01] open space lands in the charter to advance other political priorities and goals just like you are being tempted to do now but only the open space Board of Trustees has a legal authority to decide how open space lands and trails can be used so even if allowing e-bikes was the best idea in the world you have no idea you have no authority to Grant such use you have no authority to do anything except follow the determination made on this issue by the open space Board of Trustees only they can decide when if and how e-bikes can be used in open space trails you have no choice but to follow the decision on this matter made by the Open Space Border trustees you should not try to override their decision by an illegal and absorb absurd legislative finding that the word passive doesn't actually mean well we all know it means and the staff and the city attorney's office should be ashamed for suggesting

[177:00] but thank you thank you for your testimony our last two speakers are Jim Knopf and Charmaine kleiber a gymnoff city resident having been on the Parks Board Water Board and open space board I've seen a lot of issues like the e-bike question tonight with this background I'd like to support the current open space board presentation recommendation as presented by Dave Koontz possibly with an exception exception for exceptions provision in other words keep open the ability to make rare exceptions to a general policy but only with a carefully considered process for exceptions that make sense most important support the osbt plan as favored by so many people tonight for so many reasons thanks Jim final speaker Charmaine kleiber take us home Charmaine

[178:04] hello thank you very much everyone has spoken so eloquently on this issue and I'll just add just a a a few of my own comments I live in Lafayette I live on the Rothman open space I am about a hundred feet from the open space Trailhead in Lafayette we see e-bikes go by every day at 20 miles an hour when I hike on the open space I hike at three miles an hour when I bird on an open space I bird at about one mile an hour so having people course by me at 20 miles an hour is really very disruptive and it is it cannot be uh entertained as a passive use of the open

[179:02] space I really encourage people to adopt the osbt recommendation for open space and thank you very much for taking time for hearing me thank you Charmaine and with that that brings her a public comment period to close I want to thank all the speakers we had a lot of former city council members a lot of former open space board of trustee members thanks for your continued involvement in the community as well as everybody else who spoke so uh now bring us back just to see if anybody has any follow-up questions for anyone based on the public testimony and then we'll go to discussions Nicole yeah thank you I do just have a few questions one of the things that I'm wondering about after hearing folks speak tonight is there anything in the education that we do or in thinking about how we do education for people who are riding bikes around helping them understand appropriate behavior they can also help them understand that our comfort levels

[180:02] in terms of what we can tolerate when we're on the paths may be a little bit different depending on where we are in our lives and our abilities so I was just wondering if there's anything in the education that sort of speaks to that that you know I think we often have the impression that everybody feels the same way we do and so you know if we're comfortable with a 15 or 20 mile an hour bike going past us everybody will but that's not true and so I'm wondering you know how how we address that in our education if we do I can start with that Casey um so our education and Outreach team it has a very robust program with programs events and experiences they really are who are visitors engage with most frequently absolutely we can we do lots of one-on-one conversations and absolutely those are some messages that we can um I don't know if they're doing it

[181:01] today and that's where I'm going to turn to Casey but if it's not being done today it's certainly something that we can be adding to our system and to our programs and recently we have been um researching how to more effectively communicate and how community and visitors can communicate effectively with each other on their trails and so that is something we've been looking at the yield sign the effectiveness of that how do we evolve that sign and so we are looking at you know updating our signs uh looking at more effective messaging so that we understand as Trail users how to be courteous to each other um so that's ongoing research and we continue to engage with other land use managers in that conversation what's been successful and try to implement that as soon as as soon as we can you know as things change thank you yep another question that I had is um do we know if visitors or do they bring e-bikes with the same sort of regularity as folks who are kind of biking to Trails and in the first place I just I'm thinking about even trying to

[182:00] load up my non-e-bike onto my car that's that's a lot and you know thinking about the extra weight of the e-bike that that feels really hard to me just trying to imagine it I don't have any bike maybe that's why I don't know yet but just wondering about you know how many people are visitors who wouldn't maybe be getting some of the messaging and education that residents and students and others who live here would get I don't know if I fully understand the question I'm sorry it's getting late and I'm getting rambly um the the question is just around do we have a sense of how many visitors to Boulder who don't live here who may not be exposed to the education like Community conversations we're having how many of them are bringing e-bikes in that that may just not know um or not be receiving some of the education that everybody else gets um well our visitor surveys do track where people are coming in from and we do get a lot of visitors that aren't Boulder residents

[183:00] um so I I think that it's not just our Boulder residents and our regular students and those familiar um the other piece about a lot of e-bikers or the folks that responded to the online engagement which were there were more e-bikers than non-need bikers I think indicated that they would ride to the trail in addition to riding on the trail so the likelihood of of those using bikes or e-bikes is that they choose to get to the trail other than driving okay and that and I think um I'm sorry you were about to speak I was just going to clarify oh I was just going to say there are a couple other tools just such as our website and our Trailhead you know kiosk information and those other types of information for visitors who you know might not be involved in these type of community discussions but to get that word out on the system so I was just going to say

[184:00] that those are some just additional tools okay thank you yeah I think what I was just wondering was do visitors bring e-bikes at different rates than resident springy bikes do we have any idea I don't know that we have an idea because we don't currently allow them yeah um and the best resource um in terms of peer agencies would be Boulder County Parks and open space I don't know I would have to get back to you about residence versus non-residents but they are beginning to track e-bike use on their system okay thank you I'm sorry for the convoluted question trying to think about education um and then you know I was really interested in what some of the folks were talking about around data are there data that we will track on some of the positive outcomes that we are expecting to see like increased accessibility reduce vehicle miles traveled and then are there any data that we're planning on tracking about potential negative impacts uh yeah and some of those uh the

[185:00] conflicts that um we currently ask in our visitor surveys did you experience an interaction was there a conflict who was that with where was that um so we are already tracking that and so we do have some baseline data and we'll be adding the e-bike if we allow e-bikes to be able to understand that more clearly as well thank you sure I have a question I want your opinion on Wonderland Lake I read a lot of the emails to us about concern people concerned about how safe it was being that Wonder Lake is really populated with Walkers Etc how do you feel about Wonderland Lake in terms of safety your opinion I think in terms of trail design those trails are very similar to the other trails that we are recommending e-bikes on in terms of their very similar in characteristics to the other Trails east of Broadway they are more similar than

[186:01] some of the other Trails like um down in the south of our system like Springbrook Loop in that area so they are consistently characterized our you know are why we didn't initially include them was because of our you know Geographic Geographic boundary I just have one follow-up question I think we had a few speakers uh say that the open space Charter prohibits motorized vehicles but I don't believe that is in the charter specifically can you you address that please no it's it's not in in the charter the VM the visitor master plan is the document that defines the charter so the charter does limit open space purposes to um and one of those purposes is passive Recreation and passive Recreation is defined in the visitor master plan and it is defined as non-motorized activity that achieve a set of criteria that's related to you know visitor experience protecting natural resources and we can pull up that criteria that we showed but it's not in the charter it's the VMP

[187:00] great thanks for clarifying I'd like to just jump in and give our attorneys Janet Michaels senior Council an opportunity to add some additional thoughts to that Janet thanks for being here thank you and um thank you council members good evening there is an entire there's an entire section of the boulder Revised Code that regulates vehicles on open space including Motor Vehicles so there's nothing specifically that says Motor Vehicles are prohibited in the charter or in the boulder Revised Code so that clarification Jenny do you have a question yes thank you can you talk a little bit more about the type of Outreach that was done around the osbt three percent thank you um the OSB T three percent

[188:02] um in terms of the number of trails that would be supported by that was a map that was produced to um to characterize what we initially and this is cursory think the emotions passed by the open space Board of Trustees would support on the system it was after our engagement so it wasn't something that was brought out to the community for input it was the result of the uh bringing the the item forward to the board and their emotions thank you is that it yes thank you okay I got Matt with the question and then maybe we'll do discussion pardon me um thanks for uh the opportunity to ask the question um I just want to piggyback a little bit on what um Janet Michael said and maybe just sort of bring this full circle

[189:00] based on a number of concerns that that residents brought up in in public comment which was so given that the definitions of motorized vehicle and those sort of uses are not defined in the open space Charter itself um and it is in the visitor master plan What entity ultimately has jurisdiction from which to amend that visitor master plan and ultimately uh set the definitions of those terms that are used within the open space chart thank you for that question this is Janet Michaels again with the city attorney's office actually there is a definition in the definition of Motor Vehicles it's specifically excludes e-bikes from that definition so there is a reference to um Motor Vehicles or to e-bikes in their their classified as not being Motor Vehicles in the code but what the visitor master plan is it would be city council that implements elements of it so the master plan is like any visitor

[190:00] master plan is like any master plan it's a guidance document it's not law in and of itself until city council adopts something regulating a piece of that master plan does that answer your question yeah so to paraphrase like we get guidance from our boards like any other situation and then it is this body that ultimately says yes or no to that proposed plan and the visitor master plan for osnp is is no different than any of the others that we do on a regular basis absolutely correctly okay not seeing any more questions then let's come back for discussion so um our first point of decision is we have two ordinances in front of us we have ordinance 8575 which implements the staff recommendation of allowing e-bikes on open space and we have ordinance 8576 from the open space Board of Trustees which does not allow them except in certain limited circumstances would anyone like to speak to which approach which ordinance we should adopt tonight

[191:02] 575 is the staff recommendation for allowing ebikes 8576 is the osbt recommendation let me get started here terrible sure I will um first of all I want to say to everybody that spoke thank you so much you're so passionate about open space and so I um but I want to just say that my husband I just want to say really a quick anecdote sorry Aaron for my husband you know is disabled and he cannot he would have been here tonight to talk about e-bikes but he can't sit in those chairs and he can't you know he can't walk very far but one thing he can do is go on an e-bike so he because of e-bikes have the opportunity to be outside but for him to be able to be on Open Spaces he's never been able to do that so that would be that would open up a whole new world for him and since of course I okay I'm getting a little old so you know my torn meniscus and whatnot I had to go from hiking which was my favorite thing in the world to e-biking I also would like

[192:00] to be on you know outside in the in nature rather than just you know on the Goose Creek Trail not that it isn't a nice Trail um so for that reason I'm going to suggest option b because I feel like for seniors especially it opens up a whole new world where they really can't walk that far and we they will be able to so many of us because I'm a senior in like three months we'll be able to enjoy the open space like we want to so that's something that really hasn't been discussed and as my husband wants to hear the birds as much as anybody so just throwing that out there so I'm going to suggest B what the I thought it was a great plan that you had I feel like the reason why I would pick B rather than b-plus or a minus or whatever other things we've decided is because I think it would be a good opportunity to try this get the community used to it see that it works calm everybody's worries and fix anything that might need fixing

[193:01] so then if everything works well we can move on from that thanks Tara so in other words the you're supporting 85.75 with the staff recommendation that ordinance right and then I wasn't I wasn't very clear but I'm thinking that first we've turned which ordinance to pass and then after that we would give direction on which Trails we'd recommend if 85 75 but you'd had a lovely speech so you jumped right into it uh anybody else on which ordinance we should pass and we don't all have to talk I can take straw full if people don't want to give speeches heads so can we do a yeah Lauren well I'm I'm gonna um well somebody could just make a motion yeah if somebody would like to do that I'd like to make a motion that we pass ordinance 85.75 do I need to read it all right I think that's good enough right

[194:02] second okay we've got a motion in a second do you want to speak to your motion line I think that a lot of this has already been covered I mean our thorough but the um for me it really is about having profitable access and open space and also the changing technology you know we hired many commenters talk about the Pandora's Box of um not being able to regulate various things effectively but I think that really we are we're already there like you there are e-bikes these days that you cannot differentiate from regular bikes and I think that you're sort of setting the regulations they are set up sort of a system where people who can afford the most expensive bikes can get away with

[195:01] sort of riding under the radar and in addition to that I do think that the follows our transportation goals our city goals our Equity goals I there's a lot of reasons to support it Nicole did you want to address in a second yeah I just had a couple of things um but first of all I just I know a lot of folks went home because it was getting late but thanks to the community for the dialogue tonight I really appreciated that so many people shared their perspectives especially without personal attacks on Council and staff as much as we all try to have thick skins staying away from those kinds of personal attacks really makes it a lot easier to hear people's concerns so thank you for that to those those who were able to do that tonight and you know I think Tara you shared my reasons for supporting this ordinance as well not all of us have the types of bodies that allow us to keep doing in our 80s what we were doing in our 20s and I think that this this really does allow more of us to keep enjoying our Trails even as our bodies need some

[196:01] extra assistance I also just really appreciate staff's work and compromise I'd actually have supported the original alternative a and I expect that in the future we're going to be opening up all of our trails that allow bikes to e-bikes before too long but I appreciate that this gradual approach is a good middle ground for now and I'm really hoping that these changes will make our Trails more accessible and I'm really glad to hear that we'll be monitoring outcomes and impacts as well I think that's going to be really important to the community to build trust and hopefully help our future osbt and future Council when we come back to this discussion in the future about more biking trails thanks thanks for that Nicole I'm going to call myself if that's right just for real quickly I'll be supporting the motion I do feel like this is a good step forward for differently abled bodies and I think it's important that we follow the data that shows so many of our partner organizations have implemented these regulations and there

[197:00] has not been an increase in in conflicts and I know that we're going to track that right so if for some reason we see something different around here we'll we'll learn about that right so I look forward to seeing those results so um and then you know we do have the on any number of additional benefits I won't go on for a long time but I'm looking forward to supporting motion then we'll talk about trails anybody else before I call for a vote all right see none at least I believe this is a roll call yes sir this is a roll call and I will read the actual title of the ordinance into the record after the vote so we will start this vote with council member Yates yes Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes councilmember folkerts yes councilmember Joseph yes spear

[198:02] yes and Weiner yes ordinance 85 75 which is to allow electric assisted bicycles on certain recreational paths or Trails on open space Land by amending definitions in section 1-2-1 and 7-1-1 repealing section 7-5-25 no electric assisted bicycles on open space amending section 8-3-6 vehicle regulation and adding a new section 8-8-12 election electric assisted bicycles on open space BRC 1981 and setting forth related details has been approved with a vote of seven to zero thanks so much okay great so let's then move on to our last thing tonight which is this is not a I don't think this is a motion or it's definitely not an ordinance but uh Council Direction about which Trails we would like uh to suggest that the staff Implement

[199:01] um uh e-bikes allow e-bikes on and if people don't mind I'm just going to tee this up so we have uh option b which was the staff recommendation of trails east of Broadway that already allow Bikes Plus the Boulder Canyon Trail and then there's b-plus that adds on to that Chapman Drive up from Boulder Canyon and then the Wonderland Lake Trail and the Foothills South Trail and since I put out the hotline on this it just mentioned that those Trails do have the same care or very similar characteristics to those East trails in that they're wide to prevent additional user conflicts and they also all serve Transportation functions and I'll just mention too though that even if you're using an Open Space Trail to get from one place to another you're still hearing the birds seeing the flowers and enjoying the outdoor in those open space values so just make that point that it's still an open space experience even if you're going to from one place to another so maybe I can just call for strople on this between B and B plus but first I'll hear a couple thoughts thank you

[200:02] at this time I will be supporting be similar to Tara and I think part of the reason why is because as I was hearing the conversation today I was very torn between supporting ordinance 85 and 85 75 and 8576 and part how I was able to think through it is when I asked the question of how much Community engagement has been done on the three percent and my understanding at the time there isn't there was none and with B plus even though my understanding you came up with it or or some of the members of the board came up with it based on deductive inferences from the community engagement to me that's not good enough so based on that similar logic I will be supporting B which is the staff recommendation thank you thanks Jenny without seeing any other hints raised

[201:01] I'll go to a straw poll so we'll start with uh B uh hands raised if who would prefer B I got I got two hands and who would prefer B plus and I got five hands so uh we got a council majority with a recommendation of of the b-plus set of trails and with that I think we've reached the end uh do you all need anything else from us or is this sufficient thank you very much thank you great I know this has been a huge amount of work for staff a huge amount of Outreach uh osbt has worked on this incredibly hard I appreciate that we had four of the ospt board members who were at that hearing here tonight thanks everyone for all of your hard work and your testimony and we look forward to the next steps yeah Bob um whoever's controlling the um Zoom Rachel would not like to rejoin us by zoom and she's in the waiting room so she can vote on this last minute

[202:00] all right so if we can go to our final public hearing please Alicia all right sir thank you all right final item on the agenda tonight is our second public hearing item 5B it is the second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt ordinance 8574 approving annual supplemental Appropriations to the 2023 budget and setting forth related details thank you Alicia and as staff get situated as with any budget there are times during the year then we must adjust and um uh either new things come up or there's a shift in how we want to expend monies we usually come to you with some adjustments to base recommendations this is one such moment and hopefully I've given you enough time to situate yourself mark you did thank you Nuria good evening Council Mark wolf budget officer Nuria teed it up very well I get to introduce

[203:01] a colleague tonight Rafael Tingley our senior budget analyst who will be handling our presentation hopefully it is fairly brief you are well versed in adjustments to base we do have to do these from time to time and we'd like to try to highlight some of the the most significant items within what ends up being a fairly significant package since we only do a couple of these a year so with that I will hand it off to Raphael good evening Council I am a senior budget analyst in the finance department and tonight I'll be running through a brief presentation that provides an overview of ordinance 8574 or the first adjustment to base sometimes called atv1 each year we have at least two supplemental budget Appropriations which are presented to city council for review and approval these mid-year adjustments to the budget are necessary to respond to new priorities emerging Community needs and occasionally emergencies departments have some flexibility to respond to these unanticipated needs by realigning their budgets but in cases where existing fund appropriation is not

[204:01] sufficient and need is warranted then the budget office with consultation from our executive budget team we'll recommend increasing appropriation through the mid-year adjustment process through the expanded use of spending projection tools and budget to actuals reporting we've been able to better identify when certain needs will be very likely to require additional appropriation and in some cases where there may be some anticipated Savings in the fund whether through for example position vacancy savings or deferred capital projects we've recommended that those cases that in those cases departments meet those needs by utilizing their existing appropriation without an adjustment however because of this new approach it may be the case that we'll come back in our second adjustment to base in the fall and make the necessary adjustments should it turn out that appropriation wasn't sufficient so in other words the fall adjustment may be more reactive rather than proactive and really this is all in an effort to better align our expenses to our budgets

[205:01] and only appropriating the funding which we truly expect to be needed and used in the current fiscal year there are three types of budget adjustments that we perform we have additional Appropriations from fund balance additional Appropriations deriving from Grants and donations revenue and additional Appropriations from other unbudgeted revenues this would include certain taxes or fees being remitted at higher rates than anticipated when the budget was adopted the table on this slide shows how the recommended adjustments fall across these cat across these three categories at the top and then whether they are one-time or ongoing in nature I'll I'll point out here that about 98 of the recommended adjustments fall within that one-time category that's a change from previous May adjustments the past few years we're in 2021 and 2022 a

[206:00] major focus of our mid-year adjustments had been the restoration of services and programs that were scaled back during the pandemic and so there had been significant additions of ongoing resources and those adjustments this year our recommendations are almost completely one-time kind of recognizing the desire to funnel ongoing requests into the regular budget development cycle so all department needs can be evaluated comprehensively and strategically at one time with that Preamble I'm just going to quickly highlight a few of the adjustments that we're recommending the council this evening so first with a Spate of facility repairs needed across several City buildings we're recommending an additional 1.3 million out of the general fund to support these needed repairs include including HVAC system repairs leak repairs at the recreation centers and continued Rehabilitation of the main library from the drug use problem identified late last year three hundred thousand dollars in

[207:01] additional funding out of the general fund to increase the city's contract with Boulder shelter for the homeless to respond to increases in Staffing and operational costs due to the high inflationary environment three hundred thousand dollars is requested from Human Services funds within the general fund for allocation towards the property acquisition of the tribe recovery home which will be used for Behavioral Health Services and will provide temporary housing the low-income community members including those experiencing substance use disorders adjustment also calls for an investment of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars towards additional eviction prevention and rental assistance Services where the city experienced an uptick in demand for these Services as the federal rental assistance program which was started during the pandemic has begun to draw to an end the program continues to experience sustained high demand and additional funding as needed to prevent eviction for those who are at most immediate risk of losing their housing

[208:01] we are recommending a hundred and twenty five thousand dollar investment to support a robust Community engagement process co-led by growing up Boulder in the city to become a UNICEF USA child-friendly City this Associated youth plan will inform how to spend approximately two million dollars of funding that the city received earlier this year resulting from the sale of the Denver Broncos and will further develop city-wide alignment and coordination on the city's youth engagement and activities there are some programmatic needs within the Parks and Recreation Department to increase their Staffing by about four and a half ftes to enhance Recreation programming at several of the recreation centers we have a slew of Grant revenues that the city was fortunate enough to receive recently and we are recommending appropriating these grants to move forward several initiatives including about three and a half million in Grants that will fund a portion of the modular Factory housing project just under 300 000 in Colorado state grants that will

[209:00] fund open space restoration activities at lower Boulder Creek Wetland and a Federal grant for seventy two thousand dollars which will fund the thinning of 72 Acres of forest in Enchanted Mesa for fire risk reduction lastly budget is recommending the transfer of about six point sorry 10.62 million in fund balance after reserves within the general fund and setting that amount aside within the governmental Capital Fund in anticipation of two high cost but key capital projects which are on the horizon those would be the new day Services Center that HHS will be getting off the ground next year which will serve individuals experiencing homelessness and also funding to support the site development and horizontal infrastructure of the Alpine Balsam development where that site will support both affordable housing being built by Boulder housing Partners on the western side of that site as well as the Western

[210:00] City Campus on the Southeastern corner where the Medical Pavilion is this transfer from the general fund to the gov Cap Fund is really aimed at setting the stage for supporting both of these projects which we expect to come forward as part of 2024 budget development and the transfer demonstrates that this portion the fund balance after reserves will likely be used to advance these Capital priorities in the near to Mid future and that concludes our presentation and Mark and I are available for questions thanks so much for that and for sticking with us past the nine o'clock hour speaking of which actually we're overdue for a time check are people okay with finishing this out all right I got a couple yawns but also I had not so questions for staff and Rachel welcome back to the meeting okay I'm not seeing any questions then let's go to our public hearing

[211:00] we have one person signed up to speak they will get three minutes and so Lynn SQL you are our one and only speaker no no and no my goodness how many times have I told you stop subsidizing the developer look at each one of these things 1.3 on HVAC and leaks and drug use in the library why do we have the drug use because of people desperate in despair because they can't afford to live here anymore because you subsidize the developers to condos on every corner snap out of it snap out tribe Behavioral they can't behave because they're on meth because they're desperate eviction they're desperate they have no

[212:00] place to live they can't afford to live here anymore all of these things are predictable you have no right to spend my money on them you know one of them stole my catalytic converter how many hundreds of dollars in sales tax revenue take that away I won't spend it I won't have it spent on this stuff that's predictable you caused it all of you caused it do not subsidize the developer child thanks with the Broncos we should have charity from the Broncos 125 000 there Parks and Recreation 300 000 yes we have all these needs Parks and Rec like tonight like the e-bikes development because you've got so many people coming here attracted to the athletic opportunities on the e-bites that you

[213:02] just passed which you should not have you should be so ashamed of how can you do this you know I grew up my mom and dad met in the hiking Club and you've got to have e-bots oh that's a different subject right no they're all integrated Caroline Miller knows that from open space mountain boards open space Board of Trustees do not fire her she knows what's really going on here you folks are in trouble now look at this bill let's go on down the line items 10.6 million the general fund that you got from the library district just sold off my library I'm not happy with that 10 million 625 000 from the general fund stuck with your sale of my library

[214:02] how dare you how dare you unbelievable I hope you sleep tonight shame on you thanks Lynn okay we'll close the public hearing and bring it back to council for discussion or a motion yes Nicole just wanted to say thank you to staff for the presentation for all the work that goes into this I feel like this is probably some of the hardest work and yet it always amazes me that we can spend 30 million dollars and have one person come and talk to us about it um and and have very very little discussion but I think it also just speaks to the quality of the work that you all do um and uh yeah just the trust that that the community has um in in us that we're

[215:00] spending the money uh appropriately so anyway thank you very much for all the work appreciate it oh sure it may as well as long as my mic's on um I would like to make a motion to adopt ordinance 8574 approving annual supplemental Appropriations to the 2023 budget wait a second that setting forth related details oh yes and setting forth related details all right we have a motion in a second any further discussion seeing none um I will go for a vote this would be a roll call thank you sir this roll call we will begin with council member Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes councilmember folkerts yes friend yes Joseph yes spear yes Winer

[216:00] yes and Yates yes ordinance 8574 is hereby adopted with a vote of eight to zero how much and I want to Echo Nicole's words that the reason why that was quick was not because we're not paying attention but because you all have done such an amazing job so hugely great uh grateful for all your work and that brings us to the end of our meeting any final thoughts before we wrap up do you have something yeah I just wanted to I just felt badly that I hope other departments don't feel badly when they're public hearing some things do take longer so anyway just appreciate it but I I am I am curious about you know um just as as we move forward especially with our new budgeting uh process that we start doing from year to year how do we get the community to pay more attention to give us some feedback on on this kind of stuff and anyway hopeful that some of the key outcomes and things we're looking at will help with that too but thank you Matt uh just reflecting on the night we had a

[217:02] largely a really really good discourse and there was the exception of one individual who who took an opportunity to talk about violence against members of the community and I think we have to be better um and that's uh something that I hope that individual and others recognize that we are all trying to do our part in this community and and that type those statements and those actions are just not accepted in our community all right well I will go ahead um and gapless closed thanks everybody for a great meeting at 9 28 pm [Music]