January 18, 2024 — City Council Special Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] to call home thanks we can have quiet in the audience please please sit down hi uh I'm Jerry pinsker uh along with my I'm the other co-chair of kananu uh from Bonar hasem I'm also the chair of the boulders ADL uh steering committee I want to thank the council for adopting this declaration for international Holocaust day and as gen so eloquently stated Jews and Boulder are scared we need to remember that the Nazi Holocaust did not happen in a vacuum the seeds of the Holocaust anti-Semitism bigotry and hatred were planted decades if not centuries earlier the hatred Justified the scapegoating of Jews to explain the shortcomings of a dis

[1:00] functional government today we're once again witnessing the scapegoating of Jews there's a war 11,000 miles away and it's being used as an excuse to hate those in Boulder who identify as Jewish we need to confront these seeds of hatred we need to understand that the power in this room is not controlling events on the other half of the world the other side of the world but the power in this room is to stop the bigotry the hatred and the anti-Semitism that if left unchecked can explode into violence we need to understand that what's happening what happened over 70 years ago can happen again Rabbi Mark good evening everybody RAB by Mark Sol of congregation Bonet Shalom you know I've been twice to aitz I've seen with my own eyes witness with my own eyes the horrors of that place I've been to terasen I've also been to a for Forest

[2:00] outside a small village in Lithuania where about 12 of my own ancestors were murdered in Cold Blood by by Lithuanian collaborators with the Nazis and I've seen those Graves that were just left there and so the fact that this afternoon I spent time with a a seventh grade boy in my community who was having his bumit for in March who talked about his fear and talked about the fact that people are doing Nazi salutes and saying H Hitler when he's in a football match with his with his with his his peers just horrifies me the fact that there are people in the city who have the gal to deny the Holocaust some of them even in this room and to speak in public platforms and to write hateful messages about Holocaust denial when I have witness with my own eyes and have a legacy of family members who were destroyed in this way it's it's just so

[3:00] horrifying so I'm very glad that the city is adopting this resolution for Holocaust Remembrance Day but obviously it's not just about Jews it's about all of us and it's about our city and it's about our city it's abouted it's about loving kindness and compassion and of course we don't all agree and we have different perspectives but if we can do that please with a sense of love because we know what happens if we if we have hatred it leads to genocide amen thank you so thank you for that Taran to remind us that we must never forget and make it clear that we stand strong oh my throat just went um I need a moment did you want to

[4:00] say something okay I'll let you go Tara yes Tara believe you have something you want to say hi um thank you Erin for letting me follow up um and uh Tara thank you so much for doing that um your words and to Mark and to your daughter and to Jerry um who interestingly I've known Jerry for such a long time so uh it was always nice to see in our community a familiar phase back from when our kids were at The JCC um so I also want to talk a little bit about why uh we continue to remember the Holocaust and why we need to continue to call out anti-Semitism vigorously um this has been on my mind in particular and I've just visited the Holocaust Memorial in Miami the memorial is powerful it stands out physically in the area and is visible but also captures the horror of the Holocaust through sound space and

[5:00] sculpture the sadness I felt was both for the atrocities of the Holocaust and the millions of Jews that died and for the reality that anti-Semitism is on the rise and persists and it certainly exists here in Boulder as many of you know I served on the school board for eight years and was disen heartened and surprised sometimes and saddened to hear of anti-Semitic jokes and comments made in our community and at our schools and what that put our young children through no matter what is happening in our world there is no place for anti-Semitism in Boulder I hope at this moment and considering the history of the Holocaust the Boulder Community chooses to commit itself a new to a culture and Community where every person feels welcome and valued from every background race and religion I know we can move forward together as uh Jen said with light and love

[6:01] thanks Matt what's been said tonight is a a pillar of how we as a community can find an opportunity to see a forward path one can disagree with the actions of a government but inditing a people for that action is not who we are it's not who we should be and it it speak speaks to the Lesser version of ourselves when we are incapable of separating the two and I think it's quite critical for us in our community to see an opportunity to love those that are next to us that are our neighbors or our co-workers without thinking about and being able to separate the actions of a government 11,000 miles away we should not feel the need to take that action and take the actions of others and indict and dring bring hate to those people who live next to us my great

[7:01] great-grandfather was a rabbi in Canada and it's interesting as I've looked through that family tree how they've came to the United States and I think about the love and the opportunity that was given I also think about the hate that was created on that Journey but it didn't stop them from setting foothold in this country and seeing the hope that in this place of all others would be a tolerant place where people can be live and Thrive without the actions of others thousands of miles away being a weight that becomes so unbearable that they can't see the future and live in the same sense of security as others and so I hope we can separate those two and we can find ways to be together as we deal with those consequences of things that have occurred in the past few months and we live with the skeletons in many of our closets over the last couple centuries so I hope we find the light and I hope that we find an opportunity to get rid of the anti-Semitism and islamophobia that shouldn't Define our

[8:00] country and it's the actions we do to reverse that that should thanks for that um Matt and Tina and Tara thanks so much for reading the Declaration and uh making it clear that we can never forget and to show that we stand strong against anti-Semitism and all forms of hate in our community so thank you very much so I mean you could speak now T if you want time I just wanted to get in before we start then I think now is a good time yeah good evening everyone oh oops s let me get my thing together of what I wanted to say good evening everyone please up oh okay sorry let me get a little bit closer in how is that I'll come in a

[9:00] little bit more how in the back all right all right my pleasure I ran my campaign for Council on a platform of climate and cultural resilience as an equity specialist I know the critical role that culture plays in co-creating systems that benefit all those in community I share Dr Martin Luther King's audacity to believe in a Beloved Community a community where quote caring and comp passion Drive political policies that support the worldwide elimination of poverty and hunger and all forms of bigotry and violence at its core the Beloved Community is an engine of reconciliation the initial letters I received in December were a call to action a call to get offline and get back into community over the last few weeks I've done just that I came out uh of conversations with my my Council colleagues community members Partners

[10:01] reminded that we will never see the middle of our own back we will always have an opportunity to learn unlearn and relearn about ourselves about each other and about the world we want to create together I want to apologize for any pain I have caused our community members specifically our community members in my re-shared in some select actually I went back and looked at all of them re-shared posts at the time I was unaware of these specific symbols and phrases although I was obviously familiar with many that cause memories that trigger memories of discrimination and oppression of Jewish people throughout history and as mentioned is still happening today I am sorry these tropes took away from my intention and my original message and caused harm that is not the

[11:00] way that I operate and I am capable of saying I can apologize for that because that is not my intent to hurt any member in our community using things that I was not aware of so with new knowledge comes new understanding and and renewed actions that align with my values I am grateful for community members who met with me and my fellow colleagues who returned my calls and took time to meet with me they helped me see through their eyes and through their heart I also want to express my sincere concern and sadness for the Lost Israeli lives on October 7th and still and those still in captivity I also suffer with the Palestinian civilians and non-combatants who continue to lose their lives neighborhoods and ways of life with raised awareness deeper understanding and the love for our Beloved Community I removed those posts with anti-semitic tropes for my personal page and left only my personal words

[12:02] calling for a ceasefire significant humanitarian Aid and the right of Palestinians for self-determination as a black woman I know exactly what it feels like to be ignored oppressed manipulated and abused I know well what it is like to be dismissed by those who are elected to serve me and to protect me and my loved ones that's one of the reasons that I ran for Boulder City Council it is is our core responsibility to care for the safety of everyone in our community it broke my heart to imagine that anyone in the city that honored me to be one of its leaders would imagine that I did not hold the safety and Humanity of all of our citizens as my responsibility and not only citizens those who play work study and visit here that is all of our responsibility and anything that I do that compromises your feeling your understanding around that is unacceptable so no I make that

[13:01] commitment to you and most importantly I look forward to working with each of you to build a culture culturally and climate resilient City I would be open to meeting with folks again not to throw daggers at each other that will we will not win with oppression Olympics you've got receipts I got receipts right right who facts do we want to lose but let me tell you this we breathe the same air we are of the same water we are of the same elements it is in our best interest to work together and I am committed to doing that so again I apologize for any harm that I cause and want to be crystal clear on what our intentions were and I look forward to working with my fellow colleagues staff partners and community members to do just that so thank you for the time thank you for your patience right I was reading a book called and then I'll end with this thanks for the feedback when I got that initial email I noticed and this why I love learning they taught me about the truth trigger

[14:02] the truth trigger is a trigger that if one thing that somebody says to you isn't right but all the other things are spoton you're only going to look at that one thing that was wrong and I'm so grateful that I was able to look past the name calling and other things that I know came out of pain because they didn't I don't know I know they don't know me they don't know my history and actions we're still getting to know each other but I was able to look past that in that initial letter and see the parts that did resonate the pain the authenticity and so I I'm hopeful that I'm modeling to our community what it looks like to say hey I was wrong about this piece and I can still stand Integrity around the things that I do believe and value and I can do that without name calling without yelling without making you feel like trash I can do that so I look forward thank you for the opportunity to comment and I look forward to the rest of our meeting have a good evening thank you

[15:00] and so no applause folks for for anything that we're doing here as part of our rules of decorum um did you want to say something Mark I have AEF comment okay Mark if you want and TAA thank you for that I want to thank my colleague T you're thank you technology has always been my forte there we go I want to thank my colleague council member Adams for her words this evening in my prior conversations with Taisha became clear to me that although we have vastly different views of the events in the Middle East those differences were not motivated by anti-Semitism or a hatred of the Jewish people it was also evident to me uh that she was unaware of the anti-semitic tropes contained in the post that circulated on social media um and did not fully uh grasp the manner in which they would resonate within the Jewish Community I believe that tonight's comments reflect the greater understanding she has achieved I hope that this evening has gone a long

[16:00] way towards remedying the hurt that was caused by that post and I gratefully appreciate the words spoken tonight I can only say that a mistake was made an explanation and apology was issued and we should now show the grace of forgiveness for that error I will note that if I had to apologize for every error I have made we would be in special session until March it is time to move on and address the business confronting this Council thank you smart Cole keep it really quick um I just wanted to say thank you to um everybody who has spoken tonight um to everybody who has shown up I just I greatly appreciate the honesty uh the humility the learning um this this is kind of representing um the courage that it takes to kind of get up here and talk about traas talk about family histories um with the Holocaust uh with events that are going on in the world and I just want to say it's truly an honor um and I appreciate

[17:01] that we're staying connected to our shared Humanity um with humility and with a a desire to work together for the benefit of the city so thank you Tina thank you Tara thank you Taisha thank you Mark thank you Matt um thank you to the community members as well um who spoke so I think as long as we can remember that we are connected as neighbors regardless of whatever else we're bringing um we can go a lot further with our city so thank you well said Nicole all right we have a change of pace here we're moving to our uh second item 1B which is National radon action month declaration to be presented by council member benchman do we have anybody here from Boulder County Health I didn't think so okay just check it I can read it from the dice Boulder County Public Health questions well okay thank

[18:02] you um all right so in recognition of national radon action month here in Colorado from January 1st to 31st of 2024 whereas radon is an invisible odorless radioactive gas that threatens the health of our residents and their families and whereas radon is a leading environmental cause of cancer mortality in the US and the eighth leading cause of cancer mortality uh overall and whereas the Colorado Rocky Mountain region has been ranked Zone one an area with the highest rate on potential possible by the US Environmental Protection Agency and whereas Colorado residential Ron data has shown 50% of Colorado homes tested as being at or above the US Environmental Protection Agency Ron Action level of 4.0 uh pcil which is PE uh Pico curies per ler of air that's from back in your

[19:00] Chemistry classes and whereas any home in Boulder Colorado may have elevated levels of radon even if homes in the same neighborhood do not and whereas supporting recommended radon practices and policies to reduce radon exposure is important to protect our Community Health and Welfare and whereas testing for Radon is simple and inexpensive and whereas identified radon problems can be fixed and whereas Boulder County Public Health the Colorado Department of Public Health and environment the US Environmental Protection Agency and the American Lung Association are supporting efforts to encourage Americans to test their homes for Radon have elevated levels of radon reduced and have new homes built with radon resistant features therefore we the city council of the city of Boulder declare January 1st through 31st 2024 official national rate on action month and I'll just ask uh just when I got notified of this first thing I did is when went to my basement and made sure I had negative pressure um on my

[20:02] radon system in my basement so please make sure you all if you have one do the same thing if you do not have negative pressure on that little liquid dial that's right there call an expert call the county um and they will work to get you some help it's really easy to sort of notice that um but grounds shift uh things sort of get moved around and some of that tarping can get pulled away from various different things so please do check it it takes two seconds and just always I do it on a monthly basis so please do that that's your PSA here from um your non-health expert city council member Matt Benjamin thanks for that Matt and really appreciate Boulder County Public Health for bringing this declaration to us and for doing all that they do to raise awareness about the radon dangers in our community and thank you for being here tonight okay before we go to open comment there's one other matter I'd like to bring up which is an acknowledgement of the city and county and our partners incredible work work over this uh cold weather snap uh to

[21:00] open up the emergency warming Center and get everyone who wanted to out of the cold it was an extraordinary effort stood up on a last minute basis people worked really hard and maybe Nu you could speak to some of the details of how we accomplished that I'd be happy to Mayor and I will say that most of those things happen on a last minute basis because it's the nature of an emergency right um and and I appreciate the opportunity to provide a recap um and a summary of the overfloor warming shelter uh shelter I've got some notes in front of me because it was a lot of people who helped and some numbers to share so I want to make sure I get it right as most people in community know the emergency warming Center was located at the East Boulder Community Center which opened at 7 p.m. on Friday January 12th and closed at noon on January 16th this extraordinary measure was an emergency response under the oversight of our office of disaster management that we um partner with with Boulder County and was taken in coordination with more typical severe weather Pro protocols because of forecast showed we

[22:00] would have below zero temperatures and significant wind chills sustained over several days in addition to expanded Hotel resources and I'll say 34 individuals stayed in hotel rooms during this event and increased bed availability at Boulder shelter for the homeless uh which had a capacity for 180 due to critical weather protocols the city's overflow shelter served an average of 40 to 45 unsh unhoused adults each night and our Boulder shelter for the home averaged around 160 and 170 individuals each night this was a hugely intensive effort that was supported by roughly 125 staff and volunteers from the city county and partner or organizations over the holiday weekend to support the 24-hour day operations a few highlights to share and certainly all of these are in Supreme appreciation of staff and our volunteers the city's housing and human services staff led the shelter operations and coordinated with other homelessness providers shelter uh

[23:01] operations were supported by many city and county staff from across the variety of organizations Public Health coordinated Medical Reserve Corp Staffing for the shelter to provide medical care for medically impacted um guests Mental Health Partners provided daytime services for our occupants the Boulder Police Department provided 24-hour coverage of two officers at a time to provide Safety and Security for our staff and those staying with us Coes responders from the CCH and Care teams were part of the Staffing to provide expertise on managing our residents who had mental health and addiction experiences Boulder PD Boulder County Sheriff's Office and community outreach workers engage daily with individuals who chose to remain outside encouraging them to seek shelter and giving them rides to shelter when they chose to and a shout out to via bus drivers who also stopped to check on folks as they were driving routes to other areas Transportation was coordinated by the city's trans Transportation mobility department in coordination with VM

[24:00] Mobility providing buses and drivers throughout the entire operational period city of Boulder facilities and fleets and Parks and Recreation staff kept the East Boulder Recreation Center open maintained and continuously addressed issues as they arosed as well as provided daily custodial and facility maintenance support the team also facilitated showers for shelter residents Saturday and Sunday evening after Recreation Center closure off the office of disaster management provided and managed Emergency Operations to coordinate and support the operations and fulfilled incident command duties and I believe they have bought out every yoga mat and blanket in the entire region um policy Direction was provided through a multi- agency coordination system led by the city manager uh and actually it's manager staff I I really appreciate our entire office who really worked here the County Administrator and the office of disaster management board of directors the activation was as you can see a significant effort and one that I truly believe and I know that you

[25:01] know save lives though over that weekend and I want to thank all the staff and volunteers who helped make this happen and I want to also thank Council who shown a light on this critic critical incident and event as well many of the HHS staff you will see present later on tonight are the same staff that overwork that worked overnight shifts support this shelter and I would be remiss if I didn't call out our director of Housing and Human Service serves Kurt Fern hubber who really spent nights extensive nights at the shelter took those shifts and worked tiously as well as uh Vicky and Megan who you will hear of today it was an extraordinary effort and I hope that um uh you'll give them some Grace if they're still recovering from sleep from that weekend as we hear from them later on tonight so all in all uh mayor and council members I I cannot tell you how incredibly proud I am to be part of not just City staff who I lift up as many times as I have the opportunity to do but really this was a partnership

[26:01] effort and the help that we got from Boulder County and our office of disaster management we could not have done this without them and I believe that we've had some tremendous success here that we will continue to learn from and carry over because this will not be the only time that this happens in our lifetime thanks so much for that Nia and just thanks again so so incredibly much to our city staff and um nonprofit partners and everyone in the community who stepped up to make this happen and keep our people sheltered and safe over that terrible cold snap and with that I think we will go to open comment and Elisha are you going to read the guidelines yes I am sir thank you my ma Voyage thank you all for being here tonight and we'd like to provide you with our guidelines for public participation at our City Council meetings the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision vision for productive meaningful and

[27:00] inclusive Civic conversations this Vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members staff and Council as well as democracy for people of all ages identities lived experiences and political perspectives for more information about this vision and the community engagement processes please visit our website as listed bouldercolorado.gov services Services SL productive D atmospheres the following are examples of rules of decorum found in the boulder Revised Code and other guidelines that support this Vision these will be upheld during this meeting all remarks and testimonies shall be limited to matters related to City business no participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person obsin racial epithets and other speech and

[28:00] behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct the meeting are prohibited participants are required to sign up to speak using the name they are commonly known by and individuals must display their whole names before being allowed to speak online currently only audio testimony is permitted online in-person participants are asked to refrain from expressing support of disagreement verbally or with Applause with the exception of declarations traditionally support is shown silently through American Sign Language Applause or jazz hands thank you again for joining us tonight we appreciate you being here thanks so much for that Elicia and I just want to let folks know we got 20 people signed up to speak everyone will get two minutes and I'll call three names in a time if you can start to come down towards the front as your name is being called called and just want to reiterate the thing about um no applause

[29:01] or noise please as people give their testimony we really want to make sure that everyone feels welcomed uh to speak and say what they have to say so we are going to start with Michelle Rodriguez and then Randall Erica Clark and Kristen Marshall hi guys um first off I wanted to Echo and and uh thank you guys it takes a village and there was an extraordinary effort made to make sure that everybody was in side and warm um I myself called um a well check for somebody that was sleeping Out Underneath uh the slide at epng Fine park and I was very impressed with the response I got a text follow up I got call back from the ranger that was sent out um the call was dispersed quickly within 10 minutes they were checking on the person the person didn't want to go to the shelter um or take a ride but um was gone the next day and said they'd make their way to the shelter um I never

[30:01] really thought I'd be saying this but um thanks Kurt you did an amazing job wherever you're at I'm sure you're somewhere here um I look forward to hearing about the agenda that I'm not supposed to talk about right now um also having a couple of questions answered um he mentioned something about there being um some hiring that's gone on in a couple of different aspects of all this uh where homelessness are concern ered that involve hiring lived experience um I'm curious and I'm hopeful that somehow there'll be a list composed also I wanted to say that um I learned that the chief was leaving this week and I wish her farewell and I I hope that we'll still have some connections she did a tremendous job and I hope that we will uh stay on task with the policing of police board Sterling Ekko he's perfect for some things maybe for even chief chief position but but I I didn't say that but um I I um thank you guys for

[31:02] everything you're doing and I look forward to hearing the rest of uh tonight's agenda thanks Michelle now we have Randle Erica Clark Kristen Marshall and Brian Han uh my name is Randall Erica Clark and thank you for allowing us to speak and I want to make it quite clear that I am not here I had no idea that it was Holocaust Remembrance Day and I honor that you are honoring Holocaust Remembrance Day and as soon as I found out that it was I looked up the definition of Holocaust in the Miriam Webster dictionary and it's comes from a very ancient word that means a sacrifice consumed by fire and it's further defined as a Mass Slaughter of people especially genocide and we're all aware that the UN has called the war on Palestinians genocide and so I'm here with a number of other people who are here request reting that our city council adopt a resolution and I will

[32:03] read it as it was presented to you I believe concerned citizens of Boulder call upon the Boulder City Council to adopt the following resolution regarding the conflict emanating from the Gaza Strip to prevent further loss of life there must be an immediate and sustained ceasefire enacted by all parties involved in the Gaza conflict the ceasefire must include the Gaza Strip the West Bank EAS Jem Northern Israel and Lebanon all Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners must be released a humanitarian Corridor must be open immediately allowing for the unrestricted provision of non-military goods to civilians throughout the Gaza Strip and I just want to say that uh Boulder City Council has in the past adopted resolutions I believe it was one against the Iraq War I don't know if there were ones prior to that about the Vietnam War but I want to say that you're in good company if you adopt this resolution as of January 10th the

[33:02] following cities have adopted similar Ceasar resolutions Raymond California kaduh California Bridgeport Connecticut Wilmington Delaware Atlanta Georgia dearo Detroit Dearborn Heights ham traic and many other cities in the country about 20 as of January 10th but probably by now many more and there will be more after thank you very much now we have Marshall Brian Han oh no no no no noise please please uh Christen Marshall Brian Han and Aaron Brooks thank you for this opportunity can you speak into the mic please yes thank you for this opportunity Let the Peace of great mountains be for you the sleep and the eyesight of eagles sheep Miss shadows and the long look across you probably recognize that poem by Carl Samberg it's my favorite and I read it um during a

[34:01] dedication to my friend Michael bomb Michael during his brief life was a scholar and an anti-war activist Michael agreed with Martin Luther King he believed that Injustice anywhere sorry Injustice anywhere is a threat to Justice everywhere yeah um let's add those words to the Boulder City Council rule book Boulder is not isolated from international events Global is local climate change is local Wars are local especially if we US the US supplies weapons decreasing the size of the US Military budget might also decrease a number of vets sleeping on Boulder

[35:02] streets vets with PTSD imagine if the money spent for the military was redirected to protect the environment and to end poverty that was Michael's dream we talked about it on our last hike together we are hiking to one source of the Hudson River Lake tier of clouds Let the Peace of great mountains be for you the sleep and the eyesight of eagles sheet Miss shadows and the long look across I support a Seas fire thank you thanks Kristen so folks no no on the noise please I we'll have to go into a recess if the the noise continues so uh our next speaker is Brian Han and then Aaron Brooks and then Jen liovic hi my name is Brian Han uh my wife I and

[36:02] my two kids have lived in Boulder since ' 89 I'm not going to talk about the Holocaust even though I should have known about it since I lost a good deal of my family with it in general I'd actually like to voice my support for the work being done in Boulder around transportation and safety initiatives for bicycles micr mobility and all alternative trans terms of transportation and encourage more with those initiatives I think need more needs to be done to increase um Outreach communication and involvement of those communities in planning and implementation and when changes are made also suggest the city investigate possible legislative changes such that bicycles at all are considered Vehicles both on the roadway and on multi-use paths unfortunately I can tell you from personal experience um that a bicycle crash on a multi-use path with another bicyc icle is not a vehicle as the

[37:00] assist da found out um resulting in Insurance not being able to be claimed um against insurance companies to the loss of tens of thousands of dollars I think that we'll get even more so with other micr Mobility so something to think about um also with the increased adoption I would encourage you to quickly add or change more options for their use um including safety safety needs to be a primary concern um in also communication of that as an example on December 17th I was out biking on Baseline a lot of changes has been made on Baseline I was unaware that at Baseline in Mohawk they added uh speed bumps in the bike linee I did not see them because they were painted the same as a crosshatch crashed 911 called well the ER visit crack sacrum concussion other things found out on next door that we had three more crashes within a week and a half um

[38:02] so I would encourage more work on that and thank you for your time thanks Brian now we have Aaron Brooks Jen livvic and Emily Reynolds good evening members of the city council I address you today on an issue of global and and local significance while letters and statements urging a statement on a Gaza ceasefire have indeed surfaced I commend the council for maintaining your policy re reiterated by mayor Brockett in the last city council meeting not to comment on International matters outside of the city of Boulder in the phase of numerous local challenges your commitment to prioritizing our Town's own local concerns is indeed commendable it is illogical for a city council to make statements on matters they cannot affect especially given the marad Urgent matters facing us here in Boulder the Rocky Mountain peace and justice senator's call for a ceasefire raises eyebrows when they say nothing about the

[39:01] 130 innocent hostages held in Gaza this oversight C Cast doubt on the sincerity of their commitment to Justice additionally I am wondering why on an evening where 44 people signed up to speak people from outside of Boulder were prioritized over Boulder residents specifically a lafay up resident who Rabbi Mark mentioned earlier this evening that has sent communication to the city denying the Holocaust even happened this communication by the way is indeed public and you can find it on the city council um hotline I'm wondering why he is being uh prioritized over Boulder residents on an evening specifically when the when the Holocaust is being recognized which is both further concerning and upsetting in closing I Express gratitude to the city council for standing firm on not making statements that could seow division on matters far beyond our reach your dedication to addressing local issues that resonate deeply with our residents ensures the well-being and emotional safety of all particularly our Jewish community in Boulder I'd further like to thank all of you for the statements

[40:00] earlier this evening about the Holocaust Tera everybody Taisha what you said earlier thank you very much as well it means a lot to me as a as a resident and to many of us as well so thank you thank you now we have Jen livvic Emily Reynolds and Jazelle herzfeld good evening Council my name is Jen Liv and I have founded two homeless nonprofits streetcape being the latest I also spent 5 years on Boulder streets as a chronically unsheltered High system user today I speak as my own person I appreciate council's Presence at this year's homeless Memorial 54 lives were lost I knew at least seven people on the list that died from overdose that occurred public public spaces or inside housing first

[41:00] [Music] apartments Boulder has a drug problem and while it's not exclusive to the homeless population it is disp disproportionately harming them by my estimation no less than 80% of our unsheltered are addicted to deadly meth fentanyl or both many of our most visible homeless live by their own rules in outdoor drug infested conditions that we deem illegal it is illogical for Council to entertain devoting valuable resources to any variation of a legal encampment we need to stop shopping failing cities for Solutions and can't possibly want to follow the halfhazard spending that's left our neighbor Denver on the brink of financial Collapse by some reports Denver Metro now ranks fifth in the country for the highest homeless population we have zero

[42:02] accessible treatment during what many are calling our worst drug epidemic scrap the novelty camping experiment every additional time we spend must be allocated towards accessible treatment and an effort to save lives yes including the expansion of addiction support services for those being placed into housing first departments thank you thanks Jen all right no no no please no shout outs no claps um all right we got uh that's your last warning I'll just say um before recess now we have Emily Reynolds Jazelle herzfeld and Michael Brer good evening Council my name is Emily Reynolds and I urge you to turn your full attention to the drug crisis unfolding in our community rather than squandering Square scarce resources on a novelty camping experiment as our retiring police chief Herold told Council this fall quote we are really in

[43:02] an epidemic of drug overdoses in Boulder end of quote at that time overdose calls to City police for the year were approaching a 100 by the end of last year City police had responded to 123 overdose reports 18 of them fatal to shine light on this horrific situation A concerned Community member sifted through police report data compiling a list of 40 notable incidents important to note that 15 of these cases were named in the recent uh homeless Memorial this report has been shared with Council and other community leaders but to impress upon you the urgency of the situation I'd like to read an excerpt November 4th officers respond at Foothills and walnut regarding a woman not conscious and not breathing they entered the tent with the woman who is on the ground unconscious there are two men with her one of whom is

[44:02] giving her CPR one of them tells the officers that he and the woman were smoking fentanyl in the tent and she took two or three hits before slumping over he says he could not wake her up and gave her four doses of Naran the woman rush to the hospital but does not recover officers speak with the woman's mother who says her daughter had always struggled with addiction had lost custody of her three children whom the mother now cares for and had also lost her husband tragically a few years prior every additional dime that we spend must be allocated toward treatments to save lives thank you thanks all right we got Jazelle uh herzfeld Michael broer and Trish Emer

[45:01] I come to you today as the descendant of a victim of the Holocaust my great-grandfather was a Jewish man in Germany who was married to an Aryan woman who made The Impossible decision to divorce him when the Holocaust began to save their children including my grandfather my grandfather who was able to pass as Aryan would sneak food and life-saving materials to his father through the gates of the Concentration Camp although it was not enough to save him when my grandfather moved to Canada after the war he brought with him all of his trauma and he passed that trauma onto his children and his trauma is a generational inheritance that I continue to carry within me as the descendant of a victim of the Holocaust it hurts me in the deepest parts of my soul to see my ancestral trauma weaponized to justify the most horrendous genocidal acts being committed by the Israeli State against the Palestinian people since October 7th I have seen the worst images I've ever seen in my life coming out of Gaza these IM es have burned themselves into my psyche Forever This genocide is completely unprecedented in the fact

[46:01] that it is being live streamed in real time by its victims if you have not seen the images coming out of Gaza it is not because you do not have access to them it is because you are choosing to ignore them and as much as it hurts to see these most extreme depths of human depravity and human suffering I have to bear witness to it and I cannot look away because it is my ancestral trauma that is being used to justify these atrocities never again means never never again for everyone not never again specifically for Jewish people or for descendants of Holocaust victims never again means that the Palestinian people are my people too and I will not stand by idly and watch my friends neighbors and beloved members of my community get traumatized again and again every time they lose another family member and another family member and another family member and then get doubly traumatized by the fact that their suffering and their trauma is being sidelined and ignored by the people who are supposed to be elected to represent them I know your hearts are big enough to make room for the Palestinian and Muslim members

[47:00] of your community too because their trauma matters their families matter and their lives matter how are you going to use your voice your influence and your power as Government jelle your time is up thank you all right I think let's take let's take a couple minutes guys cuz we're not being able to speak without having outbursts so let's just pause for a minute let's go have popcorn

[55:10] quiet in the room please a little closer all right thanks everyone okay so we're going to get back to our speakers our next three are Michael broer Trish Emer and Andrew ' Conor Michael brother if SOS doesn't provide robust drug and alcohol eradication and services for the portion of homeless that need it then the laudable plan is doomed to fail as it has in countless other cities but I want to redirect um and express my grave disappoint appointment and anger specifically with the actions of a council person days

[56:00] after being officially certified November 27th ta Adams posted an anti-semitic Trope on WhatsApp shocking considering that she ran uh part of her campaign on the oppression of black brown and Indigenous peoples history will Enlighten you to the fact that Jews have been persecuted for the past 2,000 years this is such poor judgment considering divisive political and social climate in which we find ourselves this is also contrary to the boulder code Code of Conduct specifically chapter 7 expectations quote public officials shall strive at all times to serve the best interests of the city regardless of one's personal interest end quote there should be con consequences for ta tesa's gross lapse an apology and acknowledgement from her

[57:01] which uh I understand was just done is only a starting point there should be much more a class in ethics and good judgments at a minimum then mayor Brockett brought this up uh this incident up at December 7th council meeting and asked Taisha for comment deafening Silence from her then Aaron provided cover by saying quote Taisha Wishes the best for the world and all end quote how does he know what's in her heart and mind and more 's up thanks okay we have Trish Emer Andrew oconor and Mary Fitzgerald good evening glad to see you again my name is Trish hser and I urge you to turn your full attention to the drug crisis unfolding in our community rather than squandering scarce resources on a novelty camping experience staff analysis of alternative

[58:00] Sheltering said some of the highest utilizers of unsanctioned camping sites are not likely to utilize a sanctioned campsite due to an inability or unwillingness to comply with estab Excuse me established rules of congregate living presuming that drug use in the camp will not be allowed while realizing that an estimated 80% % of the unsheltered population is suffering from substance abuse is expected that sanctioned camping will be housing a very small number of people at best I'd like to share another excerpt following on from Emily from the 2023 overdose report on August 30th BPD responded to Central Park where they found a woman unconscious and not breathing due to an overdose after an AR can the victim was limp with her eyes closed and foam around her mouth officers provided more in our can and

[59:01] began CPR and they found a blue m30 pill hidden on her person she was transported to bch where she was identified treated and released per police records this was the last contact they had with the woman according to the coroner's office she died on September 8th every additional dime we spend should be allocated toward treatment to save lives if we do camping without this consideration I think we'll only get in a deeper hole when it comes to the drug problem thank you thanks now we have Andrew O Conor Mary Fitzgerald and Philip sole members of of the Boulder City Council my name is Andrew O Conor and I represent myself and many members of the

[60:00] Boulder Community and I call upon the Boulder City Council to adopt the following resolution to prevent the further loss of life in Israel's war with Gaza all parties must immediately Implement a permanent ceasefire to include the Gaza Strip West Bank East Jerusalem Northern Israel and Lebanon let me be clear this is a holocaust cost for Palestinians all Palestinian prisoners and Israeli hostages must be released a humanitarian Corridor must be opened immediately allowing for an unrestricted provision of non-military goods to to civilians throughout the Gaza Strip at least 24,000 Palestinians and 1400 Israelis have already been killed approximately 70% of the Palestinian casualties are women and children Israel's refusal to allow re requisite

[61:00] supplies into Gaza threatens the lives of virtually all residents with starvation dehydration Disease and lack of shelter Israel's public stated strategy is to force the residents of Gaza out of Israel Palestine Israel Israel Israeli officials freely admit that their objective is ethnic cleansing if the war if the Gaz of War persists and remaining Israel Israeli hostages are are likely to be killed the Gaza war is expanded to Lebanon and Yemen and threats to expand into a regional or even global war a ceasefire would limit the worldwide growth of anti-Semitism which is a direct result of Israel Israel's Slaughter of civilians anti-zionism is not anti-Semitism American Zionist Jews are moral monsters when they attempt to excuse the Mass Slaughter thank you okay we have Mary Fitzgerald Philip soal and Moji

[62:03] AA hello um I want to quickly thank the the city for keeping everyone warm thank you um I'm here as a voter a mother and a human being with eyes ears and heart I'm here to support the Rocky Mountain peace and Justice Center's proposed resolution for a ceas fire many bombs dropping in Gaza are made right here in Colorado and this far away conflict is in indeed feels close to home in the Relentless stream of images coming from Gaza I see my own ordinary family in the ordinary families who are being torn apart I am every grieving mother and my children are every orphan I know I'm not alone in this Grim fantasy because polls show most Americans now support a ceasefire and every week streets in cities across the

[63:00] country and the world fill with people like me calling for a stop to the violence our federal government is not listening to us instead it is now bombing neighboring Nations such as an already W torn Yemen we are turning to you our city counselors please represent what we demand from the bottom of our hearts to be heard and call for a ceasefire thank you thanks now we have Philip Soo Moji AA and Tom mayor I'm Philip sole uh in these short time in the short time I have to speak here uh perit me to recall some alory before the clock stops let us remember several years ago

[64:02] prime minister n nanahu use of a defensive trick in the United Nations using an old story and threatened Iran for supposed nuclear development he said that if it looks like a duck if it walks like a duck if it quacks like a duck then it may be a duck now the shoes are on BB's feet only this time the events are real and for the world to see every every day every hour every minute an unimaginable unimaginable destruction and swatter of Palestinians continues this is sadly breaking the records of the senseless violence in the in the modern world there is no end in sight no offramp only Echoes and responses of

[65:02] retrograde Bronze Age thinking over 40 years following an earlier ver version of the single-minded military approach there was a second of the various Israeli invasions of Lebanon I attended a pieace now meing in Boulder of sincerely concerned locals and guests we were faced with the forever unanswered questions of what to do to stop uh repeating the same horrors of War I nervously stood up and asked the meeting if we could take a moment and review the official proactive and me meaningful steps Philip your time is up the dominant powers of Zionism and her

[66:01] allies have ever taken to address the Palestinian people sir sir your your time is up it is a strict time limit I have one short thing then you can email the rest of your comments please thank you than now we have Moji AA Tom mayor and jesson good evening I am stand standing before you in support of the moral Pro uh ceasefire now uh resolution as an Iranian American Muslim Sufi persecuted by the regime in Iran because I am a Muslim and I a peace and human rights activist every time the regime in Iran uses Islam to perpetuate horrible crimes I say not in my name I am proud to be proed to be to be

[67:05] the the gentleman who is going to be talking after me immediately is a professor whose father was a holocaust Survivor and I am proud that he says as a Jewish brother not in my name it is profoundly anti-semitic to be weaponizing the Holocaust the genocide of Holocaust in order to justify another genocide according to the case that the government of South Africa who has experienced apartheid is bringing before the world Court I am a member of historians for peace and democracy and affiliate member of a

[68:04] Jewish voice for peace and also a associate member of Veterans for peace I say please don't be anti-semitic approve this moral proposition thank you thank you now we have Tom mayor jion and Travis hully my name is Tom mayor I work with the Rocky Mountain peace and Justice Center we are trying to get you to pass a ceasefire resolution which has been read to you I would like to however talk about holocausts I'm glad that you are celebrating the Holocaust of Memorial day my mother actually spoke at that often and as a previous speaker said my

[69:01] own family has suffered intensely from the Holocaust I was born in 1937 in German in the German Jewish Family my father had worked at considerable risk to try to oppose the rise of Nazism he was clapped in the buen wal Camp concentration camp managed to get out with his own life my family and I my mother my father and I managed to get out of Germany by the skin of our teeth before the war started now my family my parents taught me that the Holocaust was not really exclusively a Jewish event it could happen to any people who were subject to racism or colonialism and they taught me that it was my duty in life to oppose the occurrence of a holocaust whoever might be the

[70:00] subject now we think I think that the most honest way of honoring the Nazi Holocaust is working against all future holocausts that is why we are here we are trying to oppose a holocaust on the Palestinian people we think that that is the most honest way of honoring the terror of the Nazi Holocaust that is why I'm here that is why I think you should pass the resolution which we have proposed thank you thank you now we have Jess Dion Travis Hugh Cully and Dylan Williams hi Council my name is jion can you speak into the mic please yeah and I am here to urge you to turn your full attention to the drug crisis in our community rather than squandering scarce

[71:01] resources on a novelty camping experiment the staff analysis indicates that a sanctioned outdoor Campground would cost the city between 37,000 and 44,000 per structure or person per year this is compared to the 30,000 per year for indoor Supportive Housing operational and Supportive Services needed to run the campground would account for roughly 1.2 million in annual costs this money would be better spent on addiction treatment during this drug crisis to impress upon the city council the urgency of this situation here is another excerpt from the overdose report on October 22nd officers conduct a welfare check at an affordable housing complex in South Boulder after a neighbor complains of of a strong odor they find the man deceased on his bed in a resting and peaceful position they

[72:00] find several marijuana pipes many lighters and some glass pipes that are often used to smoke meth officers speak with another neighbor she says she was not friends with the man but was very friendly with him she last saw him two days previous when she noted he was looking very sick she says he had Street people friends who would come over some of them were not very nice people she suspects the whole group was using meth she says the man lived there when she moved in nine months ago that he did not work but and that he was a nice guy who just hung around trash in her words he would always apologize for his friend's behavior and never bothered her this is a drug crisis an epidemic of overdoses not an affordable housing crisis every additional dime we spend must be allocated towards treatment to save lives thank you so our last

[73:00] in-person speaker is Travis hu Cully and then we'll go to our virtual speakers good evening Council um Travis Cully um 3195 Pearl Park why I first want to say um yes we can um sign the um resolution that has been brought forth um uh the Rocky Mountain peace and Justice Center is an important local voice for Boulder rights like Boulder rights like myself and they speak for me on that issue um furthermore I want to speak to the fact that we all do breathe the same air we all do breathe the same water and we all do suffer the same elements thank you for the resolution and statement about raidon previously as recommended from the Colorado Department of uh public health and thank you Matt for your words on that subject of the many things that complicate our lives and make living hazardous it's important to recognize that there are there's no amount of um

[74:01] that the simple dangers that we have to face um cannot be ruled out and these simple dangers come from elements that are in our environment they're innate to us they're in our they're they're naturally existing why is it that there there's a large amount of rate Ron in our environment it's partly because possibly plutonium decay deay into uranium uranium decays into thorium thorium decays into radium and radium releases a gas called radon and that's um ion isotope number 227 and this is a present danger that we all face um bad contractors neglect of testing sampling false expectations of culture all of these problems collect into this inert invisible substance that like plutonium emits Alpha radiation radon bi accumulates and it will do so

[75:02] in your lung tissue the body then gets sick because it's in proximity to your own lungs thank you yeah thank you okay we've got three virtual speakers and those are Dylan Williams Laura Gonzalez and Sher hack so Dylan you're up thank you my name is Dylan Williams and I'd like to briefly discuss one of the most obvious things that we can do to help address a and noise pollution in Boulder and because noise pollution is generally less well understood than air pollution I included a link on this page to an interesting article on noise pollution from the NIH in a recent debate about lawn and garden equipment I have seen statistics like only 3% of CO2 is generated by lawn and garden equipment next slide please please so I was surprised when I saw this lawn and garden equipment equipment comparison by CNN not a single gas

[76:01] powered model because of air and noise pollution got me to wondering why gas powered lawn and garden equipment is so bad next slide please it's because they use two- stroke engines I am sure that you have heard that two stroke engines are somewhat less efficient than standard gasoline engines but the reason that they are less efficient is for ifying the light blue in this picture illustrates the oil and gas mixture that is used as fuel the scary part is that this fuel mixture is used to push the exhaust out of the combustion cylinder resulting in a toxic M mix of exhaust and partially burned oil and gas byproducts being pushed out of the exhaust port with every revolution of the engine according to a recent camera article long and garden equipment creates most of the fine particles in uh Colorado Air and as many of the ozone creating volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides as 880,000

[77:00] cars nearly half the number of cars in Colorado next slide please Automotive exhaust systems are carefully designed to reduce air pollution and noise but there is none of that on two-stroke engines next slide California will prevent the sale of new two-stroke engines by 2024 similar regulations are being considered in Colorado the time is now to look for ways to support this transition thank you for listening thank you our last two speakers are Laura Gonzalez and Sher hack hi can you all hear me yes okay good afternoon my name is Lara Gonzalez and I identify as a Maya mopa and Indigenous woman I am here to speak on behalf of only myself and the legacy of my indigenous ensors who survived and who didn't survive for own settler Colonial genocide I am heard today to urge all of you to pledge for justice and unity through actions and not just words I am urging you to introduce and quickly pass a permanent and immediate

[78:01] ceasefire resolution to stop the genocide of indigenous people in occupied Palestinian territories by the state of Israel I'm sure you can pass this resolution just like you did in 2003 to post a US attack on Iraq that killed one million innocent people in addition to this resolution I am demanding that you all oppose the 1.6 million taxpayer dollars from our city that get sent annually to Aid the Israeli military I plead you to divest the 1.6 million taxpayers taxpayer dollars to instead fund our children who are living in poverty in the city of Boulder in addition to other needs child poverty increased from 6.9% in 2019 to 14.7 in 2022 you can also be addressing the drug um abuse issues that other um folks here have also mentioned I hope that when the city council member wner introduced an international Holocaust rememb day she was also Al thinking of the current dehumanization and discrimination Palestinians are going through by the systemic oppression and murder of the Israeli state it is clear that what is

[79:01] happening in Palestine is a holocaust and is happening again genocide and Holocaust academics have massively confirmed this is what the Israeli military is doing to all Palestinians we cannot allow ourselves to use polarizing language that dehumanizes a group of people to remove our sense of decency towards them we have a responsibility to divest from funding genocide and show through actions that we will not only forget but never let it happen again Boulder shouldn't be a place for anti-Semitism which is not the same as anti-is and also not a place for islamophobia and anti-idle Eastern roric I ask you that you stand up for us all indigenous people all over the world you as city council members who are bolder Le leaders and lawmakers have power to change public opinion as your words carry weight I want to kind Laura your time is up thank you last speaker is Sher hack my name is Sher hack and I urge you to to turn your full attention to the drag crisis in our community rather than squandering scarce resources on the concept concept of a campaign experiment

[80:02] that would most certainly fail like many established before the staff analysis indicates that funding for a sanctioned Campground would have to come from existing programs such as the day Services Center The Crisis Intervention response team and homelessness housing So Not only would this Campground not address the needs of the chronically homeless population it would actually detract from critical existing Services here's another excerpt from the overdose report on March 27th officers responded regarding an unattended death at one of Boulder's housing first facilities a staff member tells them six days earlier she led a male resident into the elevator and noted that he seemed to be under the influence of drugs and alcohol she notes he was known to use drugs when she had maintenance conduct a welfare check they found found him obviously deceased upon getting out of the elevator police immediately smell his body they enter the garbage ridden and

[81:00] messy apartment and find the man on the floor they find a Naran dose that appeared to have been used in additional unused doses nearby they also find drugs and drug paraphernalia similar to what Boulder County likes to hand out to addicts to enable them to use drugs via the works program the official autopsy report lists the cause of death as meth intoxication let's learn from those who have walked this path either as recovering addicts or the families and friends of addicts who understand that you need to stop enabling drug use if you really want to help the addict every additional dime we spend must be allocated towards treatments to treat addiction and mental health without that you will have a worsening drug crisis like we have now thank you for your time thank you all right that concludes open comment for tonight um thank you folks for coming to speak to us I'm going to turn to City staff to see if there are any responses to what we've heard tonight not at this time mayor

[82:04] Teresa none from the city attorney thanks I'll turn to council I'm I'm going to start by asking Elicia a question Elicia could you explain uh what we do when we have more signups um than we have spaces available and how we how we choose who gets to speak please the open comment is the only portion of public participation that is limited has a limited number of speakers allowed and that number is 20 and according to our Boulder Revised Code the 60 Minutes are allocated for those 20 speakers and if more than 20 people sign up then we have a randomization program that we run after the actual form closes and once that randomization form is ran we take the top 20 people according to how the program resulted so fully random in other words fully random thank you for explaining that does anyone on Council

[83:00] want to respond at all Tina then can I just ask we don't uh make any difference whether the person resides in Boulder or not is that correct that is correct anything else Ryan and then mat just wanted to uh thank Mr Brian Han for his comments on uh bikeways micromobility and improvements and um I'm sorry that uh he and others have experienced an issue with as we've gotten things figured out on Baseline where we've got improvements coming um my understanding is there there have been mitigation measures um that have been undertaken following the issue that that Mr Han uh flagged so if that's if if more uh work is needed uh please let the the team uh know or you're welcome to talk to me and i' I'd be happy to try to facilitate thanks Matt um a speaker brought up that somehow the the would be news to me the

[84:02] city is directly that 1.6 or some number of money is 1.5 is directly flowing from the city uh to support the Israeli government or something like that I I I heard that and want to make sure that we understand what that is because that that would be certainly news to me given how tight we manage our money here at the city uh I would say I'd have to follow up with you it is news to me as well um and particularly in a constrained environment that we have so I have made note and I'll be following up but nor perhaps you can confirm there's no general fund money going directly no or any other absolutely not funds in the city budget appreciate it thanks for clar okay Nicole I just wanted to thank everybody um who came and spoke with you tonight I know when you see us up here we tend to be just focused on the issues at hand the local issues um all of us regardless of where we feel about some of the issues that were brought up tonight we

[85:01] feel them too and we are also managing that as we're trying to do the work of the city um and I I just wanted to acknowledge that for all of you you are not alone in some of these things that you're feeling and you shared with us tonight um we are we are here with you and we are doing our best to um stay focused on what we can do here to keep people alive like we did last weekend um thanks to the huge effort from our city staff U but but we do hear you thank you okay seeing none uh no one else then we will move on to our consent agenda please Elicia and thanks again for people for coming and speaking thank you mayor our consent agenda is item number three on tonight's agenda and it consists of items 3A and 3B any uh questions or comments on the consent agenda may I make a motion to approve the consent agenda you may please do I make a motion to approve the consent agenda

[86:01] second we've got a motion in a second this is a roll call vote please Elicia thank you sir we'll start the roll call on the consent agenda items a 3A and 3B with council member Marquis yes Shu shuart yes mayor protim spear yes council member wallet yes Winer yes Adams yes Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes and council member farts yes the consent agent the consent agenda items 3A and 3B are hereby passed unanimously very good um how about our callup check-in please Elicia thank you sir callup check-ins are item number four on tonight's agenda 4 a is the consideration of a concept plan review and comment for a Redevelopment proposal of 1855 South flat iron Court The

[87:02] Proposal includes demolition of the existing commercial/industrial buildings and Redevelopment of the site with research and development uses the new development is proposed to include two approximately 100,000 squarefoot buildings and a parking garage this is reviewed under case number L2 23-45 any questions or comments or interest in calling this one up Mark um you know at Alpine balam we've gone to Great Lengths to demolish the buildings in a way that that we can recycle most of the materials is the demolition contemplated at 1855 South flat iron Court going to be treated similarly or will just be a will it just be a conventional uh Demolition and Disposal um do someone from City staff want to address this I mean we do have an ordinance that requires certain levels of recycling in all demolitions in the

[88:01] city I know but maybe Brad can speak more to that yeah good morning morning uh good evening Council Brad mu me the meeting isn't that long yet Brad just getting ready planning a development services Brad Mueller uh correct mayor there there is an ordinance in place that that be required I don't know the specifics in this case and we'll we'll make sure to follow up and um you know give any details on that but I'm quite confident that that's planned okay thank you thank you Brad and you may need a vacation thank you Tina I was um looking at the plan and noticed they as they did ask for a 9% parking reduction which is great but it was still a lot of spots that are being built and then they also estimated um over a thousand daily trips in a car but hoping to offset that with about 20% of um people using non-car Transportation after this is developed how does the

[89:01] city council see and track whether that um that that goal was met by the company that's going to be there do how do we know whether that 20% actually is actualized am I making sense yes yeah thank you uh we do have the the planner Allison Blaine online and and Allison I don't know if you feel comfortable to answer that hi I'm here um sorry I'm trying to get my camera on um as far as the Alison actually if you don't mind just introducing yourself for the the record to start hi Alison blind uh senior planner of P&S thanks um I I guess I I don't have the specifics on that question um for how it's tracked after development um I don't know Brad if you have anything else to add to that only

[90:00] that I know there is a tracking mechanism so I uh will add that to things to follow up and and and give some details about but I don't know the exact mechanism thank you and and if there's even just general information that it usually seems to pan out the way it's planned through the other projects that we've seen that would be terrific absolutely happy to do so Matt and then you call do that yeah uh okay so thank you um Tina for bringing that up I didn't realize that we didn't have a pro a process in place for both capturing that information and then it also have Curiosities about what if they're not meeting those what are the consequences how are we holding our these companies accountable to the um to the agreements that we've all signed so I definitely would be curious not only on this incident but in general how we're holding companies accountable for the

[91:00] reductions and wonderful intentions that they put in on paper and now we have signed legal U agreements with each other thank you sure got Matt and then Lauren um so my question is has tab weighed in on this at all do you know that Brad I don't believe so but I'll defer to Ellis that yeah I can I can answer that um tab has not weighed in on that and as far as um you know if they do include like a TDM plan that will be listed in um a condition of approval um in the notice of disposition um as far as meeting um their the plans including like architectural plans and the TDM so that will be included in the conditions of approval okay I appreciate that um I mean of a project of sort of of sufficient scale and certainly going back to that sort of parking uh reduction of 9% and the scale I I'd like to at least propose that we send this to tab to get their input on some of the

[92:02] ins and outs on that sort of Transit and certainly end points with regards to parking I'd love to get their perspective we we've done this in the past of projects the scale where there are significant sort of traffic Andor Transit impacts and parking impact so um I would like to offer that up as a suggestion to my Council colleagues very good yeah I was wondering what level of sustainability sort of above and beyond our typical code requirements if any this Pro this project has promised to provide Allison I'll defer to you on that yeah I can jump in so at this point it's um it's still in the concept plan phase um when it comes to site review we will look through our um site review criteria um more closely including the sustainability fees I would encourage us to hold them

[93:02] to a fairly high standard on that front I would say that campus projects like this are probably the projects that are most able to hit really high Targets in terms of both reductions and embodied energy and enery usage um so I would encourage staff to follow up on that with them thank you great and I'll note that if we successfully pass our updated energy code here in the next couple months they will be subject to that updated energy Cod yes Tina yeah and just I um at the same token I just want to make sure I don't want to build in too much time into this process we hear a lot of feedback about how lengthy and onerous the processes are to develop and boulders so I just that wasn't my intent with my comment so sure no we understand and we appreciate that council's regularly you know asked for a balance on that I would say um because this is at the stage it is and there's other stages that they're required to do

[94:01] anyway there's really nothing being added these are sensible things that we can check along the way uh Tad will add another cycle to that but that's you know that's something we can certainly manage great well and I'll just add in calling myself and say that um I I thought the the way that they were connecting to the pike path looked prom ising but I'd certainly happy to send it to tab to evaluate the connections to the multi-use path as well as the strength of their TDM program um and I also thought well I don't need to call this up I thought planning board had some good comments around U maybe too much impervious surface and some opportunities for additional Landscaping um from a process perspective I think we need a motion to refer something to can somebody tell me the answer that Teresa again so um Matt if you want to give that a go ahead U I'd like to make a motion to refer uh this call up item to our transportation Advisory Board second I believe this is

[95:00] a show of hands so if we could have all we got a motion second on the table all in favor raise your hand that's unanimous okay and any did anyone have any interest in calling this up I'm not seeing any okay no call up but refer to tab thanks Allison and Brad for stepping in so if we could um now go to our public hearing please Alicia thank you sir public hearings are item number five on tonight's agenda 5A is the second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt ordinance 8600 amending Title 9 land use code brc1 1981 by repealing chapter 9-14 residential growth management system and deleting all references theto and setting forth related Det details uh thank you mayor PRM I I believe now um uh I will turn directly to uh Carl Gyer who's done a lot of work

[96:01] on this and um has a great presentation on really how to conform with what is just passed at the state law level thank you Nara good evening City Council Members Carl guer senior policy adviser with planning and development services uh before the council tonight is ordinance 8600 which is meant to appeal the residential growth management system uh this is in reaction to a state law that was passed last year that prohibits municipalities from enacting or enforcing anti-growth laws uh staff informed city council about the passage of this bill uh last year and and council did instruct staff to move forward with an ordinance uh to to move forward with this repealing so the purpose of tonight uh is to hold a public hearing uh on this action to the land use code and for Council to deliberate and then make a decision on the ordinance um so the key issue before the council tonight is does the city council agree

[97:01] that the city's residential growth management system should be repealed in response to the Colorado house bill 23-1 1255 so just looking at it a little bit more globally in terms of how does the city manage uh growth um there are policies in our Boulder Valley Conference of plan that relate to growth um it really is a factor of um policies where utilities go there's a number of different tools that are listed on the slide that the city uses to um to do growth management the whole purpose of the Boulder Valley compos of plan is to have deliberate and intentional growth uh that's well guided uh by the policy vision of the community um the bbcp uh sets our Urban growth boundary uh that you're all aware of you've heard of the blue line which limits development to the west of the city uh we we break the city down in a mapping of uh planning areas so there's planning

[98:00] area one two and three so one is all the areas that are served by utilities that are within the city limits uh area 2 is basically areas that um are intended for future incorporation into the city through annexation it's usually within uh what we call the planning Horizon so that's usually 15 years it can take longer but we have a lot of policies and processes for guiding that um the bbcp does um inform a lot of uh the growth projections that we look at um it has policies that guide our decisions on growth so where do utilities go um how do we review annexations what are the requirements that get incorporated into annexations and it also informs spending for Capital Improvement projects uh then we have the land use code uh which specifies the scale location type and intensity of development uh that's controlled uh through the land use plan the land use code and part of that is the res

[99:01] residential growth management system um and that's what we'll be talking about tonight so I'm going to go into uh some detail on that so the residential growth management system grew out of what was called the Danish plan uh in the late 7s um it was a concept of of basically allocate limiting the number of building permits for for residential uses through a merit system basically and that that grew into our residential growth management system chapter that was incorporated into the code today it's chapter 9914 it's gone through many different iterations since the late 70s through the 80s the most current version of the residential growth management system uh was adopted in the early 2000s uh it limits residential growth by 1% of the existing housing stock per per year uh just for reference we have about 47,000 uh dwelling units in the city today so that comes to around 400 uh residential units per year uh the

[100:02] purpose of the CH of the system is to control growth in a way that assures preservation of Boulders unique environment high quality of life and availability of public services and urban services so basically there's a process that we are currently doing uh where every single residential building permit has to first get a growth allocation uh before that building permit is issued so there is a review process that um our department case manages um before um the permit can be issued I should point out that um the residential growth management system was was enacted um in the early in the late 70s in reaction to a lot of the Greenfield development that Boulder was experiencing at that time a lot of single family housing developments that that were taking up a lot of land um so that's the reason why rgms was put in place moving up to the Modern Day on May 8th of last year that's when the

[101:01] Colorado legislature adopted House Bill 23-12 55 which effectively prohibits anti-growth laws so this does impact Boulder it impacts golden and Lakewood as well because they have growth Management Systems what the state code says um up on the screen is the the definition of anti grow growth law I'll read it so anti-growth law means a land use law that explicitly limits either the growth of the population in the governmental en entities jurisdiction or the number of development permits or building permit applications for residential development or the residential component of any mixed use development submitted to reviewed by approved by or issued by a government entity for any calendar or fiscal year so in our interpretation this firmly applies to our residential growth management system uh the law is intended to remove zoning and land use barriers to housing units uh and took effect on August 7th of last year 90

[102:01] days after the legislative session so going into a little bit of the details of our current system um we have the 1% cap that gets enforced every year um most new units are exempt from this 1% cap um some examples of that are permanently affordable units residential units within mixed use projects housing that's built to serve the University of Colorado or any projects that have more than 35% of their units as affordable units so those exemptions were added um roughly 20 years ago uh and the reasoning for that was you know they had the 1% cap through the 1980s uh but then this started running up against some other um policy uh issues that were really important to the community such as the jobs housing inbalance and actually providing housing uh and more affordable housing so that's why the exemptions were added to the rgms system so you can see here there's

[103:01] there's data on the number of housing stock or number of housing units that we have uh per year um since 2013 if you include all of the residential housing units irrespective of what is counted in R GMS it still averages under 1% in in the last 10 years when we look at data since 2019 through now it averages about 0.58% um so what's highlighted in in the the lighter tone is what counts as excess or what is counts against that 1% you can see that that's a much lower percentage those are the ones that are not uh that actually aren't Exempted out so average is 02 again if you look at the the entire um per year residential dwelling units it's around 1% so we took this to planning board last month uh and planning board had a brief discussion about it they discussed

[104:01] uh the scope of the state law understanding what anti-growth laws means uh they acknowledged the intent of the state bill um they noted that while the rgms program is doing little to impact growth it is nonetheless counter to the efforts to address the housing crisis uh one member expressed concern about how passing this ordinance uh could impact future efforts of the city to assert home rule um the attorney response at that time was that it would not impact it it's really on a case-by Case basis um and after that discussion the board recommended approval of the ordinance to City Council on a vote of 5 to zero so staff's recommendation is that city council um adopt the ordinance uh this evening uh the reasons are up on the slide it would bring uh Boulder into consistency with the new state law um we've as we've noted in the presentation the rgms requires significant staff and applicant time uh while having little

[105:00] actual impact on limiting growth as I noted even if you include all the residential permits per year it's still under 1% over the last 10 years uh it's more of an ad administrative delay to applicants than a constraint on the number of permits uh and growth in general uh we also note that rgms is largely outdated since most development has shifted to infi development since this program was originally um conceived uh it's moved away from single family house uh development and Greenfield development and and we're really trying to encourage housing um through infield development to meet other bbcp policies so for those reasons we're um proposing a motion for Council to adopt the ordinance this evening and that concludes my presentation happy to answer any questions thanks SC any questions for staff seeing no questions for staff we

[106:00] can move to our public hearing we've got two people signed up to speak uh one in person and one virtual uh each of you will have uh three minutes uh to speak and so our inperson speaker is Lyn seagull and then we've got Martha mcferson online unbelievable thing is coming before you unbelievable my God this is what Boulder was built on keeping a compact small community you know what the examples the opposite of this are Jared's wet dream is out at weather vean also known as water view approved also five to zero I'm sure that is a nightmare development that is the opposite of infill unless you consider a little micro City part of the infill because it's in Boulder right and it's all just going to blend into this one giant infill that looks like

[107:03] New York City which my dad left to get the hell out of went into the war to get out of New York City to come to Boulder on the GI Bill not to have Bolder become New York City no the other example for you is 300 square feet at 2206 Pearl for ,700 to $2,600 a month that's before the cost of parking seriously this is unbelievable what's going on on the interest of affordability you know for every house that you bring here guess what you need Services you need open space you need people to do the dry cleaning you need grocery stores you need libraries you need all of this stuff that we are paying for you need all those people doing meth and Fentanyl what's a costing us six million bucks a year to clean up their trash and

[108:01] get the eoli out of the street out of the stream impact fees when you go to sleep at night just dream impact fees jobs housing balance it's imbalance the other argument which is very bad Carl is oh well we don't need it anyway that's what the Republicans the right-wing Republicans say they always say oh no problem we don't need it anyway well guess what sometimes we do need it and we don't know what's going to happen yet that's why Paul Danish did the Blue Line That's why Boulder was built on this whole thing and there's two people speaking tonight on this issue un freaking believable no way this residential growth management do not repeal it it's the only thing we got left of soul in this

[109:01] place we're losing everything arts and crafts Co-op the freaking drugstore at Alpine Balsam you know we're we've got a deficit of these Services all this town is is a bunch of condos high-end condos driving up the cost of everything it's pitiful I had to read about myself someone quoted me from yesterday you know I guess I'll speak to you what I read in the paper wake up open your eyes Okay ly your time is up thank you um and now we have Martha mcferson and is Martha present online uh no no mayor Martha is not in our attendees list okay uh seeing that she's not I will go ahead and close our public hearing and uh bring it back to council

[110:01] for discussion uh Lyn if you can be quiet please um would anyone like to open our discussion on this matter Mark I would just want to say a couple of things to you Lynn first uh um we are responding to a state statute it is not really within our discretion to say uh we want to keep in place ordinances that are in conflict with state law we don't we don't get the right to do that number one okay all right and number two um having lived in New York City for 39 years I can assure you that the resemblances between New York and Boulder are microscopic okay um we are not the same place at all and and you know uh it's

[111:01] just not the same thing thank you Tina Dad please be quiet yeah I just wanted to thank you for um doing a presentation that as a new council member was really helpful especially just um looking at how this particular growth um statute probably won't affect our growth that much and um also just the piece about whether this is sort of starting to chip away at our home RO status that is really important to me um for what you know I spent a lot of time on Schoolboard and a lot of times we use local control to preserve our Progressive values actually so there's two sides always to home rule and if you agree with it it's great and if you disagree with it you don't like it or state legislation so it can go both ways and i' like to know that we have the option to that this isn't a way of um seeding our home role so thank you for including that specifically I guess that was through planning board so thank you to planning board as

[112:01] well um comment on whether we should pass it or even a motion from someone perhaps I mean I could do it I'd like to make a motion I move that I need the language there it is um that city council adopt the mo sorry I'd like to make a motion that we adopt ordinance 8600 amending Title Nine land use code BRC 1981 by repealing chapter 9-14 residential growth management system and deleting all references theto and setting forth related details second uh any further discussion before for a vote well I'm going to say something if if you don't mind um just that I'm glad to be doing this I mean it is required by state law so we should comply with state law but also I'll just note that

[113:01] it's been a real hassle for staff uh and we're we hear a lot of complaints about how slow review processes can be and part of that is because we have things like this that slow down the pro the required time that it takes to process a review so looking forward to you all having a little bit less to do there um but also I'll just note that our um city actually has been losing population the last couple of years per the census so um I think the idea of this approach in general is not one that I'm a huge fan of so I'm happy to repeal it this evening as well I prompted more people Nicole ran I just I was just goingon to say thank you to staff um as always for uh in this case just being really responsive to uh the new state law that came up and uh to the ways that we can get in compliance with it just so we're not subject to more work down the road so thank you you okay you inspired me Erin um I I think one reason to to do this is because it hasn't mattered much um has

[114:00] hasn't mattered at all as far as population goes but I think there's a maybe more substantive um reason to to to care about this kind of policy U for those who might uh instinctively think gosh we don't we need to manage growth and the answer is we we do need to manage growth more deliberately and um I in my view the current approach um which has defined the growth in terms of residents in city limits um has has not been helpful for Boulder it's led to a very large number of inbound cars it's led to a lot of people using Services um but with with fewer residents to pay for those Services per person um it is not actually restricting the population but it is increasing our motor vehicle traffic so um I think the the deliberate thing that we should do to manage growth is to tune in to what say the intergovernmental intergovernmental panel on climate change or other or just urban planners show us which is we will we will have more in Greater abundance

[115:00] if we can build our our space more efficiently use our resources more geometrically efficient um and have have more to go around per person um so that's consistent with science and evidence and I think it's um it's a good thing that we're doing this and I look forward to supporting more uh work like this okay seeing no other hands uh Elicia if we could do a roll call please yes sir thank you a roll call for item 5A the second reading and Adoption of ordinance 8600 we'll begin with council member Shu shuer shart I'm having a night yes sh please be quiet yes May protim spear yes council member wallik I Wier yes Adams yes Benjamin yes mayor bronet

[116:05] yes council member fuls yes and council member marus yes ordinance 8600 is hereby adopted unanimously great sh please be quiet Carl thanks so much for your work on this we can to have order order in the room please order in the room okay so um the meeting is now over just kidding we actually have something pretty substantive left to discuss so if we can go to our matter please Elicia yes sir Matters from the city manager item six on tonight agenda item 6A is the alternative Sheltering saf door outdoor spaces update and direction thank you mayor and uh while I buy some time for folks to get settled I'll say that this has been a convers long conversation um or a complex conversation that's been coming for a while uh last year when we met and did

[117:01] sort of an update on Council priorities the topic came up um at the time we were sort of kneee and trying to figure out where we were going to site our day Services Center and unfortunately that fell through and there was more work to be done on that front but we appreciate that it was brought up again uh as we um convened at some meeting in September and really got a direction from you to say we'd like to explore it and could you bring us what it would cost and what the options are so that you could have that discussion staff has had an ability and time to do that um you'll see and I I hope um the depth of the packet shows the exploration that they have taken uh you'll hear in the presentation um that you're about to get uh the nuances and there is some um I'll use Megan's term there's some mix and match in some of this as we move forward but we are um desirous to hear your comments as we move through this to know

[118:00] um if we are moving forward and if so then there are some other questions that go with that so there's a hopefully a threshold response as we move forward um and I will with that have bought enough time to send it to Curt good evening Council so so um this has come up a couple different times um over the last year or two as a as a topic that we've looked at um over the last two months um staff has spent uh probably more uh focused time on this particular topic um we've looked at various city-owned sites um where safe outdoor spaces could uh potentially be cited um we've reached out to other programs in cities that have done similar programs and gotten more updated information from them and we've also looked at Cost um and services that uh

[119:01] you know different communities have used in these types of approaches um you're aware that um yesterday we sent you um updated costs that we only received on I think it was Tuesday nights um around the infrastructure and um that gave us um a lot more very clear information on what the the impacts of different approaches would be related to those cost so um this evening Megan uh Newton is going to be presenting um on the sort of the the program approaches um and then I will finish with some of the information on the sites and the cost sorry it's still me um um um so these are the the questions that we're going to be asking um Council this evening um and uh we we typically don't

[120:01] have six questions um that we ask and it's normally a smaller number than that um this is a unique program um so you know one of the questions is does council want us to um uh look at this uh at The Retreat that's coming up in April April is that's something we want to put as as a priority there um uh what kind of community engagement um uh would we have um if you agree with the engagement approach that we've uh described in the memo and then you know some of the trade-offs um uh not just around where the costs would come from of other programs that we're currently running um but sort of the tradeoffs of this kind of investment in in homeless Services um and um we're going to present different levels of um service and support that could be provided to individuals um and if you have a um you know input around that um we also

[121:03] presented some different sites um does council have input around particular locations that we could we could Target um and then lastly there's different shelter approaches that we're going to be presenting and um we would um like to receive council's input on that as well thank you my name is Megan Newton I'm sorry my name is Megan Newton I'm the policy adviser on homelessness for housing and Human Services and I thought it'd be helpful to start kind of give context to the conversation um start with our strategy and start with some some of the services that already exist in the community um so the slide on the screen kind of goes and gives you this is our strategy that was implemented in 2017 um it really focuses on expanding housing and expanding Prevention Services those are seen as the solutions to homelessness but it also supports um access to basic services such as

[122:00] Sheltering um and other services that meet basic needs um it also access to public information um and then support the systems based best practices and then create welcoming welcoming and safe public spaces so this is what we kind of use in context um as well as some with some gaps analysis to identify new programming or the services we want to bring into the system this shows not everything this is not inclusive everything that goes on it just kind of gives you a broad overview of all the things that are currently happening in the community um starting with Outreach and navigation we have a highly coordinated Outreach group um from seever several different providers that meet weekly um is really ramped up since covid um and so so even in this last week with Bluebird opening we've had several people move straight from the street into permanent housing um so it's been a really great coordination in addition um some of the other services

[123:00] is coordinated entry emergency shelter um of course the day service center that's coming online in the next few months um we we're adding respit services along with that um we do have some transitional housing programming um Bridge housing which is typically hoteling that we use for folks who have been matched to housing um and just to give them a stable place to stay before they go into housing um of course permanent support of Housing and then the housing retention and the peer support and the treatment all kind of go hand inand when folks are moved into housing in order to support them in that housing and so they don't lose it so we um we partnered with community and the community communication and engagement Department to to Really discuss an intentional engagement plan with this process um there is a lot of public interest and so we thought it would be good to have a good plan in in place um if the decision is to move forward um we also heard from Planning and Development when we put

[124:01] this project in that they would consider it as an emergency shelter and it would require a good neighbor process when we site it so we looked primarily we've looked at multiple communities but primarily um four different communities Madison Santa Cruz CR um Portland and Denver when looking at similar sites um this is something that most of them had in every Community there was Pro there were programs that had all of these components to it some of the communities had additional um sites that didn't include all of these but they all had sites that had some sort of shelter um they had fencing around the site to keep control of the people coming in and out sanitation facilities Waste Management agement water access some sort of Behavioral rules or agreements between the participants that were in the camp um Community spaces as well as access or connection to food um most of them also

[125:02] included Operational Support so meaning staff on site 247 and then additional wraparound services to help connect folks to ongoing services so they can exit the site preferably into housing so now I'm going to talk walk through the shelter types that we that we've seen um we've seen some projects where it was just a camper a camper provided tents or just camping tents those are primarily in temperate climates um that you know that don't have the severe winter cold that we have here um the pros to that is obviously it's very affordable and portable if we wanted to move the site um but obviously the main C con is here in Colorado especially now when it's so cold um we wouldn't want people to have space heaters or any heating source that could cause fire um so this would be pretty prohibitive um as far as the winter cold the next we look at ice fishing

[126:02] tents and this is actually primarily done in Denver um a lot of the other places did go with the pallets but this is done in Denver um they set up the sites during covid um to provide more non- congregate Sheltering so people could do um social distancing um and it's kind of a creative in an in between right so they do have space heaters they do hold warmth um but they're not as high-tech as a pallet shelter or some of the tiny home shelters um Denver is actually with their new stuff using the pallet shelters they're going away from this um and it's more because I think it's seen um it's still a tent people are still living in a tent whereas if you have a more substantial shelter they're sheltered it's a little bit more um I don't know I don't dignify it I guess so as to to keep people out of tens so the last we looked at is the pallet structure um Pros is it can be

[127:00] customizable um has Heating and Cooling um locked door so people have privacy um con is the is the price and they're not very portable so if the site was something that we were wanting to move on a regular basis for some reason um this would be a lot more expensive to move them from site to site um and I will say the ice fishing tents I Denver started moving them every six months and I think they found that to be a little cumbersome and cost prohibitive and so they've extended the each site um to multiple years so kind of to what nura said so this is a a mix and match we kind of put things for ease of use into categories with the camping tents um being the lowest level and the pallet structures being the highest level on what a site might look like and need to include but obviously it doesn't have to be straight line down you could um use a portalet and ice fishing tents you don't have to have camping tents in portlet so it was

[128:00] kind of just a way to show you um the different options um in kind of a a simpler way um and so the next slide takes these options and puts a price tag on them um and so as you can see the big price differen is the Sheltering and then the height and so the the one in the middle the 95,000 for the hygiene is if we rented a trailer um whereas the one on the pallet structures is if we purchased a trailer um but again we could mix and match that you could do pallet shelters and still rent a trailer um so it's not one for one in that but those are the two items that would change the the cost most significantly so then we looked at the different service components that we saw um there were some camps that are what what's called self-governed meaning they don't have staff on site or if they do it's very minimal someone checking in Daily but it's not there 24 hours um

[129:00] there's also the option of just having operational staff there so it's just staff on site to kind of manage the site but not necessarily providing any case management or wraparound services and then the highest level has both the operation um and the wraparound Services included um I think some of the things that we saw in the places that had the self-governed sites um is that those were again T typically on the west coast with very large homeless populations and significantly large percentages of unsheltered homelessness so they had unsheltered homelessness up to 80% um where ours is reversed where most of our our folks are in shelters and only 20% about 20% are unsheltered um so the folks who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness and Boulder have significant barriers um to housing and so we felt that there needs to be at least some staff on site when when having one of these um sites set

[130:00] up and so those are the these are the costs that are associated um with those different levels um and again obviously the biggest thing is Personnel costs um so with the with the somebody checking in just two hours a day um is what the blue was um the green is just people there 24 hours a day um without wraparound services and then the red is including the wraparound services so these are just things that came out in our research that things that we would need to consider um U pallet pallet structures and ice fishing tents must meet certain code requirements um use review approval requires on-site staff because it's considered an emergency shelter it requires staff um pallets must be built in compliance with climate design criteria and wind speed criteria and I'll go back just real quick I there it's called pallet shelters because they come on pallets it's very confusing to

[131:00] folks because I've had multiple conversations where like housing built of pallets but no it's just the company um ships them across the country on pallets so that's what they what they call it um the pallet structure company may not sell to individual pal won't sell the pallets um without the on-site case management and or Supportive Services so the company just wants to be associated with um programs that do include the services component um compliance with energy code may require purchase of off-site solar credits um cold weather considerations may require ice fishing tents or pallet structures as I brought up earlier um and then camps with no service would serve low Acuity individuals um and it's not really an identified service Gap um here in Boulder most of the folks that when we did our last point in time count um did identify significant barriers that the folks that are living currently unsheltered that we would want to serve in in one of these

[132:02] sites so as Kurt mentioned we did look at multiple sites we submitted five sites to planning and development services for review and we attached their report um with some of the questions that we asked um we moved forward with an engineering firm to do site deeper site analysis with two of those sites um and Kurt will talk to that in just a few moment but I also wanted to say that we uh reached out to faith-based organizations to partner in this work approximately 75 and we've heard back from a number who are very interested in the work that we're doing in partnering in different places with homeless services but no identified uh no identified sites for this project and I will we'll turn it back over to Kurt to talk through the the different sites so the um the first site um listed here 5125 Pearl Parkway um so that's

[133:02] East Pearl it's next to what we call the yards and um it's sort of our our East Campus where there's um uh it supports our facilities and our transportation um snow plows um it's a very active um site and um this site was purchased um uh I think it was two or three years ago uh for 4.9 million and it was it was purchased with the intent of uh the additional space that's going to be needed um at this location for these services and so it's it's sort of available for a couple of years um and then uh it will it will be need to be used uh to supp support the services that are currently there um and uh it's from a from a location standpoint it's it's uh for this purpose it's probably not a a bad location it's

[134:02] while it's not near um bus routes it is near um uh a pedestrian path um that can get you to other places in the city the next is 29613 Street um uh historically known as the old Rob's music site it's next to um what is currently the construction of our fire station and it's being used as a staging area for that um this this parcel is is uh currently owned by um our Department of Housing and Human Services it was purchased for 4.9 million with the intent of creating uh affordable housing there so we expected that that uh that development of that housing will start in about uh 3 to four years um so it could be available for that period of time and we're anticipating that we'll

[135:01] be creating about 40 to 50 uh affordable units um on that site it's also well uh uh located to uh transport public transportation um also the bike paths and um you can sort of get around this City from from uh this location relatively easily um the other site uh is uh in the corner of uh Valmont and Foothills Parkway um it's a vacant site um owned by the city it's sort of a a RightWay area um Jason to a state highway um it has a long-term protected uh prairie dog Colony um on it um which creates a real challenge um particularly with that designation um and um we weren't real

[136:00] excited about the site since it's right adjacent um you know to a highway and having camping and just having creating an environment that that's that is that close to that disruptive um road we also looked at a another city- owned site on 63rd in Gun Barrel and um that's also next to uh one of our fire stations um and um uh our it it also has prairie dogs um our concern about this site was simply the the distance from the city and services it's it's you know it's out away from from the city and um it would you know be quite a trek for individuals to get into the city for for for services so now we'll we'll look at the site development cost of site one and site two so site one again is 30th Street site two is uh is Pearl Parkway

[137:03] um they're relatively similar uh in cost um uh now these uh so the infrastructure cost includes um depending on the the level of infrastructure um so for the camper provided tents um we're just providing um electricity for um uh one very small uh building um that would provide um sort of a an office or or station for a staff to to work and to keep the uh the one water tap um from freezing so very minimal uh uh infrastructure there so that's that's 173,000 for um the infrastructure for that one um and then uh 500,000 for um the ice fishing tents at that same location um it jumps up quite a bit because you're

[138:01] bringing underground electricity to each one of the each one of the the tents um and then you're also providing um on-site um uh sewer and water um and then the pallet structures um jumps up a little bit higher in the reason for that is it requires a um um an individual electrical um uh function at each of the buildings to you know to meet code um so it's a a a individual service for each uh each unit so that gets up to to 900,000 uh for the initial infrastructure for the pallet structures so site two Pearl Parkway um it's a little more uh slightly more expensive at that site um and that's relation to the proximity um of of the current um underground services so the um for the most basic services 370,000 for ice

[139:01] fishing tents 740 and just over a million for the for the pallet structures so these would be costs um that would go in ver at the very beginning prior to the opening of of one of these uh safe outdoor spaces so this slide puts everything together um and again um the level of services could be different in different solutions um but for Simplicity um we we try to put it in three different categories so the the the most um uh uh or the lowest cost option with the camping tents minimal infrastructure Min no Services um year one is 270,000 and then ongoing years of 100,000 ice fishing tents with um uh operational Services uh not Supportive

[140:01] Services uh 1.7 million in year one and then 1.1 million in ongoing cost um and we found that you know relatively similar to um what we've um seen in in Denver so the pallet structures um that brings it up a significant amount 3 million in year one uh 1.3 million per year for for years uh following and that would be sort of the highest level of um wraparound Services as well um so I think I'm I'm hoping you remember the the budget conversations from last fall um where Nara used the word constraint in every sentence often at the beginning of the sentence and then again at the end um so we looked at at at other programs I think for two purposes one to say um if we shut

[141:01] certain programs down where could we find money to to support this kind of initiative the other is just to show different programs and how much they cost um and so to implement depending on which approach you took um you know the most expensive approach you would have to um maybe substitute it with instead of doing the day service center you know going this direction as an example simply from a financial standpoint or you could combine uh um different programs um as well um you know the The CARE program is about um 800,000 the the C program putting them together also comes up with those um that that that level of of funding so um obviously I am not um suggesting that any of these programs be shut down I think they're all valuable programs um but we obviously want to

[142:02] hear um from Council um their their um their ideas around on that the other thing that we're presenting and this is somewhat independent um of this conversation but it it it certainly um you know comes into the conversation and something that we would have um otherwise presented on on on February 8th when we're talking about the homeless strategy and homeless update over the last three or four years a number of new programs that support homelessness have been initiated In the City by and large um most of them um have been supported with outside funding that we've been able to get through the cares act through arpa funding uh through state grants and we've been I think very successful as a team in bringing in you know significant resources um so just a highlight of some

[143:01] of these programs and some of them are supporting things that are already uh coming out of the uh um the general fund budget so the building home uh peer support program that was started last year we've already found that to be very effective that's helping people be more successful in their housing the day service center um and you'll notice that in different places on here um that's you know just getting launched hopefully in the next uh month or two um we've expanded winter shelter expansion over the last three years with hotels um all of those hotels over the last three years have been paid for with um non city funding um that will be running out actually at the end of this season um uh Older Adult Services is helped with um rental assistance we have mental and behavior health programs at the day service center um so these all of these

[144:00] have an end dat you can see the undate in the different bubbles of when that funding um comes to an end so we have programs that we've initiated that we think are are critical part of the um of of comprehensive services to help these individuals um they add up to 2.5 million so if we can't get out additional uh uh grants or additional outside funding to keep these programs going and we want to keep them going then over the next um year or two um another 2.5 million of City funds will will be potentially requested through a budgeting process so this um uh brings our um presentation to an end we um putting the the questions back up here again and I think some of the key um areas where staff would like guidance is do we want to bring this forward and if so where you know where do the resources come

[145:01] from um and and if we do bring It Forward you know what would it look like what kind of shelter what kind of services so with that I'll hand it back over to you if I'm a mayor before um we passed the council I wanted to just acknowledge two things that I've heard um from several council members right we I want to acknowledge first that we're going to have a conversation about our entire homelessness strategy soon right and get that this may be reversed I'll say that this presentation was requested before we sort of started and set our calendar for this year and so both acknowledge that and just want to honor the fact that we had been asked and and to move this forward and we're bringing it in that direction so um for those that wondered why this was perhaps um in a different order that is that is where we we're coming from and the other one I want to underscore before all of a sudden uh Kurt gets mean emails about why is he trying to cut HHS funding that that is indeed not what he is saying but rather because it is the department where that comes to that that is the um

[146:01] monies that they have looked at but we certainly want to acknowledge and I know we had some questions from council member shuart about there potentially could be other monies as that moves forward should that conversation arise we have phoned a friend and our assistant city manager we're leveraging some of his budget knowledge but also as the assistant city manager that supports HHS to talk a little bit about those potential strategies and what it would take um to come back with additional strategies but I guess to um underscore what Kurt is asking is um do we want to move forward because if the answer is yes then we're going to have to have some specificity on the manner in which you want us to move forward but there's a threshold question that I think um Bears answering before we start to jump into engagement strategies and others so I would posit that great thanks for that area and the presentation Megan and Kurt and uh also want to thank Vicki Ebner and Elizabeth Crow who are here from housing and Human

[147:00] Services you know last year we asked for a deep dive and what this would take and this is a deep dive and so I appreciate you coming up with the information that that we needed to think about how we might move forward with something like this so I would now look to council for questions let's start with just questions and then we can get to comments and maybe answering some of these questions a little bit later I saw Lauren son Nicole um I don't know I'm assuming that was Mark that we were talking about maybe providing some more budget information I would love to hear what that is um I was also hoping as I give you time to walk up maybe you could remind us all also where we're at in sort of the budgeting process of evaluating programs based on criteria and um how that might also play into how we think about budgeting thank you you can try to leave budgeting but we bring you

[148:01] back um good evening Council Mark wolf this the city manager uh appreciate the question Lauren so um for new council members in particular and I know we did a little orientation on budget um we have moved towards an outcome based approach for uh now in the third year of doing that and so with that um a huge focus is on evaluating all of our investments towards our our outcomes our intended outcomes uh in our um in advance of our sustainability equity and resilience framework so a big way to say we have all of these Community goals how do we measure those goals how do we know we're making progress towards those broad Community goals that is a part of our challenge within the budgeting process so um we we try to look at holistically across all of our investments during the budget uh process uh where we can make those strategic Investments certainly in partnership with uh city council uh and uh figure out where to allocate those uh limited

[149:00] resources so that's kind of the the broad perspective of um how we approach our um annual budget process and then the second part of your question could you remind me what that was well I think nura had said that you might be talking to us more about where we could look or what kind of process that would require in order to look at other funding sources sure uh and appreciate Ryan's hotline post earlier today that um was a nod to some of those other ideas certainly there uh are other areas of the budget that we could look at Beyond uh HHS uh I I think it to your point on the holistic look at the budget it is a lot uh more difficult for us to take a point in time at the beginning of a budget year when we have a recently adopted budget and we're beginning to make those Investments we're beginning to move forward on all those different programs and services and and capital projects to then pause and reallocate

[150:01] funds uh it's a lot easier to do that with one-time funds I I think if Council said we want to go forward with this program and we want you to find money this year I we could we could find a way probably to and I'm not in the budget role so maybe Charlotte's kicking me virtually wait where's but point being we have more flexibility from a one-time perspective I think why we're focused on the threshold question is that it it does implicate ongoing funding ongoing services at least for a period of of several years uh and so we we don't have a good answer where where we left our budget projections in November was that we had about half a million in the general fund room wise over the next several uh years to add ongoing services and so really the question is not so much the the establishment of that initial um infrastructure depending on the scale I mean I mean certainly into the millions um they probably is still a trade-off conversation on the onetime dollars but it really is that that ongoing source of funding that is the

[151:01] challenge and why unfortunately that that trade-off conversation becomes uh really difficult so um obviously many uh programs that are of great Community value within HHS in particular it would probably be a service from another part of the the general fund budget we could we could look at other mechanisms other levers that we could pull within the 2025 budget uh process and and at council's Direction uh we'd be happy to do that um noting that there are other priorities that come up and as you all know from recent budget conversations that that is more difficult but I think if we received clear direction from uh Council that you wanted to to create this program and prioritize that within the 2025 budget process uh we would certainly do so yes um appreciate you coming up here Mark and I I just want to Circle back to that um fall budget conversation we had and we were talking about actually some arpa money that was left and I think uh

[152:01] we had kind of had a conversation about marking or flagging what was about $800,000 that was set to sort of not expire but sort of be reset in its allocation as of December 31st 2023 that wouldn't be available for realloc until the May ATB and so I just want to sort of circle back to that because I think we had this kind of conversation in a setup for our discussion about this SOS that hey that 800 given that the service center was not up and running and and we didn't necessarily have a fulltime frame at that point but was not going to be of use because it was going to expire and so I just want to just clarify that that 800 is still potentially there in one form or another from which in may we can uh choose to utilize it or not um in this form or spread over a bunch of things but but there is a a a pocket of of money that is remains technically unallocated in an official sense and and you're referring to directly to the day Services Center yes and but that money

[153:01] was no longer usable because we didn't open it prior to December 31st 2023 when it was allocated two years prior yeah and I i' have to double check the the source of funding I think we landed on all day Services Center funding coming from the general fund um and in that case uh depending on when the contracts were underway there there may be an allocation needed to reappropriate money in in May um I'd have to confirm that information I I think the point on day services and I'd ask Kurt to back me up on on this um uh for accuracy is that uh based on uh where day Services Center landed at the shelter and a little bit different approach than what we were thinking maybe eight nine months ago um that funding is still required ired for um services at the center to support the day Services um activities um and so that's we thought it would be a little bit more infrastructure heavy um given the partnership it's a little bit more service heavy and so that allows us to

[154:01] extend that funding over a period of time so um yes and you could choose to appropriate that money differently my understanding is that it would impact the services at at day Services Center yeah if I could just um add on one clarification to to that Mark um so the I think off the top of my head there was like 735,000 or something like that that was set up for sort of the initiation of the day service center in 2023 um the the budgeting process if those monies aren't spent they don't they don't carry forward into the into the next year so that that 735 you know didn't carry forward into the next year the budgeting process looks at all the the resources that are um available and um so it wasn't a a bucket of money that was just sort of sitting on its own um so we we started fresh with the new budget for for 2024 sort of a new starting point T

[155:02] should had a follow up finances um thank you so I I did want to um I I noticed that there was no mention of the cost savings so it was my understanding that the city was considering this so that we could reduce the uh encampments the encampment sweeps that then come along with those encampments and the amount of staff time that goes and money and resources that go into the sweeps and again I don't know what the dollar amount is but I'm going to go with it's more than a couple of million dollars a year that we invest in encampment sweeps can I can I feel do we feel good about I'm I'm just using that as a as a larger point of the expectation was that we were going to and again this is from me as a resident before I got on Council this was all in conversation um I had the pleasure of participating in the boulder

[156:02] uh Chambers homeless series and I did the field trip and all the stuff um and it was my understanding that the expectation was and again this may not be the lived experience of those in Denver so I want to honor that that this may not be how it actually goes in reality but the expectation was that we were actually going to try and reduce the amount of encampment sweeps by actually offering a place for people to have authorized encampments or uh authorized tent and camping and so I'm just curious if in the analysis there were any like if we reduced Camp sweeps by x% then how much savings would that be 15% % 20 30 Etc to really get an idea um of of where there are potential cost Savings in how we currently address homelessness and how we're proposing so that's one that I would like to

[157:00] introduce as something that I didn't see reflected in any paperwork the option number the second piece of my questions are from a finance perspective was around um the permanent aspects of this so when I was originally um think speak of these I didn't realize that the request was for what appears to be um either two to five years or a long-term solution and so again it's just really helpful um as a new member to to be able to be on the dice and be in this conversation and to see um and you know whether that conversation was had is is whether this is a stop Gap measure or if this is a long-term solution and a complement to the strategy um so that's all my finance stuff and I have other questions but that those were only my finance ones at this moment so thank you so much I think on the last one I would just say it depends on what council's goals would be of a program at the permanence of it um whether it's a short-term solution or or a longterm

[158:01] solution sorry I'm assuming I'm my point for bringing that up was I was not sure if the council had already had that conversation thank you no uh and then for your first question going to kick it over to Kurt yeah I'll I'll give some well first of all thank you for that question um we've heard that question from others as well um I'll give a few inputs uh Nora may have some other inputs as well so this um both of the sites that we've looked at um and we there's the civil engineer actually did a layout of the sites um they both um capture probably about 30 um either um tents or or or pallet structures um and um we currently have um from our point in time count in August um about 170 individuals who are staying outside um we also know from our coordinated entry um self-reported data that roughly somewhere between three or four

[159:00] individuals um enter the community um every day experiencing homelessness so there's a lot of it's it's a very um fluid um uh group of of indiv individuals that are that are impacted um by home in our community um we did we don't know that there would be savings um related to to to the the samps work um and we we also don't know at this time which residents um uh would would take advantage of this um approach um as Megan mentioned earlier many of the residents who are staying outside along the creek um have have um real real challenges um and simply you know moving into housing um they have many challenges they have there's challenges with addiction and that sort of thing so we're not sure we don't want to promise savings because we're not sure that we

[160:01] can anticipate them just think n did you want to add to that before T yeah and I I just want to um I I want to slightly even be more direct is that when we last had a conversation we believe that we will continue our s's work unless uh Council does not wish us to do that any further and that's a different kind of conversation but to Kurt's point we don't know how many people will go and this is a small um this is a small pilot or intended to impact um you know up to 30 people is what we have been doing so that leaves other folks in our community still out there we believe that we and frankly I want to be honest too that while we're seeing the majority of the impacts in those Public Access areas um caused by encampments and where our unsheltered community is that is not the only um uh portion of our community that we need to be thoughtful about in terms of cleanup and Public Access and whatnot so

[161:00] I don't want to put this just on our unsheltered community as well there are other folks that are um littering and taking up space and we need to do cleanup as well um and then the other uh response perhaps to your question is and Council can certainly correct me if I'm um misar ing this um but it was intended to be a thought to complement um some of what we're already doing there uh had been conversations about a sense of urgency on as we do cleanups where do people go and could this be a compliment to that um so that was part of the conversation um but it was not intended to supplant any of the other um sort of scaffolding that staff really spoke about uh that we offer as well and so this is an addition to not an instead of um well I definitely appreciate that response um again a projection is not setting expectations it's just letting us know what what could happen it's forecasting and I um it would have been

[162:00] helpful to see what those trade-offs look like similarly to when uh we had those incredible slides letting us know um how much projects cost uh existing projects and unfortunately that gave the unfortunate illusion that we are in competition that there is a scor a scarcity of resources um and that we are pulling from one so again I want to honor that um you know the the original intention of this being a supplement um a part of a suite of services um I also as an adult child of an addict am very familiar uh with addiction um and have had because of that lived experience significant access to unhoused communities with um uh who are experiencing addiction um and although the idea of uh outdoor safe spaces is relatively new um I just think back to um the many many many people um who could have benefited from something a stop Gap measure like that um I just saw

[163:03] uh a report from Denver in their large encampment sweep um and they basically put a whole hundred of people into what is basically a Revenge of the Nerds sorry that ages me um gymn scene thank you um and so uh and it was reported that many several of the those who were taken actually returned back uh to the previous encampment because of fears of safety because of fears of not having the coordinated services that they were promised and so um again uh I I don't want to take up too much I'm very excited to hear um and learn more about what other colleagues have to say but again I would be curious in knowing um what the tradeoffs are and really looking more comprehensively um around Homeless Solutions more broadly the relationship to housing and transportation um and not looking at things in silos in general thank you thanks TAA I just I don't know if we finished with Lauren here so maybe we should you're all good but I want to

[164:01] make sure Lauren also gets her all of her questions and Nicole I've got you queued up too thank you Erin um so I'll skip some of my questions in the sake of time um so why I was wondering why we focused on pallet shelters and if we had looked at all at partnering with the community to potentially build shelter why is why is that is that an option we've thought about and if not are there reasons that we aren't looking at that as an option so um I think we looked at existing um infrastructure approaches that we could actually put in place um and um we didn't I'm not sure who we would reach out to for that we there may be some Community organization that would be interested in that I'm not aware of that um but um I think in the

[165:01] last two months um we didn't really have the capacity to do that but that's something we could explore further if if Council wished okay um and then with the undergrounding of electricity to structures so in the example of the ice fishing tents um in Denver for instance I don't believe they undergrounded their electricity it was run through I don't know what you call them those little like bump strips um so why would we take a different approach in that area so the uh the engineer that looked at this um uh did it with the um understand their understanding of the The Code Compliance of our city so could we potentially create a code or would it make sense from a financial

[166:00] perspective for us to look at um a code specifically around this to allow us to implement this in a more costeffective manner everyone's looking at me you were chatting with n so me forgive me forgive me um I think the question is could we wave those code requirements or or have some kind of carve out yeah I mean I I this these structures do not seem like the kinds of structures that our building code was designed to govern so we could in my opinion create code language that specifically speaks to these for instance when we look at mobile home parks we have zoning that specifically speaks to those structures could we do something like that for these here yes

[167:03] council could certainly do that for the time being the the code applies as written so it would require an amendment to the code but that's possible should Council wish thank you um and then let's see you also uh Megan I believe you spoke about speaking with religious institutions with the idea of partnering I understand that they didn't have property for this but I was wondering if you could just maybe share some of the the things that they were interested in partnering on maybe more for just us to understand better what some of those opportunities might look like sure I think the I think the conversations with the faith-based community has been they want to contribute somehow and they're just not sure what the best way to do that

[168:01] would be um so I'm scheduling a meeting for the 1 of February to kind of get them all in the same room um and have a conversation on where what things they' be interested in doing within the system and how we could plug them in I think the day service is will be an awesome opportunity for many of them um they we've already had conversations with like Deacon's closet and Lamb's breakfast and some of the existing Services they are looking for a permanent home um so those are the conversations that we're having around the work they're very interested in getting involved and just not they aren't sure where they fit so I'll talk them through the system as it exists and see where they would like to plug in thank you that's all of my questions okay if if sorry if I could also mention just looking at the the the engineering report um it it looks like it would save approximately maybe 50 or $60,000 by um going that approach approach on the electrical the above ground above ground yes yeah because then with the

[169:01] electrical like I think on the pallet homes you mentioned that they would each have their own electrical panel which is also something I have never seen before um so this is um I was referring to your question relate to the the insulated tents and that approach yes again so the insulated tents um so there's certain infrastructure that's going to have electrical infrastructure that's going to have to be in place regardless of whether the wires are underground or above ground um a new TR electrical Transformer needs to put in be in place for both of those sites um the um electrical boxes the breaker boxes um the disconnects the you know all All That Remains the Same it's it's the wiring from those points to the whether whether it gets undergrounded or not that's the where we would see the savings um talking about the pallet shelters that would be a different a different question yeah if you had the ability to do the

[170:00] quick math on that I would be interested in that as well Nicole while you're thinking about that know right GNA go quickly before somebody else cqu um I just had a few questions um so one of them um and probably Curt and Megan I think this is a question for you too um also just thank you thanks for all this work in the presentation um who paid for the outdoor shelters and the continued services and other communities and um were they using city land and I'm asking because in Denver my understanding is that the City and County of Denver did not pay for that it was Colorado Village collaborative a nonprofit that was providing the um tents the services uh and that they were on privately um owned land and I think to my uh colleagues questions around kind of cost savings that makes a big difference right um if if somebody else is running this versus the city so just wondering

[171:00] if you had any information on that um from the other cities Colorado V Village collaborative it's contracted with the city County of Denver so they were receiving minor is this arpa funding I'm not sure what their plan is ongoing so that was temporary um and as far as the land that's they were they were that's why we kind of started with the faith base because they were using um donated land so with the understanding that it was moving every six months so it was staying at a church for six months it stayed at there was one that was attached to the hospital down there Denver Health um for six months one that was on um off a federal with where the city county office buildings in their parking lot so yes they were using they were moving it with so folks were donating the land for six months and then they would move it along okay thank you um and then uh my other question is is really around um it is a finance question but I don't think it's a question for you Mark I think it's still a question for you too

[172:01] and it's it's basically around City versus County funding um so Denver for example is a city and a county Counties have a lot more access to funding um than cities generally do for at least this is my understanding please correct me if I'm wrong um for things like homelessness Services mental health that kind of thing um and I'm just wondering if that plays in here as well like if this is something where the county might be able to have more access to resources to pay for something like this than we as a city would through grants and things like that I'm I'm not sure that we can speak for the county um for that question um obviously the county does go after grants as well um for for homeless programs and behavioral health programs and treatment programs but I I don't think we could give more guidance than that okay thank you um and then I just had another question um and this is around turnaways this year at the shelter it seems like they're quite a

[173:00] bit higher than they have been um in the past and I was just wondering if there are any other ways to increase capacity um other than kind of this like can can we can we increase capacity with the resources that we already have um and in particular with regard to some of the concerns around barriers to entry I mean is there is there anything we could do to reduce barriers with what we currently have yes you're accurate in the turnaways have been up um across the board over this summer we were seeing numbers that we haven't seen historically as far as turnaways at the shelter so the the demand at the shelter has definitely grown over the last probably year and a half at this point um as far as answering your question about um how could we address the the capacity this is obviously one one approach that could address that um for for 30 individuals um we we also know

[174:00] that there's um I don't know what the number is but I I imagine it's it's more than 30 individuals who are um either staying at the shelter or staying along the creek right um this evening who actually have vouchers to move into a home somewhere um and we don't have a home for them so um our homeless strategy from the beginning has been to create those opportunities to exit individuals from homelessness um uh this week um as Megan mentioned earlier uh Bluebird opened um 40 individuals are moving into housing um this month 20 20 have moved in so far this week um and um if we could create um another Bluebird another Lee Hill um there are um there are land opportunities for that that are already um owned by us or our partners um so the investment in

[175:01] Bluebird um for 4A units um by the city was $3 million um and um that's you know creating 40 permanently uh affordable units for this specifically designed for this this population um right now um we have about 1100 units in our our pipeline um we don't quite have enough funding to deliver all those units um from an affordable housing standpoint so additional funding towards affordable housing could also create um more units for individuals that are holding vouchers today so Stella cqu if I'm col on kurk um I just had a question around the ongoing cost that Bluebird um does that cost the city uh once folks are in there so The Upfront cost was about $3 million um what are the ongoing costs it does not um we have Project based vouchers um at that site so that's that's funded through the state and that will um uh

[176:02] because it's Project based it goes with the project and not with the individual and so those those remain in place not just the for the rent component but also the service component okay so I just want to make sure that I understand this because this seems like a deal to me and Deals don't often come along so we paid $3 million as a city and we are basically putting 40 people who've been experiencing homelessness into permanent Supportive Housing that we don't have to pay for anymore that's correct okay thank you you got how do we get more of that we we we'll be talking more about that on February 8th right that's go ahead really really liking the the questions that are coming from this I think this is a as someone who's as the person going to be facilitating the February 8th meeting this is a great Preamble and I think it's going to set that conversation up really well so I I I really do appreciate it

[177:00] um I wanted to I got a couple questions but I wanted to follow up on where Lauren was going with regards to our um our codes and processes which we know to be honorous and we know to uh we're working on fixing it we we know that but in the meantime when we have something that is you know we've heard the word crisis and sometimes that word maybe gets thrown around so much so it loses its its meaning because everything if everything's a crisis then nothing is right but but nonetheless I mean I think it's pretty clear that we get the issue here at hand um and and so I appreciate Lauren's line of inquiry about could we create a new ordinance that would uh carve out a set of of streamlined processes or eliminate them for a specific use case right or however we would frame that but we could also I'm curious about how we could approach it from the other side which is how would what is the process in which we suspend those rules and if I'm not mistaken that's

[178:00] perhaps um declaring some form of an emergency that would allow us discretionarily from the city manager's office to perhaps suspend certain rules to meet um that emergency headon and I know other commities across the country have used that power to streamline and get around some of those things to meet that urgency and so we could certainly approach it from the ordinance perspective but I'm just wondering if we approach it from the other side which is just rather than create new rules just to suspend the ones that we are that are in our way for a certain time until we uh get the uh stated objective completed uh council member Benjamin that's certainly a possibility um the things I I thought about as I reviewed this as an option are uh what would signal the end of such an emergency um how how could this city declare such an emergency and and

[179:01] then not be able to respond to all people who are similarly situated in that emergent situation um so while I think it's possible I think that there are complications and if that's a route that the council would like to explore further I would be happy to do some additional research and get back to council about the pros and cons of such an approach um I'd like to have all the information uh available on both sides I I don't know which which which one we would want to choose but um I know it's involved in making an ordinance so that seems pretty straightforward I know what we would have to attack on that I would love to know that but I obviously would look to my colleagues whether or not they would support getting that information that would be interesting to me but maybe that's a discussion or a Choice Point later on uh but thank you for that Teresa um my other question kind of has to come around the services um costing um we have sort of an a level B which is limited services and then sort of the C full service and one thing that kind of struck me a little bit was

[180:00] and maybe it was sort of the semantics is limited Services as compared to full Services it was only 18% cheaper and so usually when you kind of go and buy a mid-range car it's not 18 % cheaper than the luxury version it's it's usually a a little bit more significantly gapped and so I'm wondering how or or why the limited version isn't really more of a middle ground between the full service and the no service and so I'm just kind of wondering because when I look at that I see one FTE for program manager and six program staff and that's that's the same for both limited and full and so I'm just wondering how we got to that sort of upper end and and the middle is kind of missing the the middle is or the the one The Limited it's 24-hour Staffing and so that is where the cost is to to staff something 24 hours is multiple shifts 24 hours seven days a week whereas all we're adding on the top level is some wraparound Services case management that would likely happen 40 hours a week so it's just a couple additional things the

[181:01] the big price point is having you know a couple people on site at all times for 24 hours is where the the cost adds up and so I I appreciate that I appreciate that distinction I'm just wondering for the sake of us having a a means of comparing some apples some different uh fruit um is is you know does having to go any form of service require that 247 or can it be you know you're on site 12 or 18 hours a day not 24 and so I'm just wondering for just providing a a more a complete spectrum because I get we all get the 24 but to have two options that are based on the same premise may not give us that delineation that maybe some of us are are looking for given that money is a scarcity that that could give us leverage in some areas that that that make this more palpable from a financing perspective right you could you obviously could have them there just during the daytime hours or just during the overnight hours whichever way and you could do it any way you want um I

[182:00] think the concern I would have is just again the folks even from my experience this past weekend at the at the shelter the folks that are currently living unsheltered have a number of significant barriers that if they're left um without any oversight for any period of time um it just is a little bit you know it opens up for additional situations okay yeah please does do Denver's version of this have 24hour super okay just wondering normally I I mean you bring up a good point I don't know that I saw I've seen one that just does like halftime like it's either they're checking in and just providing the case management piece so so case manager is checking in Daily with the folks um or it's been the 24 hours do you mind if I do a follow do please so uh you mentioned that you're meeting with the faith communities here in a few weeks which is great to hear and is there a role for volunteer assistance in some of this where maybe it doesn't all have to

[183:01] be you know trained professional staff but people who are you know have some training to assist but you go yeah I I think we could certainly Broach that question with the faith community um consistent feedback that we've heard um uh even over the last month from the faith community when we wrote to them I think it was in mid December early December um is that um many of them have tried to run you know Services out of their facility and had some real challenges um the other thing that we've heard from uh some of the faith community have run programs for some time is that they don't feel that their um uh their parishioners or members um are have the skills um to do some of this work and um sometimes feel um a

[184:00] little bit um like like the effort that's needed is is above their skill level um and we've also seen that many of our uh Faith communities um have um elderly members or there there's a trend for more elderly members um and they um have felt less comfortable with that work but absolutely we can reach out to them we're going to be talking to them not just about this initiative but the day services and other programs and figuring out how they um how they're helping now how they want to help and how they can integrate with with any of our programs yeah that that all Mak sense I just um you know visited some similar facilities in other cities and read about a number of other others and volunteer assistance has been a common threat through through those and like we have the dollars for food for example often times the people bring food and so I there may be some opportunity to reduce those operating costs by tapping into people in our community who want to help folks who who are struggling like this yeah and typically that's run

[185:01] through an through a nonprofit organization that's able to develop that that volunteer component and the training that goes along with it um and has expertise in it as well thanks for that mat are you still going yeah have one more question um and I I appreciate those responses uh Kurt and Megan um my last one I was already sort of thinking along these lines and Kurt you said something that that sort of pequ my interest is that I think you mentioned that there's about 30 some individuals that we that are currently probably out unsheltered as we speak that are that have vouchers and are just waiting for somewhere to go and I'm just sort of curious we get to maybe my my formal question but I'm curious about this particular of the are those are some of those 30 headed to Bluebird or or are the bluebird spots spoken for and they're and they're still further down the queue there's still go ahead there's still some that are waiting for blir there's still 20 more there's they're identified so it's not someone that doesn't know it's just a process to get

[186:00] everybody moved in um we do have vouchers in the community that are termed housing Choice vouchers and so they're what's called scattered site and so they could be used in any property um and those folks are it's it's challenging in Boulder right to identify sites that have openings and are willing to take some of the clients that that we're currently working with and and uh I I think it was about a year ago that the shelter uh implemented a new position um to recruit landlords um um specifically to address this issue um and I think you know there's been progress there but but it's an ongoing issue that we have okay yeah just preate the clearity because you brought up where this all comes to is I think we maybe started maybe we started with the second question and not maybe the first question tonight which is who because the who really dictates the what right if we're dealing with people that are that are um high functioning

[187:00] don't need much and they're just kind of waiting then that really dictates the level of service intrinsically so right whereas if it's if it's a group that's really going to need some some extra support then that obviously takes us down a different track and so I think I might want to ask slash answer who cuz that really then I I think form follows function as a result of that and and and so I just I'm just sort of curious with my colleagues like we haven't answered the who question and I'm wondering if that's maybe the first thing we answer because I think that'll just that'll shave certain things right off the table right now and we just can just be put them to bed and it may leave some others on the table or may ask us Force us to ask new questions so I I I just sort of paused for a minute it even though that's my open-ended question I'd love us to define the who because I can't really pick where we're going here between full service if it's people that are super high functioning I don't know the the full service is adequate but if that's not who we're serving then I so I I I feel like we're bouncing around here without

[188:01] defining the who like kind of right off the bat that we're all on the same page of that so that might be a good thing to visit in Council discussion okay CU it okay CU it it sort of helps me understand what questions to ask based on if we've defined a who but except that you all may have like make a a broad set of who you're thinking about serving here because I feel like you do have a sense of who we serving here yeah the folks who have vouchers does not mean that they're necessarily High function we actually prioritize folks based on need and so oftentimes the folks with the vouchers have the highest needs um it's been my experience doing Outreach in Boulder that if you're currently living unsheltered in this weather um we don't have a that population of high High you know functioning folks just living unsheltered is maybe a few um but not enough to fill 30 spaces appreciate that and and judge Khan pointed out there's a handful of folks that are still sort of there that he would Define as high functioning that that could be supported but but um but any I appreciate that

[189:01] that that Clarity so yeah that that covers me I got Mark and then Taisha and then T sorry I miss I skipped over to she had her hand up earlier take so mayor Brocket I also wanted to at some point respond further to uh council member fart's uh last question okay great well Mark you want to go ahead okay um given the lateness of the hour I'm going to try to be fairly quick I I want to key on a comment that Nicole made with respect to the turnaways at the shelter does the shelter have any potential expansion capacity yeah I I'm not sure we can answer that I don't know um from a develop Vel M standpoint if they have if they could be approved for additional uh square footage to that property we we would have to have the um the development review staff look at that okay might be a useful exercise but but as far as interior space I would say that they they don't

[190:01] really um with the with the footprint that they currently have um it would be difficult for them to add additional beds um with respect to the infrastructure that we're going to have to uh install on sites that are essentially temporary I assume that cost is going to be lost when we move to a more permanent location that we purchase there's nothing recoverable there that's correct okay well there may be some um infrastructure above ground that could be transferred to a new site but it would be a pretty small percentage of the overall infrastructure and unless you you well you mentioned that um uh uh you didn't want to speak for the county with respect to their ability to or willingness uh to cooperate uh and perhaps provide some additional resources towards this effort uh is there a process by which we should ask them I mean it's they're pretty close

[191:03] by so we want to run over to the county building see if anybody's Mark I'll be back in a few minutes I mean a serious question I mean have we engaged in that conversation um I I know that the county uh housing in uh or uh um Health and Human Services um has um had initial conversations around this approach um they have not been favorable of of supporting it but that's from a staff level okay and and just two general questions um across the country are these kinds of faciliity is now considered the best practice it was not the case a couple of years ago is it the case today and is that based upon s you know many successes I mean what what's the track record the outcomes we've seen is they're similar to emergency shelter so

[192:01] it expands emergency shelter um in some ways it's better because it's non- congregate you know congregate Sheltering is hard for anybody um and this gives people their own space but the outcomes typically Trail the emergency shelter so it's around a 30% success rate people exit from the site into housing um but a lot of that is dictated kind of around who they serve okay um and what services are provided and what exit options there are of course if we don't have additional options to exit makes it harder got it um I thank you and um thanks for that Mark so enti you don't mind I skip Tera so if we could go to her and then come back to you um is it me or is it Colman here that's my first question um okay did you say that there was not

[193:02] $800,000 that Matt was talking about is that right you needed for the day shelter did I hear that right I just want to make sure well the resources from 2023 that we had allocated for that have not carried for forward so you don't have that that's correct okay um number two this is a question can I ask Lauren a question or does that not count for question staff questions and that can file under Council discussion okay check number three then um to 2024 2025 priorities are we going to have more money or still no money if we make it you know that question should we make it a priority will making it a priority mean we have money for it or does that not mean that it's it it doesn't automatically mean that there's money no I I think the priority setting is a mechanism to help

[194:00] uh help staff understand what this council's priorities are and certainly our Staffing Resources to make those things happen and with that uh consideration as we enter into the 2025 budget process process it is helpful to know where there are funding priorities for for Council so that would be part of the goal in setting those priorities is understanding um where there's funding needs and funding priorities of this council heading into the 2025 so you can maybe fund the money uh we would do everything we can to pull levers to try to make those uh priorities happen it depends on what's on that list and how much they cost okay check and um I think that's it I'll do the rest Council discussion okay I got TAA and then Tina um this actually goes back to um Matt's earlier um question around who are we

[195:00] serving um and and and just a general theme that I've noticed around research and evaluation and so what we received today was a list of outputs we have this program we have this program or inputs and I like we have this or you know this many people serve but what's missing in this is um what are the outcomes um H how effective are the programs that we currently have um as it relates to not just exting exiting homeless but all of the different stages like who's accessing you know what I mean I just feel like um it's very difficult to make these decisions without uh data and um and so again I I I would be um I I look forward to the February conversation and I'm hopeful that that conversation is inclusive of the outcomes that we've seen by program um as well as the ways in which the programs are coordinated together um is is something that will be really helpful

[196:00] to inform this conversation so thank you uh for that one and then the last one is um I going back to evaluation and feedback and whose Fe feedback matters and I think there's one group that I would really love to hear more feedback from and that's actually the 170 something people that you all know about already those are the people that I want to hear from it's like when people who own homes and have never really rented create renter programs no shade right and so I'm eager to hear from a qualitative perspective and again I know these are hard to reach and la la la la la right but we've got relationships right messenger matters thanks for the feedback and so I'm hopeful that we can um get more qualitative data from the unhoused population that will be directly affected by this thank you can we respond to that or yeah sure yeah so thank you for that um so I um I I do

[197:02] hope that we meet your expectations um as much as we can on February 8th um around data we do expect to be providing a lot of information on sort of how the strategy interfaces with the the outcomes of various programs and then I think Megan can maybe uh address your second um comments as well I did have conversations with both we the mun court has a lived experience board um and so we brought this topic in front of them and had conversations and I also went out be prior to this position I did I was a mun Court Navigator and did Outreach and so we went out and had this conversation with folks who are currently in encampments more around if if we did it what kind of the questions were asking you guys would you use it uh what type of structure would you prefer what kind of services would you prefer so I did have that conversation with folks so what percentage of the 170 that you referenced um what percentage of that number have been

[198:01] consulted it would be probably total spoken to was probably 25 or 30 folks that were willing to have the conversation with me okay so I and again I just wonder how can we're not in a silo and there's a lot a lot of complexities to this issue so I'm just curious how can we can support and work with our Community Partners um to get the the rest of that qualitative information because I suspect with the right messenger that we can get a lot more feedback um to help inform this critical discussion thank you so much and also just documentation right um unfortunately um anecdotals makes it very difficult um to to make sure that the validity and rigor um is there and so having um a more robust and uh comprehensive approach to getting that feedback um just like we did with the community survey right that Community survey we I don't know how much was paid for that but you know they did some things you know they talked to people and they followed up I mean actually they didn't talk to they did some things and um and so I'm just wondering again

[199:02] the the level of robust investment that we put in certain communities feedback and not in others and so I'm hopeful uh that we can level the playing field there as well thank you so much um so I had a couple questions would having the um outdoor space like this would that decrease our need to um put up an emergency shelter like we did last weekend so I think there are around 40 people there um but probably not right just yeah I I I think we probably still would have well I'm I'm I'm anticipating uh what what that could look like um because um some of the individuals um that are living outside in our community we wouldn't be able to

[200:01] house all of them in those 30 many of them um when we have a very cold snap like that um our our numbers at the North Boulder shelter go up um in part we bring in additional hotel rooms for that period of time as well so we're able to get we were able to increase the capacity by um almost 40 individuals um during the cold snap we we also find that um individuals who are uh staying outside in our community many of them um that know that this is coming and we spend a lot of time engaging with individuals the week prior to that cold snap um they um they find their own solution as well um they have a friend that they can stay with or you know for a few days um so there's many people that that do that um but then there's still a population that um uh isn't able

[201:00] to engage um at the shelter uh for overnight stays um for for various reasons um and really don't have options and I think that's where particularly when we have multiple pH of of that kind of cold it really um you know pushes us to um you know have that type of solution um the if if we did a SOS Village it would be to find people staying in each one of those um it's not an overflow really for for that type of um weather condition okay um and then I had a a question about um so so if it's not clear whether safe zones would apply in this case whether the tents would have to be 50 ft from a sidewalk um from what I could tell with both the camping ban ordinance as well as the safe Zone language that was passed by voters but if we did have

[202:00] to comply with the 50 Foot setback would that change the number of structures that would be allowed on these sites um I haven't scaled um the the layout that was done there so there's one site that could potentially be impacted that way that's one on East Pearl um I think we're probably 50 feet away um from that path um that site um a good portion of that site is in the flood plane and so we wouldn't be able to um put structures there anyway so we've put them further to the West um further away from that that bike path um so I don't foresee that as a challenge at least initially okay and then the other thing I read in the memo was because this is considered emergency shelter we'll use Sheltering measures rather than housing measures to evaluate the success of the program um I hope when we come back to be looking at this in a more holistic way as uh council member Adams was referencing just to see

[203:01] if there's a way that to look at them together um you know my interest is really in ultimately housing and not investing as much on Sheltering um the other thing I'm looking to do is to just understand the balance of resources that we're expending on reactive measures when people fall out of housing versus preventative measures where people are retained in housing and then become less expensive to have sort of a healthy lifestyle so I think it's more expensive to bring someone back into housing than to have them leave housing so I'm just thinking about how we're prioritizing and balancing those monies is something I'm interested in so so that's an area probably a couple years ago that we saw as a real um um sort of shortfall in our in our various services and so over this last year we were able to obtain um additional outside funding it was actually represented in some of those bubbles that I showed you earlier of of

[204:00] programs that have been implemented that we may not have funding for um in the in the future um but we found that um more resources need to be put into our community particularly those who had transitioned into housing they needed more assistance than than the programs we had at the time so we've invested more in Behavioral Health Services we've invested more in case managers and individuals that are actually in the peer support um and um even um Med medical supports as well um so um our services are um uh better supported in that area than they were probably a couple years ago but they're also probably not supported as much as um what the need is in our community right just one question thanks Kurt and Megan um on the costs it this might be a

[205:02] research question if so you can defer it but do you have anything in General on the comparative costs for infrastructure food staff kind of the whole package for uh what's in the proposal here or projection versus Denver anything you can say about that yeah there we've we've looked at them previously um and they're very comparable the the approximately for the I'm not sure what they're spending with the pallet shelters that the Denver the mayor is currently trying to stand up but with the safe outdoor spaces that they have is approximately a million dollars a year annually to operate great lots of really excellent questions so as we think about um now getting into discussion um I'm going to just put something out there for a potential Framing and people can take it or leave it uh so we have a lot of detailed questions about particulars and we have a um options that have a different set of pros and cons and

[206:00] trade-offs and of course we have constraints right so we have limited budget and you know are the dollars going here are they going somewhere else or could we find Grant dollars etc etc etc but I wonder if we include the the full discussion about what we're doing next on homelessness more as part of our holistic look on February 8th rather than making final answers to these questions tonight but maybe say hey let's keep this let's keep this idea in the mix and then have the the holistic discussion of all the things we're working on uh instead of just saying in in a silo here's exactly what we should do with this idea so I'm just going to put that out there as a possibility for discussion mayor Brockett um would you like me to before we get off of questions answer Lauren's final question sure okay so responsive thanks for the reminder which was about the cost of so the at the at the pallet shelters um you were asking about sort of the The increased cost to bring um Individual Services to each

[207:01] each unit so um some of the um undergrounding isn't just going to the pallet shelters but um also the you know the bathroom and kind of a community type room and that sort of thing that's that's a 100 amp service I don't think that we're going to be allowed to run that above ground um there's um about 160,000 set aside for um all the distribution of the electrical to the units um so I don't know what you know percentage of that is the underground again it's probably a similar amount um that I mentioned before um so it's you know it's maybe in the 30 to $50,000 range um I'm anticipating you know could be more or less than that um but the total cost of running that electricity and that service is 9 thank you thanks that c all right so

[208:00] coming back to that thing I threw out I got yeah Mark and Tina first I like that idea uh mayor um uh I think we need to have this conversation a little more holistically um and in that regard um in February can can we get a little more detail about the effectiveness how many people are being served by the various programs that we might or might not have to uh trade off for this project um you know if if something is serving 17 people uh that makes it a candidate for reallocation towards something like this if it's serving 5 20 people uh different outcome or different decision I think is called for um so if if we could get that information in the mix as as we look at all of this um I think that would be very helpful for us to make the most prudent and effective decisions with

[209:01] what are obviously scarce resources can I ask a clarification on that no okay we're we're good then of course of course um so uh would this simply be other services that um uh that uh meet the unhoused or um we had that slide up there of many programs within HHS that serve individuals would you like us to sort of provide that information as well I would if it's not too burdensome I I I would um just because we're you know those programs we're going to have to allocate funds towards if we want them to survive sure and the same calculus supplies uh if one of them is is uh being uh funded with $800,000 of grant money and serving 28 people um that calls for a different decision than if it's a, 128 people so I those are important considerations for

[210:00] us um uh for me this is not about not serving the homeless Community it's about how do we serve the homeless Community most effectively and with the greatest leverage and I I I want us to leverage our dollars because we have limitations on our dollars and let let's do that which is most effective and I I you know I have no I am agnostic on every one of these programs I am simply an Effectiveness um junkie well that's the wrong term but I I I I care only about I care about the effectiveness only um and if something works and if something is is cost effective that's something I want to invest in and and if we had much more in the way of resources I'd say fund everything why not um but we don't and and that's you know that's simply where we are

[211:03] ter just spoiler alert this could be not the same exact subject as what we've been talking about Aon so sorry about that but I'm wondering can pallet homes or some sort of a module structure because we we don't have enough places for people that have vouchers so is there any way to use uh smaller smaller than our nice affordable housing units that have a locking a key in a roof which is what people seem to want I would think right that we could do quickly that is possible with some of Lauren's ideas which we haven't heard yet but if we could think outside the box because I mean for me housing obviously is the most important thing because it's hard to get better from uh a lot of things

[212:02] like that we've been talking about tonight without that without security of a house so I'm wondering if we're going to talk about if we can talk about that on February 8th because we were kind of talking a little bit you were talking a little bit about well we have Bluebird coming up and that's great and those are the most effective things but how can we make more of those that are less expensive smaller or can we not do it because we have a lot of building what's the word I would use uh help me here you can't you know red tape red tape rules all that yeah all that gotcha all right did I so I would love that to be part of the conversation like no okay let's say that we decide I'm not saying we won't not to do ice fishing tents we need to help a whole lot of people quickly so what are other options so can I first ask answer Mark's question then get to that one um

[213:01] but that's what I'll do um so um uh I I think our memos do next week Mark uh for February 8th we'll do the best we can um with that I can't promise it but we'll we'll make an effort um around that well you always do and I appreciate that um and I would say I'd appreciate that Grace because I know that they always do a great job of trying to get it in but it may be that we have to bring it in afterwards because it's due next week that's fine but you understand the Thematic sure concept here is um my Approach is simply tell us what works tell us what works best and tell us how we can take this pot of money and help the most people and if that's I fishing tents that's great if it's pallets that's great uh if it if it's other things also great I I just want to help the most people that we can help um with those resources and that's why I'm asking that question and I I'll take any answer you

[214:01] can give me okay thank you so so uh terara um um I'm going to pass this over to Megan but um I I don't believe a pallet shelter meets the definition of what a a voucher can be used for um in fact that Bluebird there was before they could move in there was a a voucher inspection um um we don't write those rules um of what needs to be defined um for that particular unit but Megan is there more you can add correct if you wanted it covered with a voucher I mean I don't know what what specific not a pallet those are considered shelter I mean you could even tin homes I feel like you would need a bathroom an individual that kind of thing they require a kitchen as well yeah in each that's correct I'll just share from personal experience um what during the pandemic when I was in Austin we were able to acquire a variety of motels just because that's what's available there

[215:01] and we were able to get vouchers because we had to add a second sink into it so it's very specific about the kind of things that you need to do and the amenities that are needed before it becomes permanent Supportive Housing to get a voucher but things like that I think are Technical and as Kurt says we we have nothing um to do with those regulations do you know if the uh Austin Community First um tiny home Village uses vouchers it's privately funded it's wholly privately funded okay I got Lauren and then Tina um I appreciated your recommendation Aon and i would support that um and uh as Taisha and Mark brought up sort of the effectiveness of the programs I'd be interested in hearing more about that um on the cost standpoint it would be interesting to sort of for the programs to be able to understand a little bit better what costs are coming from the general fund

[216:00] and you know where we're able to amplify that spending through grants um or partnering with other entities um and what the ongoing C like we had a bunch of programs that don't have budgeted uh or that we don't have general fund dollars currently budgeted for ongoing costs so kind of understanding both currently how those things are and what the timeline looks like on those programs would be great I understand this is a lot and you have but as you are able to I would appreciate it um I would also like to maybe brainstorm with you guys if we H like so I was chatting with my office about this and you know they were like we could build one of those you know and I do think like we have a lot of design and building Professionals in this community

[217:00] that you know may if especially people are competitive right we like turn it into a little mini design competition who you know I think we might be able to get people who are willing to um help with the with things that they're able to help with right like you are talking about from the volunteer things different people have different skills I think that our community probably has the skill set to maybe help with per like with tiny homes I think that that's something especially if they don't have plumbing and things like that that's not a super high construction bar um so I would be interested in chatting with you about that and what kind of costs we could look at potentially reducing through creating a special ordinance around this to allow specifically these types of

[218:00] structures in a simplified less red tape Manner and just see where we could maybe guess to mate we could take some money you know where we could get to if we looked at all those things in detail thanks good thanks I got Tina Nicole um and sorry if I'm not making sense I'm getting pretty cold um I just know it's fine um so Erin thank you for that um suggestion I think it's so important not to view this project in a silo and also um to Matt's point about really starting with who we're serving I know Council asked about a structure not about a solution for a specific group of people so this is an appropriate response but I do think we need to start thinking about who we're actually serving and then make the fall you know hopefully the response can follow that and I think something that something we can maybe talk about on February 8th um and then you know I um I like the idea about uh brainstorming about different

[219:01] ideas of creating small structures and I if we do start looking at the community to do that you know what would impede us from creating an actual tiny home that has a bathroom so that it would qualify for housing and a voucher um rather than a pallet home and it is a pretty nuanced distinction so I hope if that discussion occurs it's somewhat expansive uh for finding these Sheltering options so um so but I do hope that we can look at it holistically it's very hard for me I don't have any experience in housing or structure um so for me it's most mostly what Mark said looking at the efficacy of each option and then making sure the whole spectrum of people are served the best we can Nicole Nicole and Ryan and um thanks thanks for this discussion I definitely think we we really need to be looking at this holistically um at the Dr Cog study session earlier this month we started getting a preview of a

[220:00] Regional Housing needs assessment that has been going on um and what we're seeing at least in the initial analyses is that the Region's going to need over 500,000 more housing units by 2050 to meet the need um not just the coming need um but also the current Gap that we have um and the bulk of where those units are going to need to um come from is in the 0 to 60% Ami uh group specifically the0 to 30% to account for a lot of the people in the region who are experiencing homelessness and who uh will be experiencing homelessness in in years to come um and you know I think about this as we're think thinking about um individual programs uh thinking about a slightly bigger strategy and I just want to zoom out even farther and think about the unique opportunity that we have at this moment we in our city are not quite seeing the U migrant crisis that Denver and other cities are but we

[221:00] will um and we're going to be seeing this if not for kind of the growing economic issues that are arising with increasing economic inequality that fa has been telling us about since I've been on Council so for at least two years um then for climate reasons as people begin fleeing areas that are no longer um able to be lived in so what what we're really needing to do fundamentally is something that nobody has ever done before we need to take a large group of underresourced people and get them to safety stability and self-sufficiency as quickly as possible and that's a separate thing from the behavioral health issues uh that that we're seeing as well um which you know I I I like to think of Public Health and those kinds of services as being more the county but within the city we really need to start trying to figure out how we're going to solve this bigger problem not just because of our moral obligations to our community's well-being but because we owe it to

[222:00] Future councils to give them a leg up on what's coming um so as we consider spending uh money that we don't totally have um on new things I hope we'll also just start thinking about how can we create an actionable strategy that again has never been done before but that will transform our housing and our economic and our food systems to meet current and future needs um and I think as uh Lauren you were mentioning it's going to take a partnership it's going to take all of us together the city cannot solve everything we need the community to be helping us too um but I really think this is such a unique Community because we are so brilliant and we are so creative and we care so much and if we can bring that creativity and that collaboration to address this issue I think that we can really think big about how we use this particular moment where all these crises are just starting to come together to do the transformative

[223:00] work that the future councils are going to appreciate and that our future Community is going to need thank you for letting me go big for a minute go big all right okay I wanted to uh first acknowledge and thank the residents who came and spoke uh about our crisis in um addiction and unmanaged mental health issues um which gave rise uh to I think part of the suggestion that we need to think about strategy more broadly and um Nicole I think you made some good points and excuse me council member Spear and um I would just add to that that I think um unfortunately in my mind this is not something that we're um you know and about ready to cap off uh as an issue but this is going to be with us I mean this is a consequence of wiing inequality and poverty that's that's still increasing it's our housing crisis it's a long Trend towards urbanization um we have a heating Planet that's creating more dangerous weather and economic shocks um and this there are National and international forces that

[224:00] are driving this problem so um this is a this is this is a big thing and I I like the elevation that we've just made to strategy but I just want to say I'm concerned that we're going to come back on February 8th and if we don't have the county with us um or and or a broader set of Partners I fear that we're going to be frustrated um at that meeting so I don't have a clever way forward other than I would love to maybe think about in the near term some ways we can accelerate uh the communication and coordination we might have with the county or ways to stimulate that I think we have a few uh working group or type committees here maybe there are other ideas but I'm just concerned that we're going to come back in a few weeks and um be scratching our heads about what the county thinks and um the resources they have with that thanks appreciate the the thoughts that that everyone's brought to the table on this I agree with the general direction of folding this into the February 8th

[225:00] conversation um but but in light of that I just want to follow up with the voucher thing in tiny homes because I was a little I from what I've read um HUD in um April of 2023 authorized the use of housing vouchers at the Community First Site specifically and that was actually a big deal and there was a bunch of New York Times articles and everything celebrating that that was actually quite a big uh uh uh change for HUD that outside of their typical operating so i' I'd love some followup on that because apparently Community First is rant and Raven about how great it is that they've used that their tiny home community that has centralized food kitchen and bathroom not in each unit is leveraging HUD voucher so I'd love to see the follow up on that and to Tina's Point what is that gray area between pallet and and Tiny home because and to Mark's point if this is costeffective and I think this also teas into what Nicole said earlier if we have a way to get people in and not pay for the other parts because the FED is kicking in then then we should run with it um so I'd

[226:01] love some follow up on the details there again this is what I'm picking up from a HUD website and uh New York Times article so I could be off on the interpretation but I'd love some feedback from you guys on on that um also I I think um setting up for the conversation on 8th I'd love to um get some clarity and I first want to be checking with my colleagues do we are we interested in getting um Clarity from our city attorney's office on what a state of emergency implementation would look like pros and cons I I I don't think we're ready to make a decision I would just like to be had I just like to have information it'll probably come in the form of a confidential memo is my assumption but but nonetheless um I would like that I don't want to speak on behalf of everybody so I'm just curious if that's something that we would be able to provide Teresa with direction to say yep spend a little time to give us some of that um so we understand what we would walk into uh in that form I hope that's an appropriate ask but I don't want to just assume that that's something you're going to do Teresa just because I asked for it uh thank you for that uh under the

[227:00] council procedure it would indeed require at least a knot of three and do you know how much work that would take is that going to drag your office down for a long time or is it relatively doable uh it's certainly doable happy to to comply with whatever request Council makes okay um did we T did you want to address that I'm part of oh okay yeah I mean I'm interested in that okay like as long as you have capacity for it okay thanks teres appreciate it um and then uh next I sort of just a followup is setup is is where did you have a call we I I just had a followup question Just J Clarity are we asking for this for the a or are we asking for this at some later point I I just I just want I feel like giving tasks without a deadline is not helpful I I thought my ask was for the eth just so that we're informed with everything to make this holistic conversation because I'm sure if we made a choice to do that that would impact our entire homelessness strategy so I

[228:01] would like to know that up front thanks for the deadline that's helpful you're very Teresa um all right so a couple other points um uh again just sort of for our information and set up for the E is there any traction on the high system utilizer plan that was sort of brought to us in a rough out about maybe six seven months ago and is there traction and uh and hopefully the county maybe is is taking some lead on that so I just want to get a sense of in in a sentence or two if that's even in the ballpark or are we still in fantasy land so I you will you will receive a comprehensive update on that initiative um uh I'm not sure to answer how to answer your question but maybe I'll I'll jump in I think the answer is yes but we're not going to give that update now but it'll be part the memo for the February 8 that's thank you for that Aon um and and I think lastly I'll just end

[229:01] with three words in some context County County County um I I I think where Ryan was at is is exactly right I'm not sure we can have a comprehensive homelessness strategy without understanding what the county is doing or or not doing um and so this is an HSBC thing so I'd love to know where where where is this jurisdictional gray area because I when we're talking Behavioral Health I I think of how much money are we spending that is County's jurisdiction technically and when we're trying to to Mark's Point figure out where's this money coming from that we can utilize for things we do well and the the county has the jurisdiction and the coffers to to to do it but they're not then I think that we have some leverage to start to figure out how do we get the most out of what the county is supposed to do well and then we can stay in the lane of the things that we do well um and figure out where that vend diagram best resides um I I I think that's a huge potential outcome conversation for the eth and I just would love to know where those pieces are how much money

[230:01] we're spending on Behavioral Health versus housing versus enforcement I think that's going to really inform us going forth so I just just to tea up that eight stuff but it's so related to what we talked about tonight great and but did we get an official response to the letter that we sent to the county last year uh not that I'm aware of no no we did y it's almost 10 but yeah go for it yeah yeah right exactly I'm just picking on you T what happened to my brain it's late and you're cold okay um do you think one of the county Comm Commissioners I'm never going to say who said that we she wants all three of them are women so I didn't give anything down she wants an exact list of exactly what it is we want now whether or not that helps I don't know but do you think it will be helpful if we said we've decided on February 8th these four things

[231:01] something that we want that you'd like us to give is that crazy or should we be more specific and not just say you would SP specificity help or not I think to quote brne Brown which is weird for me to quote but Clarity is kind and I think specificity is always helpful but with due respect we also need specificity from you and so I think having that conversation on the eth and hopefully getting that may help inform what we could do with a county leader can I clarify we did that in the letter we said do the high system utilizer plan and provide no less than uh I believe it was 25% of your affordable housing tax on permanently Supportive Housing so we were very specific with numbers so we haven't gotten an answer to that so I'm it may be a futile effort to provide more clarity of more things when we haven't even gotten the answer to the two things we've already asked for very specifically so I just want to preface that okay fair point but I

[232:03] think okay well I I think this is not about our relationship with the county right now so I don't know that we should go too deep into that right this second I don't know what we're talking yeah Nicole's got a sta question I have just a couple quick comments and then maybe we can wrap up um so I'm just sensitive to how exhausted I am after just going to a bunch of events last weekend uh I did not stand up an emergency shelter for a lot of people who are really struggling and keep them alive over the weekend um three weeks is that I mean we've asked you for a lot of information tonight a lot of details and I know we've got a packed calendar um and I'm wondering if this is anything that CAC should be talking about about whether that's realistic to with everybody getting sleep and rest because that is actually important um can we really do that so I'll I'll take a stab at it um and certainly staff can kick me out the table as well um I appreciate

[233:00] that and I think we already have thoughts we knew this conversation was going to be long um and both appreciate this conversation and I just want to honor and appreciate staff who they were asked a very specific question what would it take to stand something up I think they've responded well today I've also appreciated the other side of that which is yes and we really need to look at it in holistically in a different way and and frankly we appreciate that too so I think both things can be true as we move forward um and I think February 8th will be helpful I'm already thinking and I I um know I had uh planned to bring it up uh to the mayor and to CAC a little bit um we have a variety of things on that high utilizer is a big one for us to bring forward um and then the overall strategy homelessness strategy I think is critical SS we have always been clear that that is not necessarily A homelessness strategy it it deals with perhaps the impacts of homelessness in our community we will already be incorporating that memo so nothing will change from the memo you get and we'll

[234:01] have staff there to answer questions but I wonder if that's something to pull out because there is more conversation to be had just on the strategies so we're already thinking about how to make that meeting not go eight hours and um think about other things and um we'll bring it happy to bring it to CAC and and figure out what that is specifically or especially as um we may get into broader things about costing and outcomes and if we do this how do we do this in terms of emergency versus an ordinance versus a waiver all of those take time so to your question I think a lot of what um you've asked for I think staff has been working on this memo for quite a while and I think we're close to completing that because that deadline was next week the additional stuff we will add what we can to it and and ask for your grace if we have things that come later on and as that is developed we are happy to send that through hotline before the meeting um and then I'd say some thought uh and I defer obviously to CAC about our

[235:01] approach to perhaps limiting some of the conversation while still giving you the information the staff has worked hard to present in the memo because we think it's important okay TAA and then I I'll go um so this is an adjustment for me um in this work um CPW meetings are during the work day so I do appreciate that um these are at night so that people can actually hear and participate but it is going to be an adjustment so I apologize for my tiredness at this moment um but I did want to just um lift up the conversation around the city county um as a place just I want to put a placeholder in that because I do think it's a really important conversation and even in the orientation very rigorous by the way um there wasn't that much conversation around what are the overlaps roles and responsibilities and where we kind of rub up against each other that's one collaborate with each other uh but then there's also the piece on where do we Strat where and when and

[236:01] how often do we strategize with each other cuz sending somebody a letter right um I'm just curious if there have been conversations or other approaches or strategies that have been used in the past for us to actually meet with the other County Commissioners and really do some strategic thinking and not just presenting to each other so um again I'm I'm hopeful that that's a conversation that we can have in in some kind of way I don't know how and just if we can get more information some of the newbies on what has the relationship historically been and what are the structural formal components where we are coming together either strategically or just to hear from each other thank you you I just note we had a a joint session with uh the County Commissioners last year maybe about eight months ago something like that and um and it was which took a long time to schedule um and but it would be good to do it again all right uh so I'll just call myself here um just thank you again uh Curt and

[237:01] Megan and the whole team for the depth of this analysis this is incredibly helpful as we've been talking about this concept for years we've never had this Conta text so really really appreciate that um I hope you don't mind that that I didn't have us answer every question that you had up here but it it it does feel like it works better as the holistic discussion of of all of our strategies and I'll just not I mean the reason as I understand it why we're looking into this is can we get people off the streets off the creek with a solution that's quicker and faster than um faster and cheaper than other options and so that that to me is the promise of this I think we're still figuring out whether that is the case or not and so answering some of the questions we've thrown out here about some middle grounds or whether we can get build competitions to help take some costs off or things like that it'll be interesting to continue the discussion um but look forward to that larger discussion about our homelessness Solutions on February 8th and then um so I'll just end by saying to all of you and the all

[238:01] everybody who made that the warming Center happen just deep gratitude uh for saving lives uh thank you for that mayor um if I could just make a couple quick comments as well um uh I know that the conversation about the county comes up often um I I will say that um in my experience um over the almost eight years now um at the city of Boulder um the collaborations with the county at a staff level are very strong um we um collaborate um um often weekly um sometimes daily um this weekend was a a great example of that but around the work around homelessness um and affordable housing the collaboration is something that we're always working on it also goes outside of that we have collaborations around addressing family um homelessness and and other challenges that our that

[239:01] our community has um the second thing I'll I'll I'll mention uh we've been reques Ed to add additional um information to the to the next packet um we this is a very busy time for us um next week is our point and time count um that's actually being led by um our team um we're we've recruited volunteers for that and other organizations to partner with that um we have a uh um a good neighbor meeting around the day service center I think that's on the 31st um of this month um we're working to um ensure that the day service approaches and the many things that have been added through the state grants um can be in place uh in the next month and a half to two months um and um just the normal day-to-day work of that we do with High

[240:00] utilizers um getting people housed um all the various programs that were going that are going on this is probably the busiest time of the year for us um and um uh we'll do the best we can and um I I believe that you'll have some Grace on February 8th as well so thank you thanks for all that work well I'll just say uh before I gavis closed uh just want this uh this was a challenging meeting in a number of different ways it's an intense start I'm just proud to to serve with you group of extraordinary humans who can uh navigate situations like this with um Grace and um wisdom so any other final Thoughts with that I'll 07 p.m. have a good night

[241:07] everybody