July 20, 2023 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:01] foreign [Music] foreign [Music]

[1:11] foreign [Music] thank you

[2:01] [Music] thank you [Music] and welcome to the July 20th 2023

[3:00] meeting of the Boulder City Council I'm going to go ahead and gavel this to order it's called the roll yes sir and sir and we'll start tonight's roll call as usual with council member Benjamin present mayor Brockett president council member folkitz friend here Joseph here spear present mayor Pro Tim Wallick glad to be here councilmember weiner present and Yates participating remotely thank you all and mayor we have our quorum this I'd like to begin by asking for a motion to amend the agenda to add item 7A about Public Safety around the Boulder Creek so moved second we have a motion in a second can I get a show of hands on that measure please motion that is unanimous the agenda has been amended so our first

[4:03] item then after that is to go to open comment and Brenda if you could go over the public participation guidelines please good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's city council meeting I'm Brenda rittenauer I'm with our communication and engagement Department and my role this evening is to share our community guidelines before we begin open comments so the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive meaningful and inclusive Civic conversation this Vision was designed to support physical and emotional safety for community members for staff and for council members and supports democracy for people of all ages identities lived experience and political perspectives for more information about this vision and the community engagement process that led to it please visit our website

[5:00] bouldercolorado.gov and in the search bar type productive atmospheres next slide please the following are examples of rules of decorum found in the boulder Revised Code and other guidelines that support this vision and these will be upheld during tonight's meeting all remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to City business no participants shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person obscenity racial epithets and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct the meeting are prohibited participants are required to sign up to speak using the name they are commonly known by and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online I do see on the zoom participant list then I have a few folks who do not have their whole name listed if you are registered to speak tonight please reach

[6:00] out and give me that whole name in The Q a box knock the chat the Q a box and I'm happy to change it for you currently only audio testimony is permitted online not video and in-person participants are asked to refrain from expressing support or disagreement verbally or with Applause with the exception of support for declarations which we did not have on the agenda tonight traditionally support is shown silently through through sign language Applause or some awesome thank you all so much and thanks for joining us back to you Mr Mayor thank you Brandon all right we've got nine people signed up for in person and then we'll go to our eight remote participants so I'll call three names at a time and you'll each have two minutes to speak we're going to start with Nick Torres Jody Radke and Pete Bialik foreign

[7:03] okay good evening mayor and council members my name is Nick Torres I'm speaking with you tonight in my capacity as a representative of the American Lung Association as well as a proud Boulder resident um so many of us working in public health have very personal reasons for what we do and I know so many of us who have been affected by tobacco use lung cancer COPD Strokes in our families uh personally I'll never forget the feeling of being in the back seat of my mom's minivan with my shirt pulled over my face nauseous from the secondhand smoke or going to a restaurant and begging my parents to go to the non-smoking section and so I'm here tonight to say smoke-free air laws work they're part of a comprehensive evidence-based policy framework that has significantly lowered tobacco use rates over the past 30 years Boulder was an early adopter of

[8:00] smoke-free laws which probably is no surprise given our community's healthy active culture and the world-class athletes that we attract so the idea that the city is now discussing moving forward with bringing back smoking in restaurants and other public spaces is a little shocking the city has made many updates to the smoke-free air law over the years but always in the interest of Public Health so for example adding protections for e-cigarettes adding protections for outdoor dining areas even adding cannabis products to its definition of smokable products in the smoke-free air law so as a public health Advocate I can say simply smoke is smoke smoke is harmful to your lungs and your health and the weather that smoke is from burning tobacco or marijuana or wildfires for that matter and the recommendations you have from the Cannabis licensing Advisory Board regarding licensing Hospitality

[9:01] establishments are heavily weighted toward the Cannabis industry and not in Public's interest so I'd urge you not to move forward with that and adding that to your work plan for the year thank you Nick no Jody Radke Pete Bialik and Steve Swift good evening my name is Jody Radke I'm the regional director with the campaign for tobacco-free kids thank you for allowing um my comments this evening on behalf of our organization and Boulder residents who support our work my work in Tobacco Control started about 20 years ago I've been with my organization about 17 and a half years and my work really started with working on local city and county ordinances in state to make public places smoke-free and I can distinctly remember the tobacco industry's tactics to socialize their product to us all they work diligently prioritizing fear over reality fear built on fiction not fact in years later we can re reflect on that fear and that fiction and are able to analyze its

[10:02] Merit did businesses leave town did they lay off employees did they file bankruptcy move elsewhere taking their tax sellers with them as they claimed I think we all know the answer to those questions is no but they're not just no the facts are the reverse was true businesses during that time not only survived but they thrived and they have never looked backwards until now the recreational Cannabis industry is asking us all to Look Backwards to believe false claims are on ventilation and employee rights that we've debated and resolved decades prior and if that debate is questioned the voters have been answering this resoundingly over time are polling across the country and here in Colorado are some of our highest post numbing numbers across the country totaling 82 to 87 percent of people that support maintaining and keeping our smoke career laws in public places the reality is this a quote Matthew singer he's a cardiac researcher and associate professor of medicine in California San Francisco smoke is smoke both tobacco and marijuana smoke impair

[11:02] blood vessel functions similarly people should avoid both and governments who are protecting people against second-hand smoke exposure should include marijuana in those rules we urge you to protect Boulder's Legacy as a leader in this state and public health any consideration to weaken the current Clean Indoor Air standards is a step backwards in the wrong direction and without Merit thank you so much thank you Jenny now we have Pete Bialik Steve schweth and e s good evening my name is Pete Bialik and I'm the president of group to alleviate smoking pollution gas for Colorado through education policy change Gas Works to protect the public from exposure to secondhand smoke in public places restaurants bars and workplaces and multi-unit housing when I first moved here in 1983 smoking was allowed in grocery stores restaurants and retail

[12:00] stores and in 1984 the Fort Collins city council and people of Fort Collins passed a comp the first comprehensive local law restricting smoking in restaurants and other public places and workplaces that followed in 1985 when Boulder passed its first ordinance uh restricting smoking in public places sponsored by Matt Applebaum after that the people of Boulder passed a comprehensive law that for the first one that banned smoking in bars and restaurants in 1995 by a 55 percent support despite heavy opposition from the industry and then from then in 2015 the council added a lot of electronic smoking devices the downtown mall Parks Trails multi-use paths outdoor areas of restaurants and bars based on some surveys that we've done over the last few years we believe most Boulder residents do not support or would not support allowing smoking and

[13:01] vaping marijuana in public places and workplaces we know that marijuana produces many of the same chemicals that are in tobacco that are harmful and so we cannot support our organization cannot support allowing it in public places workplaces but we've always said that it's not the smoker we mind it's the smoke so that's why we don't have an objection to allowing marijuana Alternatives like infused beverages or tinctures I hope I said that right that act very fast in limited public places and workplaces so thank you for your time thank you Pete now we have Steve schwef es and Phoenix Liu yes good evening my name is Steve sheath believe it or not I'm an investment professional who's been working since 1989 to help direct the flow of investment capital in more healthy and positively impactful ways for the past 25 years my family and I

[14:00] have thoroughly enjoyed and greatly appreciated the culture of Boulder where we the collective we value The Great Outdoors clear air clean water a healthy environment I've done a great deal of traveling over the years and I can vividly remember the days I suspect many of you can too when traveling by train and plane and bus was a horrible experience breathing secondhand smoke I was one of many people across the country who admired the city of Boulder's leadership in Banning smoking in public places many years ago my wife and I recently returned from a trip to Northern Italy and Southern France where I was rudely reminded that the privilege we enjoy here in Boulder is not shared around the world in fact it is a privilege a beautiful privilege to be in public places and not have to breathe secondhand smoke even sitting at outdoor cafes in Europe we were constantly breathing smoke coming from other tables full disclosure I'm also a director of

[15:00] the not-for-profit American non-smokers rights Foundation we support local initiatives working for the right to breathe clean air on behalf of all citizens our website offers a great deal of scientific research on the health-related ramifications of secondhand smoke and I'd love to be able to present that but we don't have time this evening tobacco smoke smoke from vaping devices smoke from cannabis it's all pretty much the same it seems highly unlikely that this Council in this community would once again ever allow people to smoke tobacco in public places however you may have heard that cannabis smoke is qualitatively different not so I can't help but wonder if Boulder were okay too okay smoking cannabis in any public space how long would it take before the tobacco industry would come asking to roll back the protections that have been enacted over the years thank you thank you Steve now we have es Phoenix Lou and Evan rabbits do we have an e s in the room

[16:05] seeing none we'll move on to Phoenix Loop Phoenix Evan you're up next will be Jonathan singer and Michelle Rodriguez Evan ravitz North Boulder in systems theory the health and survival of every natural and artificial system depends on detecting and fixing its errors we voters have every incentive to fix our errors two examples of how we fixed Colorado ballot initiatives in 1996 we passed initiative 15 a strong campaign Finance law but the corrupt legislature gutted it so we redid it in 2002 and this time we put it in the Constitution so the

[17:02] legislature couldn't touch it it's Amendment 27. we also temporarily fix Tabor in 2005 when we voted for referendum C which gave it a five-year time out if it didn't cost millions of dollars to hire petitioners to get on the ballot we would have fixed Tabor and plenty else by now so we proposed online petitioning and voters put it in the city Charter in 2018. but City County and state staff have colluded to butcher it which thousands have now experienced voters have incentive to fix our mistakes as we have to live with them politicians though have incentive to cover up mistakes to protect careers and donors who live beyond

[18:00] the effect of your errors and who profit from them one example housing and Human Services director Kurt fernhaber and others told us here at least 10 times that there's always enough homeless shelter beds in extreme weather three local media exposed this lie but the city didn't admit the truth until taken to court by the ACLU you haven't even apologized let alone fix it City policy is lie till you die just not in court seven now we have Jonathan singer and Michelle Rodriguez thank you mayor members of council I'm Jonathan singer I'm the senior director of policy programs with the boulder chamber there are two things I wanted to highlight for you today the first one is this after careful deliberation over the last year our business groups small and

[19:02] large have come to amazing conclusions on many issues which are all summed up in a policy framework which are now available online so I encourage all of you to take a look at that policy framework within the context of that framework there are just two things that I wanted to cover today the first one is to say that I appreciate the conversation you've already had on the minimum wage and where you'd like to see things go I just want to remind this group that many of our businesses are small non-profits that operate on annual budgets and their grants come through once a year either from other non-profits or the state so any deliberative process should take the appropriate amount of time on the flip side you're going to hear from a lot of people today from the Cannabis licensing Advisory Board your volunteer board took over two years to come to some hard-fought conclusions on an even Keel you had adversaries and Advocates working together to come to

[20:01] many conclusions that I would agree with as the author of the legislation that created the ability to have a hospitality industry you are looking at maybe not what's a gold standard but what's a compromise standard so when we talk about Clean Indoor Air Act cannabis is different than tobacco we already when we talk about smoke being smoke there's smoke that comes from kitchens there are people out there Paving our potholes right now that are experiencing experiencing volatile organic compounds we make careful safety decisions and put the best practices in place to allow for an industry to work but also for customers to be able to access the right thing I look forward to your questions and I look forward to the conversation tonight thank you thanks Jonathan Michelle Rodriguez

[21:00] to talk about the last two months I've had my federal lawsuit that's dropped through and been fully dismissed so we should be able to talk about that my car was fully totaled by my accident from the city ten thousand dollars worth of damage this last week we grieved one of our homeless that fell into the creek on a very high point of the creek that I knew nothing of and floated down about three quarters of a mile and passed away I watched as our feet forward I'm the last homeless or lived experienced person stayed behind after Jennifer left I watched our new leaders run out of food about halfway through our line of over 100 people and everybody revert to a Works Wagon that hands out bubbles foil to smoke Blues on needles to shoot drugs with they got sharp containers and all that and then today for my last hour before I came here I tried to find a bathroom and needless to say I was chased out of the library and suspended and criminalized for wanting to bring my person to the bathroom and I know I'd

[22:00] been able to go in with it about three weeks ago and so I was going to question that but um needless to say I don't know who to speak to to get this works wagging out of there I'm totally against that I've watched several of our community and it is forget the marijuana smell in this and the and the cigarettes but underneath our tunnel I walked through there the other day and I'm shamed and disgusted to say that there were at least 30 30 bubbles foils and everything going on it's not okay it's not acceptable it's not harm reduction there is no safe usage out there they hand that stuff out there's not mandated Narcan there's not mandated sharp containers hand handed out they handed out some socks of peanut butter and jelly sandwich people were able to get some food over there with their gallon size jug of paraphernalia if you're ever curious about it go up there ask them they'll give you a nice little discreet brown paper bag with all the things you need they do not provide papers for marijuana they do not provide alligator clips the old school thinks that we're not legally able to do out you know for

[23:00] wherever sorry I had to get it all out it's all good beer broken yes this way um before you go to the online have you called Jade Kelly yet or um jade sorry thanks for pointing out Jade Kelly withdrew is the note that I have actually can we confirm that as Jade Kelly in the room sorry I have a note that you withdrew would you like to come speak to you thanks for calling out Genie my note was incorrect looks like okay speaking on her behalf ah Judy said that was right go ahead okay so but introduce yourself please I will uh Alejandra baby I am a union member of uh CWA speaking for local 77.99 and just want to talk with all of you about supporting the minimum wage

[24:01] campaign is something that is near and dear to my heart something I'm spending a lot of time on right now and I want to just continue to emphasize to the city how important it is that we join the county get going and get this done by the end of the year we have a lot of our workers who are continuing to suffer from not being able to get bills paid not being able to support themselves not being able to live in Boulder just talking to a King Super's worker the other day gonna move to Broomfield but he loves this town and he wants to be here and he actually makes 19 an hour so as you can imagine 1365 isn't really like that important to them but as a union member once the local minimum wage changes his contract will actually change so it is very important for them as well so we want to just continue to emphasize to all the city members please please do everything that you can to keep this moving I know

[25:00] it's complicated I know it's hard to find all the right time to talk with people but for us we have workers who need this help now they can't wait until January of 2025 again because this is something that we should have done years and years ago so appreciate your support and all the effort that's going in behind that thank you thank you all right we're going to go to our remote participants now um the first one is Suzanne Schick but I've been informed that she's not present in the meeting so we're going to go to Stacy Harrison Lynn Siegel and Devin Edgley Stacy wrap hi uh hopefully you can hear me my name is Stacy Harrison I'm a business professional and Boulder resident here to talk about the hospitality proposal I'm with my family here over 20 years ago for the healthy lifestyle but sadly it's been the opposite I've seen the sacrifice of way too many families due to the normalization of drug use here and it's only just now that there's a modicum of not acknowledgment that the potency of today's THC products has

[26:02] long-term tragic mental and physical health impacts further normalization by allowing use in Hospitality venues and enabling businesses to essentially administer drugs to make a profit is the wrong way to Go Boulder is a college town I hope that can be acknowledged just as high schoolers look up to college students as their example college students look to the rest of the population to understand normalcy it's a very in a very recent study published by the American Academy of Children Of Child and Adolescent psychiatry medical and recreational marijuana legalization were very clearly associated with an increased suicide related mortality in youth there are other studies many coming out increasingly about a direct correlation to increase by but polarity and psychosis with THC use is it really worth the long tail of the cost to our community as we create more and more cases of mental health tragedies the rest of our community is no doubt

[27:01] doubt impacted as well Boulder would have to hire staff to train on guidelines for administering drugs to Consumers is it worth straining City resources and tax dollars so that businesses can encourage thread views to make a profit is it worth putting our emergency and law enforcement Personnel at risk is it worth the increase in the number of traffic fatalities and I'll also say one other thing about this proposal being if if it does end up being about quote unquote just flower the typical typical range of concentration for flour is 15 to 25 THC the biological limit for THC percentage is 35 the Netherlands just to give some context counts anything 15 and over a hard drug so with this proposal Not only would we be turning back the clock on public smoking but we'd be enabling drug use and the administration of drugs Boulder has wages your time is up I'm afraid uh well I would just like to say I'm

[28:02] afraid we stick to the time sorry about that but thank you for your testimony our next speakers are Lynn Siegel Devin Edgley and Katie Franken Lynn Siegel no on cannabis regards Caroline Miller and her firing um Tara weiner used the expression dereliction of Duty unbelievable this was used in the the worst perpetuation of the Vietnamese War Caroline Miller is a hero of Boulder's open space and you fired her for telling the truth about a conversation between Rachel friend Sam Weaver to how Holstein in the open space board

[29:00] to see how much money CU could get away with to buy CU South the open space disposal it's revolting you know you hear from so many people negatively about you how can you just sit there after these long you know repeated how can you do that how do you sleep at night um what what Caroline did what she exposed the um advice of the city council going towards open space Board of Trustees it's not that direction open space advises the city council Rachel was advising regarding access to open space and advocating for the city's position this is unethical the open space Board of Trustees has their own Charter that they go on that

[30:01] they advise city council to shame on you Rachel shame on you unbelievable unbelievable and then well forget Amazon all right next speakers Devin Edgley Katie farnan and Aiden Reed hello my name is Devin Edgley I am the policy program specialist at the boulder Chamber of Commerce good evening honorable mayor city council and staff the pursuit of advancing marijuana Hospitality establishments in Boulder County is not a challenge that the boulder chamber takes slightly we recognize the need for regulated consumption of marijuana at a place of business and are confident that the city council will set forth parameters that align with all state guidelines while considering specific

[31:01] measures that focus on public health carefully crafting Workforce and the marijuana industry to collaborate on safety guidelines together is Paramount to integrating this new business sector cloud has made specific recommendations for measures to keep employees safe during work hours that would mitigate damage to hospitality staff as they continue to evaluate the seriousness of employee and inherent interaction we advocate for increasing economic growth in Boulder by supporting opportunities for small businesses that our residents find beneficial to their professional and recreational lives Public Safety is at the Forefront of all of our business conversations with local regulation we believe that moving forward with marijuana Hospitality establishments is an Innovative way to boost Boulder's Workforce the boulder chamber is proud to advocate for responsible and Innovative businesses in our community we believe that permitting cannabis Hospitality

[32:01] will provide a safe and legal venue for adults to consume cannabis while fostering an environment for entrepreneurship that sets our community apart from others thank you thank you Devin you've run in Aiden Reed and Hep Ingram thank you Council my name is Katie I am here because I want you to support raising the minimum wage in Boulder County it's time it should shock no one I mean really no one that the chamber opposes this but this is a majority Progressive Council and raising the wage to 15 and a half dollars in the coming year is a no-brainer I would hope all of you I assume already know that this hourly wage is well beyond well behind inflation and well below a livable wage we live in a progressive Community Progressive policy means worker empowerment and addressing systemic and inequity

[33:00] on top of that we're dealing with the homelessness epidemic the root causes of increased homelessness in places like Boulder are directly tied to Rising rents towns towns with higher rents have more homelessness and ensuring that workers have a livable wages not just an ideal it is the work of policy makers this change won't even get us there but I can't imagine speaking out or voting against it at this point in 2023 unless we aren't serious about addressing inequality so we need to raise the wage without delay and we need vocal Champions this is an economic security measure it's a housing measure frankly it's a community safety measure lots of talk in this town about safety lately Economic Security is safe to be housing affordability is safety sustainable Workforce is safety we can't actually we don't actually have to listen to the chamber when it comes to worker protections there will always be a business Lobby opposing raising the wage and they have power they know how to influence policy you have to think about

[34:01] what's best for the community and Progressive councils know that they have to make policy for those who don't have power and don't have influence in these Chambers raise the wage with no delays thank you thank you Katie now we have Aiden Reed at Bingham and Sarah Williams good afternoon Council my name is Aiden Reed I'm speaking this evening to urge Boulder City Council to join Boulder County in implementing a minimum wage hike in 2024 not 2025. it's imperative that the city moves swiftly and urgently to implement this in 2024 so that the city does not have to wait another year to do this in 2025. with the long-term goal of implementing a self-sufficiency wage of 25 an hour by 2028. as the previous speaker noted this is an economic security measure as much as anything else the only way to guarantee that Working Class People can afford to live in the city is to pay them a wage

[35:00] that allows them to cover their basic necessities like rent groceries and other related costs and it's imperative city does this I hope you'll move quickly and join the county to get this implemented by 2024. thank you thank you of Hep Ingram and Sarah Williams hi my name is Jeff I live east of the airport on 61st Street and over the past two years I've made 11 visits to ask the pilots why they can't follow Boulder's departure rule which is fly straight till you reach get past the houses and then head north and I got a bunch of reasons in a meeting with John Kinney and the pilots uh the guy from attorneys told me these are only recommendations and we can do what we want so I went to the FAA and met with a senior manager he cherry-picked the radar data

[36:02] and said that it was not in this is a quote this is not in the public interest for us to pursue any more violations of altitude and Noise so basically the FAA which has got the grand insurances to the city is a survival and dishonest entity meaning that the pilots are a self-governing group and as you would expect they are maximizing their profit and their Amusement through the trainers and the gliders and here we are subsidizing them with the FAA and public money while uh we get sprayed with noise and Lead there's a huge opportunity cost to maintain that as an airport namely if it could be redeveloped as something like the Holiday Inn with house low-income housing with Services commercial restaurants pubs whatever that would wade dwarf the grant

[37:01] assurances that you get from the FAA but this is also a chance for the city to get some justice for the people on the ground and to increase its Revenue which is a pair of things that probably don't come along that often the current cwg should probably be renamed the AWG because Kinley horn showed up with all pro-aviation material anyway I hope you'll consider the justice and the revenue that you could get by repurposing the airport thank you just a point of clarification you mentioned the Holiday Inn did you mean that or perhaps something different I'm assuming but I just want to give them a chance I think he may have signed off I think perhaps he met the holiday neighborhood rather than the holiday and thanks again uh Sarah Williams is our final speaker yeah I meant the Holiday Drive-In great the neighborhood thanks hi uh this is Sarah thank you City

[38:02] leadership and staff for initiating the community working group with respect to the future of Boulder airport and for actively involving Boulder's residents in this decision process I attended the open house earlier this week and one comment from a young woman stood out she said I rode my bike every day by Boulder airport growing up now I wonder how much lead I was exposed to without knowing and I'm sure my parents didn't know either how many other children were exposed and are now being exposed so as you take time to review the community input I hope you'll think on her words because the future of Boulder's children is very much at stake in this conversation unleaded fuel is years away and the FAA is working on a mandate to force all airports to sell leaded fuel we have over 15 airports within 50 miles more than almost anywhere else in the country closing this airport would have minimal impact except to the 120 airport tenants yet it would benefit thousands

[39:01] especially the children living in the shadow of the airport let's talk about consequences too in 2018 the estimated value of the 180 Acres at Boulder airport was 358 million that value is likely quite a bit more now and of those 180 Acres the city used FAA funds to help purchase 49. the city could sell those 49 Acres at market value pay back the FAA and the land itself is worth so much more than the small amount owed to FAA also look to Santa Clara and the consequences of standing up to the FAA at first the FAA attempted to bully the community into selling leaded fuel again but they backed off Boulder isn't afraid to stand up to bullies and I trust that Boulder leadership will keep doing the right thing by its residents and especially its children in helping direct the future of Boulder airport thank you Sarah brings our open comment to close thanks to everyone who spoke to us this evening and I'll turn to staff to see if there are any responses thank you so much

[40:01] mayor there's a lot of conversation today on items that we're going to be talking about later on this evening so I'll um reserve and listen to those conversations as we move forward particularly the item on um uh marijuana hospitality industries and some of the a topic that Miss Rodriguez brought up about Boulder Creek I wanted to remind those listening uh regarding the airport conversations we will have that study session with you all on August 24th so looking forward to hearing I haven't seen yet all of the public feedback and looking forward to hearing that alongside with all of you and then finally Miss Rodriguez it's always a pleasure to see you I just sent you a note to see if we can meet I'm very interested in following up on your comments thank you Teresa anything Tad nothing for me thank you Council anything Tara I have a quick question in regards to Michelle's comment what is a works

[41:02] wagon if Michelle you want to come back because we can ask questions right when they speak or we can bring Michelle back if that's all right with Council I guess Works Wagon is the slang name I give the harm reduction wagon it's a wagon pulled by two lovely little ladies that have a high level of familiarity with drug use and they created a organization that they call it's like harm reduction and it provides clean needles which called Sharps it provides glass pipes which are used to smoke meth it provides foil which is used to smoke Blues on um it'll give you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich some socks normally it's associated with a beehap or a B cap which is education that can be provided to our drug addicts um to be able to go in and get a card so that their immune or from prosecution in

[42:03] the event they're using amongst the crowd and somebody overdoses they're able to call for help without fear of prosecution or if they're caught with uh their stuff on them truly are our drug level I think it's under anything under two grams of the math is legal and not jailable so we're having a hard time with the enforcement but the thing is is the homeless people rely on that wagon when there's not food and to to make it through their days it's the last thing I need out there I was from the homeless crowd and I'm I'm the lived experience and that is not what I want to represent but I saw it happen last week but thank you for asking thank you thanks Michelle hi Rachel and then my mark yeah I have a question I think for the City attorney um I would never want to um you know Red Rough shot over someone's right to free speech against an elected

[43:02] official but I think that allegations of corruption or ethics violations are pretty serious and so I want to know if if I'm being falsely maligned as I am around a conversation that Hal Holstein apparently had with Caroline Miller uh what can I do to sort of draw that out into the open so that the community could know that there was nothing corrupt can I invite uh the person who's making those allegations to file with your office you know for something can I am can I invite an investigation or what steps could be taken there council member friend certainly um a person could file a request for an investigation of under the code of conduct if they believe that there is a violation of the code of conduct I'm not aware of a mechanism for you to file

[44:00] um something because and there has to be an allegation of a violation and so um what you're suggesting from your end would not be an allegation of a violation it would be more akin to an allegation of a non-violation so I don't think that there's a procedural mechanism for that um certainly you know you can address it publicly as you're doing here you you too retain your first amendment rights and so you you know you're welcome to um to speak to those allegations publicly okay um thanks well I will just be brief my understanding uh is that the the complaint being made is about a conversation between a former open space board of trustee member um and another member of that board I was not present for that conversation but in in doing a little digging my understanding is that he shared some

[45:01] information that he told Sam and I about wanting to make sure that uh open space received sort of adequate acreage in compensation for really high quality acreage that they would they would lose in in disposing of acres to the city so I would invite the person who is concerned about corruption or ethical behavior from myself or former member Sam Weber to file a complaint so that that could be investigated if they want because there there was absolutely no corruption I think it's dangerous to allege corruption where there isn't corruption it can lead to um violence against elected officials and I don't take it lightly so you bring it if you would like to file a complaint there's nothing there but but please be mindful that those allegations are serious and and false thank you thanks for those words Rachel Mark did you have something the comments made by Ms Siegel or

[46:01] apparently um are an adaptation of comments made by Miss Miller in a rant at one of the meetings of osbt that I've had the displeasure of watching um on tape all right things are not true because you say they are true they are not true because you want them to be true they are only true if there is evidence to support their truth and there is not a smidgen of evidence that anything corrupt has occurred uh with Sam Weaver with my colleague Rachel friend it is nonsense and if somebody is not going to stand up in front of us and show us chapter and verse why those allegations are true but simply repeat them as if they were true is doing a disservice to this Council this and this community it is some of

[47:00] the worst form of speech that I can think of you may have a right to say it but it is Despicable to impugn motivation and character unless you've got something substantive to say and as there is nothing substantive to say here I really wish Miss Siegel would stop repeating the nonsense that Ms Miller promulgated at an osbt meeting thank you very good anyone else Nicole I just wanted to say Rachel that I'm sorry that you experienced this tonight and just wanted to let you know that um whether things are true or not or in this case I do not think that they are true just for the record but whether they're true or not I think that there are better ways to handle things than speaking up in public and coming at somebody so sorry that that happened

[48:01] I am as well Glory and I just wanted to get there was several mentions of minimum wage particularly related to County Action and I just wanted to give everyone a little update um so it is my understanding that the county is planning to move forward with a minimum wage increase at the end of this year um with staff we you know I've been kind of going to different communities and giving a little minimum wage presentation our Council Longmont Lewisville and Lafayette have all expressed a strong preference for 2025 implementation so I just kind of wanted to give you guys that update in terms of where those conversations are at right now

[49:02] thanks for that Lauren and we are keeping close tabs on what the County's doing though right absolutely okay great anything else um see none um I will um just in the while we're talking about corrections I want to say uh apologies uh Alicia Emily for saying that something was incorrect I think there was a little confusion but no no insults meant to work towards uh the information you gave me so all right with air having been cleared we can now move to our consent agenda please Elisha oh and again Sarah for the record thank you no offense was taken all right our consent agenda tonight is item number three and it consists of items 3A through 3H yeah comments or questions about the consent agenda

[50:03] Bob yeah I just want to observe I'm sure this is a parent to all the council members if I just want to observe for the community that might be watching that um we are actually if if it um if there's a motion and a second and and uh affirmative vote we would be passing actually three alternative versions of um a ballot measure that would extend the 0.15 sales tax which otherwise would expire at the end of next year um and um we have a um I guess I'll say a tradition or a practice as Council and on prior councils where when there are alternative ballot measures sometimes what we'll do is we'll pass all of them even though some of them are mutually exclusive on first reading and then we'll conduct a public hearing which I believe in this case is scheduled for for August 3rd and then after that Council will need to winnow things down and so I hope council members feel

[51:00] comfortable passing all three versions which I think is 85.88 um 89 and 91. tonight without a whole lot of conversation then we'll have public hearing on on those ballot measures and then we'll make a decision as to which ones for one one or ones which might move forward thanks for that Bob go ahead like to make a motion to pass our consent agenda we've got a motion a second I'm actually going to call on myself here before we I call for a vote which is I wanted to speak to H here this is a little subtle but I wanted to thank the planning department and the planning board for moving this forward it's a common sense um measure to allow uses to be valid for three years after they're initially approved currently they're only allowed to persist for one year and I wanted to thank the plain board and planning department for working on that I think it's a nice little Improvement and glad to have that on the consent agenda

[52:00] that being said any other comments in the consent agenda yeah go ahead speaking of gratitude I just wanted to give Matt shazanski and his team some credit for quickly uh taking on our comments last week and putting out um a quick little survey to some folks I'll be at non-scientific um anecdotal mostly and perspectives but nonetheless it was nice to get some of that feedback and we appreciate man and his team for adapting real quick and getting that out and thanks for Maria and everyone else that did that it was it was helpful to get some of that feedback and hopefully that helped us gain some more perspective as we move forward so thank you great seeing nothing else Alicia could we do a roll call please sir thank you our roll call for the consent agenda items a through H we'll start with council member folkerts yes friend yes

[53:00] Joseph yes spear yes mayor Pro Tim Wallick yes councilmember weiner yes Yates yes Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes the consent agenda items a through H are hereby approved and passed unanimously very good thanks so much if we could do our colic chicken please yes sir our call of check-ins are item number four on tonight's agenda 4A is the vacations of a portion of a five foot wide utility easement located at 2140 Kohler drive and a portion of a seven foot wide utility easement located at 2060 Kohler drive this is referenced under case number ADR 2022-00330 any interest from Council on calling this up a lot of shaking heads so we'll call that a no

[54:01] so moving briskly then to our matter from the city manager please our first up first of them yes sir our items tonight for under the Matters from the city manager are items number six a and 6B 6A is the request for direction from the city council regarding the Cannabis licensing and advisory board's recommendation to opt in to state law allowing Hospitality establishment in the city turn to our city manager thank you so much um I'll say as I frame the issue and allow staff to settle in as we heard today there's a lot of interest in this item it's an item where um certainly our cannabis licensing and Advisory board has heard from the industry uh we have not however really heard from you all on where you'd like us to go we have not really heard a lot from Community other than the industry I'm so excited to present the information today and get some direction on what you'd like us to do if anything

[55:00] on a future work plan item and with that I think I have bought enough time for staff to get settled and will invite Kristen to start our presentation Kristen I believe this is your first presentation to council it is thank you welcome and your first thing you can do is bring your microphone down thank you all right good evening council members my name is Kristen changaris I'm the licensing manager in the regulatory license division of the finance department and I'm here today to talk to you about marijuana Hospitality establishments I also want to mention that we did invite the chair and the vice chair of the Cannabis licensing and Advisory Board to attend today's meeting they were not able to attend so they did nominate Allison Bailey one of our ex-officio

[56:01] members of collab to attend today's meeting and answer any questions from Council if you have any specific questions for the board today so Allison excuse me is also present so today's staff is requesting direction from Council on the following questions does council want staff to add this topic to a future work plan and if so what level of public engagement would Council like to see and does council have any general feedback on the recommendations from clab or any direction for collab so I'd like to begin today with just a brief overview of marijuana Hospitality when we refer to a marijuana Hospitality establishment we're talking about a facility that's licensed for the on-site consumption of marijuana this new license class was created by

[57:01] the state in 2019 House Bill 19-1230 outlines the state requirements for Hospitality establishments and allows local governments to opt in or opt out of allowing these new businesses in their jurisdiction so the history of marijuana Hospitality establishments begins in 2019 when the bill was signed into law excuse me then in 2020 Council Forum the Cannabis licensing and Advisory Board otherwise known as clab to provide recommendations to Council on cannabis related issues so from 2020 to 2023 Club has been discussing the topic of marijuana hospitality and developing their recommendations to council they also held two public hearings about marijuana Hospitality during this time frame and then in April of this year clab submitted their final recommendations to Council in an informational packet

[58:04] this list is a summary of collab's recommendations to council regarding marijuana hospitality the complete list of recommendations is included as attachment a of the agenda memo the items that are bolded on this list are the unanimous votes but as you can see most of the recommendations were not unanimous if Council would like to see a detailed list of votes the complete vote record is included in attachment a of the agenda memo so once Cloud completed their list of recommendations they held a public hearing to collect feedback during their meeting on March 6th class received a variety of comments but most of the comments were focused on three topics the types of products allowed

[59:00] the minimum age of customers and indoor and outdoor smoking in general the comments we received from Cannabis industry members supported marijuana Hospitality establishments and opposed limiting the types of products allowed and raising the minimum age of customers to 25 years old meanwhile many of the comments we received from public health professionals opposed marijuana Hospitality establishments and express concerns about smoke exposure and impaired driving most of the comments that we received were from industry members in public health professionals so staff recommends additional Community engagement to include all stakeholders so this slide outlines the different options that are available for Community engagement due to the controversial nature of the Cannabis industry staff recommends a more impactful public engagement process such as involve or

[60:00] collaborate which are circled here in red staff also recommends using the city's racial Equity instrument to further guide the engagement process so next we'll talk about staff resources since the information packet was provided to Council in April staff has been asked to provide an estimate of the resources that would be needed to implement a new marijuana Hospitality licensing program in Boulder we believe that the resource is needed will depend on council's Direction on Cloud's recommendations for example the more products later hours and lower age restrictions that Council supports the more the potential demand for licenses will rise and the more resources that we'll need in addition if the highest levels of public engagement are desired then we may need to hire a consultant as well [Music] so there are many different departments

[61:00] that would be impacted by a new licensing program and it's hard to assess the total impact that this program program would have on the city but we've identified a list of departments that would likely be impacted the most the finance department and the Planning and Development Department would likely be the most impacted by a new licensing program and you can you can see some of those direct impacts listed here [Music] in addition the city attorney's office fire and police and the community engagement Department would also be impacted by a marijuana Hospitality program so depending on the direction received from Council today if Council directs us to move forward with marijuana Hospitality then these would be the next steps in the process we would need to begin the community engagement process we would need to coordinate work plans

[62:02] for all of the impacted departments we would need to begin drafting the ordinances and developing the application materials in collaboration with clab and the planning board and then we would return to council to present the draft ordinances so before we move into the three questions that we have for Council today does council have any questions for staff or for the collab representative that we have here today yeah thanks so much for that Kristen I appreciate that um perhaps we could have our collab representative just come say a few words as well as I'd like to honor their work and their presence and give you a chance to to speak a little bit here for um thanks my name is Allison Bailey I use she her hers I'm an ex-officio member of the Cannabis licensing Advisory Board um so it means I'm a non-voting member um and wanted to thank you all so much

[63:01] for your consideration and to the Cannabis licensing cannabis licensing and Advisory board members my fellow members spent a lot of time listening to experts and to public health professionals to folks in the industry and to some community members about their perspectives as you can see in the long memos that Kristen has provided you with it's been a lot of conversation a lot of passionate conversation and one of the reasons why the group decided to give you so much information is to make sure that you had what you needed to understand how much work went into these these conversations and these votes and these motions um so really appreciative of Staff the Cannabis licensing Advisory Board and all of you for your consideration and thoughtful work on this issue thanks for all the time that you and the board have spent on it and thank you tonight for being here with us so maybe you might sit close in case we have some questions for you and then as I turn to council for questions I'll just kind of keep folks in mind that our threshold question is whether we're putting it on

[64:00] the work plan right now this is a very detailed matter but I think our job tonight is not to delve into all the details of the issue but about whether we're putting it on the work plan so just keep that in mind as you're asking your questions okay I got Mark Lauren Bob okay um just to clarify a point of confusion are we talking about putting this on our current work plan because if not are we really being asked to bind a future Council as to what their work plan should look like uh that seems a little unusual or let me rephrase that that would be a bit unprecedented um and I don't think we have the authority to bind a future Council as to what they want to do with their work plan so my first question is is it anticipated that that we're talking about in addition to our current work plan or an addition to the 2024 work plan where we should probably not be meddling

[65:01] just for context it might be helpful to have the questions up so the community can follow along is probably referring to question one yeah there you go uh thank you so much for that uh mayor Pro tem um I would say this that part of the part of the direction we are hoping to get is to know how extensive if Council indeed wants us to move it forward and how extensive that would be likely this is a conversation for next year's work plan the reality is as staff has indicated it has impacts on a variety of departments I know in speaking to our development uh planning and development services director if if Council wants to put this in the implication to zoning code it certainly will have to wait until next year but I also know that there are implications to current Finance and to city attorney's work plan so knowing how extensive that will be will be helpful in a scoping but likely it is next year okay well then I have I have one other question yes you may because as uh to Mark's point I like my understandings that that we we can't

[66:01] make a final decision about what happens in 2024 so I was my understanding was more of that our question for this council is do we want to add this project to uh get it started in 2023. and I want to correct me if I'm wrong I mean I think there are certain things that we could get started depending on that we could start to scope it out we can start to think about if there is research if there's additional questions we need to answer but the work in Earnest and again it depends on how extensive you would like to direct staff we are likely not to see a deep dive into some of that work until next year alliteration [Laughter] there it is um yeah compound colic we say that 10 times fast um sort of I guess where wherein is one is aren't there some items when council's doing a work plan item that staff is

[67:00] already working on and is it really counted against our sort of 10 items so I'm wondering how or where since this is in process is this kind of like a staff thing that gets working or is this going to have to carry over where council's going to have to pick this because I'm wondering where it delineates because there's plenty of carryover that we don't weigh in on because it's already sort of being worked on so I'm just wondering if future councils are having to reserve a vote for this or if it's just in process uh that is a a compound question uh council member um I'll sort of give my opinion and I'll let our City attorney or staff kick me under the table if I am um saying something for uh binding Us in ways that are inaccurate but I'll say this certainly um there are work plan items that uh finish and culminate in a council term and there are others that carry over we saw some of that for example in the work we have been doing on University Hill and the quality of life not technically part of the current work plan but it is something that carries over as a matter

[68:00] that is of interest and we have not received any direction to stop that we certainly bring those conversations up in the retreat as work that is currently ongoing I know you've heard some of that particularly with pnds that there are trade-offs and perhaps those are conversations of what should we stop doing that started with one Council that maybe that is not of interest to a newer Council but um again I think hearing a little bit more of what the direction you would like staff to go in will help us better scope that and as we talk uh to the next Council we will certainly hear from their priorities on how they would like us to move forward as we move on and of course nothing binds councils but the same thing was true of you all of previous initiatives and the same thing will be true for the next composition of a council body in the future all right my follow-up question is as I read the memo um and look at the departmental impacts on finance Planning and Development fire

[69:01] police Community engagement and the city attorney's office my question is um are these departments so lacking in work and and responsibilities that they are prepared to take on a a new project of this scope I I was unaware I thought they were all working as hard as they could where have I gone wrong oh you never go wrong um I keep saying it but it's still not true I think as always right we we get a lot of Staff we get a lot of work uh that comes at us and questions that comes at us in a variety of directions uh it is is a it is one of scope certainly we can think about minimum wage is is a is a good uh example I think it is not something on our work plan it is something that has come out certainly we have started with uh exploration of that and depending on where Council wants to go and how quickly we will then um scope that out appropriately and come

[70:00] back to you on if there are trade-offs or not the same thing is true of here I will say that there is um there will constantly be evaluations of current work and that sometimes if there is a stoppage or if there is a delay in something we have tried and I encourage staff hear me now everyone uh as always to to be honest about those trade-offs and to be honest with you about if there are delays in the work and again we we welcome and he want to hear how much of this you do because it could be that the scope that you would like us to think about is small and it could be that it is a very large scope and until we really know where you want us to go we will uh we we don't know exactly what can get done if anything at all at the end of the year or what we can start in this year and then carry over but trust me then I say that staff has plenty on their plates

[71:00] Mark mostly stole the heart of my question but it is sort of around those trade-offs um do you see any trade-offs with moving forward in this work and our current work plan or is this more about daf and timing and how long moving through this work might take as we think about what sort of scope we're looking at let me kick that off and I'll send it to staff if they want to have so uh if this is something that Council wants us to move forward there and and depending again on the scope there are impacts for example any changes in zoning code it's going to require pnds to really take a hard look at that Community engagement which does a lot of work across the organization depending on the scope of Engagement we will have to create a plan for that and really start to host a variety of community meetings to talk more about that certainly licensing will have to be thinking and about creating an entire new program that heretofore

[72:01] has not happened and we will have to think about that and that will certainly impact our city attorney's office who will be helpful in thinking about how to codify all of that and help with policy Direction so I do think there will be trade-offs I think there will be delays I don't believe that we can get a program if that is the will of council ready before I I don't even want to be equivocal about it we will not be able to get a program ready by the end of the year but we can certainly start to scope that and move forward in a direction and give you sort of more a better understanding of what timing could look like if this is something that you want to do team thank you I would agree with everything that you said Maria in speaking to that list of departments that are likely going to be impacted by this new licensing program the general consensus is that it's it's really unlikely that any of those departments would be able to add this project to their 2023 work plans

[73:00] that said if we were to for example hire a consultant for the public engagement process that is something that we could likely begin before the end of the year so I think there are steps that we can begin in 2023 but the bulk of the work would likely need to wait until 2024. thank you Bob and then Rachel yeah my questions are along the same lines and some of them have already been answered before but I'm I'm probably more confused now than I was maybe 10 or 15 minutes ago I I don't I don't understand what percentage of the work can be done this year versus next year it sounds like vast uh vast percentage of it would have to be done in in the future and I share my concern about buying a future councils with this Council if there's a majority that wanted staff to start working on it could start working on it we can start spending money and and stop doing some stuff I suppose this year that was already on our work plan and then the next Council you know gets sworn in in about four months and they said no

[74:00] that's not what we want to do today we didn't want you to do it or we didn't we wanted to do something completely different so I'm not exactly sure what what efficiency there would be in in starting this right now um and I also don't have a very clear idea what the trade-offs are because it sounds like there would be work to start work in other words it sounds like you guys have an idea that there would be a lot of work that would have to be done just to scope this I don't know what thing things that you're all working on right now that you'd have to stop doing in order to scope it to start doing the work so I I feel very very ill prepared to speak to any of this tonight because I just don't understand what the trade-offs are I don't really understand the scoping and I don't understand why we would spend a lot of time and money starting to do work that folks that are going to be sitting in our chairs four months from now may have a very different view on um so I'm I'm I guess I'm not really asking a question I guess I've started to make a statement I'm very very puzzled and very If You Can Shed any light on on my uh or or ease my

[75:00] puzzlement that would be much appreciated but it seems to me like we're kind of like really shooting in the dark here at the very end of this Council and I'm not sure exactly where we're going from here good evening Council Joel Wagner Finance deputy director uh council member Yates that's it that's a great question and I think that kind of gets to the heart of of uh what staff is struggling with here is uh we have a recommendation from our Advisory Board and we're really looking for Council feedback on how we advance this work uh to us the community engagement is is going to be the key part to coming back to this Council or a future Council to help scope that work a lot of these recommendations that have made are going to significantly um affect the number of license applications that we receive as I throw my computer across the room excuse me which will then directly affect the the

[76:02] amount of staff time involved in in establishing and administering a licensing program I don't know if that helps but that's that's kind of where we're looking I think really for some Council Direction on should we start doing the engagement work and come back and also I think frankly understanding uh where council members are on this this topic in general and uh the Nuance around that and how much work we put into it it is going to be a significant effort just to get the council excuse me the community conversation going get the input we need to be able to make recommendations on implementation plans resources and then ultimately recommendations for ordinances thank you Joe oh sorry I just wanted to double down a little bit and just say that we we as staff want to know a threshold question on is this even

[77:00] something you want us to move forward on right and consider and we have not heard that from you and so that triggers everything else as we move forward or activates everything else as we move forward and so that's a threshold question for us thanks Maria thanks Jill that was really helpful um so just to play back to you it sounds like if if this Council were to guess I guess on on a scope that we think the next Council might want and and so we guess and you guys start to do a little bit of work this year maybe you have to put some other projects to the side as you start to work on whatever scope that we guess on and then a new Computing cost gets seated in four months and they're going to have a view and I'm maybe maybe we'll guess write a few people that are on this Council we'll be on the next Council and so maybe we'll guess right but but we might guess wrong and it sounds like if we guess wrong then whatever scope we we identify now in July of of 2023 might be a different Scope when the next council is seated in November December of 2023 and then that

[78:01] work will have been wasted and on top of that it sounds like it will cause you to stop doing some other things that we did tell you to do um to start to work on a project that may not be a project that goes forward is that did I get that writing area is that am I am I interested because it's it's I don't think I've ever encountered this a situation where a council in this closing days tells staff to go off and start working on something in some sort of prediction that the next Council will actually want to do that thing uh I appreciate that council member and I well I can't answer the the latter characterization because I haven't been here with enough uh changing councils to know that but I think you got uh the gist of what we were trying to say thanks great I got Rachel and Nicole and Jeannie thanks really Bob close I am I already feel like such a lame duck it's July so let me out let me have a few months

[79:01] um and also to Joel like we've made a lot of people want to throw computers across the room so you're not alone in that um okay but my real questions um Nuria I I feel like maybe I misunderstood something you said I think you said that Hill is the hill work is not on our current work plan I I remember uh uh Mark Wallach and I asking for an out of five to add it to the work plan in March of 2021 and I don't remember it coming off so I just wanted clarification on is that so that we have the context here for like what we bind future councils to we did add that to the work plan at some point correct yep and uh apologies if I uh confuse folks it is not one of the 10 priorities that this new Council chose it is a carryover priority that happens um in in different ways uh from a previous Council but certainly work had been underway and uh we continue to do that work there's a lot of work that we

[80:00] do in the city that has to go and carry over from a variety of years and that is one of them so it remains um something that Steph is working on uh we know that Council has great interest but it was not to be clear one of the ten priorities that this Council chose at their retreating if that makes if that clarifies um a little bit but I think there are there are things that we proactively maintain on a work plan I think the same is true of Cu South like I remember asking do we have to name that as a priority in the work plan or somehow you know pull it off so future councils do weigh in on on work plan and priorities continuing correct it is correct and we have that as a city-wide work plan we as a city staff we share with you what we have already are working on and moving forward uh there have been conversations in the past year for example this is what we're working on would you like us to stop or move forward as we talk about trade-offs but certainly there's a lot that we continue so I think the distinction really is

[81:00] um there's work that we share that we're already doing and that may be different from the council priorities that Council would like us to move forward uh in their interest as as we talk at the retreat but yes all of that work carries forward okay and I I think the same is kind of true minimum wage because I remember us you know teeing that up in 20 20 before the pandemic and then I thought we greenlit at our Retreat for Lauren to to work on that so when we say that those things are not on the work plan I feel like we're I just want to make sure that the Public's aware that these things are kind of proactively something that this council did in fact green light is that accurate well I appreciate that I was not here in 2020 as far as I have been here in the past two plus years minimum wage certainly has been a topic talked about but not necessarily something that has been on what I understand the city work plan the ask of council member Folker 10 of our

[82:00] team was really to lean into those conversations and I think probably in the pandemic some of those conversations squealed and quieted and now as they were picking up the ask was to join the Consortium of cities to perhaps renew and again I wasn't part of those conversations so don't know if it was a pause or if it just stopped and it picked up again but to renew those and that's where we are right now the presentation we provided to you all was really that ask recently was would you like us to put this on the work plan and the answer was yes and so that is what we're continuing to work on thanks um and then I think one last question the things that I remember adding kind of Midstream like we're looking at tonight to the work plan um either by myself or a previous Council were right after the hill Riot we added the hill stuff after the Parkland shooting we added gun violence prevention assault weapons ban and after um when covet hit we added coveted response

[83:00] so my question is it would it be fair to say usually we add things that are um like have a significant emergency kind of aspect to them or things that we hadn't hadn't had a chance to Think Through sort of slowly but something erupted and and that's why one might do it in the closing days I won't respond to the closing day characterization and I was not here for any of those um as we move forward but my understanding from staff is yes that traditionally that something happens it's unexpected there are times when that happens there are conversations that are had and when opportunities or in these case some tragic events or the pandemic happen we do have a conversation about what what should we we need to address this now the timing is ripe what does that mean for staff and we come at you with um a really hopefully candid conversation of what we need to pause or delay and it's a prioritization conversation as well so I think it does happen

[84:01] um and it we really do defer to Council on how you'd like to proceed on this one thanks for that I also want to add uh vaping kids started dying from vaping and I remember us adding that as well previous Council okay those are all my questions thanks all right well um thanks to Mark you don't have to listen to me ask quite so many questions but one of the things that I was wondering is is there anything that we can offer in our recommendations that would lessen the scope enough so that this wouldn't have to be a council work plan priority for example if we gave guidance that we shouldn't have smoking or vaping or if we said let's just do a limited pilot of a couple licenses or something would that be enough to keep it out of council work plan priority I'm going to defer to staff who's been thinking about this more than I do although I'm imagining if it's even if it's limited licensing we'd probably still have to create a program to do

[85:01] that license so whether it's one or it's a hundred still have to work on what that looks like but um Let me give it to the experts who really know this work as they're thinking about it thank you that is correct that regardless of whether it's a small licensing program or a large licensing program all of the work to implement that would be the same what would be reduced is the work spent on processing the applications if we were to limit the number of licenses that were applications I guess that we were receiving one of the biggest questions we have is around the scope of community engagement as I mentioned in my PowerPoint staff is recommending a more robust public engagement process given the controversial nature of this topic if Council were to move forward with a robust engagement process that would require a lot more staff resources than some of the Lesser options available that require fewer resources so if council could provide some direction on

[86:01] the public engagement engagement piece that's something that we could likely begin this year and get started on that and I think just in general we're just looking for some direction as to other council is interested in exploring opting in or or not you know because that's that's kind of the biggest question that we have for you all today thank you and just sort of one one follow-up on that so even if we were the most Draconian Council ever and said no engagement at all we're just going to make a decision is that still something that would be a work plan would it still Elevate at that point to a work plan priority to be honest I can really only speak on behalf of the finance department I could tell you that the finance department we we probably could make some progress towards our particular um the list on our item items on our list this year I cannot speak for the other departments that would be impacted

[87:01] in the conversations I had with them the consensus I received from them is that they likely would not have any space on their current work plans for this project um so I bet I wouldn't I would need to to have some internal discussions with them to see if there's any possibility of doing that this year Teresa so the city attorney's office would be instrumental in crafting ordinances and licenses and so this would involve and zoning regulations so this involves at least two if not three attorneys in those efforts and so I can tell you that that for us we do not currently have the capacity to do that without taking something off of our plate um and and I expect that would be true even if we were to say borrow a model from Adams County or Denver or something another place that has already done this we'd still be in a similar spot that right yes that's right

[88:01] um Boulder has a history of having a very unique marijuana code and and so unfortunately we can't plug and play with somebody else's ordinance I feel like we're unique in almost every way Teresa partly and then I um I've just got one one more question just about the history of how this started was it a previous council did they task lab with this or I mean how did this sort of start in in the first place was it a previous Council that said we really want to try to figure this out or how did that start so in 2020 the council formed the Cannabis licensing and Advisory Board and one of the primary purposes of that board was to provide recommendations to Council on cannabis related matters and this was identified by the board as a cannabis related matter that they were interested in in discussing and providing recommendations on so that's that's

[89:01] where this all began from okay thank you um I think that's it thank you Juni thank you mayor Brackett I just have two questions and my first question is a clarifying question did Club make any recommendation as to whether they would prefer time wise on this current work plan or future work plan I do not recall having that discussion I'd like to invite Allison Bailey to speak on that if she has any recollection of those conversations I don't recall specifically I know there we've heard from many members of the industry of their interest in moving forward and feeling like Boulder was behind but and also career from a lot of other folks who felt like it was important that the council gave direction to not move forward on this so I don't recall specifically whether it was

[90:01] um hopes for 2023 or 2024 I think that the biggest Hope was for some some direction from from Council okay thank you for that I don't know if this is a question or probably a comment because I heard from the CD manager that if we decide to obtain there are several processes with pnds Community engagement and Licensing but we could potentially have a smaller opt-in process from what I'm hearing which is just the scoping But ultimately regardless that would be the question before us at least in my mind is do we up and or do we opt out and opt-in doesn't preclude Us opting in in the future does it I think what we're looking for tonight is some direction on whether Council

[91:01] would like to explore opting in and if you would like to explore that it's not necessarily a commitment to opt-in but maybe for us to begin that robust Community engagement process collect some more information and then present that to council to review and making that ultimate decision as to whether or not you'd like to opt in and Chris Christian just a quick question if um if we don't have if we don't if Council chooses and certainly not uh trying to direct in this way but if Council chooses not to explore this currently and leave this for the next Council would we be precluded from exploring this next year or other or preacher councils no we would not this is not an hour never situation thank you I think Matt's got a follow-up I'm going to maybe try to bring us to some resolution here on this first question uh but first just we'll clarify a couple things um sort of around engagement to see if that can get us where we need to go I

[92:01] think first modifying the scope so that it doesn't fit on the work plan I think that's an uncomfortable state to be in because engagement is the first thing we lean on especially like running it through the racial Equity instrument so I think there's certainly steps before we run um that's critical so so I want to make sure we don't uh trip ourselves on that one but with regards to public engagement and Joe I think you maybe mentioned that we could embark on engagement whereas other departments certainly have to give up work to start that work in this cycle this work plan did I hear that perhaps engagement could get started on this Outreach with hiring a consultant that doesn't mean we're sacrificing engagement work that's already in process so is this a step we could take without sacrificing anything to keep the ball rolling because engagement eye view doesn't box Us in with any future councils it's actually just further empowers them with more information from which to then make ultimate decisions from so I just want to understand that engagement step not

[93:00] impacting any current work from the engagement team if and maybe it does but I just want to clarify that all right thank you for the question um I'm going to answer it this way I think we could if Council gave us direction that they wanted us to start the engagement we could certainly start the engagement planning we're going to have to lean on our colleagues and engagement and we may need to bring in resources uh so that they can continue all the other important engagement work they're doing but yeah I think we could certainly start engagement work and engagement planning work I should say if Council gave us that direction just to further I got a note from our engagement team they can certainly help to help scope with staff and hire a consultant to begin something for this year they themselves could probably support engagement directly next year and so if it's a desire to move forward it would be it

[94:00] would be more in the vein of a consultant this year and staff next year okay so with that maybe I can make sort of a a nominal recommend date recommended or do any any other comments any any other questions rather before we move into addressing the question for Council okay see no other questions then yeah oh yeah we rarely talk about this I'm going to talk about it is there money involved in hiring a consultant I mean or is it free which one I mean I'm just saying if this was an emergency I'd say let's hire but it isn't so I let's start with is is it our you know do we think we should hire a consultant or just wait till next year that's all I'm saying I guess the question was are the Consultants free so the Consultants are not free question answered let me just clear that up and I also just want to say that we are if Council wants to direct us to to

[95:02] have staff bring this forward as a work plan item in 2024 that could also happen as well Rachel you're on question or are you I look for a concern around homelessness and sanctioned encampments and things back at our um midterm Retreat and I don't think I've seen anything on that so just wondering what is the process for getting a consultant and how long does that take and how much staff time is involved like often when you're trying to delegate work you know or preppa and say an intern or someone who's assisting to to do work it's not it's not no work for the person supervising so I just wanted to understand um sounds like it's not free is it also free time for us and and maybe just as as a as a parallel can can you tell us about the other consultant that we did green light

[96:00] uh yeah and I'll say um it is not it is not completely free time and it it sort of it's not the it's not the most satisfactory answer but it depends there is there are times when Consultants can take a very discreet item have a bit of uh sort of um onboarding if you will about the topic and be able to craft something and move forward on their own there are other times with the complexity of the work and the fact that it really needs to have knowledge and input and expertise from the staff um that is overseeing or charged with whatever it is that whatever topic is happening makes it frankly less feasible and less practical to have a consultant because the team has to be there anyway to do some of that work so the it depends is is not satisfactory but it really does in certain cases this is one in which really the issues are fairly clear and narrow it's about scoping an engagement plan to make sure that we

[97:00] um are getting you the information that you need we of course would want to make sure that whatever engagement plan a consultant uses um is informed by our racial Equity instrument as well so that we bring that forward but it is and again I'll have staff metaphorically kick me under the table if I uh commit them to something that they want to correct but it is to me a more discreet um a more discreet item and council member you asked me about the consultant on homelessness and to be honest as I sit here I'm trying to remember the where that stands and what has been done and I'm going to have to get back to you all on on that but it just really depends on the nature of the work okay thanks and uh my other question and I see Bob's hands up so maybe this is where he was going to go as well as the engagement subcommittee uh co-member with me but would we expect that the engagement team would have um an inordinate amount of work coming down

[98:01] the pike in the next few months due to this um you know National level Engagement review that our City's undergoing right now I'm sorry councilmember can you I'm trying to I didn't quite catch the we just we just signed on um to be like a pilot City for kind of reimagining Engagement and and you know and in my role both as engagement subcommittee and a person who's uh involved in that project from Council it looks to me like that will take a fair amount of time over the next uh six months for our engagement team I'm wondering if you if you know that to be accurate or not I think that is absolutely accurate but even within the engagement team there are different folks that perform different kinds of functions um I'm understanding um from Brenda I'm gonna out you and if you're around to let us know if I'm seeing something that is wrong um but Brenda's team is available to help scope out a Consulting contract and get that moving but they would not be able to actually perform the engagement

[99:02] work itself until next year Brenda am I committing you in a wrong way no that's true and um I'm sorry Council I was not necessarily oh my camera turned off hopefully you can hear me yes um I was not um totally prepared to speak tonight but I did have some great conversations with Kristen about this project um and so I am somewhat versed in in what this could and might look like um and happy to share also about sort of our total landscape and engagement um that is a big project Rachel and it is one of many projects that our team is working on at the moment particularly during this time of year as you can imagine there's a um a deadline coming up in all of your and our lives in the middle of November and many issues are hoping to come to council before um while it's this Council right and so many of those projects involve some level of Engagement that many staff

[100:02] members across the organization work on and our team often helps at some level um and so we do have a busy calendar from now through the end of the year um that said we are always able to sit and help with crafting what bringing another partner on could look like um there aren't always funds for a consultant so that's also I think part of an engagement scope question is do those funds exist to hire a consultant and if they do or if they don't could funds be reallocated for that sometimes in a controversial subject it's helpful to have a third party consultant leading those conversations but that's something that that um the project team would need to determine should they want to move ahead forward and move quickly I could help with that hiring a consultant process should they have a longer runway on this project then it'll be easier the more time we have the easier it is for us to balance our workloads as a full team to make sure that we're supporting

[101:01] departments in the ways that they need us thank you Brenda Scott Juni and then Bob but then maybe we can get to answering the question for Council yeah thank you I'm thinking it's a bit hard to answer this question or at least for me as I'm thinking we're going around the question a bit as well what would be the purpose if we were to say oh okay we're not opting in right now let's do community engagement and I'm trying to understand what would be the purpose of this engagement is it to engage with industry or is it to ask the community whether we should opt in or opt out as a council thank you team correct me if I'm wrong we have heard a lot from industry and we're really grateful for what we've heard so far and certainly from collab as well who we have not heard from aside from you all and hoping to hear from you um in the future the near future

[102:02] um maybe even tonight yeah perhaps tonight but we have not heard from community at large right and so we have not we pride ourselves in Boulder to really being thoughtful about the engagement that we do we may not always get it right but Our intention is always to engage with community and that is if this is something the threshold question again if this is something that you would like us to consider and move forward and get more information about we start with with engagement and that is what we'd like to know no I'm good it sounds like we've narrowed this first question down to um a much smaller question which is do we want to instruct staff to engage a consultant to start some sort of con some sort of community engagement which may start later this year or early next year um so my question is is do you need if

[103:01] you were to do that if staff was to do that to go out and hire a consultant to start some sort of community engagement in a few months would you need from us some degree of scoping in other words is all Community engagement the same it doesn't really matter what we're talking about or does it kind of matter the size of this project because I haven't gotten to the size of what this would be and maybe we won't get to that tonight I don't know but my question is is does the scope matter on what type of what kind of of community engagement you do it's been a matter of fact you may even impact who you hire as your consultant so would you need a scoping decision from us in order to go out and hire a consultant because that would dictate what that consultant does by way of community engagement yes we it would be helpful to have some sort of scoping and I just pulled up this slide here for the different options for Community engagement inform consult involve and collaborate involving collaborator the two highest

[104:00] levels that would require the most staff resources but some sort of direction from Council as to what level of community engagement they'd like to see would be really helpful for us to do exactly what you said hire a consultant scope the work and get a sense of how much this would cost and how long it would take and if we thanks for that Christian and if um if we if we gave you a scope of some sort tonight um and you went out and hired a consultant over the next few months and and in Reliance upon what we tell you tonight and the next Council comes in in November December and says no no no we want something completely different I assume that you'd have to kind of adjust with that consultant or maybe iron a different consultant is that a fair Assumption of what we tell you tonight and what you hear in November December from the next Council are different that would have some impact on whatever preliminary work you do with this consultant yes that's correct

[105:01] questions maybe someone would like to start answering the the question I I had Nicole just in my sights and I got mad and then I got mark all right um I am not supportive of moving forward at this time and for me that also includes engagement without us or future Council putting this as a priority I don't think this is where we should be spending staff and Community time and money right now I really wish that we didn't have so many pressing issues that we're trying to deal with um for me I really dislike trading alcohol and marijuana so differently as we do with our regulations but we also have to be realistic about our staff's workload and Community priorities and I'd like to say us see us stay focused on the work that councils have already committed to and the work that we know the community wants to prioritize I think we saw a poll last week we had a poll last spring people write us about all kinds of topics what I hear when I'm

[106:01] talking to folks in the community and the budget feedback that we've had from the community connectors if we're going to spend more time on something to me it seems like it's more on affordability affordable housing raising the minimum wage climate crisis mental health addiction and more support services for people experiencing homelessness so for me this this it just doesn't rise to that level and I really wish that we had more resources all around to to deal with some of these other issues I just don't think that's the reality of where we are right now so I am not supportive of this despite other feelings Matt Mark Rachel Tara um so certainly uh don't want to encumber future councils on the details um but I um I'm open to starting engagement because at some point we have to answer this question to Junior do we opt-in or opt out and I get credit to collab they've worked on this for two years and to just sort of Full Stop we'll see I'm not sure that totally

[107:01] honors the work of of a very uh capable board and I think we owe it to them to at least come to a decision on this at some point it's going to have to be next year probably I hope we can just come to some resolution but I'd love to see us try to get some engagement because that is the first step to answering the opt-in opt out question so I'd love to see us try to engage the community in a way that's meaningful and it helps inform the next Council should we continue to work on this what those next steps are I I would take a different approach first of all the question uh does council want to want staff to add this project to a future work plan um we are incapable of adding it to a future work plan that is for the future and for the future Council I'm even reluctant to employ a consultant um the cost of which may be entirely wasted if that is the

[108:01] will of the the 2024 Council I hadn't not been aware that we were so Awash in funds that we could hire consultants for engagement for a project that may never see the light of day I think yes I agree with Matt at some point we're going to have to make that decision to opt in or opt out but I also believe that is a 2024 question um so I I you know I I think in trying to do something here we're attempting to put our fingerprints on work that properly belongs to the next Council and I would leave it to them I don't believe that dishonor is the work of clab I I'm you know I've I have read the staff memo I you know I can see the work that's gone into it but it comes at a point in time when we ought not to be proceeding on it as we have so many other priorities and um

[109:00] uh as Nuria has informed me his staff is actually fully engaged with work items I would like to see them do that complete their work move forward on the work plan items that they already have and I certainly don't want to trade off this for something else that we've already agreed upon is is a work item at this Council has elected to proceed with Rachel terabab thanks um I'll uh thanks staff for the presentation um and collab representative for being here um I so I kind of disagree with the the starting premise that we actually do ever have to decide this like I think if we don't decide whether to opt in or out we're out so I mean if we want to look at opting in then we have to answer the question but I don't know that any Council ever actually has to add this to the work plan if there are other things that they want to prioritize then this I

[110:02] don't think ever needs to um Impact Staff time so just put that out there that I'm not sure that 24 25 you know I think that that there are a lot of communities who are kind of waiting to see how it unfolds in other communities I know that there are you know strong Advocates on both sides of it um and and um I I think it's it's a perfectly appropriate not to answer that question anytime soon or a perfectly good option um I I also think it would be really weird to hire a consultant for something that's not on the work line like when I think of the Consultants that I've worked with it's been um like on the the hill we had a consultant you know do that multi years when that was on the work plan um something that was Daisy that we knew we wanted to look at was the downtown streets after West Pearl and and I think a consultant was pulled in there to do

[111:00] some research so that makes sense to me um but but having a consultant for something that that is a a decent expenditure of funds from what I can tell for something that we don't even know if anybody wants to look at would be uh and in my experience an odd thing for the city to do so um I would not even hire a consultant for scoping until any Council decides that they want to look at the question of whether to have dinner out proactively so I definitely don't want to add it to our work plan as I said earlier I think the things that I've seen um as as late closing days adds to the work plan have been sort of responding to crises or things that are really escalated and serious and this is something that we could have decided in January 2022 that we wanted to prioritize and we didn't and we knew about it because we had you know it was

[112:00] it was known you know a known issue the state had already passed a law that allowed Abdi in it and we didn't so I appreciate that that clab took the initiative to look at that but that does not create an emergency on our part to take action on that recommendation so um I don't think we're dishonoring we didn't we didn't ask for this to come to us exactly and I think it's okay for us to say thank you for the work we don't want to act on it right now um and and a future Council will have those recommendations Tara Bob Lauren yeah this is one of these questions where I have no doubt I can't see both sides right now I can only see one side for the first time in a long time so first of all I don't want to speed up engagement so rushing through engagement is such a big topic is this I don't think it's a good idea I agree with Rachel that we should only do this when it's an emergency covid was an emergency like Nicole said housing climate

[113:00] minimum wage is more of an emergency honestly nobody has this on their emergency list I'm sure well maybe a few people the businesses which is nothing wrong with that but you know let's be honest about that one the next thing is is react reallocation of funds for a consultant no I don't want to reallocate funds don't want to add any more more work to Planning and Development they have a backlog in permitting and approvals are ready so why would we do this so I can't think of one reason why I think we should do this for the first time in a long time okay no equivocating Bob and then Lauren I'm going to be the fifth person to say that I do not think we should move forward at least on this Council I'm going to join Rachel and Nicole and Mark and Tara and say that we do not want to rush to engagement this is not an emergency uh this law has been out there for a long long time as Rachel said we are not required to do anything opt-in or opt out there's no decision that's in front of us a future Council may want to opt in and if they do they're going to scope this I don't know how we could

[114:00] possibly tell staff to hire a consultant to start engagement on a project that we can't predict what the scope's going to be on I mean we can come up with a scope ourselves I suppose but by the time this consultant gets hired and just starts to do the work late this year the next Council will be seated they'll undoubtedly have a different scope then whatever we come up with today so I I don't see any like I want to thank clap they did tremendous work I really appreciate the recommendations that work is not wasted that's a gift to the next Council so I really really appreciate what cloud did that was very very thoughtful on their part I think we hand that package of really really great work to the next Council that Council will decide whether they want to make that a priority for the 2020 425 and if so then they can scope it out and they can hire the consultant and they can make decisions but what the trade-offs are compared to all the other things that this next Council will have as its priority so I just think that in July of a closing Council Late July of closing Council to uh to go out and hire a consultant for a project we don't even

[115:01] know what's going to be it just doesn't make any sense so I'm the fifth no on that one uh this could be a five to four vote but I I don't see any support for by a major party got it Bob Lauren say something quickly thanks um so I don't think that this is unprecedented we have boards and commissions bring things forward you know we're reevaluating the police oversights enabling ordinance like people bring things forward to council that we then choose to work on um it doesn't sound like we're going to do that here but that is something that we often choose to do as was mentioned we've really only heard from two groups you know we've heard from the business advocacy community and we've heard from sort of the medical industry and that leaves a huge amount of unknown in my mind um I I know I personally believe in

[116:00] marijuana being safer than alcohol and I would like to see um Hospitality alternatives to bars just because that it you know that is a difficult thing in our society right now and I can understand why people don't want to see that but I would like to understand in more detail what our larger Community thinks about that um I would like to see a consult involve sort of initial stage of Engagement that would be narrow to look at a just sort of that entry-level question of is this something that the community is interested in having us Explore More um and as Bob says that information would not be wasted that would be a gift to the next Council um so even if we don't

[117:01] vote to move this forward tonight I would also just like to bring forward something Nuria offered that we could do which would be to have staff bring this forward to the next Council as a possible work plan item I think that that might be something that we could potentially get behind even if we can't move forward on um engagement right now excellent did you want to speak to that area thank you and um if this is not moving forward and there is interest in Council we can certainly share this with the new Council share this conversation with a new Council um share as we onboard a new council with um with the conversations that the previous Council have had we can certainly um lift that up thanks so calling myself just agree with the majority of our of my colleagues that were too late in the game with this Council and we're too busy to add a

[118:01] significant item to this year's work plan which we couldn't get very far on anyway but agree that this is certainly a potential for a future Council and so I can look to my colleagues who are guaranteed to to persist into that Council and say that the retreat next year this is something that anyone can can bring up for consideration and Allison I really want to thank you for being here with us tonight and I want to give a really huge thank you to the collab as a whole because you all did an enormous amount of work to arrive at this recommendation which was very detailed with many motions with a variety of votes on them and they were very well explained by the different club members so I just really want to honor that work that they all did really appreciate it and echo my colleagues in saying that that is not wasted work and that that work and those recommendations will persist for future councils to consider if they are interested in so doing any other final thoughts I think we've got a majority opinion here Rachel you got a hand I do I actually have concerns about staff bringing this forward rather

[119:01] than a council member for the next Council give it sort of an imprintour of this Council wanting that to happen and that is um I think that you know at least the way we did it this year like you get five priorities and it sounds like maybe Lauren this would be one of yours so I don't think this should come from a staff and Elevate that as like an additional you know somebody gets a sixth priority brought by staff that just seems uh not Equitable and and would be concerning to me that it might for people who aren't watching this meeting they might not have the real sense of what the discussion was if staff brings it it might look like it's something we really wanted them to consider and I don't know that I uh got that impression from tonight um and and if we're gonna you know if we can just like ask for staff to bring stuff to the next Council I'd have a list of a lot of things that I would want to put out there so if you're opening that door you can know that I'm going to come back with with a good list for staff to to bring to the next Council um so I I uh I have concerns there I

[120:03] appreciate shape that and frankly I know that well I know that that would happen um I want to say that mostly it's a and we've been thinking and considering how to onboard um new Council as they come forward and certainly we will be talking about the work staff is currently doing uh the work that carries over if any or the work that this Council has asked us to do but likely we will also be talking about what else have we been discussing or Council has discussing um that has been of interest but um no obligation certainly not a requirement that we are lifting up as a work plan item as much as just sharing with the new Council what those conversations have been and where that interest lives or does not because there are several items that have been of interest to council um that we have not we have not landed on so that's fair I guess I would say though that like you know out of equity like anybody I was on the losing side of

[121:01] adding to the work plan or uh you know my my suggestions for work plan that were mostly rejected uh over all the Retreats I would think those all get to be added to things that were discussed so that's a can of worms that again I I think that that you'd want to be very careful of prioritizing uh one thing that we discussed you'd have to include you know dozens or you know over over however many years you're looking back so I I have just big concerns about that approach appreciate that and certainly not looking uh to go back years um wanting to really be thoughtful about the work of this term and wanting to be able to share information in as neutral a way as possible but certainly appreciate them Nicole chip something sort of I don't know if this is the right time if we want to wrap this up but I've got a kind of question about this process for Nuria but it doesn't it's not this one sort of a meta question should I ask now or are we done here uh well we're not quite done here so I guess we can any other thoughts on

[122:02] this question seeing none then do you all have what you need from us we do thank you there were a total of three questions the second one here doesn't necessarily apply at this point but I did want to raise the third one I think we've we've already gone over this but if Council does have any additional feedback on the recommendations for collab or any direction for a collab so I appreciate you bringing this back up Kristen but I might encourage my colleagues to not dive deep into a can of worms here on the specifics of the recommendations but you can say what you want not not seeing any so thank you very much and Kristen a very fine job on your first setting with Council I was uh that was that was a lot of tough questions that you handled very directly thank you all okay and do you want to throw in a question while we're transitioning yes yeah before we Transit

[123:01] can she just how about ask your question and we'll get you help me out Alicia okay go ahead and ask your question okay thank you um so this was this uh this whole discussion just kind of brings up for me um a question related to the board of commissions consultant and sort of the process and things that's going on right now is the process that brought us to this discussion tonight and to the two years of work on Council anything that we can get feedback on from that project because this is a discussion that was started by club and it went on for two years involving researchers Public Health experts parents businesses and more and I really appreciate that work and the fact that the previous Council on our Council never bought in led to two years of work that is now paused for for a bit so um it just is there is there anything in that Warden commissions project just sort of related to this process and it's not for answering tonight I'm just I'm curious if that's that's something we could get a little bit of feedback on because that seems like a lot of work before Council

[124:02] kind of got to it and and had a chance to weigh in on how it fits in with priorities I can be quick about it and say that I believe there is that part of the work that we've asked is Broad but also about not just um taking a look at our the boards and commissions work in general but also looking at scope and looking at how that scope has arrived and whether or how better to strengthen and tighten the work of our boards and commissions to the council priorities at hand versus going extemporaneously outside of that which then commits resources uh we've got um certainly language in our code about that we hope to get some feedback on that regard as well so thank you with that little interim there Elisha if we could move to 6B please I manage from the city manager is the public safety around the Boulder Creek thank you so much Council uh and we are

[125:02] um uh pleased to come before you we know that this was a question um councilmember Joseph asked for CAC to have um our uh Chief calderazo and our uh director Ali Rhodes are here to talk a little bit about Boulder Creek clearly we have had this summer some tragic events um and we are so sorry to hear of them so sorry for families who are dealing with some of these tragedies but the question was asked about what we are doing and perhaps what we are contemplating doing in the future and with that I passed that to Chief calderazzo thank you nura good evening Council Mike calderazzo fire chief um I'd like to add some some comments to anuria's about the tragic events as well um you know our hearts go out to the victims families and I personally appreciate the work of the First Responders and the others who actually helped them in these incidents that were

[126:01] not First Responders but were just helpful to them the outcome was not what any of us wanted um and I even in speaking with the crews I know they had a lot of regrets of course but I wanted to express our appreciation for for their heroic efforts to try and save those those individuals I think we all agree that um even one drowning is one too many in any of our waterways and so we're we're grateful for the opportunity to share a little a few thoughts this evening about uh safety around our waterways um and talk a little about what happens today what we're contemplating and then hopefully maybe some answers some questions from Council so I'll start with um kind of what what the emergency response picture looks like so if a if an event occurs in the creek or we get a 911 call it's uh it's normal for us to respond multiple units particularly when it comes to Swift water it's hard to figure

[127:00] out where the person is in the water especially if they're moving and so we end up in many times you can see even in the pictures we'll set up in spots farther down to try to pick them off in the water and they train for this but they we don't even allow First Responders to get near the water without all these kinds of gear and personal flotation devices and they practice regularly for this type of event um it isn't our normal practice to have responders um waiting along the Creeks no matter what the creek flow is and so a lot of times when there's an event it is uh typically either a bystander or some other respond or Community responder that ends up helping and then we get the responders to the scene depending on uh where where the incident actually is we could have even county level responders coming with us we're part of a regional Cooperative when it comes to Swift water it is practice though for certain events

[128:02] during the year for us to staff up Swiftwater technicians like you see here in this picture things like tube to work day we'll put key players along the creek just in case but it but I I want to emphasize it takes us a while to get to the creek to find somebody who may be moving um to even do what you see in these pictures and get them out of the creek and so it's it is always a difficult Prospect to get them out quickly and that's something we're fighting we fight with every incident so I want to make that clear up front so here's some of the protocols that we use right now it is our practice to follow what the county sheriff declares for for creeks and waterways so we CFS stands for cubic feet per second that's just the standard flow rate that that we have monitors all along all the creeks and generally above 700 sustained so we

[129:02] know that during storms you could have uh Creek flows go up quite quickly but then go right back down we prepare every March or so for the spring the runoff um the summer months where people are naturally in the creek we we're we prepare and talk about Creek flows constantly if it's over 700 the sheriff will declare that the creek is off limits to to water activities and we go along with that so then it becomes a county-wide thing and Boulder is part of that um I will say even though the slide says one to 200 cubic feet per second might be ideal tubing range and it and it probably is there are still areas in The Creeks um regardless of the flow that that are snag areas that can turn into some pretty deadly um spots one to 200 cubic feet per second is low enough most of the time where somebody can just step out between 300 and 700 those are that's where it's a little

[130:03] um misleading to folks you know exactly how dangerous it could be um but generally above that is where we're really really really worried about folks being in there with or without personal flotation devices so so that's how the protocol works today um it's it's entirely up to the county sheriff but in consultation um with everybody else in the county and we end up um with sustained uh cubic feet Flows at 700 to to see some closures and so you know at that moment if it's closed we're definitely above 700 sustained um there is an exception I should say for canoes and kayaks that's a state law they can continue to use the creek regardless of whatever the sheriff May declare or us for that matter so we've been talking about this for a while now due to these events but even before that how we can increase uh Creek

[131:01] safety it's a popular spot folks love love our creeks and with good reason what we're doing now is taking a look at we've we've looked at rescues and stream flows um when they happen um what what we should do with certain flow levels and you can see here on the slide something that we found in the city of golden has done in terms of warning folks when they use the waterways and so being more proactive um they're they basically and I'm I I just said kayaks can still use it so I'm not quite sure the legality of their very top water close to all uses um sign but um suffice it to say that all other uses are tubing included wouldn't be allowed up above a certain flow rate for them we're looking at that kind of system it's pretty well developed at this point they've put a lot of work and effort into their plan and how they do it and a

[132:01] lot of it has to do with with their signage and such we're also talking with the county as well about what we can do differently in terms of of Creek safety and notifications and things like that um and and Ali's going to talk in a minute here about all the things we're looking at especially with regard to the creek management plan so from an emergency response perspective you know I think it's almost too late at that point it's much better that we can prevent these incidents from occurring or have things available to them the moment somebody's in the water and having an emergency because it's at least four to five minutes or maybe more before we can even get somebody out of the water which is dangerous for for folks who've been in the water so I'll just leave it there and I'll turn it over to Ali to talk about what uh the Creek Management what we've got in store with Creek Management plan good evening members of council I'm Allie Rhodes director of Parks and Recreation before I talk about the Boulder Creek Management plan I do want to just go back to what Chief calderazzo

[133:02] was saying with proactive practices and the ability to swim is a life safety skill that we believe every member of our community should have so I am very glad that right now in July of 2023 at Spruce pool we're offering swim lessons for the first time since before the pandemic and as we already are looking into our work plan for 2024 making those really targeted to members of our community who may not otherwise have access to some lessons is going to be a top priority and goal um moving on to the Boulder Creek Management plan uh the first element that we're looking at are infrastructure considerations uh this picture is somewhere out of the UK but it's a common practice near open water to have throw line stations uh this is something where any bystander could grab it's a throw line it's like a weighted buoy that you toss it's attached to a rope similar to if you can picture the old school rings that are on boats and buy pools it's it's a similar thing but designed for Swift water

[134:00] and so those can improve that response time from the bystander vegetation management can also improve safety where you can improve sight lines improve access points this is obviously important in the riparian quarter that we also are thoughtful about the ecology but there are areas Chief calderazzo mentioned we know there's areas of the creek that might be more I'm trying to think of the right word here they just folks don't know right I've I myself have tube of the creek and it's you can step out in one spot and flip out in another and so what can we do to just improve some of those points um and then if you go to the next slide please Chief messaging and Communications is a huge part of the proactive Communications uh you heard Chief Colorado so mentioned that even the Professionals in Boulder fire and rescue wear pfds or personal flotation devices when they're in Swift water and so getting messaging about the per the appropriate equipment

[135:01] um a helmet when you're in Swiftwater a PFD enclosed toed shoes will increase safety greatly but we also want to get information out about the stream flows and so whatever Protocols are finalized whether it's an advisory system a flag system we would want that to be in place also the target is permanent signage that is in place by April of 2024 so we're in advance of the peak flow season that happens after Barker Dam spills each spring these Graphics are some of the temporary signage that we got in place I believe it was in June when these happened following the first two incidences but the intention is that moving into next year we have something more permanent I think that's everything so if you have questions we're here and I'll just note that this Boulder Creek Management plan is a multi-disciplinary effort our colleague Mr tatayuchi from the utilities department is here we talked about messaging and so Sarah Huntley and her team with Communications are involved in supporting as with colleagues across the organization I think Sally and Mike really appreciate

[136:00] you coming here and talking to us tonight about this very important topic um and on short notice so uh questions for staff got mark really just one uh has any thought been given to uh requiring personal flotation devices at certain levels of flow you know at 700 it's closed um if it's I'm just picking a number here a requirement that you have a personal flotation device at 400 CFS have we thought about that at all I'll just offer um we haven't talked about it ourselves I would I would say two things one is I know that other organizations have evaluated it and they came up with the same concerns that I believe we had is how on Earth would you ever enforce that I'm not aware of the enforcement capacity that that would make it a realistic um endeavor and you may not be able to enforce it

[137:00] but most people tend to [Music] follow the law whatever it is and um if one person could be saved that would be a good thing I I can add um they they studied in Clear Creek the use of pfds and I think it was less than 50 percent um however they do have vendors around the creek and they require them when they if they lease a tube they have to also give them a PFD so so there's at least that we can follow up on and and look at for sure um can I get a show of hands on Council who owns a PFD a personal flotation device I do it's a life jacket basically yes right but I I say that because I think therein lies the issue with doing that is there's an equity and

[138:01] access issue to just having a PFD and and so I appreciate the the what you're asking but I think there's just an insurmountable barrier because here we all have generally means to buy a 50 PFD and yet only two of the nine of us do thank you and I just wanted to add um before I start with my questions that um those two incidents on the creek really touched me because I and I think it goes back to something that you said ali um I have taken swimming lessons I've taken eight weeks worth of swimming lessons and I'm still not a swimmer and that pains me because again like you said it's a life safety issue if you know and I've gone tubing as well on the Boulder Creek so when I heard of those two incidents you know and I could never put myself in

[139:00] the shoes of the families and the person uh the people who have perished but nonetheless it still very much impact me knowing that I'm not a swimmer but I did have a question um concerning because you were talking about flow the cubic fits and um it seemed you mentioned for kayaks there are state laws but the county itself through the Sheriff's Office decide hey once it's 700 cubic feets per second then it's closed is that a county law is that a State Lord do you know how that came about and part of the question is could we have a lower threshold say let's say the county said 700 can we say hey based on the nature of our Creek can we go lower if I may uh I'll say that I have spoken

[140:00] to um the Sheriff's Office on this to understand myself as this had happened and again Chief if I'm wrong please correct me but the threshold is actually not a uniform threshold it is dependent on each Waterway and dependent on a variety of considerations there are some areas that are wider there are some that have more depth there are some that receive more flow so for every one of the waterways in the entire County that 700 that cubic flow per second is different and so that is the one that they have determined for Boulder Creek okay okay and can I ask you is that updated or is it something that is set do you know it's a it's a set rate um by the by the sheriff yeah okay but I will say too that uh and correct me again if I'm wrong Chief but we are we remain in communication with the sheriff to just uh make sure that if

[141:00] there are additional considerations um given the incidents and any any um change in circumstance that we want to be able to have that conversation and it could be that in the future that changes or not but that's a consideration for the sheriff and we remain in those conversations thank you I got Matt and then Rachel well first off thanks for addressing this um you know we as as you mentioned Chief we've lost uh for too many this year um and you know what I had a conversation with Sheriff Johnson and I guess something that came up was again the 700 CFS thing and just looking at the at this year's data which I think we'd all agree was an excessively High runoff year because of the snowpack and we only had about six days it exceeded 700 CFS so and we had massive rain events on top of that and still only six days and so I I think when you want to think about what's an appropriate cut off I I think there's maybe a point in which we want

[142:00] to be want to have that conversation about is that an appropriate number because I think many of us would agree not being hydrologists or or certainly folks on Joe's team and certainly You Know Chief in your team with Public Safety in this regard there were probably dozens of days that we would all look at the creek and go that's ridiculously unsafe just just by looking at it and so I'm just hoping that we can find a way to work with the sheriff and I'm just wondering if there's ways in which we can um not usurp his and his office's Authority but come to a place where where we look at and go yeah that's a life safety hazard and we need to do more than put up signs and we need to have maybe some clear discretion on how to work with them so I'm just I'm wondering how we go a little more than just signage on that front and if there's a way to have a conversation of can we re-look at what the parameters are for why that 700 was the case because on the days that we lost um we lost the child and another person the flow rate when after talk to sheriff Johnson was only at like 450 CFS and you go like that that we're not even close to the max we're we're in the

[143:01] middle range and we have deadly water so that I just want to know how we can sort of work with throttling or modifying that number or seasonally preparing for what's coming and and we're definitely talking with them about that um and that's why I mentioned the three to seven hundred range is deceptively deadly um and and obviously there's a there's a balance between being too heavy-handed and the Creek's a wonderful place and the great place to to recreate for for everyone our visitors or residents and everyone and uh outlawing certain things and preventing access to it I think is something the sheriff is sensitive to as well county-wide and so we'll we definitely want to talk with them about it and and figure out ways that we can safely enjoy the creek even if the flows you know maybe maybe it is a lower threshold that but we definitely want to make sure that that everyone has an opportunity to weigh in on what's truly safe and not and and when are we being too

[144:01] restrictive and not allowing people to enjoy the you know the opportunity to be in the creek appreciate that and let us know how we can help in that conversation as well um in in having conversations with the sheriff sure I want to add just one note from an Aquatics background and that to a non-swimmer all water is deadly and and so Creek flows aside I really do I just for me it comes back to water education swimming education because for someone who can't swim it it is all deadly and it's just I guess that's I wanted to say that because the importance of swim lessons and the work that we can do to reach everyone is really important great Point got Rachel Nicole Lauren I wanted to make sure I understood um Mark wallach's suggestion about um life jackets and and I think I support it if you say maybe we would look at creating

[145:00] um an ordinance that you were required to have life jackets on if you're tubing or recreating in the creek and that might be um annoying and unenforceable but my uh my family's first experience in the Boulder Creek was renting tubes 20 plus years ago um and and certainly no one told us that life jackets were a good idea and it was pretty harrowing for um the little people that I was with so I think that especially for visitors and people who are likely to be renting tubes and would have no idea that that this happened this year or the dangers in general that it could just be very good in terms of the educational piece um of like we you know if you're required a lot of people will and they also may may take pause at like this is not it it looks fun like you've watched people in the creek um and it just looks like fun and it is also it carries a big danger for some people so I think I could be interested in that

[146:04] first one for Ellie I really do appreciate thank you did we partner with bbsd at all on any of that yes and we're growing it um one of my program managers and I just met with Dr Anderson last month to talk about how we can increase not only access to our programs through for bvsd students and especially the students who we know could benefit most but also how could we work together on programming so they have students every day some of the most successful learn to swim programs one of my teammates told me today that if if you can hit kids when they're in second grade an hour a week for 32 weeks they'll be deep water safe and so that that is um now on our Dream list so luckily we have a great partner in bvsd and um it's pretty aspirational but what we agree today is if we can start with 20 kids then it can grow and and to Mark's

[147:00] Point earlier even even one child that can swim is is worth it thank you and my other question Joe since you're sitting there I think this may be one for you um so you know as as Joe's kind of working his way up here um the most recent death in the creek was a disabled mother with Mobility challenges who was camping on a flat spot next to a really steep slope um and it it seems from um from being there from talking to Folks at her Memorial um she may have been kind of moving around in the dark possibly tripped and fallen into the creek so we have an active camping van we have enhanced enforcement we still have people camping in places that aren't safe that are next to water in areas prone to flash flooding are we doing anything within Sams to try to reduce people's risk of drowning deaths

[148:01] yeah thank you for that question and good evening Council Joe tadiuchi director of utilities as you know when we've reported on the Sam's work one of the things that we have is a prioritization formula and certain aspects of how people are camping we look at that and and apply a score and and rate it and uh things get prioritized for each week's work and proximity to a Waterway is one of the highest things that gets attention from us and we'll we'll bump something to the top of the list so that that is the primary way and then our team along with the police officers are out there each week doing the work either doing notifications or or the cleanups and I don't know that I've ever observed a water rescue but there are times when

[149:03] people are in in dire need of help and and they get CPR or something like that from from those teams so those are a couple of the ways off the top of my head that we look at those issues but for me as challenging as the unhoused and people camping as that is for the community when I ride my bike around and I see people setting up tents like in the Goose Creek underpasses in places that are only meant for water I feel like we have an obligation to address that Lauren thank you this is a question for Ally um I I'm really excited to hear about the swim lessons starting back up what is the cost of those lessons um I would be making it up if I told you

[150:00] an exact number right now but I believe for Five Lessons it's in the range of like fifty dollars swim lessons on our Council has heard before how we price Things based upon the degree of benefit to the community whether if it's highly Community benefit like our Parks they're entirely free they're paid for by taxes if the benefit is more individual the individual pays we have swim lesson classified smack dab in the middle where there is some individual benefit because of the the lifelong skill and benefit you'll get us but there's incred as we're talking about tonight there's also Community benefits so the subsidy level for those is at about 50 percent thank you um and then I was really interested to see the water safety throw lines ideas that's something that we're planning on implementing or just looking at at the moment is that going to be part of that I I have heard zero objections to it we've already added them so I'll note something we didn't include in the presentation Urban Park Rangers were

[151:01] among the first to respond in both of the June incidents is so increased response along the creek has a water safety benefit as well those folks will get them trained and have throw bags and then the stations I think that I I've confirmed we have funding for that and so those will be in place by April thank you and and colloquy a little bit on what Matt brought up in terms of sort of the water I enjoy tubing a lot and have a fair amount of experience with both Boulders and the saint vain through lions and one of the things that I find interesting there is as soon as they lift the ban on lions in lines then it's it's not safe but it feels it's an acceptable level of danger to me and I I would never get in Boulder Creek at 600 500 yeah like especially in an

[152:01] inner tube and so it just it doesn't necessarily feel comparable to me in terms of safety level compared to our neighboring communities um and I wonder about potentially that creating a little bit of community confusion as well because if you're used to like oh once it opens it's safe in this community and I'm going to go over to Boulder and it's probably the same since theirs is open um so I guess I would just encourage us to continue looking at how that is set and if that makes sense or if there's a way to make it feel more even across communities thank you Tara have anything in place do we do we have anything in place for I give up with this chair for kit for kids let's say under 12 that

[153:01] are tubing or getting tubes or is there any place like is there any like you must have um a flotation device or on the creek there is no current program that provides life jackets or equipment to children I I think that I heard Chief say and I agree that as part of this management plan we absolutely can explore requiring anyone so golden again we've been following their work for a while they've done an excellent job they they see significant more visitation on Clear Creek than we do on Boulder Creek and they require their several Outfitters in Golden that are now they have to have a permit they have to provide education they have to provide life jackets and so I think we have a lot to learn there and we can certainly follow their model because for kids certainly and so we'll I guess I'll just stop talking and say We'll explore it and but since I'm talking Lauren I did look it up and this is why I don't guess things it's 75 dollars for Five Lessons but I want to

[154:01] note that our financial aid program would provide them for entirely for free and we know that about 80 of the participants in our financial aid program our families and Youth makes me very nervous when I see kids in those tubes and the water's fast and so I think that we should prioritize those kitties seeing no their hands raised I'll just say well first of all thanks to Juni for bringing this up for consideration when we've had multiple deaths like this in a short period of time obviously it's something we need to take very seriously really appreciate both of you and and the utilities department working on ways to improve safety on the creek and sounds like you're implementing some and evaluating others and so it looks like we're on a path to make some more changes which is great to hear and just want to send um our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of the people who perished anything else

[155:01] all right that was our last agenda item any final thoughts on this or anything on on anything although yeah um it just we got an info packet from um Natalie and transportation on a can update and for anyone out there if Natalie's still listening Kudos great job and thank you for the continued awesome work on can so thanks for that information packet all right seeing no others I will gavel as close to 8 33 pm thanks everybody and have a good night [Music]