February 1, 2024 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[4:49] all right uh we're gonna go ahead and get this meeting going uh welcome everyone oh okay all right thank you uh

[5:00] welcome everyone whether you're watching online or here in person thank you for joining us this evening today is the first day of black history and Futures [Music] mon [Music] test

[6:38] all right okay let's try this again uh welcome everyone whether you're watching online or here in person thank you for joining us this evening today is the first day of black history and Futures month and I'm reflecting on the first and only black man to date to lead our city as mayor mayor Penfield J II was a Visionary leader and a fierce advocate for lgbtq plus rights so it's a special

[7:00] honor to be leading this meeting tonight and thank you to council member Adams for lifting up our the former mayor's voice earlier today on social media so we can all honor his memory and Legacy tonight thank you also to everyone who worked on our racial Equity plan a couple years ago which is already leading to structural changes that will help everyone in our city Thrive please be on the lookout for the many events and celebrations around the city this month to remember and honor the historical and ongoing contributions of boulders black residents students visitors Business Leaders and workers you can find events this month and Beyond at the center for African and African-American studies at CU Boulder the NAACP Boulder County the dairy Art Center the Museum of Boulder the bus stop art gallery and many more locations around town thank you to everyone who's hosting and organizing these events and thank you also to the black own businesses who contribute so much to our community with their leadership and their support for our local economy I will now call the meeting to order

[8:00] Miss Elicia will you please call the rooll thank you mayor protim and good evening everyone we'll start the roll call tonight as usual with council member Adams Benjamin present mayor Brockett is absent council member vrs present Marquis present shoe hard here mayor Pro Tim spear here w council member wallet here and Wier present mayor protim we have our Quorum thank you very much the first uh item we have tonight is a motion to amend the agenda to add item 8 a anybody have any questions or comments or would someone like to make a motion I'll make a motion to amend the agenda with item 8A second

[9:01] all in favor raise your hand that's at Lea I think all right thank you and uh as this is my first time leading a meeting I'm expecting Miss Elicia or city manager folks to let me know if I am needing to do something differently thank you yes mayor P um if it's a will of council I would be interested in amending the agenda to include some remarks from the city attorney this evening with respect to the oral argument we had today wonderful do we need to make a motion for that I don't okay somebody want to just make a motion so moved second all in favor okay thank you um our city clerk will now go over the public participation guidelines and slides prior to the open opening of our open comment period mayor Pro Tim and um

[10:03] City attorney Tate just real quick in what order do you want that item to appear on tonight's agenda thank you uh yes under Matters from the city attorney all right thank you for that clarification all right good evening again everyone Elicia Johnson serving the city as your city clerk and Records manager thank you for being here with us tonight and I'd like to go over our public participation guidelines for City Council meetings to ensure that we have an equally partic participating and active meeting for all the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive meaningful and inclusive Civic conversations this Vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members staff and Council as well as democracy for people of all ages identities lived experiences and and political

[11:00] perspectives for more information about this vision and the community engagement processes please visit our website and please search for productive atmospheres the following are examples of rules of decorum found in the boulder Revised Code and other guidelines that support this Vision these will be upheld during this meeting our remarks and testimonies shall be limited to matters related to City business no participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person obscenity racial epithets and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct the meeting are prohibited participants are required to sign up to speak using the name they are commonly known by and individuals must display their whole names before being allowed to speak online currently only audio testimony is permitted

[12:01] online in-person participants are asked to refrain from expressing support or disagreement verbally or with the pause with the exception of declarations traditionally support is shown silently through American Sign Language Applause or the use of jazz hands thank you for your attention and thank you again for being here thank you very much um so for those of you who were here last time I just kind of wanted to say a few words um hopefully set us up for for not needing to recess this time um we have some rules in place regarding noise in council chambers so that people can be heard and I understand that two minutes is a really short period of time to speak on complex issues but it's even harder to make use of that time when someone from the audience is interjecting their own voice so please do refrain from making audible noises during the meeting including the open comment period even speaking in a quiet voice can make it hard for others to

[13:01] tune in to the speaker especially for people who struggle to stay focused amid distractions you may email us comments any time if you're not on the speaker list everyone reads the emails that come in via the contact staff and counsil form even if not all of us have time to respond on Zoom meetings when we have them in study sessions we put our thumbs up or down to express agreement or disagreement that may be something to consider if you'd like to react to a speaker when they're speaking or after they're done jazz hands if you like something a thumbs up if you agree or a thumbs down if you disagree and please remember that it takes a lot of courage to get up and speak in public in front of a full chamber and the nine of us so when we ask for silence during and after people speak it's to ensure everyone is able to express themselves without feeling intimidated or silenced I hope to avoid the need for a recess this week using silent reactions rather than speaking out or clapping during open comment will help us avoid a recess how however if the chamber is unable to follow the

[14:00] rules and disrupts the meeting we will recess I'll be stopping speakers at 2 minutes to ensure equal time at the podium but if you have additional comments you may email us thanks again for being here our first Speaker tonight is Elise mordos um followed by Morales Mna and Fahad Topton and um please feel free to correct me if I'm saying your name incorrectly thank you uh I'm Elise moros um thank you for your time this evening I have two topics to address first first is that I want to thank you for abiding by your policy to focus on local issues and not make statements about Foreign Affairs I support this and hope you continue to follow this policy two the boulder nais sister city project raised 72 or $772,000 to buy an ambulance for one of unra refugee camps in nabalis I bring this up because of the very recent reports indicating that about 10% of the 13,000 person unra staff in Gaza are connected to terrorist organizations Hamas or palestin Palestinian Islamic Jihad about about 50% have close relatives who are members

[15:01] and a telegram group chat of 3,000 unra teachers in Gaza celebrated October 7th Massacre a released child hostage also testified he was held captive um in the home of an unra teacher for 50 days where he suffered from prolonged child abuse so far 12 staff members have been arrested a formal investigation is undergoing us EU Germany and other nations have suspended funding while this focuses on October 7th and Gaza the entire organization under investigation and this includes unra and the West Bank um going forward Boulder should not be providing financial assistance to unra entities and that um as long as uh the Federal Government funding is suspended and this investigation is ongoing um additionally I think it's bad precedent to supply anything to unra entity because our relationship is between the municipalities and not Boulder and the UN so we have no recourse should this ambulance be used for purposes um other purposes uh lastly the fundraising page

[16:00] includes highly inflammatory language against Israel saying learn more about Oscar refugee camp here um how Israel targets Palestinian First Responders in occupied West Bank with the LinkedIn aler article this kind of language should not um have Boulders names attached to it thank you thank you Elise for the time and that boo is the first warning please it is disruptive to the meeting it is disrespectful to the speakers you may use your thumbs or your fingers to um give thumbs up or thumbs down but please do not interrupt the speakers while they're speaking it does take a lot even if you don't agree with someone it takes a lot for them to be up here speaking thank you uh the next speaker is Morales Mna maybe Mna Morales um and uh you the ne after that we have Fahad tempton and Julia halby thank you I know that the signs behind me um indicate um a particular perspective

[17:00] that's that could be mitigated by the number of 27,000 people who have died in Palestine in Gaza and I think that that number is a number that we need to maintain focus in spite of the rhetoric that consistently commits itself to say that what is happening in Gaza is not genocide my name is Mna Morales I live up the mountain I work I do my work in Boulder I use your libraries I use I partic I volunteer at your community radio and I try to support your small businesses as much as possible and in my time here I've learned that what happens down here affects my pieace up there and so as a res I also have a PhD in libraries and information science studying the Democratic process and what exactly lends the trust in our libraries that we don't get in our democracy and we have seen from the last couple of meetings and the people behind

[18:01] me that there's an overwhelming support for a ceasefire and humanitarian Aid to the gazin so that they too can get an opportunity to heal once the crisis is over any Palestinian from Palestine who have experienced the that have experienced the occupation firsthand will tell you that when a crisis is done the harm continues and if we do not attempt to prevent the genocide that we're happening then we continue to propagate the collective trauma of genocide and if anything that white folks and white supremacy has taught us from Europe in Europe is in fact that what leads to supremacist thinking is genocide the impact of supremacist thinking is genocide and if you continue to allow and do not call for a ceasefire you too will be participating

[19:02] in the propagation of a collective trauma you too will also be responsible if not in this lifetime as we have seen in the past the 300 years statues that have come down you will pay for this we all will pay for this thank you thank you for your time and thank you to the audience for the hand reactions appreciate that next up is Fahad tempton followed by Julia halby and Max Wier my name is Fahad tton I'm here representing my Palestinian brothers and sisters who have lost their loved ones in Gazza and continue to watch our federal government fund and support their people's ongoing genocide day after day Representatives 2.4 million Palestinians in Gaza or just under 50% are under 18 and

[20:01] this count was done before Aid groups were able to operate freely that is to say when you see Palestinians undergoing surgery without anesthetic when you see Palestinians rationing water subsisting off of bird seed it is children you are watching all while Israeli leaders continue their indiscriminate bombing campaign and destroy all working hospitals these are kids and every day they continue to lose their childhoods to violence if it was our kids who were starving fearing for their lives we'd be doing anything in our power to stop the violence and you have the opportunity to do something your constituents your Palestinian constituents your taxpayer constituents deserve to know their local government stands against the killing of children against this genocide with Humanity with Justice this is not about politics this is about Justice it is about Humanity change has to start somewhere and it can

[21:00] start here no matter how small it seems this is an important resolution to pass a ceasefire resolution I'm here because this is what I can do this is the power that I have as a citizen just to do what I can for the Palestinian people I stand here in the hopes that you will real I you know you'll also realize the power that you have and pass the ceas for our resolution I have some time left so I would also like to acknowledge uh uh Mr Mandela uh who fought against apart hide and similarly you know draw a comparison to now the apart hiide that is going on with the Israeli regime thank you very much thank you next we have Julia halby Max Wier and Deborah Malden Julia halby C PowerPoint presentation for background once again I stand in these Chambers feeling incredibly othered by my community having to speak firmly

[22:01] about my people's identity as loving generous peaceful humans deserving of all that we want for ourselves I live in Boulder for its stated values of inclusion respect for diverse perspectives backgrounds and opinions and for a strong human rights position on issues repeatedly I have experienced as a palestinian-american these values are not evenly applied to my identity passing a fire resolution does not harm anyone rather it affirms these values which you have an obligation to affirm this building is now named for B Boulder's only black mayor a man who took a position to stand for lgbtq and differently abled equity and for St speaking out for oppressed peoples especially the Palestinians he led then city council to pass a resolution condemning the sinking of the USS Liberty as a war crime he believed as MLK that none none of us are free if any of us are oppressed we would we should

[23:01] walk our talk of being a place like no other standing for Humanity and life and Liberty passing this resolution says loudly that human life is precious No Matter What ethnicity that peace should Prevail in all people's lives and that that equality is the foundation for civility my grandfather used to tell me stories of pre- 48 Palestine where Christian Muslim and Jews were neighbors babysitting each other's kids praying in the same building on different days sharing produce from their Gardens and meals in each other's homes from The River To The Sea Palestine will be free is a chant that begs coexistence living freely together as we once did I desire Above All Else Mutual understanding because TI Han says understanding is love thank you next up we have um Deborah Malden or sorry Max

[24:03] Wier Deborah Malden and then Martha mcferson thank you I want to say that I I feel pain the people in this room and tragedy of War um Boulder City Council I'm an actual oh uh Boulder City Council I'm an actual Boulder resident I ask you to take action locally against anti-Semitism in your city and government I ask I asked for anti-Semitism training for all Boulder employees some actors in Boulder government education and many in Boulder High Society are not educated about anti-Semitism CU SJP and Colorado Palestine who may be in the audience tonight organized a March and Boulder last Sunday with a sign showing a star of David in a trash can that said keep uh keep the world clean with a it showed a stick figure throwing the Star of David uh into a trash can I have never heard these groups call for peace nor two-state solution it is a movement to free the Land of Israel of Jews from The

[25:01] River To The Sea I ask you to focus your efforts locally to Boulder universities and government CU and naropa are a wash and with anti-Semitism under the guise of anti-zionism under the guise of Academia and scholarship student groups and University departments teach political revisionist history portraying Jews as white oppressors who have no connection to Israel and Jo just showed up there one day this erases the diversity of our people in 3 to 4,000 years of archaeology history and genealogy proving our indigeny to Israel in classed on social media University groups and professors tacitly or explicitly call for the destruction of Israel and the death of its Jewish inhabitants with catchy jingles in pseudo Progressive slogans and cheered on October 7th naropa university has a scholarship am mural in honor of Amir Baraka a former Professor who repeatedly called for rape and genocide of Jews Jews are now and have always been the scapegoat for the majority's collective Shadow the only difference

[26:00] between times past and now is now the haters are substituting the word Zionist for the word Jew wherever there is darkness and extremism in the world it falls on Jews first and everyone else next please continue to do your work locally to stand against the Heat thank you and I just want to um thank the audience again for using your uh hand gers and staying quiet while we are um listening to open comment next up we have Deborah Malon followed by Martha mcferson and Tom mayor good evening Council I'm Deborah maldin excuse me here tonight on behalf of cre Boulder and as a city resident as you consider the Civic area Phase 2 plans over the coming months I urge you to one delay any decisions that could potentially limit changes to the area until the planning process has been completed and two keep top of mind that arts and culture

[27:01] are a proven powerful tool in any City's toolbox for activating spaces the Arts generate foot traffic driving ancillary spending at Boulder businesses and making spaces safer and more inviting in 2022 alone more than 1.8 million people attended nonprofit arts and culture events in the city and the potential for more foot traffic especially in the Civic area is substantial and the need is made more Urgent by the planned relocation of boka in late 2022 create Boulder commissioned a world-class panel of experts to conduct a community visioning Workshop around B Boulder's cultural facility needs the panel interviewed more than three dozen arts and Community leaders including some members of city council their conclusion was clear Boulder needs more more cultural infrastructure dedicated spaces for performances

[28:02] classes rehearsals and more the types of activities that animate spaces and surrounding areas day and night repurposing existing buildings in the Civic area could meet these cultural needs so let's leverage the Arts to create a vibrant welcoming and safe Civic area for all to enjoy and again please keep all options open until the conclusion of the planning process so that decisions about the Civic can be Forward Thinking and strategic thank you thank you next we have Martha mcferson and then Tom May and Amir Rey uh yes I'm Martha mcferson I live in Boulder and I am furious I'm furious at those with

[29:00] power shrug as a humanitarian nightmare is Unleashed on innocent women and children 70% of the 27,000 killed 70% women and children and yet we pretend that it's not a genocide I am furious as children recovering from amputations without anesthesia are then killed in these hospitals by the IDF I am furious as hypocrisy is crushing empathy I am furious that I am not doing more I am furious that you are not doing more there are now 47 cities who have stood up in passed a resolution demanding a

[30:00] ceasefire Chicago just passed a ceasefire resolution you are our ground swell with your support we can begin the momentum of standing up for Humanity we must have a ceasefire resolution now our supposed Progressive city of Boulder needs to take a stand the South African Court did they listened to all sides and came to the undeniable conclusion that genocide was indeed happening we must counter the obscene move of cutting off funding to unra with finding our conscience and being the voice of the oppressed thank you for your testimony um and I realize I did not cover snapping before please no snapping no audible noises of any kind it is

[31:02] disruptive it makes it hard for us to focus on the speaker um so please limit snapping silent dusters totally fine um next up we have Tom mayor Amir Reby and then Emily Hernandez Elmer I'm Tom mayor I think you must be tired of hearing from me I've spoken a bunch of times I would like to read to you a letter which I wish I could write a year from now to the Boulder City Council here is that letter which I wish I could write Dear Boulder City Council I am writing to thank you from the bottom of my heart for having the wisdom empathy and courage to pass a much needed ceasefire resolution for the Gaza War it was a especially impressive that the ceasefire resolution was endorsed by

[32:02] a unanimous vote of the Boulder City Council following Boulder's leadership many other Colorado communities have passed ceasefire resolutions roughly the same process occurred in many other states this Cascade of local demand for a ceasefire in the Gaza War compelled our president to successfully pressure Israel and Hamas for an immediate ceasefire this saved thousands of Palestinian and Israeli lives the ceasefire also prevented the Gaza war from spreading throughout the Middle East and possibly Beyond if it continued the war could have even turned nuclear I know there were bureaucratic obstacles to to passing resolutions on foreign policy I greatly appreciate your

[33:02] determination to overcome these obstacles in the face of this International emergency bureaucratic precedents should never interfere with imperative action I am also glad that you rejected the Absurd notion that a ceasefire resolution was somehow anti-s your time is up thank you so much email us the rest of your comments please thank you next up we have air Rey and then Emily Hernandez elur and then Alex Erdman do we have a mirror all right um then Emily Hernandez Elmer follow by Alex Erman and then Rosa fer a

[34:02] Aguilera hello my name is Emily Hernandez elmur um I attempted to write down what I wanted to say today but it's hard to fit everything I feel in 2 minutes um about the last four months and the last 75 years 27,000 people have died and I'm sure you've heard many numbers and I don't know if they mean anything to you I don't know what you have seen what you have heard but I have seen and heard a lot too much maybe um there's a six-year-old girl named hind who was stuck in a car with her family surrounded by tanks and they opened fire into the car and killed her whole family she then picked up the phone that her sister had in her hands that she was speaking to a responder and she said get me out of here her whole family was dead she was stuck in there for hours and she they still don't know where she is and they don't know where

[35:01] the responders are that that they sent to go get her are either this is one out of many stories happening in Gaza right now um and it's frustrating to me because it seems like the people that we are supposed to come to to take action don't listen who do I go to when Joe nus Michael Bennett and John Hickenlooper don't respond to what I need what everybody in this room wants what sorry not everybody but a majority you can tell that it's a majority thank you for laughing um so we come to you because you're the next step right this is this is who we come to next because you're who else do we go to um you know I I have so many thoughts but I guess for the rest of my time which is 10 seconds I would like to remain silent for everyone including Israeli hostages and including everybody

[36:01] in Gaza all right thank you next we have Alex Erdman Rosa Fuster agilera and ellerie Boyd hi uh thanks for having me I hope my story can convince the council that our reaction to the war in Gaza has a dramatic effect on the well-being of our local community here in Boulder starting in 2016 I spent 3 and a half years conducting research in the UAE Jordan Lebanon Palestine and Israel the Palestinian communities in each of these countries uh and in our own is profoundly impacted by the 1948 neba this is when 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes while the world turned a deaf ear yet the Palestinians I met never expected me to know what the neba was they never lectured me on my country's complicity and the massacres of Sabin shatila they didn't care that I

[37:00] was American they welcomed me with open arms ironically because my ignorance of their plight allowed them to be more than just a victim around me but real people with hobbies and dreams aspiring to be more than just a statistic in a tragic news article in 2017 I was detained without cause or explanation by the IDF I felt violated uh but my Palestinian friends just Shrugged sadly they've grown a customed to being treated as if they're invisible since October 7th the systematic dehumanization of Palestinians has worsened according to news outlets Israelis are murdered while Palestinians simply die as if carpet bombing is somehow Humane Israeli hostages have names and faces and get interviewed when they're reunited with their families as it should be but Palestinians abducted by the IDF and held without trial are referred to as prisoners they have no names no faces in the media here in Boulder we can afford Palestinians the same Humanity we afford

[38:00] Israelis by passing a ceasefire resolution we can send the message that our Israeli and our Palestinian citizens are more than victims here thank you for your time thank you next up we have Alex sorry Rosa fer agilera and then elay Boyd and Jim Morris and if you would please um just make sure the signs are not blocking uh people's access to and from the podium thank you tell me when to go or oh you can just start we start the timer my name is Dr Rosa Fila I'm I work at CU and similar to this Council see you is silent about and therefore complicit yes silence is violence to the genocide to the indigenous peoples of the occupied Palestine territories on January 30th a truck displaying LCD signs with with photos and names of the ethnic studies department at CU Boulder at CU Mains

[39:00] campus and labeling them in Boulders leading anti-semite what are you doing about this this is doxing and hate speech in our campus and our city are you going to remain silent again like you did two weeks ago when you ignore all the people demanding a cease fire I'm seeken by the doxing and official reprimand and termination of students and colleagues in universities in the US for being outspoken in favor of the people of Palestine I urge you to call for a SE fire this is the starting point for this city that likes to think of itself as Progressive and likes to talk about land acknowledgements and reconciliations but not even recognize the genocides happening right now that is hypocrisy at its peak shame on you at least 27,000 people have been killed and 66,000 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7 how dare you calling Boulder a sister city of Naas when in the West Bank of the occupied territories of Palestine when you are contri to their people genocides there have been over 350 Palestinian kills by

[40:01] the IDF in the West Bank nav jenin and tul are the deadliest areas on the occupi West Bank with at least 94 killing and killed and over 6,500 injured in na in 2023 and 2024 you are so late on demanding a ceas fire I demand you to do the right thing and not on the increasing Le of cities that are demanding a ceasefire shame on you for not knowing the 1.6 Millions is how much of the en ual 33.8 billion do in military funding that people in the city of Boulder PID through federal tax dollars as it was brought up by the Speak by a speaker last meeting I urge you to do something about this thank you your time is up thank you so folks really um I'm going to ask us just to take a brief recess um I've asked for just silence while speakers are talking while they're moving to and from the podium um so we're going to take a brief recess please um when we come back it doesn't help to

[41:00] yell at us it really doesn't we have processes and procedures in place so um we're going to take a brief ress I invite City staff and uh my colleagues to um join me in leaving the dis

[44:55] wel thank you thanks thank you everyone else

[45:01] coming they're coming back all right um we will reconvene the meeting um and again jazz hands great thumbs upb thumbs down um just please uh please let us focus on the speakers um it really does take a lot to get up in front of us and a crowd and um speak what's on your mind and in your heart um so we've got El Boyd um followed by Jim Morris and then Michelle rogriguez thank you hello thank you all for being here tonight and thank you for all the work you do for our city my name is Erie Boyd and I'm a resident of North Boulder and a graduate of Boulder high school first I would like to thank this body for their commitment to taking a stand on important foreign policy issues that

[46:00] affect us all as evidenced by its 2006 resolution calling for the US withdrawal from Iraq I'm proud to have been raised in a community where our government understands that the global is local now you all have a chance to follow in those footsteps and demonstrate to the residents of nabalis our sister city in the occupied West Bank as well as all Palestinians that Boulder stands with them and will not let their cries for a ceasefire in God go unanswered the municipal code states that Council shall not act on a foreign policy issue on which no prior official City policy has been established by the council or the people unless sufficient time and resources can be allocated to assure a full presentation of the issue therefore we would appreciate you taking the time to prioritize the consideration of a ceasefire resolution alongside our other important local issues now is the moment to do everything in our power to end the loss of Palestinian life and ensure the influx of much needed humanitarian Aid

[47:01] to Gaza and it is within your power as City councilors to stand with the majority of Americans and many other local governments across our country by passing a ceasefire resolution thank you so much for your time and I'd like to follow in the footsteps of someone who spoke before me and use the rest of my time as a moment of silence for the Lives who have been lost thank you we've got Jim Morris followed by Michelle Rodriguez and Iris Hodes hi I'm Jim Morris I live in

[48:00] Boulder um this does have this war and other Wars have effects on citizens Wars cost $122,000 per household in taxes for the military projects that was for um this coming year 2024 for the previous years 2000 through 2023 it was $40,000 per house old in costs of our taxes going to pay for um Wars plus another 16,000 to pay for veterans care and um Colorado is involved I looked at two websites one is opencorporates decom and it lists locked has 33 facilities in Colorado Boeing has 17 General Dynamics 23 I'm sorry Bo 17 facilities in Colorado Lockheed 33 General Dynamics 23 Ron now called RTX

[49:00] 20 pentire which does mass surveillance of citizens it's in Denver and these are companies that make bombs C130 airplanes F-16 F35 Jets uh jdam bombs by Boeing smart bombs um goes on and on cluster bombs by raon so these are Colorado companies and why do you think they do that I don't think it's that they're trying to help I mean if you look at op secrets.org you see nuse's top contributor is American Israeli public affairs committee it gave him $33,000 and4 $ 33,400 in the last uh election cycle plus $229,600 from other pro-israel individuals so that his largest contributor contributor sorry is Apac similarly Senate Senator Bennett has $106,800 from APAC in the election cycle through 2024 APAC has spent 7.7 million

[50:01] other countries do bad things too trying to affect their policy but it's not in our interest thank you so much for your testimony next up Michelle Rodriguez followed by Iris hajes and Laura Gonzalez hi guys Michelle Rodriguez um I want to recognize first that I'm wearing this shirt because a gentleman in the audience came up and he says are you for the ceasefire and he and I was like I'm kind of neutral you know but then I thought about it real quick and what I am for is for peace amongst all people and I can say in my 55 years of my life I have never been surrounded by a crowd of so many adults that were so unsettled and um so not at peace and I I really challenge all the adults young and old alike in this room

[51:03] to find a common ground because the one thing I did see was everybody's hands going like this every time somebody talks a ceasefire because I think that's what everybody wants what comes next you know remains to be seen but it starts probably with that also I wanted to um speak on a different subject so I I support peace that's what I support um I wanted to speak on a on the subject of the new day Center down on the North End of Broadway don't do it um the people aren't going to go there's not enough room I've slept in that building I've lived in that building I've been kicked out of that building um there's not enough room for what's going on there right now much less all the services we're going to try to fit in there the neighbors are right it will disturb everybody's piece of living down there um that's coming from somebody who knows and it's it's just not going to be productive in the in the

[52:02] community please rethink that and look for another location we're better holding off than to go forward with trying to fit all that I've got pictures of beds outside the place and Port-A-Potty scattered around the back of it with that just the three or four days on the cold snap we need to rethink that I appreciate you guys thank you thank you Michelle next up we have Iris hajes and then Laura Gonzalez and then we'll move to our virtual speakers thank you council members my name is Iris Hodes and as I've heard the previous speeches I had to add this piece of information it wasn't part of my speech around 27,000 gants were indeed killed but they forgot to mention that 10,000 out of them were or Hamas militants placing the civilian casuality ratio at a 1 to

[53:00] 1.7 which is unheard of I want to make sure that you are able to have your full two minutes so I'm going to ask that we take a recess um let's please folks really we need to be able to let the speakers speak so um I'm so sorry to you Iris I'm sorry to everyone who is still waiting to speak online um we are going to take a brief recess um I would ask staff staff and my uh colleagues to join me once again in leaving the Das

[59:32] we got everyone all right um let's get the meeting second do we have the can we get the mics back on thank you oh thank you so much um and can I can we please uh restart the clock and IIs I apologize but would you be able to start from the beginning um and I'm just please going to ask folks we just have a few speakers

[60:00] left um please remember it takes a lot to get up here please even if you disagree with someone please give them the respect of listening to them you can use those silent hand gestures thumbs up thumbs down jazzz hands um depending on on what you prefer U but please let let's let folks speak so we can finish up our open comment and then we'll have a chance for um Council to speak and uh City staff so thank you so much for your patience so once again thank you city council members for allowing me to speak so as I stated before around 27,000 gazin were indeed killed but 10,000 out of them were Hamas militants placing the civilian casualty R ratio at a 1 to 1.7 which is unheard of for reference according to the UN civilians make up around 90% of casualties in War placing n ratio it is extremely remarkable considering Hamas is hiding behind their own civilians so I do not want to hear the word genocide please

[61:02] again let me start by asking you a question what do you think will happen after a ceasefire will Hamas lay down their weapons and start peaceful negotiations for a better future this organization's vision is to eradicate all Jews from the land of Israel they have declared it openly and repeatedly if Israel will cease fire we will meet here again in a year or two when Kamas will strike again forcing Israel to defend its civilians once more and why would you even want a ceasefire if you care for the gazin Hamas is using its own people as human Shields and in numerous cases have been recorded preventing them from fleeing away from Battle they even throw their political openin out of Windows and the lgbtq community as well and you want them to remain in power Hamas has to be eradicated for the sake of gazans and Israelis alike about 3 weeks ago the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed their Gaza ceasefire resolution mayor

[62:01] London breed Who quote almost never comment on or engage with non- biding resolutions felt the urge to make an exception and sent a response letter in that letter she stated that since this resolution has passed the city has been quote angrier more divided and less safe is that what you're wishing upon Boulder and Colorado I am asking you to consider this fight Behavior which is happening right now on American streets and is on the rise as we speak thank you thank you next up we have Laura Gonzalez and then we will move to our virtual speakers Jude lensman yal perz my name is laa by the way laa Gonzalez um my identities are I identifies a light brown red indigenous M qu M I am a descendant of Maya mopan

[63:00] and Maya it'sa indigenous people and those survivors who and also the ones that didn't survive of the Holocaust in this continent that you're standing on right now I am here to speak for my Palestinian indigenous siblings it is let me tell you what's happened after the IC J ruling the icj ruled that there's pla there's enough evidence for a plausible genocide by the way so I am going to use the word genocide because the icj said that right also a US court that dismissed the case of the Palestinian versus Biden also ruled that there's enough evidence for a plausible genocide in Israel so we as the United States of America we are a member of the genocide convention we have a responsibility you all have a responsibility ility to take action to prevent every to do anything your power to prevent genocide and you're not

[64:00] taking that action not only are you not calling for a sixf fire resolution after 110 days of dropping bombs in hospitals in universities in in schools in refugee camps where Palestinians were forced to um you need to take action about that let me tell you what happened after the icj ruling more than 700 people have been murdered even though they have ruled that it's possible evidence for a genocide and that's been happening with our money with 1.6 million of our tax dollars in the city of Boulder and the fact that you had to ask that yourselves last time when I came to speak you should do the research that is your position you should know where money is going so you need to take action not only do I want you to do a c fire resolution but I actually want you to do something to stop that action and I want you to take action to thank you for your time you can email us the rest of your testimony you may email us the rest of

[65:00] your testimony laa your time is up please I understand you laa your time is over laa thank you you may email us if you have additional comments All right we are going to move to online testimony we've got Jude lansman yal Paris and Aaron Brooks I do not see Jude lansman online but we do have some other names Jude if you are here please let me know by using the raise hand function or reaching out to me in the Q&A box all right um then let's move to yal and if um Jude shows up please let me know Mike can you hear me okay yes thank you for giving me time to speak I want to share a personal

[66:00] experience as a local community member my grandfather came to Israel from Iraq in 1942 before that in 1936 his parents traveled from Baghdad to Israel while trying to decide if they'll migrate I remind everyone this is before Israel's independence in 1948 his parents were horrified by the number of Jews that were being slaughtered in Israel by the local Arabs and decided to stay where it was safer for them between 1939 though and 1945 35% of the world's Jewish population was killed and similarly Baghdad saw its fair share of Jewish murders during that time this led I'm sorry youall I'm I'm so sorry I'm going to have to um ask you to just pause for a moment um we are just having too much noise in the crowd for me to be able to focus on what you are saying and I really do want to hear what you are saying because everybody who signed sign up deserves their two minutes so we have approximately two speakers left to go please folks I would

[67:02] really like to hear the people who have signed up and prepared statements to be here tonight whether we agree with each other or not we should listen it's not your to speak all right um let's take another recess and uh please um join me in leaving the Das

[71:52] EX

[72:13] Ryan all right we're ready for mics again whenever they're set all right I think we're all set for mics again whenever you're whenever you all are ready wonderful thank you um and youve all I'm so sorry but um would you be able to start over again so that we can hear you uninterrupted thank you absolutely my grandfather came to Israel from Iraq in 1942 before that in 1936 his parents traveled from Baghdad to Israel while trying to decide if they'll migrate I remind everyone this is before Israel's independence in 1948 his parents were horrified by the number of Jews that were being slaughtered in Israel by the local Arabs and decided to

[73:00] stay in Iraq between 1939 and 1945 35% of the world's Jewish population was killed similarly Baghdad saw its fair share of Jewish murders during this time and led my grandfather to flee alone without his family as a teenager why do I share this Israel is our safe haven it is the only Jewish State standing compared to 22 Arab states we are 16 million Jews less than before the Holocaust compared to 1.8 billion Muslims more than a hundred times our numbers today I'm seeing the same things my grandfather saw Happening Here in our Boulder just this week A friend told me that his daughter became terrified in Pearl Street while protesters shouted at her family while having lunch she hid her Star of David necklace and had a panic attack until they were able to get home my own daughter 9 years old on several occasions while driving past downtown asked me why do so many people

[74:00] want us dead why are they calling us murderers the difference between what we're seeing today and the rise of Nazi Germany is less than you might think the difference is not the radicals I will not change their minds it is the inaction or indifference of the moderates some speakers claimed that calling for a ceasefire doesn't harm anyone but I'm here to tell you that it's harming us it's harming my children so I ask which side of History will we be on will our voices be the ones that um terrorizes our local children calls for a ceasefire and leaves Hamas in power and just wait for the next October 7th what I want to know from this council is should I like my grandfather start looking for a different thank you you all your time is over you may email us the rest of your comments folks you can email us comments you really can I promise you every one of us

[75:00] reads them really please let's get through the rest of this open comment and then we will have some time where we can hear from our city staff you can hear from some of us um but we really do have things other things that we need to get to on tonight's agenda next up we have Aaron Brooks can you hear me yes we can excellent thank you members of the city council my name is Aaron Brooks and I come before you today to share a disconcerting experience I had on Pearl Street this past weekend during a rally organized by the Colorado Palestine Coalition and CU Boulders SJP group and attended by members of the Denver Communists and other Colorado groups as I stood innocently in front of the Gathering worrying my bring them home now dog tag and a piece of tape displaying the number of days the hostages have been H I was approached by a rally participant who demanded I leave accusing me of supporting genocide and and fomenting

[76:00] hate just for standing on Pearl Street I asserted my right to be there in public taking photos as legally allowed just like others on Pearl Street often do despite calmly explaining that I was enjoying my day and meant no harm she persisted aggressively it escalated to the point where I had to involve a police officer for intervention I share this story not only as a personal encounter but as a cautionary tale just as resisting the pressure to leave the mall was crucial to avoid setting a dangerous precedent precedent I implore you the city council to resist giving into external pressures demanding a ceasefire resolution relating to the ongoing war in Gaza your previously stated recent commitment not to comment on international issues aligned with the values of our local community my experience underscores the importance of maintaining this I'm going to have to ask you to pause I am so sorry um we do not have that much time left of your speech um you when when we come back from our brief recess um you may let us know whether you would like to start where you um were just at or whether you

[77:01] would like to start over again we will recess once more thank you

[81:21] e all right oh wonderful Mike's already back um Ain you uh you had I think about 40 seconds left do you want to just jump right where you left off or um did that mess you up and you want to start over if I could start over that I'd appreciate it okay yep thank you so if we can let Aaron finish then we can be done in two minutes okay all right Aon go ahead and begin thank you sorry for the disruption no worries members of city council my name

[82:00] is Aaron Brooks and I come before you today to share a disconcerting experience I had on Pearl Street this past weekend during a rally organized by the Colorado pal Palestine Coalition and CU Boulders SJP group and attended by members of the Denver Communists and other Colorado groups as I stood innocently in front of the Gathering wearing my bring them home now dog T tag and a piece of tape displaying the number of days the hostages have been held I was approaching by a rally participant who demanded I leave accusing me of supporting genocide and and forting hate just for standing on Pearl Street I asserted my right to be there in public taking photos as legally allowed just like others on Pearl Street often do despite calmly explaining that I was enjoying my day and meant no harm she persisted aggressively it escalated to the point where I had to involve a police officer for intervention I share this story not only as a personal encounter but as a cautionary tale just as persisting as resisting the pressure to leave the mall was crucial to avoid setting a dangerous precedent I implore you the city council to resist giving into external pressures demanding a ceasefire resolution related to the

[83:00] ongoing war in Gaza your previously stated commitment not to comment on international issues made recently aligns with the values of our community my experience recently underscores the importance of maintaining this stance particularly when faced with demands from people many of whom are in that room and are not from Boulder that have been traveling from city council meeting to City counc meeting around the area making similar demands our expectation as Boulder residents is that you prioritize local issues such as homelessness and drug abuse things we see on the street every day additionally while calling for a ceasefire here will make no difference halfway across the world unlike other incorrectly stated early earlier it would have a definite significant impact on the already significantly growing anti-Semitism being experienced locally and across the country thank you again for standing firm on your commitment to refraining from commenting on International matters thank you for your time Aaron and do we have our last speaker uh has she shown up in the virtual

[84:01] meeting she has not okay um then I will close open comments and I would like to give the city manager and City attorney time to respond to um anything in open comment that you would like to respond to uh thank you um mayor proem I appreciate it um I will say to the matters uh regarding uh City operations I believe that we will be hearing a little bit more about the Civic area later on in today's meeting um I appreciate the comments and the Insight um from Michelle regarding the day Services Center and we'll say that we will be speaking about that at the upcoming meeting on February 8th as we talk about all of our homelessness strategies and that is it from me thank you I don't have anything to add at this time thank you thank you um any of my colleagues is there anything that you would oh I see a couple folks um and I actually don't know who was first maybe you can let me

[85:00] know all right council member Benjamin thanks mayor protm I appreciate how you handled that meeting um and and that open comment and I I appreciate the the work that you did there so thank you for that leadership and thank you for also the compassion um that you showed while leading that meeting so I appreciate that um I would like to sort of bring an issue up really specifically about I would just like to ask our colleagues to reaffirm our commitment to not weigh in on international issues you know I think it's important for us to recognize the emotion and folks all right you know yep um we're going to can can we pause or I'm good I'm good to keep going okay if it gets out of hand you know it is appropriate we we we have listened to um 20 individuals provide their comment and we're providing sort of our our perspective on this right now at least I'm choosing to do so so I'd appreciate that same respect that we gave you all

[86:01] um so I want to recognize the emotion and the trauma that this situation has uh created and continues to create not just here but abroad but it has been a long-standing policy for us to not weigh in on these international issues and I think for the sake of transparency it is it is important now all right let's take a recess folks we cannot continue the meeting with the disruptions

[91:32] CHR can I

[94:18] I put out a

[95:53] God they're all

[96:00] invisible prefer this to take one person forly removing the all right we get the microphones back on do I have mics back on thank you uh all right Matt do you like to continue or restart as you prefer appreciate that Nicole um so for those listening online and perhaps downstairs or wherever you uh get your Council fixed um I wanted to just sort

[97:02] of continue from that thread of I I would love this body to kind of just a reaffirm that we are not taking positions on International Affairs and and particularly the ceasefire resolution I think we owe it to community to um not uh uh are to not be silent on choosing one action or another I I think we need to sort of make that choice so that Community knows whether they should continue to ask us for a resolution or not um and I think that we just need to kind of get to that place um so I'd love for us to do that and if if we're ready to say hey we're not going to support this ceasefire here and now and and sort of move on with the work that supports our community then then I'm ready to do that maybe some of my colleagues are but if not then I'd love for us to make sure we schedule that opportunity so that we can do this and not have the um this tension continue to linger in perpetuity until we do decide one way or the other what we're doing um so that would be my request of this body and and just as a reminder like the slippery slope if we choose to act on this in this ceasefire

[98:01] then we're choosing to then act on every International event that occurs and and that is I think the the the wisdom of previous councils deciding to place these processes in um in our book and in our procedures so that we aren't tempted with that slippery slope um and best to just refrain from weighing in on International Affairs so um that would be my hope and I hope Council my Council colleagues will join me in reaffirming that um so we can continue with the community's very important business like housing and transportation and homelessness and a Litany of other things um that are critical to our community U so thanks for the opportunity to address that council member ferts thank you I want to thank everyone for coming out and engaging with our community tonight no matter what brings you here tonight I hope you will find people that share your beliefs and people people who have challenged you and broadened your understanding of our world I hope you can find the strength to listen and empathize with those you

[99:00] disagree with outside of this room or in now in this case this building I hope that you will find neighbors to have deep difficult and brave conversations with so that as a community we can grow stronger through our connection to each other and our shared Humanity it weighs heavily on me as a taxpayer of this country to know that my dollars are being spent on the murder of civilians and to live with that complicity this is true for so many places other than Gaza but it is also true in Gaza I share the frustration that politicians who actually have the power to change International policy fail to act as your elected official I am committed to focusing on areas where I can do the most good unfortunately I see no path forward for a ceasefire resolution tonight or any night personally I wish this was not the

[100:00] case and I hope you will see my honesty as a sign of respect for your time and your energy I am so thankful for the passion and commitment to Justice everyone has for the betterment of our community and the safety of all human beings thank you again for being here and sharing your passion with all of us if any other council members are interested I would like to ask to have our Human Rights Commission if they have the time and energy to advise us on ideas of how we can help our community can engage in productive dialogue and healing given the trauma associated with this topic I know this is not what we are being asked for and it will not stop Bloodshed or terrorism but it is something we can do to support our community in dealing with the pain and loss and Trauma thank you thank you uh council member Adams I saw your hand council

[101:00] member wallik I saw yours as well um council member Adams you want to go down down the line okay all right thank you uh council member wck thank you I want to just say a couple of words in support of my colleague uh council member Benjamin's statements um I think they're well taken I think they're important to say it um it is simply not our policy uh to have a foreign policy and while I acknowledge that every speaker's right tonight to his or her opinion this is a very divisive issue and it's simply not something that we wait into um and so that is our policy now and I believe it's going to be our policy going forward this is not what we do we have important work to do here in this community what we get paid to do is to help formulate policies that will better the lives of the most the greatest number of

[102:00] citizens residents of Boulder that we can um and whether that's dealing with homelessness whether that's dealing with Public Safety uh whether that's dealing with snow removal the these are the things that are within our uh competence and within our responsibility and that's what we do um we do not do foreign policy and so I want to again express my support for the comments made by council member Benjamin because I think that is what we have been as a council and that is what we're going to be as a council and we need to move past this argument uh to get back to the work of the people to whom we are ultimately responsible thank you council member Adams thank you I want to thank all of those who

[103:02] have come to SP speak today I also want to thank those who have met with me and spoken with me fellow council members as well um around these issues um I will say that I've already spoken on my position on this matter uh personally uh I am sad that the city has a resolution in our handbook that does not allow us to comment on Foreign Affairs um and if that is some and unfortunately I do not feel like we have uh the will to be able to do that as a collective I'm happy to to do a vote on that if it needs to be for the record but that is my feeling after uh conversations and even what's been shared this evening um and I will say as a as a um as the public and those who and I speak to those who elected us if that's what you want of elected officials then that's what you need to be asking those are the questions that you need to be asking about um those are the positions that you need to be clear on um because

[104:01] that's what's going to happen when we have we are of the majority and um you know regardless of where we go with a resolution or not I know that everybody on this Council cares about Humanity about people about lives and I respect the um rules and responsibilities that we do have to the immediate issues that we address but I would be remiss if I did not lift up the fact that there are direct implications to Boulder we take federal funds we have a relationship with the federal government the issues that happen abroad are impacting us here we have increased hate here because of what is happening there so we cannot act like things that happen abroad do not affect us here I'm hopeful that we do have some additional conversations not only with our Human Rights Commission but also so with um other community uh Partners as we are exploring I saw that um there is an effort around standing up

[105:00] against hate in the town hall perhaps that can be a series um and and another uh an additional work but I am sad that we can't come and and make a stand like that I was hopeful that that is something that we could do as a collective but I understand that that is not the will at this moment and I can accept that and still work together to move towards the things that we do share which is many so thank you thank you council member Adams council member Marquis yeah I just want to thank um everyone for coming and speaking and this is such an impassion topic and also for being patient as um our mayor proem did a great job leading the meeting that was frustrating I know for speakers when you there's a momentum but but we also need to make sure each voice is heard and that's um incredibly important and I'm uh really really proud of how mayor protm did that today um I do support the

[106:01] council not taking matters on foreign policy issues as uh council member Benjamin suggested but also recognize that there's a lot of hurt in our community and support Council uh person folker's um idea to go back to the human relations commission and continue to recommit ourselves to our values um of being an inclusive community for all people regardless of their National backgrounds or their religious backgrounds so um always it's a good reminder of how hard we have to work on that uh no matter how many studies and no matter how many trainings we do we can always do more and work for our community um and and really to council person Adam's point we're in another election season and I'm a politically active person so this is not an issue that is coming up it didn't come up during the campaign ibran and I'm not seeing it a whole lot in local campaigns so I encourage everyone to ask candidates where do they stand and what do you want to see regardless of what it is um you have a lot of choices coming

[107:00] before you um with a caucus on March 9th and then a primary on June 25th so there are choices that you can make and advocacy you can do now and I I hope people are engaged in this process thank you any other comments okay um I would just Echo everyone's thanks to um all the folks who came out tonight um and I apologize for uh the interruptions to speakers and the extra time that it took us um to get through but I do appreciate everybody who came up and spoke um I know that it takes a lot to get here and to speak to us uh every time um doesn't really get easier um and and I think also council member fol your idea about asking a human relations commission if they would have any time just to offer some guidance on how to um support the community I think that's an interesting idea uh and I would also um note that uh

[108:02] we'll be talking at the end of the meeting around the retreat and things coming up there um if there are processes or things that people would like to change um The Retreat is a potential place to talk about a little bit of that too so um other things we can we can think about but you know some of the things that I heard um some of the speakers say to I were noting or um mentioning that you know they weren't sure if we were paying attention and I just really want to speak to that because none of us is immune from what is going on internationally as my fellow council member stated um every one of us is following Along on this issue and we are all feeling different degrees of feelings about um what is going on internationally so I would say whatever you're feeling um whatever you brought with you tonight whatever you hold as you go through every day and you are witnessing what is happening on the other side of the world you're not alone and we do appreciate you being here and sharing um your thoughts with us um that

[109:03] appreciation is independent of what we can or cannot do or will or will not do as a body we appreciate you we appreciate you speaking up and letting us know what's on your mind so um thank you for that um with that I believe we can move on to the next item on our agenda yes mayor protim thank you our next item on tonight's agenda is item number three it is our consent agenda and it consists of items 3A through 3E does anyone have any questions or comments all right um can we have a motion so moved and a second from council member Marquez and Miss Elicia would you please walk us through the roll call Vote Yes ma'am thank you the consent agenda items a through E's roll call Will begin this

[110:00] evening with council member shuart yes mayor protim spear yes council member wallik yes Winer yes Adams yes Benjamin yes ferts yes and Marquis yes the consent agenda items a through e are hereby approved with a vote of 8 to zero thank you very much next item on tonight's agenda is our callup check-ins that is item four 4A is the concept review proposal to redevelop the 448,000 itial Commercial Hotel and restaurant uses the existing buildings on site would be demolished and replaced with six new four to five story buildings containing retail restaurant

[111:02] and hotel uses as well as approximately 610 new dwelling units and a mix of structured and underground parking the unit type mix would include market rate units and student housing units this is reviewed under case number lur 2023 -38 thank you I will hand it over to our city manager thank you so much and for this I will hand it over to Chandler who's going to run us through a quick presentation thanks Maria and good evening council members I will do a quick presentation here so this is the 2952 Baseline Road concept review um for the newer members of council the purpose of concept plan review is um to review a general development plan and provide the applicant with comments from the public city staff planning board and Council early in the process uh there's no formal action or approval or denial requested tonight it's really just for

[112:00] uh feedback so the location of the project it's approximately 9.9 uh 9.59 acre project um it encompasses the Triangular area located east of Highway 36 south of Baseline Road and West of 30th Street and this project uh site excludes the Baseline Crossing site as well as the McDonald site the site is zoned business Community 2 and is adjacent to bt1 zoning to the north and public zoning to the east across 30th Street which is where the Williams Village towers are uh to the west across Highway 36 uh is additional bc2 zoning as well as the Martin Acres neighborhood zoned rl1 The bc2 Zone district is defined by uh the land use code as business areas containing retail centers serving a number of neighborhoods where retail type stores predominate uh the site currently contains five existing one to three story buildings containing a variety of retail and restaurant businesses including a Sprouts Market the Darkhorse Saloon Cosmos Pizza a liquor store a bank and

[113:00] other restaurants uh there's about 65,000 ft of commercial space currently on the site uh both the Dark Horse and the broker in have been in this location since 1974 the property is not individually landmarked or located in a historic district um so the proposed project is a mixed use development consisting of 610 attached residential units of which about 285 would be student housing and 325 would be non-student housing about 69,000 ft in change of ground floor commercial space about 76,500 ft Hotel use is proposed and uh just under 8,000 square ft of uh restaurant use oh that's site that was not supposed to be there there we go um so the project is comprised of six four to five story buildings ranging from about 43,000 ft to over 250,000 ft in size uh the net floor area ratio for the site is about 1.9 which is consistent with bc2

[114:01] zoning standards uh they're proposing a new L-shaped rideway to break down the super block and a mix of atg grade Parks plazas landscape setbacks and rooftop decks uh this is just a um diagram breaking down the uses so I've already kind of gone over the square footage of the uses but this shows um that the yellow is residential so predominantly residential the light green is student housing um so the kind of e-shaped building is mostly student housing and then light blue is retail the Orange is Hotel um so this went to planning board on January 16th approximately 40 residents spoke at the planning board hearing many expressed concerns over the potential loss of the Dark Horse the board was split on the extent to which the project was consistent with Boulder Valley comprehensive plan goals objectives and recommendations uh particularly with the guiding principles for neighborhood centers as outlined in the comp plan uh you do not have to read all of

[115:00] this I will summarize very quickly um I know it's a lot of words key keyboard feedback included um reducing the overall mass and scale improving permeability uh reducing or removing ground level residential uses along Baseline um improving open space and there was a lot of discussion around that um cons validating site access points so reducing the overall number of access points uh improving multimodal connections to the site potentially moving the parking structure to the west side of the site to create a noise buffer um between the development and residents on the other side of us36 uh strong urge to see determination by historic preservation staff or land landmarks board early in the process as to whether the Dark Horse is eligible for designation um and a desire to see the developer keep and or minimize disruption to existing businesses during the construction process so next steps um city council may vote to call the item up in which case it would go to a public hearing which would be scheduled in the next 60 days um where you could provide

[116:00] additional feedback you may also vote to refer the project to the design Advisory Board known as daab Andor the transportation Advisory Board known as tab um if this is the case specific questions or topics should be provided this does not require a call up in order for you to refer them uh the applicant will then either proceed with submitting a development review application in the future or may submit a second concept review application voluntarily a site review application when it comes in will require a decision by planning board which will also be subject to call up by city council thank you thank you very much does anyone have questions about this item yes council member fartz if we were to um want to have dab review this project and I think there's also potentially interest in calling it up what is that would we want to refer it tonight or would we wait till a call up

[117:02] um that would be up to you okay I I think my preference would be to wait for the call up so that we could provide more detail about what we would like dab to look at yes City attorney uh I believe there's a legal requirement that you make a de ision about callup for this um within some certain number of days of the planning board's decision so um while you could order those in it whichever uh well I'm afraid I I I'm afraid I don't know if there is a requirement of you to have that call up hearing public hearing within some certain amount of time um it's 60 days 60 days from the date of call up would be the hearing requirement and 30 days from planning board in order for you to vote to call it up so so there so there is some time sensitivity with respect to the decision

[118:00] to call up and the hearing thank you so much for that and the hearing to um uh that results from the callup um so I encourage you to think about that as you think about referrals and and how to order those thank you yes council member Ben I was just going to goad make a make make sort of a comment to towards a referral um unless someone else has questions okay well um I I would I would like to suggest we we call this up um and then also refer it to both dab and tab um I think that's probably prudent given the scale and certainly some of the questions and stuff that has come from planning boards so that would be uh what I would ask is call it up and refer to both those boards and commissions thank you um yes go ahead Council I I would second both of those suggestions uh at almost half a million square fet this is an enormous project and we've gotten significant Community input on it uh not all of it favorable and um we

[119:02] have gotten significant input from the planning board a good deal of it unfavorable so given the importance of the project and the um uh the kinds of comments we have been receiving both from the community and from planning board I think this is an appr apprpriate uh project to call up if if if there ever was one I mean at half a million square feet I I just don't know how we not call it up but I would also agree with my colleague suggestion that we uh refer it out to the uh to to dab and and tab and um council member fartz can I just uh clarify were you saying that it may be a good idea to wait till we call it up um to that because then we could give specific feedback to dab and tab did I hear that correctly that may have been somebody else who said that too yeah that was what I said cuz as we see on bullet point number two it does say specific questions and topics should be provided um and so I feel like an

[120:00] appropriate point to do that would be when we dive into more detail on this thank you just wanted to clarify that um I would agree with that statement I think it would be good then we can provide some very specific uh thoughts and questions for them to consider would that be acceptable do we have enough yeah I think because if we were um if we were to call it up tonight um then when we come back to the discussion do we have time to refer to dab and tab at that point absolutely yeah there's there are no timing uh restrictions with dab or tab okay thank you can I so do we have we have so the is it to call it up tonight or not call it up until we hear that is what we're deciding tonight is whether we call up tonight or not okay do the hearing yep so then the next time it would come back because then as council member fols was saying then we could have some specific questions and feedback um that we would be providing

[121:01] so it's not just a general hey tell us what you think but then we could ask them specific questions that get at their expertise I could work with that council member Marquis yeah can I just ask a process question um so if we call it up tonight and then we have to do the call up hearing within 60 days and then at that point we refer to Tab and dab what is the timeline at that point for them to get back to us just so I understand how it works from the developers perspective I see our director of planning and development services come up to the podium sorry good evening Brader director planning and development services so um what I think was trying to be expressed is if you call it up tonight it'll get scheduled then in a future meeting within the 60 days and then you would be able to refer to those two agencies they uh we would get it as quickly as possible and that's feedback to the developer and they would still be submitting an actual application at some future time and it would not be unusual that they take you know many months or

[122:02] or such before they were planning to do the actual application anyway so it it it doesn't roll into a defined timeline after that it's it's just the developers submitt of the full application then okay so this wouldn't be viewed by the the developer as an unreasonable delay in so think we do have them here if if you wanted to call them yes if we were to refer to Tab and dab could at that point the developer would have specific comments from both Council and planning board could they potentially submit or in their discussions with dab and tab could they present new design options I believe so yeah that's an open conversation essentially so in that case it may not hold them back and it may

[123:00] allow them the opportunity to get support from th those other boards in preparation to coming back in front of planning board and Council yeah if they see the Merit of those changes yeah philosophically uh you know the goal is to provide them feedback and they would presumably be able to incorporate that to make it better submitt uh you know from their Vantage Point great thank you so much for clarifying did that get at your question good okay um so what it sounds like we maybe um well maybe let let's just decide first on uh the call up and then um we can discuss um the referrals so um I believe this can just be a show of hands is that right wonderful thank you um so all in favor of calling this item up all right thank you um and then I saw

[124:01] some nodding heads as we were talking about waiting to refer to dab and tab until after or until um we were at the callup uh are folks okay with that okay great I believe we can move on to the next one then thank you mayor protim next we have item 4B it is the consideration of a landmark alteration certificate application to install a front and side fence at 2321 4th Street this is referenced under his 2022-23 it is a contributing property in the Mapleton Hill historic district pursuant to section 9-11-18 of the boulder Revised Code 1981 and under the procedures described by chapter 1-3 quasi judicial hearings BRC 1981 owner applicant is Charles M Marcia lamb thank you does anyone have any

[125:00] interest in calling this one up see some shaking heads going on all right um then U I think that is a no for that one thank you ma'am our last call up and check item is item 4 C it is the consideration of a vacation of a drainage easement on the east side of lot one at 2851 habiscus Avenue this is formerly known as 3320 28th Street referenced under ADR 20 23-15 2 thank you is there any interest in calling this one up all right I got a no on that one as well thank you all right thank you next on tonight's agenda we have our public hearings is item number five 5A is two items that are under the consideration related to the annexation of 5691 South

[126:02] Boulder Road first there is a consideration of a motion to adopt resolution 1344 which is setting forth the findings of facts and conclusions and the second item is the second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt ordinance 8618 annexing to the city of Boulder approximately 5.3 acres of land thank you so much it appears to be a Chandler night and so we will send that over to Chandler all right thank you nura so yes this is the second reading of uh the proposed annexation at 5691 South Boulder Road uh Alicia just read the agenda title um just to reiterate uh what we are asking is for Council to consider a motion to adopt the resolution setting forth the findings in fact and conclusions and second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt ordinance 8618 which would Annex the property into the City and establish the initial zoning of

[127:00] rl2 um so recognizing we have several new council members I wanted to provide some in-depth regulatory background on annexation apologies if this is a bit academic in nature um annexation is the process of annexing land that is outside of the city boundaries into the city boundaries annexation is necessary in order for eligible properties out outside of the city to become part of the city and therefore receive city services such as water sewer um storm water and flood management fire protection emergency medical care uh police and urban transportation services a land may be considered for annexation to the city if the annexation would comply with State annexation uh statutes and the policies of the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan the comprehensive plan provides a framework for annexation and urban service provision within the city policy 1.17 D States states that the city will Annex area 2 land with Redevelopment potential if the annexation provides a benefit to the city if a property is annexed zoning will be established consistent with the goals and land 's designation of the

[128:00] comprehensive plan um annexation must comply with specific policies included in the bbcp which I will provide an analysis of later an annexation agreement is required to establish terms and conditions of an annexation uh standard terms and conditions such as RightWay dedication affordable housing contributions and Fe are established through city codes and policies annexations involve at least two public hearings the first is conducted by the planning board who then makes a recommendation to city council city council then holds a second public hearing which we are in the process of doing right now uh before making your final determination um so on December 5th 2023 planning board reviewed the proposed annexation and initial zoning request and voted unanimously to recommend approval to city council the planning board also approved the companion in site review application for the property to redevelop the site with 15 new homes uh comprised of six permanently affordable homes and nine market rate homes six detached adus or accessory dwelling units and one new replacement

[129:02] home uh for the existing property owners of the Kent this just very briefly um is a rendering of the proposed plans that were approved as part of the site review um these plans are not under consideration tonight but I wanted to show them for context um so on December 21st 23 uh 2023 um Council had first reading of the proposed annexation ordinance um Council adopted the annexation resolution which is a procedural step required under state law and the hearing date was set for tonight under a separate agenda item at that hearing Council was asked to consider the call up of the companion site review application council did not vote to call up the application um therefore the site review approval is final subject to approval of this annexation request in terms of public notification a written notice was sent to Property Owners within 600 feet both in 2020 when they first submitted and in 2023 when they resubmitted a notice was posted on the

[130:01] property comments were received from Neighbors in 2020 which express concerns with density and groundwater uh the applicant held multiple Good Neighbor meetings in January of 2020 and in May of 20123 approximately 36 attendees um spoke uh no public test was provided at the planning board hearing and no public comments have been received by staff um so in terms of location the approximately 5.3 acre project site is located on the east side of 55th Street north of South Boulder Road and south of East Boulder Community Park and Rec Center uh surrounding single family residential neighborhoods include Green Belt Meadows which are adjacent to the South annexed in 1983 and Ken Meadows to the Northwest which were annexed in 1963 City owned open space lies adjacent to the site to both the North and East um this is another shot just of the surrounding context an aerial view um so the existing parcel at 5691

[131:00] South Boulder Road was created in the early 1960s the existing one-story frame ranch style single family home was moved from 28th Street in Baseline to the site in 1963 uh the historic peacocks in a backyard pen on the site were moved with the house the house has a failing well and the owner seek City Water and Sewer Service via annexation there was a previously grandfathered commercial use which was repair of trailers um from 1965 to 2007 on the property however that use has been eliminated many years ago uh the property is currently under the jurisdiction of Boulder County and a zoned RR or rural residential by the county the property is located in uh the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan planning area 2 area 2 refers to land now under County jurisdiction where're annexes a to the city can be considered consistent with uh City policies the property is designated low density residential on the land use map of the Boulder Valley comp plan with an

[132:00] anticipated density of two to six dwelling units per acre or less the proposal to Annex the 5.3 uh sorry the proposal is to Annex the 5.3 Acre Site and apply a zoning designation of rl2 oh these are out of order um the annexation agreement also includes adoption of a new Wetland map which will ensure delineation and preservation of existing Wetlands on the site as well as dedication of RightWay uh option to purchase ditch rights and dedication of ditch easements uh the terms of an annexation agreement can be negotiated and oftentimes that includes modifying code standards to achieve an outcome in this case modifications being granted include allowances for parking garages on on separate Parcels within the development as well as modifications to the required Adu or accessory dwelling unit roof pitches to allow for slightly lower pitches than the code requires if necessary due to grading constraints so

[133:01] you do not have to read all of those um as mentioned earlier the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan requires annexations to provide some form of compelling Community benefit most desirable in the form of permanently affordable housing so in this case the annexation agreement includes a requirement for the applicant to provide 40% of the total units or six units which ever is greater as permanently affordable housing uh the permanently affordable homes are detached homes which will be at least 1,300 feet in size at least two of the affordable units will be three bedroom two bath units um all of the other affordable units will be a minimum of two bedroom and two bath units uh the two bedroom units will be restricted at a deed restricted at 100 to 120% of the Ami or area median income and the three-bedroom units will be deed restricted at 120 to 150% of the

[134:01] Ami or area meeting income there's also a concurrency requirement in the agreement which means that um the new dwelling units the new market rate units including the replacement dwelling unit shall be constructed on a one toone basis with affordable units so for every market rate unit that they construct will have to build one affordable unit at the same time um there's also an accessory dwelling unit requirement in the annexation agreement so for every new market rate unit over 2,000 square fet in size of which there are six approved um they shall be constructed with a detached accessory dwelling unit um as I mentioned before there's also a wetland map that is associated with the annexation um this shows the Wetland map and I've overlaid it with the um approved site review site plan just to show how that fits in um so the the new Wetlands which will be delineated and preserved are located on the shared open space um to the east of the new

[135:00] homes you do not have to read all of these um I put these up here for the record but staff has found that the annexation does comply with all the state statutes um they filed an annexation petition more than 50% of the land owners signed the petition properties with in area 2 the petition has been filed with the city clerk um the property has more than one sixth contiguity with the city of Boulder there's a community of interest between the property and the city uh the property does not include any area included in any other annexation proceedings um the annexation would not remove property from one school district and add it to another and it would not have the effect of extending the city of Boulder boundaries any further than three miles from the existing boundaries in terms of the um comp plan policies that it's required to meet um 1.08 adapting to limits on physical expansion the annexation agreement has been written to enhance the physical social and economic assets of the community the annexation would provide significant Community benefit in the

[136:00] form of wetland mapping and preservation as well as the affordable housing units um it is located within area 2 and in terms of 1.17 annexation um the annexation that they requesting is required before we'll provide facilities and services uh the policy states that we will actively um substantially developed areas in area 2 which this is and um significant or development or Redevelopment potential provides a special benefit in in the fact that we are allowed to require affordable units um so for the initial zoning um as I mentioned before it's designated low density residential in the comprehensive plan the proposed zoning is residential low2 or rl2 which has a density range consistent with the land use designation and would be compatible with the adjacent neighbor Hood to the South which is also zoned rl2 staff finds that the use and intensity controls of the rl2 district are consistent with bbcp policies and allow for development that is compatible with the surrounding area the proposed rl2 zoning is a logical

[137:01] extension of City Zoning with rl2 located to the south in the green belt Meadows neighborhood um therefore the staff recommendation is that um staff finds the proposed annexation to be consistent with State statutes as well as the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan staff finds the application for initial zoning of the parcels uh to rl2 to be consistent with the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan goals and land use designation of residential low um therefore we are providing this suggested motion language for adoption of the resolution and ordinance I can now answer any questions thank you so much for the presentation appreciate it um do any of my colleagues have questions yes council member shard thank you for that um briefing um can you talk about Transportation connections if you can think of any transit or um bike way multi-use path any anything in the area that would

[138:00] speak to opportunities for um I guess BMT reduction and driving without a car um yes there are existing there's an existing um bike path on 55th Street going to the east Boulder Rec Center um and then Transit service um along South Boulder Road um so some of those issues were dealt with during the site review essentially so they're required to dedicate some RightWay along 55th um they're building new sidewalks along the edge of the development as part of the site review um which I believe the transportation staff we did not end up requiring um a Crossing on 55th Street to the multi-use path um just because of traffic concerns but um there are a lot of multimodal connections immediately in the area okay thanks and this might guess this is on the the the background for annexation um my impression is we don't have a TDM uh Transportation demand management requirements for annexation that's not something we would

[139:01] normally require that's correct um we do address that through site review though so there is a TDM plan associated with the the site review okay okay thanks thank you any other questions well I was gonna I think we have a couple of or did you have a question sorry um I think we have just a couple of speakers and I believe then we now roll into our speakers is that correct that is correct all right thank you you want to open the public hearing officially yes I will open the public hearing um we have one inperson speaker signed up Travis Hugh kly is Travis here oh yes excuse me I'm sorry do have a developer uh presentation and opportunity to speak thank you yeah apologies for that all right um should I since I

[140:01] officially open the public hearing should I suspend it yes all right thank you suspending the public hearing thank you and I'm so sorry about that did you pull the appli good evening uh my my name is Joe Kent and it's our property that you guys are considering um looking at to Annex uh into the City and I'm a little nervous guys so uh I don't do this do this very often so uh we appreciate uh you guys giving us the opportunity and you guys looking at uh the annexation of the property um and the development of the 15 new homes that uh Chandler has described and in a few minutes um Boulder Creek neighborhoods will give you their presentation we'll get even deeper into what's going to happen uh I grew up on that land uh the house was moved in 1962 I went to third grade at that property um my kids have grown up on that property with their grandparents

[141:01] and now my grandkids um are growing up on it we hope that they continue to grow up on that property so it's very special to us we're going to live there um we're not developing the house then to sell it that's not the intent I mean when you look at it we've got open space that the East we've got open space to the north it's phenomenal guys and we know that and we appreciate it and that's why with this project um with Boulder Creek we've kind of looked at trying to save some of the repairing areas some of the the pond that's there um that's all going to stay and so um anyway yeah after my parents death my wife and I oh excuse me my wife is sitting back here I wanted introducer it's Carrie so anyway sorry H I should have done that you all know I should have done it a lot earlier so uh yeah well we'll talk about it when we get home H

[142:00] so uh but we grew up there and the flood of 2013 which we all know really well ruined the well that was there so we initially went to the county and said can we get water they said nope you need to talk to the city we came in talked to you guys and at that point in time he said okay if you want to Annex we need to do some housing as well uh so we've worked many months with you guys with the staff to come up with what we consider a really good plan to put the puzzle pieces together uh to to do something that it's Community Based it's good for everybody so um we're help we're thankful for the staff for working with us Boulder Creek neighborhoods will be the developer on the project and they're going to develop the affordable um which is needed in in the city of Boulder uh some smaller um Cottage type homes and six market rate homes um it's a good plan it's a great plan um they've worked very hard

[143:02] we're very proud to be part of it a little bit of the history as well good evening Miss mayor proam and city council Mike Cooper with Boulder Creek neighborhoods 712 Main Street Lewisville Colorado 80027 we're very excited to be here tonight we've been working on this for about a year now and working diligently with City staff the planning Transportation housing department um and engineering department in particular um we've worked really collaboratively to get to where we are tonight so we're very excited um a little bit of background about Boulder Creek uh neighborhoods is it's our first uh project in Boulder so that's exciting we buildt a lot in Boulder County in the northern Front Range um we're primarily an active adult uh low maintenance home builder um we're the only exclusive low maintenance home builder around the Front Range we're noted for our energy efficient homes and unique floor plans increasingly we've been building uh this missing middle missing middle housing type these detached cottage homes um lately we've been very active in the

[144:00] fire rebuild efforts we're currently on our probably over our 100th home uh building Superior in louville so we're very proud of that um it's been a great experience um and we're excited to partner with the city of Boulder um if you like this type of housing this type of community um we would love to provide more of this type of housing in the city of Boulder next slide please uh this proposed annexation dates back uh several for several years to 2018 when the original annexation feasibility study uh was filed by the Kens the initial neighborhood meeting uh before my time uh they didn't present a plan I understand but feedback was garnered from adjacent homeowners and neighborhoods uh single family housing was uh the preferred housing type uh February 2020 the Kent formally submitted their concept plan application for four new homes uh rl1 zoning and the planning board uh hearing on the concept plan occurred several months later uh feedback from staff and the planning board was to increase the number of homes on the property with rl2 zoning

[145:00] which is what we're proposing um over the next couple years the Kent met with a few different developers um and engaged Boulder Creek finally to develop the property with some cottage homes and a different type of neighborhood plan which we'll present to you um even though it's not part of the annexation we'd like to share with you the character of the homes and the style that development um so we submitted in 2023 and held a neighborhood meeting in May it went pretty well um we had about 20 or 30 uh people and there were some concerns about groundwater and wildlife in the area and that was that was pretty much about it um in may we received an approval for an open space disposal request um for an off-site sanitary sewer connection as well next slide please yeah this is uh the previous plan when we kind of first started looking at this project um it was a culac design kind of like green belt Meadows to the South uh City staff did not like this layout because primarily it was an outdated Street design uh the culdesac and the parking in the center of the

[146:01] culdesac and just the lotting density and pattern that would require the front elevations of homes uh would be dominated by garages um they did support the one point of access and the separate uh Kent driveway on this plan next slide please this is the overall site plan of the neighborhood uh structurally the plan addressed the key uh staff comments about providing reloaded garages uh public street with a Public Access Lane as opposed to the culdesac uh we have the shared access drive on the south of the property labeled Peacock Lane there and all the front facades facing 55th Street and the entry Street coming in peacock place there next slide please this gives an overall structure of the community the cottage homes are clustered along the 55th Street Frontage and peacock place there are nine homes Five with twocc car attached garages and four with detached two-car garages six of these homes will be permanently affordable to middle- inome families the

[147:01] cluster of six single family homes lie further to the east with front facades facing inward uh oriented towards a central spine Courtyard that leads to the common open space uh shared with the Kents and a looped trail that leads up to the ex existing Pond where there will be a small gathering area overlooking the pond these homes will feature adus above the garages in the rear ranging from 400 to 700 Square fet next slide please this is a little up more up close uh view of the neighborhood if you go to the next slide uh the yellow dots here show the locations of the front facades of the homes the orange dots show the locations of enhanced side elevations on the Cottages the two homes feature side entries to provide front facade elevations facing the two streets the side elevations for the single family homes will be enhanced with lots of Windows and facade and roof articulation next slide this is an overview of the neighborhood showing the cottage homes

[148:00] clustered in fronting 55th Street and the entry drive into the neighborhood the main point of access will align with a driveway across the street a secondary Access Lane is provided to maintain the Integrity of the Kent access point this shared Access Lane will also provide access to the three homes uh three of the six homes on the East uh that's on the right side of the community most vehicles are anticipated though to use the main access point there will be a new sidewalk curb ramps at the main entry to connect to the existing 10-ft path on the west side of 55th Street which connects to a Transit stop Recreation Center parks and trails the homes flanking the entry also have a side entry so the facade has a dual front elevation look as you can see here the traditional single family homes are clustered in the rear rear fronting onto a shared Courtyard and that leads Beyond to a trail that meanders through a shared open space with the Kent the detention pond in open space on the back here and eventually the Kent residence is beyond that next

[149:01] slide this is just taking you on a progression uh through the neighborhood as you drive down 55th Street uh this is what you would see the fronts of the Wii Cottages uh with large 69 F ft uh deep front porches and a small front yard enclosed with a picket fence uh this is a at the South entry into the community here next slide as you drive into the neighborhood you'll see the homes flanking the streets have side entries as I mentioned um and this has a lot of facade Appeal on both 55th Street and peacock place as you drive into the community and there will be a detach sidewalk along 55th Street as you see here next slide this is a view at the Terminus of peacock place looking onward East through the central spine Courtyard of the neighborhood and next slide and this is kind of just looking through that Courtyard area um homes will have large front porches creating a welcoming pedestrian experience at the Terminus of this open space is a small seating area with a trellis and a loop trail uh that I

[150:01] alluded to before to leading to the Ken pond so overall a very cohesive neighborhood architecturally and in the overall neighborhood design next slide am I doing okay on time or running out okay um we're proposing two different home types as mentioned the Wii cottages and the six traditional single family detached homes all homes are two stories in height the cottage homes which we brand our Wii Cottages are what we call market rate attainable they're all 1300 around 1300 Square F feet two to three bedrooms and two and a half baths um we refer to those as detached Town Homes uh they have large front porches both attached and detached two-car garages next slide so these are small cottage appeal to small families singles and couples empty nesters and downsizers looking for a new lower maintenance energy efficient home the homes typically have a small backyard or front yard uh for a small private outdoor space next

[151:02] slide this is the array of cottages that we can offer with the two floor plans offered here at peacock uh there are six styles with at least six color schemes to offer architectural variety on the next slide here you can see good uh this is actual lineup That We're proposing um this is where we landed with looking at solar requirements and creating an attractive streetcape and that's kind of the lineup of the homes that you would see along 55th next Slide the six traditional homes will feature a minimum of two floor plans with distinct elevation Styles these homes are offered at a more market rate price point ranging from 2800 to 3,000 ft with no basements uh these homes have optional main floor bedroom for GS or multigen generational living these homes are planned further back in the neighborhood fronting a green court with a two to three Car rear loaded garages we're planning small Studio accessory dwelling units above the garages these adus bring an attractive alternative

[152:01] home option to to the city the traditional homes have large front porches and rear covered patios traditional and Craftsman Styles and color schemes to complement the Wii Cottages next slide all these homes feature very large Outdoor Living Spaces both covered and uncovered which is a Hallmark feature of these homes the total outdoor covered living space is between 4 to 500 square feet next slide um Chandler did a really good job with the comprehensive plan so I won't go too and too in- depth on it but um basically we do match the LR designation on the comp plan and we are contiguous to LR uh land designation to the South and to the West so we propos a density on the low range of that LR designation at three homes per acre next slide and really the consistency with the comprehensive plan the key items being the first three bullet points there um that we are consistent in land

[153:00] use designation we're in the area 2 designation and we have the six contiguity and several other policies are listed here under growth management and annexation which uh Chandler covered um but there's a lot of talk about Community benefits and sustainability um Environmental Quality and emphasis for residential development to permanently affordable housing next slide and particularly low moderate middle- income housing permanently permanent affordable housing and market rate housing as well is alluded to in some of these policies next slide and finally accessory dwelling units is another item that we're providing here so really a really a wide range of housing options here on a very small community um and I would like to highlight that you know we're 15 homes we're building new um but there's actually 21 units including the adus and out of those 21 units 15 are actually

[154:00] affordable permanently affordable or market rate attainable so a good chunk of those homes will be um attainable housing at a minimum next slide so that's really the conclusion here um we're very excited um that there's many benefits here we're providing much needed middle- inome housing which is a high priority in the city right now we're pres preserving the entire East half of the property in the area of the Kent residence the existing Pond ditch and Meadow and finally The Pedestrian improvements along 55th Street along with the Cottages will present an appealing walkable streetcape so happy to answer any questions or thank you so much for the presentation um do any of my colleagues have questions while you're up here yep um I see council member Mark I'm really just one question on the deed restricted housing what kind of price point are you looking at um I believe that's uh dictated by the city's um housing department um so

[155:01] it's always changing that yeah um I did just ask um inclusionary housing staff about this today and the numbers um right now estimates based on current pricing for the two-bedroom two bath at 1300 ft is about $330,000 really um and that's at 100% Ami and then for the three-bedroom 2 bath at 1300 fet is about 414,000 and that's at 120% Ami hallelujah thank you thank you council member marz yes thanks for all of this and also for I think Mr Kent and all the um background um in this section and this is just we talk a lot about units per acre the area that actually has the homes on it that doesn't include the shared space or the Kent residence what is the units per acre if you just took that as a piece of land do you know what I'm saying yeah if if you'll be my calculator it's uh let's see three it's a little under three acres and there's

[156:00] 15 homes so that's five breaker is that right yeah okay okay I just wanted to visualize it thank you yes council member vs do you think you will do more development projects and Boulder we would love to yeah absolutely just checking that we haven't scared you away no we seem to find a good formula that works here so yeah we would love to replicate this thank you so much for the presentation um again as a new council member I don't know all the questions that I'm allowed to ask so I apologize if there are things that uh may fall outside of that but just thank you for the consideration that you've taken um in in mixed um mixed use just want to remind folks though that um the difference between market rate and affordable housing 20 years ago was about a 5,000 to 10,000 difference

[157:00] sometimes I mean it was as low as that and now it's 20 times that that's how powerful I feel like I'm on the whz it's very exciting did it go away okay there we go uh got bring up The Wiz it's always a good um but in all seriousness um I think there are some things and and and um to the Kent family thank you thank you for remaining here um thank you for being mindful about um mixed uh uh mixed use and and um I especially love the um mixed income neighborhood that's being that's being proposed here um I will also say um that I'm hopeful that as you enter into the city of Boulder that you will innovate um as it relates to Smart Homes and the technology that are in there that can help to reduce um you know our energy footprint and our water water use and have better water use around that um I saw some seemingly Kentucky Brew grasses looking things and

[158:02] so again as much as possible using native grasses and things like that um so that we're not using water questions comments later oh whoops oh see see but I see that's why I have colleagues did you know it's the Adam's way I was thinking you were headed for a question though oh okay I like what you did there so yeah so what are what are your plans I like what there see it see you you're watching um so what are your plans as far or what are the aspects of this plan that are particularly Innovative as it relates to energy reduction water use um I'm also sad about the habitat loss coming from Colorado Parks and Wildlife and I'm so sorry but just be and I appreciate the open space part right however the amount of people that that are going to be there and um their footprint is going to be rather significant and over the 12 years I've lived here I've seen a decrease in our air quality I've seen a decrease in how many sunny days that we have um I've seen an increase in wildfires and all kinds of things that

[159:02] uh is a result of human first policy and so I'm curious what are the innovations that you are bringing to our city do this work thank you yeah our our homes are very energy efficient I'm not a house kind a land guy so I can't speak to a lot of the technical details of that but um yeah we we build a very tight energy efficient home um in terms of water use uh we really probably don't anticipate any Blue Grass really on the project at all except for the tree lawn areas like along 55th Street and well those are most visible slides but you know typically grass goes in a Tree Lawn but we can look at alternatives to that as well um reducing that but really on the rest of the site we're not proposing any Kentucky Blue Grass it's all going to be native native grass and and plants and stuff like that um and then the yard spaces the the cottage homes typically aren't big enough to even have like irrigated Turf on them so they're usually a small patio artificial turf or

[160:00] or um you know Hardscape and stuff like that stuff in pots but really just they're not big enough even on the bigger homes to really have much uh Turf in there so overall it's a very uh water conservative uh site for sure any other questions from anyone all right then thank you so much for uh your time and the presentation and thank you again just for sharing some of the personal history um to the Kent we really appreciate uh hearing about that it's not comment time yet so I'm gonna I'm gonna reopen unless you got a question in there um I'm going to reopen the public hearing um invite Mr hu KY back down thank you so much for your patience with my remembering how this process goes um and we will get started with um our first inperson speaker and then we will uh go to our online speaker it's my pleasure to be accommodating tonight's

[161:01] meeting was a uh was a quite an event so I just wanted to make as much room for everyone as I can um to the Kents I want to really thank you for your um your story and your making your acquaintance here in this uh moment is is would you be able to speak into the mic just for the online folks too thank you to the to the Kents um I want to thank them for their story and um and and and their acquaintance in this moment um it looks like a beautiful plot of land and I can see a lot of the benefits um that have been pointed out um I am in the position however to and this is where my my comment is not perhaps the most pinpointed um you've lived on the land yourself you have a better sense of it than I do and my comment would probably be the same comment to other other other annexed um possible areas in the south of Boulder that's where my concern is um I'm worried that

[162:01] um if annexation provides a benefit to the community um question mark right um affordable units onc contaminated land I I I'm worried about um the radio nuclei nucleid in our environment um after the Marshall fire and in my research about Rocky Flats I'm I'm really um becoming more and more alarmed by how close these are that we suffer from a kind of myopia um in terms of how we app we how we set the apertures of how we examine things a certain self-consciousness that we say here we are this is how we Orient ourselves I did bring up a slide I don't want it to disrupt or disturb anyone there's a there's some shocking material in it um it's kind of an Exquisite corpse of sorts um do you have that slide Emily's checking now okay no I I was rece kind of compelled

[163:01] to do a a a composite map of um South Boulder um if we see the map we're at um I don't see it I think um they they didn't receive slides but you're welcome to email us um as well okay um um thank you my my my point my point is um is only that we need to carefully inspect the land for for plutonium that could um cause an eventual Hazard to the residents there um it's essential that as we develop and and build a robust economy back from all of the things that have set it back um that we do so with regard for people's Health we're building land traps I I I think we are the people who have to be responsible enough to prevent ourselves from building homes that will kill people thank you thank you for your time and thank you for your comments and I

[164:00] believe we may have one virtual speaker Lind seal I wanted to just say um Ron we need to protect Poli houses from raidon thank you appreciate it yeah my mom died from one of those plutonium particles which she acquired in 1957 and died in 1969 in Mercer Island when we lived in Seattle um Mercer Island is where we lived so I'm very appreciative of what Travis is talking about and very concerned about Rocky Flats um and um and I couldn't you know wasn't down there I would or I would have been screaming and shut down your meeting and you would have had a permanent recess tonight because this Goa thing it doesn't matter what we do for the K and with peacock that matters that's local Gaza

[165:02] is just as local to this very issue you're talking about tonight ly this is the public hearing on the annexation I'm on the public hearing and this is on the CH property and I've watched it for five years Nicole you sure haven't more than that five or 10 I know about this from the beginning when Kent was when his well went dry and the city of Boulder what they should have done right back then was fix his well instead of fight with the neighbors about flooding in the area which is still a problem the built landscape whether it's Hardscape or whether it's built properties affects the flood plan and you know my water bill Nicole is 99 bucks a month and I don't appreciate that storm water and blood water has cranked up our bills I talked to someone the other day it's 35 a month no no on this annexation no this

[166:04] is not more better housing for Boulder housing everywhere housing tonight you entertained at Baseline okay that's a big no also millennium Olive you know it's all over hotels more people and you know what we have more people dying and Ryan did bring up a good point about Transportation oriented development this is out in the middle of nowhere those people are going to be using cars wherever they're going this this is a simple thing the ks move their house Inland a bit they wanted to keep it the way it was but no the city of Boulder had a to push more housing on them and housing does not make this place more affordable and affordable housing makes more unaffordable housing and you know why because all the people need services

[167:01] and the services go up and when you have to house the people that perform the services then you have a bigger problem don't you we need population Management in Boulder and this is not one of them this is not Community benefit with the Boulder Valley comp plan it is not beneficial you cannot build your way out of our situation thank you ly for your testimony all right um and with that I will close the public hearing um if anyone else has comments you are yep um yeah you're certainly welcome to email us but of course we will have already voted so um I will go to council member Benjamin thanks Nicole uh well uh I'm going to flip the tone uh from what we've heard um and I'm just going to compliment uh the Kent and Boulder Creek Homes I I mean I just greatly appreciate uh what you've uh worked to put together um especially

[168:01] paying attention to things that are critically important to our community like affordability uh we are struggling with middle- income housing so thank you for for seeing that and looking to address that and and the preservation of those natural assets um we see a lot people Desiring to pave that over and we usually have to rein them back but thank you for your thoughtfulness to to sort of keep that as an anchor for what you're looking to achieve um and certainly leveraging adus that's something that we're trying to leverage more of in our community and so thank you for being uh thoughtful in a new development to already be sort of coupling in um adus that we feel are important for um housing variety and housing Supply but also for affordability so so thank you guys for being mindful for those Comm values and and looking to do that and bridging your past experience with the future needs of our community so really appreciate you guys finding that Nexus so thank you comments council member

[169:00] Wier it's been a long time since I've said I'm excited has isn't it I'm very excited middle income housing adus everything we've dreamed of and haven't been able to get so million thanks to everybody involved I appreciate you guys and what you've doing and your story was great but really middle- inome housing that's just delightful and it looks like beautiful plans so thanks for everything council member vs yeah I wanted to share my thanks for the thoughtfulness of this proposal and the level of affordability that you've achieved and this style of how housing that is not often that we see that type of proposal coming through these days in Boulder so thank you so much for adding to that type of diversity in our

[170:01] community yes council member Adams so um again I I already said some of the comment ments that I was able to turn into a question but um I did have a comment just around um again in addition to the appreciation for my colleagues I also want us to just be mindful of the language that we're using and during the presentation I think you referred to single family homes as traditional and it just struck me because I thought well who's traditional to these lands they didn't build single family homes so that's uh a settler tradition and I want to honor and and uplift that to say um that we need to be very specific about the words that we're using and so those are single family homes and I'm grateful that you were able to mix it so that and and and not have so much yard and and still have density even though there is that single family component um I also wanted to just speak on the

[171:01] middle income component again um while I was on the campaign Trail somebody um graciously uh let me know that in the '90s and the ues there was an effort around middle inome housing there was a whole plan was a study and all of the different things but only 10% of that housing actually ever got built and there was no study afterwards on why what were the barriers to allowing that to happen and so again this is a wonderful move forward and I'm just curious what were the things that allowed this to happen um and how can we continue to expand and replicate that and and reduce the bureaucratic burd for these types of developments um and also take a look back I I encourage us to take a look back and see why previous councils failed um was it personality was it regulation was it um you know the the materials at hand but I do think it's worth um you know in a further investigation by this Council thank you thank you so much appreciate your

[172:02] comments and council member wck um I also want to express my gratitude for this wellth thought out proposal um it looks really strong and and I'm I'm looking at $300 and $400,000 homes in Boulder and that's like a you finding a unicorn um I think that's extraordinary and and I'm grateful you've been able to achieve that um and hopefully we'll find ways of doing more so thank you again any additional comments council member SE hard nothing original just to um agree with what mostly what I've heard heard from my fellow council members uh especially Mr Benjamin uh ferz and um uh council member Wallock I'd uh there there was so so many wonderful things were said I having a hard time keeping track but I just I just wanted to to to agree with with support for

[173:01] this and thank you for the work all right any other comments um I'm not going to waste words just thank you very very grateful to everyone involved would someone like to put forward a motion anyone who hasn't already done it tonight wants to speak up yeah no you haven't are we going to put it up on the screen and just for your um awareness mayor prend we have to vote on each item separately thank you very much so um council member weiner would you like to do us the honor of the first motion I sure would um I'd like to make a motion to adopt resolution 1344 setting forth findings of fact and conclusions regarding the annexation of approximately 3.5 acres of land other way 5.3 do I have yeah 5.3 acres of land I'm taking away your land no I'm not I'm just kidding 5.3 acres of land generally

[174:00] located at 5691 South Boulder Road to the city of Boulder thank you do we have a second second PR question yes yeah we're we're doing each one separate I think yeah ready for your roll call yes I great great we'll start the roll call for resolution 1344 with mayor protim spear yes C member wallik yes Wier yes Adams yes Benjamin yes fards yes Marquis yes and shuart yes or I'm sorry resolution 1344 is hereby adopted would a vote to 8 to zero wonderful thank you welcome to Boulder uh would someone like to make the second motion council member Marquis

[175:01] I don't know if you've made one tonight like nominating motions here just trying to spread it around all right I'd like to move that we adopt ordinance 86 18 annexing approximately 5.3 acres of land generally located at 5691 South Boulder Road with inial zoning designation of residential L2 rl2 as described in chapter 95 modular zone system BRC 1981 amending the zoning District map forming a part of said chapter to include the property in the above mentioned zoning district and setting forth related details second you need more can I read it that we are ready for our vote can I read it that next time all right the vote for ordinance 8618 will'll start with council member wall yes Wier yes Adams

[176:00] yes Benjamin yes Furs yes Marquis yes shoe hard yes and mayor Pro Tim spear yes ordinance 8618 is hereby adopted would a vote 8 to zero can I ask that Tina read all our motions at that speed that's like doing Tik Tok at like 1.5 speed that was amazing especially the long ones yeah duly nominated a thank you all so very much thank you to the Kent we appreciate you thank you so much for this wonderful project we're very excited as you can tell all right um we are finished with our public hearing then I will close the public hearing again and we will move on to Matters from the city manager um niia would you like to introduce this or should we go

[177:01] straight to BR I have to read it into the record thank you oh no worries thank you and thank you Nua item six on tonight agenda is the Matters from the city manager 6A is all things downtown coordination of City projects and engagement for ongoing and future projects in the downtown area thank you so much mayor proem and on this um very interesting of council evenings tonight we're going to be talking about one of the best titles I have seen all things down down um and before we move on I'll I'll note that you'll see um some of our great um department heads uh with us tonight and I'll say that and I know that um Brad is planning to talk about it a little bit more but we are on a continued enhanced and deepening journey to really showcase the cross collaboration that we do across departments this topic tonight is no different and it really touches a lot of folks across the Enterprise and I want to highlight too that we couldn't do all of this work without some of our partners and in our audience tonight we

[178:01] also have and I hope you've all had the opportunity and if not you will have it soon to meet our new uh CEO of the downtown Boulder partnership who I have heard is eating her way through our downtown area with Gus uh and with her and beside her we have Charlene Hoffman who is a CEO of visit Boulder who does a lot to attract so many people into community and frankly uh given all that we have had with some of our Michelin star restaurant is assisting in that Journey as we move forward so thanks for them uh as they have been tremendous Partners here but with that even though Brad has just sat down I'm going to pop them back up so we can get started thank you ner Brad Mueller with uh planning and development services and uh we do do know you've had a long evening we're happy to keep this conversation fairly short this evening uh n already mentioned the great Partnerships and that really is going to be the theme of Kathleen's uh discussion tonight but I did want to emphasize that all things downtown is not a project it is uh a maybe a project of projects but

[179:02] not a project it's a coordinating commitment between the different departments and a strategy for how to approach all the different component pieces you're going to hear about tonight and it's really just a conversation to give you a found foundation for many many things uh more to come so stay tuned uh this is a broad overview and uh we look forward to seeing you on many of these elements in the future and kathen King is uh doing our air traffic control for all of these things and uh happy to turn that over thanks Brad is my you can hear me good all right well okay um so good evening I think this is my first time with our new members so it's great to be with you all tonight I look forward to working with everybody this year my name is Kathleen King I'm a principal city planner in the city's comprehensive planning division which manages the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan and typically runs the city's longrange land use planning projects tonight however I'm here representing a large Collective of staff

[180:02] from across different departments who are all working on projects in the city's downtown so while I'll be the main speaker I'm joined by colleagues from Community Vitality transport and Parks and Rec Parks and Recreation who are available to provide greater expertise on questions you might have about individual projects so um the plan for this item tonight is I will walk through a presentation with some background information about the downtown and give an overview of projects that will be happening over the next couple of years I suspect you'll have some questions about those projects and then um we can go into a discussion focused on engagement so here's the discussion questions to keep in mind and I will get going to set the stage a little Boulders downtown is located on the western end of the city it's about a half mile north of the CU campus and is surrounded by mostly

[181:01] residential neighborhoods major access to downtown from the North or South comes along Broadway or if you're coming from the east or west Canyon's a major entry route the city's downtown area includes around 3,200 residents there's about 2,000 homes it's one of the city's Regional Hub centers and today there's about 16,800 jobs located in spaces here it's also one of the city's significant destinations for tourism and the downtown area sees about 1.23 million visitors a year from a planning perspective a vision for the downtown area has been pretty consistent since the first comprehensive the plan was adopted in 1977 the community supports a mixed use neighborhood here with lots of shopping and dining options it's also been seen as an important place for the local Workforce and because of this mobility and access to the downtown has been an important issue that we have

[182:01] consistently worked to improve over time today the built environment is of course regulated by our zoning districts of which we have five distinct downtown zones as well as the downtown Urban Design guidelines which were most recently updated in 2018 there are um two districts in our downtown and they overlap quite a bit so one is the Central Area General improvement district or CID which helps to provide parking options and related Services downtown our community Vitality department works with a downtown management commission to plan for and Implement District management strategies and there's also a business Improvement District district downtown which is commonly known as the downtown Boulder partnership the bid helps maintain a clean and safe downtown area and also has a programming function for events that help to support community and local business activity some of the um other groups

[183:00] that are heavily engaged in downtown activity particularly in the built environment include the city's landmarks board who review any Landmark properties and anything located within a historic district so that includes clud um the area in blue in this diagram and then the design Advisory board reviews projects in the non-historic area which is in Orange for consistency with the downtown Urban Design guidelines so all of this is to say um the downtown's a highly managed area and the community really invests a lot of time ensuring that changes to the built environment make positive contributions to the city and uh we have a lot of exciting changes coming up I'm going to give an introduction to uh 10 projects that the city will be working on over the next few years these projects have great uh potential individually and combined to really make positive impacts on the form and function of our downtown we'll be

[184:00] working with the community boards and Council frequently during this time to make sure these Investments are in line with the community's vision okay so um here's a summary of the 10 projects so um it might be tiny on your screen but those in dark green are already underway and the light green represents future projects that we will coordinate on so you can see that these different efforts are being led out of a variety of City departments but a major component of the overall downtown projects effort is to ensure really clear and smooth communication to the community about overall changes to downtown so let's see this first project uh Civic area Phase 2 Council received an update um I think in December led by Parks and Recreation so I'm not going to go into a ton of details um but this is a really exciting opportunity to imagine one of the core

[185:00] public spaces in the downtown and actually take those ideas through Construction in the next handful of years the project includes the Central Park area we will also study what's known in the Civic area plan as east and west book ends and then we'll also consider improvements to an important connection to the hill and trar burum Community engagement opportunities for this project begin this month so we'll start to learn how people feel about experience in these spaces today and we'll be sharing that information out in the coming months last year the city also received an application for designating part of the Civic area in yellow as a historic district historic District designation recognizes an area that's architecturally historically or environmentally significant to Boulders history our awesome historic preservation team has been doing a lot of great research and working with the community to build a more complete history of the Civic area the

[186:01] application will be reviewed by Boards in the next month and Council will consider that designation application in March and April of this year our transportation department has been working with RTD over the last few years to find a way to better accommodate Riders at the city City's busiest regional Bus Station which is the downtown Boulder Station 14th Street between Canyon and Arapaho has been redesigned to provide additional gates for loading and unloading buses this project is scheduled for construction later this year and the various downtown project teams will be considering how this station expansion can really be integrated into the redesign of the Civic area and help to provide more Mobility options to and from downtown as council is aware um City staff across a variety of departments have been working on Boulder social streets which saw some great events on 13th Street this past summer the team will be taking all the community

[187:01] feedback and reports from consultant teams to integrate Lessons Learned into downtown spaces and continue to explore how we can foster Community use of public space case Council will be receiving an update on this project later this spring and then consistent with that project our community Vitality team will be working with kid over the next few years to evaluate a variety of projects in the district including an affordable commercial pilot and working with local businesses and agencies to consider undergrounding um Utilities in the area and then Switching gears a little bit um next year we'll kick off in another Parks and Recreation Le effort to make some improvements to the Pearl Street Mall if you were not aware um the mall is actually considered an urban park and is managed by our parks and wreck department that team recently completed a historic preservation plan which identified some opportunities for

[188:01] improvement along the mall so those will be considered along with some of the recommendations that were recently put forward by the downtown Boulder partnership in the Downtown Vision plan so that's another exciting effort to look forward to and then another um 2025 project includes a focus Mobility study for the downtown area this is part of the larger core arterial Network planning that the transportation and Mobility team has been working through this project will consider both past recommendations for downtown Mobility improvements as well as the latest and best information about mobility in the downtown to recommend improvements that will support our vision zero goals another upcoming project includes planning work for Boulder Creek and Associated Trail the project team will be making improvements along the creek to increase signage and visitor communication about safe water-based

[189:01] Recreation then in 2025 a larger effort will launch to evaluate new access opportunities and improvements to Recreation amenities along the creek trail as well as look at options for improving the natural environment and Creek Health and then um much of the community engagement around these projects will inform and Infuse the conversations we're excited to begin with the community as we approach a major update to the comprehensive plan so we do major updates to the bbcp every 10 years and our next update is scheduled to launch next year there are policies in the bbcp that address the downtown specifically so we can re-evaluate these with the community as we work through that process over about a 2-year schedule and then finally scheduled for sometime in 2028 the city will deconstruct the Park Central in New Britain buildings and staff located in these spaces will be moving to office

[190:01] space at Alpine balam so this deconstruction project will be really important to consider impacts to surrounding spaces and the sequenc scene of this effort will be vital consideration as we're looking at constructing those Civic area Phase 2 improvements okay so that's it that's all um 10 projects as I said really high level overview um but as the work progresses on each of these Council will be receiving updates and have multiple opportunities to provide feedback and Direction but for now we're really working hard to coordinate among all the staff teams and various Consultants that are involved in these projects particularly when it comes to community engagement and communication about improvements to the downtown so as you could see on the map um a lot of the projects overlap physically um across different spaces and that's actually great um for this

[191:02] very very general uh timeline that we're looking at here which is meant to depict how these schedules for site planning design and construction as well as future programming also overlap so the good fortune of this work happening sort of all at once um is that we can make really intentional decisions about how these projects and programs will interact and all of the projects can learn from each other as we go through Community engagement processes so that we can be consistent in delivering what we're hearing the community wants to see in downtown in the future so we've developed two cross- departmental teams one is an exe executive level team of Department directors and another team which is comprised of the various project managers and Communications and engagement Specialists these teams are working towards the goals up on the screen here um we meet regularly to share information project progress and

[192:00] coordinate engagement opportunities and then additionally this coordination effort is helping the projects work together to evaluate how we can align both process and outcome with our community sustainability and resilience framework so we're always working from these seven goals as a baseline so with that in mind um I'll share a little bit about what these working groups have put in place so far first um we've created a web page on the city's website where community members can learn about all of these downtown projects in one place so hoping to make information um easy to find easily accessible online second anyone interested in receiving email updates about projects ongoing downtown can sign up for newsletters which will include project updates and upcoming opportunities for engagement in these different projects third I think um you know

[193:02] everyone and and the staff recognizes this is a lot it's a lot of activity there's really going to be a lot going on downtown and we want to use community members time efficiently to collect meaningful feedback so we're working to create engagement opportunities and events in a way that multiple projects can be informed by each opportunity this is intended to avoid overburdening community members and an effort to continue to build trust between the city and the community that will help us create some of these great places downtown as part of that we've also recently gone through a recruiting and sele section process to engage two Community connectors who will support all of the downtown projects we'll be working with these Community connectors to develop engagement strategies and connect with typically underrepresented members of the Boulder Community we're really lucky to have those folks on board um and they're getting under

[194:02] contract and they'll be starting this month and then finally as I mentioned earlier um we've developed these cross- departmental teams and internal resources to help projects coordinate share Community feedback and streamline processes for planning design and construction in the built environment downtown so the main um question that we have for council tonight is really focused on helping all of those downtown project teams think about key feedback that Council would like to hear from the community so now I'll switch gears a bit and go over some of the recent feedback we've heard that might provide some additional context for your conversation the First theme that I'll share from recent engagement is how much community members value the local and small businesses in the community particularly in the downtown area we've heard this through a variety of projects in recent years like the Citywide retail

[195:01] strategy effort but probably most recently through the Outreach that was conducted during the pandemic as we consider things like expanding outdoor dining so as we work through these various projects we know the business Community here is a key stakeholder and we'll work closely with the partnership to engage those businesses in planning the future of downtown spaces second is that safety and feeling safe downtown is vital to its future success community members have expressed safety concerns through letters to boards and Council we heard about safety issues during engagement for the boulder social streets events and we've seen a lot of of feedback about safety related issues um of transportation and Mobility mental health poverty just a wide range of challenges that we know won't be resolved by these projects but certainly that we intend to impact third um I think we've all heard

[196:00] and seen that downtown as a place is different in what we've been referring to as a postco era we know from the boulder commuter survey last year that people are getting to and from downtown different ly than in 2018 with a higher proportion of Travelers and single occupant Vehicles so this is certainly something we want to affect and then Council also recently reviewed the community survey results where we heard that community members are rating the vibrancy of downtown lower than they used to so this is another area we'll want to explore much more to learn how these projects might improve that perception and then finally um through a variety of venues like engagement for Boulder social streets and downtown streets as public spaces projects as well as the recent Community survey we know the community is seeking more public spaces for inclusion and connection places to spend time what's great about all of these projects coalescing at this moment in time is

[197:02] that it represents a real opportunity to improve downtown places and make those great spaces that can um really address this issue in particular so the downtown projects team is working with the 10 projects who are all at different phases in their project timelines to help Define community issues identify stakeholders and create engagement plans to move through a complete process that will inform the future of downtown and some of the um next steps to just give you a heads up on um some of the things you'll be coming or you'll be seeing soon is um as I mentioned we'll be onboarding our two Community connectors this month and introducing them to the ongoing projects also this month Community engagement for civic area Phase 2 will begin so folks can look for future announcements about those online and imperson opportunities and then later this spring

[198:01] Council will see the historic district application and hold a public hearing on that item and um that's really it that's it for my present presentation we want to open it back up to ask any questions about coordination on these projects that you might have and then second um really want to dive into engagement planning and learn more about what council hopes to hear from community members about the downtown or individual projects during these processes also just to mention you know we've heard your feedback about Outreach and engagement at the recent meetings on Civic area as well as the community survey so we're reviewing all of that feedback and integrating your thoughts around methodology into engagement plans for for all of these projects and that is that's it for me can take that down or thank you so much for the presentation really appreciate you're being here in the time

[199:00] tonight um could we get those questions back up it's getting late enough that it probably helps to have them up as an assist sure um okay let's uh walk through the um first questions uh or the first question does council have any questions for staff about coordination efforts for downtown projects yes council member Wier they call me Tara um how is cu um going to be involved in all this specifically um the aren path down to 13th Street um so CU is one of the key stakeholders in the Civic area project C certainly which addresses the Arboretum um but they are on our stakeholder list for all of the downtown projects and and will be an Engaged partner um so just following up on that I would

[200:00] I saw Boulder High mentioned once in the memorandum but also thinking about the boulder high students which are very um part of the Civic area in the downtown area are they being engaged through some channels yep that um we have maybe Ellie could speak more to the Civic area engagement plan with Boulder high students I know that um we have a partnership with growing up Boulder um to work with those students but there might be more information that I don't know hey folks Ali rhods director of Parks and Recreation I don't have specifics but I can tell you that we're very interested in connecting with Boulder high and it's part of the engagement PR okay than um and then a different question I had was about how do we connect these projects and especially when we talk about the Arts and there's a lot of mention about a stronger Arts presence in the downtown area with the simult or the um the coincident um Arts push for

[201:04] North Boulder and how do we gauge how much our city can invest in multiple Arts Focus areas or multiple um you know Town centers so that we're not spread too thin and we see a lot of success in a single program yeah I'm gonna ask Matt shansky from Community Vitality to speak to that hi um Matt shansi with the community Vitality Department thank you for the question um the downtown has typically been a centerpiece for lots of different activity including the Arts and so um it is will be an important part of the EXP ation of a lot of these different plans um but uh there has been interest in not only the Art District but in um the neighborhood level implications of the Arts and so um the community Vitality department has really invested in all of that Citywide so there will be attention paid across the

[202:00] board but when we're just focused on downtown um because it's a tourist center a center for activity of a residents and um that um equation becomes really important to the Vitality of the nonprofits and the um businesses that run the Arts so that's where the attention really lies around how these different plans are going to impact the cultural Community um as a a a center point of the type of activity that happens with them okay and my last question is with the coordination of the historic application and the development of the Civic area plan do we need to make a decision about the historic there was a speaker talking about this but I've heard that also do we need to do that before we finalize the Civic plan or will there be an option to um move that down the line a little bit there's uh specific timeline requirements for that application and maybe Brad you could speak more to that

[203:01] yeah that that's the essence of it we have a uh mandate under the city code to have it processed for a certain time in fact um the applicants have agreed to coing agreement they gave additional time than normal but um we're obligated to be on a certain timeline thank you yes Brad don't sit down yet say I saved you from that extra squat yes thank you um so I just want to follow up on on Tina's point in terms of like sort of order of operations uh so I think the question is like we're going to we're going to technically be dealing with the landmark application prior to finalization of General plans in the Civic area Phase 2 right that that comes first well before well before and so the question is is even though we might address it on the front end and depending on what we decide to do that doesn't foreclose the opportunity to

[204:00] perhaps Landmark on the back end of design I think because there's a tension being sort of uh identified that by perhaps embarking on landmarking in the front end that might const drain some of the creative use case of the Civic area versus figure out what we really want to do and then and then back fill in the landmarking as it maybe fits into that overall design so I'm just want to make sure that we don't that that front end landmarking isn't our one and only chance to pursue that for some or parts of that area we could also do it at a later date if we choose or is this the one shot and one shot only to do it um I so I have to tread a little lightly because this gets into some uh a Judicial matters but uh fundamentally Council has options to deny applications for districts um there's not a Prohibition upon those reoccurring or resurfacing over over time uh you will have an obligation to make a determination on this application and

[205:00] whether it meets the criteria for a district uh we will describe at the time of that application the role of design guidelines and how those design gu guidelines can uh be written and crafted in a way that allows for a variety of outcomes and I'll I'll kind of leave it at that for now appreciate it thank you thank you other questions council member fuls given that um I from my understanding of design guidelines it seems like it may be difficult to craft design guidelines for this area will we have opportunity will we have to decide on what those guidelines are and whether or not the um for for that area and decide to

[206:02] approve or deny all in one meeting or if we will we have the opportunity to delve deeply into those guys um designed guidelines can be either uh crafted before a designation hearing um at the essential time of or after uh what you will find when we bring this forward as hearing is that there has been a conceptional plan to uh identify main elements beforehand so that can be brought into the hearing discussion um it's in the frame of um principles philosophical principles for the design guidelines and then the intent to then finish those afterwards um upon additional engagement of stakeholders if the district is approved thank you sure else all right um council member wck and then uh council member

[207:02] shart thank you um yeah just um first thank you for the presentation and those uh projects look very interesting and and desirable um and I know it's not the the full topic for tonight but just as as a quick question um have we budgeted each of those and do we know the source of the funding for each of those um so projects that are slated for construction um I believe the majority of those are in the capital Improvement program and so they have an Associated budget projects that are um um in the realm of planning or programming certainly have a a budget for Consultants or um things like that but the construction budget is not identified thank you thank you um and council member shart go to council member Adams and benjam Kathleen thanks great

[208:01] presentation um I I think I have a few questions um the first is uh council member farts mentioned design criteria and if I heard correctly uh that was sort of in reference I don't know if I heard this correctly but to to the project by project context in any case I'm thinking about the the downtown area as a whole and the idea of design criteria or design principles that we're seeking to strive for um just in general with with with the the downtown region and I guess the if the question is to us do we have questions about coordination then um my question is is there an opportunity to coordinate on that on the matter of um asserting design principles things we would want to accomplish you know across across the projects that would guide the projects individually and I I acknowledge that I saw the there was a slide that talked about SC and some of the other um cross cutting issues um so I did see that but

[209:00] I'm just curious um about more maybe more explicit kind of simple short list of here's the things we really want to get done is that is that a space for us to to work so we do have have Urban Design guidelines that cover the majority of of that area designated as the downtown in in some of these diagrams and there are specific design guidelines for the historic district and there are other design guidelines for that area in Orange in the map which is called the non-historic interface area so some of those um principles and specifics around design specifically for uh Redevelopment projects in the built environment um are in there and we have guidance and criteria for building things downtown already um if you're asking are we going to be re-examining those or updating those in the near- term as part of this that's not um on

[210:01] the work plan right now um but certainly talking about how all of these projects can intersect to ACH aieve some of those um of the the seven goals in the SE framework is something we're going to consistently be evaluating through these different project processes okay um I think I think I got it maybe I'll I'll just assert and then ask if this fits anywhere that when I think of of the downtown um and what I would like it to be like some things would be a place where it's very friendly for people that that attracts people that includes people to live there more people to live there more people to walk there um more people to be able to access the region without a car fewer cars fewer large and fast moving motor vehicles um encouragement of smaller vehicles to the extent that they need to be there and I think I'm talking at the level of of um not really criteria for the individual projects but like an idea of what we

[211:00] want that map to to look like or to represent so um I know I'm asking should be asking questions now so I guess my question is does that does that fit anywhere or or is that yeah does that fit anywhere in the process an expression of goals along those lines that maybe others would add on um we don't have a a sort of project designated to create new um goals or visions but I I do think a lot of what um at least you just described is already documented in our Urban Design guidelines and then also um is reflected in that Downtown Vision plan plan that was put forward by the partnership that we're considering as well can I call Quick okay please thanks if through some of the engagement we find out that there are limits to our abilities to do things based on maybe something that's in those guidelines or zoning various

[212:03] other things would we take is there space to bring forward proposals to make modifications to either guidelines or zoning or things beyond what are tightly part of this package if that is brought up through the engagement process um yeah I think I think that you know specifically for like the bookends of the Civic area um some of those decisions around kind of land use or zoning limitations will be part of that study and then changes to um accommodate uh a new vision for those spaces would be a future project okay and then I add one more if you're okay uh thanks so I have I have one more for the first question um and it is much more um concrete um on

[213:02] coordination efforts do we have an opportunity to coordinate um with with entities that would represent uh Regional potential Regional Transit destinations that we currently don't work with um such that if we if we succeed over the next few years in securing more resources for public transit that will give us more Service Such that we might um have buses that could take us to Trail heads up Boulder Canyon and other places to connect onto the bus Stang to go to Rocky Mountain National Park other locations uh I don't assume that downtown would necessarily be the the transit up for that but it could could be so my I guess my question is can you imagine coordination with any entities or or could you would would the mind be would the minds be open to coordinating with entities that might help us to kind of scope out being ready for that um yes we have uh staff in

[214:00] transportation and Mobility who act as uh Regional representatives for a lot of those different um services and they're involved in these projects and so um they're a great connector with our regional Partners okay thank you I'll see my other questions for the next one thank you council member Adams thank you um so I have questions about well one I wanted to just Echo comments made by Mark regarding the money and transparency um right when I see a list of things I just assume it's already been paid and there's been Financial considerations about that so just some way when we are sharing and communicating with public which of these projects have actually been funded and have the green light and which ones are um in the stage um as far as specific questions though thank you for the inclusion of community connectors in this project though I am curious why they're starting next week um and then um specific

[215:02] questions about the role of boards and commissions and how their feedback will be used iteratively throughout this process um I also have questions about specifically how whether and how the racial Equity tool was used and what changes have been made as a result of using that tool if it was in use so that's question number two um and then let's see one two um and that can stay under comments so yes those are all my questions at this time so um question about Community con connectors and um why they're starting next month no not so much just that was a comment that I just lit in there but sure okay why are they starting so late and what is the protocol or status for this it seems like a lot of these projects have already been in play and it was my understanding that for any major project uh Community Connector was already uh going to be assigned so so um we I think

[216:04] we started the coordination effort for all of these downtown projects uh in the fall and um we identified Community connectors and talked about whether it was appropriate to have Community connectors for each project or if we wanted Representatives that could participate in all of the different projects and kind of bring the projects to communities and communities to the projects and so um developing the plan for that and the budget for it and coordinating all of the different departments to um contribute to the funding for it took some time and then we um did a pretty robust recruiting process um that started in November and um just completed interviews last month so we are now that's that's how we got there okay um and again I appreciate that things take time I also though

[217:01] appreciate that some of the most powerful decisions are made at the beginning and so not having that voice at the beginning is something that we need to address as a protocol and policy moving forward I'm hopeful um but thank you for that response curious about the boards and commissions boards and commissions sure so um each of the different projects um have maybe an Associated board so for the downtown Mobility study tab will be a key board that they will work with really closely for um Civic area related to the park pra will be a board that they will work with really closely um so for uh collecting kind of board level feedback each individual project will um work with their Associated boards and we will continue to try to collect and um share what we hear from those different boards across the different projects so that we're all kind of sharing and hearing the same

[218:01] information I'll reserve the rest for comments on that one but um curious about the racial Equity tool sure so um each each individual project has its own engagement plan and then the coordination effort looks for opportunities where we could um kind of cross reference either events or um co-host opportunities for engagement so the individual projects are um putting together their own racial Equity plan and racial using the racial Equity instrument um so the project that has completed that most recently is the Civic area project because that's the um project that has a more complete engagement plan so far okay so just point of clarification there has not been a use of the racial Equity tool yet but we are planning on using it or how many of the plans that were

[219:00] presented I'm actually talking about the tool not a racial Equity plan Associated but there's like a racial Equity tool that has questions and can the instrument that Jo and his team using utilities to walk through and then he was able to communicate specific structural changes that were made as a result of that and so that's what I'm asking sure so the um Civic area project has used that tool and I will toss it to I was going to jump up and help and just remind love the projects and I don't know if it helps to get to the slide but so many of these are at the conceptual stage and to point out with the community connectors we're just at Contracting so the I I hear the comment on bringing in folks early so the racial Equity instrument is a decision-making tool it's a way you know as it sounds like you're familiar with it you've seen these so it's a lens will apply as we get to decision-mak point so as we look at this decision making sure we consider who benefits and who's impacted we haven't reached that juncture but I believe all major projects on the city's work plan this year will use it and I believe all of the projects up here will

[220:01] at those decision-making junctures awesome thank you so much and again the tool is only as good as our implementation and use and again power is the some of the most powerful decisions are made at the very beginning and so not having those voices and considerations at the very beginning um again we miss we miss the the full Fidelity and and reliability of this tool so I'm hopeful that we can you know um not put the cart before the horse so that there are people similarly with the Community Connection connectors um curious also where there's two and just how some of those decisions are made because that's like 10 projects and two people thank you thank you council member Benjamin appreciate that U my question centers around Boulder social streets I noticed on the uh sort of the horizontal bar graft or that critical path schedule U Boulder suul streets was sort of pegged as just planning and design I did

[221:01] not see any sort of indication of programming and so I guess I'll just be have the blunt question are we intending to do any social Street activities within this year 2024 and thus is their budget to do that looks like Brad is ready answer that so 2024 was always envisioned as a time when we would not do events per se Boulder social streets was an experiment or a pilot I should say is a better term uh where we could collect data uh we knew that um that data wasn't going to be available till the end of November because of the nature of the events um there would be time to compile that and then go into that uh last year when the events were put together uh that was uh you might recall late December and and or November and it was a a crunch to get those together uh we had to find a budget that didn't exist um so we didn't want to make uh we're not in a position to make assumptions about what should be the

[222:00] next step that's what we'll be bringing forward to you as the research so that we can get direction about that in a comprehensive way and uh and that will likely include you know opportunities for events but there's much more there that we're eager to share in terms of uh reimagining streets and I'm going to see if Nua or Natalie has anything to add I shouldn't have jumped up here as fast Natalie it's project with you I think I think you did great BR but I'll also say we have been trying to get something on Boulder social streets on the agenda we do have a consultant report we have some findings about the events uh of last year that really will inform uh us as we move forward and we reiterate our continued desire too to make sure that we are thinking about our public rways as uh more as expansive as it can be for different and um increased use as we move forward okay the the one

[223:02] thing I will just add is we we are doing work this year and um when we come to talk about the recommendations from the consultant from last last year's work um we and you all may remember through the budget process for 2024 we did set aside some money to continue to just move that kind of vision forward because we were starting to learn from the consultants and from the work that we did last year that there was a way we could kind of continue building up a program obviously we we don't have the resources right now to fully build that program and launch it um but so we're starting to put some of those building blocks together this year through the funding that we do have available and then we'll learn more and then we can check in with you all and see how much further we go with that I appreciate that just for context we started with one of the more ultimate new social streets when West Pearl was closed it was absolutely beloved by Community we've been told that repeatedly that went away and then we regressed to a smattering of a few

[224:01] events in the pilot and then we've regressed to a plan for zero so I just I I I know that there's plans but I think that but I just want to be clear that the community expectation was to go the other direction not to regress um I know we have a resource qu thing to bring up but um I I don't think we've met the the moment of how Community has been clear on what they want to do and I think we can ride our bike and fix it at the same time but uh maybe that's a conversation for ATV but uh just just uh there is a clear disconnect with where we're going which is versus the community expectation you well well I feel like we're getting a little bit off the topic of the questions which we've been talking for so much they' they've disappeared a little bit um can we get the questions back up yes okay thank you um so Tara if you can uh if your point relates to that first question or if you would like to transition us into the second question I'd like to transition us into

[225:02] the second question but I say one little tiny thing well we we'll have some time for comments so um f I think you had one yeah my only question was just understanding um whether there are any opportunities or implications around our tax collections of sales and tax revenue as we kind of go into a constrained budget I do I I think that we do get a lot of revenue from our downtown sales and just want to understand how that could flourish uh or if there might be some things we should be aware of as we move forward um I'm not I'm not sure how to address that I guess um I know we could speak maybe to um recent um information from the um Boulder Economic Council which is anticipating a slight decrease in our

[226:01] sales tax revenues next year um but I'm not sure if there's anyone on from Finance um there is not currently and I don't know Al if you wanted to join in on that conversation but I hear the question happy to figure out how to track that and how that works as we're moving forward and get back to council as we move I was just going to add that it's part of it's part of the ongoing budget process and the ATB process I think what you're asking is if there were to be a downturn in sales tax collections how will that impact these projects and I think I mean I'll I'm standing up at the microphone and we'll speak for Parks we know just like with the Arts when you invest in Parks the the economic um output is is incredible and what investing in the Civic area can do for the Vitality of Pearl Street and the hill is I think one of the best things we can do so ongoing monitoring of the revenues and what it means for Project funding is part of the ongoing budget

[227:00] process and we just heard the budget request that's coming my way and it looks like Matt would like to say a word to if if I could just add and it's a small corner of the sort of understanding of the tax implications of downtown but the Alternatives analysis for the K district is going to include an examination of that taxing and how to balance that right with our vision for what to build in the area so that will be one part of that that we'll be coming and asking questions about great thank you so much um okay I think let's move into the next uh the second question there and I already heard a few things as I was is listening to everybody's speaks so let me just kind of throw out a few things that um I think may may get at what people were saying here um one is you know we're really thinking about um which projects are the community members most interested in um I think that that was something I was hearing about with social Straits and some of those things so um it feels like that's something

[228:01] that we would like to learn from the engagement efforts um we heard a question around the economic impact of the different efforts so I don't know if something um in partnership with our departments that we want to hear from thinking about uh engagement or if that's more from some of the businesses um and then I also heard uh something about just sort of Transportation thinking about for people who might come to this area that don't necessarily maybe they live here maybe they don't but um what what sort of Transportation barriers are they facing in getting there in the first place um so those are some of the things that I heard but would encourage other folks to chime in on um what it is that we are hoping to learn from community members during the project efforts and what feedback we're looking for to inform any future decisions we will be asked to make council member farts I also never really answered question one but I will say that when

[229:00] the downtown area came up when I was first on Council I made a really strong plea to consider these things collectively and I really feel very heard and appreciate all the effort that has gone into this massive amount of coordination so thank you um in terms of what I hope to learn from community members during these efforts um you know the downtown area is really the heart of our community and I think we need to ensure that it continues to really have a lot of soul and feel very welcoming and so how do we continue to make it feel um to make it authentic to make it adaptable um so that it can really display what you uh change and change with our community as our community changes um and kind of create the surprise of new art new things um and balance that

[230:02] with the level of predictability and things and safety that our community needs so thank you thank you other comments on this oneart okay I have three three questions um that I would love to see answered um and these are all about the downtown area overall not not really to specific projects but in in organizing the set of projects so um the first one is what would it take to leave your car at home I I would love to get feedback on that question to people who are interested in visiting downtown it's a more specific version of maybe something I heard council member Nicole spear say but um I'd love to know the answer to that question um second um also on Transportation uh for our so we have a vehicle miles traveled reduction goal it's related to a climate goal and I um

[231:02] I think it's implied um as something we're explicitly working towards on that the slide that had the coordinating um efforts and my question on it would be again I'm thinking ahead to to what would be good information it would be what what is what is the um what are the different uh levels of VMT reduction um efforts look like and what do you you know what do we get from them versus what are they what kind of an investment or difficulty do they cost um would love to have some kind of um some some things to compare and consider on a when you think about the future of downtown through these projects what are things we can do across them that would give us choices um in that in that space and my third is um what did we learn from West Pearl and I'm thinking two things one you know what I recall there was just a lot of different feedback lot a lot of mixed feedback on what people wanted and number two there

[232:00] was a lot of interest in sub the substantive um matter of West Pearl but it was overtaken by the um procedural reality that it was there was an administrative decision happening and um we just in in my view it was sort of truncated or not me to be a a substantive policy decision but I think something that Council Benjamin council member Benjamin pointed to is there was there was a lot of energy and enthusiasm that came from that that exercise and um One Way or Another I'd love to learn through this what um what what did that teach us or what would following up with folks who were engaged um point to with with specifically with reflection to um all the energy and and dialogue that we we saw last was it last summer summer before okay okay that's it thank you thanks the questions council member Adam or just comments um so one just want to Echo um councilman um Benjamin about the safe the uh sorry we've hit the time so

[233:01] 4 9:30 or something it's just it's going to be rough in those streets so I will work on being able to stay up late any um Boulder social streets um our community has been promised so many different things um and we actually had something quite magical and to see that it's not even in for planning was just really disheartening um I will say in my now almost 12 years of living here the melanin Funk Fest was the most glorious thing I've ever been a part of here I almost was like oh my gosh I should have invited so many more more people I didn't know that I I've never ever experienced anything quite like it and to know that that's not something that we're going to replicate cuz it was so incredibly um and again it was just absolutely incredible um I also loved art day I also love the roller day and so we we need more opportunities for us to come together

[234:01] and they don't always have to include this Mega infrastructure like it was a street we closed it we put some things and we did something cool um and I would love to see more of that um and less effort in building all this different in infrastructure and more on how do we use the natural spaces that we have um and you know make things that are more adaptable and fluid so um I just wanted to comment on that in general but um I also wanted to just speak to I noticed that there's a lot of come to me and give me feedback in our communication design and I'm hopeful that we can use a Pullin push out uh which is to say not just coming to me but going to different community events different Comm and I've seen this with downtown bould partnership so I know this is in the belly Wick of the work that you already do but I just would love to see that as a core component of the project because this also takes the weight off of community connectors we cannot rely on two people to manage 10 projects and think that we're going to get the amount of feedback that we need and we've already know and thank you for discussing the challenges to our

[235:00] community survey um and then I just wanted to lift up the local businesses the local and small businesses and I'm really excited about the end of the study they're doing for Boulder County that the city is involved in around procurement and disparity study um I I'm I'm very excited that we'll have some of that data to inform um this work moving forward um so when I when I you know to the question you know I think of community in all of the different ways and the many different mini communities that I found on the campaign Trail um and so I'm hopeful that some of the issues that we addressed and raised on the community survey can be addressed um and piloted even um in the work that we're doing here and I encourage us to think about that and then lastly just would love to hear see and hear more integration with our climate team I know that they're being um what is it they are being um engaged but they're not like on the team they're like like a core member so I just um unless there is

[236:02] somebody with that climate expertise on the different teams that are currently exist um um I don't think that expertise should just be like consulted it you know really am wondering how we can make sure um that that part part is there and then Lastly lastly on the history um when I see that area the first thing I actually think about are the um brown and black people um and poor white people um who lived in that area when it flooded all the time that's the thing that I think of when I see that area um and I think about the lives that were lost in that area um and so I'm hopeful that in anything that we're doing um that we're not only thinking about those lives and the legacy of those lives but also our indigenous uh brother sisters two Spirits I didn't hear anything or see anything around tribe tribal engagement um so that would be another community that I would very much like to hear from both from an indigenous Community perspective as well as our two federally recognized tribes thank you

[237:00] thank you thank you very much um before we get to the rest of any comments does anybody else have any feedback on um learning from community members during the projects yes yeah I think um I saw so many different hopes in the feedback in the paper that was given and um I think I I just want to understand what people expect to do downtown versus what they're already doing in other parts of town so that you know when we open a when we offer really open any questions and say would you like to do this but it turns out that they're always going to play volleyball at the community park because it's two blocks from their house but they would say yeah I'd like to play volleyball downtown but they probably won't and if there's a way to to understand that so we can prioritize what would be the best or the greatest Community benefit downtown and then lead to these other um thoughts and hopes I think that's what I'm looking to understand from the community is um you know what what do

[238:01] they expect and what will bring them down town uh in a more consistent way if that makes sense it does all right if nobody else has uh any other thoughts on number two I'm just going to add a couple of my own um I think I heard some of my colleagues talking about uh welcome fostering Community those are some of the questions that I have is um what are the which which of the projects do folks feel um will give the most opportunities for fostering Community for creating that welcoming environment for bringing people down and together um I'm also just really curious as we uh talked a little bit about before um what are the barriers that that are currently keeping people from being downtown how are we overcoming that physical social economic whatever they may be um and then also uh council member wck brought up just some of the uh Financial components of those two and I know we've got a big U backlog of capital construction projects and but

[239:02] I really am interested in knowing from the community does this rise to the top for them you know if if they've some other um if we give them some of the other options that are out there uh kind of as council member maros was alluding to then what do they choose you know do they still choose this um and just recognizing that uh yes the economic impact is important for a city that runs on a lot of sales tax but also so is the impact on the community and the way that uh these kinds of spaces are knitting us together so I'm just really really curious to learn more about that um and um yeah just where where it fits on the the uh budgeting priority for community members um does anybody else have any other comments recognizing that it's 9:55 and uh we still have one more item to get through tonight two more oh yes thank you I completely forgot but the we're going to

[240:00] be woken up by the next one because it was really exciting all right um thank you if we think of anything else when our brains are a little bit more refreshed uh would it be best to email you yep you could email me directly yeah okay thank you so much all right thanks so much all right thank you we are ready yes and also mayor protim I'll double check this with the city attorney if we need to do a time check for a motion to continue the meeting uh apparently I've had a hot mic the whole time um so with respect to a time check we do need to do a time check because this is the first item finished after 900 p.m. um if we expect an 30 p.m. uh then you

[241:02] would at this time need a motion okay I 30 yeah okay yes yes yeah Pam while while we were all talking Pam made us the best slide so we're going to go really fast but uh we're not going to get there quite yet um first we're going to I believe make a stop at Matters from the city attorney but I will let you lead us miss Elicia that is true thank you ma'am it would be item 7A and that is the city attorney's update on litigation uh Council I um I wanted to update you on a specific matter and just provide you a brief update uh as you may recall from my email the boulder District Court heard oral argument on a motion to dismiss in the sunore case which you might think of as the climate litigation um they heard argument for three and a quarter hour today um on the specific items that

[242:00] issue and this is a this is a motion to dismiss which means it's asking if the case can go forward based on um as a legal determination and there were a variety of issues I won't go into them now um uh uh the judge did indicate that he we can expect a written order in several months time it's very complex um issues and and have already been up to the US Supreme Court twice so complicated um procedure and legal arguments uh I'm not going to engage in the full hearty exercise of trying to guess how a judge might rule or think of this case um but I can say that the city and the county were very well represented uh by our expert outside Council I'm not going to say anything um more about this as as I'm not going to speak to litigation strategy in a public forum but should you have any questions please feel free to reach out to

[243:01] me thank you so much and thank you for representing us there today um I was able to tune into a little bit not a legal expert but uh really appreciated all the arguments and everything that I heard so thank you so much and thank you for the update and looks like council member shart is gonna sorry it's late but but I attended in person and I want to thank you Teresa and the team for your leadership and for inviting us um this is an incredibly important initiative if we are successful this is internationally and generationally uh significant and um this might not grasp people but um I just want to say thank you and I would love for Boulder to be doing more of this kind of leader-like work um it's it's really incredible so thank to you and Jonathan and the team thank you so much all right we are on to our final item and we are on a mission to be done quickly yes ma'am I'm not going to read as fast as council member Marcus though I'm sorry I'm too tired all right our last item is item number uh eight on

[244:02] tonight's agenda Matters from the mayor and members of council 8A is the retreat planning discussion thank you very much one of the things that um was a bright side of our longer meeting tonight is that um Pam our assistant city manager was able to put together an amazing slide that summarizes everything we were going to say um so I think we will we can get that slide up we'll be able to move through it pretty quickly I think just stepped out um I'm just going to go ahead and get started if that feels okay to folks um so as you know we had our very first Retreat Retreat committee planning meeting last week um as a reminder this Committee just kind of comes together um once a year or so uh for a few meetings to plan our Retreats and our midterm check-ins um we have some additional

[245:01] committee planning meetings uh scheduled one for tomorrow with lots of coffee I think uh one for yes one for the 15th one for March 12th um and then we'll have our pre-retreat planning session on the 14th or 14th of March um we'll have another meeting on the 28th uh just a few days before our Retreat um the plan for the March 14th pre- Retreat study session um oh there it is thank you beautiful isn't this a lovely slide um so for the March 14th pre Retreat study session we are going to be uh hearing about the city strategic Citywide strategic plan and the annual work plan presentation um that will be from staff um and that will hopefully give us some good information heading into the retreat about what is already planning to be uh happening during um during this year our first day of the retreat is going to be um April 3D we're still

[246:02] figuring out the timing on that um but I hope to let you know pretty soon so you can all plan um it will be facilitated by Heather burkman for those of you who are here last time Heather has been our facilitator um for the last many years um we'll have an opening exercise uh probably something around the topic of communication um we will then get into um discussion of any process items that council members would like to bring forward we'll be sending out a solicitation for that in the coming weeks um for newer council members the um process items this is really a time for us to propose ideas for how council could potentially work better um work better with some of our different processes so you know be thinking about those things as we go through um and then just respond to it'll likely be an email request um sending information to Megs when we have that uh the second day on April 4th again time TBD will again be facilitated by Heather and this day

[247:01] will pretty much be devoted to the priority setting exercise that we will be doing um I was just going to give a a quick kind of uh overview of some of the um responses that we got to the questions we sent out late last week and thank you so much to everybody who um worked through that um and thank you to Megs for summarizing the responses uh in short everybody was fine with inviting boards and commissions and Community connectors and residents to send feedback prior to the retreat um but not necessarily requiring feedback um most people felt that feedback could come in the form of a formal letter from the group or more informal feedback from individuals basically whatever felt best um to the groups given their workload and time constraints so um one other thing just to to sort of note um just take a step back for a second as around the pre-work that that may be arising some of the

[248:00] things we're considering for pre-work so far include um not just the Outreach to boards and commissions and the community connectors and residents uh but we just had a study session on the community survey um so I'll have some of that information we're also talking about whether or not to solicit priority ideas from Council Members after the March 14th study session so that we have a little time to read through each other's ideas before the retreat but after we've heard from staff about what work is already underway uh this year and after we have a presentation on the Citywide strategic plan um let's see um and then we asked a question around other existing information that people thought staff could bring forward for the retreat that included um not just any additional insights from the community survey uh but also feedback from Community groups regarding their existing policy priorities and strategic plans um including but not limited to groups like EA the boulder chamber out Boulder County and so on uh as well as suggestions from staff for the city

[249:01] managers office for issues and opportunities for Council to take action on within our purview as an elected body um so I think there's lotss of opportunities for folks to give us feedback but really what we're hoping for is something that is not going to require a lot of work we don't want people to kind of do you know a lot more of um kind of new ideas but if they can give us some guidance on um anything regarding existing policy priorities or strategic plans um we could bring in that information and I'm going to turn to my fellow Retreat committee uh member to see if I've forgotten anything important here before we get to the question like halfway through I stopped listening no I'm only K I appreciate though that you didn't boo me or start chanting so thank you okay I have nothing further don't make me laugh all right it's getting a little late um okay so um what I'm going to ask

[250:00] is uh whether um with the first question um should the retreat committee send a letter to staff on um as soon as possible hopefully tomorrow to distribute to boards and commissions and Community connectors and residents letting them know that if they wish to provide feedback prior to our retreat they can do so by sending an email as a board or individual to all of council before March 22nd can I say one thing I I apologize was that mean I meant it as a joke okay good it's okay I'm okay don't worry yes council member Adams um I would recommend that we just create a survey surve and have people fill that in because my concern is getting hundreds of emails and then missing things and although I appreciate the staff compiling it would just be easier if we could just get the results in of a Google or you know Survey Monkey or something like that so I'm just although I appreciate it I just am hopeful that we can find a better way to process all that data um and I think

[251:00] just a survey would be a better form thank you and so um are can I just ask clarify question are you um thinking about from like boards and uh commissions are you thinking about from any you know a feedback form and then it could be you can indicate what your role is or stakeholder group that you best represents you but my larger point and I don't want to do another survey but my concern is is again I am I am coming from situations where I have received 2,000 emails and it is very difficult to go through 2,000 emails and to make it through something wolf um that's so I just I'm just thinking of if we're asking for feedback we should be able to then read what we're asking and and use that information is my is my general way of how I do business as a city representative thank you thank you and um well hold on just just one second I

[252:00] want to um so so this is around for um for what we were looking at specifically was around boards and commissions and Community connectors and residents and you're you're thinking there too survey would be um a little bit easier to do as I said I mean it it's still a lot of people who could potentially give information so even if it's a 100 people that's still I don't know how many boards and commissions there are I thought there were like 10 and there at least five people in each so that's 50 if they all wanted to I also would like to live extend the invitation for past boards and commission members because they also have a perspective that is going to be very useful as we go in here again I'm very serious about data driven decisions and um again if I'm going to ask for data I need to have receive it in a way that I can actually be able to do something with it so that's my concern if you know that it doesn't fly it doesn't fly but I'm okay with hearing no what I I can't live with is not asking the question thank you yeah no thank you I I appreciate that thank you um and then council member Benjamin

[253:00] council member wck council member Wier I really appreciate the question you maybe there's probably just worth a little qualifier and clarifier on some of that for one we've traditionally not solicited individual feedback from Individual members of boards and commissions we usually ask them from a place of Quorum where they then provide the one body so we would get 10 letters right so in that sense maybe the survey is not important it doesn't it's not as effective in that sense whereas from them that's helpful so it's a much smaller body uh than uh I think we're we're referencing so I I anyway I I hear what you're saying and but I think uh it's a much smaller resp we'd be only so lucky to be talking about charismatic meapa but we're not I'm actually not interested in receiving one letter from a border commission I would be interested in seeing receiving individual because unfortunately um that's not all the voices right and so I need to actually hear from the people who did not make

[254:00] that the majority vote I also don't want to add on this additional responsibility for them to have to then come up with their priorities figure out how they're going to determine and vote on those and especially in the time frame where we had so although I appre appreciate tradition there's also always opportunity for Innovation thank you thank you and I was just going to answer the question for myself um um shall we send a letter I I think we should send a letter and we should just ask them to go to Quorum and and and provide that that uh letter that represents a majority will from that that that group and they can provide a dissenting and actually in the past those Boards of commissions have been very clear in clarifying that there is maybe a dissenting View and explaining that so I just want to concentrate that that response but I would love to hear from both boards commissions and Community connectors and residents uh for sure I think that's a great great start okay and just to clarify 19 yes thank you yep and um one one followup to that U Matt this the

[255:01] question we formed was if they wish to or and it's not a okay great thank you just wanted to check on that um council member W yeah just just one small Point um I I think as as members of council we're free to reach out to anybody we want but I I would be a little reluctant to be sending out letters to pass boards um for their input one of the reasons is that they are no longer boards and um you know we we should be soliciting the input from the people who are there and are current with the issues if you if anybody here knows somebody on one of those who has previously served on a board and I certainly do um you know I expect to hear from them or I I will ask them but I would not make that a formal part of the process thank you and um Tara I you next

[256:01] um I don't really want it form because I want to hear right from the people people so it's really up to us whether or not we want to read them or not I mean the only ones would behoove us would be the 19 that we would get from the boards and commissions which is and then I think it's perfectly reasonable to say everybody in this entire Community wants to write to us they will I mean it's up to them and it's up to us how much time we have to read them um but I don't want to narrow scope with uh and in any way I think that it it's not going to 19 is doable but also you don't have to read the 19 I mean if you want Nicole and I can um that was the second question there you go I was segueing for you um say it Nicole great well what I what what I was gonna did you want to ask a question or say anything um I guess I was also just

[257:01] wondering in this time frame if we even have the staff capacity to look up past board and commission members to do a reach out to um I appreciate the question and I will say that it will require us to go back look in the logs just see if we have their current EMA uh emails and um and contact information it is something we could do but it is something that certainly adds more to our um resource plate and we are trying to quickly move to boards getting you some responses by March 22nd oh I forgot to mention that a lot of people in this town have been on boards and commissions it's going to be like a gigantic true I forgot I didn't do the temporal aspect of it is if there was a request to go all the way back in time to every member of every board and commission since it was done or if there was a desire to curtail that to a smaller board and commission though I

[258:01] also take council member Wall's points about um honoring the current board and commission members I feel like we may be missing the forest for the here so Council M Adams please and then I've got some I will amend that to the last five years I would also like to add the Boulder Police oversight panel as a part of the boards and commissions and as a former member there is in institutional knowledge that current members don't have and that is why I think it is important to expand out um because again um and I say this and I invite those voices because of the concern concerns that I raised around the community survey and the lack of of Apples to Apples um design in our Uh current um um information gathering from community members so there is you know if if if there was a very strong and robust and comprehensive communication strategy and

[259:00] and engagement strategy um then all of this wouldn't be necessary but we have to continue to address the gaps that we have raised and that's why I'm asking um what is the lowest barrier that people can still respond because again I don't feel like that survey gives me the information for all of our community members I have not seen the information that I was told uh exists from the community connector's work um I look at the um survey data from EA and I know again that's countywide but there are certainly implications here my larger point it goes back to this broader conversation that I'm we're having around how do we know what we know how do we know and who do we know that from so again I'm not you know here nickel and D but I am raising questions that I'm excit processed questions that I'm excited for us to continue to talk about at the retreat thank you so much yeah thank you and that if I could just kind of um cqu a little bit on those those comments as well I mean I'm still left

[260:00] with the question what are we going to do with the information because if we're putting you know questions out there telling people you know send us feedback but we're not actually having a plan for using that and integrating it into our work plan priority setting um I I think that is a a less satisfying experience especially if we are going out of our way to you know to find folks to include them and and so you know I like what you said council member Adam just about you know this is this is a process discussion I think it's a nice big juicy discussion the kind of thing that we might be able to have on day one of the retreat Council process yeah like how I think going back five years maybe another year maybe not this year is a good idea to have yeah so but I think just of that you know if if that when it's um when we solicit feedback on process discussions um it' be wonderful if this is one that kind of comes up um and we can we can have that discussion you know how do we how do we get feedback how do we fit it in um I think

[261:01] that would be a wonderful thing to do and inform uh future work Nicole are you asking what are we going to do with the feedback we get now um yeah so so I guess I mean this so I still I think for for what we can accomplish right now now um the question is just around do we want to send a letter to boards and commissions I'm sure that many of them already know that a Retreats coming up but just letting them know there's anything you want to say to us um being clear that you know we can um commit to The Retreat committee will commit to reading the letters that come in um we as per number two um are happy to provide a brief written summary of feedback um should that feel helpful to folks um because I can definitely understand getting getting 19 emails if we were to right before we head out on recess is um not something everybody wants to do it's up to you guys number two is up to you guys yeah but I'm gonna let council members you hard because he's been trying to jump in here thanks

[262:01] so on question number one um I'm just coming off a board and um I have have a perspective that might be a little counter to what I've heard um I I think in general we there's a lot we need to do to increase the um the coordination between Council and boards but there's like a lot going on there and I'm actually my stomach's turning a little bit with the thought that that if I were a board member right now so my next board meeting would be what is it second second week of this was next week February I think that agenda has already been set so if if we got an email and then you know members meet once a month at least the board I was UND did um they can't talk as a group in between board boards um what they do do is at least my board we we spent we kind of organized almost the whole year or a good part of the year around organizing for the Strategic things we wanted to put to council because we all knew that there's a there's a retreat um and and I I kind of worry about about um almost like

[263:00] disrespecting the boards by coming to them with like you know a maybe one or two meetings um with asking for them that's that something that's that's that's pretty formal um so I'm I'm really concerned about that I think um something that's a little more informal in which we'd ask individual board members to weigh in that to me that feels more appropriate I mean I'd rather have a more integrated strategic approach with boards but I just I just think we're asking too much to go to boards and asking for consensus um and maybe one thing to to bridge something that council member Adam said is what if we just ask for emails into the city Council system and we had a I don't know how hard this is but if we had a selection made for um board members providing feedback to to The Retreat and then either those we could filter those with our own you know smarts in our Outlook systems or maybe um City manager's office could somehow hold those for us but that might um allow people to give an open-ended response via email in a way that would be in an organized place um because I I

[264:00] do think there could be some benefit to that but um in general I'm interested if people want to get feedback but I just think we should set expectations that um we're we're a little bit behind the curve on asking for it and um not imply that um really we're going to do a lot with it because it's it's just we don't have enough time just a cqu off of that there are boards that came to me though and said when do I send my letter in so some are actually ready to send it in so I think that we can do both I think we can give people each board whatever option they want formal letter informal letter bullet points your dreams and hopes for the year World whatever it is as long as we get some feedback I think that's better than no feedback and I think that's the most disrespectful of all to actually never ask the boards for any feedback ever if I was on a board I'd be truly offended no I don't get offended easily I'm K com can we well I feel like we haven't answered

[265:00] one so um I I think you know I've heard um maybe so who who who would be open to our sending a letter to boards letting them know if they um wish to provide feedback to a retreat not required they can do so by sending an email as a board or individual to all all of council before March 22nd okay great um then we will we will get that out um hopefully after a meeting tomorrow yeah um there were a couple ideas there out of different mechanisms for that information we'll take a look with the committee tomorrow decide what what is and regardless of the methods selected Megs and I will work together to make sure you have an aggregate report so that there's no fear of kind of losing so we did take that note thank you really appreciate that um okay number two we Council like the retreat committee to provide a brief written summary of the feedback um any feedback we receive before the retreat or would you all prefer to read it on your own council

[266:00] member FS Oh I thought we were polling oh sorry yeah we we can go straight to that um happy to because we have nine more minutes yeah eight I I would prefer to read it read so let me just ask question read read them myself okay so so who would like a brief written summary um and honestly even if one person would like that I'm happy to do that it's not going to be super super detailed so just set expectations there talking like a couple paragraphs but it'll be something that summarizes cool I I would too if I weren't on the committee all right great um so we will make sure to do that and then um is there anything that you would like us to know tonight to consider in our retreat planning to bring back on March 14th when we have our pre- Retreat discussion remembering you can also think about this and send feedback to Megs is Meg's a good point of contact

[267:01] okay yes council member Adams and then council member forarts and council member Benjamin is actually brief um Megs and I have been talking about um Knowledge Management and the folder structures and so it would be really really wonderful if some of those things can be in place um and I I just there's a lot of background documentation that I would just really love to have in one place so that's just a request that I'd love for consideration thank you great thank you Lauren um I think with the wait are we bringing our ideas to the 14th study session no um any so sorry we're not sure yet because we're only one one meeting in but ideally we're not doing the ideas until after we've heard from City staff on the Strategic Citywide plan I still think there probably should be a strategy around um delegated we may have ideas that overlap and I don't think we all need to present an overlapping idea and I would love for

[268:01] you guys to let us know what that strategy is for how we concisely discuss our ideas in the meeting great thank you we can add that to our agenda did you say concisely we can do it we can do it when when our brains aren't tired we don't do that all right um Matt did you have a comment yeah a little I mean related in a little tangential because what Taisha brought up was comprehensive and kind of robust engagement and I and I think we're what we're touching on here is something I'd love to just sort of plant the seat of is next Retreat we're doing this in a reactive State and I would really love if Council were to empower the council engagement committee which this is exactly Council engagement we have a partnership with the national civic league to do this type of work with their expertise so would would love to toss this to to that group so that we and staff can start to sink our teeth into what a

[269:00] robust engagement is for the retreat for next time and even maybe a midyear retreat if we so wanted so anyway I just want to plant the seed there because I think we can have a six-month Runway I mean our most important decisions are the retreat which should have some of the most robust engagement and Outreach to set us up so I just want to plant the seed on that um because we're all sort of touching on those pieces that we want more but are running out of time to get more so I think that's a great thing to bring up as a process hold on let me ask the council Retreat committee Tara would you like let me ask the engagement kitty yeah I would like that perfect so I think it's still um something it would be good to have a discussion about so that we can talk through where where work goes what committee is doing what that kind of thing so yeah that can I um ask you real quick uh we were going to ask Lauren since she and I are on the boards and commissions subcommittee if you wanted to weigh in on or help write this letter to boards

[270:00] and commissions or do you want to be a part of it and so I don't want to leave you out if it works with timing that's great and if it doesn't I will not be horribly offended thank you yep and ideally that there's something going out from staff too so we're not um having to mck things up by getting getting in there I'm just noticing that we're scheduled or set to set that meet that letter out tomorrow yes that that's right at our meeting we we'll figure it out we'll figure it out tomorrow yes thanks on question three um one thing that I would love us to do I don't know when it happens but is um a recognition of the the very uh ambitious list of things that that departments are already doing in the city that that correspond to themes that I I know will come up because I many of them are on my mind um and so I'm not sure how this would work exactly but parking reform in TDM for example like is this is is enough of this going

[271:00] forward that we don't need a work plan or that we do and I think some way this just an example but um I'm just thinking how do we get into that kind of discussion with have time yep and I would expect because the uh City staff are going to give us a update on all of this on the 14th that there's likely going to be a memo coming out sometime before the 14th as well that we we are working to figure out there is a lot of work um in our work plans this year we try to prioritize our top three or five they're still over 500 which was better than two years ago when they were 800 and that doesn't include all the core stuff that is underneath there right so we are working hard to figure out how best to synthesize that precisely for that purpose so that you know and are aware of the work that staff is moving forward hopefully that will help align some of your um individual Council priorities and quite frankly and you know I'm the bearer of always the constraint and the tradeoff is that as you see the work and you saw

[272:00] some of the work that's happening in the downtown area if we have additional eight items for planning and development services they will not get to the work that they have on their work plan so we're going to have to have that conversation but I hope that you have that informed and I do hope um council member Shu hard that when you see the um plan that we are working on that you very much will see some of the priorities you've been talking about you've been thinking about uh for on all of your behalfs because I think and I like to um consider that staff is very much aligned with the council body as we're moving a lot of good work forward yes Tina sort of on that same vein I I also want to make sure that we're considering priorities that are less visible such as retaining a budget for the maintenance of facilities and um and I think that's sometimes the convers that's not the most exciting thing to talk about but it might be something that will really serve our community well so I always appreciate the things

[273:00] that are perhaps not as sexy but really critical always happy to see that elevated as a council priority that is somewhat up to you all in terms of what you want to prioritize but we certainly need to do some of that work and it is part of our that one in particular some of our long range financial planning um that is going to take place as we move forward so thank you thank you um and the only thing that I would just uh add and hopefully I'll remember to bring this up at our meeting tomorrow um is just thinking about you know when when we have nights like tonight that are just bringing in issues that are so big so emotional right it is a hard thing to be up here as well um and get right back into the work of landmarking or zoning or things like that um the more kind of mundane but the very practical work that we have to do and so I think just just something and maybe this is a as I'm speaking a process kind of thing as well but what what do we do for ourselves in those moments too for staff for the people who are here because what a jarring thing um

[274:00] to kind of go from one to another so anyway something for us to think about uh tomorrow or just for me to write in about processed stuff so thank you um all right if no one else has anything that they need or want to say yes not about this but I just want to give you a lot of props and Kudos tonight uh as our Pro stepping in for the mayor okay no jazz hands jazz hands thank you H we're not disrupting anybody do not make me 30 p.m. well but in all no but in all seriousness I I mean you you navigated through a very difficult ult time and you did so with consistency and compassion softness and firmness and so I just want to give you a lot of credit you did a great job tonight and we had a lot of disruptions and we only finished 10 minutes past so we gained a lot of time so great job yeah thank you and thank thank you all appreciate working with you all thank you staff um I am going to gble the meeting closed at 10:30 31 she got it no I got

[275:04] it that