January 25, 2024 — City Council Special Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[5:53] and we don't often get a chance to really provide an overview of all the incredible work um that the folks in utility ities and their partners are

[6:00] doing in this area so with that I am going to ask Joe tauchi our director of utilities to take it away thank you naria and good evening mayor protm and members of council I don't think the mayor is with us tonight so I don't want to leave him out but um I am Joe tauchi and I am the director of the utilities department and tonight we are here to talk about the storm water and flood utility and this is a this is a topic in a general flood discussion that we've done with city council every few years the last time we've had a discussion like this was in in 2020 just before we were getting ready to kick off our our Flood Master Plan there's a lot to the utility as you'll hear tonight and it's really nice to have an opportunity to have this discussion when Council isn't Under Pressure to make a DEC decision on a specific

[7:01] project part of the reason that we're doing this now uh in in the end of January is that there will be some activity coming up here in February and March on one of our flood projects that will require uh Council action and if I could have the team go to the next slide so even though there are four topics on this agenda we've really uh broken the presentation into into three parts the first part is an overview of the flood utility it's it's probably the longest part of our presentation in terms of the number of slides and and we'll talk about the um comprehensive flood plan that was approved by Council in 2022 then we'll talk about community outreach and then we'll have some updates on key projects and we think it'll work best if we go through each of the three sections first and then stop

[8:01] for discussion and and questions for Council as we have um written them in the memo and we'll have the questions here on the screen if we can go to the next slide so this slide shows the the team that works on all of our storm water and flood capital projects and I'll just go quickly through the team uh many of the council members are familiar with Brandon Cole I'm sure he is actually the supervisor and and leader of this team and he's also our project manager for the South Boulder Creek flood mitigation project and then Kristen Capas is leading our Gregory Creek project Debbie fiser is uh uh leading our upper Goose Creek and Two Mile Canyon Creek project and then Allison wolf leads our local St stormm water drainage Improvement projects

[9:00] and then um anhela uro is in a new position in our Communications Department and it was created specifically for supporting our our flood utility projects and I I feel really privileged to have the opportunity to work with this team they have great energy and a few years ago during the pandemic um poor Brandon we were just down to uh one person and it was Brandon in our flood utility and so we were able to do some Recruitment and tonight as I mentioned previously you're going to hear about engagement and we've really hired with intention people who can work with the community that are passionate about the work including the city values and the environment and climate and our Equity goals and then in addition to the team members shown on this slide you'll also hear from Chris Douglas tonight Chris leads our whole utilities engineering

[10:02] team that does all the capital projects across all three of the utilities water Wastewater storm water and flood and then I wanted to mention that um Chris Douglas Kristen and Ana will be presenting to city council for the first time this evening so you'll hear from all of them and we're excited for them to have this opportunity one last thing about the team and and kind of our organizational structure so tonight you're going to hear about the the flood utility in the utilities department there is also another uh element of covering flood work in the city of Boulder that is taken care of by our planning and development services team and that's the flood plane regulation and the permitting that goes with that so any time a a developer is wanting to do something that involves a flood plane they work with the the pnds staff on

[11:00] that and our two departments work closely on those projects if we can go to the next slide and then in terms of talking about our team I also want to introduce a really important partner to our city flood utility we are really privileged and pleased to have the executive director of the mile high flood District uh with us tonight Laura ker and Kurt Bower who is also with us and um Kurt is the district's Watershed manager for the Boulder Creek Watershed so I might um pause here if uh Laura is is in the meeting as a as a panelist and and maybe let her say a few words about the M High flood District thank you Joe it's nice to see all of you tonight especially some current and former board members so um just uh here to give you a little introduction to the district if you're not familiar with the mile high flood

[12:00] District um we were enacted by the state legislature in 1969 uh to really manage storm water um at a regional level to reduce flood risk um our mission and vision is to protect people property and our environment we do that through preservation mitigation and education so that's kind of what we do in a nutshell and I'm hoping one of the services that you familiar with is our flood warning program because that actually started based off of the risk that the city is in because of Boulder um Boulder Creek and so we started that program um back in the 80s um to try to give as much warning as we could um in regards to prediction of of flooding um our boundary as you can see here goes from Boulder and down to Castle Rock but doesn't quite cover Castle Rock we're about 1600 square miles um we surface about three million people in the metro area and um we get our funding from a mill Levy and in the community in Boulder County pays 9/10 to

[13:00] the district um that's a tenth of a mill for our general Services then four10 for construction in design and then four10 for maintenance um and the big part of how we work with our funding as Joe says we're we're a partner with you is we're here to leverage the dollars that you could bring to the table so we can maximize the benefits to our community um by working together in a very collaborative way I'm going to stop there because that's a lot to kind of digest and um as we go through I will be here if you have any questions that come up but it sounds like Joe maybe we want to get through more of the presentation sure we we can do that and and if if you're able to stick around for a little bit when we get to the end of the first part um maybe we could start with questions for the for the district so that you don't have to stay on all night and we can let you go but sounds great I'll be here all right well thank you Laura and so next I'm going to turn it over to to Chris Douglas and uh he'll get us

[14:02] started uh on the overview of our our utility thank you Joe and good evening Council uh as Joe mentioned my name is Chris Douglas I'm the senior civil engineering manager in the utilities department I as Joe mentioned I lead the engineering team for all three of the city's wet utilities next slide so this uh the utilities department as Joe again as Joe mentioned was made up of three utilities water Wastewater storm water and the and and the storm water and flood management utilities these utilities are primarily funded by user fees collected from the monthly utility bills the storm water and flood management utility collects rain water and Creek flows through the city this is and this is the utility we're going to dive into a little bit more this evening i' like to start a little bit with an overview of the main components of the the storm of the utility which is includes flood

[15:01] management storm water drainage and storm water quality on a very high level the flood Management program includes the 16 drainageways and Creeks that convey water generally from west to east through the city the storm water drainage system is the pipes that collect the uh Street runoff and delivers the water to the Creeks uh to be able to continue that uh the storm the in a little more just a little bit more on those the those three components is the flood Management program is responsible for flood plane mapping risk assessments regulations Flood information flood insurance emergency preparedness property acquisition and Capital Improvements associated with those 47 miles of creeks and drainageways that are divided amongst the 16 drainage Wass of the city the storm wire drainage system includes a network of 190 miles of underground

[16:00] pipes structures channels that collect storm water throughout the city the storm water system conveys the waters to manage major drainage ways and the storm water uh drainage program involves routine inspections maintenance repairs Regulatory Compliance and Capital Improvements to the system and then finally the storm water quality program involves preservation protection and enhancement of the surface water the include compliance with state regulatory requirements and educating the community you Foster the shared stewardship of these natural resources now I'll hand it over to Kristen capias who's going to dive even deeper into the utility thank you Chris and good evening Council my name is Kristen kayas and I am a project manager with the storm flood utility I wanted to start by giving perspective to our flood risk here in Boulder the city is designated

[17:02] as the most flood prone City in the state it's extremely vulnerable to flooding due to a variety of reasons the one its geographic location at the base of the Rocky Mountains and two its high levels of urbanization and development along the drainageways since Boulder was developed prior to the implementation of the utility many homes and structures were built within the flood Plains of the Creeks reducing or eliminating capacity for flood waters and space for wildlife as a result this has jeopardized the health and safety of our community the protection of properties from floods and the quality of our ecosystem this map here on the left shows the 100 500e flood planes along the drainageways within the city since the city was established there have been over a dozen major floods the largest on record occurred in 1894 where it is estimated that Boulder Creek reached 100-year levels when we

[18:03] say 100-year levels we are referring to areas that statistically have a 1% chance of flooding in any given year in most recent history many of us remember the September 2013 floods in which several days of rainfall resulted in flooding along all the major drainageways this risk to flooding in the city is always present and to some level occurs every year this image here shows the flooding in North Boulder Park that occurred in June of 2023 Emergency Services had to rescue several individuals during that event as a result of the major historical floods we've experienced in the city and the need to protect the community and enhance storm and flood systems the utility was established in 1973 since then there have been many updates to comprehensive plans that guide our utility the most recent update was

[19:02] accepted and adopted by City Council in September of 2022 the comprehensive flood and storm water plan or for short the CFS has a city-wide focus and provides guidance for managing storm and flood systems across the city with the main goal of protecting the safety of our community and the ecosystem of our drainageways some of the topics addressed include flood management flood preparedness and storm water quality amongst other issues these topics were incorporated into a set of key outcomes and recommendations in the update we as a utility feel that the recommendations in the CFS document and reflect the feedback we heard from the community embody Boulders values and capture the Strategic vision of the utility in a way that positions us to move forward Expedition

[20:03] iously there were several key outcomes and recommendations that emerged from the planning process which shaped the guidance provided in the CFS tonight we'll be focusing on three of them the first and potentially the most impactful being the project prioritization framework the second is providing Services equitably by incorporating Equity into the policies and decision-making process and the third to develop proactive measures to address climate change through infrastructure resilience I would also like to mention the other key outcomes which included preparing for the extremes informing the community to create a prepared community and maintaining the systems we have one of the systematic approaches the utility has continued to use with

[21:00] the updated CFS is a life cycle approach the life cycle begins with identifying the flood Risk by mapping the flood planes once the mapping is completed we then identify alternatives to mitigate these risks the mitigation planning uses a systemwide approach to address flooding holistically and incorporates decisions as part of the community engagement process after approval of those recommended Alternatives we move to the design and construction phase this is the phase that addresses more detailed engineering and land owner impacts are better defined we have 30 major floodway project reaches across the city as shown by segment in this figure the project prioritization framework takes these remaining major major flood projects left to be built

[22:00] and helps determine which of these should be built when historically with the in the city of Boulder projects only focused on a cost benefit analysis which resulted in inequities in how projects were selected with the development of the CFS we have revised that approach the project prioritization framework encompasses several key criteria as shown here which were developed with data we received from the community each of these have Associated metrics the majority of which are quantitative these metrics are then used to assign a weighted value to each project this criteria is what is used to rank our 30 plus major floodway projects we have and provide an objective way to compare them

[23:01] I want to highlight an important component of the framework and that is the inclusion of equity considerations I understand the graph I've shown here is quite detailed and busy but I would like to focus on the equity metric for each project that was run through the prioritization framework because project prioritization has historically relied heavily on cost benefit analysis and avoided damages this has resulted in the past in prioritizing projects um for property protection in affluent areas by including Equity considerations using metrics like the social vulnerability index projects are prioritized in areas where people need them most for example some of the projects you can see here on this graph such as two and three rank higher than they would have due to the large Equity benefit both of these projects

[24:07] have climate change is causing widespread disruption in natural systems that threaten the well-being of our communities in Colorado we have and will continue to see increases in temperatures heat waves droughts and storm intensity changes can lead to increase in wildfires and changes in precipitation patterns posing risks to storm water and flood infrastructure in Boulder we are focusing on a couple things to combat this we are trying to construct resilient infrastructure that is adaptive to changing conditions accommodating floods and not controlling them by focusing on stream processes that are natural to the creeks and that are lower maintenance and implementing projects faster the sooner projects are implemented the better the community

[25:01] will be protected from frequently occurring storm events one of the key outcomes from the CFS was emerg emergency preparedness with the city being one of the highest flash flood risk communities in the state floods can happen at any time with little to no warning we work with many different partners to provide emergency response and awareness and to to keep the community prepared as a community member please sign up for emergency alerts at boo 911 alert.com this is the best way to stay informed of alerts in your area and last funding considerations and planning for future projects is critical to the CFS with the city largely being built out prior to the establishment of the

[26:00] storm and flood utility Boulder is in a position where unlike some of our neighboring communities we don't have vast undeveloped flip planes left therefore we are effectively retrofitting the city with an adequate storm and flood in infrastructure the plan identifies approximately $350 million worth of projects at the current Action level of funding the city anticipates these projects would be completed in a approximately 50 years during the planning for the CFS we received comments the city should raise rates to what is needed to move at the fastest Pace conversely we also received feedback that the city should carefully consider how rate increases will affect those who have limited ability to pay based on this feedback the plan currently recommends moving from the current Action level to a vision level of funding to accelerate the pace of completing major flood mitigation

[27:00] projects at this rate we would complete projects within a 30 to 35 year time span our current 2024 budget is approximately $16 million with most expenditures being predominantly devoted to CIP work I will now hand it off to Joe for our first question thank you thank you make sure I'm unmuted here um appreciate that Kristen and and Chris and Laura and for our council members that was a a lot to pack into a series of slides there so want to open it up for questions about the general flood utility and I might just add that the council members who were with us in 2022 and and were part of the approval for the master plan um have seen a lot of that information before but one thing

[28:00] that is is new for those council members is in that plan the there was the approval of the prioritization formula and so then after that approval we went and applied it so this is the first time that council is is kind of seeing how that Stacks up and and uh especially how the equity part mixes into it and I would just um remind everybody that that prioritization formula was really uh established through our community engagement process and the the community weighed in on what factors they thought were the most important and so then then we went back and developed that formula so I'm gonna I'll stop there and and see if there are any questions see council member Wallace hello Mark hi good evening uh just one quick question um uh The

[29:02] Debt Service portion of your pie chart uh is obviously going to grow as we engage in more projects um we have a sense of what what velocity that that component is going to grow and will IT Crowd out um expenditures for Capital Improvements yeah great question thank thank thank you for that Mark and um the the way the bonding works the storm water and flood utility has has its own bonds and then the water and wastewater are are separate and the two of two of those utilities are packaged together and so um The Debt Service goes out for um 20 years on the bonds that we're doing and as we were wrapping up the Flood Master plan and starting to think about rates and and the prioritization

[30:02] and where projects would fall our finance utilities Finance staff were looking at closely at how we could space these out over a period of years and what impact that would have on rates and we have two large Bonds in the next uh just just had one that did really well on the bond sale and then we'll have another one coming up here um within this year and they're they're large dollar volumes but the way we're we're looking at the rest of them were breaking up the projects into like $15 million increments and we think we can do the rest of them more with just reasonable rate increases and so we're not necessarily anticipating um at this moment in time a bunch more bonding in the storm water and flood utility thank you great answer appreciate it member Benjamin hello Matt coming

[31:03] in thanks T should appreciate that and um really loving the the the crisp uh presentation thus far so appreciate Joe and your team for doing that it's it's it's right on point uh easy to have that stuff become uh voluminous so so love love it my question kind of piggybacks a little bit on marks um which is I believe is is really about rates and where are we in process of thinking about a rate based study because I if I recall there was one in 2018 and so I'm just wondering where that is in process to think about that as it may help uh uh get us to that Vision level of funding um so I just curious about that rate pay study yeah for sure so you're right 2018 was the last time we did a rate study and there are a number of reasons and utilities that were kind of ramping up to do another one here probably um a couple years out I think for the water utility we have the tiered water budget structure and we've learned

[32:01] from the time we've implemented there's just a lot of complexity and practicality issues that we'd like to address and so it'll I would guess 20 late 2025 or 26 is when when we would probably have a rate study and that is something that both the Water Resources Advisory Board and and Council would for sure weigh in on that that's great and part of that just to give Community a sense of time knowing that it's coming and that sort of gives them a folks a time so if when you were to do a rate study when would people after that study maybe expect to see rates uh hit their hit their bills well the the rate study is is more about the design of the structure and the framework for how we build for our services or or that's a big component of it the the rates that we set um and a big part of it for utilities as you see with the city budget process is our

[33:00] capital projects the dollar values are are really high we do a six-year CIP um every year and it's it's it's rolling on six years so we're projecting rates six years out and then as as we're doing our analysis we're we're trying to look at all three utilities for 20 years and um the across all three utilities the value of the infrastructure several billion dollars and we know we have a great system but aging infrastructure that we need to take care of so one of the things that's on our utilities work plan partnering with our Central Finance team is um just doing a long-term Financial strategy because it's easy to fall into a trap of looking at it every year and say well the Bill's only going up $7 and then you do that for year after year after year year so we really want to be mindful of that think about

[34:00] the needs of our infrastructure but also um think about people's ability to pay thanks Joe I appreciate that uh council member spear hello Nicole thank you um and thank you so much for this wonderful presentation I am always impressed by uh how exceptional the presentations are um particularly from people who've never done this before so Kudos um my question is really uh just kind of about the budget and how it intersects with some of the funding that we get from Mya flood district and um I asked this partly to because I have the question but also to give Laura an opportunity to speak a little bit more um to the work that my high flood District does um I've been really impressed with what um I've seen But U my question is just around the if we've got about $60 million budgeted for this year in 2024 does that include the money that my high flood district is contributing to our

[35:01] projects or is that considered a separate pot it so when when utilities brings it six-year CIP through we we for sure think about the overall fund balance and all of the sources of revenue that that we have I don't remember the specific numbers off the top of my head but the mile high flood District funds are are in there and are really important to us okay thank you so it's part of that about $16 million figure okay not separate y um and then I was just wondering if this is a good opportunity for it um Flur you could just maybe speak a little bit more to the value that we get for the money that we're paying into the flood District or no but again I feel like it's appreciate that uh that Q um yeah I think it's all really about leveraging our resource ources so in addition to our funding um that um when we do a

[36:01] capital Improvement project it's at least a 50% match with our local community and the reason why that was set up was that so we all had Buy in um with some dollars at the table because you are really the property owner and the long-term owner of that infrastructure um and so we want to make sure that we're both at the table with some some equal dollars um but we're happy if you get your funding from any other type of funding source so I know some times um bowler uses like some tip funding um through Transportation so we're happy to leverage that um when it comes to the to the deal too but the other part that we don't talk a lot about is the maintenance and I think that's a really important part of the district is recognizing we can build all of these projects but they do need to be maintained into perpetuity right in order to function to provide that flood control we do fund that at 100% if projects that we built with you um based off of the requests that City puts into us and so that's a a pretty significant benefit I think to the city is

[37:01] recognizing that as we um partner on these projects that we will also be at their table to make sure that they are working well into the future does that help and and if I can add to that thank you Laura that's that that's uh super helpful and maybe just an example that people can U relate to in Boulder of a maintenance project and the the district does it 100% and provides um project management services and so if you think about the Goose Creek Corridor and the multi-use path there um just within the last few years we used to experience quite a bit of um puddling and ponding on the on the multi-use path and there was a need for maintenance and and managing some vegetation and so the district came in and did a pretty comprehensive project to to help us get that into shape and manage the ve

[38:00] vegetation and keep it healthy and thriving and so that is great and then just from the city's perspective having the partnership with the district I know in talking to Laura and and Kurt the district is aware of the the intensity of some of our projects and and the the public interaction and so they're also a great technical resource and our city staff we don't necessarily have all the answers to all the questions that come at us and um I know for myself I've sometimes consulted with Laura's team and and found it very helpful likewise thank you so much and I again I just want to correct the title of our incredible Mo mayor pre protim uh Nicole Spar and so just wanted to I noticed I said council member and my apologies on that but now we have uh council member

[39:01] Shu hard with his hand up Ryan hello thank you um thank you Joe and uh to the team for this uh uh straightforward presentation uh that I appreciate how well you put together um and also thank you Joe for responding to the hotline message I sent earlier this morning um I guess I would maybe just pull kind of a few things from that hotline to ask for you to say a little bit more um and this is sort of in the spirit of asking for kind of a primer on how just how things work I'm aware doing the reading that there's an incredible amount of um analysis and decisions that come into what you presented for us so um I'm really just hoping for kind of some basic education if you if you don't mind and um my my first question is um it's basically the subject of the second question in the hotline which is um when you when I think about when one thinks about the the projects that we're

[40:01] doing for flood mitigation um it it looks to me like the the kind of emphasis on um what we've selected or on kind of I don't know what the term is but like they're pretty they seem like somewhat site specific or Corridor specific or they're they're they're geographically con constrained or contained um so correct me if I'm wrong but assuming that that's right um I'm just curious about the um the side of the more kind of diffuse Citywide um kinds of things we might do that could have an impact specifically around um impermeable surfaces like the incredible area of concrete that we have um for our roads and parking lots and and I'm just wondering if you could maybe just talk about this in general like is that to to what extent is um is all of that impermeable surface a driver of our

[41:01] concerns things we have to manage um maybe I'll just start there to what extent is that is that an important part of of what we having to manage that we wouldn't otherwise have to manage if there wasn't so much imp permeable surface yeah for sure it is it is a consideration and in um Mt had asked about the rate study and in the last rate study in setting storm water fees we recalibrated the the storm water assessment to give people more credit for having impermeable surfaces so that's that's one day one way with with kind of a price pricing signal built into our our funding um a lot of the aspects of of that question and our answer get more into the part that I talked about with the planning and development services and the the regulatory part part in permitting projects so um our teams work

[42:01] closely together including our climate initiatives team to um just know what the emerging Trends are and Technologies and and following that and trying to build it into our codes and and and the requirements for projects and in developing the response to the to the hotline post I learned from one of my team members that before they were before we hired her to the city and that's Debbie she worked on a project I think it was a ball Aros space um that won an award for being like a 3 Acre imperme um permeable pavement structure that performed really well during the 2013 flood and it and it won some kind of industry award so um I don't when we get into the the permitting and the regulatory part I'm I'm not as strong in that area so we could definitely follow up more but I

[43:02] know going back to my introduction of the team there is a real passion for the environment and the and the climate and we want to build those things into our into our projects across the city and if I could touch on the part of your question about like how we you know how we decide you saw the prioritization work and then there are some boundary conditions like we can't we can't um build flood and storm water infrastructure Upstream in a drainage if it's if there's nothing Downstream that's that's ready to capture that water that we're harnessing so we kind of have to work systematically and practically to develop things so that we're um not creating more problems like that and those are all the things that factor into our decisions the last thing I will say about green infrastructure structure and people may not realize it Boulder Creek for example as it comes

[44:01] through from the western edge of town through the Civic area that's actually an engineered stream and there are there are features of it like Drop structures that are made out of large rocks and things like that that that look very natural but they're there to curb erosion and and stuff like that I'm getting a bit lengthy of my answer so I might stop there thanks Joe appreciate that um so if I if I could try to follow up and I won't I don't want to get too try to get too much into the regulations because I I heard I heard you that um you might need others for that but um just sort of like conceptually um is it the case that we kind of we'll take impermeable surfaces anywhere we can get it in Boulder I mean just like more or less and and it's all kind of fungible or is it more the case that there are certain locations in which uh per sorry permeable surfaces are more valuable um such I'm just thinking as we think about the pricing of this just at at a

[45:01] conceptual level are we kind of just looking for to to create that there's a value more per what's the word permeation anywhere we can get it or is it like no no we need actually to focus in certain areas and if so could you talk about that I mean the with the 16 Creeks running through town the the needs are kind of everywhere and and we definitely value the permeable surfaces and as I said addressing that in in our um rate structure was an important change in the last rate study and some of the property owners that that have large permeable surfaces that brought Community feedback and felt like that they weren't getting enough credit for what they were bringing to our storm water and flood system and it was a it was a valid point and we addressed it thanks and I see um Debbie had something to add if that's okay Council invitation is that okay if Debbie ways

[46:00] in I didn't see um Debbie's hand so um yes I'm sorry I was just gonna tell staff maybe to make sure that we're not chatting because people in our public cannot see the chat so that's right if you got something to add feel free to come on in or raise your hand debie have to raise their hand because I can see that part and not always the chat box thank you so much I just wanted to quickly add that that's one of my passions is permeable Pavements and I've done a lot of projects related to that and and so um to help help understand where it works and where it doesn't work it only works in areas where you can control the amount of sediment and deposition that occurs on the Pavements so streets are not really good choices because they're going to be sanded and salted and lots of things fall on streets that are going to clog it up but parking lots private parking lots um things like that are

[47:03] perfect for that so I just thought I would throw that in so um a little better understanding of where we could and could not Implement such things realistically so they continue to perform as designed thank you Debbie thank you Debbie much Debbie thank you um and Joe maybe just one one more just to kind of oh sorry go ahead yes of course thanks um so again just like at the conceptual level Debbie that that was incredibly helpful um I I'm just trying to think kind of big picture like how much is on the table from a a policy standpoint in this world of um permeable you know increased permeability or um I guess being thoughtful about future development that might work against the need for permeability is is this the big area of you know um mitigation potential

[48:04] or is it kind of interesting but Small Potatoes well it's a it's a factor and there's a lot of development has already occurred in in Boulder and and probably goes beyond what we can really cover here but as we're having those um policy discussions and and thinking about city code and stuff I think that's probably the time to bring that up okay okay thank you so much Joe and Debbie and everybody I don't have any more questions but maybe if I can just to say an observation I have is it it feels to me like there's um some interesting potential for discussion in in the space that that touches different departments I obviously transport talked about so um anyway I'll just leave it at that thank you um everyone aome thank you so much and I see uh Council women uh council member uh fart's hand up Lauren hello thanks Taisha sorry council

[49:04] member Adams you're so formal um I was wondering um so we were talking about this taking you know having projects that span 35 to 50 years depending on how we fund this um when those projects are complete what do we anticipate in terms of flood risk in the city like when all of those projects are complete will all of the buildings in our community be outside of the 100-year flood plane or um what what level of protection are we anticipating from the culmination of all of those projects the a really quick answer is because of the level of development that has already occurred um it's going to

[50:01] vary and a 100e flood protection is the regulatory standard at the moment the whole industry is thinking about climate change and looking at those things but there's there's been um so much development and encroachment on the flood planes already that some of the drainages are not going to be able to get near that and so that's why in our in our comprehensive flood plan one of the goals was to strive for the highest level of flood protection that's practical and and feasible that if there's already a ton of properties in there kind of working with the local Watershed and and drainage and with the community to determine what can be done is is where we're at thank you any other questions for this team for this

[51:06] section seeing and hearing none we can go ahead and uh bring up um Angela bgo yeah and I I might just start us out here so the next part of our agenda we have about five slides if I counted them correctly and we're going to talk about Community um Outreach and Ana is gonna talk about the mechanics of our approach and the the different ways we try to connect with the community but before doing so I just wanted to again speak to our philosophy or really the style that we're trying to employ in the way we're engaging with the community and we do understand because of the level of development that's occurred

[52:00] that these projects can be impactful and our Boulder and our Community Values around open space and and the environment are really an important team and so um we just we have a team that's committed to working with the community and and trying to show humility and compassion and empathy for for those impacts and we're also committed to our racial Equity goals and we're I would say we're still on our learning curve and and we're still improving as a department in the work we do as we try to accomplish that but we definitely want these projects and Community discussions to be accessible to everyone not just those who can easily access the city so um I I might leave it at that and turn it over to ANH Hela hello I'm sorry you're

[53:00] muted thanks nor thanks Joe good evening Cel so my name is anello Rego and I work uh with the communication and engagement Department supporting the flood and St water group chrisen can you go to the next slide please so we all know the boulder engagement Spectrum but I want to remember everybody like for our CFS we involved and collaborate with the community using a working group and Community connectors for higher engagement now our projects are in the design and construction phase so we inform consult and involve property owners and community members now our approach so equity and transparency that's very important so Equity is a key component component and how the utility department prioritize projects engaging with

[54:00] community members oneone promoting language access and offering interpretation help us communicate clearly we can connect with uner communities residing and manufactur home communities and among renters then the education pce that's our major goal this year developing various communic various communication channels including videos paper materials oneon-one conversations and presentations we moveing to the identify and engage key stakeholders so identify key organizations Community leaders and groups to collaborate and creating significant Partnerships and fostering trust the most important for us is communicate concise and clear so empowering our community Through clear and concise

[55:01] communication next so our tactics we're going to start with digital so our website future userfriendly navigation and communication styles that are clear and easily understandable the city's calendar and social media serve as a tools to provide the latest events and informations collaboration with local news outlets are key partnership to enhance the Outreach then we moveing to physical we utilize bilingual materials mailing and flyers branding our materials to ensure easy recogn Rec recognition in our projects excuse me offering QR codes for easy access to our websites meetings and engagement tools then we go to in person so we have open

[56:01] Office hours that provide a welcoming space for community members to engage in open conversations meet our project managers and ask questions Community meetings serve to inform and update community members offering an opportunity for questions we compile these answers into FAQs and our project website side alliances so we create alliances with partner organizations such as Boulder housing Partners Central missad and others and through our community connectors we Elevate and to represent voices and build trust so for more information please visit our Boulder flood info.net and then I'm going to hand this to Joe thank you thank you and that brings us to our our

[57:00] second question and um as I said in my introductory remarks having an opportunity to to check in with city council when there's not a a big decision in the meeting on on one of our projects and just talk about the various ways that we're trying to reach the public and have Outreach um just thought it was a good opportunity to discuss that with Council and and see if you have feedback or thoughts on um what we're doing or what you'd like us to be doing awesome thank you so much and thank you Anala for that wonderful presentation I see council member winer's hand up Tara good evening Bring It On in hello hi Joe I'm H and Brandon and probably other people too who I missed but so my question is it's really as it's actually a comment first it's really difficult when

[58:00] it comes to community engagement and flood mitigation I found out um the hard way um but I I'm we did learn a lot from um the um some previous projects and I'm wondering when it comes to Gregory Creek we've al already seen a bunch of emails from people that live near there asking well can neighbors see drawings and plans what happened in 2015 why were things discarded and then can interested parties obtain current plans before the March openhouse so I guess when it comes to community engagement so we don't have the same things happen again what are your plans for Greg when you say we have Community engagement do you mean that the public can weigh in on how you're going to do flood um how are you going to do flood mitigation and uh or are you saying that you're just going to give them a presentation on what you plan to do I

[59:02] always it's and that's I guess the question is because managing expectations of community members is is an important part so I'm just curious what you learned from our last go round and what your plans are for Gregory Creek and by the way thank you for all the wonderful work you do you know I'm a big fan of yours Paul yeah thank you for that I might start and um maybe with the specific plans on Gregory Creek I can um get some assistance from the team here but I think in one of the earlier slides um Kristen talked about the kind of the life cycle of these projects and the mapping studies and the mitigation plans and then design and and construction and um it depends on what stage we're at and it's really in the mitigation plan in stage when we're looking at Alternatives and um there there often

[60:00] are different ways to uh manage within a creek or a drainage and different approaches that we can use there also however are some instances where there are boundary conditions so to speak and um and things where we we have to be really clear with the community that there there are limits to the Alternatives we can look at and um that ju Just some simple things and I don't mean this sarcastically but the the water has to flow downhill and there might be a preference for it to go a different direction and and not impact a certain area or certain set of properties and there are limits to what we can do it generally has to follow the the valleys and we may have some options within that Valley so trying to be clear with the public and and open about those boundary conditions I think we're

[61:01] learning that and I actually feel like talking about the way um we engage with the community even on some of these intense recent ones um we've gotten feedback sometimes from the people who oppose what we're doing that that they do see that we're trying and and and we're trying to work with them so I think it's it's having an effect um as far as specific plans on Gregory Creek that's pretty far along in its process and already had a mitigation plan in 2015 where the Alternatives analysis analyses were done and so we're more at the stage of construction um planning and working with individual Property Owners about easements and things like that and how where we might have options on a on a specific property I know anilla and

[62:00] Kristen have recently had office hours with the community um on that project a couple of times here recently I believe but I'm not sure um Brandon or Kristen if if you have up upcoming things in mind I might give that a second to weigh in yeah um Joe I can probably just help a little bit and uh good evening Council I'm Brandon Coleman I'm the engineering manager with the storm flood utility and uh just want to flag we're super excited to have Anala as the utilities we do a lot more Community engagement and Outreach than um other typical utilities and she's already helped us um to get light years ahead of where we were because um we are Engineers we're very technical focused we always don't know the best ways to inform the community like uh with Gregory KY Creek so she mentioned some of the things she's doing

[63:01] so a community meeting for Gregory Canyon Creek we're also holding office hours um where you can come in and meet staff and ask specific questions so if you do have specific questions on design and then um she's also a great point of contact for the community to get the right people in touch with them so um Anala has helped shape our Outreach in just the short time she's been here and we're really glad to have her and I think she's uh only going to help us improve in the Years coming on how we Outreach the community and really inform them about what's happening and uh also get them the information that they need great and second and last question and this uh is for both of you probably when it comes to stakeholders the people that live in the affected area believe they're the biggest stakeholders so if you remember that's because it affects their property you and if you remember one meeting we were at Brandon people were upset because they didn't get like

[64:02] should we have gone door Todo should we have what what could we have done more of how do you think we're doing now since that happened do you think we've improved in that or I feel like we have because we've gotten compliments as Joe said but I just was checking in with you right yeah go ahead Joe sorry Brandon if I can start um and and I know the the group that Tara is is talking about and um understandable concerns the and so had a had a small group meeting um that council member Wier attended with us and and really tried to have some open discussions about what some of those boundary conditions were and I felt like we had a positive discussion but it's also important for us when we think about equity that um we are communicating with the whole Watershed or the or the whole part of

[65:01] the community that is going to be benefit potentially benefit or be impacted by a project and so on that same project kind of pulling back and going more globally we also had a community meeting um in November of last year and it uh it really bums me out but it's sometimes hard to get people excited about utilities projects and I'm excited and and and we sometimes have really small numbers of participation so that particular meeting that I'm talking about it was for the whole Watershed and there were a hundred people there which is a pretty big turnout for for our stuff and like 60 of them in person and and the balance of them online and I thought we had a really good good conversation so I think I just reiterate what Brandon said having anola on board having a position dedicated in our

[66:00] Communications Department but working working with us as a part of our team and and our family that does the flood projects is key you um I just want to thank you had one more question I thought you said it was the last of two of one to say Joe and Brandon that I always love to hear perspective especially because even though it does affect those reminding me that although it does affect those specific stakeholders that have property there it also flood mitigation affects everybody in the entire Watershed and I think that's often we forget about that so thank you so much for reminding me and from reminding the community about that yes and and just quickly one of the slides that Kristen showed with the cars up to the windshield in in water in Broadway that's all part of that system and the storm water infrastructure around the hospital and the ideal Market

[67:01] is is not adequate but there has to be a place for that water to go and so it's a whole system that we need to develop and I'm hearing from my team that I miss uh misspoke on the number there were 163 people at the meeting so we didn't do it justice thank you um thank you so much see mayor protin hand up Nicole thank you I just have two what I think will be relatively quick questions one is just in the alliances section U there was um Anella you mentioned and thank you for the great presentation um you mentioned that the community connectors are one of those um La groups and I was wondering if that also includes the emergency response connectors as well or just the community connectors I I may ask Ena for help on that one and and if if she's not aware we may have to get back to you so I used

[68:01] to be a Community Connector so I know what you talking about the emergency connector so um as I mentioned before this year my main goal is to develop like an education plan and collaborate with them because they're our main you know contact for our communities so the see is big and they do an amazing job so working with them is like a key element for me to keep those relationships to you know they able to talk in Spanish or Nepali we have a lot of uh underserved communities where the language access is not there yet we we have the tool but the easiest way to access to those communities is through the community connectors and you know I worked with them really close before so I have a really good relationship and I want to

[69:01] really work with them together and you know make this happen like make the equity piece a main goal and the educational pieace like a real commitment yeah thank you I appreciate that um and see that very much and the the plans and everything you presented to us tonight so thank you uh that actually leads perfectly into my next question uh which I think is another question for you anilla um is there anything that we can do to help to you know help Elevate this especially as you're focusing on education this year um is there anything that Council can do to help with help you advance the um education and work you're trying to do for sure you know like your support is always important and you know we trying to work together with uh different organizations that we have really amazing organizations in the city you know so if you have ideas if you

[70:01] have a contact just refer to me and I will make that happen you know I know a few ones like Central mad EA Boulder housing but if you think about something or I'm missing something you know thank you I will appreciate any referral thank you so much thank you aome thank thank you um does any other council member have questions I do have a couple that want to hold space for those you may have additional questions for this for this wonderful Team all right seeing none um just want to be moments start off with appreciations for the incredible multifaceted Outreach um attempts and um yeah just was very excited to see um hybrid meetings email in-person office hours um some of the other components that had been discussed as well um I did

[71:02] have a question though about renters knowing that the majority of our city our city are renters and oftentimes a lot of this type of information tends to go to the homeowner uh or land owner and so just wondering um how are renters engaged um in this work and and getting updates around um preparedness and and just you know General communication about this um yeah I'll just just start with that do you want me to answer that Joe yes that would be great so I've been uh having communication with Boulder housing Partners I used to work with them so I have a really good relationship and they're the Housing Authority you know they one piece of the whole puzzle but my main goal is to educate people about how they need to have insurance because if any

[72:00] event the most vulnerable and unders communities are the ones that suffer most you know if you're wealthy you can recover versus if you you know if you don't have all those resources it's more difficult so just you know coming out to the community have education start dialogues you know referring uh maybe giving resources how you know start putting that little s and everybody's head and sometimes people don't understand what we're doing but this is for everybody's safety so if people start to understand it's not only about you know little things here and there you know if you're aware and I know at this point we have a lot of people that they're coming from Venezuela too and they're living out

[73:02] there and so it's how we as Community come together and start to be you know working together but also be aware about the resources we can offer no absolutely and thank you so much I would offer though that there isn't there is a large middle income renting population in our city and so um you know I would recommend um again I sure I'm sure we already have relationships with the Boldore Area Rental Housing Association but would love to make sure that those folks are also engaged in this conversation um as well as just um maybe even some non-traditional ways um like some of our outdoor recreation programs and just you know thinking intersectionally about uh where are these folks um currently going to be and and I think um certainly our incredible parks system is is one of as well as our um rec centers is is another way that we can potentially meet those folks so I really appreciate that um so

[74:01] that's actually the only question that I had on this section I want to hold space for any other questions uh before we let this incredible team go all right um I did have one more question around intersectionality so just recognizing that um and it's so important that we are using the racial Equity tool and I always just like to remind folks the diversity within the diversity of the racial diaspora and recognize that there are black people with disabilities and right and so how do we also make sure that you know people with disabilities and some and many of the other um intersectional marginalized identities um are also um being considered in this incredible work and so again I know the team is already thinking about it I just wanted to make sure that we were um specifically lifting that up um recognizing that race is a um an incredible an um incredible

[75:03] uh evidence-based indicator um and there is also significant diversity within the diversity of that racial identity and so um and there's often times in uh disproportionalities within uh one racial identity based on the intersecting marginalized identity that that individual May face um alas uh seeing no other hands up I am ready for the the uh I would like to thank um the incredible team um Joe Anala um and uh just want to make sure is there another section of this there is and I think we are ready to go to the next section we are ready to go to the uh the next section and just on that last point I I mentioned we're on our learning curve and and um every department is has a has a stake in this and we're all learning together as an organization and just as we went

[76:01] through the the comprehensive flood plan and we were feeling good about um employing the the instrument and the way we were going about things but we also learned from it and and got some feedback as we as we went we had some things translated and and heard feedback that well some of this technical stuff that you're talking about if you do a a direct translation it doesn't it it's it's it's really hard to understand and so talking just a simple thing like talking to the translator before the meeting and briefing them on what we're going to be talking about can make all the difference so definitely appreciate that reminder I definitely appreciate that reminder and it makes me think of the cultural competence Continuum and the last part of that Continuum is cultural proficiency and I always like what do you mean you can't be proficient but but in it the description it says it is a Continuum you're always going to have to as your understanding awareness skills grow so

[77:01] too does your understanding and then your actions align with that so I definitely appreciate that continues improved model and excited for the next section yeah so the the last section and I we're tracking the time here and I think we're we're doing well and um the last section is the project updates and the you'll hear about just a few of our projects and referring kind of back to the team that we introduced at the start there's a lot more going on there's work is getting done throughout Town throughout the city and uh one of the themes from our comprehensive flood plan was to do more projects faster and we go through that cycle and we have a lot of mapping and planning studies and it it can feel like nothing is getting constructed or built but it's it's happening and there projects um so Kristen will start us off on on this section and we'll do a few slides

[78:01] here and then I will I will wrap us up Kristen thanks Joe all right so I'll go through some of our key active flood mitigation projects and I'll start with the upper goose and Two Mile Canyon Creek project or for sure ugt just to give some context um of the location uh the mitigation plan starts on the western edge of the city and continues to full some Street the plan involves a combination of above ground channels and buried pipes to safely convey water and remove properties from the flood plane to give Clarity around the removed properties from the flood plane when we say that we're not physically removing properties our proposed mitigation would reduce the extense of the flood plane boundary such that properties are no longer within that boundary the mitigation plan was approved by City Council in May of

[79:00] 2023 and design efforts are anticipated to begin early this year with a focus on conceptual design of the downstream reaches we briefly already touched upon Gregory Canyon Creek um but I can give some historical context to the project as well the Gregory Kenyon Creek is a steep and narrow drainageway that has limited capacity to convey flood waters from the shiaka area all the way down to its Confluence with Boulder Creek the mitigation plan was approved by City Council in December 2015 and was split in two phases we are currently in phase one which includes mitigation between arapo Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue and the Confluence with Boulder Creek is at arapo Avenue preliminary design was completed in 2021 however due to covid and staff turnover we didn't resume design

[80:00] until late 2023 with construction anticipated to start at the end of 2025 um Joe mentioned this already but just to let everyone know again I am the project manager for phase one of this project and the last project we wanted to highlight tonight is the South Boulder Creek flood mitigation project this project is intended to protect life and safety by addressing flooding in areas known as the West Valley the mitigation plan was approved by City Council in 2015 and includes three phases the first phase which is currently in design is a Regional Detention Facility Upstream of us36 on and near the property commonly refer to a CU South and that's what we're showing in this rendition that's playing on the screen design will be completed this year and construction is anticipated to begin in 2025 I'm going to hand it over back to

[81:00] Joe to discuss upcoming processes for this project thank you yeah so at the in in my introductory comments tonight I mentioned the reason that we're having this study session um on on this date is because we do have some upcoming process coming up on one of our projects it's the South Boulder Creek project and it has it it has been in the works for literally over a quarter of a century and we've gone through a process of elimination and and have been working for the last few years on a on a single alternative and there are two remaining City public process steps for the for this flood mitigation project the primary one involves the um transfer of property property between two of our city departments or the transfer of management control of about two acres of City open space to our utilities

[82:01] department for the mitigation plan and on the slide that is on the screen here you see um that's us36 as it leaves the southeast portion of Boulder and heads to Denver there's a a blue outline there and that is the roughly two acres of City open space so it's property that's already it's already a city asset and it's owned by the city um and so I mentioned the land transfer between departments and and that involves what's called a disposal and other unlike other city-owned property open space land has very specific uses and procedural requirements that are spelled out in our city Charter and an open space disposal requires formal approval by a majority vote of both the open space Board of Trustees and city council so this will

[83:02] be coming to City Council in a joint study session um between the open space board and Council in February and then the board will have its own deliberation in March followed by a a council deliberation and I said studies a joint study session it's actually a joint public hearing um I said that incorrectly and so I mentioned two process steps the other process step involves an annexation of essentially this the same property the blue outline here shows the amount that is needed once the once the flood project features are in place that outline surrounds those features that will be there for the long term there's also temporary construction impacts that'll be adjacent to that so the acreage essentially doubles and will be about four acres and

[84:00] um so that that will be annexed into the the city and the reason that we're doing that is that the annexation will reduce jurisdictional complexities it'll will have all of our features of the flood project within City boundaries that that shape that's shown on the screen is already adjacent to city property so we'll just be adding that to it and um if you're thinking about this project and the word annexation comes up that probably strikes fear into people's hearts and this is a different creature um than what we were talking about a couple years ago with the CU South annexation process because of the ownership characteristics of the property it it's different than that and it's a much simpler process and this this property would not be available for services or development in the in the future it's just merely

[85:01] getting our flood project components within the city limits and I will uh so we'll have um packet materials coming to city council here soon with information on that process and the joint public Hearing in February we did provide a link in the the study memo for tonight to an open space board packet that has a lot of detailed information on the history and and the mechanics of how this all works so um if anyone wants a sneak preview the the information is is there and available and I believe that brings us to our last question for council tonight and um so if you have questions or or would like to discuss with us any of the updates on the projects we're happy to do that see council member Mark W is in the

[86:01] hand up hello Tina hi um thank you for all of this and I do have a quick question about the South Boulder area and it really goes back to some of the first comments at the beginning about how the effects of organization and development are creating higher um flood risks and now we're retrofitting um the CU South we are um also going to be doing development of lay of um dorm or student housing is the project right now designed to mitigate any impacts from the new development while simultaneously mitigating impacts for the CU South area where we've already seen issues if that makes sense it it totally makes sense and um the thing that's different now is and and just a a quick quick touch on History the city of Boulder was developed before modern flood plane regulations which came into play in the 70s and so that that's where the

[87:01] retrofitting happens there there were already things built in what became the 100-year flood plane when those when that regulatory part came to light that is now established so everything that CU builds um will have and and because they're part of the city and and subject to our regulations it will be out of the flood plane and so it won't it won't provide additional encroachment that we'll have to deal with later because it's it's new development that's being done under modern regulations um thank you so much did any follow-ups on that seeing none mark right just just one quick question um uh is it too early for CU to have

[88:02] done any planning itself that they have uh discussed with you in terms of of how they're going to develop the property um in what order Etc yeah sure it's a it's a great question and um we are now meeting regularly with the university and for members of the public who might be new to this and following um we had the annexation of cu's property that is is part of this whole thing was done in 2021 and there's a really lengthy agreement that is established with that and so we're now meeting regularly with the university part of what has to happen in order for this project to go to construction is some of the the assets that the university has and some of the agreement points that we made have to come to light um part of the University owns 308 Acres out there and a big

[89:00] portion of their land will be coming over to the city as well as water rights and then we have to build into the project the um connections that they will need for our utilities so we're really focused on that right now and um we haven't talked a lot about their future plans but um can follow up if I have this wrong but I don't think they have have gone a lot farther with that and they're just focused on the mechanics of what's happening for the flood project uh given the complexity of of our contractual arrangements for this piece of property and it's great significance for the community um would it be um appropriate if I suggested um uh periodic updates to Council just to let it let us know what's going on um and you know both in terms of the approval process for the dam itself and

[90:03] the the development process with respect to CU what they're doing what they're thinking um you know there was a lot of controversy over this project um and we have approved it uh and it's going forward um but I think people should still have the opportunity to hear and understand what it is that that is going on it's you know I'm not suggesting a Weekly Newsletter but some sort of periodic updating and I think this Council uh being so uh largely new um would benefit from that as well because we are ultimately going to be asked questions by our constituents as to what's going on and it would be good if we knew yeah for sure and we are committed we just went through the engagement section um and particularly on this project to keeping our website up to date with the activities that are going

[91:01] on we can absolutely um share that with with Council when there are key updates or Milestones that we reach and in going back to the annexation agreement the elements of that that are re relevant to the flood project is really a pretty small subset of the agreement and a big portion of it has to do the big portion of the agreement has to do with their future development and they're bound to certain Transportation aspects and building restrictions and so fortunately in in the year here that we have going through design and leading up to construction um the the utilities flood project team we're not having to con contend with that but what I can commit to I do know we have a meeting coming up soon here with the university is um inquiring about their future plans and the timing and and Reporting back soon I

[92:02] think that's that would all be interesting information to us as well as uh information from your department you know I recall there were a plethora of approvals that we had to obtain from various agencies um but if somebody were to ask me right now where do we stand on that I would not be able to answer the question uh you can and perhaps you know uh every once in a while you can tell us how that process is going um are we running into roadblocks Etc yeah for sure and there there are a number of agencies that we need permits for and the team I can just quickly speak to that in general the team has really been focusing on the aspect of design that has to do with the open space disposal and refining the footprint of the project so we knew exactly what element of property that we're talking about we've been focused on that and that now sets us up to

[93:01] submit all those permit applications we're we're within a we're we're in the time frame of kind of the last year that we were planning for the design and permitting which is a decent place to be at this stage of a project and we'll be submitting those all in the in the next few months and obtaining them before we do construction some of them by Design um don't come out till very late in the process like the state Engineers approval and things like that so it'll be happening throughout this year and and my last question on this is um uh at what point will you be able to basically upgrade uh your cost estimates for the project you we've used some rather uh round numbers um and I know we're not going to have a full you know a biddable construction document yet but you know at some point we'll need to know um how much this thing actually costs and as

[94:00] you're updating your information and knowledge um that would also be good for us to know yeah for sure I asked Brandon that question every week and uh but one One update I can give on that is um in the last year here we added a construction contractor to the team to look at the design and provide that perspective and we actually had them study our our existing cost estimate and and go through it and I would say it's it's it's more established than just round numbers and they have validated for us that um they they feel like we have a sound estimate the 60% design will be coming out here um within the next month or so and so we'll we'll probably get a more formalized number then but we're not expecting big changes at this point well I I I await that estimate with baited breath thanks thanks Joe me

[95:01] too appreciate it thank you Mark I see mayor protm Nicole thank you um and I just had a couple follow-ups to uh council member wallick's comments there um one is that this is something the mile high flood District does as well is they will increase the money that they are giving to us when project costs increases from time to time so we just approved some um last week at our meeting as well so I think that when things increase the money for it comes in from or increases can increase from other sources too and then the other thing I was just going to offer is um some of the folks in my neighborhood have been asking recently about what's happening at C South what the timeline is and I actually sent them to the website and I think the website is a really good source for kind of current information so um thank you Joe and your team for updating the website but I think that's something we all can the more we can try to push that out to the community as a place where if you have you know internet access and you're able

[96:00] to go to the website and and read or hear about it it's a good place to stay up toate on um projects and it it seems at least when I check in you know I probably checked in on the website maybe three times in the last year or so and every time it it feels like the information is pretty fresh and up to date so thank you for what you're doing I feel like it's a really good good resource there and and that's maybe something we can offer as council members is just try to encourage people to go there and see um where they can find updates and that's true for all of our flood mitigation projects which I fairly appreciated thank you protim PT thanks tasa yeah I kind of want to pull on that thread a little bit more I I appreciate where Mark was going with regards to those check-ins I just I I get a little concerned with a project of this scope there are long periods a Time Joe right where there really isn't that much happening and you're kind of waiting and waiting for others and so I don't want to create an expectation of check-ins where we asked for a check-in

[97:00] and your answer is still waiting and we're working on it uh so I I want to make sure that there at those proper inflection points like hey 60% design that's when we start talking disposal good check-in so I I just want to make sure we're not uh overdoing because I I love to just sort of see you and your team just put your heads down and and do the great work that you're doing and not have us kind of get in the way by having you have to come up and uh tell us some of the stuff that that's pretty much AR priori in a lot of ways so um in any event just I I just want to make sure we don't pull pull the pendulum a little too far in One Direction on the check-ins but I want to stick to those major Milestones is probably pretty healthy yeah for for sure thanks for that Matt and I think as as a City team we have various tools that we can use to get information out the website being one sometimes we'll we'll do a heads up or um a hotline post so it it it becomes more of a work item for for the team if if we're coming to council with with memos and presentations frequently but

[98:00] um I think there's other ways to get the information out thank you so much any additional questions from Council on this topic and we've reached the end of my wait time thank you so much Joan team for uh this wonderful update um critical um conversation and topic obviously um I also appreciated uh Tina's reminder of the um Community engag engagement Continuum and the constant effort uh to move Beyond inform and consult and really into that collaboration space but also recognize that there are limitations based on a variety of different uh issues but it is in our ability to communicate those limitations and still allow for those areas where we

[99:01] can collaborate and Empower um to exist so thank you so much for um so much um incredible work in so many different ways on an incredible topic and uh without any uh any closing comments well if if I can just say thank you for the opportunity tonight great discussion with Council really appreciate our the uh preparation that our presenters did and and our representatives from the mile high flood district for being with us tonight so we'll look forward to checking back in with Council on some of those upcoming process steps and thanks for tonight thank you I want to lift up appreciation for the tours of South Boulder Creek um they were very very helpful helpful for us uh to I know some council members were able to participate in hosting a variety of those and as we think of additional Community engagements I think having those types

[100:00] of walkarounds and and helping people to see um what all the different Maps look like in reality really does help to ground um some of those pieces so thank you so much for um the field trip and um that additional information I know that's a huge time commitment for such a large chunk of Staff but um it really does help to inform um and and having that technical opportunities uh really help to um make the data uh that we are receiving that much more Rich so thank you so much happy to do it awesome all right so we are gonna go ahead and pivot now um to an update on state legislation and City plans and process for engaging in advocacy thank you so much council member Adams and I to your last point on the previous item I just want to appreciate um all of council who's been able to make those tours to continue to ask us for field trips and uh really go deep and go to places I think staff

[101:02] enjoys them but I also so agree with you uh council member Adams that it it makes a difference reading a memo is one thing going to the place is a very different thing that adds Dimension um to the words that and and the many many words that often we give you all uh in our very lengthy memo so just wanted to lift that up and appreciate that um our next item as you mentioned is as an update we all know that the there is a regular session going on um as we know and there's a lot of interest in what is happening at the capital and how that impacts us and while I know um we've got some opportunities to think more deeply about our own policy statement uh tonight we've got um our an update for our very own Chief policy adviser called Castillo on sort of all the support that he gives but um what we are hearing from our um legislative um our current legislative session that is coming down the pike so Carl up to you yeah thank you Nua and

[102:00] and thank you council member Adams I'm going to uh attempt to share my screen here and put up a slide show give me one moment okay can you all see and hear me okay I don't see your presentation do you have a presentation up it didn't pop up okay let me uh no it did not all right my apologies uh how about now here comes great all right though you were not in presentation mode I'll just say I was gonna say there you are yeah great okay um one more thing and I appreciate your patience

[103:00] um okay well good evening uh members of council um as n said I'm Carl Caso with the city manager's office and tonight I wanted to say just a few words about the process that the city uses for advocacy at the state capital I'll keep it short um out of respect for the fact that the majority of the council uh knows this very well but I also want to make sure that we're doing what we can to bring our new council members up to speed with the process and make sure that they if they have any questions that this is a great opportunity to uh have that conversation I'm also going to be speaking a little bit about um how this process actually plays out with specific bills that we've actually taken positions on and then finally provide you a little bit of a forecast of what you can expect bills that have not not been introduced yet but that we expect will be and ones that we think are particular interest to the

[104:02] city okay so um I think it's pretty obvious while we engag at the state capital decisions get made or should be made can be made that uh impact us greatly um they can be towards our advantage or or against our advantage and um unlike advocacy on ballot measures which we are limited engaging on because of the fair campaign Practices Act we can't use City resources on uh trying to impact candidates or ballot measures we are absolutely permitted to advocate for changes at this U on legislation so that's what I'm going to be talking about tonight um by way of example of uh why it matters for us to get involved I've listed here six examples of bills or actually topics of of of legislation that we have

[105:02] significantly impacted just in the last three years and the one that I'll call to your attention is the one that just passed last year which expanded our Municipal authority to use photo radar and Council I think it was in the last month or two actually passed a resolution to to execute that Authority so that we can now keep people safer on a lot of our our chial roads that didn't that where we were not able to use photo radar in the past um so I'm going to shift over to the use of the policy statement uh you all have seen this on at a legislative breakfast you all were given a copy of it um it is the policy statement is composed the principles priorities and positions and the primary thing which I'll be speaking about our positions the 71 positions which are broad enough to contain topics that we don't know exactly how they're going to be addressed as far as policy but not so

[106:02] broad as to be meaningless for example we don't have one that says protect the environment um we also have examples of how that can play out so we have lettered examples on their most positions uh explaining kind of a more detailed um scenario of how we'd like the policy to be shaped we do this because it helps to inform the city's advocacy uh otherwise it would be running the council and asking for direction every time a bill came out and we wouldn't have the ability to act proactively prior to a bill being introduced um having this really has been a big reason why Boulder has been successful and being so impactful at the state C Capital because we are able to move rapidly and be nimble and engage in the legislative process which is really an hour hour by hour day byday conversation that takes place during the

[107:00] four months of the legislative session um so while the policy statement is focused on Beyond just State legislation that focuses on administrative regulations rules of the state as well as federal state uh Federal administ um excuse me Federal rules or federal legislation or even Regional policies um I'm going to be focusing purely on state legislation uh because that is the uh it is the beginning of that season and that is where the policy statement is used uh perhaps in in its most important way so we adopted it in October um and we uh typically look for revisions um at this time of the year and and the best practice which has been Incorporated by reference in the policy statement itself is that if you if Council wants to make any changes the the ideal would be for them to suggest them bring it forward to me um certainly can bring forward today

[108:02] but ideally perhaps after this meeting and and before the next uh consideration which is February 15th and that is the meeting where we actually um at a formal uh business meeting Council will be allowed to consider any provisions so I I would encourage you over the next couple weeks that if you have any changes you'd like to see probably just call me or send me an email I'm going to uh most likely convene council's intergovermental Affairs committee so that they can review those and the benefit of having this opport this this process is that we can review it we can do a staff analysis and the committee can come back with a recommendation so that on February 15th the council will have the benefit of of not just you know different ideas that have been thrown about but a recommendation from the committee on the one two three four changes that should be made to the

[109:00] policy statement of course Council can make whatever changes it likes but we believe it's it's better informed by um a deliberative process through the committee um so in terms of the actual application of the policy statement we have to connect the dots so we have a policy statement position and then we have to say well how does that apply to a certain Bill did Council anticipate would Council have anticipated supporting or opposing or amending a bill when they supported this um this particular position not the easiest task to Define what council had on their mind not to mention the fact that council is made up of nine different people but that is that is uh my charge and one that I am very humble and very appreciative of and very respectful to never get ahead of council so as I've said many times before I I do my best to be very conservative in interpreting council's policy statement position um and the

[110:03] goal is that we have a United coordinated voice that reflects the council majority and most often it's the it's the uh unanimous Council so clearly the ideal is for us to be conveying a policy position that reflects the entire Council but at the very least the majority and in doing this um of course what's really important is that Council gets a lot of communication about the positions that we're taken one of the things that I'm going to point you to uh and point the members of the of our community to is a website that contains a variety of sources of information including State Bill Colorado uh or our dossier our report where we track all the bills and we indicate whether we're supporting opposing and also how it connects to any policy statement position so in other words an explanation of why we're taking a position on it um and so that's a very important

[111:01] part of the communications that Council uh receives and will continue to receive there are other emails or other updates like tonight and again on February 15 um and of course with the inter intergovernmental Affairs committee so the idea is that at any point um I am incorrect In conveying a position or even adopting a position that hasn't been conveyed that you have the opportunity to correct uh provide course correction um that isn't something that has happened often it's it's pretty rare uh but um it's certainly um something that has been done before and it's not the end of the world especially since a lot of times we've only adopted position and not convey it to anybody um and if we're very active on it we're probably pretty darn short that council is aware of it and supported um so council member council's intergovernmental Affairs committee is made up of four council members listed here like I said they suggest revisions

[112:00] to the policy statement they participate with staff to help develop strategies to advance or defeat legislation and when legislation is introduced that is clearly of of significant interest to to the city and to council uh and maybe there's a policy statement position that says say something so close that would suggest that it's an easy yes or no but it's just not clear enough and it or either because how it's written or because of the way the council discussion uh took place that's when we will turn to the committee and that is something that our Council in the past has uh has given the committee the authority to to make those decisions when there is enough ambiguity ambiguity uh so who are The Advocates who are the ones that really you know once we've adopted a position that can actually start conveying our support or opposition or or the more nuanced positions that we have first and

[113:00] foremost it is all of you as elected officials uh the elected officials at the state capital of course would like to hear from their counterparts at the city uh you have the most political capital and credibility so you are an important part of the team and coordinating with you um is something that I forward to do and again I think of it as an honor I also work very closely with the city departments uh very often we have departmental expertise that is of of need let's say uh cap somebody from water utilities or somebody who specializes on Vision zero Transportation projects um or chief of police very much um the case that at meetings testifying sometimes they are the best one step provide um a technical level of uh capacity and credibility that's very useful so that's part of the strategy and who we turn to and and why we turn

[114:00] to it's you know what's what's needed to get the bill cross the line or to kill the bill or to make the change what's the voice that's necessary uh of course I'm part of that team as well and I explained my my coordination role and occasionally I will testify as well generally speaking that's if if no one else is available um I want to make sure the city's voice is heard and I certainly attend a lot of meetings and probably one of the biggest things I'm involved in is a lot of the intergovernmental uh Coalition building uh to get many other entities to support or oppose along with us and I'll talk more about that uh finally we do hire Headwater strategies here we have Adam iberg and will coin I believe you met Adam at our legislative breakfast uh will coin is U the other uh co-found founder of Headwater strategies two of the best uh lobbyists at the state capital and I I say that with complete sincerity great people to work with um as I mentioned in order to be effective

[115:02] we have to work with our partners um we need to elevate our voice by elevating the number of people that are concerned about the issue so a big part of the work that we do is involve ourselves with coalitions uh CC porier as many of you know is is a Coalition that Boulder and Boulder County founded four or five years ago and they are uh climate action ad Advocates at the state capital and so our role with them is is is influential uh Matt uh council member Benjamin is now the chair of the policy committee at CML I'll say more about that as a really important partner so I've just listed a few other partners here I guess the last one I'll mention is the Northwest Mayors and commissioner Coalition which is a hugely important um advocate for Transportation uh especially Regional Transportation goals that we have um I am calling to your attention the colard in this bovie because they are the big dogs in terms of the

[116:00] municipal advocacy World they have a team of full-time lobbyists and attorneys that Focus solely in protecting the municipal interest at the state capital they have a full-time presence there so clearly they have more of an impact than we do and they also focus on a much greater range of topics than we have the time or capacity to do in many ways our work is supplemental to what they do sometimes we're taking on issues that they for whatever reason that it's not something that they're advocating on occasionally there's an issue that we actually have a different view on um and clearly those are ones that are pretty important for us to have our own independent voice um if you haven't already I think they automatically have signed you up for their state house report but please do uh look towards that and when you notice there's a discrepancy and that it reports a lot more than what we are reporting as as your city staff again it's because sometimes we just yield a

[117:01] lot of those issues that are of just such General Municipal interest that uh we don't feel the need to get involved or certainly defer to CML so that's why there is a difference but that's an important source of information for you so here is the website that I want to uh recommend that uh you look at if you haven't already and for members of our public it is www Boulder colorado.gov intergovernmental and if you go to that site you have a little jump to menu and from there you can see some really important things like our policy statement you can see the state bu Colorado reports which identifies our positions on bills you can link to the Colorado Municipal leagues website to get the information on bills that they're working on you can get information that links to the Colorado general assembly where you can get your own research if you if you choose to do that and there's a lot of other important

[118:01] information okay so um kind of transitioning now to how do we use this policy statement I have a few bills I want to just talk about and how we apply the policy statement to get to the result and and the position that we have so here we have a a bill that was introduced two weeks ago S A bill 036 which is um imposing a fee on some of the most populous counties that varies based on the weight of the vehicle um and it is designed not to penalize owners of big vehicles but to create a funding source that can be used for infrastructure improvements that help keep vulnerable Road users safer as it turns out we had a position that completely anticipated this and it says what you see here essentially support the vulnerable Road users protection fee vulnerable Road user protection fees so a pretty clear indication that Council wanted to support it in fact it was also one of council's four priorities so we have

[119:01] adopted a position of support and we're working on on that advocating for example the Northwest Mayors and Commissioners coalition to get them to support it as well um another bill that was introduced um just two days ago I believe um makes sure that adults not just 18 to 21 year olds uh cannot use phones when they're driving unless it's a hands-free phone um again we have a policy statement position that directly provides us with information that Council wants to support this it's consistent with vision zero um and we've actually uh advocated for this for many years in the past and it was even a council priority in at least one previous year so it's been a tough one to pass uh we can talk more about if you have any questions but that's one that U we adopt the position of support um third example is a bill that I've never seen before but a really

[120:00] interesting bill of racial Equity study this bill Senate Bill 53 would require a State Historical Society to conduct a study to to determine any historical and ongoing effects of slavery and and subsequent systemic racism on black black Colorado that may be attributed to Colorado State policies and to identify measures that are consistent with the Constitution to address those effects talks about who would be on that committee to steer it and what kind of money would need to be raised for the study to take place um in this case we don't have a policy state in position that would suggest support we have a policy statement principle we have four principles and one of the principle is around racial Equity um so working with our own racial Equity staff to uh um I made the decision that this seems like something that the council would clearly support and so adopt the position of support thought that it was consistent with our policy statement principle um so we also take positions

[121:03] on some bills that have not been introduced but that we know we're coming forward and we have know enough about them and so this is an example of just that there is a bill that will be introduced by representative amabi which would um require municipalities in certain areas to allow accessory dwelling units to be approved administratively um in those areas where single family homes are currently allowed um for the most part it complies with our own rules so it's it's an easy one um but not so easy in that um it does say that you you cannot require owner occupancy nor can you require an extra parking space I highway to those two areas because those two sections because that's an example of it differentiating from our own uh Council ordinance so even though we have a policy statement position 22A that says

[122:01] reduce the barriers to development of accessory dwelling units and multipu is I sure didn't feel comfortable knowing where Council stood on this there's enough Nuance here that I took it to the council's intergovernmental intergovernmental Affairs committee uh which met last Thursday and um they had a conversation that which was informed by members of our planning staff that were there to explain more about how this legislation would play out and with that information and with the council direction that they had on 22A they adopted a position of support if amended to ensure that the city May incentivize owner occupancy long-term rental of adus and support for intergenerational living arrangements and they also would like to see that that kind of local program's been sent eyes those things would be eligible for the state's um grant program that's been created um so I'll leave that as it is for now another position um that we took

[123:02] is and this is a much more straightforward one is the bill will be introduced by representative Kip which will allow local governments to have authority to regulate pesticides that they're currently denied they they've been preempted in Colorado for many years this is another issue that we have advocated for for many years Council has identified as a priority council members have testified on it so pretty easy to assume that Council that Council supports it plus we have a policy statement position 52a that specifically indicates support for giving local governments the authority to regulate pesticides um I believe this year's effort may be more successful than the past because it is a more limited bill in terms of the scope of authority would give for local governments but focuses more on things that like signage and and enforcing buffer zones around certain properties so uh possibly have the governor's support on this one and his Department of a

[124:01] agriculture that being said it's still going to be a challenge but 're we're hoping and we're definitely going to be lobbying for it um okay so now shifting into the last of the three topics is just a heads up on things that we should expect to see at the state house that I believe are of great interest to you the first one is of particular importance because it's a bill that we it's a it's a bill called Transit oriented communities and it has to do with increasing the average Zone density in transit related areas it's similar but different to what was in Senate Bill 213 last year which we supported uh so there is some expectations that we would continue to support it um and it um it is not a mandate uh this is interesting but it actually would deny cities that don't comply with their Highway users trust Highway user trust funds allocations so it's somewhere

[125:03] between an incentive and a mandate uh incentive heavy I guess you might say um council's uh intergovermental Affairs committee talked about this last Thursday they had a lot of concerns a lot of questions this one really they had a full uh Entourage of uh transportation and planning experts um a lot of concerns about what kind of impacts this would have and what kind of changes it would require of the city and whether it was appropriate they were not able to reach any position on this I will say just quickly that since then we've actually uh reviewed more closely what this bill would currently as drafted would require of of cities like Boulder or I should say more specifically what what it would require a voer and it seems like it would not change our zoning so in other words we will have we would have already met the minimum average Zone housing

[126:00] density under our latest uh calculations we do have a meeting with the governor's office tomorrow to go through the methodology to make sure that's the case but obviously if that if that is the case then our concerns with this may be much less and it's something that I will be bringing back to the intergovernmental Affairs committee to to revisit with the new information the one thing that I highlight is there is still something that's very different than what we currently um provide for which is the bill would require administrative approval for multif family residential property developments on Parcels that are five acres or less in size I'm not a planner so I don't understand the the current process but I understand there is a different development review process that is beyond administrative um and so this would be a change and maybe one that is of too big of a concern for our city to uh to support uh so I just this is just a heads up no position has been taken on it we are very much engaged on it and

[127:00] and by that that means understanding what where they're going helping them understand the impacts they could have on us but not conveying any position of support or opposition uh there's another bill much less controversial that would require a Regional Housing assessments be conducted by the state and governments to create their own Regional Housing plans um that uh should be introduced shortly um there's a bill that would prohibit occupancy limits based on familiar relationships Council has not given us any direction to engage on this one uh other than well let's put it this way I am engaging in it and we have our planners engaging on it because we want to know what's going on but we have no direction that would suggest the city would want to take take a position for or against it um um but nonetheless we know that it's important to the city so we are uh participating in the meetings to understand what the consequences could be similarly there's a bill that would prohibit parking mandates we have no direction from Council that would

[128:01] speak towards this one way or another but it is of course of great importance and that completes well actually so those are some of the major land use reform bills that are coming forward there's two other that I guess would also perhaps I had this title land use reform affordable housing really should just be affordable housing um there is a legislation that will come forward to address construction defects uh the litigation the concerns that developers have that uh it's too costly because they will be sued to build condos um that the insurance is that they have to pay for is too expensive uh there is a bill out there that uh Senator zenzinger has is going to be introducing that would allow for some remedies out outside the court system Council has a rather vague policy statement position on this it was intentionally vague because we know that Details Matter quite a bit on this one thing that we don't want to do is deny our residents

[129:02] uh the consumer rights to uh to uh pursue their interest in in in in any def any defects that they may find in their own condo uh so this is just a heads up that this is coming forward there's also perhaps a little more straight forward um a bill that's going to come forward that would create new rights for local governments to purchase multif family rental properties when they're put up for sale if this apartment building uh that's put up for sale has an existing affordable deed restriction on it then it would Grant cities a right of first refusal to purchase it before um so basically the owner would get this create the terms uh but if the city met those terms they would have the right of first refusal if a apartment building was being sold that did not have affordable deep restrictions on it the city would have a

[130:01] right of first offer that's much less significant than right right of first refusal but it at least allows the city an opportunity to be entertained um as a future buyer so that may be something of Interest we uh we as the city supported this bill a different version of it a less ambitious version of it last session it was videoed by the governor and so um it is coming back it it's coming back in a more narrow way in a way that representative basener thinks might be more likely to Su to succeed so we have no position on either one of these bills that are stated uh but ones that I expect we would want to engage on so we'd be exploring this at a later date um Transit some really significant stuff going on I think you all heard Senator fenberg at a legislative breakfast meeting saying that he's going to run a bill that would provide funding for the Front Range passenger rail District very

[131:01] important seed money very important uh money that would demonstrate to amrak that we have a local uh interest and that we're serious that we want them to come and select us as one of their expanded uh railroad corridors uh the methodology for what that funding would look like and you know where it would come from is still being kept um uh clo closely guarded um I don't know what it is right now but I do know that this is coming forward and it will be an important bill um lastly on Transit I just attended a meeting today with representative linstead and Senator winter where they uh unveiled um uh legislation and by the way there this I believe is semi-public that's why I wouldn't otherwise be sharing information like this um because it was broad it was a broad group of people that were were were included to the group um so as as many of you know

[132:00] there's concerns about rtd's uh current operations and current governance so there's uh an effort to introduce the bill by these sponsors that would do a variety of things it would um one thing would it would study Chang in the size of the district apparently RTD is very unusual Nationwide and how large of a district it covers and they want to consider the ability to allow for other Transit providers perhaps having um County or smaller entities providing Transit um at at the local level and RTD focusing on the regional aspect uh changing the decision- making process so that it aligns more with the Dr coog planning process the Metro Vision process supporting training for Transit operators C do apparently has seen quite a bit of success in uh training uh Transit operators and I'd like to see that the training uh be be made available to RTD uh operators improving

[133:00] uh budget and Reporting transparency and then finally uh but not least a board reform so moving to professionalizing the board and revisiting its size right now it's an all elected board very large board and there is thought that perhaps there needs to be more expertise and maybe there should be more appointments made and perhaps also a smaller size at a board so this is of great importance to us because we all say we want more Transit money more money for buses more more routes restored however we also are often unlikely to say we're ready to give any of that money to RTD as it currently is structured so uh the governor was started us saying not too long ago that this is much like what was done with sedot beforehand where there were some changes made and then the funding came so in this case this is a foundational uh change to the governance of RTD that could hopefully build the trust for um for constituents and and

[134:04] members along the Front Range to agree to increase um fees or taxes to support uh more Transit service by RTD uh I think this is my last slide on what they expect uh real quickly uh hugely important um clean energy plans that would require energy utilities to reach 100% carbon free or very close to by 2040 um a bill that requires planning and incentives for investor owned Electric utilities to meet the demands of benef beneficial electrification needs of new development and of on-site s and finally um some natural gas system planning to avoid unnecessary utility Investments in natural gas infrastructure where other energy sources exist happy to answer any questions on any of those but I think with that I will shift over and I will just real quickly uh cover the three questions and then take down the

[135:01] PowerPoint slide so we all can see each other the questions I have for you is does council have any questions or comments about expectations of the Colorado legislature in 2024 does council have any questions or concerns with the process the city uses to engage in State Legislative advocacy this Council wish to schedule its February 15th consideration of revisions to the policy statement as the public hearing and on this one I should I should explain in the past we have approached um changes to the policy statement in different ways and so Council has an option how they want to proceed um we used to do it under Matters from uh Council or matters of the city manager um however back then there was also a vote was was allowed or or that was back when when when uh council's structure allow for a vote to be taken on decisions like that during

[136:00] matters so that may or may not be an appropriate place to consider it um it could be certainly considered on um on on consent um however problem there is that oftentimes when I come back to you for these revisions I also have some policy updates and sometimes um we'll be asking for some direction on some of these on these bills as well but that that is also an option and finally it could be a public hearing and the reason I'm bringing this to you this is actually a matter that Council agenda committee specifically ask me to bring to you uh so that so you could direct how you'd like to have this brought forward on February 15 or for that matter if you feel like it needs to be brought at a different date um that is the end of my presentation I'm going to stop sharing and one last topic that I did not covered that I think is important um the issue of of uh unified

[137:03] advocacy um so we well I guess bottom line um there are scenarios where an individual council member wants to testify um that is of course allowed uh for that matter it's a lot of of employees I mean everybody has their person Amendment right when you represent the city our requests and our more than a request of our staffs it's it's it's our expectations that uh it'd be a coordinated City position so that um our legislators or policy makers know that we have our act together that we're coordinating and that it does reflect the city uh you of course are have the ability to speak independently um I would always remind you that if your communication is using your title council member um it's probably uh questionable whether it'll be seen as entirely independent um but but this all being said sometimes it's entirely appropriate to speak independently as a council member if it

[138:02] is not inconsistent with council's policy statement so as long as you're not putting Council in a position where you're they're seeing mixed messages and if the advocacy effort actually you know let's just say a legislator says I want you to come speak on your behalf well then that's what's necessary to get the ball across the line um what we ask is that that be coordinated coordinated with me that would be reflective of council's uh policy statement Direction um and if it's not then it' truly be a totally personal independent uh communication so I hope that's not too confusing but um thank you council member Adams for your uh your patience and I would love to entertain any questions awesome thank you so much Carl and uh I don't see any raised hands oh here we go uh go ahead Tara just real quick Carl can you remind

[139:02] me what's the difference between support and actively support uh that's a great question uh council member Wier um in fact I I don't think I've used that in the past um so no a very practical perspective I actually have to with the Secretary of State identify which bills we are actively lobing on um there is a lot of bills that we take positions on that we don't actually Lobby on either because the opportunity hasn't Arisen because the sponsor say thank you very much we don't need your help right now um or we don't have the capacity um but we still have a position there because it might become relevant and we might need to act on it so a lot of times it'll be support or oppose it just hasn't been conveyed yet um actively means we are we are engaged in building a coalition and testifying and asking our legislators and those are the ones that we would be recording in our secretary of state

[140:02] filing great and can you tell me remind me or re explain how we feel about that Adu Bill what I believe that it there were qu We There were questions about it or we wanted to change some things what were those things that we wanted to change sure um and and fair question say that it was a little bit um confusing um certainly we'll we'll we'll turn to to the committee members to speak towards their their Amendment requests but the way I understood it was twofold is okay the bill says you can't require owner occupancy well our city may still want to incentivize it so an amendment that would clarify that the city's retain the ability to incentiv owner occupant the second component of that was um council member fer brought up the issue that like seems a little strange and and rare but it apparently in some situations people build an Adu but don't

[141:00] actually rent it so it doesn't really serve the community purpose that it was intended to so we would like to incentivize actual occupancy and along that line of thinking we recognize but of course there are sometimes where you want to let your mother or family member use it so you're not going to rent so we we combined that with a or intergenerational living but bottom line the the message there was it actually would be used so that was part one of the amendment request and the second and by the way i' I've already met with the sponsors or the governor's office since then and they said yes you can do that there's nothing in this bill that would prevent you the second part would say and the state has given out grants to incentivize cities to encourage adus make this as one of the qualifying efforts that would allow us to be eligible for uh for a grant that latter part of it that um the feedback I got

[142:01] preliminarily was that may not be consistent with what they want because they're saying don't require owner occupancy because they just want to have build as many adus as possible it's supply side argument that you know you get this this type of housing available and provides uh greater options so they think it's a little inconsistent for them to then incentivize an owner occupancy requirement and to Grant the city some funding so bottom line what we've asked for half of it is it seems like it's in our grasp that our half is we're not we're not quite there yet are you allowed to discuss or is it inappropriate to tell me what the group felt what the subcommittee felt about um docy limits in the Adu uh we did not discuss it okay yeah Tara gonna go ahead and move on to Ryan thank you Carl thanks this is uh um

[143:04] really organized and I'm excited about where you're going where this is going in general so have two questions the first one on the um the transit uh subject um I I appreciate that you that you talked about the the fundamental need um for more Transit service um and that the policies we're looking at right now are a stepping stone um to that next step of of actually more resources can I just ask you do we have any um anything I don't know who it would be from from the governor or others that are making any kind of commitment to to really put some um um weight behind the idea that we should expect that that you know that there's an actual movement towards that SEC Readiness to move towards that second step of of funding I guess in the next session yeah so uh good question in fact it may it might it might not even have to wait till next session I know

[144:00] that cober coper is leading an effort to use a legislative tool called the RTA of Regional Transportation authorities um right now cities can combine to raise money cities and counties can combine they can create an RTA it's kind of some because they all have to create a an identical resolution and and identify quite a bit of things about how it's going to be managed what coper is suggesting is that Dr Cog U who has an easier way to build to create an RTA be given that Authority or not award and just give the authority is to basically through legislation say that RTA a Dr Cog sh create an RTA that covers the boundaries of all cities and counties within its its jurisdiction and that with it it could raise um Transit money um so I can't get into the details most mostly because I can't remember exactly how the RTA statute Works

[145:00] um it's of course very exciting the possibility of raising Transit funding um but I think the challenge is going to be getting F first of all this would actually require a vote of the people it would be a tax increase and so Dr COG um would have to go refer a measure to the voters and Dr Cog doesn't have that ability so it actually would be a citizen initiated measure that would say voters do you want to raise your taxes to support this RTA that Dr Cog now has um the qu the problem is will the voters have had enough trust instilled in them on RTD which is a likely recipient of a good share this money by the time they need to sign on to to ballot measures or or or sign up petitions so I think it's going to be very tricky but that is that's the only effort that I know that's on underway to actually raise significant money for Transit operations

[146:02] uh this year as far as what would happen next year there's no U nothing that I've heard specifically but I think uh we could expect it at this RTD Reform Bill uh passes okay great thank you Carl my second and final question is is um I understand that the governor governor pus um is about ready to launch the the second greenhouse gas uh I think it's called the road map road map 2.0 two this follows two years ago only they had he had the first um ghg road map and so this is committed to the state to a lot of changes and improvements um and so like now we have a big new one coming out I think like within the next few weeks and so this isn't legislation specific specifically but um I guess my thought is uh number one I would think most a lot of us would consider Boulder is we should be leading the state and so here we have an example of the governor really really stepping up and um so do I guess the question to you is does this

[147:01] signal to us anything that we should be raising our level of ambition um in accordance with our values or maybe we have enough with with the policy here but um or I don't know any anything else as far as uh the road map that's about to come out um I will say that council's policy state in position to speak specifically about reducing Statewide greenhouse gas emissions consistent with are greater than the state of Colorado's codified goals it then goes on to specifically indicate our support for the greenhouse gas potion production road map 2.0 um staff has certainly been involved in giving feedback in in this as you said it's not legislation It's actually an executive order I believe or something similar to that um so we are certainly as a city uh we have Direction Council that suggest support for this um um so I don't know if your question goes beyond that in terms of you know what

[148:00] additional steps might be necessary okay thanks I mean it's sort of an exploratory question like do does this give us any implications but I guess one thing I hear you say is this is something that we inherently are intrinsically support we don't need to actively do anything but if council members were to wait in and you know on the support of it individually would be consistent with um our policy statement yeah and and and and this just back of the issue of of individual versus Collective um uh lobbying um the important thing is that we coordinate um I mean of course like I said council members can do anything under their entirely individual capacity uh but if the goal is to represent the city's interest one way or another even if you don't even know even if you're not saying on half of the city Boulder but you're if you're trying to get the city's goals furthered then we ask that you do coordinate with me uh so there could be many ways where that could take place um and then of course if it's not

[149:01] in align with council's Direction then it's it looks different we just need to you I still I would still appreciate get the heads up just because um ideally we don't have uh we're not surprised what one council member is doing or for say great thank you thank you any followups Ryan on that one nope thanks all right um I had mayor protin but I see Tina's hand up first on the que so I'm gonna go with Tina because she's first on my queue if that's all right that okay Nicole okay um so my first question is a really vague question um do we have a process as a group to Comm communicate what we're looking to do with the B uh the boulder Commissioners is that something that's described in our handbook or that I've missed you know that really interesting because up until the most recent

[150:00] revision of the policy statement we did not talk about lobbying the Commissioners or University or the school district they were primarily partners that we would join in to Lobby the state however um specifically on the issue of of homelessness uh funding uh our C our previous council did add a position about U um asking for support from uh the county for uh homelessness uh Services I I can't remember the exact wording but um I see council member Benjamin nodding his head so he might have something to add at some point on that but beyond that we don't we don't have like a policy agenda specifically towards like here are the 10 things that we want from the count County or something like that it's not comprehensive in any way it's it's just specific to that one issue okay um thank you and then I are we answering all three questions on the last slide right now or are we just

[151:00] doing them whatever we want or if we kep it to the first one and then we can kind of move forward from there okay if that's all right yeah that works so I'll just ask a couple other questions and that relate to the first um in the conversations about land use have there been any discussions about disincentives or sticks to um sprawl in the state oh interesting um none that come to mind under the current list of bills that are being considered I'm sure if I was given a few more minutes I would think of something that c generally always speaking that has been the case but but but no none that I think of the current the current bills are about incentivizing smart growth um so but but um actually you know what one thing I can say so I think

[152:00] I mentioned that one of the carrots sticks that's been considered is the nine cities the highway users trust fund allocation well what I learned today is that that has been seen as part of a greater reform of hutf allocations some people would say many of us have have often thought that the hutf allocation incentivizes sprawl because one of the factors that it's based on is how many Lane miles do you have so in some ways it perversely could give more money to cities that have more Lane Miles when Lane miles may not be what you want to reward um so to the extent that they are going to through legislation do some reform of how HF is allocated um that could very well be a disincentive to sprl okay and then um when you're calculating the um doing looking at the calculation for what you know whether we

[153:02] meet the density requirement um that's based on structures not on people in the in the transit bill I remember during the IGA meeting that we can exempt certain areas like a school or a park um are we able to exam and this is really based on our prior item today um watersheds and areas that are being used as peral um land for the purpose of flood mitigation and also are we able to get any carve outs or have we thought about carve outs because we have a flood risk that can be partly offset by land use that may not look like development I don't know I actually have a meeting uh with some of the folks working on this tomorrow and I'll bring it up okay and then finally um I sometimes bring this up but I am interested in measuring density um differently than by units but by the

[154:00] people that are housed um and the reason for that is I believe that we still need to be focusing on middle housing so for me it's um it might be that 12 Town Homes versus 40 one-bedroom units have serve a similar amount of people but Town Homes sometimes can serve people who traditionally can't pay for rent like children or people who a mother-in-law um so I'd love to see flexibility on how we measure uh density um in terms of looking at the people served rather than the structures that are built um and that's just a thought that I don't I've not heard that come up specifically but I'm interested in that um and I think that's it great that's super helpful awesome thank you Tina uh we have mayor proen buff Nicole thank you I'm sorry for the confusion with my hand going up and down I was getting myself oh is that what it

[155:00] was I was like wait how did this these questions yeah um so yeah I just I got a question about um our policy statement and you know we were talking in the flood and storm water update about the importance of language access and you know how how critical that is to people's safety in our community um I think this also something really in line with our racial Equity goals and you know one of the things that I noticed was um our former Council colleague and representative juny Joseph um we didn't kind of highlight any of her bills here or you know any any things that were supporting there um and I was just curious about that because it's you know I think most of her bills this session are really focused on a lot of the most vulnerable people in our community and the language access piece kind of triggered it for me because so many of her bills are focused on um language access like um providing language access to children and families and the child welfare system and um making sure that the department of early childhood education is um providing its

[156:00] licensing requirements and instructions and documents in um people in prevalent languages and so I'm just wondering if that you know Carl to you is suggesting that maybe there's something we're missing in our policy statement around how we're kind of implementing some of the equity Fe components and I'm wondering if um and I know you know you said email suggestions I will absolutely do that but just if there you know a space for thinking about things like language access right that we would support language access that we will um support things that are uh we know Child Care is a huge issue in our community we devoted some arpa funds to it um you know of things like uh Child Care availability and access if these are things that it's just suggesting we may need to add in um to our policy statement yeah off off um so totally appropriate thank you I mean it's I always welcome bringing to my attention bills that I may have missed um I do my best uh to to review the bills and sometimes I don't I

[157:01] don't see the Nexus um it could be something that's already uh totally in alignment with our racial Equity principle um we we supported um a bill last year that had to do with language access so we certainly have um a precedent for doing that and I know that we added new language on accessibility um and I'm not finding it at the moment I think it's under Human Services human rights um so that's one thing I'm going to look for to see whether there's some some additional language that could support that um but uh Point well taken yeah thank you and I think with that accessibility at least the way um I think that was one of the things I had brought up and I was thinking about it more in terms of um kind of physical accessibility but as we're having this conversation it's occurring to me that accessibility does include language access as well and so just thinking about how do we broaden these you know definitions of of terms and things so happy to follow up more and you know

[158:02] send sure sure I won't prolong the conversation but definely a lot of things here thank you mayor Pro Temp want to definitely coign that especially in light of the 600 families we know are unhoused and wanting to make sure um that we're doing everything in every intersection to ensure that our families across the um diversity within the diversity are able to access information I see Matt's hand up thanks Taisha appreciate that um so I touch on a uh a couple things so uh Tina asked a question about the county and our policy statement and so uh Carl is right kind of had that teed up um so in uh the human services and human rights section of our policy statement on page 17 item 23 uh you'll see in that sort of initial paragraph that last sentence says the city support state and County

[159:01] Action that funds and facilitates such efforts furthermore it'll advocate for the following so that's that qualifier word that used to not be in there just would refer to the state so we added the county as sort of a catchall to say yep we're looking at you too um to to be a partner and and to move in these directions so uh that was that little word choice change that Carl was referencing but yeah just so you have reference it's right there in the policy statement um so don't know if that's sufficient enough where you were thinking Tina but just want to let you know that's where it is um if we are doing more we do more um so I wanted to touch on um uh the really question three I I think this policy statement generally is in a good great spot I think uh largely we're we're we're in a really good space on it and Carl and the our team will and Adam are doing a great job in in getting us lined up and advocating uh but with regards to sort of that that third question um you know move yeah I'm sorry I wanted to try yeah

[160:00] I thought we were we're trying to stick to one and just Gathering all the expectations from anybody before we move on to the other questions just wanted to wrap that up before we go into process and some of the more uh logistical components of the conversation if that's okay I just had a few comments I wanted to add on just for the expectation piece before just to close out that conversation before we moved on if that's all right um I just wanted to speak to the um just a couple of topics that I know are of Interest again for our community and and uh one of those is just around water so although I appreciate this interest and and the importance of of of clean energy um there is that intersection with water there um naturally but also just always interested in in lifting up and and seeing seeing what we can continue to do uh legislatively to support um uh the um our water plan and and and those kinds of things so I'm that's certainly an area of interest that I'd be curious about um considering our conver our conversation around floods and flood

[161:01] water Etc um another area that I'm particularly interested in is the Colorado outdoor Equity Fund and that's a fund for um that connects youth to nature-based experiences here in Colorado and we actually have um some uh an organization called right relationship here in Boulder that is one of the grant recipients of that fund uh they actually fund um indigenous rapo youth and Elders uh to have uh to fund the nature-based experiences back with um their ancestral um and unseated lands and so um again just curious about any movement in I know there's been some some requests around increasing the budget for that particular program um and again um I'm hopeful that more of city um organizations access those funds uh because I know that um there are some incredible work that's already happening but I also understand the significant gaps that we have in meeting demand so

[162:02] those are two areas and then lastly always interested in the um in the uh any kind of renter and I know we've made some how there's that big housing Bill obviously last year and and affordable housing but um always keeping an eye on renters considering again that the majority of the city of Boulder uh residents are actually renters so um and I see those rental multi rental uh rental multif family rental properties but again um also interested in the uh other ways of uh rentals in our city thank you so much and curious any feedback on those topic um well they're they're all very appreciated um it's actually it's just important for me to know what matters to council and that starts with knowing what matters to individual council members um certainly the water water issues I do work closely with Joe tatui and the the city attorney's office on on water whether it's water quality water supply um

[163:00] um I'm Miss in other major areas but certainly flood mitigation um but you're you're pointing out the coward out Equity Fund as being something to I I will I want to look into that that seems like something that could be very important for us to be get behind and as far as renters we uh certainly uh have taken positions on uh support for renters uh just last session um and in fact that bill that I mentioned by representative basener is in fact uh one that's related to that uh there are two that are I've been introduced just today that I'm I'm I'm evaluating uh so definitely be rest assured and that's a kind of thing I I may very well bring to the intergovernmental Affairs committee because sometimes they have unintended consequences sometimes it's like you know elevating the support for the renters but it's going to make it less likely that somebody's going to rent in the first place so those are usually the tricky ones that I do bring the committee and see what they think we appreciate that thank you so much um GNA

[164:00] transition actually back to Tina because I believe you had a question about process in qu in question number two before we Circle back to Matt to kick us off on question number three Tina did you still have a question yeah yeah I was just trying to figure out I think I already I think I might have answered it but that we're going to have another opportunity to discuss our thoughts um in a way where we decide if we're going to make changes to the policy principle in two weeks and that we're going to take our thoughts and communicate them to Carl and then he'll take them to the IGA the IG will make recommendations and then we'll talk about that on February 15th because I think that was a question but I wasn't sure I'm I'm yeah thank you council member marus um so yes you you will have an opportunity on February 15th should you choose to keep that date to revise your policy statement between now and then uh any changes that you'd like to see please do

[165:00] send them to me I am actually looking to schedule a meeting with the committee to review those recommendations um so that uh so that they can then consider them and then we can bring back a comprehensive package of recommended changes to the policy statement I don't want to suggest that you all need to make a lot of changes but if there's things that are missing um and you see is problematic like I guess what I'm dra drawing to your attention is if there are gaps that are preventing us from engaging on bills that you think are really important to the city those are the situations where it's probably useful to amend the policy statement or of course if you're a new council member and you just poly disagree with something that the previous Council um did that's certainly an opportunity to suggest the change then we'll bring it to the committee doesn't mean that the council will make the change but it's something that you all should have the ability to have that discussion does that does that make sense

[166:01] okay finally um and just point of clarification when does the legislative um term end is it's May 7ish May 7ish okay okay and I just asked because going back to just this process question around and I know there's some fancy word for this what I'm doing right now I don't remember what it is so some we can put on a page um but um I know we're having our Retreat the first week of April and I'm just curious if there would be a possibility if there's something that comes up as a part of that Retreat if there's an opportunity to kind of revisit or refine I know that'll be kind of mid or towards the end but just curious like how set and if there's something I don't know you know where there's flexibility there well it's up to council and council's agenda committee to decide at any point if there's an important enough issue that you feel we're not engaging on or not engaging in correctly um you have that ability to provide the direction we try to minimize disruption from your very

[167:01] busy schedule but uh if come April there is a major decision to be made and the committee isn't isn't doesn't have enough information to go on you certainly can do that whether the r Treat would be an appropriate place of theer area awesome thank you so much any other questions about process before we move on to whether we wish to have something in February February 15th I see Lauren hand council member Adams um so Carl I was hoping maybe you could just speak a little bit to um why we time this the way we do in terms of you know because for the most part the previous Council reviewed our current policy statement that we're using right now in our advocacy and how that timing works and why we do it that way and um maybe some issues around trying

[168:02] to change like if we make dramatic changes late in the game like if we if we were to support something and then choose to not support it how does that affect our sort of long-term advocacy goals well I guess the short answer is if at any point you feel we are off course on any position on any Bill let me know immediately um I could very I mean to be honest it probably only takes one council member to tell me that there's a potential issue for me to stop advocating um because um I would assume of course that that individual council member would have a sense of their colleagues concerns as well um I guess practically speaking I don't see that coming up um so so what I'm asking for is are

[169:02] there things that weren't anticipated that maybe should be addressed through a change to the policy statement I don't necessarily see that the council has changed philosophically so much that there's going to be action on bills right now that are not representative of the council so frankly had there been a bigger change this will be a much more much more challenging conversation but um maybe maybe my read is wrong but I I don't think there's a gigantic change in terms of how this policy statement would have been approved yeah I don't think so either I think I just wanted to sort of clarify that we are some of this is a little bit guess work like we're at least on the committee I feel like we are trying to anticipate what the majority of council thinks and as we

[170:01] put forward views on bills and so if there are concerns from other council members that around some of the the complications of some of these things that we've discussed today it would might be helpful to have those conversations so just with the IGA committee members so that we're properly informed and can make decisions going forward that don't um that really are representative of the entirety of the council body yeah I certainly wouldn't want to have to use time today but if at any point in addition to changes the policy statement at any point you have concerns about positions we've taken or not taken let me know I can bring them forward to the committee thanks thank you Lauren going to go ahead and circle back to Matt to bring us into our last question does council wish to schedule its February 15th

[171:01] consideration of revisions to the policy statement as a public hearing Matt thanks taasa and sorry for jump on the gun earlier um that that uh yeah so that last little talking point uh and that question by Lauren I think was appropriate transition to this so with regards to the 15 I I the way I would suggest um operating is if it seems that we're not making really substantive changes uh to this uh then I I don't think there's necessarily A need to have a public hearing um but if we are making substantive changes and it really calls out hey we're having a pivot here from what you may have otherwise previously read then it maybe is is substantive and so I think it remains to be seen based on the suggestions that come about um but having a a public hearing for the sake of it doesn't necessarily breed good uh good engagement um in that sense so that that that' be sort of my recommendation is to sort of let the integ governmental Affairs committee kind of evaluate what changes come through and if they're substantive we do it if they're not or not so I don't know about predetermining it now I based it

[172:01] on the substance of the changes that were being proposed and and furthermore in terms of like how that propagates forward I mean cill 2113 was one of the more chaotic expend experiences last session right because was being changed in so many Dynamic ways up until the 11th Hour there were times where we like it oh we hate it now we like it now we hate it it was all over the map uh there's probably a little bit less of that chaos this time so I don't see that's sort of making some some dramatic uh questions or having cold feet on certain things like maybe there was uh last session so I agree with Lauren that there's just probably going to be a bit more consistency this cycle um on a number of things but uh we've seen 11th Hour things come in uh plenty of times Carl so um you never know and stuff just shows up randomly and then we have to Pivot and then adjust to it so uh maybe we have to make a late call on that so U those are those are some thoughts on how we address the 15th and Beyond Matt I see Nicole uh May appr Pro

[173:00] him thank you um and my question was this is more a question for staff um I know that there are noticing requirements and things for public hearings I am just wondering what is that last date just so we kind of have it on on our radar like when do we need to make that decision as to public hearing or not on the 15th I was get a phone a friend and asked Teresa if she knew it because I don't have the handbook in front of me forgive me I was having a little dinner um um you know typically we publish uh the agenda notices on the newspaper in on Sunday and so ideally we would have it in and and Alicia might be a good resource on on when that deadline is to have it into the Daily Camera to make sure it's published on a Sunday um but approximately a week

[174:03] before and and as we wait for Alicia to perhaps throw in I just mentioned it could be the option that we publish it as a public hearing and then it at a later date it becomes unnecessary it's probably easier to move it to a matter which I I assume is is this what we would otherwise Do It um aish I hope I didn't jump forward too soon uh no um and thank you both um for a um you know for asking the question the actual dates that we need to be aware of is the public hearing sign up form opens up the Friday before the meeting right so that would be the 9th and so we would have the actual agenda published for that meeting on the 11th so we would need to know by the 11th I would say by the 9th or the 8th to be

[175:00] totally clear if we're going to have a public hearing or not because once we open that form up the public is going to be expecting to be able to speak on that matter so if we're going to like I said if we're going to decide if it's a public hearing we would need to do that before the 8th of Fe feary okay thank you from a procedural standpoint um should the if the council is voting on this then it would need to go under consent um or a public hearing not under matters you could put it on consent and pull it for a discussion though that's an option as well okay thank you um and then if we were to pull it for discussion though that that doesn't necessarily have time for people like other than the people who had signed up for open comment there wouldn't be a chance for comment if there were more significant changes okay um so and I really don't have uh preference I would just go with whatever seems easiest from a staff perspective because I know there's a lot you all are doing behind the scenes to get things ready I guess my thought is while there

[176:03] may not be substantive changes to the policy statement that we need to consider by then there could very well be a decision that Council wants to make on a bill or two um but that's just a thought it may very well be that your committee is able to resolve things um but that was my thinking um anything else could certainly be under consent an update could be written so we certainly don't need to waste your time otherwise and if I may just um want to just add something supplemental to that even though we publish it on the 11th that publication requirement for us to get it to the Daily Camera would be 00 so that would even make it even shorter of a time period for the 00 so we would need to know by then you so

[177:01] much Tina yeah um so just a clarifying question just following on what you just said Carl between you know one thing is making revisions to the policy statement which we may or may not need to do to be able to get through this session it seems like that just you know we we can still make comments about individual bills but what is if if you said that we were going to make a decision on a bill or two what does that mean for us does that mean we vote to supportive to a bill and how is that noticed um I'm thinking it would be different or is it the same so um senl 213 was just that case last year where Council wanted to vot vote on it um so it was it was listed as an an agenda item um I I I think there was more I think it was also the uh um safe injection sites so so the public was made aware that there was a couple bills that the council was

[178:01] going to be voted on in that case the committee did not feel that there was enough Direction provided and they wanted to bring it to the full Council so so that's what I was envisioning could happen but again I don't know I mean I that's the challenge is do you want to hold a placeholder the challenge with a placeholder is are we creating expectations for the community that we are not going to fulfill so I'm not quite sure what to recommend here and in that case was there a public hearing and was okay any followup questions on that Tina all right I see Teresa's hand up thank you um last year there was a public hearing and that's certainly a tradition you can continue I'll just note that there's no legal requirement for a public hearing and so that is at council's

[179:04] discretion thank you any other question can I call on that can I Cally on that of course and Teresa when you referenced that we had a public hearing last year it was when we formally approved this policy statement that we're currently having is that correct and that would have been this last fall is that is that correct you know I'll look to Carl who might have a better recollection of when we when we held the public Hearing in for what purpose so we certainly did a policy uh public hearing for the policy statements last October but we also did one on the safe injection sites we also did one on um and I think it was the same one for Sen 23 yep y yeah and that was later in the spring time late winter spr if I'm not recall for the legislative session yeah that was probably April or March of last year right right right okay so yeah just

[180:00] want to clar thank you Matt Ryan you are thank you um on that same topic um I feel like it might be smart for us to um look ahead and ask ourselves on what kinds of policies are we going to expect a hearing before we get into that position Carl I don't know if you if you have any thoughts on principles for that or or if maybe you disagree but it this feels to me like the kind of thing we could get pretty messy if there's a mi there's mixed opinions on a on a on a policy and now we're talking about it yeah well I I believe that your committee and and my your policy statement as is and your committee and I probably will have enough direction to address the bills that

[181:00] matter and if something comes up that is totally nobody knows what to do with and it matters a lot to council we'll have to deal with it then but I I do think you I believe you all have enough faith in your intergovermental affairs and me and your policy statement to address the things that we expect but please correct me if you're wrong if I'm wrong okay but on the question of do we hold a public hearing is that are you say are you answering that that's the question you're answering that we yeah so so as Translating that to the public hearing is like know so that that would mean that uh you would need the public hearing um policy statement revisions could be done under a consent updates could be done other matters um or or in writing um so I'm I'm thinking out loud here and I'm waiting someone else to chime in if they disagree but that's their only one way you could go I'm comfortable in

[182:02] principle with with just fine don't plan on doing public hearings but I just thought if there's so maybe that's the point but I just think we ought to ideally come up with some shared sense of why would we want public hearing before we get into it so I'm fine with we don't need public hearings if that's what the wisdom here believes you're Ryan I see nur's hand up and thank you council member Adams and mostly I just perhaps wanted a clarification because I I think um I'm hearing some consensus but don't know yet but wanted to just clarify with Carl If an item were put and maybe Teresa too so let us know Teresa If an item were put on consent pulled for discussion and there were one particular item that someone wanted or the body uh wanted to speak on more could the rest of um could could that item be pulled off of the policy statement and allow the conversation to continue on that particular item at a later date so that

[183:01] the policy statement is not per se laid up I don't foresee that necessarily happening but want to pose that question because that may ease some concerns that there's always opportunities yeah right yeah and and what's what I'm heing I am going to ask Teresa as well so let's just say six changes in policy statement are being made but Council cannot get consensus on on one of them can Council still support the policy statement of revisions with five of five to the six and leave for another day the six change is is that something that's possible Teresa yes that certainly is possible and council could decide to have a public hearing for The Limited purpose of discussing XYZ you so much n all good thank you all right any other

[184:00] questions for Carl mayor proen this is not so much a question for Carl but I wanted to just put it in there Dr kaga getting some really great presentations on especially the housing and transportation related bills um and the recording from the last meeting is available online if anybody is interested in diving a little more deeply it is a nice presentation you can hear some of the questions that came from some of the diverse communities in our region um it's just on the website at Dr cog.org calendar um and if you go to the October or sorry not October where am I January 17th meeting um 6:30 p.m. when uh you'll find the recording in there and it is very helpful so I mentioned it to some of you I just wanted to make sure you all got the information thank you for the time no problem May Tim any other comments or questions for

[185:02] Carl right before we close I also want to thank Joe and his team for a wonderful and meaningful and impactful um tour of the samps program which is a safe and managed public spaces um and it was just um again opportunities to see what the city does and to actually meet staff and the people impacted and just the level of coordination was very powerful and so again want to I meant to mention that before uh while while Joe you were still on on on in our Zoom room camera but I wanted to make sure that to say that as well uh and to all those who are hosting us as we are on wording um and orienting um in this important and critical role thank you for the additional time and we understand the impacts that this has on your regular day today so um just want to make sure that you understand that it is very much appreciated uh with no other items on today's agenda I will close this meeting

[186:01] 03 p.m. Mountain Standard Time thank you so much everyone have a wonderful night