November 9, 2023 — City Council Study Session

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[4:57] all right it is 6 o'clock are we ready to go

[5:03] go very good good evening and welcome to tonight's study session of the Boulder City Council I am mayor protm Mark wallik for at least another couple of weeks and thank you for joining us we have on tonight's agenda three items our first item will be the boards and commissions assessment initial recommendations our second item is the energy conservation code development project overview and our third item is a municipal court judge recruitment update as we have just completed an election that it included several voter initiatives would my colleagues have any objection to amending our agenda to allow the city manager to say a few words about next steps regarding these initiatives seeing no objections I turn it over to our city manager thanks so much mayor protm um

[6:00] it'll be really quick as I know we've got several items today on the agenda um but as you mentioned we have had an election and we certainly do know the outcome of um three ballot items um that were uh on the 2023 uh ballot as to ballot item 2A which is the city sales use and tax extension that really is about the extending the existing 0.15 City sales tax um with 50% going to the general fund purposes and 50% going to support Arts culture and Heritage that tax expires in 2025 and know that we will be duly incorporating that into our budget for next year and we will be bringing that forward to council during um our regular budget process so stay tuned for more on that as we um continue to work on that in preparation for that uh for the expiration of that tax and it's now renewal as to ballot item 2B regarding Charter changes to elections we will

[7:01] also be uh duly incorporating those uh and those will those changes will absolutely be in place for the next election specifically that item removes a requirement that people who wish to sign petitions in support of mayor or city council candidates do so in person before the city clerk it also allows a city clerk for additional processing time which I believe is uh much needed and much appreciated to reduce the need for overtime or weekend work to process paper petition and finally it clarifies language providing provided state law governs amendments to the city's charger so we will be doing those and those will be in place um before the next uh election occurs and then finally we also had ballot item 302 which was uh passage of the voter initiative item that prioritizes for removal prohibitive it prohibited items located on city property within a radius of 500 fet from any point on a school property line or with than 50 feet on both sides of any

[8:01] multi-use path or sidewalk while our current protocols already allow for prioritized removal near schools know that the team is gathering to assess what additional changes are needed to incorporate the notion of sidewalks as part of the existing protocol so we will be duly doing that and um we will certainly be anticipate talking about our samps work um in the near future so and that is all I have okay thank you now before we go into our work items I'd like to outline how the meeting will be conducted we will review staff's presentations for each of the items and then we will have a time for questions at the end of the presentation we will conduct our Council discussion with staff if you have questions please wait for staff to complete their presentation we will now turn to our city manager Nua Rivera Vander to introduce our first item Nia you are up thank you so much mayor protm um I'm

[9:02] just pulling up my notes Here uh and I'll say that there's a lot of people um who are to thank for this item um and in particular I don't see her currently although maybe I'll switch of you um Megan Davis is with us um she was uh our kind of uh senior project manager there she is um who helped move this along um and Chris M Che of course Deputy city manager was um integral to this uh conversation um and and we have two Consultants who representing here shortly um Melissa and Brian who you'll see and you see already and so we'll be moving forward I'll say that the study session um is has been um coming for a while it's a result of City council's Direction in October 27th of 2022 at that meeting we reviewed sort of board and commission process recommendations we had updates and we

[10:00] got staff direction to hire a consultant to assist with sort of a more comprehensive review of our boards and commission program um and we thank a lot that subcommittee uh Council subcommittee that was working with us um to do that as we move forward it builds and I want to acknowledge that it builds on past work even work that certainly happened before I arrived um Council created in 2021 a subcommittee on engagement which along with the board and commission subcommittee provided input regarding process improvements to the boards and commissions program in 2021 there was a formation of a bipartisan community group called dialogue Boulder which provided council with recommendations for making the board and commission process more meaningful viable and consistent and that was presented last time here as well uh last October um when we were talking about this issue and in 2022 again boards and commissions involved staff members particip in boards and commissions involved staff members participated in diversity equity and

[11:02] inclusion workshops to include to enhance board and commission's diversity uh Equity inclusion and belonging awareness um in 2022 as well staff made several changes to the board and commission Recruitment and selection process based on Council and Community feedback this included one-on-one applicant interviews with staff and a council member interview questions in advance the opportunity for a two-way Q&A and recorded in interviews so that the entirety of council could see those and have access to those I'll say that hopefully today we're um here to sort of present the results of some extensive and you will hear that from our consultant friend soon a lot of stakeholder engagement and we appreciate the work done on that um a lot of looking across at peer cities as well and we're hoping to collect some feedback for some of the recommendations the consultant has provided as we move forward we all know that we're looking to make make sure that both Fords and

[12:00] commissions who provide such vital um Community perspective on all that we do feel valued feel valuable to the process that um we are getting uh we are providing a really meaningful experience for member participants um so we looked extensively at the review of the structure the scope the composition and the process of the current program we also had a lot of public engagement involved and you're hear more of that but I just want to highlight that we involved and included members of dialogue Boulder Community connectors certainly board and commission members Council subcommittee on boards and commissions and uh other additional city council including some previous council members in the process and certainly staff that are involved in this so it's been a lot of work and a lot of Engagement and without uh any more from me I will perhaps pass it to Melissa to kick us off and share those um findings thanks thanks so much anua and um just of note here Brian Wilkerson

[13:01] from my team is also here um with me to support uh this presentation I'm gonna hopefully share my screen very seamlessly at this moment I'm sorry Melissa and as you're doing that if you could just uh share your name and introduce your company sure uh Melissa anol with core flection and I'll let Brian introduce himself Brian wiers also I'm sorry Brian we barely hear you and Melissa don't you're coming in and out a little bit for the first time so I don't know if you need to be a little closer now you were muted can you hear me now okay uh you're a little choppy

[14:00] how about now better please just keep alerting me throughout the presentation if the sound quality still creates some trouble I know I will be talking for quite some time here all right with that I will go ahead and um in the presentation and um thank you n uh for that introduction there's a lot of information for those of you that have reviewed the packet um we'll see there's a lot of detail in each of these slides so I will likely take the approach of highlighting some of the significant points on each of the slides um interrupt it it's still extreme choppy I

[15:00] don't experience okay let me see if I can close out of some other applications and that will help with performance and actually you're great right now but if you want um our clerk's office to do the slides and just do that for you we can do that as well oh do you think that might help we can go ahead and try that I mean just for okay and so let's try Emily if you would and I know you're up look at you you are at the ready so maybe you can turn um your presentation off Melissa and as a last resort we may have to turn the video off shortly while the presentation is is moving forward but let's let's give this a shot okay um let me close down my presentation okay

[16:00] all right so you are now in control correct we are all right great thank you all right so like I mentioned a moment ago I will try to go over some these areas I'm sorry Melissa you are still choppy and robotic let's maybe try turning your video off while you present okay but now you're muted does that sound any better does so far okay let me stop video as well all right all right so you probably have a pretty good grasp of the agenda while I've been troubleshooting right now um so I am going to go ahead and move forward for the sake of time um you know but uh can we do next slide

[17:02] please um next slide um next slide please um so very briefly uh Nuria did provide a pretty robust history of of you know kind of what this project was scope to try and assess as part of the entire boards and commissions program you know so really looking across all areas of the um operation the structure and kind of the experience of boarding commission members so as you can see you know broadly we looked at all different elements of how the boards and commission's program is structured um you know how much role Clarity there is both among board and commission members um community members staff AIS on City staff that support boarding commissions

[18:02] and then we also looked overall at kind of you know things that provide guidance support decision making you know more of the logistical process pieces and then finally we looked at overall kind of where is the boards and commissions program housed you know like how does how is the city organizing the boards and commissions program so that people have um an understanding of where to go to for support so very broadly those were kind of the four primary areas that we were looking at um as part of this assessment project uh next slide please um you know and so when we go into an assessment process you know we try to look across all areas of the organization and so that's really looking at you know what type of what type of structure there is for the program what processes are in place to

[19:01] guide workflow you know what information and skills uh do the people that run the boards and commissions have how is that experience from the recipients of the boards and commission program you know and then overall how is technology utilized to support efficient operation um with this project We Know city of Boulder has been doing a lot of work with the adoption of the racial Equity plan providing racial Equity training um both for staff and boarding commission members and so we've really approached this project by kind of enveloping kind of the racial Equity instrument into our approach for this process so that at all these different organizational areas we're looking at we are truly trying to look at this through a racial Equity lens to make sure that we are identifying areas where where we may be

[20:00] consciously or subconsciously creating barriers right and looking at through our recommended improvements how do we reduce these barriers how do we increase inclusivity connectedness and belonging as part of whatever recommendations that we come up with uh next slide please next slide please um again we we spent probably the first several months of this project making sure that we engaged with a wide variety of people that either directly are boarding commission members City staff that support boards and commissions community members that maybe um have participated um by attending boarding commission meetings or have applied or maybe were you know really didn't have a good understanding of the the boarding commission program um and

[21:00] we did this in a variety of different formats we've done individual interviews we've done surveys or questionnaires we've done some focus group meetings with staff to really use kind of a variety of way to collect information um we also did an extensive benchmarking exercise where we compared across um different communities and Industry Association best practice IES to see kind of well given you know how Society has changed probably even in the last five years how have different communities and Industry associations begun to look at their boards and commissions programs differently and looked at are there opportunities that have been discovered and applied that might be applicable for the city of Boulder to con consider um next slide please fin finally um we did work with the

[22:03] city's core project team to develop a series of guiding principles and this for us guiding principles serve as kind of a touchstone for us um as we move forward with developing recommendations making sure that we are kind of keeping alignment with our Cent and the core goals that the city had for this program um so I won't read through these in detail but some of the the key objectives or you know desired outcomes for this would be you know first and for foremost to say look is you know is there best practices or Innovative approaches that we want to see if we can apply to Boulder that lead to the sustainability of the program over time um making sure that you know as we go through this process not only sharing with you but looking at the recommendations that are adopted how do we maintain kind of that touch point

[23:01] with key stakeholders and um different community members that have participated in the process so that they know that their feedback has been heard and they see the value of that feedback as an important variable of this process as it is with most the work that the city of Boulder does um and then of course maybe some you know internal guiding principles that really think about well when we look at how quick L we want to implement these um any recommendations that are approved as part of this process really thinking about what are the highest priority ones that can create you know the the broadest or the most significant impact in the short term but also recognizing that some of these imp improvements will take several years to implement um and so with that really thinking about staff's capacity capacity and the feasibility to implement you know small changes versus large scale changes that may require in

[24:01] addition to Staffing more resources to you know um appropriately Implement uh next slide please so as with um most of the work we do you know we always acknowledge that while we are tasked to go in and try to identify you know hey what's not working well we need to like focus on how to improve things we we also equ we spend equal time really trying to understand let's not break you know like let's not try to fix something that's not broken let's instead like let's just enhance and build on the strength of what's already working well um so in this this end there are a lot of really strong pieces um throughout the city program um that I just want to take a moment to highlight and first and foremost I think everyone in this audience understands that you have um you know amazing

[25:00] commitment of community members that volunteer their time to serve on the boarding commission program um and in all our interviews with boarding commission members you know they they all believe that this is a valuable service and they enjoy their participation in the boards and commissions program so that really says something both about the city and about the existing program strength um you know internally I think staff really look at boards and commissions as an opportunity for them to you know really vet some Complex Community issues um and see that that has value you know because you're getting an objective or an objective perspective you know outside of the own staff department um other areas where I think there are strengths is we do see the city of Boulder you know continuing to invest in technology that helps to maintain Administration efficient

[26:00] administration of the program which also um you know pays attention to staff's capacity and technological Investments always help enhancing to enhance staff capacity um the city clerk's office while the program hasn't been centralized or directly housed within the city clerk's office we do see that they have done a great job of managing kind of term expiration recording boarding commission meetings helping with recruiting um all of those are vital um Investments of time on a regular basis to maintain the boarding commission program next slide please next slide please um so before we talk about kind of our findings which we've categorized into kind of four or five big areas um I wanted to first in introduce um this framework that we developed as part of

[27:03] us trying to organize all the all of our findings and that was like really looking at you know some sort of system for classifying the different types of boards and commissions that you have in the city of Boulder because in a lot of ways they have different functions they have different levels of authority um and how they interface both with Council or with the public can vary um and so and so for us being able to group um you know kind of our findings as well as our recommendations or thinking about them across these different four types of categories has been very helpful um and I will go into this in a little more detail um as we go through the presentation but if you think about the boards and commissions you have in the city of the boulder you know know certainly the ones that people

[28:00] often interact with on a more regular basis mostly because of meeting frequency are those quasi judicial um boards or commissions because they have a certain degree of independent decision making Authority um and they're the ones that are making more formal regular recommendations to council so those might be like your planning board would be an example of a quasi judicial committee the second uh category of boards and commissions that we saw in the city of Boulder are more like your general Improvement districts and those are kind of those special service districts um that you know are really focused within a specific geographic area typically a commercial area and they have certain functions or decision making Authority that is I would say it's very specific and it's Associated maybe with specific amenities so that might be the Boulder Junction TDM or parking Advisory Board um this

[29:02] third type of categorization for boards and commissions are the advisory and those are those are truly advisory in nature um you know they're their job is more they're exploring policy issues or projects that are of concern to the community so this might be more like your environmental Advisory Board is one example of that they do not conduct any independent decision-making Authority rather they are just reviewing typical types of policy issues um and then the fourth type of Border commission which does not currently exist in the city of Boulder but we are seeing become more formalized is use using this fourth vehicle which is like a task force and I know the city of Boulder uses task force when it goes through Master planning processes or you're dealing with large scale projects you know and the task

[30:00] force is a really interesting tool to think about potentially um adding to the city of Boulder in a more formal way in the future you know these have a specific start and end starting and date they have maybe two or three specific objectives that an interdisciplinary body might be formed around um and then once they've kind of come up with those recommendations to Council then the the the task force would end right and so you could have something like a specific project that you want to explore like a Housing Initiative or something and then you would have a specific outcome so those are four different categories um that you'll see you should be considering when we go through kind of the findings and recommendations uh next slide please

[31:01] all right so looking across the entire boards and commissions program there were kind of four primary themes that emerged as part of our assessment process um and so I'll go through each of these themes um pretty briefly um and then we can kind of go to some of the recommendations so first and foremost you know there does appear to be um an overall I would say lack of clarity um of purpose and you know understanding of the results um so secondly you know one of the major theme is like really thinking about the efficiency the effectiveness and the experience of the boards and commissions programs third which I'll go over in more detail is really talking about boarding commission representation and with this we're talking about boarding commission members kind of what

[32:02] that representation looks like now compared to overall population types present in the city of Boulder and kind of some areas where we see some gaps and then lastly one of the biggest um one of the other assessment themes is really focused on the overall model or the way the boards and commissions program is structured inside the city and how it delivers services um so next slide please I'll go into each of these in a little more detail um so the first one I want to talk about is Clarity and purpose Clarity of purpose and results um so something that we did see was consistent kind of across you know a lot of our engagement efforts was there seems to be a lack of clarity in people's understandings about kind of what what is the core purpose of the boards and commissions um you know and kind of what

[33:03] what are the outcomes we're expecting from them um and this to us has emerged just kind of like a dichotomy of intentions right and that's really trying to understand if boards and commissions are really supposed to be this tool we where we are trying to get broad Community inclusion or are they really to be this Core group of subject matter experts that are advising Council on you know whether it's Council Council priorities and work plans or other items of interest to the council um you know and so while there are certainly times where I think there's alignment in both those goals um oftentimes they're not and and we found this lack of clarity has led to misinterpretation at different times right um you know and

[34:00] for us until that question you know until we get clarity or agreement on on what that looks like you can kind of see it cascading through different elements of the boards and commissions program where some things if we answer that question we could fix other areas we've found that maybe are already out of alignment um you know so first and foremost you know we are seeing that overall you do need to kind of update your purpose statements um a lot of the boards and commissions do not have existing bylaws some don't have working agreements right and and like all things that is kind of the Touchstone that will guide staff um City staff that support boarding commissions and certainly boarding commission members and understanding what their roles and responsibilities are um so certainly

[35:00] that you know that creates a big hiccup in things if there's not if those haven't really been touched in a long time and there's not a lot of clarity on kind of well what can we do what issues um are within our purview or what are outside of our scope Authority um so we've seen some you know people are interpreting and solving issues on the Fly because those aren't aren't updated um similarly we see there have been a variety of different attempts of well how should Bor and commissions interface with city council um and we've seen different attempts um but they seem to be rather inconsistent you know and that indicates well maybe that method wasn't the best method or maybe we just didn't do it on a consistent basis so it's not seen as a Val a valid tool right um you know and so one of those is use of the work plan boarding commissions develop a

[36:01] work plan but there's no real guidance on well how do we develop that work plan what elements need to be part of it should Council review it does staff review it is it approved and do we use that you know so really understanding how the work plan creates that alignment between council's desired um you know communication with boards and commissions um or not um some simly we we saw that both with the annual letter you know and understanding kind of what the priorities are um two areas I think are great opportunities for improvement for the city is really right now you don't have an annual report that just summarizes kind of well what did our border commission accomplish this year and that's a great opportunity to really understand kind of the work of all your boarding commissions um and then secondly having a process where you can actually review a border commission and say gosh do we need to

[37:02] update their scope you know do we need to you know do we need to um change kind of what their focus is or have they served their purpose and maybe it's time to retire this border commission um I would say a lot of communities have adopted this process um because otherwise you start to establish too many boards and commissions and even though maybe their purpose has been served um or the activities they do have been operationalized within the city that border commission still exists um and that's not a fair use of many people's time uh next slide please so um so I talked a little bit about the impact of kind of that lack of clarity purpose um so certainly moving forward forward you know we would really want to see the process of like updating

[38:01] purpose statements bylaws developing working agreements so you provide that Clarity on roles and responsibilities it becomes not only accountability tool but a touchstone when there are questions about well is this something we do or we shouldn't do um or whose role is this so that would be really helpful we certainly would recommend that you provide um you know you provide a process that gives you an opportunity to review boards and commissions in the future um next slide please uh so the second second area um relates to kind of the overall effectiveness and the experience of boarding commission members um so certainly as I mentioned some of this stuff really Cascades down um across the boards and commission's program um because you know there 's this kind of lack of role Clarity or inconsistent

[39:00] management approach you do see a little inefficiency in how the program is run um right now I mean just based on the number of boards and commissions you have and the number of items that are being taken or the meeting frequency you see staff can spend anywhere from 30 to 350 hours a month on a border border commission activities um you know and then of course like Community Vitality if you have multiple boards and commissions that could take you know an upwards of 30% a year time um really just supporting boards and commissions um for us you know if we look at maybe some of the root causes of this yes one is lack of clarity in that process consistency what that translated to is really understanding well what items really need to go to a border commission um you know what items really could be handled inh

[40:01] house or done administratively inh house um you know so those are two pieces where I think it would be valuable to really understand you know are there things that we really need a board and commission to weigh in on or is it more important for staff to do it themselves um you know another area where you know boards and commissions right now not all boards and commissions offer opportunities for public engagement um I would say most have adopted a public comment period but others have not and so this kind of limits the engagement opportunity for people that just want to voice their concern or raise a issue next slide please um another area we explored in this category is really thinking about how this structure and operation of boards and commissions results in a positive or

[41:01] concerning experience from a board member perspective um I would say overall people felt really positive about their experience as a boarding commission member um there are some areas for improvement as well um and this information on this slide is keep in mind this is collected this information is a combination of people that current ly sit on the board so already can coexist so to speak in the way the program is run now we heard feedback from Community stakeholders that these are reasons why they can't participate and so one of those is thinking about a five-year term um so while only 20% of your corrent current board membership thought that a five-year term was was too long um people we spoke with in the community said that was a a something that

[42:02] restricted their participation because that certainly wouldn't work with the other obligations they have um in their in their personal lives um you know certainly some things that I think also deter people in strain your current boarding commission members is you know people having to spend five to six hours at a border Commission meeting um you know that's certainly not sustainable right now boarding commission members are asked to attend um site visits hold subcommittee meetings um some are even asked to review Council meetings that are you know each of your Council meetings um and we did hear some feedback people saying this you know the volume of work is so significant they probably would have not participated if they knew the level of commitment required um on the opposite end of the

[43:00] spectrum you have some boards and commissions um that feel like they're meeting just to meet um staff Liaisons for those boards and commissions have said sometimes they struggle to develop an agenda for their border commission um and so they find themselves just bringing informational items to those boarding commissions so they feel like they have something to share with them you know on both end of these spectrums there there is kind of you know people question kind of the overall purpose value and benefit so those are things to keep in mind next slide please so I think I highlighted most the impacts related to this um you know but in terms of recommended changes you know I really do think that um as part of our assessment we thought it would be really helpful to come up with some sort of

[44:01] formal process that helps departments determine what really needs to go to a board or commission member um or a board or commission um and then what could be handled inous this will help reduce the amount of time spent bringing items to boards and commissions um just to bring them to them um and then really utilizing that expertise they have to that issues that are important um you know and like certainly I think providing some training to staff that helps them understand kind of how do we better manage our meetings so you know sometimes yes we have long meetings but you know maybe that's better agenda management maybe that's better training for the chairs coming up with toolkits that help people try to manage the workloads both for themselves and what they're asking of their boards and commissions um we do have some

[45:02] recommendations about reducing term limits that could vary based on the border commission category that I introduced a little earlier um and while term limits can vary you can also make decisions about whether or not those they're allowed to serve consecutive terms um even if you reduce those term limits so there's a lot of different ways you could approach um that offering that will help to you know get you a little more variation among people that are willing to participate in the boards and commissions program next slide please so representation was um one area we spent a lot of time um really evaluating both in terms of you know the current boarding commission membership and comparing that against the overall

[46:01] um city of Boulder Community I believe that as an attachment to this packet there is an entire demographic profile summary that we did as part of this project effort so I just have a few slides I want to highlight here that give you a better understanding um of representation um but first and foremost one thing to remember and I tell myself this all the time because I've been working in government for gosh like 30 years um when we met with community members at large um you know there's a lot of feedback where people still perceive local government as kind of this mysterious Enigma they don't really understand what local government is or how it operates right and so some people may not even be aware that a boards and commissions program exists um and so they may not know to be monitoring a City website um for

[47:01] boarding commissioning openings and then if they did see something like that would they feel qualified to participate um because a lot of people just they just don't really understand how government works um you know other people that we spoke with like certainly feel that um boards and the boards and commissions is a pretty politicized program feeling like if they're not connected or they're not trying to at some point serve on city council that um you know that there's really there's no sense in applying because if you're just Average Joe's citizen you're not likely to get um appointed to a border commission member so that's you know the process overall people's familiarity with government is certainly something that in can be seen as intimidating you know we heard some people that they felt like

[48:02] applying to the process seemed more like it it was as in indepth as going through a job interview um you know so so that's certainly an area where we see that impacting who actually participates uh next slide please um so what you see here is a snapshot of that demographic Pro file packet that we shared with you um your current this is a the demographics of the current board membership um and so I won't go over this in detail but you can see that it is um a fairly smaller slice of the city of Boulder compared to your overall Community right you have 85% of the board members are white they average between 45 and 65 years Highly Educated um with a very high income

[49:01] level um and are typically married homeowners uh next slide please so if you compare that with well we did compare that with the different population types in the city of Boulder and if you look to the right of that slide you can see that um you are missing um a lot of people with different cultural backgrounds certainly younger age groups people that maybe aren't you know just have a high school Associates or bachelor's degree and people that are more average income or renting um so there is you know there are some improvements certainly to be made in attracting different population types for the city of Boulder next slide please so overall um you know when it comes to representation I think there there has been a lot of inadvertent um

[50:02] ways that the program has been structured that maybe excludes people um and I think part of that relates to thinking about the level of subject matter expertise that may actually be required for those different categories of boards and commission membership um you know and so certainly thinking moving forward thinking about how do we design application processes that give a balance between those that have subject matter interest that contribute can contribute their lived experience as well as those that have technical expertise um in the application requirements um certainly there are a lot of ways we could improve people's understanding of what the board's and commission's program is I know Boulder County has a boarding commission Academy it's a Citizens Academy um and I know

[51:02] through my conversations with Community Communications engagement they have talked about doing more education and informational sessions so there are ways to kind of improve the community's knowledge about boards and commissions program um you know I think one other item of note in here is thinking about the overall appointment process for different boards and commission and how um well you all don't seem intimidating to me um because I've worked with local government for a while that can sometimes be a deterrent for others so thinking about for different categories of boards and commissions could you maybe have different representative bodies participating in those appointment processes um and then finally I know this is something the city had in a lot of the work it's done in the past couple years they have started to do some research about thinking about um stiens

[52:01] incentives or benefits to help incentivize volunteerism and boards and commissions and that's consistent with our findings as well as what we see a lot of other communities exploring as well um next slide please uh so the last category I'd really like to go over is kind of the overall program model that the city has and that's kind of how is the program structured within the city city operations um you know and kind of how well is that working um I will say um right now you have a city clerk that city clerk's office is managing kind of recruitment initial onboarding and Records management but there's no kind of dedicated person that is looking over all aspects of boards and commissions program instead you have um a highly decentralized model or what we call a

[53:00] decentralized model where each department is kind of managing the program in their own way and so while I think there have been some processes that have been developed and shared overall we see a lot of inconsistency in how different departments do things um and certainly that creates more work it creates different experiences um and so there are certainly opportunities for improvement in that area uh next slide please um and so you know Chief among those is really thinking about well how are we training staff to run the program and how are we orienting and onboarding our boarding commission members in a con consistent way so everyone enters into the city boarding commission program with the same understanding of what's required what's expected how we treat each other what it means to be a

[54:00] successful boarding commission member and then of course how to effectively run a meeting and manage the um information that's shared with them you know so certainly I would say a lot of our recommendations in this area is looking at the need to really house boards and commissions within the city clerk's office you can still um have that embedded resource support across the city organization and different departments but to have kind of a home base for boards and commissions so you can develop these consistent processes training and protocol um and then of course to make sure that all staff boarding commission members are trained not only on the program but that it is required training to be trained in the racial Equity tool next slide please uh next slide please all right so I know I went through some of that fast and in other places maybe

[55:01] spent too much time um you know at this point I kind of want to shift to some of the questions that we really want you to be thinking about and as a reminder so one was that discussion I shared with you about the boards and commissions classification system or categories um you know thinking about different changes that might be needed and how some of those could apply to some of these boarding commission types but not all of them and so what we're recommending is would it make sense to group boards and commissions in the city of Boulder under these four different or I should say the three existing um boards and commission types next slide please so this is with this question is really looking at where your current your current named

[56:01] boarding commissions fall across the different boarding commission types so here's the Quasi judicial and the general Improvement districts and then this is the advisory and the task force boarding commission types okay next slide all right this so this table um these tables represent kind of changes we are recommending be applied to the different boarding commission type so as you can see on the far left of the slide we have the type whether it's quasi judicial General improvement district or advisory and the questions we have are

[57:02] changes to purpose composition appointment who has the appointment Authority and then we're recommending a reduction in the term length and then of course review and retiring boarding commissions and I can certainly we talk through these in more detail if that's helpful okay um and then the final question we have related to this is you know thinking about moving forward does the city council um is their interest in having us develop a criteria in review the following boards and commissions to determine you know is there redundancy

[58:02] overlap do we need to change the scope or should some of these be retired and these are the boards and commissions that we've highlighted as part of this process next slide please so what these next two slides represent um I know this is a lot of information to go through um so these are kind of the compilation of all the recommended changes across each of those four assessment areas that we went through um largely these would all be operational improvements that the city manager would guide us in helping to determine which of those we need to move forward and this would support our next step of implementation planning so next step or next

[59:04] slide and so you can see the last um assessment theme I went over and this is the summary of all of those recommendations next slide so at this point um you know we'd like to use what time we have left I know I went a little long um to certainly get feedback from you all on the presentation um and then of course whatever information we collect from you we would use that to support our next phase of the project which is implementation planning for the city next slide so at this point um we are finished with the presentation portion of this we do have a summary of the questions that we can put back up but at this point um if you could stop sharing

[60:02] the deck thank you Melissa and we're actually going to put the questions up on the chat for uh council member ease and I know that was a lot of information and can't thank you enough for um going through all that and all the comments you got um and if you want you can maybe try to put your video on again and see how that goes now that we don't have a presentation on but at this Point mayor PRM maybe I will pass it on to you thank you and thank you Melissa that was a an extremely comprehensive presentation um let me turn to my colleagues uh first for uh questions they might have uh relating to this presentation and uh the first hand up is juny so take it away juny I did have a question about the last few slides that you had you mentioned uh one of the feedback that you were asking from us whether to develop a criteria for review for redundancy

[61:01] overlap or to retire do you say are you saying that we should give you feedback on whether to retire these uh boards and commissions as of tonight or you saying that you're looking for a nod from us on whether to develop criterias on whether these boards should be um retired in the future uh uh that's that's a great question so what we found in our our research and what I've found on previous projects I've done in this area is a lot of communities do have a process in place that enables them to review a certain oh I'm sorry Melissa we're hearing you weirdly garbled have to turn off your video again so sorry I'm gonna blame concast for um but I'll turn off my camera no you've muted

[62:03] yourself it's because I'm getting nervous because nothing is working I apologize okay um can you hear me okay now hear you well thank you all right so most communities have a process like this so that recommendation is to ask you if it would be valuable for the city to develop a process to actually in the future begin reviewing boards and commissions and so part of developing that process would be identifying the criteria we would need to use to determine do we need to um update the scope consolidate or retire so it's the proc process as part of the information we shared um as part of this assessment

[63:01] process we we took a highlevel look at the existing boards and commissions program and said gosh we see potential redundancy or overlap on those boards and commissions that we looked at but we would want you to develop a standardized Equitable process for reviewing boards and commissions and so that is what that recommendation is related to thank you can I just offer my feedback now Mark um sure I think that makes some sense just a comment I really appreciate the layout and how you present um earlier I think it's great I would say yes move forward with having those categories of Quasi judicial General Improvement advisory and task force I think that's going to be really helpful to council members in the future to know in which bucket uh which board and commission fits under and it helps

[64:01] us as well as when we are seeking feedback and who to se feedback from and knowing as well the weight of their feedback um and also just understanding the process I think that's great and moving forward with the criterias as well to understand where redundancies are I think we it make our boards much better right because ultimately we want the transportation board to do Transportation work but we know sometimes there is overlap or there is where there's a cross intersectionality between transportation and housing and climate so I think just take into account these intersections But ultimately um streamlining the board and commission process to ensure that they have very clear mandate will be helpful thanks thank you that's my feedback thank and mayor rocket yeah so I was going a similar direction to juny uh jun's question just

[65:00] to follow up on on that so it's helpful to understand that we' be looking at a developing process by which we might you know repurpose or or discontinue or such with the board but just to drill into the specifics there were some boards mentioned there that I think uh have to exist kind of for certain functions of the C City for example the landmarks board like we can't have our landmarks program without the landmarks board or the Housing Authority board has a very specific function of being the board for our local housing authority and I don't think we could change its scope particularly or so I just I got a little bit caught up in the weeds of the specific examples that that you were giving there so I guess the question would be maybe why you included some of those examples in in that possible repurposing area yes that's that is a really good question and um certainly we recognize that some of these boards have quasi judicial functions they have other authorities that are guiding the work

[66:00] they do um they were the ones most often um through our research and through our engagement that there has that those areas were voiced of having redundancy or overlap so it's um but in this process we maybe went two inches deep into each board in commission why we would want to go through and establish a criteria for review would be so that we could really validate okay well this is what we've heard this is what we've learned through this assessment process now let's apply an objective criteria and see does this really work right because certainly we could say well gosh why don't you just combine these three or four boards but they may that may not be reasonable logical or even um be in

[67:00] line with your Charter or code right and so so I'm not sure I'm entirely answering that question I think those are highlighted but they would the ones we've named are the ones that seem like there's a lot of opportunity and once we develop the criteria they would be the first kind of group we would want to review got it and I get just one more specific thing to dive into like I saw that uh the open space board was mentioned under both quasa judicial and advisory because I guess it has a little bit of both but I think there are others that fall in the double category as well like the human relations commission for example much of it is advisor but they do have a small qu a a quasi judicial function as well so I guess I'll give a real quick bit of feedback if I may before um I wait for other comments later my um uh I would say in this area that this is moving in a promising direction to do the categorizations and look at developing criteria but I would just really caution against moving

[68:00] forward with these specific assignments and the specific ones that we would PRI prioritize for evaluation and instead maybe leave that to the the process that we develop would also we would develop a list of which ones we should look at would be our recommendation in that area thank you Matt you're Matt you're mut you're muted I am man uh for one this is really bold work um and these recommendations really push the envelope for the city so I think that's quite tremendous um just want to lead with that I'll come to comments here in in a moment my question kind of comes down to as you're doing this work Melissa are you getting a sense of how to maybe package some of these changes and maybe sense of timing U because I look through this and I'm like some of these might be quick and easy and other the others might require actually quite a bit of Outreach to the community because there's such substantive change substantive changes

[69:01] that that we wouldn't want to just drop this we would need to sort of really say hey here's what we're planning to do and get that feedback so I'm wondering if you're seeing any of these sort of naturally package in uh scope but also in timing um because some of these changes I'd love to see them happen soon but I also don't want to wait for the comprehensive package but then to delay that a couple years when there could be stuff that we could rather quickly so I'm I'm just wondering if you're getting a sense of of how that maybe sort of naturally lays out or if you're already starting to group things together like that and Matt I might jump in on this one and answer that question since it's more of a staff implementation one and I think the the short answer is um we don't know yet we wanted to have this conversation with Council and get some feedback on these kind of critical key questions but then the the project team along with uh Melissa and Brian are meeting to start to work through that uh implementation plan there's lots of operational ones and then there's some that that would take a little bit longer and might necessitate things like code changes so um it'll probably be a bit of

[70:01] a rolling implementation um we just don't have it all mapped out just yet okay I I appreciate that Chris and um I think there might be more comments later but I'll just sort of one thing I'll lead up right now is um I just want to give credit to Rachel and Bob who in manyways teed up a number of these suggestions some time ago and uh council's changed I guess the previous Council was not interested in some of these recommendations I'm sorry guys but this one this one now is um but nonetheless I appreciate you guys team that up because that anyway sparked a lot of this conversation um and got us kind of where we are today where we can have a consultant really anchor some of this stuff so I just want to give credit where credits due that that some of that stuff was uh pushed down the hill by by our Council colleagues and and kind of led us to today so thank you guys Matt it was our goodbye present to you thank you Nicole yes uh Matt just asked most of my questions but just to follow up a little bit so it sounds like um with the the timeline um you're going

[71:03] to kind of come back to the next council with some ideas around you know where are we going to start and you know how much time is this going to take because when I you know look at all this to me this is like five to seven years of work is is kind of what it's looking like so um just wanted to get a sense of you know when when this may come back and um the sort of General thoughts about what kind of information we would start with because I imagine it's not going to be working on this for years and then coming back with the whole package of things they'll probably be pieces at a time yeah Nicole I think you're right that it will be uh phased and um I might look to Megan if you uh have any of the additional or kind of initial thoughts from uh from the project team on what we were thinking in terms of some of the initial timing but I think we we haven't mapped it all out yet so I it might be still a little fuzzy but I'll I'll look

[72:00] to you Megan to see if there's uh anything else to add no I think you you captured it Chris we're um our next step is really to start um discussing the implementation plan and exactly what kind of that phasing and sequencing looks like and the direction um or just I should say the feedback that you're providing this evening is is going to help sort of shape some of those because there will certainly be things that you know we wouldn't items that we wouldn't want to address prior to addressing kind of some of the policy um issues and matters that will will need to be addressed as well so we're going to start to kind of get our arms around um what can be done in the short term uh that we wouldn't have to go back and sort of redo so to speak if we got um Direction around some of the specific boards and commissions great thank you um and then uh Chris I just want to make sure I heard you say this correctly it sounds like considering code changes for some of these U boards and commissions is not out of the question too and that's

[73:01] something that would kind of come back in time so we're not sort of stuck with things as they were initiated decades ago and um we we will have some flexibility potentially to change them if it makes sense exactly that's correct and you know just the way we describe the each board in Commission in the city code it varies greatly and so if we want to create some consistency across on boards or board types even um that might be some of what we explore based on whatever feedback we receive from Council tonight Lauren you're next thank you Mark um let's see so I really appreciated kind of breaking it down into this classification structure um but I was wondering if I know you only went two inches deep into that but it did it really do all the advisory boards feel like they cleanly fit together in one

[74:01] group or to me it feels like there might be divisions there and I was just wondering if if you started to see any categories or ways that might be broken down more or does that feel like really four is kind of what we should be looking aiming for in terms of the number of this these groups yeah I'm trying to think about how best to answer that question um the way we tried to categorize the different boards and commissions was really thinking about their level of authority their ability to act in independently and what governs their existence um so even though and I'm just

[75:02] thinking of different advisory boards even though um advisory boards maybe might have let's say a more direct connection with Council rather than exploring policy issues that are a concern of the department or Community um I don't think the classification for them necessarily changes but I guess I'm not sure if I'm clear on what your question is I mean in all honesty it's okay I can I'll just move on to another for the moment so um as you were looking at other community there was a recommendation about sort of moving appointments um to the city manager for some boards and commissions and I was wondering what other kinds of

[76:00] appointment systems are you know are we seeing nationally is that a really common way are there other ways that you know other than us as city council looking at everyone that you know what are the options there right um so I will say this this is a newer practice that has been integrated I would say in the last few years I think I also think in the last few years more communities are starting to do what border Boulder is doing looking at their boards and commissions um I will say predominantly yes you still see the boards and commissions being handled by city council for communities that are starting to re-evaluate and take a fresh look at their boards and commissions programs IE they actively assessing them we have seen shifts where it could be the city manager's office in

[77:02] some cases you have a department themselves doing the appointments um or you can see some mix of that right I think our feeling there is thinking about well how do we how do we remove the feeling of it being a highly politicized process but also make sure that we are going through a fair and Equitable process that gives us a good balance of boarding commission members um you know so while I think department and City staff and city council City manager's office they're all very skilled in thinking about how we create that in the boards and commissions program I haven't seen that being handled like at a community level or a boarding commission member level at least not in the research we did as part

[78:00] of this project so I would say those are the most common types those top two types is either or sorry top three it's city council City manager's office or departments thank you and then you listed some boards and commissions where we might look at um you know thinking if we should retire them or various things but I was wondering if we also maybe before that should look at work rebalancing I've heard a number of people bring forward issues around like the amount of time commitment of some of our boards and the amount of work that is tasked to them and so I was wondering if there is a plan to look at how to address maybe our over utilized boards as well other than just um I I know that

[79:04] you talked in the presentation about kind of having staff review what goes in front of boards but I think of like planning board you know a lot of what comes in front of them is required to be reviewed by them and of course we're looking at trying to make that process um apply to fewer projects on the by changing the rules but anyway it still seems like there's probably going to be a significant amount of work there is that something we're going to look at I would say that you know certainly across the entire program we looked at that um you are absolutely correct that there probably needs to be a closer look across certain board boards planning board it you know I I would say you have three or four boards that are you know

[80:00] like really overloaded planning board is one of them and so yes there would be priority work with you know you could even almost generalize and say is it the Quasi judicial boards really looking at what are we requiring of them what can we maybe do inhouse I.E administ atively I know with the planning board there may be some opportunities but it would also require code changes to enable things to be handled administratively rather than being brought to the board and those any package of changes that happen like that yes are going to take significant time and effort but there are potentially other ways to manage that planning board is probably going to be the most complicated right because a lot of that work is driven driven by app application volume um yeah I add Melissa Council priorities

[81:00] all right we we knew that we were putting the planning board to task as we were trying to land at the end of this term a lot of items so they got pinched really severely in the past few months and we want to publicly say thank you to all our planning board members who hung up with us um but I do think that's part of uh an evaluation to look at all the boards and just acknowledge that um planning recently just got super pinched and squeezed in the end that's all of my questions for the moment thank you all right Tara Melissa do you want us to just ask you questions about number one or questions about number one and number two um I think you could answer you can ask questions about anything um so following up with what Lawrence said about the advisory boards did you consider like uh dividing into Advisory

[82:02] Board a and Part B um B being let's say the technical boards the waterboard um I think that you know my opinion and I could be wrong you you did the studying of it where Parks Board you just need to like to go to Parks but what you don't you probably shouldn't be on there um but the water board you should I would think know something about water it's complicated so have you considered that when you or would you consider dividing it up into a and b especially when it comes to representation in type of education that that's really good information and feedback I think we would be willing I I mean I do not want to speak for the city um but certainly I think there might be some possibility there if you look there are a couple

[83:02] advisory boards there that certainly might have more technical requirements does that mean that or I should say it shouldn't mean that when it comes to representation that you still can't have a blend of people that maybe aren't you know a hydrologist but are a school teacher you could still provide the same sort of recommendations even though the scope of different advisory boards exists take when it comes to the uh the the uh um design Advisory Board we task them sometimes city council tests them with you know look into this what do you think of that so I would think that they would need some design experience if we're going to depend on them to design to help us with

[84:02] design that's just the thought Lauren probably has something to say about that don't you Lauren maybe in comments anyway moving on to my second question um I noticed that you had for the instead of five years you mostly wrote two years can you tell me what was your thinking when it came to two years versus let's say three years and did you consider one year for let's say students so we can have some student involvement because I think it would be hard for some of them to do more than a year so um the thinking is mostly related to what we saw across typical boarding commission programs that takes into account what is a reasonable level of time to become onboarded understand City operations the

[85:01] scope um and the general nature of activities that you would be asked to you know become informed on and make decisions around um I will say five years is probably the least common I see across boarding commissions um Nationwide um what instead I see more commonly is two to threee terms but that you are able to serve consecutive terms or successive terms so so the city of Boulder could potentially attract more people that when they see five years they think gosh that's a a very big commitment for me and what's going on in my personal life as opposed to if they see a two-year term but then if they really think it

[86:02] works with their life balance they could serve for a total of four or six years right and so you because we know there's a perception out there while some people feel like gosh I need five years just to understand what the planning board does other communities have two-year terms and they're planning boards operate operate fine um so I'm sharing a little of kind of what our findings were ultimately I think the city can make that decision how comfortable they feel um a one-year term for a student I didn't come across that but I love that idea because I I have seen in a couple of places where they have started to add student members or you've seen students participating in board and commissions but I've never seen a proactive attempt and so that might be great being a University Town to offer

[87:02] something like that even the second um what was that second category was it 26 to I guess The Graduate School category whatever that was after the student um and then are you going to discuss are you planning to suggest that when we fill a board or a commission or when the city manager does that we have you know one student uh one renter are you suggesting us be specific in you know type of gender diversity or do you just want us to be what's your plan do you want us to be aware of it or do you want us to do actual um what's the word somebody you know what up thanks qua um we certainly are not suggesting to get overly

[88:02] specific I think and certainly I would like City staff to jump in on this if there is a prescription you know or more detail I was just GNA try to to contribute to that Melissa what I was okay thank you yeah what I what I think we're wanting here is just general feedback are we going in the right direction right and I think um we would then take that and develop some criteria precisely for those um for some boards we want to have make sure there's an equal mix of um renters we want to make sure that there are folks with um depending on the board with some climate um uh knowledge we want to have folks that really come to it in the city with perhaps no experience so that we're providing experience to the city so it might depend on each board but we wanted to hear that and then the other thing I'll say uh Tara to your initial question is um while I agree with Melissa we don't see it often the one-year term for students we just did

[89:00] this and suggested this at the PO um precisely because we knew that it would be easier for students if they had one-ear obligation then certainly we can have ways for students if they have more capacity to reup so if that's an interest which um which I see some nodding heads around that's something to give us and as we continue to think about what the criteria is for each board and implementation we love hearing that so that we make sure we get that that criteria in okay that's it for now thank okay that leaves me uh I really have very little um and then we'll go into comments um can you tell me why we uh are treating Portland which has six times our population as a pure City for purposes of analysis and Minneapolis which has three times our population but exists in a metro met area uh over 30 times our size um as part of our peer group it seems to me to to uh skew the

[90:00] analysis a little bit and you know I'd like to hear your thoughts on that yes um I do understand um how sensitive people are about kind of pure City comparisons and um and we have done a lot of benchmarking and our work as part of our Consulting practice I will say our approach for this and what we've learned over doing a lot of Benchmark research well it's important to kind of look at like siiz communities um you know in terms of population size we also try to match maybe similar um I don't want to say politics I'm trying to think of the the word like Boulder City of Boulder is a very Progressive community and we know you have a tradition of really engaging the

[91:02] community and trying out different Innovative approaches to doing things so when we did a scan kind of of like well what communities are really looking at their boards and commissions program and trying out different methods those that are really focused on diversity equity and inclusion those that are really trying to say how do our boards and commissions relate to our city council you know so it was more defined we selected those more based on the series of objectives we had for the assessment and where we saw communities kind of embracing a more proactive and a pro Progressive best practices approach so I know that was long-winded but that's the only answer I have because yes we know you are not Portland OR Minnesota or even Wisconsin in terms of size but they

[92:02] are all actively going through similar processes in their own communities thank you um we have already in effect begun the uh process of comments but uh let's do that formally uh I want to kick this back to my colleagues for uh comments on the presentation and the direction of the program and uh first up it is uh Nicole you win the lottery yay um at least the fastest response um I just want to thank everyone first of all uh I think this is such great work I think it's really exciting um I love this kind of organizational work uh and and just I I think everything that's being proposed here um to me is very reasonable and um I am happy with the way that we're talking about moving moving forward um in terms of having some information about implementation and everything uh the specific questions in terms of the proposed categorization um I really like

[93:02] it um I also like the idea I think Tara you raised it about the idea of um having sort of subcategories of advisory Boards of Technical and non-technical but one thing I would love to know more about is um what what are the lanes for those those um technical boards because we have staff who have technical expertise and they're really good and um just you know thinking about what exactly are we asking people to do if they're coming in with technical expertise that we already have inh house so I think for me that's a really um key component of that um Advisory Board um you know as as we're thinking about this further and the kinds of changes that we're going to make um what's the staff role what's the board role and and how are we differentiating that to make sure everybody knows um where they're operating um in terms of feedback on the recommendations for purpose and scope

[94:01] and all of that um I would really like I think at the stage that we're at right now what's going to be most useful is to just kind of talk about themes not necessarily specifics of how to do things because you all are in the process of thinking about how to do it so with that in mind um I think you know thinking about how to include students I think that's a really uh important important one um I think for me also as we're thinking about these things I would love to see when this comes back to us with an implementation plan um what are some of our um um goals for how we're going to achieve better representation um particularly within I think it was the Latino community Asian um communities were uh some of the the most underrepresented so what's our plan for kind of getting to a better place and how are we going to track it to make sure that we are um seeing those those changes over time so um hearing more about what needs to change and how we're going to make those changes um and then let's see um oh and then and I

[95:01] think just just um regarding the uh implementation plan itself um in terms of additional feedback um because this is going to reflect some really big changes um I would just like to hear about how we're going to go about the the some of the the boards and commissions are going to require less change than others and um I think starting with some of the easier ones to change maybe just from an implementation perspective um a little bit easier because it's going to get us used to the process um some of these things have been around for a while we've got old habits and we know those die hard so what are um just in thinking about the implementation what are the things that are also going to help us uh make a kind of a a cultural shift in how we're approaching boards and commissions to um so that we can make this really successful but I love this work um thanks Lauren and Tara for all of your

[96:01] subcommittee work as well um this is amazing and excellent I think it's going to make a really big difference for the city and the efficiency of everything we do so thank you cara you were a little slower but you're not you're next up Mark oh first I want to say uh Melissa and everybody that I think this is a magnificent report of course I'm very interested in the subject um so if you will all bear with me with my comments I'm sure I won't have any for part two of tonight so I'm going to take all my comments now um first of all I agree 100% that uh our advisory boards are the ones that suffer with uh from not having purpose some of them when I was on Parks we had a very specific agenda and we so that's why a part of me knows that not all advisory boards are the same but I'm looking forward to either sunsetting or giving purpose to

[97:03] um some of our purposeless or less purposeful that's a word um boards because nobody likes to feel like they are wasting their time and I know some people on boards have told me that they did feel that so thanks for that work um I want to say just for example the DMC Downtown management commission we do have so many other downtown boards so I guess my next thing I want to say is I love your idea about a task force I believe don't we call them working groups though in our city or is that something else Melissa I think both terms have been used but okay so I started in the staka access management plan working group and fell that was the beginning of my story and I really fell in love with the concept of the working group because it was a a short it was six months and we got stuff done and you're proud of it and you can put it in your speeches when

[98:01] you're running for city council no just kidding but I did do that a lot as you know um so I think even looking at instead of I'm not saying cancel the downtown management um commission but it could be that we would rather just have should we have paint paint murals in our parking garages um as opposed to maybe a commission feeling uh and then doing that for 3 to six months as AOS it's just somebody wondering why are they there which I'm not going to say I spoke to some people in the DMC and they might or might not have said that so I'll just leave it at that so I am very interested in seeing working groups or task force as a major part of our program because for me it was it was life-changing it changed the actual direction of my life as well as the next one that I did which the which was the Capital Tax um uh working group where I learned all about Capital Tax which I knew nothing about so to I don't

[99:01] know if it was Nicole's point I knew nothing about anything and I mean that and working groups gave me the opportunity to learn about City process and also to learn about very specific elements of them ver versus being on Parks it was more a general um so that's why I really hope that we can do more working groups there wasn't a way for me I randomly found out about chiaka access management plan and I happen to be really interested in parking as you all know but it wasn't clear it isn't clear how people can find that information so I'm all for either whatever did you say Denver does that or whoever who is the city that teaches all about these things they have a something did a Academy yeah an academy um next I am going to say that I know you mentioned about

[100:00] people feeling like boards are right the the step before you run for city council but another way of looking at it is boards are essential if you want to run for city council they're not essential but they are a great help when you're trying to understand City process and the way things work so I actually think that's a positive thing and then people can decide if they even like City process or being involved in the city from just aboard so I do like that part of it um and the last thing I want to say for now and I might double dip is there was something that happened a few times with this Council where we had Don po come speak from the downtown management commission we had um I think it was Transportation speak at our City Council meetings that is something that I that was one of my highlights because listening to a community we listen to community members in public comment in open common and public hearings but I

[101:01] wish that we had more um input at an actual city council meeting where uh a board or a commission or design Advisory Board comes and says that's like the ugliest building I've ever seen or what they would ever say um that we would have at least as much input from our boards that we have on um for at for during open comment and public hearings so I don't know if you can look into that but how can we make um boards and commissions feel like they're more relevant and how can we get involved in what they're doing and they and what we're doing and so that's why I really like what you said um boards and commission results are not consistently integrated into Council memos um it's I I wish that there was a a more of a connection there and that's everything thanks thanks for your patience everybody you won't hear from me for a while I promise only for a while

[102:02] Matt thanks Mark um so first I'll just answer questions uh to one and two yes I like where we're headed uh again this is really comprehensive and it's bold I said that before but it's worth reiterating uh we tend to be less bold sometimes and be risk averse I I think this is a great way to really push the envelope for things that have largely been anchored in the same process for a long time because they've always been that way um and so so shaking that um that that Foundation I think is really helpful here um couple comments um is where this Bridges with some of our better public meetings work and it centers on largely just this engagement and some of our boards are are absolutely necessary for the function of this city um others are advisory and in many ways a vehicle for engagement and so as we start to think about how the community engages with maybe the dis on

[103:00] Council meetings it's more broadly a question of how and where and what level during our processes does the community engage so I I think there's a comprehensive look at that and then our better public meeting stuff plays a role in that so um that's just sort of help worthwhile context um the one area that I'm I'm probably most interested because it has so many interesting and perhaps positive ripples is this work plan concept um I I've been I've been pushing this since I got on to council um we've had boards in the past and sometimes recent who just treat staff like their their own staff and then staff is caught in this awkward Middle Ground where they're chasing the ghosts and whims of random board members and that is wholly wasteful of their time but also inconsistent with the priorities that we're setting in our community and so greater alignment and efficiency and a focus on process I think could have many many many positive ripples um that we will see the benefits from so um we'

[104:01] really love for us to sort of head down that that trajectory um but by and large this is this is great work and I look forward to hearing it come back to us and um having some more meat on the bones of what these pieces look like and and timing so thank you guys so much great work okay now our happiest member of council Rachel friend I feel like I was always the happiest Mark um so I just wanted to chime in and say I'm uh super supportive of where this is all going but then Matt said some things that made me think so I'll touch on them a little bit too um it has always been confusing to me that we as council members are required to have an out of five to direct staff and that boards and commissions can somehow do that without a Noy from Council and that is I think a strange way to have staff have to work on something so I've also um advocated for that since 2019 when there was an issue up and and so I I think that would

[105:00] be great to bear in mind that it's it it's a strange thing if something's not on our work plan that sort of you can I don't know undercut a required out of five to put a lot of Staff time into something by putting it at a board and commission level so I would love for that to be looked at I'm not sure it's even like you know Charter legal so that would be great um also want to thank Matt for the nod to Bob and I on engagement I appreciate you saying that engagement and boards and commissions flow so interestingly together so I know that Tara and Lauren have done a ton on this and I think that um during pandemic Bob and I were were sort of like wellow there's a lot of politicization and we've got some energy around this so we did try and lift some stuff up and while we might be oil and vinegar in a lot of settings we are we were not on engagement so this is cool to see this uh kind of coming to fruition and everybody um kind of paddling in the same direction so that's great um and then uh I know that there's

[106:03] been a lot of community engagement and there will be a lot more to come so appreciate that it would be interesting I think if there were metrics on success here I don't know how one would do that but yeah how do we know if it's working so um generally supportive I like where it's going glad that the next Council keep running with this and that's all I got and I am happy and yes you are okay Lauren Lauren you're muted thank you for all the work on this I think this is such a great Direction um I am I I think that again sort of breaking down into the different groups for the types of boards and commissions make so much sense I do still think that um there might be more Nuance to add to

[107:01] the advisory category I think some boards and commissions tend to focus more big picture and others have more of a repetitive review process and that might be one way to think about it whether they're the kind of the things that they're looking at are the same type of thing over and over again or whether it's more like a bigger Longer process I don't know I um I am really excited to see us update the purpose statements that's long overdue on so many of our boards and commissions but I do hope that we can take a pretty wide look at doing that and look at rebalancing workloads planning board definitely comes to mind and there could be some deep work that we could do around controversially potentially limiting planning board to more

[108:01] intensity type um review where you're looking at parking counts unit count what you know like the how much building there is and having design Advisory board look at more of how it looks I mean that tends to follow more with how design and construction process flows um and might help us with some other things as well so I hope that when we update those purpose statements we will really kind of dive deeply into that task um in terms of shortening the terms I think that's great I would love to see like a a year-long term possibility for students um I think it would be great to provide some flexibility there because if people are willing or interested in a five-year commitment that can help provide some stability to those boards and commissions and while I

[109:00] do not want to see that turn potential applicants away it something like the ability for a renewal or something like that seems interesting to me so that we can also capitalize on um people who are interested in that kind of a commitment and providing that kind of longevity of a and commitment to a term um I I assume as we dive into more details of what a city manager appointment process might look like that that might have staff and department or maybe be some kind of committee I look forward to hearing more about what those details are um but I think that the details of that will be really important like whether or not Council has an ultimate review or not and there might be

[110:01] different um cases where that may or may not make sense I'd also I I really do appreciate trying to focus more on boards and commissions towards tasks that are already part of Staff work plans I do think that there should be some flexibility there a pathway for them to ask to investigate something potentially ask counsel or bring an idea forward because sometimes that has led to um important work in this community but I think that needs to be clear that that's sort of the exception and not the rule and then yeah I I think it would be great to have a review process and look at some sunsetting some of these boards because

[111:00] like has been mentioned time and time again we don't want to waste staff resources or um our community's time so yeah thank you very much for all these recommendations um you are next uh thanks I I agree with largely with what's been already been said by my colleagu so I won't repeat that I I do um or most of them um I do agree that shortening terms makes a heck of a lot of sense and I hope that's something that we can Implement relatively quickly um I know there'll be a more in-depth discussion around the appointment process and who who does the appointing and that may vary from board to board so my guess is we're not going to get into that level of detail tonight but that'll be for the next Council to decide I would I would caution about oversimplification on the classifications it it'd be easy to say well these are quality judicial and these are merely advisory and that's just the universe but we have we have a lot of quote unquote advisory boards who do really really heavy lifting who do a lot of work who have long meetings and

[112:01] who really um influence the expenditure of of tens of millions of dollars a year I'm just going to name a few um the Water Resources Advisory Board super critical board for us really directs how we do flood mitigation among other things how we run our our our water utilities um similar our transportation Advisory Board make some really really fundamental decisions ultimately the decision may be made by Council but they do all the heavy lifting and the work and so even though they have um even though their middle name is advisory um I I wouldn't want us to lump them in with some boards that are probably have relativ light work to do and are probably really truly advisory and so I think um there's a risk of oversimplification here and I I caution against that um we're not going to go through tonight and talk about what the big boards are and the little boards are but but um but we do have some some some big boards that do a lot of big work and I would not want to um to give them short shrift um and a good really great example of this is and I'm going to roll

[113:00] into my next comment I agree completely with Aaron that the list of um potential uh Sunset boards or combination boards was um not particularly well thought out and that's probably due to a lack of understanding about what these boards will do and I want one I would call out in particular will be older housing Partners which is which is called the housing uh Authority but really is a completely separate organization that has its own staff its own multi-million dollar budget um and the fact that Council ostensively appoints board members is really just an accident of History it is about as independent as any organization could be U so to really call it a City Board is just really u i i served on that board for three years Mark serves on the board now several others of us have served on that board so you know what I'm talking about this is this is a really independent organization and so to suggest suest that that as a board is that could be suned itors not necessary is just would just be crazy uh quite frankly um and so I understand that that our Consultants don't necessarily understand what these boards do and may not have had the

[114:01] opportunity to sit in on many of these board meetings and really understand them so I as we develop criteria for what boards might be combined or sunsetted I I'd want to make sure that that work is being done by people who understand truly what these boards do and then finally um somebody made an com that earlier on that I really really agree with there's there's some stuff that can be done really really quickly um and pro and probably without much controversy others of these recommendations will probably take years to implement and some of them may never be implemented so let's pick the look let me suggest to the next Council that that they they pick the lwh hanging fruit take care of some of the easier things to do uh and recognizing that some of these things are going to take um a lot of community engagement and a lot of discussion before we make any dramatic changes thanks thank you Bob mayor thanks Mark um I said we've had a lot of great comments here um so thanks everybody for your thoughtful feedback

[115:01] um and thanks uh uh folks who've worked on this this is very comprehensive it is a really a deep dive with all kinds of great recommendations and so I think we're absolutely heading in the right direction here um and I think a lot of the challenge I think will be in the implementation plan I did want to throw in one quick question um Elicia um do you mind if I just call on you real quick um abruptly but I just um one of the thank you ma'am I know one of the recommendations is that these boards and commissions are run out of the city clerk's office I just wanted to check in with you and see if if you felt like that was a great idea or if you had reservations or what your thoughts were on on that well thank you mayor I certainly appreciate you um acknowledging um and wanting my opinion um in most municipalities the boards and commissions are centralized in the city clerk's office all the functions associated with boards and commission including Outreach the recruitment of

[116:00] course in monitoring the appointments and the um the actual members and the application process is centralized in the city clerk's office so it would be you know my honor to centralize that in our office because I think it would make things a lot easier and give people a more i' say solid foundation and in a centralized place to where they can go to get answers and questions you know um get answers to questions and have a centralized place to just you know I would think be more effective I'll just add to that mayor that as we U Move in that direction and Alicia couldn't be more right about that that we'll also have to think as we're thinking about implementation about adding perhaps an additional resource for that as we um bring that together and this notion of centralizing for for to get additional efficiencies is something actually we're doing Citywide on a variety of issues um so I had just

[117:00] appreciated the Consultants bringing that um recommendation forward Terry your hand is up are you double dipping but I'm not I'm not done I'm sorry my apologies no worries uh s so thanks thanks very much for that Elicia because I want want to make sure since it was a recommendation that was one that your department agreed with and I know you do a phenomenal job you and your team um at managing that so that's great to hear um so just the last couple comments that um so the implementation plan will be critical here and just what other people have said the need to break it up into phases and easier things harder things um so look forward to that coming back uh next year and touching in on what those next steps would be and and I agree like as everybody has said with uh reducing the number of years sounds great all kinds of great recommendations in here but just want to just the note of caution being that I think we're giving really positive feedback and um just I think that's about the correct direction that all this is going in but that I think some

[118:00] of the details you know may end up being a little bit different as we uh engage with the community engage with board members um and and the next Council so just throw that out there that um you we may well come up with maybe it's three years for these kinds of board Ser maybe it's two for others and uh just keep that flexibility in mind as we go forward this this is fantastic work really look forward to seeing the next St thanks my apologies again um Tara your double dip you're muted you are there you go yeah two things I forgot to mention from my very long list um the first was uh I was thinking about that comment that was in the packet about um some boards for instance the Parks Board they do have Community engagement like open comment and I thought that that was really great because it gave community members a second option other than just speaking at uh our city council open comment

[119:01] especially when you know we're talking about swimming or um you know very specific things and then coming back to our open comment if people didn't feel satisfied they had a second option so I'm really hoping we can Implement open comment it it is great to have Community you know talk to each other and so I'm for that and I really like that um the second thing and I want to get Lauren's input is I really liked some of the boards being appointed by the city manager and some by Council I do like a hybrid type of method and that way there's not such a heavy lift for either and then we feel like for the maybe for for the planning board let's say or for something where Council really isn't affected by that board it could be a council pick and let's say for the water board which I bring up again um it could be something that the city manager's office could pick and it's fine for it

[120:00] to be hybrid Lauren what do you think yeah I think that makes sense I think what Erin said is sort of what I gonna lean on here which is you know generally I think these are all in a great Direction but I think that the details of it matter a lot and you know getting some more Community feedback about it um is something I would be interested in just because it is kind of a big change in making sure it's really well bedded before we go forward that all uh for you uh Tara okay I have a couple of quick comments uh uh I think uh I think we're in the right direction here I think this is some very very good work um I really like like the idea of the uh some sort of training academy for U new board members to to orient them towards what their responsibilities are and what the processes are I like that very very much

[121:01] um uh I liked Matt's comment um and I'm hoping I'm not misrepresenting it um the boards and commissions need to be focused in their mission uh to serve our work plan uh and our objectives as a council and we have had a couple of unfortunate incidents where boards and commissions kind of said you know we want to do this but that's not what we asked them to do and I I think there's got to be a real focusing on that educational process so that um there's an understanding of of what their purpose is and I think another sort of load star uh value that we need to have as we move forward on this uh is we we need to lessen the burden on staff um and to the extent that there are things that we can do to make staff's life easier um those are things we need to grab on to quickly um

[122:03] because we've put them in a very difficult situation of undefined Mission um undefined processes and so we need to to make sure they understand what they should be doing with in relation to the boards um and and we need to be doing it in a way that makes their life um simply easier uh the categorization of of boards whether we we differentiate even among the uh advisory boards we can all figure that out at a later time I like the concept very much because there are big boards and there are little boards and I I think it's time that we recognize that and made the appropriate adjustments um and uh I I like a hybrid model of uh appointment based on what the nature of the board is uh some we will do uh some the city manager will do maybe we will have Approval Pro rights over some of those and and some the city

[123:01] manager should simply make the appointment it just it doesn't rise to a level that we ought to be concerned with um and so uh again I want to complement everybody I think this is uh been a really great pie piece of work and if we keep some of those values in mind of of why we're doing this and what our objectives are which is to get more efficient boards more focused boards and ease the the burden on our staff as they move forward to support the boards I think we will be in a very good place uh any other comments hearing none um we're going to move on to our next topic tonight that is our energy conservation code development project and with that I'm going to turn it back to our city manager well thank you so much um mayor proam and and I'll just say that the comments previously for the

[124:00] previous item have been really great we get it we love that you're liking the direction as we move forward and um really looking forward to that work but today uh we are coming back to you with um some conversation around um the energy code uh and I quite frankly I'm forgetting now who is kicking us off so forgive me team as I am trying to pull up my note and I do not have it so Brad is that you me yeah lovely take it away thank you so much nura and good evening council members I'm Brad Muer director of planning and development services uh we are very excited to bring uh an update to the energy code uh this has a long uh Legacy and is really part of DNA's the DNA of the city to be conscientious about um energy and energy consumption I wanted to highlight that this is very much a partnership with our colleagues in climate initiatives um we um have been very

[125:03] diligent in the last six months in particular uh Jonathan Cohen and myself to um talk about ways that we can can really enter into deliberate partnership on these and other related uh efforts as we move forward we recognize uh there's very much a ying and yang in the two uh departments towards these types of things and so I'm very excited that um we've been able to begin that uh process by uh having our staffs meet together having um uh strategic planning together for future items such as embedded energy which we've talked about uh in the first uh study session this summer um and are planning to commit to as as a work item for next year um so we we're excited to bring this forward and I will be handing it off uh initially here to Rob Adrians

[126:01] uh who you all might remember is relatively new with us uh we were excited to join have him join us after a long vacancy in the Chief Building official position and Josh have hit the ground running and we're excited to present uh this update tonight well thank you for the introduction Brad I appreciate it and thanks for the opportunity everyone to present this energy code to you tonight so as Brad mentioned I'm Rob Adrians the Chief Building official for the city of Boulder and I'm just going to kick off the presentation here and then I'll hand it off to Josh and he'll be able to talk to you about the actual specific code updates so our agenda for tonight we're going to go through the proposed updates to the 2024 city of Boulder energy conservation code and road map we're going to go through the timeline for adoption and the overview of the top changes in both the residential and the commercial energy code so just a little background and

[127:01] introduction I've got some questions up you know what is the energy code why is it important and a very brief history of the energy code here in Boulder so the energy code is the document that lays out the minimum Energy Efficiency requirements for new construction alterations and additions to every building within the city of Balta it's important because buildings are major consumers of energy strict energy codes reduce energy costs for both residents and businesses and reduce the number of Co energy burden cost cost energy cost burden households across the city furthermore the energy code is one of the most effective tools we have to cut greenhouse gas emissions and encourage the transition away from fossil fuels towards Renewables so just a brief history of what we call the cobc which is a acronym for the city of Boulder energy conservation code city of Boulder created the the first cobc in 2017 the 2017 cobc was based on the 2012 iecc which is another acronym for International energy conservation code from the International Code Council we

[128:00] created our own code to reflect the desire of our community to push the envelope on Energy Efficiency beyond the base levels laid out by the International Code Council and surrounding jurisdictions in 20 2020 this code was further updated to form the 2020 CAG today we are presenting the Third iteration in the form of the 2024 CC what we are presenting tonight was developed from the feedback we received from environmental Advisory Board the planning board and our first Council study session which was held back in June 22nd proposed to changes the next step to achieving our climate action goals as shown in this little infographic down below so as you can see from this graphic the city's aiming to achieve carbon emission cuts of 70% by 2030 net zero emissions by 2035 and carbon positive by4 and I'm pleased to say that under this code we've actually taken our first step towards that 2040 goal of carbon positive by adding additional efficiency measures that Encompass embodied carbon cross laminated tumber and other measures to to actually reduce carbon

[129:01] from the atmosphere so onto our road map so in the 2020 update of this code we made some pretty significant changes houses above 3,000 ft required to be Net Zero Energy we establish strong performance back stop we established solar ready and offset requirements electric vehicle ready requirements for homes and we establish this one level one through four alteration standards which is unique to the city of Boulder energy conservation code so under this new 2024 city of Boulder energy conservation code the big changes we're proposing are all electric new construction for residential uh we're changing from just a posts solar ER to a pre- and a posts solar ERI it's a sort of a step away from back stops and increased flexibility and affordability here uh we've established solar ready and EV requirements that align with the state model code we've made some updates to our alteration

[130:00] levels to improve affordability and we've modified our all electric and electric ready requirements for existing homes so on the commercial front under the 2020 code we established a 20 to 25% energy use intensity savings Target over ashray 90.1 2016 so ashray is an industry-leading commercial energy code we established performance back stops 5% solar offsets eveve capable eveve ready and EV charging requirements and just like the residential code we establish this level one through four alteration standard under this 2024 code we're still targeting about the same energy use intensity reduction over the ashray code but it is over the newer ashray code the 2019 or the 2022 versions there is still some savings there but maybe not as aggressive as we saw under 2020 we have all new electric construction requirements with exceptions for things like commercial cooking and Laboratories and other um buildings that would be difficult to

[131:00] Electrify with current technology we significantly expanded our EV ready requirements and we've added updates to our levels of alteration just like in the residential to simplify the process a little bit we've also modified our all electric and electric ready requirements for existing buildings so our timeline for adoption is as follows on the 22nd of June we had our initial study session with this Council on the 20th of last month we had our first stakeholder engagement session tonight we're doing our study session again we should hope the draft code available for review on the 27th of November on the 2nd of January we're going to have our first planning board public hearing on the 18th of January we're going to have first public reading on the 1st of February we plan to have the second public reading reading and our targeted implementation date for this code is actually the 1st of July just we won't have enough time for our community and our stakeholders to adjust to these new requirements um and reading projects

[132:00] that are currently in the pipeline to be able to be approved under the existing code without dramatically redesigning anything so with that I'm going to pass you off to Josh who's our principal energy code compliance examiner and he will present to you the key code changes thank you Rob good evening council members the first item I wanted to discuss with you is one of the proposed energy code updates in regards to our energy rating index score for those that aren't familiar with what an energy rating index score is think of it as a miles per gallon for your home but with the opposite where you don't really want to get a high miles per gallon you're looking to get the lower miles per gallon the better currently under the the current version of the 2020 cobc or the city of Boulder energy conservation code any homes greater than 3,000 square ft require to be Net Zero as you can see the 2024 version still requires Net Zero with solar but as Robin mentioned

[133:00] previously we also require now a pre erri Target of of an ER of 50 basically what this means is that by setting an ER of 50 before solar this is going to require design teams to go ahead and look at uh efficiencies in envelope Mechanical plumbing and Lighting in order to achieve this ER of 50 before they're allowed to put solar on the project by doing this this helps eliminate this requirement for these performance back stops when you hear the term back stop basically it is a a way for us to protect certain uh values in the building uh typically it's the envelope values that we're looking to protect as as buildings come and go these these uh these values tend to stay the same at least in the building envelope and so that's one thing that we looking at doing currently U the next thing to note on here is um for any homes that are actually less than 3,000 square feet but above a th000 square feet we're actually looking to give them a road map on their way to to Net Zero as well so as you can see for homes less

[134:02] than 3,000 square feet the 2024 cobc would still require an ERI Target of 50 but a post ER or a post solar Target of only 30 instead of Net Zero um so these homes would require some type of solar to comply with the new code and then anything that's less than a th000 square feet would only uh be required to to follow the prescriptive compliance path or allowed to follow the ER compliance path as the other buildings are also allowed um some other things to note is that we also looked at restructuring our r value tables and our insulation requirements and window tables um to align more with the 2021 and the 2024 IC some additional things to note is that we also are looking to allow alternative compliance programs um to show compliance with the energy code through the city as some mentioned above um the department of Energy Zero Energy ready home version two passive house us

[135:00] as well as lead to name a few um one thing to note too is the cost impact to smaller homes and adus is really reduced as they have a more streamlined prescriptive process now as well as some additional savings from not having to install gas infrastructure and on top of that as I mentioned there are many above code Pro programs that are also available that can help provide tax credits and incentives of upwards of $10,000 Plus for residential homes as well as even higher for multif family projects because they're based on per unit price or savings excuse me as well as commercial projects um more information on this can also be found in the memo that was sent out beginning on page six the next item I'd like to discuss is a proposed update is the all electric new construction space and water heating requirements as you can see section R 4413 which is basically the residential section for mechanical system equip energy sources specifies that mechanical systems such as for heating cooling water heating cooking Clos drying and

[136:01] indoor fireplaces shall be all electric for R 43.5 which pertains to the service hot water under residential service Hot Water Systems shall also be all electric more information can be found on the the memo that was sent out um on page four beginning on page four there the next item I wanted to discuss is something that's new to our energy code but something that's been around for at least the past code cycle with the international energy conservation code um we're looking to introduce a new section called r408 for additional conservation requirements we we heard the city we heard city council as well as the other boards and we're looking to really include and take take this next step Next Step down the path of embodied carbon and so what we've done here is we've looked to structured a point and credit system to require an additional level of conservation that could be outside of Energy Efficiency but to reward um to reward people for doing the

[137:01] right thing and really moving the needle to focus on Not Just Energy Efficiency but embodied carbon water reduction um and really resilience for their properties as you can see there's a there's a list of a sampling of some of the items that we're looking to introduce or include in this section including a whole building life cycle assessment to understand um the impact really of the materials going into our buildings as well as low embodied carbon materials and learning earning credits for being able to reduce carbon by say 50% in materials 25% all the way down to 10% we've also got items in there for water use reduction that can be seen through the uh an option of pursuing the epa's water sense uh water sense homes program as well as another option for EPA indoor air quality Plus plus program um some other items that you may you may find on the uh this section will include reduced air leakage but they have to provide an Erv or an energy recovery ventilator to ensure balanced ventilation in the home ground Source

[138:00] heat pumps as well as some battery storage even to really help build in resiliency into our community as we move forward on our pursuit of Net Zero or net positive excuse me carbon reduction the last item I really wanted to touch on here with our residential energy code update is what we have done to the existing buildings piece so I'll start with the additions and then move on to alterations and then other updates so under additions currently and in the 24 uh cobc any homes or any additions excuse me less than 1,000 square feet are allowed to pursue the prescriptive compliance path or the ER path any homes that are greater than a th000 square feet have to pursue the ER path due to their size or excuse me the additions due to their size we've also introduced an air leakage testing uh requirement or adjusted our air leakage testing requirement in the previous version of cobc these additions were required to hit an air change uh air changes per hour of 3 AC which can be very hard in

[139:01] some of these existing homes and we've recognized that so we built a path in to allow for up to five air changes um as long as they're under five air changes to be allowed if they show us a report of additional air sealing um and and and ensure they they've done the right thing to uh move this needle for forward especially with this home we understand that especially here in Boulder we have homes that are older uh sometimes 100 plus year old homes and some air ceiling is better than none and so we would really like to award that um moving forward and so that's can be seen with these air leakage testing being adjusted the ER compliance path we look to keep that the same as the current 2020 Copic as it's already pretty aggressive as we currently require a 30% reduction from the existing building energy rating index or an ER of 50 or less which actually aligns with our new construction requirements currently on the alteration side we've left levels 1 through three alone but due to the state model electric and solar ready code these now have to be electric ready and

[140:01] have electric ready requirements level three alteration that includes a substantial mechanical alteration or basically replacing say the mechanical equipment and then a large thermal envelope alteration that's greater than 50% of the thermal envelope would ALS also trigger the additional requirement that all electric primary space and water heating would have to be included as well similar to additions we've also adjusted the air leakage testing requirements and alterations as mentioned we have a lot of holder building stock here in Boulder and we really want to encourage people to come in and look at upgrading their homes and making them more energy efficient we believe this helps with a path forward to do that as for the ER compliance oh was someone G to say something I apologize oh um in terms of the ER compliance um basically we have the same uh same requirement as the addition of a 30% reduction from the existing building or an ER of 50 or less for anything level three and above if

[141:00] it's level two and lower they're allowed to follow the prescriptive path um similarly to the additions that are less than a th000 square feet another thing that we're introducing that we're very proud of as well is a true compliance process detailed out for easy understanding so one of the headaches that we used to run into is a lot of C customers would would come in and look at they want to do an existing building alteration or an addition but they didn't know really what was required at the city level when they go in for permitting or on the back end for their certificate of occupancy we've actually laid out a step-by-step process on when coming into permit this is what's required an ER report um and so on and so forth on the back end when they go for Co you're required to have an updated ER report as well as a a blower door leakage test uh among other things and so those are detailed in the code now to give clear dire ction on how to proceeded another update that's a change from what we're used to is uh looking at minimum Renewable Energy Systems so what we're proposing here is actually allowing the Chief Building official to adjust the posts solar energy rating

[142:00] index Target if the available roof space poses to be inadequate so say we have a home that's 3,500 square feet it's required to be Net Zero they hit the ER of 50 as required and then when they're trying to hit Net Zero due to the lack of of sufficient roof space they're only able to get to say an ER of five this allows the building official to look at that and go you've maximized your roof space we can allow this this is approved the reason for this is to really prevent people from looking offsite for these other solutions for solar as we know that it can be very hard um to ensure that that solar um solar subscription solar garden subscription really stays with the home we know that with the solar that's on site when that home changes hands the solar remains with the house and that's really the intent here is to to make sure that it it sticks with the home more information on this actually can be found in our memo as well starting on page four so now that we've gone through the residential pieces I'd like to introduce

[143:01] to you some of the proposed commercial updates that we're looking at so the first one I wanted to discuss is the all electric service water heating and space conditioning requirements C4 44.2 which is the commercial section for the service water heating energy source States all service water heating systems orwh as the acronym shall be all electric we have written exemptions that we have seen in other municipalities they're going along the same lines as us um typically for Laboratories hospitals and large industrial um certain large industrial S1 occupancies typically these large facilities that rely on uh radiant heating systems where technology really doesn't make it uh feasible to look at moving to a heat pump or electrifying as well as commercial cooking equipment c433 is the mechanical systems Counterpoint really to the service water heating so this is the commercial section for your mechanical systems energy source all mechanical systems such as heating cooling water heating and cooking shall be all

[144:01] electric as mentioned above we have the We have basically the same exemptions down here except we've also included emergency power generation for generators as well because we understand certain situations may require these more information on this can also be found in the memo um starting on page five the next commercial item I would like to discuss is our update to our performance targets as Rob mentioned earlier we are looking to retain the 2020 cobak fixed eui targets as you can see to the table to the right and the reason really behind this is as the state not just our city but the state in general really moves to look to Electrify new construction we understand this is going to be a hurdle for some of the design professionals that used to be able to rely on natural gas to be able to get their savings um the reason for this is a lot of the programs that are out there really base your metric on your performance off of cost and we know that natural gas is cheaper than electricity

[145:01] currently and because of that by moving the needle to require all electric instruction we realize this is a new process change and a hurdle for some of these new design professionals and so the intent here is really to um move to all electric all electric construction and the other piece I want to mention is that we're looking at moving away from requiring this 5% solar offset not to say the solar offset completely goes away but because of these targets being where they are solar is going to be required on these projects it's just a matter it could be 5% it could be 10% with where we are especially as we move forward from our current code we feel that there's no need to require this 5% offset at least on this fixed eui or energy use intensity um Target path the next thing to note is that for any of the buildings that meet the requirement to be exempt uh and allowed to be a mixed fuel building and utilize natural gas 100% of the Renewables need to be offset another caveat that we've added here is that no more than 10% of

[146:00] that natural gas usage can be count towards the energy use intensity Target another way to think of energy use intensity is similar to the ERI it's a miles per gallon on a building the lower the better is just a simpli simplified way to think of that if you see that term another note I wanted to mention here with the natural gas is only on-site solar may be used to offset this natural gas and then lastly on this piece for the fixed DUI targets we heard feedback from Council as well as some of the other boards and we've added additional fixed eui targets for large Office Buildings which requires an eui of 40 or less and those buildings are 50,000 square feet and larger as well as retail stores at an eui of 40 and less as well as um restaurants targets um which sit in an eui of 200 or less flipping the script to the model Baseline path so for any occupancies that cannot meet that do not fall into one of these occupancy types they have the modeled Baseline path where

[147:00] basically they model a building per ashr 90.1 and then model their building against that to see really how it performs as Rob mentioned we're currently in the process of vetting the new version of our commercial uh energy code baseline or standard that we're going to be measuring things against and so so we're currently looking at the 2019 version and the 2022 version as well right now and so those are still in the process of being vetted um another thing to note on this is that when doing the model Baseline path we would still require this 5% solar offset because we understand that with this pathway some buildings may not require solar to be able to achieve this savings and so we still want to drive that need especially for projects that don't fall into one of the categories in the table to the right and still understand that this solar is still a desired and a needed um a needed Avenue moving forward especially on this fight against climate change and our greenhouse gas reduction in the city the next update I'd like to mention or proposed update I would like to

[148:00] mention is in regards to the building fermal envelope testing with respect to commercial buildings and multif family the the proposed update is to change our commercial air leakage requirement from the point4 Target down to the 0.25 Target which is in alignment with the AR Army Core of Engineers requirements as well has been seen in Fort Collins for years as well as Denver and some other municipalities around the area have adopted this new metric also another update that is mentioned is moving our dwelling unit and sleeping unit enclosure testing from the 0.25 Target down to the 0. 2 tarket the reason behind this is for single family homes we currently require three air changes uh of air leakage in the in the home for multi family we understand that's really not feasible because these homes are or multifam units are built differently than a single Family Home and to that point we want to make sure that it's closer to that 3ac Target but 3ac may be unfeasible for these properties um another thing to note on

[149:00] this is that we've also included the added uh an air barrier table air ceiling and installation installation metrics uh in regards to um how to go about air sealing these units because that seemed to be a little bit of a gap that we've seen in the in the commercial uh code currently uh another new introduction that we're proposing as well as to require duck leakage testing for these dwelling units and sleeping units because it's currently required on the residential side why not require it for multif family every home deserves to have tight ducks that that deliver as intended next item I'd like to discuss is the proposed update to our prescriptive minimums we've updated the envelope lighting and electrical as well as mechanical efficiency requirements to align closer with the international energy conservation code or the ICC as well as the ashray 90.1 minimums and for anyone who's curious ashray 90 ashray stands

[150:01] for the American Society of heating refrigeration and air conditioning Engineers it's a bit of a mouthful so apologies um to give you guys a quick snapshot of really some of the the um proposed changes for example in the envelope we've increased the wallframed r values look to increase the heated slab BAR value uh increase the performance for the solar heat gain requirements on operable Windows as well as introduce a new requirement for envelope commissioning for large projects that are 30,000 square feet and larger on the mechanical front we've updated efficiency values for air conditioners heat pumps packaged units as well as boilers we've added tables for variable refrigerant flow or vrf systems unit serving computer rooms unit serving indoor pool areas like the humidifiers and then heat pump and heat recovery Chiller packages lighting values have been adjusted very minimally as lighting was very efficient currently so there were a couple of occupancy types that we really adjusted the lighting but it literally

[151:00] adjusted like from 35 watts per square foot down to 33 like for warehouses and things like that on the electrical front there's a new requirement that we're proposing for automatic receptacle controls which would be 50% of the receptacles in specific spa space types as well as energy energy monitoring for buildings over 25,000 Square fet excluding multif family these items help us to align with the 2021 and the 2024 International Energy code as well similarly to the residential counterpart we're also proposing a section c406 for additional conservation measures in commercial buildings as well this really helps us to align with the international energy conservation code there chapter c406 um the difference though is that we are looking to differentiate credit amounts for mixed fuel buildings versus all electric buildings as we understand mixed fuel buildings that allow for natural gas have a higher emissions uh uh greenhouse gas emissions than an all

[152:00] electric building and due to this those mixed use buildings would have more credits they would have to offset due to this as you can see mentioned on the screen there are these are some sample of a couple of the proposed measures that we're looking at including including all electric commercial kitchens especially for the commercial kitchens that are exempt to look at maybe leading them down the path for all El electrification as well as reduced energy use for hot water systems embodied carbon tra tracking so we can start dipping our toe and really looking at moving the needle on embodied carbon not just operational carbon as well as battery storage to help build in efficiency or resilience excuse me for these buildings these are just some of the samples that we're currently looking at on the commercial piece and there's probably I want to say 20 to 25 other options alog together when we look at this so the last piece for the commercial update that I wanted to discuss with you and in response to the board's and council's request we have really looked at and really taken this

[153:01] to heart to really bump the EV requirements above the state levels so a quick footnote on this so anything you see in green is a really a a change from what the state model electric ready and solar ready codes are doing so on the multif family side for any spaces or any uh projects that have 10 or less spaces what we're looking to do is require 100% EV ready on those it really makes sense if we only have 10 spaces why not future proof this moving forward and really require it it's only 10 spaces that we're asking this for if it's greater than 10 spaces and includes parking garages what we would require is 5% of those spaces to be evse and have EV Chargers installed um at a minimum they have to have one dual Port charging station 15% of the spaces would also have to be EV ready spaces 40% of the spaces would be EV capable as well as 40 of them would be EV capable light when you actually total all those numbers we're looking to require at least 100% of

[154:00] parking to have some type of EV which is actually about um 40% higher than what the state is looking to require which is about only 60% of parking um another thing to note is we're also looking to allow tradeoffs for 10 spaces to one level three charger or a DC fast charger or like a Tesla Supercharger something like that for all other occupancies as you can see for uh occupancies with 10 or less spaces for parking we're looking to require at least two evse spaces which makes sense right we have a dual Port charger we might as well require two spaces um require two EV ready spaces which aligns with the model state code and then which differs uh quite a bit is actually require the remaining spaces to be EV capable light if it's only 10 spaces why not just put in the conduit and make sure we have space next to the panel for future uh electric service to be able to be provided to those spaces for anything that's greater than 10 spaces and including parking garages we

[155:00] want to require 5% of those spaces at a minimum to be evse which is differing from the state requirement which is only 2% we also want to make at least 10% of these spaces EV ready which is more than 2% higher than what the state is requiring aligning on the EV capable spaces at about 10% of the spaces and then bumping it up about 10% I believe on that and requiring 20% of the spaces to be EV capable like similar to the multif family side we're also looking at allowing trade-offs here of five spaces for one level three charger as I mentioned like a DC uh fast charge or like a a Tesla Supercharger for for example some other things I wanted to note is that in terms of the solar requirements so it's still mandatory for us to have the solar ready solar Zone and the reserve spaces on the electrical service panels This is mandated by the state model and electric codes and then also what we're looking to introduce too is a prescriptive option that requires or not option prescriptive requirement

[156:00] excuse me that would require electric energy storage system ready area so help set the stage moving forward and let people decide if they want to choose for an r406 compliance they can take battery storage and go the full boore down there and include battery storage in their project or at a minimum they need to at least set aside space for future use and install of a battery more information on this can also be found starting I believe on page nine of the memo so after going through all of those updates for residential and Commercial we did we did come up with a couple of key questions for Council first does city council support the draft 2024 cobc code of elements as presented two does city council support the allowance of of natural gas water heating for affordable multi multif family projects on a case-by casee basis and then three are there revisions or additional analyses city council would like staff to address prior to the for prior to Bringing forward the ordinance

[157:01] in January thank you for your time and I look forward to any comments and questions you may have thanks Josh I appreciate that I was just going to jump in real quick I realized we neglected to introduce our consultant on the call as well tonight so I'll just do that real quick if that's okay with everyone um with us tonight we have Erica delello from Nesco John aant from Nesco Robbie Schwarz with Bill tank Inc and I just wanted to mention one more Stark member who was instrumental in developing this code update which was Carolyn Elum who our senior sustainability manager with climate initiatives thank you all right thank you for that presentation um I think first up we're going to do questions from Council and do we have such

[158:02] questions and team can maybe we put down the slides oh sure no problem mayor Brockett was in first so Josh I think you're still sharing we see a beautiful sunset although actually I was actually gonna ask you to bring the slides back up so oh no perfect okay you don't mind yeah I was planning on leaving the actual questions for everyone up if that's okay if not I can pull it down too no I think it's mostly good to have them down but I think I had a couple specific things um and thanks so much Josh and and Rob and everybody uh for this it's very comprehensive this is incredibly detailed and very forward thinking so really excited about these steps if you could go back that there was something that I just missed I'm afraid and I want to ask you a question about on the commercial um requirements if you can go back a couple slides

[159:04] sure this one okay yes okay so the um the uh the part that I just uh missed and didn't fully understand is that in the um upper left side you talk about okay all electric construction no longer require 5% Sol solar in the bottom left you have the model Baseline path with a minimum 5% solar would be required and so if you can just explain the difference between those two paths because I didn't quite follow that sure no not a problem so basically in our energy code we have three paths forward through modeling we've got the modeled Baseline path which basically if if the um the occupancy type or the building type isn't under one of the ones in the the table to the right then basically you would need to model it and follow this modeled Baseline path basically what you do here is you would take um the version of ashray use that as your Baseline and then you would model your building against this Baseline building to see

[160:01] what your performance is it's a little bit more of a tedious path there's a lot more that has to be done in it um the other thing is is there's a lot more involved in that modeling path and so things can tend to get lost in it and so that's why we wanted to keep the requirement for the 5% so here um with the the fixed Target path because those are static numbers and those are really hard targets to hit especially as we moov to all electric construction um that's why we didn't feel there was a need to specifically call out you have to do 5% solar they're going to have to do some type of solar whether or not it be 5% or 10% we don't feel that we have the need we we need to tell them that anymore especially in this market because solar is everywhere now and so that was really the intent there was that we didn't feel like we needed to specify that you have to do solar here it's that well we know they're going to but if it's 5% if it's 6% they need to they can do whatever they need to without kind of being handcuffed to this 5% um requirement at least on the fixed

[161:00] path so got it okay that that helps me to understand that I appreciate that but I guess what I wonder is just if if it would almost inevitably result in solar of that much or greater is there harm to having a back stop just in case there is some Nook you know a new way that somebody's never tried before they somehow managed to implement it without the solar to then that full 5% solar to then still have the back stop requirement I mean we could definitely look at that and consider that I don't think we would be opposed to it I think the thought was that with the targets kind of being where they are especially as we move to all electric typically when they had natural gas natural gas was kind of the um basically kind of a lower hanging fruit to really comply with things things because the cost is really low on it and that's really kind of the the metric into 2020 our current version of energy code that's how it's measured is against cost performance and what we're really looking at doing honestly is something similar to what what Denver has done where they've kind

[162:00] of tried to move away from that cost per performance excuse me and really base it on the energy use intensity so how much energy per square foot is that building using versing well how much how much does it cost per square foot for that energy to be used because we know that cost isn't really good metric to measure on especially for Energy Efficiency rather than looking at the actual performance of the building very good and then my other question if you can go back a few more slides is in the residential section where we have a chart in here somewhere this one yes okay and so um what what is just the the the thought and S of the rationale for waiting an additional six years to get down to the zero Net Zero requirement for those uh below 3,000 foot homes is there a feasibility question there or what what's the thought about not being a little more aggressive with that timeline don't me to answer that one Josh yeah I I I think the simple ansers

[163:01] waiting more for um well go ahead Rob I'll let you answer yeah well it's just simply we're already doing a lot with residential we're trying to you know stagger these changes so that we're not overwhelming people with dramatic changes all at once going from a mixed fuel home to an all electric home is a big jump in in in the code and technology and everything so we don't want to also simultaneously hit them with needing to go from having no solar to having full solar to completely offset that all electric har it's kind of a recognition that electrification is a step towards decarbonization in it in in on itself regardless of whether or not we have on-site solar got it okay that's very helpful and have we thought you know of a of a requirement I mean these are all about your how you get to a particular ER but I think like one thing I think about with solar is that there's the feasibility to some extent uh that depends on the size of your roof right and how much room you have to put solar

[164:00] panels on have we thought about a another like a back stop minimum requirement like as practically feasible um that we might include here as well yes we have actually updated this code to allow that so you still have a minimum requirement if you can't meet that minimum requirement like let's say you have a house that's 3500 ft you've got to hit Net Zero you need let's say hypothetically 10 Kow of solar but the max you can physically fit on that roof is only 9 Kow then we we have the ability to write a waiver and allow you to do that just based on as long as you're Maxim maxing out the available area on your roof that will be acceptable to pass the city boled energy conservation code requirements well that that's very reasonable so that that's a good de but I was thinking kind of on the other side of that you know a requirement of a minimum percentage of coverage of of the roof or something like that as a as a baseline no I don't think so because typically we're like anything over 3,000 square

[165:01] feet is going to be at Net Zero anyway I guess I'm a little do you have a better idea of how to answer that Josh well maybe I can just swing in just a little second Rob um so I think one thing I would just note is um most what we've seen constructed in in Boulder so all the single family have been 3,000 squ F feet or over so are being built to the to the Net Zero what we're what we're seeing in the smaller spaces is some of our more affordable housing your your duplexes or town home style construction and I think one of our concerns which we haven't proven out yet is that we're starting to get in a space where um the solar insulation May trigger that um Technical and feasibility more frequently um just with the orientation of of those structures so I think we're just trying to make a little bit more of a gradual move towards that that Net Zero with this but we can certainly um consider maximizing

[166:01] the um solar ready Zone um more aggressively I think that's certainly something we could put on the table which would be um you know the percentage of of the roof space that's set aside for solar um we could also be the um January code adoption do that analysis on a on what we're seeing as a typical let's call it a 2500 or 2,000 square foot structure to compare what the solar ready zone is actually going to get us in terms of of taking a an ER of 50 down to to 30 or to zero so we can definitely take that as an action item to to do that analysis ahead of that one okay yeah well if you don't mind well I'm on the topic that I think that'd be interesting I mean because I think we want to make sure that those smaller multif family units are are feasible and not overly expensive with overly onerous requirements but at the same time when we're building buildings now they're going to be around for decades we want to make sure we maximize our opportunities uh to take advantage of renewable energy so if you you're able to do a little bit more of additional

[167:00] analysis in that area that that would be welcome for the the final adoption thanks that's all I had okay Lauren thank you um I wanted to know kind of what one of the things I worry about is how sometimes we can get kind of these cascading requirements of you know particularly when we're looking at remodels like if you're doing a kitchen remodel and you're having because of the size of the remodel you're going to all electric appliances um and that is going to trigger could potentially trigger a upgrade of your panel your electrical panel like I guess I'm just wondering have we thought about cases where as one piece of this might change

[168:01] these requirements might cause changes beyond what would be the scope of the project and are there that might be really substantially expensive and might do things like incentivize people to do work without building permits absolutely um I think that's a really valid concern especially as we do start mandating electrification you know there are certainly challenges in Boulder with panel capacity and grid capacity uh we're trying to be as sensitive to that as possible especially with level three Alterations by not requiring people to upgrade to all electric heat and SP yeah space and Water Service heating unless they're choosing to upgrade the appliances so if someone found themselves in that situation it's pretty easy for them just

[169:02] to say I'm not going to replace my furnace I'm just going to leave the existing gas one because if I replace my gas furnace I'm going to need to do a 600 amp panel upgrade or whatever it may be and that's going to blow this out of the water so we we're trying to take a fairly touch with the existing building side of things and really focus on new construction with this card but yes that is a valid concern thank you um and then I know that our current code we kind of got to our current energy code as a way to get rid of green points to some extent and I see this point system coming back and so how is this going to be different what have we learned from the green point system um yeah caryn do you know much on the I I wasn't around during Green Point so I can't speak to that but with this with this um this point structure it really it puts kind of the the the controls

[170:01] really in the hand of the Builder and the owner it's we give them a list of options they can pick whichever options they want to comply and for residential we tried to make it a little bit simpler with commercial it's not simple because we know commercial really isn't simple right and so with residential what we've done is we have it on a scale of about 10 points and say you do a whole building life cycle assessment you want to do that that achieves full full points or say You're really intrigued about battery battery storage you want to install a battery there's full points so we're trying to really look at encouraging um and trying to move the needle in the right direction with with kind of the measures that it makes the most sense that really helps with resiliency and kind of moving towards the city's goal of really that Net Zero um net zero emissions by 2035 and even carbon posi POS by 2040 I would say on that um I I can't speak too much to the green points uh program but um M Carolyn do you yeah I mean I think foundationally what I would say is with our our code we've aligned the bulk of it with with the national code with just

[171:01] slightly more stringent requirements that gets us a lot more consistent with our neighboring communities um so we're we're trying to to deliver that consistency and then still provide that opportunity you know the boulder to go above and beyond um using more of a point system I think everything we've learned is about creating um more flexibility and being less prescriptive and so trying to offer as many opportunities for designers to come in and and take credit for for the creativity they're bringing to the project and so that's the theme of this code um like moving away from the back stops in residential um is is really you know we're making sure we have a nice tight High performing home but how you get get there is is really up to the designer we're being a lot less prescriptive but we still want you to to be encouraged to go above and beyond and hence that's kind of the blending of the um performance-based code with with some point system added on thank you and and I love that

[172:03] idea um let's see and then with the uh EV requirements I just wanted to check and so there's the four different categories and um when we're thinking about Transformer sizing are all of these like does that mean we're having to do Transformer sizing based on full all EV spaces that because that seems like that could be a big added cost the EV light is just is just conduit okay um and only physical space for a future Transformer and future panel if necessary um so it's just a physical space not um not service capacity or

[173:00] panel existing panel space so I think that's where we we pushed on the capable light um to at least get the conduit in the concrete that's going to be there for a lot longer um to provide that flexibility it's it's kind of a low um lift in terms of you know we're not stranding a substantial amount of money in just the conduit so that's the balance thank you for clarifying that I appreciate it and that's it for my questions am I good to take down the screen or do you guys want me to leave it up we'll need the questions not a problem we get there for you actually right there I do have one question um the on page three of the memo uh you talk in very very general terms about the economic impacts of what we're doing today um

[174:01] has has anybody done a more indepth analysis so that we understand what kind of increase are we going to be looking at in terms of uh single family multi family townhouse construction uh office construction what exactly are we um are we looking at um because there's no such analysis here which which makes me feel like we are moving forward in in a silo and that there's a whole separate conversation that will go on in three months uh or four months whenever it comes around um about affordable housing and it's as if never the twain shall meet um so can can we do you know what those impacts might look like um so that we can factor that in uh as and anticipate those impacts when we

[175:01] discuss affordable housing I'll start with this and then I Rob and I think Jonathan possibly might have some feedback as well um I I want to say at this stage we have not had a chance to do that yet since we are um full Bor and wrapping up this draft to know kind of really what we have to work with and kind of what to model against and then there we can actually make some I think really informed decisions and prevent some good cost analysis really um but a as of right now I think we were talking with our consultants and I think the code is uh um about 500 pages currently and so we're we're cleaning everything up and getting it more manageable to where we can really sit down and look at that but Rob or Rob or Jonathan or Carolyn do you want to weigh in as well actually if I might way in I maybe be some specifics I think um you know first speaking of residential single family um larger homes we aren't really materially changing the code we're getting more explicit about the all electric requirements about half of the

[176:01] homes that have been built under our 2020 code um were already being built all electric um what we know about that and there's been lots of analysis on the the cost impacts of building um all electric new construction you're saving money in terms of the the gas plumbing the the duct work in the home the the piping the the gas line service so that's offsetting any incremental cost of like a heat pump so from a residential perspective we know that we're at Cost parity or or less when we talk about the efficiency requirements we've got in code there's been lots of analysis that's been performed um there was a bunch of analysis done as part of the Marshall fire rebuild um for the L Phill code which is very comparable to what we're we're talking about here so we're feeling pretty confident about that I think to to Josh's Point um when we get into the commercial space because there's no two commercial buildings that are really constructed alike um it's a little bit more complicated to say is

[177:01] this representing a premium or is this representing um a cost Savings in terms of efficiency what we know is that efficiency is not driving the cost of construction um in in our our community right it's the cost of Labor it's it's the cost of the rest the balance of the process the incremental cost of the efficiency components consistently and we we show this in the the me the 2020 memo where we did actually do quite a deep dive on shifting to the eui um you know there's there's an increment to it but I just I think we've been pretty thoughtful about it um we haven't actually modeled out like with all the points and um this you know upping this conduit requirement like what's the specific cost details of that are but I I just want to make sure that you know we're grounded in in quite a bit of analysis that's been performed in our region um and By Us in in the past as well will you be able to provide some of that um analysis before we formally

[178:03] adopt yeah absolutely okay and and have you had any or made any Outreach to the building community and the people who actually do this and and have they had any response to you yes we did have a community outreach session with a bun a group of design professionals um I think it was October 20th and you know overwhelmingly it was fairly positive we did get one or two concerns along the question you just asked regarding affordable housing and service hot water heating and that is one of our questions to you is you know is that something Council supports us creating an exception for as service hot water heating for affordable housing because that does seem like that might be a a big lift for that group but overwhelmingly we had Fairly positive support for what we're proposing to do on this code update when you say design professionals um architex I mean have

[179:00] you talked to builders people we had Builders developers yes developers who are actually going to put the money down to to build these structures yes we did and we also had a chance to talk briefly to the chamber Commerce about this code update as well and um my last question is uh I guess on the last page of of the memo um first shout out I'm pleased you list the cross laminated Timber as a uh a conservation technology that uh that that you're going to uh I guess encourage um is this list um exhaustive or or or simply examples of um I me you can go as far a field as say uh the climber Ivan shanard who's just built a very uh energy efficient straw house I don't know that anybody would want to do

[180:00] that in Boulder but it's apparently fire resistant and energy efficient um and I assume there are other Technologies out there that um one might want to pursue and are are those contemplated in the code or are they sort of frozen out by this list so we always have alternative means and methods in the code and chapter one of the building code has always said since 1927 that nothing in this code is intended to prohibit Innovative Technologies or alternative methods and we and Boulder love to push the envelope and if someone came to us with some amazing new super material we' never heard of we would absolutely be open to it and encourage it okay all right seeing no other uh questions um I turn to my colleagues for comments if any all right then I will oh Lauren you're first you I don't want to

[181:01] disappoint you never do I got some comments um so I mean I appreciate the engagement that you guys have done thus far I will say that the detail I think really do matter and getting feedback on that is going to be important so after we um sort of release the draft code I hope there will be an emphasis on doing um some more Outreach and engagement particularly on the portions of this that are are seeing significant change um and then I had a couple of detailed things related to sort of questions changes additional things that I hope will be if not part of this something that is a soon following item um so as part of this the eui targets there's a new Target for large Office Buildings and

[182:02] that Target is almost twice that of small Office Buildings and just generally seeing that there's often efficiency with scale it seems like potentially we should you know since that's more of a square foot that maybe large Office Buildings shouldn't be twice um have twice the impact per square foot is sort of smaller buildings um I would also like to see us as we you know this had looking at incentives for battery storage and things like that we're trying to start to think about what Eco districts might be and making some changes to allow service lines for Renewables to cross right of ways so that we could at some point do that would be I think something that we should be looking at um along

[183:01] with how the insulation plays with our zoning code so you know cities like Aspen have done things like when you're looking at floor area that's to the outside of sheathing or structure and insulation for a certain number say 6 8 inches beyond that is not counted against your floor area or your setback and so letting people um that would be especially important when we're looking at remodels um but trying to make it easier um as quickly as possible so that people can add insulation especially when it's you know insulation that is going to help make buildings more fire resistant and things like that um because that you know is that double whammy of like both being more resilient and being more energy

[184:00] efficient those are my three John IR you had a question uh a comment um yes oh can you hear me yes we can sorry I just want I'm a little late wanted to piggy back on what Carolyn and staff had said about the costs which is a good question um you know we're relying pretty heavily on other codes and model codes like I and we've reviewed the IC 2024 draft and um you know different uh organizations have different processes but by and large all all of the technologies that are required or measures are considered coste effective over the measure life so they have a net present value that's positive now that that does not mean that they don't have uh significant first cost so obviously something like a battery or which is not required or a PV system would have um potentially significant first cost but we have we

[185:00] have a lot of supporting information for this and can work with staff to help uh you know Provide support where needed thank you may Brockett yeah well I just think you all have done an extraordinary job here and this is a significant step forward and really excited about it so appreciate all your very very hard work on this so I fundamental fundamental answer is yes I do do support it for sure um I had uh the that comment previously Carolin that we talked about and then and coming back to my first question you know if a if like a 5% minimum back stop isn't a negative um in the commercial section that's something maybe we throw in there just to make sure on that so so just throw that at as a as a possibility and then on the affordable housing side I mean we want to make sure that our affordable housing projects are uh financially feasible and we don't derail those so I think that's reasonable I just would want to make us to make sure that we looked at them carefully right because if there is a real financial

[186:00] hardship then you know I think that's reasonable to Grant but if there's an alternative path uh that we might suggest get them cost effectively to still an all electric requirement I would hope we would do that so I hope that would not just be a rubber stamp but it would be something that was carefully examined in collaboration with the the owners and developers there and uh that's all I got really excited to get these adopted Matt you're up thanks Mark uh for one appreciate the comments from our colleagues I think uh Aaron and Lauren raised some really good stuff um and staff you guys went went all out uh on this one so so thank you guys for that um I I'll just point out just in terms of timing I mean we're not in a major hurry on this even though this has been a long time coming to get there um so to some of Lauren's comments about Outreach you know I I I don't know where everyone else feels but I I I certainly feel that it's okay if some of that timeline slips just to make sure that we really have like heard from folks because some of these changes do

[187:00] have some pretty big implications uh for folks in our community and so um I just want to make sure we give it proper breath uh where possible but I really want to get this done so uh I don't don't take the eagerness to get it done meeing rapid expedience at the cost of just getting some some good input um so but appreciate all this great work I think you guys have done a tremendous job to really be bold and that's kind of a theme tonight is being bold uh previously and now today so uh this is a good way to finish off um the end of this year and this Council by being bold and set the next Council up for Success so thank you guys okay I'm going to jump in myself um with respect to those the questions um first I I think this is you know extraordinarily good work uh and I am very much inclined to be supportive but I do want to um better understand some of the impacts that we're going to impose upon um the uh building Community um you know I I'm always a little bit cautious when we um talk

[188:03] about increase in first costs that are going to be compensated over 30 or 40 years um uh that has a real impact on a number of projects on a number of developments and that's well beyond the time Horizon of most um Builders and in this town we we have really two uh guiding values one is is um uh environmental resilience and and Energy Efficiency and the other is affordable housing and and so I really do want to be careful about um preserving some Flex ability for the production of affordable housing and and I don't think we should be in a position of having to choose uh one versus the other um and I would hate to see a 50 unit project not pencil out and not work um because of the

[189:00] requirements we're imposing today well not today but but shortly um I I I think that's um really a a critical element of flexibility that we have to have and I there's also an element I'm I'm concerned with uh with respect to the city of Boulder um you know the concept of first cost uh is not an insignificant one I'd like to know what the Delta is when we go renovate our rec center um as a result of these changes that will be proven efficient over 30 years how much more we going to have to go raise through a bond or um an appropriation from the general fund to get some of that work done we've got two firehouses how is that going to change our our estimates for the construction of firehouses so I'd like to get a little more information as to you know what these first costs entail on a

[190:00] percentage basis because we're going to pay for them um and they they may prove to be cost effective over 40 years or 30 years um but we're going to have to pay for them today and so I'd like to understand a little better uh you know what we're imposing upon ourselves so U with those comments I I I think the work is great I'm you know basically in support of of all of these objectives um but I'd like us to also um keep some analysis in in the real world here and understand what it is uh what are the impacts that we're going to be doing and I'm not the last comment because Nicole has decided to to join us Nicole you're up well to be fair I've been here all along sorry you just triggered a a thought in Mark um and that is just just really this isn't for this one this is more for when we come back to this again I think one of the things that I'm

[191:00] hearing a little bit in our discussion that I think would be very useful for future updates um is just to have a sense of how much effort this is causing in terms of what the developers are needing to do and what staff are needing to do as we adopt these kinds of changes obviously it's going to take you know time resources energy people energy all of that um compared to how much benefit we're we're getting from it in terms of um you know energy reductions energy use reductions right so just to have a little bit of that sense of a tradeoff when we do this again I again do not mean it for right now this is just a something to you know put a pin in for later I think it it would be very useful the next time we're having this discussion in a few years um to have that information thanks all right seeing no further comments uh we will bring this matter to

[192:00] a close and we will now address our last item for this evening which is the municipal court judge recruitment update and once again I will turn this over to our city manager well Mark do you mind if we we just check in with the with the team just to make sure they got what they needed um or if they have any followup um questions for us or anything is there any lack of clarity uh I'll let the other team members speak but I think uh those were some very specific and succinct things that uh we already have some idea of how to address and we'll be happy to bring that forward okay um so you need nothing further okay but but I do want to check with my colleagues on any specific things real quick thank you for all your feedback it's wonderful yeah thanks for checking thank you look forward to the next conversation and now for our final item I I turn it over to the city manager thank you mayor pem and this item should go fast and I'll say that um

[193:03] it's an item that some of your colleagues are to be uh talking about but I'm going to first ask our uh Chief Human Resources officer David Bell um to talk a little bit about um the timeline and what has been going on with the recruitment for um our next presiding uh judge for the Municipal Court thank you Nua David Bell Chief Human Resources officer happy to be here this evening and describing some of our process steps to date in regards to the municipal court judge position as you all know and you see in the memo um provided to you in advance this position became open on the retirement of Municipal Court Judge Linda cook at the end of June just a few months ago we have been in development research and planning to uh build timeline and the recruitment brochure and materials and engage with our common recruiter we have made arrangements with Raph telis who has worked with us on numerous positions throughout the city including uh the positions that report directly to the

[194:01] city council uh recently to make engagement for the municipal court judge position what we're looking at now is trying to move forward with approval or feedback into the recruitment brok text which we have provided to you with that we'll begin a recruitment process we'll begin actively seeking candidates and that can be for kind of a three to four week period during that time the recruiter will of course be screening candidates answering questions and making certain that they have all they need as a candidate uh to continue their interest and expressing that interest with us throughout the process we'll then move into some general candidate screening from our recruiter and then that recruiter will bring information to uh human resources and the council employees evaluation committee or the subcommittee for this particular recruitment will move forward with a certain select number of candidates have some panel interviews come back from uh that session set of sessions to the ceec and uh determine finalist which we will then bring to City Council in interviews and pairs which you have experienced

[195:01] before uh to ultimately recommend a final candidate to be the next municipal court judge for the city of Boulder uh that's the general timeline that we have applied at this stage if we move forward with the feedback into the roer we can have this job listed um and actively recruited early next week and uh open for a 3 to four- we window which would put us into just prior to the middle of December at which point we'll begin the engagement with the panel interviews Etc uh that timeline can be a little fluid depending on the volume and the quality of the candidates throughout the process and any changes that we need to make throughout um that process either to the brochure the recruiting approach Etc with that I hope that's a decent overview of the timeline which you have in your packet as well um but when it comes to our recruitment brochure text we have been working together with council member Joseph and council member spear so I'd love to see if they have anything to add before we collect feedback from the entirety of the council um the only thing that I wanted

[196:00] to add was just a big thank you to David um this is we haven't done this in decades so it's relatively new it's taken a ton of work U from David and Heather as well to go and kind of track down how we did this um 20 years ago and uh bring that all together so I just really wanted to thank David um for being very persistent and um doing a lot of scavenger hunting um to get this in place U but I think really what what we're just looking for as David mentioned is really um any feedback anybody has on the U brochure that's about to go out the posting anything like that as well as the process and on this one we can make either comments or questions if anyone has any seeing none uh that is the last item on our agenda and so I am going to oh one more for Nicole sorry m g so fast it's faster

[197:00] than I can hit my raised hand um the only question that I had is I just wanted to be uh clear about the timeline so given that we're going to be um going through a council transition during the same period um unfortunately juny well fortunately for State sad for for us on Council um jun's going to be leaving right so we'll sort of have a oneperson gap in that I just want to make sure that the timing is sort of fitting um in terms of when uh this is going to be coming back to CE and um when we're going to have a new person coming on to that and and and or you know if anybody has any ideas about what to do um during that transition period so put a touch it go ahead just to put some frame around the timing again should we U move forward with this brochure text with U no or some small modifications we can have job listed and begin the recruiting again early next

[198:00] week a 4-week period would put us to December 12th or 13th which is a week after a new Council comes aboard um so that's the the kind of timeline that you're referencing council member spear mayor I don't know if you wanted to chat a little bit about um some of the timing we had thought about um sort of coming to council with committee uh assignments or whether you'd like me to share no well actually I just I had a question about the the timeline so sorry I didn't quite get I'm looking at the um materials you're associated with it um and when is the uh Council when are you anticipating Council interest interviewing candidates we're a little fluid anytime we're recruiting based on the quantity and the quality of the candidates and we feel that a normal posting period should be about four weeks I would anticipate this position closing then on the 12th or 13th of December then there'll be

[199:00] some panel interviews Etc we could be looking at after panel interviews and a re-review by the CEC that we have the paired interviews with City Council Members right after the winter holiday or right around the first of the year it's going to take those couple of weeks through December with holidays vacations uh candidate availability Etc okay good yeah I was just make wanted to make sure we weren't trying to get Council to do anything um in mid late December but yes so that that sounds like it'll work out but n do you want to talk about when we're thinking about um getting Nicole some help on this um yep um we have and you'll uh probably see it at the when the next uh CAC agenda goes out we are thinking of um using our December 14th study session as a way to Showcase all the boards um all the Committees um that council is a part of so that we can have hopefully some conversations some daylighting

[200:00] similar to the conversation that happened two years ago about this is more or less the time this is what it does this is what the scope is and hopefully elicit interest in some of those and then the following week on December 21st be able to have um a vote at a regular meeting and so if that time works out we should have some help um for that subcommittee uh fairly soon before those interviews really start so there shouldn't be a big gap Nicole do you think that works okay great that was all I had thanks all right I'm going to try this again um no further comments or questions okay with no other items on tonight's agenda I'm going to close this meeting in a heroically brief time of 3 hours and 15 15 p.m. I wish you all a good night and this meeting is

[201:00] adjourned thanks Mark