February 15, 2024 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[4:58] e

[5:01] good evening everyone if you all can take your seats and quiet down we'd appreciate it we'll get going with the meeting in a second all right so good evening and welcome everyone to the Thursday February 15th 2024 regular meeting of the Boulder City Council I hereby uh call this meeting to order and Elicia if we could have a roll call please yes sir thank you and good evening everyone we'll start tonight's roll call as usual with council member Adams present Benjamin present mayor Brockett present council member fulkers present marquiz present shoe hard here mayor Pro Tim spear present counc member wallik here and Winer present mayor we

[6:03] have our Corel thanks so much so now if I could have a motion please to amend the agenda we've got a few uh changes here one is to postpone or remove item 1B a declaration against anti-Semitism and islamophobia which will be scheduled for a meeting coming very soon to allow for additional community outreach to add item 3i which is consideration of a motion to convert the March 7th and 21st regular meetings from inperson to Virtual as council chambers will be closed for renovations and to reorder 8A and 88 B so that now item 8A will be discussion to confirm council's position to decline or accept moving forward with a consideration of a ceasefire resolution regarding the Israeli Gaza conflict and item 8 B will be a discussion on 2024 walks and chats with Council so moved second got you we have a motion in a second all in favor please raise your hand uh the agenda is amended Mark did you yes I did yeah yeah okay great okay that that's unanimous and we will begin

[7:02] our meeting with item 1A which is the Black History Month declaration to be presented by council member Maris Tina come over here and I believe we have people here to receive the Declaration if you all would like to come join us here on the Das please hi um well I'm very pleased to uh read this resolution uh for Black History Month in February 2024 the month of February has received National recognition as black history month this month and all year the Boulder City Council invites community members to join the boulder branch of the National Association for the advancement of colored people the NAACP the center for African and African-American studies C

[8:00] aaas and other community organizations in celebrating black and African-American history culture and stories in 2017 the boulder branch of the National Association for the advancement of colored people was established in Boulder with the purpose of promoting Civic engagement eradicating racial Prejudice and eliminating racial discrimination in education employment housing and civil rights the Boulder County branch of the NAACP is dedicated to upholding the mission of equality and justice for all as Champion by the NAACP since its founding in 1909 educating and fostering a sense of community inclusive and respectful of all is needed to affect understanding and facilitate positive change the Boulder County branch of the NAACP is honored to extend an invitation to all to attend the 2024 Freedom fund at the University of Colorado Boulders macki Auditorium on this Sunday February

[9:00] 18th starting at 300 p.m. the freedom fund is a long-standing tradition that brings together NAACP members and Community supporters to raise funds to support the operations of the local branch guests will hear from featured guest Mr Anthony Ray Hinton who endured and triumphed over nearly 30 years on Alabama's death row for a crime he did not commit and was exonerated in 2015 with the help of the Equal justice initiative in addition to Mr hinton's powerful Story the event will feature a performance by Daniel Ponder a talented Entertainer and singer songwriter whose Soulful lyrics and vocals highlight inspiring themes of social justice and empowerment the event is free and open to the public in addition to the annual Freedom fund this year marks a significant milestone for the University Center for African and African-American studies in 2023 Governor Jared polus proclaimed the first day of black History Month each year February 1st as

[10:01] the caas day in recognition of the center as a resource to not only the University of Colorado Boulder but also to the entire State the caas is proud to have celebrated its first anniversary on Thursday February 1st 2024 through an event featuring food music dance poetry and other Africa African cultural expressions the event was attended by governor polus who shared brief remarks and words of encouragement to the cas community if you are looking for other ways to celebrate the University of Colorado Art Museum introduced a new exhibition on Friday February 9th 2024 by the museum for black girls curated by Charlie Billingsley and Von Ross the exhibition will be on view from February 10th to July 13th 2024 we the city council of the city of Boulder Colorado declare February 2024 as Black History Month and now I have the pleasure of giving this resolution to meline strong Woodley who is here

[11:02] joining us today and invite her to make some remarks [Applause] [Laughter] yay yes uh thank you so much to Mayor Brockett city council members uh we are honored to be here uh to accept this special uh designation declaration Proclamation um it is very special on behalf of the NAACP oh before I go any further is madra on the line madra Woodley uh she was going to call in h okay um on behalf of uh madra Stella Woodley uhhuh okay great um and on behalf of the NAACP along with the Eek which is the executive committee for African-American

[12:01] cultural events uh cause Center for African and African-American studies uh Dr raka um and uh the community I'll have to include you because you you who make the difference you you keep us lifted and keep us moving on uh we appreciate this honor uh we certainly hope to see you 00 doors open it too uh and uh you can register through NAACP bouldercounty.org or just come what we just want to see your face in the place and I just want to say that these events and our efforts are designed to educate education is at the core because the more we learn about our differences the more we'll understand our similarities and with that we will be

[13:01] able to become a better Community as we grow and we support each other so again thank you on on behalf uh of those organizations that I named and uh I'll be looking for every one of you come Sunday all right thank you so [Applause] much thank thank you for that Miss Woodley and we'll see you there on Sunday afternoon look forward to it okay it we're going to go now to open comment so Elicia if you could go over our public participation guidelines please yes sir thank you mayor bronet Elicia Johnson serving the city as your city clerk and Records manager thank you for all for being here and I'd like to review very quickly the public par participation guidelines at City Council meetings the city has engaged with

[14:02] 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 political perspectives for more information about this vision and the community engagement processes please visit our website at bouldercolorado.gov servicesresume Revised Code and other guidelines that support this Vision these will be upheld during this meeting no all remarks and testimony shall be limited to matters related to City

[15:00] 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 we only offer audio testimony online in-person participants are asked to refrain from expressing support or disagreement verbally or with Applause with the exception of declarations traditionally support is shown silently through American Sign Language plaws or jazz hands again we appreciate you being here and I will turn it back to you mayor Brocket thanks so much Elicia all right so we're going to go into open

[16:00] comment here um everyone has two minutes to speak and I do want to emphasize that we do want to hear from all of our speakers and we want all of our speakers to have the chance to speak um their minds without any form of interruption or disruption so we'll just ask everybody to please be quiet during testimony the uh Applause for Black History Month is our last Applause of the evening um if we could please um and then people will have their exact two minutes to speak and we look forward to hearing from everyone so our first three speakers are dagney fayton Elliot fayton and Jazelle herzfeld so dagy my name is dagy and as only a 12-year-old I think adults should be expected to act at least as mature as me so I expect grown adults to act at least as mature as I would in school here's how I have to act in my school I I have to wait my turn to talk

[17:00] I have to not interrupt While others are talking and not insult others for what they say in the classroom and if I don't follow these rules then I'm either given a warning sent to the principal's office or sent home so is it too much to ask for this Council to hold everybody to that standard tonight thank you thank you dney now we have Elliot fayen Jazelle herzfeld and Marley Rosen Elliot fayen Superior Colorado contrary to what they may believe the crowds of people that have gone from city council meeting to city council meeting do not represent the people of the United States the state of Colorado or whatever City there before dour that day and I don't say that lightly I have data please if you look at your screens you'll see a Harvard caps Harris poll from January 17 the 18th 2024 next

[18:01] slide look on the left question do you think that Hamas would like to commit genocide against the Jews in Israel or is that not a goal of Hamas 74% of recipient of people question said that Hamas would like to commit genocide against the Jews again voters in America next question on the right side do you think Hamas is an organization that can be negotiated with to create peace or is Hamas dedicated only to the destruction of Israel 67% say that Hamas is dedicated only to the destruction of Israel the next slide is going to be very important next slide please if do you favor an unconditional ceasefire in the Israel Hamas War 67% say contrary to the proclamation that some want have advanced that a ceasefire should happen only after the release of all hostages and Hamas being removed from Power next slide most voters think that Israel is trying to avoid civilian casualties in

[19:00] the conflict and it is not committing genocide that's 69% to 31% margin and if you look at 66 to 34% that Israel is just trying to defend itself and eliminate Hamas next slide do you think that the nature of the attacks on Jews were genocidal in nature or not genocidal referring to October 7th 74% of Americans say they are gen they were genocidal do you think that Hamas killing 1200 Israeli civilians in k napping another 250 can be justified 75% say not justified these are the views of the American people not the view not the protesters who claim to support the to be people thank you thanks now we have jaelle herzfeld Marley Rosen and fanders Lorton good evening members of the Boulder City Council my name is jelle herfeld and I work with the Rocky Mountain piece and Justice Center in Boulder you have heard and will continue to hear many compelling reasons for supporting a ceasefire in Gaza so I will not focus the majority of my time today

[20:00] on the fact that Israel launched one of its deadliest bombing campaigns during Super Bowl Sunday knowing that Americans attention would be focused on their favorite team and not the over 100 Palestinians who got massacred in Rafa in a single day I will not focus on the over 28,500 murdered Palestinians to date or the fact that I woke up on Monday morning to an image of a young Palestinian Palestinians girl's corpse hung on a wall for her grieving Community to find her name was Sidra Huna and she was 12 years old no today I will focus on the topics of islamophobia and anti-Semitism in our own Community I have deep concerns regarding the conflation of the pro Palestine movement or of criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism it is dangerous to conflate these two things and it is especially dangerous for the Jewish Palestinian and Muslim members of our community there is an alarming rise in anti-Semitism going on there has been a rise in anti-Semitism long before October 7th fueled by the far-right white nationalists who felt empowered by our country's previous president to be open openly hateful racist anti-semitic

[21:00] and islamophobic in a way that they had not previously felt empowered these hateful ideologues are not part of the prop Palestine movement they would never join the prop Palestine movement and they would never ever be welcome in the prop Palestine movement in addition to the rise in anti-Semitism that we hear about all the time there is also an alarming rise in islamophobia going on that has gone virtually ignored when islamophobia is acknowledged it is almost always brought in at the end as an afterthought in conversations about islamophobia and anti semitism Muslim voices are almost always brought in last with minimal time for Meaningful contribution if they are brought to the table at all which far too often they are not if we want to represent our full community in a way that is just Equitable and inclusive we must have all impacted parties welcome to the table from the beginning the Muslim Community has experienced a lot of hatred bigotry and threats that have gone totally ignored and when thank you now we have Marley Rosen swag Flanders Lorton and Ryan LeBlanc

[22:01] hi Council I'm Marley Rosen swag good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak in recent times we have witnessed a disturbing Trend in Colorado as the riseing anti-Semitism threatens the very fabric of our communities the events that unfolded in Denver on Monday at the council meeting were not only unacceptable but also indicative of a deeper issue that we cannot afford to ignore we must stand firm against the tide of hatred that seeks to that seeks to divide US based on Rel religion or ethnicity we cannot continue our cities to descend into the same depths of intolerance and bigotry that plagues the larger cities like New York or Chicago what happened in Dallas at their city council meeting last night was yet another reminder of the pervasive nature of this problem let me be clear Israel is not committing a genocide the accusation itself is not only false but deeply offensive to those of us who hold our Jewish charage who who old are je sh Heritage

[23:02] here it's disgusting and labeling as complicit and labeling us as complicit in a genocide is simply because of our faith is just not okay for those of you that don't understand the definition of genocide the definition of genocide is the intentional intentional dist destruction of a people as a whole this is not what's going on at all I refuse to cower in the face of such baseless hatred I will not hide my star David I will not hide all the different people if you can be quiet please I'll not hide for all the hostages that are still there I'll not remove my my Misa from my door frame none of you should we must confront anti-Semitism head on whether it re its ugly head here

[24:00] but we really must educate Advocate and stand in solidarity against the Discrimination thank you for time up thank you just remind folks please no outbursts during people's testimony everyone has the the right to speak without being interrupted now we have Flanders Lorton Ryan LeBlanc and Michelle Rodriguez good evening City Council Members my name is Flanders Lorton I'm here tonight to urge you to vote on a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza over the last 128 days the violence we have seen live streamed on our screens is unlike anything we have ever witnessed we have seen parents and children carrying their family members limbs in plastic bags we have seen young girls watching their father being burned alive videos of children's arms and legs being amputated on makeshift operating tables without anesthetic and we have seen countless videos of bodies trapped under the rubble or dying in the street and videos of families desperately hugging the white cloth wrapped corpses of their loved ones these horrific images are not the exception but the grotesque daily reality of the Violence perpetuated by Israel in the Gaza Strip the only thing the people of Gaza 1 is to have normal lives they are regular people who used

[25:01] to go to work in their offices restaurants schools and hospitals students going to universities and working hard in their classes but this dream of a regular life has been taken from them as their hospitals mosques universities and nearly 300,000 homes have been partially or completely destroyed by Israeli bombs and 2.2 million Gins have been forcibly displaced bombed shot at and intentionally starved of food and humanitarian Aid on January 26th the international court of justice ruled that the case brought forward by South Africa charging Israel with violating the genocide convention is plausible and therefore issued provisional measures ordering Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to Palestinians deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of Life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or part and take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the inverse conditions of Life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip despite this The Assault on Gaza has only increased Israel continues to slaughter hundreds of Palestinian civilians every 24 hours and they continue to block humanitarian aid from

[26:00] enter entering through the border crossing Israel has now begun to bomb Rafa which is the only remaining official safe Zone in Gaza and the location of 1.5 million internally displaced refugees a strike on a kindergarten in Rafa last Sunday had killed two Sheltering children and this is just one of many and an unending assault that has killed or injured over 100,000 civilians in just four months thank you now we have Ryan LeBlanc Michelle Rodriguez and Rob smoke do we have Ryan in the room oh here he comes sorry good evening Council my name is Ryan I was born raised right here in Boulder Colorado graduated from Fairview was bar mitzvot down at har Hashem on Baseline Road I'm a proud Jew I always

[27:03] have been and I've been proud to say I come from this city taught me a lot of things love for nature love for the Arts and it also taught me a love for justice and Equity so you'll understand why I've been a little bit baffled that there's even really been discussion on whether we should issue a statement for justice in the Middle East by calling for ceasefire in Gaza don't get me wrong anti-Semitism is very real that is absolutely true but the enormous anti-zionist Jewish Community has experienced it including myself but we know that the Zionist agenda is being used as an excuse excuse me that the Zionist agenda would have us believe that anti-Semitism is being used as an excuse for this plausible genocide that's going on which in itself is not only anti-semitic but also spits in the face of the ancestors who suffered and died to bring us the liberty as we have today and ignores the

[28:01] fact that Israel's actions have only made this world less safe for Jews like me and worst of all is killing thousands of Palestinian civilians in the process over 11,000 children have been killed for context can you imagine if every city school in Boulder was being actively bombed children were being slaughtered as we speak and cities around the world went sorry we don't comment on Foreign Affairs would that be acceptable to you make us proud make us proud to say we live here be stronger be braver be bolder thank you sho please quiet please quiet please okay we next we have Michelle Rodriguez Rob Rob smoke and Brenda mayos

[29:04] hi guys Michelle Rodriguez first off I wanted to acknowledge um the young lady Miss dagney flaten I'm very proud of your courage to get up here and speak I want to remind the people everybody in here other than her and maybe one other young child um or adults as much our silence might be violence that aggression is oppression it's unacceptable I was humiliated humiliated and embarrassed for the behavior of a lot of these people though their passion runs deep and I sympathize and my sympathy I know means nothing um we can't behave like this especially in front of our children in the city in front of other congregations for no race was that acceptable these people are here mostly

[30:02] on a volunteer thing because you couldn't pay me enough to put up with what they put up with the last few weeks and I know we know that a ceasefire is what's needed silence some silence was golden I found a lot of power in this room when somebody took some of their time to acknowledge it in silence and and gave prayer for those that are still being held and they in arms way I'd like to do that with the remainder of my time tonight and I encourage people to keep it civil for for the young people that are watching there of the future now if we can take that moment of silence

[31:04] thank you thank you now we have Rob smoke Brenda mayos and Elise mordos good evening my name is Rob smoke I live in in Boulder and um I just want to say I'm an American Jew and I I support uh freedom for Palestine Liberation from um being occupied by Israel and um I think a ceasefire resolution is just the absolute barest shred of what's needed I mean there's so much more needed um by people whose lives are imminently at risk and I particularly just want to make sure that I say this one thing which is um you know I know what I know what hypocrisy is because I love putting um vegan ranch dressing on a

[32:02] chicken sandwich and you know I I I just don't want to be you know so lacky in self-awareness that making comments about hypocrisy uh you know just doesn't ring true but in this case I think if there are a resolution being considered for the same events happening to Jewish Israeli children you know if if we knew that 12,000 of them had been murdered in the space of 14 or 115 days will we hesitate to have a resolution if we stand on the sidelines we're just doing what the aggressor wants us to do if we just say oh we can't we can't take aide here we're not with Hamas well it's not a question of being with Hamas the people who are being slaughtered literally slaughtered and are are in a death camp in Raa Rafa right now are are

[33:01] children and women women and children who um you know have no choice about Hamas or no Hamas they're just barely doing everything they can to possibly survive against incredible odds and to say that we're just going to not take sides that really is taking sides time's up thank you yeah next speakers are Brenda mayos Elise mordos and Joseph Stein good evening I was born in Boulder and I've lived here most of my life I volunteer with several organizations working with the Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank and I visited the area seven times over the past decade I'm here to ask you to move forward with the consideration of a ceasefire resolution for Gaza is is in the West Bank this is also includes the safe return of Israel hostages and

[34:03] Palestinian prisoners many who are children as young as 12 and the formation of an immediate Corridor in Gaza for a meaningful humanitarian Aid The Invasion into Rafa this past weekend a city gazin were told to retreat to demonstrates how urgent a ceasefire resolution is the situation is horrific and dire signing the resolution is mainly symbolic but signals that Boulder believes in our shared humanity and that our actions however local carry Global implications the climate crisis is an example of how what happens elsewhere affects us all in addition Boulder has a sister city in the West Bank and Israel we are a globally connected Community polls show that most Americans favor a ceasefire in Gaza the fil city council chamber in your recent meeting signals that a ceasefire resolution is important to Builder rights as well by

[35:02] supporting the resolution we are not one-sided we are simply saying we value all life we will not regret it it will not make our city more divided unless we make it so finally I ask city council to consider the restrictions on the boulder nais sister city project we're the only Boulder sister city with restrictions on our speech I was the bncp chair last year and after October 7th we were asked to remove a letter on our Facebook site and I was assisted multiple times by a council member asking for the removal of posts from several years back thank you thank you now we have Elise mordos Joseph Stein and Laura Lighty hi I'm Elise mordos uh thank you for your time tonight I'm a resident of Boulder City I'm here to ask each of you to vote against moving forward the consideration of his ceasefire resolution first and foremost statements calling for a

[36:00] ceasefire by City councils have had zero impact on the war and done nothing to unify the community and bring about peace looking here the environment at Boulder's most recent City Council meetings has become increasingly more hostile and toxic taking on this issue will only make it worse and create further fractions within the council and Community moreover it will also create a platform that would be used to fuel more anti-Semitism as an example I attended the Denver city council meeting on Monday during which the council voted against the ceasefire Proclamation by a vote of 8 to4 as I walked into the building I was greeted by the chant resistance by any means five of us who spoke during the open comment and members of the council were interrupted an endless number of times were having for having differing views than those who favored the proclamation further for furthermore my two friends and I were told that we were not welcome there no one should talk to us we received death stairs and we're told that we were the wrong kind of Jews mind you that we kept we sat there quietly and kept to ourselves ultimately the environment was

[37:00] so hostile that we left the building via a back exit and escorted to our cars by police officers to avoid the angry mob Gathering outside the chambers and building this disruptive and mobike behavior exhibited by the pro ceasefire crowd here today and president B Denver city council needs to stop it's not safe for the community and it's counterproductive in fostering unity and peace please do what you can to restore Civility and keep the council focused on local issues vote against item A8 and addition I have a little extra time uh we just mentioned that this we should keep in the purviews of city council I don't know how this would be within the purviews of city council thank you thank you now we have Joseph Stein Laura liy and Scott morando hello good evening all my name is Joseph Stein I'm an almost lifelong resident of Boulder I currently live in zip code 80305 and I'm here to urge Council to

[38:00] pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Israel's war against the people of the Gaza Strip as I have said before speaking on the boulder NAA City sister project I stand before you here as a Jewish person of conscience invested in Jewish culture and Community I'm an eternal student of the yish language I'm a member of J Fred though I don't speak on their behalf a member of Jewish voice for peace someone with deep connection to multiple parts of the Jewish world I understand that council is highly likely to pass such a resolution hence I come before you not with any great hope for a resolution but to urge everyone who may be listening now or in the future who may be reading about this in any future publication and especially our elected officials in the Senate and in the House of Representatives if they may be reading about this to do everything in their power to keep putting pressure on Colorado senators and representatives to end military aid to Israel to call for a ceasefire and for a weapons blockade against Israel to prevent the genocide which contrary to some claims we've

[39:01] heard here is ongoing as the icj has indicated it's most likely the case please if you can join local efforts by the Rocky Mountain peace and Justice Center the boulder Denver Jewish voice for peace and the Colorado Palestine coalition to call for peace and Justice in Palestine we must do everything in our power to ensure that the people of Gaza know that they are not alone in these terrible times and to bring an end to Israel's gen side as soon as is humanly possible we cannot bring back the dead but we can fight like hell for the living with my last 30 seconds I can bring you something in Yiddish the beginning of the par as Paul Robeson translated never say that you have reached the very end the Leen Sky a bitter future more May pend for surely our promised hour will yet arrive and our marching steps will

[40:00] Thunder we survive I send this to the people of Gaza thank you thank you now we have Laura Lighty Scott morlando and Aaron Brooks thank you Council my name is Laura Lighty and I live in Boulder I'm calling for this Council a powerful representation of our community's voice to pass a resol ution supporting a ceasefire in Gaza which includes the unhindered passage of Aid into Gaza and the release of all Israeli hostages currently captured by Hamas and the arbitrarily detained Palestinians this also includes an end to US military funding for Israel that has been used to Target and kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians today you may be asking why is this matter relevant to Boulder or to Colorado well it's relevant because the unconditional military aid provided to

[41:00] Israel by the United States every single year deprives our community of money for our own local needs Boulder residents federal taxes are contributing over $1.5 million to Israel every year which could instead fund our local needs like the housing crisis it's relevant because many members of our Boulder and our Colorado communities have family friends who live in Israel Gaza and the West Bank at the beginning of this violence a local Colorado in whose Palestinian told us at a gathering that he had lost dozens of his direct family members already can you even be given to Fathom that amount of loss in your own family and it's relevant because this city council I truly do believe this has you have a powerful voice to represent our community at least 48 other cities en counting across the US have passed resolutions calling for a ceasefire if this council's voice didn't hold power would we be here collectively asking you so I urge you to pass a resolution supporting a ceasefire to show our local

[42:02] and federal leaders that Boulder refuses to be silent in this matter that when we mean never again we mean it for everyone thank you thank you now we have Scott morlando Aaron Brooks and James Duncan is Scott here SC Scott's uh not here okay uh not seeing Scott in the room then we will now go to Aaron Brooks and then James Duncan good evening good evening good evening members of the city council since October 7th the Jewish Community has experienced a troubling rise in anti-Semitism and I stand before you to share the impact it has had on our daily lives just this past Monday at the city C Denver city council meeting I and two friends experienced firsthand the hostility and intimidation directed towards some Jews who Dar to express their identity and support for Israel openly as I proudly wore my dog tag

[43:01] bearing the message bring them home now as well as my Star of David I was immediately met when I sat down with vital and harassment I was told I needed to leave I was called a racist I was accused of supporting a genocide and I was labeled a bad Jew and not a real Jew simply for expressing my support for Israel's right to exist around my neck after the council correctly voted not to adopt the adoption a vote of 8 to four amongst a very rockus mobike crowd after conferring with the Denver Police they decided to escort us out of back entrance to our cars for our safety as a literal mob chanted outside this is not the 1930s this is 2024 Denver and Boulder Colorado and this is where I live and enough is enough we should not have to fear for our safety or face discrimination or anti-Semitism simply for expressing our identity and our support for a country that we love and that our families are from and are there

[44:02] and that they love I commend the council for maintaining focus on local issues as demonstrated by their recent commitment not to issue a resolution on the situation in Gaza it is imperative that we prior prioritize the needs of our community and refrain from getting involved in conflicts Thousand Miles thousands of miles away please make it clear once and for all that no matter how many times this small but loud minority demands it you will not be making any resolutions related to this matter so you can get back to the the um issues of Boulder thank you thank you our last three inperson speakers are James Duncan ellerie Boyd and Kristen Eller

[45:07] good evening Council thank you very much for your service um you know I know er um Matt likes to start with a joke right and and uh I have a joke too two minutes two minutes is a joke for us to be able to speak I know that's not very funny but that's my joke um on October 7th I I was doing what we normally do at the corner of Broadway in Canyon for decades we've been out there anti-war peace um and on October 7th a young man walked up to me and and he said are you happy are you happy I had no idea what you like because I don't pay attention to to I'm not into the mainstream news I hadn't heard what happened but I I did find out and and I'm I was devastated right um and um what we do on that that uh corner is we do anti-war stuff so I want to show you a couple of

[46:01] posters this poster the Palestinian Israeli conflict illegally occupied this is 20 years old what's wrong with this sign it says 63 years of illegal occupation what's wrong with that sign 63 years all right that's 15 years old I've been trying to prevent October 7th that's what I've been doing my sign is this you'll love it love peace honk right and on the other side is is a news Clearing House and uh head mother signs too but what I want to do right now is finish with a poem and if you'll allow me I've I want to do it creatively this is a a poem by Tom mayor right and it's way too long for me to read right so here's what I'm going to do I'm going to read one St stanza and others are going to read us other stanza but we're all going to finish with the line of the tit the the title

[47:01] of the poem which is dismiss neglect ignore here we go folks caution is the motto of a prudent Council team avoiding any action no I need you to speak up please right time time's up time's up dismiss ignore James your time is up please please have a seat James please have a seat all right everybody be quiet please all right appreciate how people have been being very respectful of people's speech so let's please continue that uh we now have ellerie Boyd and then Kristen Eller hello thank you all for being here my name is ellerie Boyd and I'm here to speak tonight in favor of the passage of a ceire resolution as a boulder resident and 21-year-old who is concerned about the future of our world and of our city as we speak the Israeli occupation forces are planning to execute a ground

[48:01] invasion of Rafa the last so-called safe Zone in Gaza where over a million Palestinians are now Sheltering if it's not clear now Israel is guilty of displacing almost all of gaza's 2.3 million people from their homes and forcing them southwards under non-stop bombardment with the ultimate goal of ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip of its native population the result of this cruel and inhumane military operation is that 1% of all Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in the last four months horrifically this genocide has taken place on our dime as US citizens as of yesterday our Senators Michael Bennett and John hickin Looper have both signed onto a letter to President Biden calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza we are here today to ask that you follow suit the letter which both Senators signed stated without the space created for regional diplomacy by a restored ceasefire the political conditions for durable peace and Security will remain

[49:01] unreachable over the past few weeks we have been imploring you to take the lead as our local Colorado elected officials in calling for a ceasefire now we are simply asking you to join our Senators in acknowledging the will of the majority of your constituents by passing a ceasefire resolution here in my government classes at Boulder High I learned the importance of a representative democracy a system which only works when you all as our elected representatives genuinely listen to and act upon the will of the majority take a look around this room tonight check your email inboxes and your voicemails and I think it will become clear what the majority of your constituents are asking of you thank you for your time thank you our last in-person speaker is Kristen Eller all right hello all yes like many of the

[50:01] other people can you speak into the mic please thank you like many of the other people that have spoken I'm asking you to move forward with a consideration of a ceasefire resolution I realize that many of you don't want to hear about this you're discussing whether to move forward so you can vote no that's why we your constituents won't stop coming to your meetings you're hoping to vote no so will stop so we'll stop speaking at public comment so you can stop listening now many of you have cited or probably will cite that city council shall not act on foreign policy or national policy issues but as city council you are our closest elected officials meant to represent the people of Boulder and the people of Boulder are asking you to hear them and represent their thoughts foreign

[51:00] policy or national issues are not outside your purview when your job is to represent your constituents represent Boulders views to the county to the state and to the nation staying silent saying you won't consider declaring a ceasefire resolution is saying you won't even consider representing the voices of your constituents you have Palestinian constituents you have Jewish constituents and you have a growing Coalition of constituents across backgrounds ethnicities and religions asking you to represent their voices we will continue to grow create a coalition of diverse voices and organizations to show you the support there is for a ceasefire resolution in Boulder we will organize and we will do the work all we're asking of you is to consider a ceasefire Revolution res resolution all we're asking of you is to represent these voices in Boulder by

[52:00] engaging it's time to start engaging on foreign policy issues thank you for your testimony we have one remote uh person testifying which is mie cornfeld so if we could bring Marie online please can everybody hear me yes okay thank you to The Honorable Boulder City council members for the honor of addressing you today my name is Mary cornfield I'm the director of Stan with us here in Colorado it's an international nonprofit dedicated to educating about Israel and fighting anti-Semitism firstly I wanted to say that I love the opportunity to get to know you all as individuals I know that you work very hard and you're dealing with weeks of disruptions to your meetings due to the current War I'm addressing you today as a Jew a mother a daughter an activist and a concerned Colorado in I grew up here born and raised and have never seen the levels of anti-Semitism that exists today I'm appalled and quite frankly scared I've been following not only the atrocities that occurred in Israel on October 7th

[53:00] against innocent civilians but I've been following the backlash that's resulted in rampant anti-Semitism here in Colorado as a result I've been following the activities of the anti-israel movements in Colorado and their actions are nothing less than double standards and demonization of Israel and the Jewish people in all of their messaging anti-israel movements you've been hearing from have not said a word about the fact that Israel has found hostages being held in Rafa this past week the city everyone is telling Israel not to go into they've mentioned that there was a they have not mentioned that there was a ceasefire on October 6th and a six ceasefire means that Kamas an internationally recognized Terror organization remains in power is that good for Palestinians or Israelis they're not mentioning the massacre the rape the kidnapping and the other atrocities that occurred on October 7th I've not heard them recount the fact that early on October 7th terrorists entered the home of roian smari Don in karaza a small community just miles from Gaza and brutally murdered roen smadar in front of their youngest daughter abig who was subsequently kidnapped and held alone alone in the tunnels of Gaza on the contrary all that these anti-israel movements have done since that horrific

[54:00] day is dehumanize Israelis and promote hate against the Jewish people if city council is going to condemn anyone it should be this with Despicable behavior and if you're not willing to do that at least reject their current campaign of hate and work to bring our community and our city together additionally I'm really not sure what the purpose of foreign policy serves in our local city council when we have so many issues we need to deal with this is not an US versus them this is Humanity versus terrorism please side with you okay thank you all right um thanks to everyone who spoke and I really appreciate everyone attending here tonight letting people have the chance to speak and being respectful while they gave their views so thanks to all of you for for doing that tonight um so that brings our open comment period to a close and I'll just turn to our city manager and our City attorney to see if he have any responses to what we've heard tonight not for me at this time thank you uh not for me mayor okay thank you anyone on Council have anything that they would like to add Mark what did you

[55:03] expect thank you mayor Brockett um however unlikely I will at least attempt to be brief um during our last extremely rockus public comment period a voice called out from the audience yelling you work for us I've been thinking about that comment for the past two weeks and want to offer this response yes we do work for you but we do not work only for you we also work for those who've been traumatized and made fearful by the anti-Semitism that's characterized too much of this debate and we work for those who might have an entirely different viewpoint on this matter and have expressed their opposition to this request for a ceasefire resolution but most importantly we work for the vast majority of this community that wants us to address the many needs of Boulder and to do the job for which we campaigned and to which we were elected they expect us to focus on homelessness Public Safety and providing adequate housing for those who live here

[56:01] they expect us to maintain the natural environment that Drew most of us to Boulder in the first place they expect us to enact programs to lift up the least fortunate Among Us and to continue the policies that make Boulder a wonderful place to live recently we had a substantive discussion on instituting sanctioned campgrounds it was a wonderful example of what we have been sent here to do we had a serious EXP change on the economics of The Proposal its feasibility the trade-offs we might have to make with other programs and on and on we were carrying out our responsibilities as we should and no matter what the final outcome of that conversation I was proud of my colleagues and proud to work among them this is the work our community expects from us they do not expect us to pontificate on foreign policy issues that are not within the scope of our duties or our competence and they expect us to resist loud voices that insist that we do otherwise later tonight I

[57:00] hope that we will fulfill that expectation and reaffirm that Our obligation is to serve the people of Boulder and to work for the betterment of Boulder and we will make that decision according to our best judgment and our conscience conscience thank you thanks Mark anybody else see no Ryan just wanted to say thank you to everybody for coming and um being heard and especially um Miss dagy flagon I just love seeing younger folks here I wish we we had more of you very good seeing no other hands oh sorry TAA go ahead want to thank everybody for coming out tonight I especially want to thank my fellow council members for staying engaged on this topic and listening to our community members in the in in the many emails that we have

[58:01] received and phone calls that we have received from a crosssection of our community I was honored to see that cross-section at The JCC on Monday at the standing up against hate or standing against hate to see the Imam there to see Dr raka to see um Marty from out Boulder to see um Jeremy at ADL it was really important that reminder reminded me um Auntie mine about what you shared about our differences and our similarities on that stage and somebody said afterwards when I was talking with them afterwards they' asked oh you know I asked them how what do you think and they said you know I was hopeful for deeper conversation and I said take a look at that first

[59:01] flyer just getting to he was a miracle knowing that we were capable of ensuring that cross-section of perspective of lived experience of learn experience of shared pain and anger and frustration and the capacity to see through and passed so that we can see our shared Humanity was very powerful I'm excited for and I'm interested and eager for our discussion later on this topic with all of you and again just remember that if you want this for a local this our democracy is a muscle our community needs are going to ever change and we need to be responsive to those needs if you have expectations of certain behaviors then you need to ask about those behaviors on the campaign Trail to everybody you vote for all the time time if you want changed Behavior then vote for changed Behavior

[60:00] don't sit up here now and then be mad forgetting what they don't no one everyone has been very transparent very transparent and sitting in their integrity and their truth and I honor that I ask you again let's work in the areas where we can and know that I'm eager for those deeper conversations personally professionally and across this is our community thank you for showing up today and again I look forward to deeper and deeper conversations individually and collectively with all of you thank you thanks Taisha last call see no hands um that brings us fully to the end of The Omen open comment period And I just want to thank again everyone who came and spoke to us and for everyone of being respectful of the views that were offered here tonight appreciate all of your passion here and um we're now going to proceed with the rest of our agenda um so Elicia if we could move to the consent agenda please yes sir thank you

[61:01] our consent agenda is item number three on tonight's agenda and it consists of items 3 a through e and through G 3G through 3i any uh questions or comments about the consent agenda sh uh please yes yeah go ahead I'd like to make a motion to pass the consent agenda second a motion in a second any comments go I just wanted to um just lift up theou with the tribal and the tribal agreements and just again I know that obviously um you know relationship building over centuries is difficult and so I honor that we can't go into the spef specifics of what is in that um because of of the confidentiality and and the trust we're trying to rebuild

[62:00] but I just wanted to thank the staff and thank our council members of I just got here so when I got I was like whoa we're doing this and that oh my gosh so I just this is one of those areas for me as well um when I say we all belong I mean that and I just it was exciting to see not only the work with open space that's coming up but also um just the opportunity and some of the other work that we're doing to really honor respect to atone and some of that other stuff that's in that racial racial healing Continuum that I'm still learning so I just wanted to lift that up and say thank you to the staff thank you to the tribes um and I look forward and I'm actually hopeful for anybody who's interested into a field trip I went down the Ute Mountain you reservation uh when I was on the commission and that was just a very and not officially and not to just go to the bear dance and have dinner at the casino and and it was just a really wonderful time and I still haven't been to the southern Ute so I would love to do that but again it's really about showing up same thing with

[63:00] RN River um and of course continuing to find meaningful ways to invite them back to their um homelands and through co- management and all other kinds of things so thank you thanks for that T I was going to bring that up as well I appreciate you raising it um because I just thought mentioned last year at the tribal consultation we had two days of very detailed negotiations over the wording of this memor of of understanding and I remember at the end of that consultation the joy that was in the room when we arrived at a consensus between all the tribal representatives and the city staff and our Boulder elected officials and so really wonderful to see that come forward and be approved by our council tonight and look forward to uh continuing to work with the tribes when representatives are visiting here next month as well okay we have a a motion in a second this is a roll call vote I believe Elicia that is correct sir thank you we'll start the roll call vote for consent agenda items 3 a through e and G through I with mayor protim

[64:00] spear yes council member wallik I Winer yes Adams yes Benjamin yes mayor bronet yes council member vulit yes Marquis yes and shuart yes the consent agenda items a through e and G through I are hereby approved unanimously very good thank you Lea if you can take us to our first uh matters item please yes sir thank you first item under Matters from the city manager item number six on tonight's agenda is 6a and it is the update from Excel Energy and N I'll turn to you to get us started thank you so much and today I'm going to try to avoid Preamble because I know we have a full day and I'm going to send it right over to our director of climate initiatives Jonathan Cohen thank

[65:01] you n appreciate it very much good evening Mr Mayor members of council I'm Jonathan Cohan I'm honored to serve as a director of the climate initiatives Department uh before we get to tonight's presentation I wanted to offer just a few framing remarks just about two minutes or so so I think the council and much of the community that's watching tonight uh will remember that in 2020 the community voted to suspend our decade uh old or decade long attempt to municipalization and use uh less gas and launch initiatives that ensure all community members have Equitable access to Affordable energy um the partnership also provides a pathway to test and innovate and then scale a lot of the Innovations so so they have far reaching impact uh outside of Boulder so I really do want to stress the importance of the work um based on our most recent

[66:01] analysis in our greenhouse gas inventory that was released just this past fall uh building electricity and gas usage still contributes the majority of Boulder's emissions so how we work together to achieve Boulder's goals both in terms of emissions and cost has to continue to be a priority uh so the agreement also includes Provisions uh that set specific year-over-year Statewide carbon emission reduction targets uh for Excel Energy between now and 2030 uh that's really a focus of tonight's presentation um so I really want to appreciate uh the work of our staff team certainly uh Carolyn Elm Matt lman Alex telek and Emily sandal I particularly want to appreciate um the work of the boulder Excel Community advisory panel and before I step away from the mic I want to appreciate our Excel colleagues uh for being here tonight I know it's difficult to show up for these kind of conversations but I uh I honestly think this is really important for our community to hear directly from Excel on these types of issues so staff is going to be here to

[67:01] answer any specific City questions but tonight it's really an opportunity for Council to have a conversation with Excel uh and so I will turn the mic over I think to Holly Velasquez horbath uh one of my colleagues in Excel she's going to kick off the presentation and like I said we'll be here to answer any questions on the city side thanks okay so good evening Mr mayor council members and esteemed members of Boulder Community I am Holly Vasquez horbath I'm the regional vice president of state affairs and community relations for EXL energy here in Colorado I have been a part of the partnership since since Inception Jonathan and I along with many others that are on staff and with a couple of our elected officials um negotiated and committed to that I was along with Alice Jackson during that process this evening I stand before you

[68:02] as a representative of our company but also continuing to be a committed partner of the um partnership and also in working to meet the sustainability and Innovation goals around delivering clean energy to our Boulder Community in 2022 the boulder city of Boulder nexl made a decisive move by entering into the voter approved energy partnership agreement along with the franchise this was not just a contract that we understood it was a commitment and a pledge to work hand inand towards a future that is greener cleaner and more Equitable today we can confidently say that this partnership has been a catalyst for transformative change particularly and most importantly inside the company as we think about Partnerships with our communities and our customers and a testament to Boulder's foresight and choosing us as allies in this crucial Endeavor that we all know is very important to this community our

[69:00] collaboration has set a new standard in the community engaged environmental stewardship together we have pursued very ambitious goals um and continue to be dedicated to that those are focused on significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions from our gas and our electricity generation striving to eliminate electricity sector emissions with the Bold aim of achieving 100% renewable energy by 2030 amplifying local renewable energy production tapping into Boulder's Rich potential for sustainable energy sources ensuring that our energy systems are not only robust but also resilient and reliable safeguarding our community against anything that's unpredictable crafting solutions that resonate with every member of our diverse Community ensuring equity and accessibility are the Forefront of our efforts as we share updates tonight remember that this partnership is a living and evolving collaboration every day it's a journey we are on together

[70:01] and one where we each take steps forward in in striding towards a future that aligns with the values and visions of the Boulder Community we are here as steadfast partners and continue to be committed to this journey advocating on behalf of and alongside this community so if we can go to the next slide go ahead one more okay today we will discuss our Direction and our progress made in our for first Milestone of this partnership the agenda includes um addressing the gap between EXL Energy's Target um of reducing carbon emissions 85% by 2030 and Boulder's goal of 100% renewable zero emissions electricity by 2030 company vision and just a quick update on the Colorado policy that we've been working on Statewide with our legislative Partners ghd emissions overview our clean energy plan and our

[71:02] future Direction and goals next slide next slide in December 2018 we announced our goal for an 80% emissions reduction by 2030 and to achieve a carbon free status on the electric system by 2050 we have also set industry in goals for gas and transportation Net Zero methane on our on our gas system by um Net Zero methane on our system by 2050 a 25% total ghg emissions reduction by 2030 leading to Net Zero by 2050 our transportation Vision supports the transition to one out of every five vehicles being Electric in our states by 2030 providing zero zero carbon fuel accessibility to all of our customers by 2050 and XL Energy is the First Energy provider in the nation to announce comprehensive

[72:00] goals to deliver that Net Zero Energy across the electric the heating and also the transportation next slide significant policies under the polus administration and in partnership with many stakeholders including the city of Boulder have driven sector Pacific um emissions reductions um as you can see here this is our Evolution through a lot of different state policies that brought us here today and it includes the 80% uh ghg reductions by 2030 on our electric and also delivering the clean energy by 2050 it also is um helping us with the ghd emissions on our natural gas system understanding that natural gas is a transition fuel that will deliver the reliability so long as we can get the tech technology to to be 100% carbon free on the electric system and that is our clean heat plan that was passed um

[73:02] in 21 and then requiring and then sb1 1977 which is requiring Transportation electrification plans every three years we are currently being reviewed by the Public Utilities Commission on our second Transportation electrification plan um and we are required to deliver those plans every 3 years in an advancement towards the electrification of the transportation system next slide so with that I am going to pass it to two of my colleagues uh one of them you know I think very well iffy Jennings she's our area manager here in the city of Boulder and Jack iy who is a partner of mine and is the regional vice president of regulatory policy here at XL Energy in Colorado um who are going to delve deeper into the ghg target targets that we currently have today and also our joint initiatives and vision for a sustainable future I'll pass it to

[74:05] Jack sorry uh good evening and thank you for letting us have the opportunity to speak with you oh about the bring the mic up please there we go I'm a bit taller than Holly yeah there you go I'm not iffy I'm Jack iy RVP of regulatory policy uh wanted to give you an update on the emissions trends that uh I'm proud to say that I've been helping the company uh put in place um and this was a big part of the settlement agreement or the franchise agreement that we uh forged with the city of Boulder in 2020 so uh next slide please so um as Hol mentioned this this was U House Bill 1912 61 set in place a really important goal for the state of Colorado which is a 50% greenhouse gas reduction Target by 2030 economy-wide so everybody all the cities both older and everyone else and all the sectors there um what we're graphing here is 2005 emissions in the state and then in 2030 where we need to get uh is is the dark

[75:01] gray um what we're also showing is uh the contributions of XL Energy across several um components here both our our power sector which is the the sort of U uh red hash that you're seeing there the blue part of that is the transportation electrification plan there's another small blue part that's the clean heat plan but the message here is that the things that we're doing across our power sector across our gas LDC sector and then moving into the electrical electric vehicle space and helping to reduce emissions in the transportation sector um are roughly 40% of the total effort that the state needs to undertake uh to get to that 2030 targets the the the um Red Bar there is the contributions of other electric utilities and then the light gray is other sector contributions toward that goal but we're we're nearly half of the entire thing um on our footprint so uh next slide please under the boulder franchise agreement we put in place these targets that we negotiated with Boulder and this was meant to get us on a pathway and we were

[76:03] on a pathway but Boulder wanted some safeguards to ensure that we continue on the pathway to continuing emissions reductions haly mentioned another critical piece of 2019 legislation which required us to hit an 80% emissions Target and this closely followed on the heels of a 2018 goal where we uh as a company uh uh vowed to hit an 80% emission reduction Target on our power sector so we have a gas sector we have a power sector we vowed to hit 80% on our power sector and I'm happy to say we're well on the pathway to meet and exceed that but these these interim targets are what were um placed into the boulder franchise agreement uh 2022 2024 2017 and 2030 um these are associated with the generation that we either own or we have contracts or otherwise purchased from other providers so the emissions are accounted for on a holistic basis whether we own the generation or it's a third party part owner of the generation it represents all the generation coming um to supply power to Boulder as well as our entire system um this is based on

[77:01] accounting systems established by What's called the climate registry uh and is consistent with EPA reporting these targets I want to note were set on set on some 2019 forecast because there there's a couple of bumps on the on the road here uh that I'm about to tell you about but this was established in 2020 based on our best forecasting in 2019 so uh next slide please um the 2022 emissions we so we have achieved by 2022 we've reduced our emissions about 50% relative to 2005 level so it's tremendous amount of progress um we expect that to be about 86 87% by 2030 so we're on a trajectory and I'll show you that in a minute we are slow slightly over uh at this point in 2022 these targets aren't the the data is not fully vetted at this point um we have to work with the climate registry that tends to take one to two years to get fully vetted so we're about three uh 300 sorry 300,000 tons over the target Which is less than 2% so we

[78:01] wanted to be very transparent even though the data is not finalized we wanted to let the city and the community know um that we're over that Target slightly uh next slide please so this is showing the trajectory and you can see this starts way back in 2005 and that's how these targets were were uh established as relative to 2005 levels and you can see the trajectory we're on and where going the the blue so the red line is actual history to this point the blue line is our current um projection based on currently approved plans and we just updated those plans in fact just within the last two to three weeks Public Utilities Commission uh updated or approved our latest generation resource plan which is making a really big stde and you can kind of see the effect of that on the slope of that blue line uh the green line establishes what the boulder agreement set forth so let me let me jump to the next slide please and then we'll we'll talk in a little bit more detail where are where we are with that as as I mentioned in 2022 um we're probably slightly over I I'd say that's probably 98 to 99% accurate

[79:02] prediction at this point so very very small over very valid to ask why um energy sales were up more than we thought they were going to be across our system and and I should note this is a systemwide emissions look this isn't this isn't solely sorry uh the emissions to serve Boulder it's across the entire uh XL Energy footprint in Colorado so it's to all the things that we are subject to to run our system so uh electric demand was up we had uh supply chain problems that caused some of the clean generation uh to come on a little bit later either not in 2022 or in the following year um we had a little bit more gas generation because we have to we do have to meet that need reliably we have to meet every megawatt hour that's sought from us and it did come in a little bit higher um so that's 2022 we'll uh we'll report back to you when that data is finalized we're hoping in the first first few months here of 202 for that that third party piece is a little bit out of our hands um also wanted to show you in 2024 um we are projecting that we may be slightly over

[80:00] there um some of the same Trends apply here uh and also what we've been observing is that the the demand that we're seeing through electric vehicles through beneficial electrification it was greater than we thought I I was trying to emphasize earlier we built all these targets off a 2019 forecast our forecasting now is seeing that demand increasing more and again 2024 obviously is just getting under getting underway it'll be a long time you know a year or two before we'll have a good sort of look at that data but we wanted to be very transparent about how things do look in 2024 because it is an accurate statement to say that we're probably over 2022 and there's risk that we'll go over in 2024 so that's the bad news the good news is 2027 and 2030 uh are very uh very much exceeding what we projected that we would hit in that franchise agreement it's about 3 to 4 million tons in 2027 about 3 million tons extra in 2030 we're targeting about 85 to 87% emissions reduction in 2030 that was

[81:00] that that's compared to the 80% goal we set for ourself and that's compared to the 6.9 uh million tons that we established in the in the franchise agreement so uh we're feeling really good about that and the reason why is is kind of a simple factor of of how the franchise of timing really and planning when we set those Targets in the franchise agreement we had very limited degrees of control over uh the planning of our system and the system the system emissions is largely an outcome of the planning process our plan was set by the Commission in 2018 by the Public Utilities Commission in 2018 so we have been implementing that plan ever since then those last generators just came online last summer the two there were two solar plus storage facilities so you you do see it sloping down still but we had kind of limited degrees of control over the 2022 and 24 achievements at that time by contrast since we towards the franchise agreement in 2020 we had a lot of ability to influence that we could work with the city of Boulder in in the commission process it's called a

[82:00] resource planning process and that's where we go to the commission and talk to them and propose plans about how we will propose new generation uh and so we have a settlement agreement that commits to very similar Targets in fact they were kind of emulating the boulder agreement of 2022 2024 27 and 20130 that was forged into a settlement agreement with about 15 to 18 parties on that um that agreed to those very similar targets to what the city of Boulder in initiated in the franchise agreement so that kind of became more broadly accepted and more broadly adopted about two years later uh and then the commission approved it just just in January so we have a a wholly new plan we actually have a whole new forecasting model which was uh brought in to help us forecast Renewables better because that was one thing we discovered our modeling was over forecasting Renewables a bit we have more accurate modeling now um so we're feeling very good about that we have you know a better a more broad more broads spread commitment uh we have higher uh uh we have the ability that we

[83:02] planned into this plan it's approved by the commission now we're going to go off and execute there's a huge transmission project that we initiated as part of that plan in 2021 we already have shovels in the ground execution is going very well on that so we're expecting we're going to greatly exceed 27 and 2030 so wanted to let you know where we're at with respect to that t with respect to those targets because it was a big commitment uh in the franchise agreement so uh next slide please I was or and one more if you would I was going to talk about this plan just a little bit here um we just again we got this approved this plan was after about two to three years of litigation uh a bidding process that we went through uh very exciting plan I think we're we're building in about 6,000 megawatts of new generation into the system to give you some context our system Peaks at about 7,000 megawatt so this is a huge wholesale transition the plan is taking all of our Co units offline by the end of 2030 so they will

[84:00] all be out of our system um it's retiring some gas on the system it's bringing in really unprecedented amounts of clean energy on the system here um I I won't read all the numbers but you can see like the vast majority of this about 90% on a megawatt hour basis is either wind solar or storage or some combination of the two we're getting these interesting hybrids of solar Plus Storage which represent big swath of the new resources there is about 10 10% of this is new natural gas facilities um that we're bringing in to ensure the reliability as all the firm uh capacity from coal is going offline and some gas is retiring as well um but a lot more gas is retiring than we're actually bringing online uh it also runs very little so and I I want to show you on the next graph the on the next slide please what the net energy is so to be clear this is this is the energy production from all the existing Fleet plus the new plan and 2024 where roughly half renewable energy will be that by the end of the year um you see that

[85:00] progressing to where we're about over 80% renewable energy by 2030 um the gas stays very consistent in in across that um across that swath the coal you do see is shrinking that's a that's a dramatic change on these Pi figures where the coal is shrinking from 33% to 4% uh if we had a 2031 graph on there the coal would not show up because it will be gone um so that is underpinning the emissions and that's why we're very confident about those emissions Trends because coal is very intense in terms of a carbon emissions loading per megawatt hour it's about 2 to1 compared to natural gas um so when the coal goes away we have a very good uh sense of how much the emissions are going to go down so just wanted to give you that overview on where we're sitting with the targets our currently approved plan uh the execution of the last resource plan which has been successful it's now largely complete we're just beginning the execution of the next one um and Things Are are things are tracking very well for the next two Targets so and with that I think I'll turn it to iy

[86:03] Jennings good evening my name is iffy Jennings and I work at Excel and engan Community local government Affairs and I have the honor of serving the Boulder Community next slide please next slide so today I just want to give a quick overview of the partnership and the work that we're doing collectively to help the city of Boulder reaches climates goals um Holly and Jack talked briefly about you know our system will be at 85% by 2030 and we know that the city of Boulders goal is is to get to 100% by 2030 and so in the partnership agreement we um took the the work to really identify what was the Gap in that and how do we quantify that and then have projects and a work plan that really looks at closing that Gap and how do we focus more on that um next slide please so here's what we what came out of the a partnership overview document and you'll see that there's two areas there for the focus areas there's the light blue area that our projects and

[87:01] focus areas that folks Focus completely on reducing greenhouse gas emissions as we do work here in the city of Boulder and then then the tan section is really looking at how do we eliminate the electric sector emissions and those are the projects that are focused in each of those areas next slide please so today what we wanted to do is just give you a quick overview of what we feel are our accomplishments to dat and what we've been working on so the first will be looking at our solar energy legislation and looking at how we successfully worked together to pass Senate bill 21261 which really enhanced our effort around solar energy adoption the second one is that emission Gap analysis that I spoke to you just a few minutes ago about um and that was when we started to quantify what really is the number for closing the gap between the difference in our numbers in 2030 with the 85% and 100% And then next was our strategic plan and that's the two-year work plan that we'll focus on on projects that are specific to closing that Gap in addition to that we have our undergrounding

[88:01] projects that are happening with a completed undergrounding project on North Broadway in 19th Street street and it's really around um projects that we're doing collaboratively with the city through Transportation projects as well um and then you know our team worked on we heard a lot about the community of wanting more undergrounding options and so we worked on a how to undergrounding guide for communities that wanted to go into partnership to underground their facilities in their area in addition to looking at how do we address reliability and ath north and south region of Boulder um and so I'll tell you a little bit about that more here in a moment um and looking at developing our 20122 Electric Mobility plan and initiating the clean heat plan that really looks at how do we um look at nonp pipeline alternatives to Bringing on more gas infrastructure but what are some of the electrification projects we can do here locally um and focusing on the Innovation solutions to be able to do that next slide please next slide thank you um the undergrounding

[89:02] projects that we spoke about is currently and the money that we've spent on those would be our North bride weight 19 Street and we're in the process of doing one on a rapo as well in addition to that we're looking at the shiaka area and we're doing a faced approach to undergrounding all our dry utility facilities in the shiaka area with undergrounding 9 residential and Commercial Services for undergrounding um and we're doing that in a partnership with our the shiaka association the city of Boulder the Historic District park and the community as well after we get through the undergrounding process we will take a deeper look at other sustainability and resiliency projects that we can do there as far as electrification and solar access next slide please in addition to that reliability was something that we've heard from the community that we really wanted to focus on so we are also evaluating battery storage projects that we can do here locally for critical infrastructures within the city of Boulder and so our team is looking at ways to do that um I

[90:00] spoke briefly about the North and South Broadway project where we are uh where we did the work order to address vegetation management and looping the system so that we would experience um a minimum amount of outages and I I'm happy to report that based on that work um we haven't had any additional customer complaints or um the city hasn't received any additional support about outages in that area um in addition to our Wildfire mitigation work it's something that we take very seriously and we continue to do across all of our communities but specifically in the city of Boulder where we're working to harden our system and um use detection cameras with the panel system C camera system that we uh executed here in the city of Boulder Boulder County as a a pilot project before we did it in all our other communities and it really was a way to be able to keep a uh a watchful eye on um where we're seeing potentials for wildfires next slide please um in addition to that we talk a lot about new programs and Innovation and so a part of that is looking at um

[91:02] not only how we Clos the Gap but a a project that was brought forward by Matt lurman who is also a staff member here is the zero emission communities and it really is looking at how do we continue to close the gap from an incremental standpoint with a utility scale program and so with that it it basically means that communities could opt in to a program where they would purchase um incremental utility scale renewable generation on their system to get to their 100% goal faster and so what you see here is a timeline on where we are with working with that project it really came out of our electric resource plan um and and where we're looking at continuing to have Community discussions and product development so we did a lot of modeling which means we looked at what are the resources that would be needed for the city of Boulder to close the gap and potentially now looking at projects that would meet that need and so you'll see more of that coming forward in filings that are happening throughout this year with our either just transition plan which is what we do when we're working on um in communities

[92:01] about closing our coal plants and what does that plan look like for us to help those communities not only with property taxes but Workforce Development as well um but also if it's not in that plan then there will be a SE separate application and so we look forward to updating Counsel on when that happens next slide please in addition we just recently put um together a concept paper that we're working on together with the Department of energy funding Grant um and this is around virtual power plants and so we're really excited about the opportunity to um explore that pilot project here locally in Boulder next slide and lastly uh our transportation electrification work is really looking at how do we help Advance the city of bers goals with having 30% of zero emission vehicles on the road by 2030 and so the projects that we're doing around that is looking at our Innovation fund Grant um funding which is a part of the um the transportation electrification plan and so locally

[93:02] we've distributed over $2 million here in the city of Boulder to help with that with and that's that takes up about 177% of the total fund of how it being um allocated and uh it looks at well and the way we've invested that is through our investment in um eco-friendly vehicles and infrastructure here in the city of Boulder as well as um working with parent uh Peri Transit company adding additional four vehicles as well as infrastructure to help support those vehicles and then expanding a car share program that's here locally and that's increasing their Fleet size by 50% with the funding that they received from this program and um enh enhancing their operational capacity so that they could uh grow with the addition to the 50% there are three addition additional projects that are coming up this year that continue to support that that's the 30th imperal B bidirectional charging program and it really is looking at um how do we test the ability of bidirectional EV charging paired with

[94:00] car shells to reduce the overall Demand on multif family buildings and then there's the fleet infrastructure to support um the infrastructure for the growing number of fleets that the city will have in addition to multif family um evaluating opportunities for adding addition six additional um infrastructures to affordable housing buildings here um in the city of Boulder next so that wraps up our disc um discussion in our presentation tonight to council we welcome any questions that you have this evening great thanks so much ify and Jack and Holly really appreciate you being here here with us tonight and talking about progress that were is being made I'll uh uh turn to council members to see if there are any questions for our Excel Representatives who are here with us tonight I can get it started yeah go ahead mat all right let right off the bat here we go um first thank you so much for being here absolutely app it's

[95:03] always um it's always great to get these updates and here where Excel is and it's certainly you know now that we're back in franchise with each other um you know having this collaboration is is nice for us to check in on um I first want to just uh appreciate uh council member shar's uh questions I thought they were really nice and I appreciate him getting out I had some of those similar questions um but to the presentation one thing I wanted to ask is I've got really three questions you know if demand sort of drove down the emissions uh or or or drove the emissions higher than expected in 2022 2024 and I know that there's some new modeling I'm just kind of wondering like what are the specific Capital Investments or decommissioning that's planned in order to overcome that Trend in your model to then allow you guys to dip below um our you know our goals and so I'm just sort of wondering what can the community look forward to in terms of new infrastructure and or decommissioning of things to to get us

[96:00] back on track sure I I will invite Jack to come up and help with a portion of that thank you for the question uh really that that graph was trying to show that the future of the generation Fleet is going to greatly get underneath the target that Boulder has so our plans right now are doing that they are incorporating higher degrees of uh demand that we're seeing from electric electric vehicle adoption in particular we're starting to see an earlier Trend with electrified Heating in homes as well so we build that into the forecasts that becomes part of the planning uh and we're you know that last Target it was three point we're expecting to hit 3.9 million tons and the target was 6.9 so we should be way way under the target but I'm not sure if I'm totally getting to your question well and maybe it's not here but I think you know sometimes shiny objects are a great thing and so knowing what are those what are those how big are they are they solar are they

[97:00] storage are they wind I mean it's important for us to sort of know where our investment in the rate base is going and sometimes pointing to like hey that thing we're building is is what's driving that that other thing we're building that thing we're decommissioning is what's getting us there so maybe that's not here but in general that that would be helpful for us and I think Community to know what their investment in Excel returns them and they know the thing okay fair fair enough um and we can provide more detail we kind of aggregated the the generation up to a nerd level of of resource planning I can respect that I I can tell you in uh 2022 the end of 2022 one of the Cole units and Pueblo retired at the end of 202 2022 another one will retire at the end of 2025 so those are some of the pieces going away um iy probably knows more about the local investment here um what we brought online recently was the two the really the two first large scale solar Plus Storage projects those are also in the ple pleo area those came online in the summer of 20123 it was

[98:00] several hundred megawatts it was a very large addition so our operators are now working with very large batteries for the first time ever not just that was just this year um so so those things are starting to happen um we brought yeah there's there's there's always a lot going on this is a slightly quiet period right now because we're ending that implementation on that plan and then we'll go into the implementation of the new plan that just got approved two weeks ago you'll hear us talk about those pieces coming online for probably the next four years wonderful I I'll just say I mean but we can get you unit specifics and gory details yeah I mean I just really m i mean at the big level we've all been we are all present for some of the the last decade when there was tension between community and Excel and I think there's a chance for us to sort of overc communicate what that partnership and what that investment is bringing to this community and so I think that's that's on us but I think it's also an opportunity for Excel and all of our partners to kind of just re really put it all on the table um in a me in a good way so I appreciate the work you're doing I I just would like to plug that for s for Community to know where that awesome happy to get more

[99:00] information we have a lot more thank you um along those lines I just have two other questions um is kind of do you guys I love the projections you have in terms of where reductions are going and generation do you have any projections on kind of rate based projections because I think there's a lot of concerns that um if we're investing in cleaner cheap for energy that at some point our rates should maybe Flatline certainly maybe decrease at some point so I'm just wondering is there a sense of when we might see that or or how we work with that with regards to our community understanding what the Investments are upfront on Capital but when do those Returns on investment in clean energy start to maybe uh uh bend the curve on on that rate base perhaps yeah and I'll start answering that and then um we'll welcome either Jack or Hy unless you had something right away okay um so I I think you know as it it's all projected as you said right um on how we're forecasting and the infrastructure that's needed in order to to re uh put

[100:01] those things in place right um and so um I think it it it will become apparent in the next couple of years of what we see uh as far as rate decreases for customers but um it it will be an ongoing thing that we will continue to Monitor and we're definitely dedicated to making sure that that we keep affordable prices for our customers and looking at them more closely as we do that and partnering with um energy Outreach you know Colorado and and different organizations to make sure that we're providing affordable cost for all of our our customers as well Jack I don't know if you had anything else to add to that um it's a tough question because I understand the expectation uh on I'd say so our system on the electric side get the microphone up please oh yeah sorry uh on the electric side there's three major areas there's generation transmission distribution the generation you're right there's there's a there's a really exciting Trend about

[101:00] gener Renewables is is an amazing story about cost Effectiveness cost coming down we can replace a lot of the existing generation with renewable generation at either neutral cost and sometimes saving costs we call it steel for fuel we can save having to charge customers for fuel which we don't earn a single dime on and we can we can do it with Renewables and that's better for everybody on the transmission and distribution side we haven't seen that type of cost decrease in fact we're seeing cost increases and that's something we're really trying to get our arms around I mean we all listen to read news listen to the news and what do you hear about for the last two to five years inflation so transmission has gotten more expensive distribution has gotten more expensive in the net netting all these things together what we're trying to do is keep the rates within an inflation type number or less than an inflation type number there's a lot more focus on that going forward and we're also asked to do different things and new things like wildfire mitigation that was a whole new area that we have to invest in the things we have to do on the distribution system are more

[102:00] sophisticated there you with you know electrifying Vehicles electrifying uh heating it it calls for more things that we need to do on the distribution grid so again like we're trying to keep it all within that that kind of inflation type of increase uh metric but it's it's going to be a really active conversation at especially at the Pu so we'll have a lot more to say about that appreciate that final question was sort of alluded to um and this and this might be a naive one on me because maybe they're out there but it something I I I own an electric vehicle and so I sort of curious as we increase the load and demand of charging current habit is to plug them in at night yeah it's when our least efficient and least environmentally friendly energy is being generated of course so the question I have is is how is are there plans to create incentives to flip that behavior so that we can start to drive daytime charging in different ways so we're leveraging when we're maybe at Peak um a climate friendly and green energy generation to charge our EVS rather than having a surge of a load when we'd

[103:01] expect to actually be down when we're maybe our dirtiest in terms of what's on the grid yes um we have programs now there's well there's two or three answers to that so um we do have time of use pricing which is emphasizing different it it it's asking you not to to 7:00 p.m. currently to 7:00 p.m. um the time of use pricing is very likely to shift 00 00 p.m. that's what the Public Utilities Commission is is kind of observing and we're observing the data too we we tend to see that as well um what we didn't show in the data too clearly when I was when I looked back at when we so when we formed the franchise agreement in 2020 we had 3% solar we've tripled that today and it's so 14% in 2024 is what it'll be and it'll be something like 24% in 2030 so that profile solar on the system has changed very fast and our time of use pricing is probably a little bit behind that and we're working through those processes with the commission to do that but for

[104:01] specifically that that sends a price signal to customers and the price signal is pretty closely tied to renewable generation so there's a nice Confluence of incre you know encouraging Renewables reducing curtailment reducing emissions reducing costs they generally line up not perfectly um but for electric vehicles now we have managed charging programs we have two one is called charging perks one's called optimize your charge if you're not in those we want you in those and and they're they're seeking to to encourage you to charge when it's more beneficial to the system generally when emissions are lower um so so the answer is yes we're trying to get more and more people into those programs if you're not in the we pay you to be in those programs so we want to encourage there's literally a like a rebate check you get to to enroll in those so maybe if you're in it talk to if I'll Corner out of my eye over at Jonathan Cohen to say we can evangelize that more with our community so um awesome but thanks for bringing that to our attention that's something I think we'd love to continue to evangelize because it sounds like a good program to change habits so appreciate that's all my questions thank you for for fielding

[105:00] those other questions Nicole thanks um and I will just direct you um my colleague Matt to uh study actually this is something excel's been looking at this charging behavior for over a decade and I know because I worked on a study when I was at the renewable and sustainable energy Institute where we were looking at how this time of use pricing impacts vehicle charging behaviors and so I think um just just a kudos to you for kind of having the foresight to be looking at that um over a decade ago and and thinking about how we can use that so yes the time of use pricing does matter and I can get you a paper on it if you're interested um so and I just wanted to thank you as well for the presentation for all this information um it you know it's always it's always nicer when we see things hitting their targets and I just want to celebrate this is a pretty big switch in a pretty short period of time time um and and I think it is quite impressive and I want to call out to I see a lot of the folks in the room who've been fighting for this for decades too um thank you for all the work to kind of um work with

[106:00] Excel and really move us toward decarbonization um I had a couple of questions that are really sort of focused on data and and what data is available for us to to see so one of the things that um I hear a lot is that people really are struggling to pay their utility bills um and you know as we move further into this climate emergency it really does become kind of a human right to have energy um so is there is there anything we can get on um data around how you're working with Community connections you're having with Community around um households that are being reached by some of the energy assistance programs that are helping people afford their bills because I know you're doing work trying to get out to our community members make sure they're aware of this is there anything can we get an update U like what percentage of households are you know are um connecting with these programs you know what are the targets that you're looking to reach in terms of energy assistance over the next 5 10 years too yeah absolutely we can provide a a update to council about the programs that we have

[107:00] and I know I've talked to a few of you about the red truck program which is our resource delivered educa resource education delivered program and it really is um our community our customer service reps going out to the community and meeting people where they are coming outside of our four walls to talk to them more about their bills and rebates and Energy Efficiency programs that we have available able to them in addition to that we recently um signed a contract with the Latino Community Foundation of Colorado and what they're going to help us do is is provide these um energy ambassadors and work in in commun and underserved population so that we're able to reach those that maybe who traditionally haven't had the seat of at A T at the table for discussions like this um and be able to um educate them and really learn how do we best meet the needs of that community and programs that we need to develop in order to do that so in the first first quarter what they'll be doing is recruiting um in each of our communities ambassadors to to work with us on those programs and reaching those individuals in that Community as well great thank you yeah

[108:01] and I think those are kind of this I would love to see those as we move um on in the years of what what are what are the targets you're trying to to reach in terms of percentage of households receiving assistance that you've reached out to and then where are you at in in Meeting those goals I would I would love to see that in the future absolutely um and then the other question question that I have is really around it's again a data question and and what we can get access to um and it's really around hardening so how can our residents and businesses know um whether they're in an area that's been hardened how much of our city is kind of set up to be resilient in the face of some of the climate challenges the hotter drier more Wildfire more flood prone climate that we're heading into how do they know if they need to you know be concerned or not um I think having some data around that would be really helpful to where are we as a city are we 20% hardened are we 60% when can we expect to get to 100% And then also thinking about how the electricity is transmitted to Boulder

[109:01] because it's not it's we don't we don't have sort of the micro grids and things that could help us be a little bit more resilient on a local level we've got energy coming in and how do we know if that's protected and how much is protected so I would be curious you know to hear a little bit about that now but also for coming back to us in the future I would love to have some of this information because I feel like that's critical for a community to know thank you absolute do you want to talk I mean it's yeah there there's there's a lot there uh and I think we should probably take that I'm sorry there there's that's a pretty technical question on the grid so we should probably take that back and come back to the city council there there are a couple things um that are underway that lead to more data there's something called distribution system planning which we built the first one in 2022 the next one will be November of this year that the first one is always kind of you you're finding your way the next one will be more evolved should have more of that data um on the transmission side I

[110:00] mean we continue to have a pretty good reliability rate on transmission and generation we're generally better than average performer on electric reliability performance um so we probably need to talk a little bit about what what how you define hardened or not as well um so it's probably a dialogue we can continue in the future great thank you um and just just one final question question and this is another request for data um one of the concerns that I hear from folks in the community is around the the large profits that EXL has as a for-profit company as um a a monopoly in our state with regard to energy and is there any way that we can get some information on how the profits are coming back into our community are being kind of reinvested um like what percentage are coming back to us of the money that um our residents are paying in their energy bills what's coming back to us that is going into the um infrastructure uh hardening the kind of climate resilient systems the energy

[111:01] assistance programs that sort of thing I feel like that would be a really wonderful data point to have for um the community and just to help them understand the the ways that we're partnering to make sure that people are getting access to the clean energy renewable energy we need um in sustainable and Equitable ways absolutely we can follow up that information something goe and then Tina for those of us who lived through this negotiation um it was a pretty hard Fort discussion and an emotional conversation within the community as to whether or not to continue our efforts to Excel and and so when you say that you've you've kind of missed the goals in 2022 it's it's

[112:00] yes it's a very small amount um and you're going to you project that you're going to miss the goals again in 24 by a little bit larger amount um that's going to get some people a little bit excited um and I understand that you have projections for 27 and 30 that are more favorable but it looks a little bit like we're kicking the can down the road and and saying all right we're not meeting our goals now but just wait we we will um and and that takes a little bit of a leap of faith so I'm wondering is there anything you can do to accelerate your efforts to try to meet those 24 goals as opposed to simply saying you know uh trust us we we we'll do better in 27 and we'll do really well in 30 and and um you know for those of you who are going to still be around in in 2050 we're going to do just great um and I I

[113:03] make that comment only in light of the fact that this was such a um a fraught conversation within the community and um you know I'd like to get a response on on on that issue if you could sure okay yeah I appreciate the question we anticipated it um couple things I guess 2024 as I said is a little bit of a quiet period and I and I do want to emphasize after you have an established resource plan there's a limited degree of things you can do to influence the outcome because once you have your system then you're then you operate the system you have and when you're operating the system it's what we sometimes call uh a reliability constrainted economic dispatch so you've got to dispatch for reliability first and then you look very closely at economics and then the third

[114:00] piece of that is emissions so our operators have very limited agree ability to control that without sort of compromising one of the other two factors and it's always those three um so 2024 I don't know if there's a whole lot we can do because we don't have any new resources coming online there's not much leaving the system either we're really sort of like right in a lull between the plans in in 2024 um we'll keep you updated as far as the status on the progress in 2024 we always try to see what we can do to reduce emissions uh hopefully you can see on that graph we've had steady progress really every single year uh we were down a million tons last year so the the trajectory is I'd say it's Nation leading still not hitting the targets totally own that wanting to be transparent and clear CLE with this community about that right now uh and we have learned a lot about forecasting uh Renewables and demand uh really since 2019 so uh I don't know if

[115:00] there's a specific thing we can promise right now we'll take that back and see what can be done just as a as an example um would you be prepared to accelerate the undergrounding effort uh in some fashion so that when people are uh harassing me at Council and and saying see I told you you know that they weren't going to meet their goals um I can say well they made a good faith effort to do so but they are also doing this um which is helping our community greatly I felt like I had to come up here and help Jack and iffy out a little bit with this one so just to reiterate um two two things one is that uh even though we say 27 trust us 230 trust us

[116:00] um we're not kicking the goal line and those firm 17 projects that were recently approved by the Public Utilities Commission through our approved electric resource plan is what we have a responsibility to not only the community but to the state to deliver on by 2030 and those are approved so we are now and we've got bids in those are hard bids those are hard projects and all of that generation of those 17 projects is committed we also through that um electric resource plan have a commitment that we have to retire um Hayden kamanche coal plant up in uh route County by 2028 we have to retire our brush C plant and transition it to natural gas um for the reliability and that we are required to retire commanche unit three down in Pueblo by um the end

[117:00] of 2030 so those are all hard plans that we we can't go back on um they're committed and we're we're on our way um I also want to just say that along with those ghg emission targets um when we established this partnership back in 2020 and we spent the summer listening to the community um talking with the city talking with the elected officials the partnership was bigger than what we were doing on our Electric System and delivering that clean energy and that was doubling down the commitment on what are we doing to ensure that um you know we stay open to delivering what the city of Boulder wants the zero Community emission project that is strictly coming from Matt and the city of Boulder and saying would you look at this and we brought it back we've worked on it the last couple of years with the city and that is potentially going to be proposed

[118:00] As A New Concept something we've never done before that will deliver that additional renewable energy that we can't meet your o our we can't meet your specific Community targets that is a commitment that we are um making to file that in June that's one um the chiaka undergrounding project that was that came straight out of um the community and asking us to really look at that and spend the time and that's a really complex electric distribution system with a lot of service laterals the infrastructure is really old we have barely any space to underground some of that distribution um but as you can see from iy's update uh we have been steadfast and continue to commit to making sure that we are delivering on that commit commitment so just to we will you know continue to double down and make sure that we are delivering on those commitments and anything more that the community wants and I just want to reiterate that that that partnership is

[119:01] bigger um than what we're doing I I just want to urge you to think about the fact that um we have substantial areas in this uh City that are located within the wildlife Urban interface and undergrounding there is a very important uh part of creating a resilient uh and fire resistant community and I hope you'll think about that thank you you don't need one but Ryan you got one iy and Jack thank you for being here and for the great presentation Al and also your other the written responses to um the the hotline uh memo that I wrote And to clarify those were questions from the community I um wish that my questions were as good as those um Council member Benjamin makes a good point I think that the public and I think most experts believe that in general Renewable Energy Technologies should be bringing costs down over time

[120:00] and so just a comment um to think about which is I do think our uh residents of Boulder has an interest in um the the view of their Monopoly energy provider um about when that might happen or I guess to that that whether that is true and then and secondly what is the compact for profit sharing and that reduction of costs so I don't ask you to answer that now but I just think that's kind of a big question that um is on um on people's minds I have two questions um the first one is on rate basing coal when will rate basing of coal end I think is it 2030 is that basically the year with the with the coal plants winding down yes and no so the last plant retires in 2030 there is a finance me mechanism to pick up the remaining Book value on that plant and it's called securitization so it takes that plant off of the rate base it turns it into debt Finance which is really we're just financing at the cost of debt that we

[121:01] incur to finance so it takes the equity return off of that plant um in 2030 okay so more less 2030 yeah okay thanks um and then my my my only other question is um on the subject of community questions um I I've heard uh residents ask me um do we really want to Electrify our our home um won't that reduce the reliability on the on the end of excel are they going to be able to handle it when we have more people going to Electrify and then with more EVS is this something that they should be worried about that Excel won't be able to manage um the grid if they go to an all electric home with with with no other Energy Systems um we're full planning to handle it it's uh it's built into plans for the electrification the sorry vehicle electrification plans we bring to the commission um we also have advanced a clean heat plan which has

[122:00] electrification of heating in it and we already had that happening anyway under DSM plan so um but it speaks directly to the challenge on the distribution grid I want to be very open with you about that we've seen the distribution grid is is getting a lot of challenges on it right now and that's why to your earlier question which wasn't your question question necessarily but sort of the statement about the you know aren't costs going down over time we're asking this distribution grid to do a lot more than it's done before and that's why we hesitate to kind of Promise This reduction of overall power costs when only a third of the bill is Generation third of the bill is Generation that's where the power costs that's where you see that the cost decreases compared to running existing fossil the other two major components here that you know we have to manage that all together so it's it's hard to promise both this greatly robustly built up distribution grid that's also going to be more underground it's also going to be more Wildfire resilient and also promise build declines okay thank you for entertaining my technical questions appreciate you

[123:00] being here hello thank you so much for the presentation and your time today um I just wanted to follow up on on other comments around and add trust building um and just anchor my comments in around trust building and I go back to the lovely bernee Brown um who reminds us some of the elements of trust building accountability transparency and integrity and so um I look forward to working with you all um I understand the targets were not met but are close and I want to honor that I also want to honor um the the investment side of this conversation the significant assets that have been acquired for wind and solar are significant um and so um I do understand that cost but I also understand the expectation that the costs were going to go down so again I

[124:01] also see a need for increased education because I didn't know um prior to reading the packet that uh what really goes into the cost um and so again I want to just honor that um I also wanted to lift up that um moving forward you know the best apologies change Behavior so hopefully um we can get there but I Echo um Mark's concerns around the forecasting um and so and so I say um I appreciate being more conservative and again the best apology is change Behavior so no I'm not going to be like I'm telling you strongly okay you didn't make them before I'm sorry we don't have a pattern so how do we again and that's why I appreciate um if you your comment comments around those 17 projects and the opportunity to really close that 25% Gap and so where can we get more transparency around those efforts um along the way and so that we're not

[125:00] waiting five years to have this conversation but really having an interchange with our community and what are the ways that our community can even step up in that work I think of Cu I think of our research institutions You're Not Alone um and so to the Ryan's comments around a monopoly you're a part of our community and so we have expectations around Partnerships that are deeper and stronger as we need to accelerate uh moving on I do have just a couple of things one I talked a little bit about the investment piece I didn't hear too much about the maintenance around that so just always coming from Colorado Parks and Wildlife where deferred maintenance was significant um recognizing that these new technologies also require significant maintenance as they are new right and they're going to be significant challenges there which will increase our bill so I also want to acknowledge and lift up that in addition to the Investments being made I would also love to hear more about the maintenance uh the maintenance plan that's going to be associated with that in addition um going to that transparency um we love to hear more

[126:00] about the community advisory panel the work groups how boards and commissions are being engaged again uh we are a part of a larger ecosystem and I would love to see more authentic meaningful engagement I'm grateful for those Leslie and others who have been holding it down engage and showing up at meetings and I'm eager for many many more of our community to be active members of this conversation uh which will require all of us to make significant changes in the ways that we interact with our natural world and respect that inter inter and respect that World um I want to close out with one of the most important comments that I'm going to make about this and that is water I did not hear or see one thing about water in all of this Energy electric energy takes water Natural Gas gas takes water and so does solar not as much significantly less but not as much I need us to talk more about that

[127:03] intersection with water and electric and electricity and energy I need us to deeply understand that when we are saying we want more electric we are saying we are committing more of our water resources to Electric so when I hear we want more housing that are going to be electric that means some of that water that would be your drinking water is going to go on to having lights on all day so although I appreciate and I understand the challenges that you face we face this as a community and I'm eager for a broader conversation around our energy needs our natural resource management Integrations as we look at our retreat coming up I know climate was an issue that everybody spoke on on the campaign trail and I was also happy to see those who are already on Council already talking about these initiatives I'm grateful for the incredible staff we

[128:01] have through Jonathan um but I was disappointed not to hear and see anything about water we have significant senior water rights that's what's called in the Indigenous World paper water as opposed to water there is less precipitate I'm coming from Colorado Parks and Wildlife y'all I spent four years in a Min Masters essentially with natural resource department heard from them every month on what was going on took advantage of every opportunity and I can sit here and tell you and that's why I ran on climate and cultural resilience we must speak about the water intersect so I look forward to working with you and P not doing that um not trailblazing either what am I doing what are we doing we are evolving with all of you thank you so

[129:02] much thank you um so in the the targets that we have in the settlement agreement those were based on the currently or what was at the time the approved resource plan as is that correct so we have these new targets for 207 2027 and 2030 why do we believe that we're going to hit these new targets that are based on the resource plan when we couldn't hit the old targets that were also based on the resource plan okay um timing matters about how all this happened the last resource plan was approved in 2018 the boulder franchise was settled in 2020 limited ability to change the outcomes there the 27 and 30

[130:01] targets we have a lot of ability we could plan to hit those targets um that that were forged there also the commitment was much broadened to all the stakeholders that that interact with a resource plan in Colorado and it's it's a lot it's probably three to four NOS three state agencies um two to three municipalities um all settled on this on these Targets on on Parallel targets let's call them but in the same years uh the commission approved that uh also the margin to hit this is as you can see I mean the Gap is three to four million tons it's it's a massive percentage on those targets these targets were always close um our understanding was that this was in part part of the rationale for having these targets was to ensure that the progress was steady um and not just leading up to 2030 because at that time and still state law required us to hit a 80% reduction by 2030 there's an

[131:00] argument that you wouldn't have to do a lot and then and then you could take the last couple years and and then sort of really reduce the emissions so my understanding was those targets were forged partially to kind of create a steady you know incentive or pressure or Target pressure to continue progress we were fully planning to do that anyway but it was it was sort of a higher level of confidence to have that struck into the agreement to have that continual slope downward so thank you I appreciate that and that the systemic changes that this plan represents um I share concerns you know particularly as communities across the Front Range look at electrification um not only of our transportation systems not only of our Heating and Cooling of buildings but we're looking at things like you know we're looking at a new recck Center swimming pools you know things that are going to take massive amounts of electricity in order to run properly and how do we make sure that our grid is um

[132:01] ready for that and that we can still hit not just the targets promised in our agreement but our sort of new shiny targets that are um promised for 20 27 and 2030 you don't need to answer that but those are my concerns and hopefully um will be taken to heart thank you thank you all right great questions everybody I got one more and then I think we may be done with you um appreciate all of your answers mine is about the zero missions communities uh really appreciate your willingness to consider that program uh that our our staff has worked on really hard so appreciate that partnership and I saw you had a Next Step about filing for it later this year uh which is great to see but can you outline line what the potential next steps after that would be in terms of when might we be looking at new generation being built that we would be um for the city of Boulder like how far away are we from that if everything goes

[133:00] well yeah great question so part of the part of the thinking in developing that that we worked with Mr lman on is uh the ability so the last resource plan I didn't talk about this a lot but there's there's an RFP process in that request for proposals we got a thousand bids for Generation projects so as Holly mentioned we have 177 new projects in this portfolio that's approved so we're going to take a 17 out of not every one of those is unique project but there's probably a couple hundred unique projects out of the Thousand um so that means there are there there are remaining bids that we didn't use in our in our Pro portfolio and we also have we also have a backup portfolio because sometimes the bids do sometimes they just don't come through so we have kind of a we have kind of a waiting list if you will so outside of our preferred or sorry approved portfolio in our waiting list there's still remaining bids on the list that can be uh negotiated with towards this uh generally speaking these bids uh the whole pool were mostly aimed at coming online from 2026 to 2028 so

[134:02] presuming we get to kind of you know Mutual business terms on this proposal we take it to the commission uh get approval on that you it usually takes 10 months for approval on something like this um conceivably you could have a new generating resource that is directly attributable to the zero missions Community program generating or storage because we looked at solar and storage combinations and there are remaining bids that are solar plus Toge combinations that could be conceivably in sort of the 2026 to 2028 time frame online generation that's helpful to understand thanks for that all right any final thoughts seeing none uh thanks again so much for joining us tonight for answering all of our questions and for the continued partnership and we look forward to achieving all of these goals together in the next few years thank you for your time thanks have a good night and with that Elicia if we could go to our next matter please of course sir thank you our next matter on tonight's agenda is item 6B

[135:02] and it is the update on state legislation thank you so much mayor and as Carl gets himself organized I'll say that I know we had a conversation about um what was coming up in um the state um legislative agenda or some of the items that were coming down the pike today we'll have continued conversation of uh some of the items that um were just covered in a recent intergovernmental Affairs meeting so with that hopefully I've bought you time to accommodate Carl well done thank you nura good evening uh council members um I'm gonna provide a brief legislative update specifically focusing on state legislation uh we're a little bit over a month through the State Legislative session four months long in total we have over 500 bills that have been introduced and we have roughly my counts right about 25 bills that the city has taken a position on uh

[136:00] mostly in favor at least one of them in in opposition we're using your policy statement to direct us on what those positions should be and we're also turning to your council's intergovernmental Affairs committee uh for direction where the policy statement is not so clear uh so this evening I'm joined by two of our our our two lobbyists Adam mberg and wol coin who are participating remotely um and they they will help me do a brief update on 10 bills uh nine of these are ones that we are already supporting one of them we have not taken a position on and I'm going to start off with that and um we'll try to go through it all and then take your questions if that works okay so the first one is the transit oriented communities bill bill it has not yet been introduced uh Boulder continues to regularly meet with the governor's office and sponsors to understand the implications and to share our potential conflicts and concerns to the city uh we've been told to expect

[137:02] that it could be introduced as early as tomorrow early next week we will see um we expect it will it will require at least the introduced version an average of 40 dwelling units per acre zoning density for Transit corridors with certain Parcels like floodways Exempted although we wouldn't know until the state creates its map currently we estimate that about 30% of Boulder could be subject to this average zoning density requirement here's what surprising to us our internal calculations suggest that Boulder could meet this average zoning density requirement without needing to improve any rezonings so that's new from the last time I spoke with you however two big caveats we would need need to rely on allowing the buildout of residential development to its maximum capacity in our industrial zones this could be less than ideal and secondly we would lose the ability to subject development uh in Parcels less than five

[138:02] acres to discretionary review I think we all agree that our discretionary review process has brought about lots of important improvements to our development um under the bill as it is expected be introduced jurisdictions will be required to report on how they meet the requirements by the end of 2026 and how they they meet this average zoning requirement otherwise known as a Housing Opportunity goal by the end of 2027 state enforcement would begin in 2028 and non-complying municipalities would be subject to having their Highway users trust funds um distributions taken away so basically we we would not be getting our hutf distributions if we were not in compliance um in 2023 that equaled $2.4 million so as I said this is this is the one bill that we'll be speaking about that we have not taken a position on we're still trying to understand it um

[139:02] and it and since it hasn't been introduced we haven't felt the need to actually take a position but we will be taking it to council's in our governmental Affairs committee to have a more in-depth conversation in fact I would I would expect our next meeting of that committee will be primarily focused on that bill the other bill that I want to speak about also related to land use and and just so so you know there is a lots of bills under the category of land use affordable housing there's there's ones on um kind of comprehensive plans there's one on occupancy parking requirements um there's another version of the accessory dwelling units bill but the main one one that's that I wanted to speak about is the one that's been introduced by representative ambli it's hb24 1152 and it applies to specified cities including Boulder it requires that adus be permitted by administrative approval so again no discretionary review I think that part of it is

[140:00] consistent with our current standards it would prohibit local governance from requiring owner occupancy or additional parking that part is different than what we currently require um it protects local government's ability to regulate short-term rentals allow larger or smaller adus apply impact or similar fees apply historic district standards incentivize affordability or housing for the local Workforce uh apply other standards not specified in statute and it also creates an $8 million Grant and financing program for jurisdictions that adopt at least one of the following strategies that encourage adus pre-approved Adu plans incentivize affordability through lower fees and other incentives Adu Tech Assistance programs short-term rental regulations incentives for accessible adus and any other Innovative strategy that's that's all I have heard up uh the grant program then would be

[141:00] available to cities to encourage affordable housing to encourage long long-term rentals for members of the local Workforce or or to quote support other demonstrated housing needs in the community so quite a bit of um leeway that we would receive and how would uh be able to use the funding so the city is in support of this bill um we were originally in a um amend position the inter intergovernmental Affairs committee uh had an opportunity to understand the implications of the introduced version of the bill and uh shifted us to a support position so with that I'd like to uh again hoping to try to get through these summaries before we have a discussion if if that works for you and I'd like to turn it over to our lobbyist um I believe that Adam mberg is going to start so Adam if you had a chance to unmute that'd be great great uh thanks Carl uh it's nice to see all of you at Council uh remotely and I want to

[142:02] just start by thanking you for letting will and I participate remotely it's been kind of crazy down here at the Capitol and uh the prospect of uh having to drive home in the middle of the night wasn't really uh all that great but Carl asked me to cover a couple topics uh starting with renters um the city has taken positions on uh several bills in this category um and I think that you know our the way we're looking at is this session really is focused on housing and folks who are renting um and I think it's really being driven by the fact that uh the last stat I saw that there were 35,000 evictions in the last 12 months I mean and which is to me a staggering number um the three bills that I want to highlight start with Senate Bill 146 which would create new tax credits for qualified renters uh

[143:00] single renters who make up to $75,000 would be eligible for up to $1,000 or to $1,000 worth of tax credit and couples who make up to $150,000 would be eligible for $2,000 worth of tax credits um it would uh you know be a little bit uh mobile as income rise but those are the Baseline numbers that at least the bill was introduced as um uh I think the bill has probably a pretty good shot of making it through the process there'll probably be a few changes but I think that one's going to um move through the second Bill uh I want to highlight in this category is House Bill 1099 which would eliminate eviction court fees um what a lot of the data say is that people who are evicted just just end up not appearing in court because they can't afford to pay the fee to even fight their eviction so this would eliminate the fee completely that tenants pay when responding to an eviction filing um again seems to be

[144:01] fairly broad support through the legislative process and uh it's starting to move and then lastly in the renters category is a bill to collect and study the data uh around evictions and would require uh the courts to county by county do a monthly aggregate eviction data for people who were uh forcibly uh removed from their properties and I think that you know there's been a lot of noise at the capital uh around the issue and um folks are responding by saying look please help us quantify exactly what's happening and I think that again this data bill is going to be one of those bills um that's going to move all the way through it seems to have broad support there isn't much uh opposition so in the renting category those are the three I wanted to cover and then in the next category Carl uh asked us to cover is around gun violence

[145:00] prevention and I know the city has been very active over the years in this space there are by last count I think something close to 12 bills either introduced or being planned to be introduced uh around gun violence prevention I want to highlight just two of them uh the first being cipel 131 which would prohibit the carrying of firearms in what is being defined as sensitive spaces it would apply to both open and concealed carry and sensitive spaces is a very very long list but would include things like government buildings Parks playgrounds recck Centers Public Gatherings um hospitals Banks a and uh and places uh like rallies and any other essentially any place where there's a lot of people uh Gathering um I think in the list of

[146:00] bills that are being considered this one is going to have a lot of debate about it and I would expect that the long list of sensitive spaces is likely to get paired down before the bill uh moves all the way through the process if it does at all to go more into that if folks have questions and then the other bill I I want to uh mention is House Bill uh uh 1292 which was introduced uh two days ago it is a bill that would prohibit the um sale or transfer of assault weapons um a similar bill was introduced last year uh it failed in the house Judiciary Committee the house Judiciary Committee looks a lot different than it did last year uh because of a a bunch of changes at the legislature and uh by my count that bill will easily sail through that committee and uh and very very likely move through the State House the Senate

[147:01] looks a little different than the state house and I don't yet know if it will make it all the way through and um uh I think that's really the place that we're going to spend a lot of time thinking about uh what the strategy is and and how that looks but those two bills I think are going to draw the most conversation in the gvp space and uh we wanted to bring those to your attention um I'm going to turn it over to will to cover I think three other bills in the what we called the other category but things that the city's uh interested in and Carl's got us uh keeping track of great thanks Adam uh good evening everyone my name's will coin I'm Adam's business partner uh it's nice to see see you all I'll try to be kind of quick because I'm sure that folks have questions uh in the other category a few things first of all uh House Bill 1178 is the bill that would restore

[148:01] local government authority to regulate certain pesticide uses um many of you know this is an issue that the city of Boulder has been involved with some time um and that we are actively supporting the bill actually had its first commit hearing tonight and will move to the floor of the um state house um the bill you know this issues come up a few times in the last couple of years it's still got a challenge in the state senate but we're more optimistic now than we have been in the past that um that that law can finally be changed and some local control can be restored around pesticide usage um the next issue is actually coming a bill coming from Boulder's own representative juny Joseph who is working with Colorado Secretary of State and a handful of other legislators to put in uh establish a new regulatory fra framework for deep fake

[149:00] Communications around elections and candidates um this is an issue that you all may have already heard of may have seen some of the state media coverage or even National media coverage around um obviously Ai and the use of Deep fix is really concerning to many many people and this is a a first attempt at the state level somewhat mirroring a bill that is seems to be stuck in Congress right now that I think actually our US senators are also involved with um but it establishes a basic framework and allows for civil penalties um and for the state to go after people that uh post deep Conta that's not content that is not labeled as such it will require labeling of that kind of content online um I imagine that bill actually will probably pass and get through and signed and probably not face a ton of opposition um lastly I wanted to mention Senate Bill

[150:01] 81 uh this is a bill um that is starting in the Senate it will be heard in a couple of weeks in its first Committee hearing and it's a bill that uh looks to speed up some of the phase out of P um chemicals in consumer products um there are already in law is a phase out for a number of products on a timeline this bill would look to speed up that um that phase out and add a few additional products um and that bill it's got a lot of support but is going to have a ton of Industry push back and it'll be interesting to see if it can make it through um through the state senate so those are the three that were on my list I'll pass it back to you Carl excuse me thank you will thank you Adam um so I'd like to open it up the council now uh Mr Mayor U one thing I will say is I wanted to acknowledge and thank um council member schuhart who did

[151:02] testified today on the uh restoration of local control for pesticides this is the second time he's testified in the last two weeks um it's not always easy you have to spend a couple hours often times and so just want to honor his his commitment to do that it's really helpful and he represents the city well great well thanks thanks for that Carl thanks uh will and Adam uh questions on nebs okay I got Tina and then Mark yeah I just had a quick question about the rent uh credit um are there is there any thought to either study impacts or to restrict the credit to people who are in affordable housing um understanding that a landlord if they're aware that there's more money available might just raise the rent and not um really even though the person who's paying the rent gets a credit their net it doesn't actually help them financially because we don't have any lever to control the rent on the top end

[152:03] the rent will remain flexible yeah I I think it's a it's an interesting point and I have not heard that part of the conversation um but it's certainly something that we can raise with the sponsors thank you Mark just one question um in the memo that you sent around to us on these various pieces of legislation um you indicated our position on the um AI generated defect uh deep fake uh law as deliberating and my question is why are we deliberating and not supporting um so so the the link to the report on all the bills that I included in the memo is constantly evolving so I I believe what happened is when you looked at it we were deliberating and since then we had the intergovermental

[153:01] Affairs committee convene a recommend that we update the policy statement to address bills like this and then of course sequentially they said and let's support this bill so that was how it happened and yes just an acknowledgement that that report at any given time is is not going to be the reflection of the lightest unless you're seeing it at that moment I'm glad that we uh changed our view thank you anything else seeing none uh I think that's all we got for you so Adam and will really appreciate all the work you do for us down at the capital and monitoring the rapidly changing situations so appreciate all that effort and Carl as always for you staying so deeply involved great thanks everyone thanks good night have a good night all right Elicia can we go to our uh first matter from mayor me members of council please yes sir thank you the item number eight is Matters from the

[154:01] mayor and members of council and 8A is the discussion to confirm council's position to decline or accept moving forward with the consideration of a ceasefire resolution regarding the Israeli Gaza conflict very good and a Matt not to put you on the spot but you were the one who requested this item so this was a matter from this member of council would you like to start off with how you're you're interested in us proceeding on this or your thoughts on this yeah I appreciate that Aaron um I so I mean we just look out into the audience and we see uh signs and we see a lot of members of our community who are voicing their perspectives on um an international conflict um that is occurring quite a long distance from our landlocked City here in Boulder Colorado and it impacts some of you directly some of you indirectly some of you just through having a care for those that are experiencing difficult Andor traumatic

[155:00] or or beyond that just sort of uh impossibly difficult times in their lives and so just want to understand respect that that is what's going on and and acknowledge that but my goal with making this request was really simple we've been hearing from Community a request that we continue on our regular policy that we do not weigh in on International uh matters and conflicts and then other members of community saying no no you should and you should use that uh uh uh part of your policy that that that allows you to uh start a public process to weigh in and to contemplate um making a resolution or statement on international issues and so really all I want to do is bring this to our attention so we can make a decision I think the community we owe the community a decision one way or the other and so we're not dragging the community along with indecision and so I think that's what uh my goal was to bring it here tonight was that we could make a decision one or the other to uh open a process to pursue a resolution or not in which case by then reaffirming that our default position is to not weigh in on International matters and so

[156:00] I just want to open that up for Council to weigh in on that tonight um and also to just give Community clarity as to where this body um in Boulder City Council stands on that issue uh at this point in time thanks for that and just to to be clear in terms of explaining to people how our process these work with uh we have a concept called a not of five if um council members want to add something to our work plan U can't be done unilaterally requires a majority of council to agree to that and so then we look to council uh for a not of five and see if there are at least five members of city council who want to engage in adding something to the work plan so the question tonight in front of us is whether there are five or more council members who would like to begin a public process to consider a ceasefire resolution and we can weigh in on this so I Ty did I see your hand if you would you like to to speak you're you're the first hand I saw who's at the top of all right

[157:01] um I'll start off by saying thank you for holding space in our agenda for this conversation I want to actually clarify that um our current position is not the default position it is the position that the previous Council or whoever came up with that handbook took because this Council has not only weighed in for Iraq but this Council has also weighed in on South Africa on Myanmar this Council has even done Financial boycotts minimal but there so again again you can look it up I I I I was surprised to hear it as well cuz I only heard about Iraq then I find out wait y'all did speak on South Africa thank you so much you did speak on Myanmar thank you so much we are capable we actually do

[158:03] but we decide and that is an investment to decide on International Affairs and I don't take that lightly as somebody with a master's degree in International Education with a focus on International Affairs I deeply understand the interconnectedness with our city and not just from the 1.6 million that was referenced before but we also have international students in our University which is a part of our community we have international employees and staff and residents who are part of our world renowned world touching research institutions we have federal agencies like Noah and nist I just actually came back from Noah doing some trainings for them and so I just say that to say I believe there is a role that we should play I am interested in having that broader conversation about what is

[159:01] the role of local councils in international Affairs because of the breakdown that I'm seeing in our democracy sadly if the representatives who were elected who had the actual Authority and power to do their job did their job and responded to the people's then I feel like we wouldn't even be here they wouldn't be here and I'm so proud of our Senators thank you so much thank you so much because this is too for Israel this is to for the hostages this is to our Collective future and so I am hopeful that we can revisit that and not just for this this is also climate this is a climate issue that is going to affect us the US military is the fifth largest emitter we have five years we are at the

[160:01] Event Horizon as I just said I was at Noah apparently PS we're losing our currents I don't even know I don't even know I I don't want to be the bearer bad news but I'm saying this because we are at the Event Horizon and it is time to make bold stat ments about we want we want to do as a collective and what we are willing to sacrifice and so yes Mark we have a lot on our plate around housing around Transportation around H homelessness and unhoused around our climate all of these things are interconnected I didn't move to Boulder to be in a bubble I moved here to be a leader I moved here because we're audacious don't don't y but y'all were good so thank you so much and again I want to honor and again I I really want to express my love for the whole diaspora of the Jewish um diaspora for those who call for a

[161:02] ceasefire and those who do not I understand pain and grief and intergenerational pain I understand what it's like to have people want to kill you just for existing and breathing I understand that viscerally through my bones and so believe I fight with you side by side and with all of my panel uh my Council mates as well I do believe we have a role to play We Are impacting it I'm on the visitors bureau that's a significant International footprint as well not to mention the tech field that we host here the medical field the defense fields that we host here here do not act like we are do not have skin in the game here you can decide you don't want to play but please do not act like we do not have implications internationally and we don't have an impact and we we and we

[162:00] don't matter that our voice collectively doesn't matter because it does so thank you for this time I am in for the consideration and also again recognizing that this would also require going back to Carl and his team cuz I'm thinking of of of of Congo see my phone is all messed up I even refuse to get another phone until this thing just dies dead because I know children died for this I know they did I see it now I go to Sudan and so when I said as an African-American before and somebody put me on fire for that that's what I meant I understand the intergenerational Continuum that we are on and I understand understand that the way that our country is positioning us right now is dangerous for all of us and our capacity to live Seven Generations from now here in this beautiful beautiful place we get to call home

[163:00] thank you and thanks for that TAA no please please nothing in the audience other thoughts and we also don't all have to talk as well but Nicole thank you um I just want to kind of recognize again right our discussion around um how we move forward from here uh I really feel like people are not going to stop coming um whether we say no or yes tonight um there's just too much pain and we see that we see that in every person who's speaking to us and I just want to note that too I see your pain and thank you for coming and sharing it with us because it's too much to hold alone what I would love for us to do is to find a way for forward to dialogue through difficult international issues to create predictability on when and where and how we speak for the community on international issues because it is a big responsibility um there's something that

[164:00] that I read uh a while ago that really stuck with me and I just want to read it tonight because it it just I'm feeling called to share this with you all tonight um it's a blog post by uh Rabbi Dan Rutenberg um she wrote it on October 13th 2023 it's called a lot of things are true and I encourage you all to go and read the entire thing because it is worth reading so I'm going to start with her words here I'll let you know when I stop and start using my own words again these are my personal opinions not those of my employer or anyone else they're also not the entirety of my personal opinions there are a lot of other things I think that are not reflected here I'm really tired right now y'all it's been a lot these last many long days I'm sure everybody's going to be angry that I'm not representing something fairly or clearly enough please do not yell this is important and so much is at stake here and so many of us are carrying so so much love and care and also trauma into this conversation

[165:01] processed or not epigenetic or not we are all trying our best to feel our way towards a more whole world one that honors all of our inherent dignity one that has enough for everyone is safe for everyone gives care to everyone we are all doing our best I'm certain that I miss the mark somewhere these are not the 20 Commandments there's some things to consider as I as put forth by one person and I'll just read four of the points she made one there is no justification for the mass murder of Innocents there is no justification for bombing a Dance Festival for kidnapping Elders children peace activists gunning down families burning houses with people alive in them for posting the murder of a grandmother on on her own Facebook profile for her grandchildren to see it hamas's attack was a war crime murdering Jewish children is not fighting for human rights war crimes are not the path to Liberation two there is also no justification for blowing up buildings

[166:00] without warning for bombing hospitals the bombing of children for illegal blockades that turn tiny strips of land into open a prisons for unlawful killings forced displacement house demolitions and land theft abusing children and detention restrict on movement dehumanization and Collective punishment over 55 years of occupation and so much more three Hamas is not the Palestinian people four Netanyahu and his Ultra far-right government is not the Israeli people 14 it is in both Netanyahu and hamas's interests for you to take extreme positions the path to Palestinian freedom and to peace and safety for everyone requires seeing everyone's humanity and rooting for everyone's Liberation that's the way out that's the only way through 19 at the end of the day everyone must be safe free and allowed to flourish because everyone is Holy created in the image of the Divine nobody's children should be killed no

[167:02] buddies what's happening in the Middle East these are my words now has consequences beyond our borders spending taxpayer money on weapons that are killing women and children takes away from our communities from our food housing education Healthcare and climate resilience the enemy is not each other it is the global autocracy that empowers the oppressive tactics of alterite extremists like Netanyahu and Trump that feeds the military-industrial complex and that propagates the racist and capitalist systems that benefit from our anger with each other I would welcome finding a way for our city to support an outside group working on something that brings people together that helps us direct our anger at the oppressive systems that are hurting us and some of us more than others and that helps us find a common ground in the meantime maybe at our Retreat we can consider how to set up a way to weigh in on international issues because nothing about the world in which our community is situated is going to get easier with time and we're all impacted by the things that happen

[168:00] locally and globally if we don't have a way to help lead our community Through International conflicts I fear we and future councils will be facing these issues with increasing frequency so I'd love for us to discuss our policy on international issues perhaps as a retreat or even a work plan item because I don't think it's going to be a quick discussion but it is important and this is all connected and feature councils will thank us if we can help find a way through thanks other thoughts or um I can offer something um no well just saying I appreciate everyone for being here and um your passion uh for justice and and the making the world a better place is very evident um particularly for staying with us for 2 hours of Excel Energy and State Legislative issues um but I just I say I I don't think that this is something that we should take up um we have uh so

[169:00] many huge problems right here um in our town of Boulder Colorado dozens of people living out on our streets uh people dying in traffic violence on on a regular basis um and any number of major local problems in issues where the nine of us can have a very direct and immediate impact and I feel um that that is what we need to focus on as a council and that um foreign policy matters um regardless of what they are is not something that we we should be spending time formally considering so I apologize to everyone I know that's a not what you're looking for uh many of you here tonight but I do feel like we should focus on the problems that we can make a real difference on in our community Matt since I certainly uh made the request I feel it's appropriate for me to weigh in just uh where my position is um I I don't feel like my personal opinions or feelings about the Israeli Gaza conflict or any International conflict should um I don't think they should transcend the role in

[170:00] jurisdiction of this city council as mayor Brockett pointed out um we have people dying right now in this community a lot of them sadly in December we were at a visual for over 50 unhoused individuals that had died in 2023 those are right in front of us right here and it's important for us to be tackling those things I worry about the slippery slope at this point there are 114 Global armed conflicts 45 in the Middle East and North Africa 35 in Africa 21 in Asia seven in Europe six in Latin America if we start down this path here when will it stop how do we Define what is the threshold how do we Define when we do it how we do it how often we do it I worry it's the cost of so many other things is it our continued conversation about police reform is it our continued conversation about Vision zero is it homelessness what are the things that we sacrifice and stop doing to pursue a

[171:02] plethora of more and more of these resolutions and time studied and effort in this Das to weigh in on those international issues when we're not saving the lives of an unhoused person that's going to die of AR can this week or die of opioid overdose this week why aren't we fixing that so these are the things that I feel are important my personal position on wanting the conflict in isra Israel and Gaza to end is profound I want it to end just as much as anybody but my personal opinion should not get in the way of how this city operates and the commitment we've made to this community to solve the issues that are directly in front of us if we had a well handle on all of those then say have at it but we are underwater and we are drinking out of a straw trying to breathe as we get through these issues that are in front of us they are difficult they are long lasting and they require our full undivided attention to meet the everyday needs of people in this community so um I think we need to um not move forward

[172:01] with uh pursuing um uh a ceasefire resolution and continue to stay out of international affairs uh I have a reputation for always listening I'm actually good with disagreement though because I don't think that I I don't agree with you and you might not agree with me and it's okay with me because I'm want to hear but I guess the question is is are you okay if I say I want to stick with my Lane which is Municipal dialogue Municipal projects you're not okay I'm okay with you feeling this this so I hope that you're okay with my vote but if you're not I just have to stand with why I was voted in and that was to take care of Municipal problems and even after October 7th people did not come up to me and ask my opinion on the Middle East they didn't they want to know what

[173:01] are we going to do as a city council to make a difference in climate change to do something about people experiencing homelessness and mental illness so much suffering going on right here right in this County so I am going to not want to go forward with uh this resolution but I will say what I do want is for me to be a part of community discussions on peace if that's not what you want okay that is what I want and I'm willing to talk with anybody about peace and how we can come together once again as a community and not demonize each other and not be against each other because we disagree I'm okay to disagree and still love people I am and I hope you are as well and so that is where I'm going to go and my phone number is always there for people to call and discuss as long as we respect each other civil and we care about each other and that's the

[174:03] truth and yep Mark I just want to express my agreement with my colleague Matt's um comments um I look at our work plan I look at if you if you make a list of the 10 most important issues in Boulder and that list can change from person to person but Pick 10 we have solved none of them we have made progress we have made improvements but we've solve none of them and we are in a a situation now where we want to do so many things and we are constrained in our ability to pay for those things and those are all of the conversations that we need to be focusing on um as I said make that list we we have solved none

[175:01] we've been here for several months we're going to be here for the next couple of years and I'm not sure at the end of those couple of years we will still have a list of 10 uh major items that we will have not solved so I have you know I have previously indicated where I'm coming out on this I'm reiterating that now I I I don't think that's our job and I think we need to um simply make that clear and move on thank you okay Lauren I want to appreciate the words of council member Adams that she shared with us um about how interconnected we all are the words signs and emails from everyone everyone in the audience I would want to place this conversation in the context of other past and future Council action while no one on Council has asked

[176:01] for it I think we could unanimously decry the terrorist acts of October 7th and ask for a return of hostages we are currently working on a statement speaking out against Rising anti-semitism and islamophobia in our community we should also be able to denounce the bombing of schools the killing of journalists the attacks on hospitals and the withholding of Necessities such as food Water Shelter and medication from more than 2 million people historically Boulder City Council has made statements as council member Adam said against the Iraq War South Africa Myanmar clearly we have the ability to make a statement here in the words of a truly great man it is not just the conscious evil actions of one person that lead to catastrophe it is also the small cowardly non-actions that exist in each

[177:02] and every one of us all the time it may be convenient in this moment for us to use Council rules as a shield to avoid weighing in on inter ational issues but it is not right it is a cowardly action that fails both our community members and sherks the responsibility that comes with the platform and the power our community has given us I understand and respect where my colleagues are coming from but I believe this non-action is part of a greater willful ignorance that will be remembered by history as a systemic failure to speak up for people whose voices are actively being silenced at least 28,000 of whom have lost their lives as a direct consequence of these atrocities history will judge us not by the convenience of our choices but by the con courage of our convictions and

[178:01] the actions we take in challenging times I hope my colleagues will join me in asking City staff to work on a ceasefire resolution that speaks out against this dire humanitarian crisis thank you y did you want Ryan I don't know how I could improve on what Dr spear said um but I'm gonna I'm gonna try a few words this is an impossibly challenging issue and it is a local issue that's clear looking at around the room today and at the last couple of meetings Boulder residents and their families loved ones and communities are suffering uh the the threat of rising islamophobia anti-Semitism and hate is real we have to stand against it and I agree with council member Adams uh that

[179:01] we have a lot of skin in the game on this I last talked about this at a campaign Forum it was Saturday October 13th at the uh women's league of Voters and since then I've focused on listening and it would be an understatement to say that I'm still learning one thing that has become clear is that if we had a negotiated agreement that we were being asked to sign this wouldn't be very hard at least for me but the reality is that going forward is not about making a decision but it's about starting a process of doing the work bringing this community together to create the right agreement which hasn't been done we would have to think about the qual uh the qualifications that would go into an agreement um what will we say about the hostages what will we reflect on with respect to the role of Hamas in in the future of

[180:00] Gaza what what else for the rest of the region what would our quality standards be for this um I I don't think about this in terms of having a procedural problem I think ethics required that if we decide something's important enough we can change procedure I don't think this is a problem of principle um I think that fundamentally We could decide to do this and and I don't think it's a policy challenge so much either I mean we do take on bigger issues where we have Exxon Mobile and Suncor in court right now um but I do have a a problem and it's it's really the project management of this and it's um my my challenge is starting a project that I really am concerned that we're not resourced for looking around this room um to do in a way that would not threaten to exacerbate tensions to start um and in that context I would just like to either

[181:01] remind you or underline that you you have a city council here that's being paid for something like a handful of hours a week that's being expected to make transformational progress on homelessness uh to do the same with affordability and accessible options for housing that's letting a lot of people not be able not not letting people live here to create a safer and more affordable transportation system to make changes in the way we develop our community to become compatible with the climate that we're not adapted to and to make concrete steps to improve our communities resilience among other things and we need to do this as council members while spending our time talking with community members and learning and formulating and trying to facilitate conversations on those topics and do this in a way that keeps our doors open to communication with the public and so coming back to this the the immediate question on our agenda there are some things I would like to say yes to I would like to say yes to us

[182:00] getting the right communication about islamophobia anti-Semitism and standing up to hate out and to get that right I would like us to say yes to supporting ways to encouraging greater listening and understanding within our community I would like to say yes to finding ways for our Council and our city to give more people greater voice especially to our state and and federal officials and I would like us to understand better what would our quality standards and a process look like to Resource uh a program of of of a resolution of this nature I would also point out finally if you had a council sitting here that was being paid a living wage You' probably have accounts that look differently and one that would have a lot more resource to be working on on on these issues and not making such hard project management trade-offs um I'll leave it at that thanks thanks so I I think what I'm hearing is

[183:01] two people who are interested in moving forward with this correct me if I'm wrong please anyone else um mine is kind of a a separate thing about having a broader conversation about how we engage in on international issues um and and how to move forward with that so that we're not trapped in this place in the future um and that other councils have a way to move forward more quickly um on on international issues that are clearly of importance to the community okay thanks for clarifying that Nicole mayor Teresa uh procedural uh clarification um this is uh because this is under matters it would not be a vote it would not be a raising of hands rather you could seek um you could ask the question whether there is a not of five to move forward so I guess I'll I'll go ahead and go to that um now if that's all right with folks is um is

[184:00] there a KN of five to move forward with this matter and I guess this is about nodding or not nodding heads yeah so I've got a yes ma'am yeah and out of two I also just want to clarify that whenever this is communicated I just want to make sure that it is not communicated that the council believes X Y or Z it is absolutely critical I do not want to be on record as I agree with this so thank you so much good okay so I think that concludes this matter then right so thanks uh to all my colleagues for the discussion and thanks to everyone in the community for joining us tonight and again for your your passion um for making the world a better place don't shame on you people are ding right right okay please quiet why don't we take a couple of minutes to

[185:01] [Music] recess

[192:13] all right I think we're ready to resume we have one final item Elish if you could take us to that please yes sir thank you our final item on tonight's agenda is item 8B and it is the discussion on 2024 chats and walks with Council Nua who's talking about this one I think that's me is this you again man' it is Troublemaker um but it's me certainly on behalf of the council engagement committee to which uh Tara Wier and I serve um and certainly were supported by um Sarah and our team on staff um so this is coming from from our committee in this sort of um we want to uh with a new Council we want to check in uh with something that originally got started up in 2019 and then quickly shut down because of covid and then got

[193:00] resurrected again in 2023 and these were chats and walks with Council um and as you saw in the memo there's been a string of them uh in 2023 and then a bundle of them also in 20 uh or in uh and certainly we have some plann for uh this year as well um and so what I really just want to touch on is do we really at the end of the day want to continue these I can say from my personal experience and maybe those that have been on Council these were great uh did CU South we've done a number of other chats there was a wooi one um these are just a great sh opportunity for us to strengthen our interactions between community and Council um I think that's it's appropriate in timing because we have this amazing grant-funded partnership with the national civic league to focus on improving our meetings and overall engagement with Council and chats and walks with Council were something we were already doing that the national civic league said not only keep doing as a recommendation but do more of it and make them uh a stronger interactions and

[194:00] so I think it's just synergistic that we're coming uh to you guys coming to all of us here with hey let's do more of them and by the way this is also one of the strong recommendations that are coming to us by a national leader on improving our Civic discourse um and so um it's important to think about the Synergy there and then as you probably read in that hotline this is just one of many recommendations that we could be employing um our our our committee will come back to council um at a later date it's not scheduled yet on CAC about a larger conversation about those recommendations um and we'll start to have some of that conversation next Wednesday at a community Town Hall which will be hopefully one of many uh town halls and other ways for Community to have greater and higher quality engagements with Council outside of the Das so um with that I just sort of want to frame and see if this is something of Interest as you saw in the memo there's a couple rough ideas that staff is already looking at but I think we're open to a lot more ideas of different groups events venues from which to engage um and some of them might be appropriate based on certain uh

[195:00] ordinances or projects that we are working on and others might just be hey we haven't really checked in with this community in quite some time in a meaningful way let's make sure we do that um so I think the list is kind of open open-ended resourced depended of course and scheduling um and so outside of that I maybe want to just uh offer a chance if I missed anything Sarah um if you want to pipe in uh a chime in on that and um if I missed anything but then also get some Council feedback that was great thank you council member Benjamin my name is Sarah Huntley I'm the director of communication and engagement the only thing I'll add is that we do recognize that many of you are working a job plus this we're asking for an additional commitment in order for these chats and walks really work well we need at least two council members at each one so that community members have a richness of the dialogue that's able to happen so when we think about the number and the types and the times and the days it's helpful to know what works best for you all as council members to really be able to participate

[196:00] fully and if we need to titr trate the amount of events we have or when we have them we can do that and we can respond accordingly but um we've gotten very good feedback from people in the past who have had opportunity to participate in these less formal settings so we're hoping that you might be able to commit to at least some of them thank you Matt and Tara as well on the committee um I I'll just say I I find these to be one of the most effective and enjoyable ways of interacting with the community so I say bring bring them on bring give us more please to the uh keeping in mind just uh the time commitment that council members have so obviously we can't do one a month probably but few of them are good I think what I what I like the best about them was it humanizes us and it humanizes our community so it fights the um the the human nature side of us that

[197:00] wants to take sides and have tribes and so relationships are the best way to fight that so I thought this was one of our most powerful um most powerful things we did so if I could just Prime us with certainly I just want to Prime oh question I just want to prime a question to councel but go for it what you're doing uh I like them I was unable to do uh any of them last year for various reasons um and I would certainly look forward to doing them again if uh we have the opportunity this year so I I I think they're great yeah I haven't I'm new so I haven't done these but I'd be really looking forward to it um I'd also be particularly interested in seeing if we can um do something with schools um so that we get parents feedback and the experience of teenagers um across uh different groups and how their needs are being met as

[198:00] families being raised um and a partnership I'm interested in just to the fees of um availability I also really like this concept because a lot of people have a lot of thoughts but we don't discuss many of them on our agendas with any frequency and this is a way to give us that Latitude to discuss something else um the other area I'm interested in is renters who are not in affordable housing thanks I'll mention we did one with Fairview High last year or maybe the year before there was a really great one of the great walks Ry oh yeah Lauren go ahead thanks yes I agree I have really enjoyed these I also Al was wondering the ones that I've done have been pretty uh specifically focused and very formulated and I also wonder about kind of a more open-ended version I was listening to a community uh about a community that had

[199:00] started um something to combat the culture of loneliness that we have in our community and it was um that they had social bus rides and where you the idea was kind of like instead of riding the bus to go anywhere this is like a bus ride that people are just doing together to like spend time together um I don't know I just wonder if there's like an a way that we can also kind of bring this to more people in a somewhat less formal way Banjo Billy I would totally do a Banjo Billy Council ride thanks I have a question and maybe a couple comments the question this seems in general to me like like a really good idea no-brainer what what's what what are the costs or what are what what are reasons why we might say this is

[200:00] something we should stop well as you saw in the costs are pretty minimal um there's Logistics so there's certainly staff time of of planning these um in community um why we wouldn't um you know uh the times don't work for your job and you can't participate um right I mean that could be a personal decision um one could imagine that we're maybe not reaching the communities you want to and you would want to step out um I think there's certainly array of that but I think the sky is the limit and certainly when we consider this not in the vacuum of just chats and walks with Council but in the context of The Suite of recommendations that are coming from the national civic league that this plays uh this is the some of the parts of many recommendations that are intended to improve the quality of those interactions and our conversations with Community outside of these more formal setting so um those recommendations will come shortly but think of this as being part of a some of the parts um that may be added in the whole okay thanks it seems like great idea and I would concur

[201:02] with what uh council member Marist and fuler offered on uh Youth and then just the more General unstructured I think that is like probably I mean hav I'm I'm new at this particular mode but I would think in general there would be a lot of value in having just you know come talk to counselors and and and my I would think if we can have help with just schedule literally scheduling and putting on calendars um yeah there might be a chance to really increase the um the number of these touch points so i' I'd be enthusiastically participate um I just wanted to offer one other observation for council member Shu hard's question we've been in this journey of experimentation with these right so when we first started they were very open-ended we just did them in different parts of town there was no necessarily assigned topic we didn't invite specific audiences and some of them we got a lot of people I mean the one I can think of the most was connected with the what's up Boulder

[202:00] event and we had like 80 people trying to manage but then there were others one we held two people showed up and council members were like we're going to have to up the amount of participation in order to make this worth our while so then we started doing things where we would really focus on communities that we hadn't heard from and making sure that they're coming but I think what we've learned is that a mix of different kinds of events is what people want some people want a topic specific event some people want something very social like you're recommending and other people want to be able to just come and fill a board of their ideas that are not on council's agender or topic list already so we'll just continue to iterate and evolve and experiment and as as council member Benjamin said the national Civic lead has some interesting ideas about how to actually structure the room and facilitate those conversations that's also a little different than what we've done in the past so it's a it's a time for us to try new things and hopefully the community will find those worthwhile and you as council members will find them

[203:03] worthwhile thank you um so I'm a huge fan of this type of work and effort um I'm also a big fan of being strategic about what we're trying to do and the outcomes of these and who is get is getting served by these um and so I think of not only um time of day but and day of the week but I also think geographically to the point of what you know where are we reaching different parts within our community I appreciate the renter conversation as a as a renter here um and again not just those who are um participating in the low income 50% or 54% are printers I also would like to lift up um other types of stakeholder groups um like our affinity group so I think of like out Boulder and some of the incredible work that I mean they already host hik so I'm just wondering where the opportunities we can push into existing and partner around existing things and and not just having things that we're creating things and pulling

[204:01] in so how do we have that Dynamic pull in push in um kind of perspective and then another group are are outdoor recreationalists which are quite significant in so many different ways there's like the world count day for the birders and there's the hiking and there you know we just I I would love to engage that Community a bit more um I didn't hear from them as much on the campaign trail and I know that they are a significant part of our community um and to uh Sarah's part I really love um you know in Colorado Parks and Wildlife something that they did exceptionally was the community dinners and I just would love us to explore more barbecues with you know the gru Creek Association or the you know I just that those informal times uh where we can share food and and culture and relationships together are also very powerful but in general I'm just a huge huge fan and um just want to make sure that we're really strategic about it and um you know again making sure that we're collecting information from those who participate thank

[205:03] you council member Adam said a lot of what what I was uh thinking so I'm not gonna um repeat that just to the event that came to mind was um I think uh you and I Matt were at naropa at a student event that they were holding kind of a you know welcoming new student event um it was a really great turnout because that's where people already were and so we we went and met them there had some great conversations had a chance to meet and get to know people so I think the more that we can do of going to spaces where um people are as long as we're welcome there and people are interested in having us um those are great ways for us to to connect with folks so I'd love to see that in some student events and also I love bowling at the connection so just going to put that out there bowling the connection well thank you um that that is music to our Collective ears that you guys want to continue moving forward with this I will say that um this wasn't

[206:00] your only chance to sort of weigh in on ideas topics groups communities locations it's just sort of hey Prime so I think um you know either through staff or our committee one way will reach back out as we formalize it to kind of say hey if you want to continue thinking about this and a way to share those ideas so that we can plan them and and get them on the books because they do require a bit of a Runway to plan and make sure that they're well attended so the sooner we get those ideas from everybody the sooner we can get that going so you'll hear from us again um so thank you so much appreciate it great yes ma'am Teresa this is if you've wrapped up this topic I just have a quick point of clarification MH we I think we have wrapped up the topic great so this is the council handbook you all have it I hope you've reviewed it I heard something tonight that indicated some of you might not know that this is all enshrined in our Charter or our code it's simply excerpts so this isn't a standalone book that is just some arbitrary set of rules these are all

[207:02] things that a city council has passed into law for our city and so I just wanted to clarify that okay appreciate the clarification all right uh any final thoughts before we wrap up Lauren can I have a follow-up question on that being could any city council modify the majority of those rules in there so this Council handbook has a a combination of Charter provisions and code Provisions the council is free to amend the code and that includes the council procedure which is enshrined in our code a charter Amendment a change to a charter would of course require a vote by the people and I'm going to guess that some of the comments that you heard were probably related to weighing in on international issues is that a code section or a charter section that is a

[208:00] code section that came from 1986 where the council directed The City attorney to develop some rules so that Council would not have to weigh in on foreign or national policy accept in particular limited circumstances and so that has um that was adopted at that time by that city council and has remain since this council could make a different Choice thank you T did you have something that's fine and again I'm still acclimating to our rules I'm so sorry I had a flight this morning in the 45 a.m. so I am on the literal strule bus to just make it through the rest of this day um having said that um I'm still trying to navigate when it is appropriate to talk about things I know we have this surprise Rule and I can't wait to revisit it um but in the interim I just need to bring up some of the racial incidences that are continuing to happen

[209:02] in bbsd going back to having a deeper relationship with the school district um our parents are black parents are struggling right now um the incidents are getting worse and worse so as we have this declaration on islamophobia and um anti-Semitism I also just want to remind us that black anti-blackness is still occurring at exponential rates it is not getting better it is getting worse children are having water poured over them I cannot inward left and right every single day and so again I know that we are not bvsd but we are the parents we are the Educators that work there we are also trying to make sure that our city is culturally resilient and so I just wanted to make sure that was on people's radar screen as an issue because I know we've had a lot of conversation around that declaration and I really wanted to honor and and obviously support that

[210:00] wholeheartedly but I also wanted to just remind us that these in as well as the Patriot front who came and and protested at at a drag um book reading for children this is dangerous and it's in our community and it's right at our doorstep and so I just wanted to again lift this up as and again I'm happy to talk about procedure and I apologize if I mess something up but I just um in in these times I would love us to be able to talk about some of the things that we're seeing that isn't in anal agenda thing but is it going to impact our work and the ability to do all of the incredible decision-making collect Ive decision making that we're going to need to do and when people are afraid and we've got people afraid on so many different fronts it just makes our work that much more challenging so regardless of where we go on the um ceasefire resolution I am hopeful that we can have a discussion on those conversations of bringing our community together and

[211:00] holding space where we can have really meaningful conversations so just wanted to say that and again thank you for the opportunity to serve with all of you okay thanks taish for that any other final thoughts seeing none I'll gavis uh 26 p.m. thanks everyone take care