May 23, 2024 — City Council Study Session

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[4:43] I got six o'clock Joe let's do it Lisa is gonna start the recording recording started good evening and welcome to tonight's study session of the Boulder City Council I am council member Ryan

[5:00] shuart and thank you for joining us and congrats bbsd families uh for getting out of school a few hours ago for the year uh good luck on us next we have on tonight's agenda two items our first will be a public safety overview and discussion our second item is the draft Community Wildfire protection plan discussion before we go into our work items I would like to outline how the meeting will be conducted we will review staff's presentation for each item then we will have time for questions at the end of presentations we will conduct our Council discussion staff if you have questions please wait for staff to complete their presentation we will now turn to our city manager nura Rivera Vander to introduce our first item thanks so much council member Shu hard um as you'll recall when you and some of your colleagues came on board at this new Council term we did a series of lunch and learns and got to know a little bit of our departments uh do a

[6:00] little bit of a deeper dive um and there were a couple of topics that we did some of those deeper Dives on uh council member Adams uh asked CAC to actually do an uplift this uh one on uh BPD a little bit of Public Safety to do one more uh publicly and asked to bring It Forward uh as a public as a study session and thank you council member Adams for that and so here we are uh with a presentation and I am going to send it over uh to our interim Chief Steve Redfern and before he starts I want to say that there's a lot of information and I know that there's a lot of interest in this topic um I will say that we pulled the interim Chief back because he has so much information to share uh I want to note that there uh is an upcoming update as well as you know that um uh judge Khan and um BPD uh interim Chief have an opportunity as well on June 13th to provide their quarterly update and there

[7:01] will also be an opportunity there to present their quarterly stats what's happening in community as well and so there will be um additional opportunity there to uh ask the chief some questions and with that um Steve I will pass it on to you great thank you naria uh good evening everyone Steve Redfern I'm the interim police chief here um happy to be here tonight to talk uh we have a lot lot to cover I'll try to do it quickly but I feel like uh to to be responsive to a lot lot of inquiries and questions um we've packed a lot into this presentation we'll obviously leave a lot of time for questions at the end uh with me tonight uh if needed uh during the presentation you'll also hear from Chief of Staff Alistar McNiven and our chief data analyst Dr Daniel Reinhardt I've also got Deputy Chief Ron gosage and deputy chief bar harcup on the call to offer their expertise if needed if things come up so with that if we could start the presentation next slide

[8:05] please so a real quick overview before we dive in I'm going to give kind of a department overview understanding that we have new council members and for the community that may not be that familiar I'm going to talk about our staffing some of our uh the way we are are set up I'm going to talk about then our Kalia accreditation that we're excited to talk about and give you an update on reimagine policing since it's been a few months um some Public Safety information I'm going to hit on a couple of uh cases real quick and and Dr Reinhardt is going to provide us a little bit of data understanding as the city manager said we've got a meeting coming up next month with more next slide please most of you that have been on Council for a while are familiar with our makeup but just real briefly I'm not going to go into every part of this organizational chart but just to give you an idea of how we are made up uh the majority of our staff are assigned to patrol and detectives and then we've got some special units all talk about and

[9:00] we've got about 55 of our staff that are non-commission sworn they're not sworn police officers that are in support roles in a variety of functions that I'll get into here in a minute as well next slide please so the question we're asked frequently out in the community and by uh our partners is what is the Staffing like currently at BPD uh right now uh we are authorized to have 191 sworn officers uh we have 169 currently sworn um we keep every time we seem to be getting uh closer to full Staffing we have retirements and other departures but um we've had really good success lately in hiring and so uh we have 10 officers of that 169 that are in training so they're not uh solo Patrol officers yet uh but in the next couple months they'll be out on the street and we've just been in a very aggressive hiring campaign uh where we have about 21 potential officers in background uh process right now we will likely offer jobs to 15 to 18 of those officers in

[10:01] the next couple weeks to get them into a police academy to hopefully uh get them back here and out on the street of the staff that we're down we're down one Commander due to the interim appointments we're down six detectives nine traffic officers and six Patrol officers as we bring on additional staff uh we're constantly looking at where the need is to backfill uh those positions uh you may know that we run the Dispatch Center for the city of Boulder both police uh fire 911 osmp and other entities are dispatched 247 here in our building uh we are down about three dispatched positions which is really good uh they're also actively recruiting for that very difficult but important job uh we also here have animal protection uh they're they're great Partners in the community they're fully staffed I'm very happy to say so that's great and they're doing great work I mentioned the 55 nonp police positions non sworn police all of those are actually fully staff except for our

[11:00] record section they're down about four people uh they're also actively recruiting for those you can see the list of other uh entities there that we have inh house next slide please so just a a real quick overview of some of the special units we have uh I obviously mentioned Staffing we're here 247 365 um with Patrol uh and other units our specialty units um are teams that have a special assignment that's focus on a particular uh type of crime or problem as you see there picture it is one of our new ebikes that we've had great success with downtown I'm going to talk about that in a minute uh because we're not that big we're not a huge City where we can have a full-time uh a special unit in every different uh Arena a lot of our staff that are full-time have collateral duties so that means they have a a duty other than their main job that they're part of and I'll talk more about that and then just an update because we've talked about it quite a bit in past Council sessions uh we're still heavily

[12:01] engaged in our stratified policing uh evidence-based crime reduction model that is our proactive policing strategy um we we're having a lot of success in bringing down the focus crimes as well as problem areas and problem locations which I will talk more about a little bit tonight and definitely more in June next slide please excuse me so uh two slides real quick on some specialty teams just so you know um what else we have out there uh working on the street our neighborhood impact team is a is a a definite asset for us they are the team that's mainly assigned to University Hill all of the officers on that team have direct liaison relationships with different fraternities and sororities and they especially when it's back to school go uh interact with those entities and do a lot of training especially for new students uh we um also that team is specialized in different investigations they uh when when school is out for example this summer they focus on things like stolen cars uh Firearms related

[13:00] crimes and such our Pearl Street Mall team I'm very happy to say is completely full uh we are fully staffed uh at this time both foot patrol and our bike Patrol including ebikes downtown I'm going to talk about a recent success that that team had in a moment uh our homeless Outreach team you may have seen has had some recent very positive news coverage uh for the amazing work that they do the compassionate work they do uh they are cops but their main goal isn't enforcement their main goal is to work with all of our partners Partners to try to figure out how to get people out of homelessness uh this team is Inc incredibly compassionate I know several council members have gone out and experienced right alongs with that team uh and and found it very beneficial uh our Traffic Unit uh is uh mainly obviously tasked with handling vehicle crashes uh they're also uh tasked with enforcement so they're out uh doing traffic enforcement in our uh High crash locations and working with other City entities to reduce crashes uh we do have both sworn and civilian uh crash

[14:03] investigators in our traffic section next slide please so a couple more here real quick uh we're having uh we're really enjoying having a K9 unit back it was brought back last year as you see there that is our only K9 is K9 Astro and she's just doing a great job um you'll see her Monday at Boulder Boulder she'll be out uh along the Route and at different venues sniffing to make sure there are no explosives and we've had a lot of great success with Astro as well she can sniff out Firearms as well as recently fired shell casing so if we have a crime where we're certain that somebody might have been armed maybe they threw a gun somewhere Astro comes out and can help us locate that it's a great Tool uh Community engagement you're going to hear me talk more about it's one of our big priorities here we only have one officer assigned to community engagement right now it's the responsibility of all of us um but Mitch tro as many of you know from Council and other uh places in the community is amazing we're really looking as we get fully staffed one of my priorities is to add at least two

[15:00] more officers to that team uh to help in different areas of the city um our training team uh is a full-time team that helps train not only our new officers when they come to us out of the police academy but also the ongoing recurring training that we all must have to remain certified as peace officers in the state um lastly we have our motorcycle team that's part of our traffic section hopefully none of you have met them out on the roadways because their main goal is traffic enforcement they're also trained to uh investigate crashes many of them have the highest level of certification level four traffic crash investigations to do reconstruction on serious and fatal traffic crashes next slide please so I mentioned earlier collateral duties um there's a lot here on the slide I'm not going to talk about each of them in depth uh but just for example we don't have a full-time SWAT team or bomb squad so all of our team members have other jobs uh but they have uh ancillary duties on the collateral team so for example we have detective that

[16:00] that's his day job but he's also part of our bomb squad so when there's a need for that he steps into that role um things like our peer support team our U our uas team bomb squad hostage negotiators crime scene investigations um we're really happy about some of the progress we've made this year with our community Liaisons um very recently we've added three uh new lgbtq plus Liaisons they've gone through uh training with out Boulder in uh that role as well as uh bias mod motivated crime investigations we have a new uh liaison to the Jewish Community we also have a liaison with the Muslim Community and we're we're working on some other uh great projects right now with uh that area as well uh so we have CIT which is Crisis Intervention training the majority of our officers are trained in CIT and that does not take the place of a clinician but what that does is provide our officers with additional training and deescalation dealing with people in crisis things of that nature um and as you know we also have our C

[17:01] team uh that's through housing and Human Services that go out on calls with our officers when someone is in crisis or needs additional expertise uh and then we also are um working we don't really work with cares because we're not a part of that but we are uh uh we dispatch for them here in the police department and are well aware of their efforts uh next slide please so when I talk about reimagine policing I'll talk a little bit more about this but I know this was a specific question from at least one council member recently about what we are doing for wellness for our staff um we understand uh that no matter what a great plan we have through reimagine policing or any other of our endeavors if our staff are not coming to work physically and mentally well uh we know the bad things that can happen both to them or uh end up in something that doesn't go well out on the street because they're going out on the street unwell and so we're really focused on our staff wellbeing both our our

[18:00] officers civilian staff and you'll see several examples on this screen of things we're doing for our department families um sometimes it's much uh harder to be at home uh wondering if your loved one is okay than being the one actually out there running into a bad situation and so we know those stresses that come with being a family of law enforcement and we we' brought in some great resources there as well um a lot of different things on here peer support we've uh really worked to strengthen our peer support program and we just renewed our contract with our police psychologist of note uh our visits to our police psychologists have gone up and that's really I think a good thing because we have tried to destigmatize the use of such Services we've seen the aftermath of king supers and we know we still have staff that are seeing uh long-term uh Psychological Services for that but we look at that as a good thing we want them to be well and come to work well next slide please so kind of uh changing gears here a little bit I'm going to talk about

[19:00] Kalia real quick um so we are currently in the process of becoming Kalia accredited uh Kalia stands for the commission on accreditation for law enforcement agencies it's been around for quite some time since 1979 and uh just for context about only 5% of police departments and Sheriff's offices in the United States are C accredited about one in 20 agencies um we have been accredited for over 15 years through the Colorado Association of chiefs of police but Kalia really is the the gold standard in accreditation it's a national accreditation process it usually takes about three years and we're about two years in um what we found so far is that it's been incredibly beneficial for us to look at all of our policies as a requirement of Kalia to go through each policy to ensure the policies are in line with best practices so we can get accredited um with any luck we are going to have a mock assessment here within the next few months and then hopefully the full assessment in the end of 24 of early 25 where assessors will come in from all

[20:00] over the country and be here at BPD ensuring that me we meet the qualifications to be accredited that is an ongoing process that will have to continue to be re accredited after that initial accreditation but we're excited about it and we'll keep you updated next slide please so I want to give a little bit of update on reimagine policing um so excited to share with you that since uh Council unanimously approved our reimagine policing plan last fall that we are continuing to fully uh Embrace this plan we're Full Speed Ahead on implementing a lot of the things uh that this Plan called for we really do use this plan as kind of our guiding document when we're thinking about a new project a new thing that we want to do here because of how much Community engagement went into this plan we know that we heard from every segment of this community when reimagine policing was being developed and so we know that hasn't changed and we continue to use this when we are engaging in new things here at the police department next slide

[21:03] please so just a reminder um of what reimagine policing the main thing that reimagine policing means for us at the Boulder Police Department is to look at doing things differently we heard the community loud and clear in after 2020 that they expected us to do things differently so as you see on the screen we used to have a more outdated model where someone would call us for help we would show up we'd put a Band-Aid on the problem and then we'd leave um what we're really working on and we've had great success already with reimagine policing is trying to figure out how to not go to the same location over and over and over again um when we're looking at things like data um and we have a robust program here uh with Dr Reinhard of trying to figure out why we may go to certain locations a lot more than others there are usually underlying factors that um may be a reason why we get more calls there such as bad place management or absentee landlords those sort of things that allow us to try to PR vent crime before they happen and we

[22:00] really do look at it um as a form of police reform if we can figure out uh why crime is happening at locations and disorder if we can prevent it from happening we may not need that interaction that could go bad between the police and an offender um this is a holistic governance model and I'm very grateful to all of our partners that have helped us implement it and continue to work on this plan next slide please next slide please uh oh there we go um a couple things here I just want to highlight some of the priorities of uh reimagine policing and kind of tell you where we are on some things um and I think we might have gone one too far if we could try to go back one there we go so uh reimagine policing um

[23:03] obviously we're working to get fully staffed uh and when we do that we're going to look at ways of implementing some of the additional Staffing that reimagine policing calls for uh we're looking forward to that uh but also one of the big things in reimagined policing is training techniques that support deescalation doing things differently and so um ongoing in that work is our racial Equity work in 2022 and 2023 uh the majority of our staff if not all have completed bias and microaggression training uh and currently uh in 24 we are focused on the equity and role of government training um each shift each uh unit has been going through that training and that's an ongoing thing this year uh we're continuing as well with our icat program and that's integrating Communications assessment and tactics icat is a deescalation model and we use it in all that we do um it really values the sanctity of human life and provides officers tools um in the tool belt to hopefully prevent us having to use

[24:00] deadly force uh we next have AEL uh this is a great program we brought it here about a year and a half ago AEL stands for active bystanders ship for law enforcement it's out of Georgetown University and AEL provides training for our staff to be able to intervene before something gets into a situation that's that's harmful for Community member or the officer so providing our staff tools of partner was in a legitimate use of force but you want to remove move them from that situation when tensions are high and we've had a really good success so far with AEL and then you're going to hear chief of sta staff McNiven shortly discuss our Declaration of respect pilot study um that we're engaged in right now the the last part of that is the evidence-based well-being for staff um we're looking at ways to evaluate how our Wellness programs are working um one of the things we're doing there is re revamping our Personnel early intervention system or Peis um to be able to to better gauge a number of factors that might lead to

[25:01] an officer or staff member getting to a point where we need to sit them down check in on them make sure that they have resources if needed next slide please all right so obviously a tenant of reimagined policing is transparency and accountability there's a lot that goes into this topic I'm going to talk about a few so we have external mechanisms of transparency the biggest uh one of the biggest is the police oversight p panel um We are continuing to work with the panel um there's new panel members as you know I'm happy to say that uh we've had several panel members come out recently for police ride alongs four of the members have come out and I know at least two that have ride alongs scheduled in the next few weeks uh I have met twice as inter police chief with some of our staff with uh the oversight panel and had some very good discussions robust discussions about uh the police department and different things like that uh and then all of our oversight panel members about two weeks attended uh their first defensive tactics and use of force

[26:01] training which should hopefully better inform uh their decision-making when they're reviewing uh complaint cases uh just wanted to touch on a couple things because sometimes it's not necessarily clear how we interact with the pop um I wanted to give a couple examples from 2023 so overwhelmingly the majority of cases that the police oversight panel reviews which are all complaints against our staff they a high percentage of the time agree with uh the final decision of our chain of command when it comes to discipline or the findings of of of sustained not sustained etc for a complaint even when they agree almost always they provide very beneficial feedback to us uh of things that they see from a community member's perspective that we can either do different or better or change and so um some a few a couple recommendations just to give you a glimpse of how that works on some uh complaints from the oversight panel uh for example after a complaint in 2023 about how a high-risk traffic

[27:01] stop was conducted the panel recommended that we review our training on how high-risk vehicle stops uh should be conducted so we did and we held all agency sworn members went through both classroom and Hands-On refresher training on high-risk stops with input from our legal adviser another case in 2023 the panel recommended that one of our officers offer a formal apology to a community member that was involved in a complaint that was sustained this occurred another example from 23 was a case where the panel believed that an officer did not activate their bodyw warn camera when they should have done so the feedback from the Panel LED to some changes in our policy on body warn camera activation um there's quite a few examples I could give but we truly do appreciate the input and collaboration of the panel uh the next uh external transparency uh entity we have is our independent Police monitor um we uh just so you know the independent Police monitor oversees all complaints investigations that are professional standard section engages in here in the

[28:00] police department all allegations of misconduct and we have truly benefited from the new independent police monitors experience and knowledge and we we appreciate her work internally we have our professional standard section who are the the uh investigators for a lack of a better term our traditional Internal Affairs unit and they actually conduct the internal investigations with oversight from the monitor uh in in the vein of transparency we also recently uh up stood up a web page where we put video or and we will be putting video of critical incidents or high-profile incidents um and the first video we we put on the website uh was from an officer involved shooting in 2017 where we provided some narration and a shorter clip of a lot of longer Clips to give community members a more compact look at what happened there we're going to continue to do that and as far as I know we're only one of two cities in Colorado that are doing that uh the last one is systematic and family community input uh in a moment Dr reinhardt's going to talk

[29:01] about uh a new program that we implemented in December of 23 called Power engage we've been engaging with we've been engaging with power engage we've been utilizing power engage long enough now where we've got some statistics to show you on how that uh is working next slide please uh so really quick uh engagement is another big tenant of reimagine policing we did a lot of Engagement during the process uh but the commitment was we're going to continue to do that that so I'm really happy and proud of a lot of the great Community engagement that we've got going on a couple examples our yoab our youth opportunities Advisory Board I know that many of young Council had the opportunity recently to have dinner with the youth from that program it's been a great forway foray into uh connections with our teenage uh youth uh which is sometimes difficult for us to have those connections so not only do the youth seem to really enjoy it our officers also truly enjoy the collaboration there uh one thing that I began earlier this this year uh was to form to start

[30:00] forming a faith community advisory team um it was a gap that we noticed and so we've had three lunches now where we brought in faith leaders from multiple different denominations and we're picking their brains and trying to uh get a path forward to have more of a formal advisory team here that can help the police department um and we can reach out to them and they can reach out to us for help when things happen in the community um also there I want to mention uh um hatefree Colorado so I I sit on the board of hatefree Colorado or it's it's not a board position but more of a a position where we meet every month uh it's run by the Anti-Defamation League and it brings a lot of Partners together law enforcement public uh entities uh as well as um a lot of other entities to talk about bias motivated crime and hate uh hate crime and we talk about not only Trends but how we can do reach out to the community that's been uh beneficial for us as well uh one of our big engagement uh points is Special Olympics uh we did the Polar Plunge as did some of you earlier this year and

[31:00] soon we've got the torch run coming up as well as the plane pool we'll go out to DIA with our team and pull a jet jet at DIA if anyone's interested in joining our teams please let me know Special Olympics is just such a great entity and we really love the Partnerships there um the last thing recently we about two months ago we implemented a Boulder Police Department newsletter we don't just Spam it out to people people sign up if they're interested and we provide updates messages from the chief's office it's just a great way to reach a lot of info out to the community um and then one thing that's on the horizon we're working to bring back it's not uh quite yet to fruition is what's typically called a Citizens Academy we're calling it a Community Academy where people will be able to come in and learn more about the department next slide please this is the last slide you're going to hear from me for a little bit I'll give you a break turn it over to Alistar after this uh just wanted to give you another snapshot I know Council you see some of these great things hosting events here at the PD like trunk Retreat National Night Out um bike

[32:02] registration uh is a huge and we'll we'll actually talk about some successes here in bike theft in a minute um we've also got a great new partnership with the center for African African-American studies at CU with Dr railan raka Who's committed to helping us on many different fronts um and we're really enjoying um learning a lot about uh the caas uh the last thing I'll hit on really quick if you see the lower right hand corner uh we're entering in a new project for Autism Awareness um I I won't uh I won't try to claim this as an original idea we uh saw that another agency back East did this and we're going to be developing these stickers where um people with Autism can come here to the PD and get a sticker they can put it on their uh vehicle or on their home maybe next to the front door and then our officers will know that maybe there's someone there when they go out or do a traffic stop that they need um to be aware of uh to potentially bring additional resources or just handle something uh a little bit differently um that is it for now I've

[33:03] talked very fast I apologize for that but I wanted to to get all the information out um I'm going to turn it over now to Chief of Staff aliser McNiven who's going to talk about our new Declaration of respect project thank you Chief uh good evening everyone so the Declaration of respect project began when our department was approached by Dr Stuart Lord of Delta developmental here in Boulder in his capacity as the founder of Floyd rights a nonprofit organization he created in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the concept Dr Lord brought to us was the use of a statement by a police officer to an individual prior to taking that person into custody and the statement was designed to address some core concerns first that the person should be treated with dignity and respect and second that any Force used would be strictly necessary and his proposal was that

[34:01] these principles would attach to the individual in a manner analogous to Miranda rights hence the title of his organization Floyd rights about eight months ago Dr Lord began working with a focused group of officers who volunteered to further develop the statement which in its original form was quite long and the focus group uh ended up proposing three different variations of the Declaration of respect as options for consideration and we presented these three versions of the statement to our city of Boulder Community connectors for their review uh from the perspective of the historically underrepresented communities to which they belong and the community connectors provided invaluable feedback which further refined the Declaration respect next slide please so this is the final version uh form of the statement uh that we had for our for our project and uh I'll just

[35:01] read it as an officer I am committed to treating you with dignity and respect I will work to keep you from harm and I will not use unnecessary Force so once we had this version of the statement which we settled on uh we worked with a group of 14 officers who volunteered to participate in a pilot project to test its Effectiveness and we gave them the background on the project and they participated in training sessions to include scenario training in order to enhance their ability to determine at what point in a contact it might be appropriate to provide the Declaration St so these 14 officers just concluded the 12we pilot project designed to study the impact of the statement and it was implemented in a variety of calls such as traffic stops trespassing and disturbance calls and an in progress weapons call we're currently analyzing the data from the project and we use

[36:00] that analysis to determine our next steps we hope to emphasize to the community the value we place on their safety and our commitment to the sanctity of life and to that end that the Declaration of respect was originally for situations where an officer might anticipate a use of force but we're also promoting its use during contacts in which an individual might might be upset or scared or angry and the goal is to lower the temperature in the room for a better outcome so as you've already heard we're engaging with our community in a variety of different ways and on that note I'd like to introduce Dr Daniel Reinhardt our chief data analyst who will discuss the power engage Survey System and the public safety data uh that he has to present so go ahead and go to the next slide so power engage uh so first sorry good

[37:02] evening city council my name is Dr Reinhardt um like alist indicated I'll talk a little bit about power engage and then a little bit about different kinds of public safety data so power engage like they've said is a tool that the city Boulder adopted in December of 2023 to survey users of Emergency Services to see if they were satisfied with the quality of the services that they were receiving so basically after individuals call the police um they receive a text message within about 24 hours asking them to rate and comment on their satisfaction with the 911 operator and with any police that responded during the incident so in the first six months of using this tool we've received about 700 responses survey responses um these are the results of some of those um so two main questions that are asked how satisfied are you with the quality of the services and so about 81% of folks have said they were satisfied or very satisfied about 8 % have been neutral and about 133% have been

[38:00] dissatisfied and the second part of this is asking to provide any feedback um especially for the officers with whom they interacted so the feedback that we received from the 700 people um is normally about one sentence and it normally included things about you know the officer of the department the incident um the resolution satisfaction or dissatisfaction desire for Change and and really many other topics so go and go to the next slide so anyone that's conducted surveys with open-ended questions knows that people tend to voice opinions and concerns about many different kinds of things and and this has been like that um so on this slide we have some examples of some sort of positive some neutral and some negative feedback about either you know officers or the circumstances with responding officers so some of the positive feedback has been things like you know the officer was uh polite and helpful some of the neutral feedback has been things like

[39:01] you know I only interacted with the n in one person and some of the negative feedback we've received has been things like you know I wish I had more interaction with the officer and not just a call so it's helpful to point out that BPD is working with the city attorney's office to redact any personally identifiable information um and then to add this information like all of the responses and feedback we're receiving um on the city of Boulder website next slide can you uh go to the thank you appreciate it um so now I'm going to discuss some Public Safety topics that have generated a lot of community inquiry you know and again keeping in mind that BPD is coming back in a couple weeks um to have more information about all of these kinds of things and more next slide so this slide presents some raw counts

[40:03] of traffic crashes since 2018 so one of the things to point out is that you know obviously there's been a sharp decrease in March of 2020 um and then crashes have kind of increased steadily from March 2020 to today uh the city of Boulder it really isn't at its preco level of traffic crashes and so the 12mon monthly average is still about 19% lower than the monthly averages in 2018 and 2019 um and for context you know the monthly average is like around 230 uh crashes per month and this includes crashes that officers respond to and ones that residents report and there's no officer present now I know there were questions about the Excel power outage um the three-day outage in April so we we took a look and there didn't seem to be a substantial difference and crashes during this three-day period and we really wanted to thank the community for being vigilant um as we all kind of went through that

[41:00] period now um it's also important to point out given uh Vision zero traffic injuries and fatalities so in 2023 the last calendar year there were about four fatal crashes um from 2018 to 2023 and this is for for context really between 99.8 and 99.9% of traffic crashes are non-fatal and so last year there was there was really about one fatal crash crash for every 680 other kinds of non-fatal crashes next slide please so this is a chart of DUI reports over the last six years um while we've had fewer DUI reports in the past few years as a department we're actively looking at ways of getting drunk drivers safely off the road uh this is vital first because Chief redferns committed to Traffic Safety but but really I mean as a city we're committed division zero um division zero initiative to have zero fatal crashes so as a department this

[42:01] past year we secured a state of Colorado DUI grant that helps pay for officer overtime shifts to identify drunk drivers and we're also partnering with businesses to ensure patrons aren't being over served alcohol and that patrons are aware of options to not drive home drunk next slide so this is bicycle theft bicycle theft information for the last six years um so 2023 had about a 24% decrease in bike thefts compared to 2022 and we believe that some of this decrease we can attribute to the substantial Community engagement that BPD has had widespread use of technology to raise awareness about Stolen Bikes and prevention methods and then really just the community investment in reducing opportunities for this kind of crime so as an example last month BPD attended a bike theft awareness Expo where officers and other public safety-minded people discussed crime prevention tips next

[43:02] slide so this slide it indicates the number of reports that BPD has had with bias motivated circumstances so bias motivated circumstances it's really when a crime is believed to have occurred and there's probable cause to establish that the circumstance was caused because of a bias against a ferally protected class there's a couple things that are helpful to point out about this so one is that bias motivated crimes are underreported to law enforcement we know that there's more happening in the community and the second thing is that law enforcement agencies across the country all report this to the federal government so anyone can view this information either through the Colorado Bureau of Investigation statistics website or the FBI's crime data Explorer so in 2023 you know we had more bias motivated circumstances than in previous years and reports in 2023 documented eight distinct kinds of biases so PD and obviously were aware of local National and international reasons

[44:01] that we'd see changes in the number of these reports and this is really why we think our community Liaisons are so important to ensure that Community groups one feel safe reporting these kinds of issues and two so that we can more easily communicate safety threats as we become aware of them next slide so here we're presenting just four kinds of crime categories over the last six calendar years so during this time we've seen increases in aggravated assault in the city of Boulder so aggravated assault it's it's a serious kind of assault those that include weapons or injuries and this is an example of a kind of crime that we haven't seen a huge change um given the covid-19 pandemic and you look at that and you compare it to like motor vehicle theft and burglary where you see there were sharp increases in from 2019 to 2020 um and we've really had some success in reducing these crimes from 2020 and 2021 to to

[45:00] now um one of the things that's helpful to point out is that these data don't reflect regional state or national information um and the last category that I wanted to talk about is identity theft so um identity theft surged in 2020 and 2021 largely from fraud associated with the covid-19 economic income payments and changes and how scammers will Target members of our community and so it's really helpful for us to point out that there's currently a scam involving someone calling and saying that they work with the police and so as the police department in the city of Boulder like we need to make it really clear that there is no legitimate reason that a member in law enforcement will call you and tell you that you need to send them money if someone contacts you and it sounds suspicious please contact the Boulder Police Department non-emergency phone line and we'll help you get to the bottom of it so now would like to turn this back over to Chief Redfern to discuss significant incidents and please go to

[46:02] the next slide thank you three more slides we're almost there I appreciate it um Daniel thanks uh so we're going to talk more in June but there's three cases I want to talk about real briefly because of high Community interest um and actually the first one I just really want to share with you because it's a it's kind of a big big case for us so next slide please so this case we've not spoken publicly about um and it's ongoing so I can't get into a ton of detail however um this case is incredible uh two of our officers were down on Pearl Street they observed what uh turned out to be a drug transaction and they arrested a guy that was selling drugs to people downtown uh as we like to do they talked to this person and this person gave us some information uh they contacted the Boulder County drug task force which we're a part of and an investigation commenced um overall this investigation spanned outside of Boulder into Denver and other places but we know now that we cut off a large drug pipeline coming into Boulder in this case if you look at

[47:01] the numbers at the bottom that is a significant amount of drugs that receives 23 pounds of methamphetamine six pounds of fentanyl three pounds of heroin and other substances multiple stolen guns and cash just a a a number on that uh the estimated street value of that seizure is about $153,000 and the estimate is 7even out of 10 counterfeit fentanyl Pills contain a lethal dose our estimate is we potentially remove 53,000 potentially lethal doses of fentanyl from the streets U it's a great great case uh ongoing still if we make more progress I'll update you next month next slide please so this case uh from early may I want to share an update on because we received a lot of community inquiry and I appreciate the council members and others that reached out to check on our officer after he was stabbed this unfortunate case at luy's Market started started as a trespassing uh the person ended up attempting to stab our officer

[48:00] in the neck uh he was able to deflect the knife as you see in her hand there and was stabbed in the shoulder thankfully I'm happy to report he has recovered and we're actually uh working to bring him back to work right now um that person uh was non-compliant and we spent about 45 minutes uh negotiating with her in the store uh we were able to use less lethal means to take her into custody thankfully she was charged with multiple crimes highest of which was first-degree assault against a peace officer next slide please and just a quick update because of the significance of this case and how Brazen and violent this uh case was uh we had a takeover style violent robbery at a jewelry store on Pearl Street in February uh this case we quickly learned through talking to other agencies uh involved a group of suspects who had done similar things all over the metro area and we learned that there were some task forces and other agencies that were trying to build a large case on this group uh we had one case in Boulder and

[49:00] that was one too many uh we knew this crew was casing other establishments in the city and so we decided that we were not going to wait for a bigger case our detectives uh identified suspects put arrest warrants together and we were the a we were the agency that moved on and arrested several members of This Crew we were not going to allow them to come back to Boulder and victimize another hardworking business so um after our case it appears the suspects have stopped their antics and that case is ongoing next slide so I know that's a ton of information um there's obviously going to be questions but two things on this slide I mentioned our newsletter there's a QR code and a website if you're interested um also our Boulder crime dashboard so just a reminder the QR on the right is to our public facing dashboards you can go on there and find specific crime data for your neighborhood particular types of crimes anything uh there that of interest to you uh encourage a use of that as well so that is all I have um and I think

[50:01] we're ready to take questions thank you interim Chief Redfern Chief of Staff McDon and Dr Reinhardt just a time check um we have 75 minutes allocated for this next portion we're maybe about 10 or 15 minutes behind so in any case I'll try to get us to be done by 750 or better if that's okay with folks um and then I think as far as our procedure from here we just have questions so um I we could just sort of do whatever sequence people like raise your hand in order and I'll call on you and um that's our agenda for this module look at okay council member Wier um police chief Redfern can you give us an update on some of the uh uptick and crime in North Boulder or do you want to wait until your next um presentation you know I had a feeling that might come up I uh I I can talk

[51:02] generally about it um I know you've received emails Council U we have looked at this uh pretty heavily we're still looking at it um we also found that there is an up ticking crime in North Boulder uh we don't know all the reasons for that um we're looking at some of that um we know we've had some issues with encampments around Broadway and Rosewood um we are up there a lot we're meeting with the community we're engaging in different uh groups there uh through our stratified policing model um we look heavily on data to determine where we're focusing our resources um I met with the North Boulder Alliance yesterday um heard their concerns and we are looking at whether the data indicates that we should move one of our problem areas which is University Hill to North Boulder we're not there yet we're still evaluating that to figure out if that's something we need to do we can't just cut and run uh in one area we

[52:00] have to be thoughtful about it um we're to answer your question we are aware we're still looking at it um but we're also looking at deployment and one of the things we have to do all the time is figuring out where do we deploy our resources how many officers do we assign on a particular shift to a particular area so all of those things are in progress um and I should have more information for you next month and by the way I wanted to thank you for the great work in bike reduction bike that reduction that's great thank you okay council member Mar yeah thank you for this presentation it was really helpful um I have uh my first and only question is this is a broader question when we're underst staffed um so significantly each year how does the budgeting carry over can it be used by other departments or are we carrying it over within the police department um line item boy I don't want to I don't want to mess

[53:00] that question up um it cannot be used by other departments thank you so does it go okay yeah thanks so it remains within the police department every year um because precisely we don't know if the police department is able to recruit or in some cases actually the department has been able to recruit laterally and so that can happen throughout the year um but that budget remains um um within the police department at the end of every year we try we reconcile as that moves forward um but we hope that that budgeted amount uh remains uh because that is the approved amount of Force if the police chief were to say for example we actually have looked at Staffing and we want to reduce Staffing then we would have a different conversation I can't imagine that the police chief is in that space with reimagining actually the new Staffing component would actually expand Staffing and we have not approved that yet because they need to reach their

[54:02] Staffing component but so upon the reconciliation then so for instance this year if you were short 20 people you we might find that we're up two million even though we're going to budget for the same amount next year is that correct that then it goes back into the that is when our finance staff then thinks about that reconciliation with fund balance thank you Ryan you're muted excuse me okay council member Benjamin and then we'll have mayor Brockett and then council member fuls awesome appreciate the Ry um my question centers around um a crazy Spike on the DUI charges I think when you mentioned that I did see it but that was alarming was there a a DUI checkpoint or or something that was done intentionally that that just cast a net and grabbed a bunch of folks or was something else going on there I'm just sort of curious since that was quite a an anomalous

[55:01] little Spike that jumped in there earlier this year great question and and I actually look at it a little little differently council member I I look at that as a positive thing because those are mostly proactive stops that you're seeing on there um we're hoping they go back up to where they were a couple months ago so part of it is our grant uh we received that overtime Grant from the state to specifically go out and and find drunk drivers uh but also it's interesting and we did a little story on it we've got some uh newer officers on our watch 3 the overnight shift that just that's their thing they just like going out and uh finding drunk drivers and so we've got two or three very motivated young officers that um every night it seems are going out and finding drunk drivers and so um I've made it clear it's priority uh We've you know we've had some significant issues over the years and so it's uh it's something we're going to continue to focus on of note if as we were able to get fully staffed we don't currently have a full-time DUI team and it's something we've always had in the past I really want to bring that back as we add more Staffing um but that's where that's

[56:00] their only only job just in a followup does is H how do you use perhaps an increase in uh uh DUIs in an deterrent manner in terms of communicating that to the public to sort of get a get get people a whiff of like hey you drive drunk you're gonna get caught like you may not may have thought you could get by but but we're out there and you're going to get caught so either get a designated driver don't drink ride a bike like can can how do we spin that into that deterrent aspect well riding a bicycle drunk is still legal so I'll just throw that out Fair um the second there's two things there one is um our our public information officer has been going out actually writing with officers and doing like ride alongs with the DUI unit highlighting that um sh sharing different campaigns like through Mothers Against Drunk Driving and secondly what we find and what we hear is that when let's say one for example a younger maybe college student gets arrested for DIY that word travels very quickly among their peers and so we find that that has

[57:01] a huge effect in and of itself of I mean you you know how it is you hear so and so got arrested for DUI and and we're hoping that that's enough to go man okay I'm not going to make that same mistake okay mayor bracket yeah Chief thanks so much for being with us here tonight and presenting all of that um very interesting information the the bre of back activities the department is engaged with is uh quite impressive and uh look forward to seeing some of those come to fruition like the certification that's some great initiatives have going on I want to ask a couple quick uh questions about some of the specific ones um I was excited to see the the standing up of the the new uh bike ebike teams downtown could you just tell us just a little bit more about um how those are working and like where officers are going on those and how that's combining with other policing efforts in the city sure thank you for the question mayor um so uh right now we have a lot of officers that are bike

[58:00] certified but the ebikes have a little bit different nuance and so um we are uh right now our officers that are on the ebikes are assigned to our Pearl Street Mall team um it's really uh you know you the way the oneway streets are downtown and all of those things sometimes it's much quicker to get to a location on a bike when there's heavy traffic um and police bikes are accepted from the bikes on the bricks rule um we can get somewhere quicker they've been able ble to roll right up on people using narcotics the bikes have just been a great tool and so we're looking to purchase more our commander of that team is actually looking right now at adding ebikes um we are actually using them out on the the bike paths and trails as well um sometimes by the time we park a police car get out on foot and and go to walk the problem has resolved itself and so um it's really increasing our response times within the next week our Pio is going to be putting out a video our officers uh got in what I would call a foot pursuit the other day they tried to stop a domestic violence suspect he ran they used the bikes to apprehend him

[59:00] it's it's a great video it's a great use of that that tool um and so mostly you're going to see them downtown but um who knows down down the road where we might be able to deploy them more that's great to hear thanks for that and my other one was was right at the end of the slides about the um autism awareness and um I was happy to see that because there have been some well publicized events across the country where offic officers have perceived a lack of cooperation where in fact it's within that the person is autistic so could you maybe talk a little bit about how your staff is then being trained that if they see that sticker how they might interact with that individual differently sure so that's part of this and that's why we haven't rolled it out yet we we're not just going to you know throw the stickers out there without making sure our folks understand that last month um every single member of our agency went through a mandatory training on um persons with autism uh through I can't remember the entity that put it out but it was it was a video everyone had to watch and take a quiz is at the end and it talks about the issues that you just mentioned um Chief of Staff McNiven may

[60:01] want to add more to this but he's also been uh uh being kind of a liaison with the center for persons with disabilities working through other issues there as well he just attended a listening session over the weekend about other issues other than autism um just to ensure that we are not ending up in one of those scenarios where we do mistake uh somebody with a disability for someone that's just being non-compliant or other issues so alist if you have something more to add so I think you captured uh the intent of we're working with the center and uh and people within the community to get their perspective on uh how we might best uh use these kinds of tools like the stickers uh another uh plan that we have uh in the works is uh something that came from some states back East Massachusetts and Connecticut there are some small smaller agencies so cities that

[61:00] came up with what I think is uh an interesting idea and that is a it's called the Blue envelope program and uh on a traffic stop when an officer approaches a driver if the driver presents the uh the officer with a blue envelope it will have on it uh a an acknowledgement to the officer that there may be someone with within the vehicle uh a person with autism and uh and we'll include things like a a contact number for uh a family member if things uh might be better resolved by bringing someone else into it it's a it's really uh I think very creative way of addressing a very real concern which you touched on uh where an officer does not may not recognize uh that they are deal with someone who who perhaps isn't responding as as another driver might so

[62:02] that's that's part of it so we're this last Saturday was the our first meeting we're hoping to have ongoing uh sessions to get input from the community on how we might best uh serve them with with these kinds of uh strategies and tools that's great to hear thanks Alistair I appreciate you all involving you know people with lived experience in the community in in rolling out that program and making decisions about it that's really important hopefully you'll keep us posted as that moves into implementation phase I'd love to learn more that's all I have thanks appreciate it council member fulus and then after that council member Adams thank you um so my first question this wasn't in the presentation but sort of something that was brought up recently um several years ago we approved um The Joint terrorism task force with

[63:00] uh between the FBI and the police department and I um and right now I understand that there aren't any officers serving in that position related to capacity issues um but because we have been promised um sort of annual updates when we have officers serving in that program can Council be alerted when that staff position is filled absolutely we would not fill that position without looping back in um with you all and and I'll just tell you right now capacity wise I don't see that happening in the immediate future but if that changes we will definitely let you know based on the history of that issue thank you um and then you know I really appreciate a lot of this engagement um I think you know something that I've heard over and over again in terms from

[64:00] the community is a call for transparency particular around data and so I was wondering um what our plan is for releasing data on a regular schedule related to like stop data related to erace and ethnicity um and our use of force data great questions um and a lot of that we're still working through because of mandatory reporting that we're dealing with the state some of those are new um things I'll let Dan Dr Reinhard speak to the specifics of it but many of those things are Works in progress and Chief of Staff feel free to jump in if you have some context yeah so thank you council member um that's a great question and that's something that we're looking at working through um through the rest of 2024 one of the issues this is just kind of an example for your awareness is that uh when the state of col started a mandatory stop data program the way that they Define use of force is

[65:03] less restrictive than how we Define them so we would report more use of force than the state I'm sorry Daniel you may need to turn your video off because you're coming in and out sorry about that it looks like my zoom crashed um but to answer your question um this is something that we're working through in 2024 so we would anticipate that at the end of 2024 we would be seeing regular releases of that data like on a every six months kind of schedule or when would we anticipate potentially seeing that and what kind of release schedule are we planning let me I I'll jump in on there Daniel um council member we are committed to this and we but we want to make sure we get it right and so I don't I'm hesitant to give you

[66:00] an exact date but I I I I tell you uh with all certainty that it is something that's on the top list of our priorities we'll keep you updated um we may even have more information next month um but it is it is one of the top uh Pro projects there's just a lot that goes into it um last year we moved to a new records management system and that's also part of um some of the data that we're making sure is correct the last thing we want to do is put out flaw data um as well so I don't want to give you a date but um soon I I hate not being more specific but it it will happen soon I think you're still muted council member thank you um I appreciate your interest in making that happen and you know similarly to the um some of the video footage I would really encourage us to not make Perfection you

[67:00] know to some extent um my preference would be to move forward more quickly and know that we will need to update these systems um over time because no matter what we do the first go around it's not going to be you know things change completely hear you um next I have a couple of questions about The CARE program I'm really excited that that is now up and running right it is yes um do we have any idea of how many um calls they're answering per month I don't um and it because it's not a PD thing I don't know if I'm the right person or even any of our staff to answer that our biggest interaction with them is through our 911 system um but I I don't have that data so that would probably area probably through HHS would be a better route uh yeah I'm happy to provide a

[68:00] little bit more information but I will say and and it is true that the touch point with PD is precisely dispatched but I happen to have a quick little update because I met with the team recently and I know that there was a soft launch at the end of last year um as you know clinicians are hard to recruit and uh find uh they've been um busy doing some training uh this is a joint effort mostly with HHS staff and our fire department um they've been certainly working with the clinicians uh that are embedded in our CT team uh the nice thing is that uh they have recently been working with your team Steve A dispatch team to expand the type of calls that those clinicians are able to or will be able to report to and so they're continuing to work their hope is to continue to um gather information um and get that uh as they're doing monitoring and evaluation and expanding those types of calls but their hope is

[69:00] to come to council uh at some point I think by the end of the year uh to come give an update so more on that uh at some point during the year uh council member thank you um and then I was wondering about the police oversight panel and in some years previously we've had like a report kind of at the end of the year are we anticipating that this year I may have to take that for you as well Steve um that uh that report comes out of our independent Police monitor who actually uh happens to be right now uh with uh some panel members um I know that they will be doing that again and in fact had spoken to our um independent police monitor and not only um would I anticip at a report but I have asked her to think about and we will find some time to come before a council I think

[70:01] that would be really terrific um I myself in uh perhaps a former city uh without naming names am used to having um our independent police monitor not just come forward themselves but with the co-chairs or chair at that point uh of the panel and so we want to think about that as we um move forward and we'll be working with um Sherry to think about what the right timing for that is um as that mov goes forward that sounds great I would love that um and then finally related to Traffic Safety and number of crashes um do we have any sense of how those numbers compare to the number of people using our roads like we can tell that the numbers are down since covid but is that because people are driving safer or is it just people are driving less I I I could only speculate so I'll see if our guy has more detail for you Daniel yeah um so I'll say the the

[71:01] transportation department uses a number of programs that allow for estimates of incoming and outgoing traffic volume in Boulder um but that's not something that the police department has access to um that we we do work closely with transportation to to understand some of that so um that's something that we could get better information about and come back to council with and I assume when you say that the police department doesn't have access to that information that it's just not in your system if you were to request that information the transportation department would of course share it right yes yeah you you interpreted that correctly okay I have no doubt that they would I'm just just making sure um okay yeah I mean I would be interested in understanding um a little bit more how that data you know to me it would provide a little bit more meaning to that so thank

[72:02] you and that's it for my question council member Adams awesome thank you so much thank you for a great um very comprehensive presentation um I too was really excited to hear about the cares um as well as um the the work you're doing um with Stuart Lord and the Floyd projects the youth delegates they were they talked about um that opportunity when we had a chance to have have dinner with them um last month and of of course just you know again um working with the team and representatives of our community connectors so again just a lot um to to be um to feel like we're moving in the in the right direction there um I would also just lift up the um request for you know at the council Retreat we talked

[73:00] about the importance of having lived and learned experience when we're having these types of study sessions and we talked about at the Homeless Solutions um section as well um and it was really powerful even there to have you know representatives from some of our core Partners though we didn't have that lived experience we did have some of those key partners and so as we think about how we want to have this policing section or Public Safety session in the future um you know this really felt more like an update of the bard of police department and that you know is is very much appreciated and um to me you know our Public Safety is kind of like a a three stool um one is the board of police department two the independent Monitor and three the Boulder Police oversight panel and so you know moving forward it is a little awkward right to hear from you know the police about the Boulder Police panel or about you know the independent monitor I think it's more appropriate to have them speak for themselves so I look forward to having that representation um as we consider um

[74:00] how we want to coordinate this in the future and really appreciate the flexibility and willingness to have an opportunity for Sherry our per our independent Monitor and perhaps our chair Victor King to be able to uh join us sooner than waiting for another year so again just recognizing the es and flows as we have a new Council and and really are are working to continue to strengthen the the work of of previous councils and and the staff um I also um you know I really um appreciated um having updates about each of the different sections related to the reimagining policing plan I think one thing that um another recommendation I would have is um as I was looking I basically had to toggle between the presentation and the plan because there were sections that were there was information that did toggle over but then there were sections that weren't addressed in this update and so my preference would be to take the actual goals that have been identified and the actions that have been identified in the

[75:00] plan and give us updates on those actions um and certainly those areas where there's pain points where the council um Can PR perhaps be able to assist in removing some of those bureaucratic barriers or fiscal barriers Etc so I think that that would be something and then just in general with the reimagining um policing plan I think one of the critical pieces that are missing from this plan is a timeline and so it's really again you've got some really great goals and really great actions but there's not a timeline so it's really hard to hold accountable when we don't really know what a timeline is um and I think a perfect example of that is you know the data transparency question right you know that's a part of this plan is um you know the um you know to augment the current dashboard with information about actions officers initiate on their own and maximize the use of access to data by um the public interest and so again um you know I know there's been some efforts made in that area but um it would be really helpful to know you know

[76:01] what is the barrier to getting that information since this plan has been operational since last year um and I would imagine data transparency to be one of the more prioritized issues that came up at least in you know I had the opportunity to provide feedback as a member an inaugural member of the bard of police oversight panel um to this uh to a reaging we actually only had one opportunity to provide feedback so again when we talk about engagement I think it's also important that we talk about the levels of Engagement um and really make sure that we've got sufficient amount of time for the different stakeholder groups that are there but again really grateful for the information that was provided but I'm hopeful in the next update that we actually get an update for the sections that weren't addressed in this update um as far as um specific questions um around this plan when I was looking at the holistic governance and again you know I love a system so um I noticed that that um that slide um there's kind of like a little figure and it has all

[77:01] it's like an infographic and it has all of the different um constituent groups that are a part and it kind of has police but it doesn't explicitly mention again um the independent Monitor and the Boulder Police oversight panel again I think it's really important that we um lift out and delineate that otherwise it just looks like you know those entities don't exist and um you know I think our community was really smart um and intentional about making sure that we had uh a very Dynamic accountability system in in response right uh to some of the the tragic um incidences that we had in our own Community you know Zade Atkins and and Sammy and others are just a few examples um that actually leads to one of my more specific questions which is the community liaison I was curious it was fantastic obviously um to ensure that our our both our Jewish and Muslim communities as well as our lgbq plus understanding intersection it as well within that um I was curious why or what the status of having a Latino or Latin

[78:01] Hispanic um Lea on considering their population um is is larger than um some of the other groups and I would imagine again I haven't looked at the bureau's bias data uh but again from the anecdotals that I hear from those communities it seems like hate crimes and things are also impacting and biases are also have impacted them so I guess my first question is around that um if there is an expectation that that Ro will be um considered in the future or um yeah what the status of that is so that's my first question first of all thank you for D um also part of that too is finding the right staff members for those positions so for example um we used to have uh a detective he's now a detective rul Montana bond that was assigned uh to San Juan he was promoted to detective and so we lost that uh direct connection so we're we want to make sure we the right people in the right places and that's also part of this is we have to be very intentional about uh if we put someone

[79:02] in a position as a liaison and it's not the right fit it could be very bad and so um some of those we are relying upon other people um such as neighborhood servic uh services and community outreach that already have connections in those communities that are bridging some gaps for us now to do some engagement uh going forward and happy to let Council know when we're doing those things as well awesome awesome thank you very much um the next piece I had was around just the community feedback this is also a data section um and so you know just the need to disaggregate so even with the community feedback like I need to know what are the race ethnicity gender of these people that are providing this feedback because again there could be some trends that we would need to see but it's not possible to see when when it's not disaggregated and just in general um to my earlier comment I think sooner rather than later and you know we don't have to have everything all at once

[80:00] either right it could kind of just be you know phases of data I think is another way that we can approach it so that it doesn't feel like it's it's such a heavy lift and I again I I really appreciate the commitment to um the to making sure our data is valid and reliable before we post anything so again um definitely understand but um a year is long enough to wait and I think that we should be able to have some kind of aggregated data available um in a meaningful way on that same note um is the fiscal data I see Daniel's hand rais so feel free to jump in if you had a response to the disaggregated data request yeah absolutely um so the Boulder Police Department is working closely with the equity officer um one of the one of the barriers that we had in getting some of the demographic information of the people that are giving us feedback is that you know obviously like we we we can't and we shouldn't be in a position that we're forcing people people to provide their information um and so those are kind of active discussions about you know do we

[81:01] do we have those questions on the survey um in a way that that isn't intrusive and doesn't you know make people feel like we will value their impact their their input differently based on what they enter and so those those are active conversations that we are having well I encourage you as you're having those conversations to actually talk with people who have various identities um as somebody who is um from a a racial minority I can say I always write down my information because I want people to know because I understand when it's not disaggregated you're not seeing the full picture but I totally understand and would respect optional um and and that's you know but as far as the the barriers to getting some of the crime data disaggregated I think that's something um where I'm I'm not as clear as to what the barriers are um to not have anything by this point um but again thank you so much and again I know that this is not an easy effort but it is absolutely urgent and important um I want to move on to the Boulder Police

[82:01] oversight panels thank you so much for a acknowledging its existence B talking about explicit examples of how policy recommendations have been considered and actually used I would actually request again perhaps in the followup um for next time I know the annual report for the B police over p panel is coming up um in the next couple of months at the very least and recognize that there were various considerations um around that delay um but I am hopeful that that is inclusive of um you know an update on the previous policy recommendations that the Boulder Police oversight panel has made not just in the annual reports but also um you know Case by case there are often times many areas that are outside of the authority of the Boulder Police oversight panel and so what many panelists will do will will create policy recommendations recognizing that we may not have the Authority but um these are things that we are seeing both from our extensive training provided by the police department as well as our

[83:01] lived experience which you know um was a is is is is quite vast so again I'm just uh very much interested again you know it was great to hear about use of force but I didn't hear anything about use of force with juveniles also um you know there were some some questions um about you know working with people with disabilities um you know just the coordination between um social services and um our Police Department um so again I think I'm I'm eager to hear um those borderer police oversight panelists work really hard it's hours and hours of watching video cam hours and hours of training so um those recommendations are are taken really Ser I'm hopeful that they're taken seriously and would like to see more evidence of that um question about escrs um I continue to hear from our our disabled community um and allies that and I see it for myself um it's painful to go on cu's

[84:00] campus and ride around and see all of their stuff in the container that they're supposed to be in and then leave campus and just see these E Scooters thrown about um you know and and when we talked to the E scooter company they said well you know we've got a van that picks up stuff and that's great um but that also impacts somebody's ability to live independently when it's in the middle of a sidewalk or in the middle of a cut curb cut um Etc and I just imagine if somebody left their car in the middle if their if somebody left their Rental Car in the middle of the street and walked away um would we allow that and I don't think we would I don't think we would stand for that after even one incident I don't think that car rental company would rent the car to that person anymore I don't think the police would have let right I think there could be you know tickets on their driver's license so again as our technology advances more quickly than our accountability systems I'm curious what efforts we can do um to to ensure that um the E scooter people are are doing what they need to do to ensure one not

[85:00] only the quick removal but um making sure that those repeat offenders um are not you know allowed to continue to disrupt everybody's life so specific question about E Scooters and you know council member I appreciate and I've seen some of the same things that you're you're referencing I'm not sure not to try to Shar responsibility but I don't know if I'm the right person to answer that I mean obviously we can enforce laws when they are outriding recklessly and things like that and we have done that and obviously we're trying to prevent crashes but uh I'm not sure you know in once again you know not to interrupt you but if I left my rental car in the middle of the street right somebody would do something about it and I'm just wondering I I will say where responsibility is yeah I'll say counc member Adams that the person who manages those contracts is our transportation and mobility department and I'll make sure we follow with you on that particular question okay great appreciate that all right I'm almost at the end um in the Boulder Police

[86:01] reimaging policing what another thing I really appreciated about the plan is that they had that Geographic focus and also in your update you also talked about the geographic Point focus and to um council member wier's earlier question about North Boulder you know moving forward I would love to see more Geographic updates um or Community Based or neighborhood based update so that we can get a better handle we know that there's some acute problems I think from that concentrated what is it called concentrated map of something concentrated map of in incidences or something like that um I think there were like about three or four so I'm not imagining tons and tons but it would be nice to have like a a deeper dive into you know what's happening in North Boulder or the Band Shell or you know Civic Park or you know just some of these more more acute area so as you're thinking about data um and data transparency and some of that disaggregation perhaps we can prioritize

[87:01] some of those um areas where we are seeing um both increases and then sustained um effort so I got that that's that's an easy ask Council memb yeah yeah and then you mean may all my ass be easy and then with um change over time so again this is just something in general that I'm I'm gonna always ask for um you know as we are especially since we only get to have these deep Dives kind of once or twice a year having that change over time data is really really helpful so again I know there were a lot of slides that had change over time but again I need those slides connected to the actual reimagining policing plan right like how are you know to me all of those slides are evidences around the actions that you're taking and I just am I wouldn't like I prefer not to have to crosswalk through do to to get that information and and I know that our community members would appreciate it as well again this is a work in progress I

[88:00] really appreciate your leadership and coming in as an interim I have always appreciated the opportunities that we had to work together at the Boulder Police oversight while serving um and same for you Alistair uh you were leading our our use of force training and I still um am just really that was a powerful thing and I will leave you all with this which is in that training um you know stage zero or level one or whatever you know people are talking nicely to the person are you okay I didn't even know that level existed I've never seen it or witnessed it or experienced it myself so to know that people are trained the way that we are supposed to act for anyone was uplifting but it was also tragic to know that that's not my lived experience or the experience of many others in our community so thank you both for your efforts and the rest of the department I look forward to continued conversation around this and having you come back again um when I'm just double doing double checks for all my little questions and everything um I feel good about it for now I'm going to uh coign Lauren's request about the video and access around data because

[89:01] I'm GNA just add that into the data transparency question as the video piece but again thank you very much for the opportunity and look forward to being on the team with all of you thank you council member mayor protm Dr spear thank you um and thank you so much for the presentation um and all this work just to kind of put this all together for us a couple of my um questions already been answered so I just want to lift them up again um the uh idea about getting demographic information and I understand it's challenging appreciate you're trying to figure out how to do this for me especially in some of those um satisfaction reports and things I would really love to see that broken down because I think that's where we can really see you know is this um training we're doing uh being effective perceived by our community members who are having interactions um and then also I had the same question that Lauren did about um whether any of the uh traffic decreases have been related to just having less traffic and the all the other data source I might suggest there would be U

[90:01] looking at office vacancy rates um with either Community Vitality or the chamber or somebody like that because I'm curious if that um could be another way of showing if if that's part of what it is is just fewer people on our roads um and then uh one other question that I had around um this is in the it was a really big increase in bias motivated um crimes and I was trying to understand is that sort of just reports of crimes or if those are crimes that have kind of been been looked at um and and judged to actually be crimes can you explain that a little more I can if Dan I I asked Daniel to go to different room because his computer was terrible um okay I don't know if he's back on but I can share with you what he shared with me Daniel if you're here please speak up it looks looks lonely in there Daniel go ahead yeah um counc member can you please repeat part of your question I was just being promoted yep absolutely so um the number either seemed uh really

[91:00] low well actually yeah see kind of seemed really low either way but U what I was just wondering is whether whether that 17 um bias motivated crimes for uh 2023 was that crimes that had sort of been investigated and you know people were being held accountable for those was that just what was reported um and and it hadn't necessarily been investigated yet what did that number represent yeah of course so that number uh represented the number of reports not necessarily the number of crimes indicated in reports and so the way that most agencies report this kind of information like to the state and federal government it's by bias motivations and so 17 reports in one report you can have multiple kinds of bias motivations against different groups um and they they can also include multiple crimes and so I can tell you that um those 17 reports included circumstances that were ultimately found to not be criminal but were documented because they need to be documented um but many of them were

[92:02] criminal okay thank you that's that's helpful to know um and I appreciate that we're tracking that and sorry to see that number go up so high um but hopefully some of it is also just the relationships you're building and people starting to feel more comfortable um speaking up about it and then I just had a couple of other questions about things that were U whether or not we're tracking uh them so wage theft is something that I continue to hear about around folks in the community um so I'm curious if that's anything we're tracking uh the other is threats from um white supremacy uh and domestic terrorism specifically from right-wing extremists and uh White Christian nationalists that just continues to be something on my mind given what we're seeing uh on a more National level and hearing about even our community so I'm wondering if we're tracking uh information and um doing so in a way that can inform their prevalence in the community Daniel I'll let you take the wage theft question real quick um if if that I know that's a difficult one to track but you probably have a better

[93:00] answer than I do um yeah my answer generally uh to that question is that we do track that kind of information um but some of that is is easier like that's something we could provide for the next Council session a couple weeks because it'll take a little bit of time to to parse out okay thank you yeah I would I would appreciate seeing some of that too I feel like something too that's going to benefit from some of the relationships that you all are building in the community and helping people understand um how to how to report that thank you indeed and to your to your other point um so the way that we so we obviously are are very um concerned um with white supremacy with people um you know that may want to come to Boulder for whatever reason to to harm our community based on whatever IDE ideology um looking at this year you know obviously election season no matter which way things go it's a concern for us it's more about um

[94:01] looking at a specific incidents and it's hard to say you know we have something that happens if someone doesn't tell us hey we believe this happened because of this or we find that we we have a case where we make an arrest and we say wait a second this person is giving us indications that they're part of uh you know a white supremist group or any any number of groups um it's more about kind of figuring out you know when we know that we've had something why they're here what their motivation is in Boulder um it's something that's always on our radar it's not easy to track um one of the things um though that we do is we network with our federal Partners WE Network with other agencies around Colorado through hatefree Colorado when we meet I hear about you know this flyer got dropped in this city we see it up here and so part of it is just about um relationships to get a heads up when we hear about potential things um and like anything else there's sometimes it seems like there's new things popping up every day so it's it's really about trying to stay on top of Trends we do send you know detectives to different classes on

[95:00] how to identify these sorts of things um unfortunately though sometimes we don't know about them till they happen that to to be very clear the the very smart criminals aren't going to broadcast or uh indicate that they're going to come harm people it's it's um sometimes we're reactive but a lot of times there's things we can do ahead of time if nothing else to just be aware of the existence of a particular um in town or around town yeah thank you and I think too it's right it's it's not just kind of people coming into Boulder um so for example in my neighborhood um a few years ago for about a year there was a a car that had a 3center bumper sticker right like there it's people in our community as well and just kind of thinking about that uh too and and you know seeing um folks just showing pictures of you know Patriot front signs that they've taken down and stuff like that so um yeah so I think it's it's not just outside it is here too um just potentially a little bit less less vocal

[96:00] than when it's somebody coming in for a March or something that's fair but yeah no thank you for that that's it's helpful um and then the other thing is and this is just sort of a a comment and um I think a food for thought type question um I attended the listening session at the center for people with disabilities last weekend and it was wonderful really really appreciated uh being there Tera was there too uh it was just really great to hear and one thing though that I kind of heard there and alar I kind of talked to you already about this a little bit but just want to raise it here too um and I heard some of this language in the presentation tonight um and it's it's just it's a little bit hard to hear sometimes when we're saying that it's the community's job to figure out how to a act around us in a way that's going to keep them safe and and I understand you know where that sort of comes from because people are trained to you know to look for threats and I just want to name it's also really hard to hear that because it feels like we're telling our community members it is your job to stay safe from us um and

[97:00] and I don't know you know where the solution is in there um but I I was really heartened by just some of the discussion at the cpwd last weekend where um people were really you know working on on thinking collaboratively about how we do this and I often have the thought that when we are um problem solving for the groups um with the highest needs needs and the highest need for accommodations and things like that we're actually doing things that are going to benefit everyone it's not just that one group that benefits and so I'm just wondering if in these conversations we can start to think about maybe some different um language we can use when we're talking about this or different ways that we can um approach folks so that so that people in our community aren't feeling like it the onus is on them to not be you know harmed or have an interaction go badly um so again just a just a comment um but I appreciate you know that within that cpwd conversation we were starting to think about that and

[98:00] and I look forward to hearing more about um how we are how we're moving forward in that way and I know it wasn't a question but I will just respond to your comment we we app I I appreciate that and we're committed you know we don't have it all figured out and we're that's why we're willing to go you know anywhere we're asked to go and learn and and and pick this up and and I'm absolutely willing to to hear that feedback so thank you for that yeah thank you all I I do appreciate that you create an environment where I can say these things that I might not say to everybody thank you I I have I have one more comment just because it uh you um council member Adam's earlier statement I want to make sure we acknowledge that the the driving force behind setting up that uh that session last Saturday was our independent police police monitor Sherry down so I want to make sure that I acknowledge that uh she's the person who set that motion and it was it was

[99:01] wonderful thank you yeah yeah she did a really great job it it was a really wonderful event okay I will take a turn and then um I know we've done mostly questions there have been a few comments so if there's any remaining thoughts that folks would like to share before we move on to the next item um we could try to do a quick to that about 15 minutes left um session um okay so for my comments uh thank you again inter Chief Red for and team I have three things council member fart's really covered most of it though so I'm just going to try to run through this and lift up um the main points the first one on eliminating deaths and serious injuries in our transportation system uh first I just wanted to acknowledge and thank um interview brein for meeting with me last week uh we spent about an hour talking about um ways that we can continue with the

[100:00] journey that I know the the city has begun um to do this well and I say I know what we have begun because I would commend that you're using the crash you're being deliberate about using word crash and not not jumping to accident um and that's a journey that's started and that we have a lot to do and specifically around aligning uh our departments towards a shared understanding about change model for the outcomes we need to get to how to get there way that we use data and way that we understand crash investigation reporting can be used potentially to identify problem patterns um that have implications for the transportation mobility department that have implications for the city manager and then have implications for uh for US city council so just wanted to say thank you um and I look forward to contined discussion on that I think with um council member V's question I don't have anything further at this point but look

[101:00] forward to um unpacking that more after we have some more um dialogue um that that's that that was just the comment I suppose um and then the second topic on data uh coun forence said two things that I was going to say myself so one on race data around stops very much forward to getting U making that transparent um as soon as it's practicable and then also on use of data um looking forward to seeing that become live placing so thanks for that and um my third topic is on care also fker has talked about this maybe I'll just say my my questions these are really data focused so so you know what they are and um just so you have the question so I'm I'm very interested specifically in what are what are the what is the percentage and the number of 911 calls that are diverted to care um that could I don't know the best

[102:01] way to characterize that if it's monthly or if it's if it's however you'd like to do it but I'd like to understand that I know that we're we're early in the um in this journey but I'd like like understand that then relatedly of that share what percentage of care dispatch calls lead to backup calls um again I'm say and also I acknowledge that we're early in this this this initiative so I'll be hoping to um find data on that either um it I don't know if anything will be available for the next time we meet in soon after but council member shuart I'll make sure to pass that on to the care team because it's likely not going to be interim Chief Redfern but that team thank you very much um okay that's all I have unless um uh inter Ed with with my questions comments if you have any anything you want to respond to no I just appreciate it I also found our meeting beneficial and we're committed to to doing what we can in that realm as

[103:00] well um thank you thanks okay so uh last call any any final thoughts from anyone before we move on going once going twice okay that does it for this item thank you again interm Chief Red Fern and team thank you all good night okay so with that let's move to our our next item and I will give it to uh city manager ner River vandermay to introduce it thank you so much council member and um it's striking to me that today seems to be uh a day that has different facets of Public Safety um unbeknownst to you all perhaps we started the morning uh a variety of folks leaders in their own rights from all areas and uh around the organization were LED in a tabletop exercise um this morning um by our office of disaster management around a scenario involving Wildfire recovery um and we just heard a

[104:02] little bit about BPD uh and we're about to talk a little bit about our community Wildfire protection plan um so it has been a bit of a public uh safety day in a variety of facets um so uh I'm going to open it up and I believe that our assistant city manager Pam Davis is going to kick us off on today today's journey and a journey it will be thank you nura um hi everyone my name is p oh my light just turned off perfect timing my name is Pam Davis I am uh one of Boulder's assistant city managers and I use she her pronouns it's great to be with you thank you for the time tonight um my job tonight is really to do an overview of the framework of our Wildfire resiliency work and introduce the community Wildfire protection plan and then we have a fabulous group of subject matter experts um to lead us through the discussion so um if you don't mind Lisa and Alicia please pull up the slide

[105:02] deck thank you so I want to begin about with grounding councel and community in the context for our Wildfire resiliency work as a whole as we know enjoying all that Boulder has to offer includes preparing for and becoming more resilient against the damage that can be caused by wildfires City staff alongside Community Partners community members agency Regional Partners we all working together in new ways to improve the safety of our community and the sustainability of the natural space around us we all have a role to play and Wildfire preparedness and resiliency Boulder has long been proactive in addressing Wildfire risks for Community safety we've implemented measures such as maintaining a year- round team of fire management professionals transitioning the Community away from highly flammable roofing materials promoting fire resilient eco ecosystem

[106:00] management and emphasizing disaster preparedness the Marshall fire was a stark reminder of the importance of community resiliency and preparedness in the face of fast-moving wildfires nearly a year after the Marshall fire in November of 2022 older voters voters approved a new climate action plan tax which includes 1.5 million to support a more holistic and collaborative approach to address the city's ongoing climate and resilience efforts leveraging that tax we have the opportunity to shape a new generation of ecological sustainability with fire and Wildfire resilience while we're taking on more work to help our community Through Wildfire risk reduction efforts that are prioritized in our protection plan we will also continue to reiterate the Wildfire risk reduction and Boulder is everyone's responsibility together we can keep our communities safer and be better stewards of our natural lands next slide

[107:00] please so tonight's study session is going to focus on the Citywide Wildfire resiliency framework then we're going to focus most of our time on informing you all on what the community Wildfire protection plan is how the Plan update process was completed and preview preview the final draft recommendations we also intend to present some ongoing work highlights and provide Council the opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback on the draft plan next slide please the city's Wildfire resiliency work brings together a cross- departmental team including support from the nine departments you see here as well as many others it takes the entire city organization along with agency partners and community members to support this work while the team was formerly charged formal formally chartered almost two years ago we continue to evolve who and how we work together and continue to

[108:00] identify opportunities in new ways some of the Departments you see on the slide were not part of the original team charter but as we have begun to explore the interconnectedness of all of our Wildfire resilience work we continue to broaden the table as we move forward as a reflection of that collaboration we do have significant staff support with us here tonight so when we open for questions and feedback at the end we may be phoning several different friends along the way to help us out continuing the implement the recommendations in our cwpp it supports a priority action within the safe goal of our sustainability equity and resilience framework and supports strategy number two of our city-wide strategic plan which is to advance efforts to enhance Regional disaster prevention preparedness and response that leverage existing Partnerships and prioritize City Investments while the cwpp is just one piece of the wide range of resiliency efforts across our community we're eager to leverage it

[109:01] to advance our important Citywide goals next slide please what we're bringing to you tonight is the second edition of our community Wildfire protection plan the first was completed in 2007 this current iteration was funded by Boulders climate tax passed by voters in November of 2022 the update will serve as an ongoing guiding document that will assist the city and community members in making informed decisions with respect to Wildfire preparation and management Wildfire protection plans exist in many jurisdictions across the country and at local state and federal levels the plan we are presenting tonight aligns with standards of the healthy Forest restoration Act of 2003 and standards of the Colorado State Forest Service this is a document that revolves around identifying and reducing risk it's heavily scientific but also integrates important Community input to

[110:00] ensure our Community Values are considered having a cwpp is important for maintaining eligibility for several federal and state grant opportunities and while the plan is specifically not a regulatory document you will see key policy recommendations that will explore the adoption and enforcement of enhanced building codes part of that work will come to you in the form of the Wildland Urban interface building code updates next year along with our work previously discussed in the last couple of months supporting City council's newly adopted priority to pursue Wildfire hardening and waterwise Landscape policies and recommendations those policies along with future budget and resource decisions with Council will be your primary touch Point as council with this important work and finally the plan recommends best management practices but the prioritization resourcing and implementing ation is now the city's role these recommendations will not inherently solve the risk of wildfire in our community but it will create steps

[111:00] for the community to be better prepared and so with that I am pleased to turn over the presentation to our division Chief Brian Oliver from Boulder fire rescue to share the plan with you perfect uh thank you very much Pam that's a great frame up um like P said I'm R over I'm the Wildland division chief for Boulder fire rescue and and real happy and proud to to be able to present this plan to council um getting into it the the process really started um like Pam said about two years ago with the formulation of our Wildfire resiliency team that big cross Department um group we sat down and really started diving through uh cross Department plans our old documents our current fire management work and tried to inventory things that we were already doing and in that dive we realized that well the original Community wilda protection plan was really old and really outdated so uh

[112:01] one of the first steps of that group was to to dive back into that document and create an update and so that's that's where we ended up here um looking at the the breadth of the the issue the amount of of City owned property across the county not just in the municipal boundary we realized that needing a a larger more encompassing effort was was going to take some help so we did go through an RFP process and and did uh procure a consultant to help us really kind of author the plan and make it a little prettier than we probably would do on our own so um really what what boils down to is we take all of the available silence we have at our fingertips now and and utilize some of those Consultants uh resources to create fire Behavior modeling um you know and with that we take that fire Behavior modeling lay it across the landscape look at it from VAR varied angles

[113:00] through different subject matter experts whether it's uh vegetation management actual fire suppression expertise um all of those things and then we also create some field assessments and do some snapshots of the community uh through what we call 1144 it's an FPA basically a a quick curbside assessment to figure out how communities are dealing with or how they're going to receive Wildfire whether or not they're prepared we take that and we start throwing it into uh a larger plan capturing some ongoing work and we try to identify and prioritize some recommendations we take our staff and we take some of those recommendations some of those maps and we'll get into those in a little while look at some maps in a minute um and we input review view goes back and forth between us and the consultant to make sure that the science and the magic is is is working right um and then we also invite external partner

[114:01] feedback so part of our um wildfire core team that they helped develop the plan included um several other uh fpds fire protection districts excuse me that have open space or or city property in their districts Partners like the wild United States Forest Service the Colorado State Force ET Etc um those are all folks that that we use as as partners in the process and then we also wanted to integrate as as so many other communities post Marshall dove into their cwpps as well um members of our group also were part of Executive Core teams for the county cwpp efforts they're they're about a month behind us you'll see their document coming out here pretty soon and Mountain View Fire Protection District which as all of the uh Fire Protection districts in the county go they have the most city property in their District as than anyone else so it's very important with us to collaborate with them and

[115:01] make sure that that our plans were maybe not exactly the same but at least congruent in using same risk model processes and and similar um environments Brian I apologize for interrupting you you may have to either get closer to the microphone or speak louder because you're a little muffled okay I apologize for that that's a problem with this fancy computer I have I will try to clean that up a little bit and then of course we have Community involvement next slide please so as the plan States right is a community Wildfire engagement plan so um we used a multimodal uh process to try to utilize as many methods as we can to reach as many people as we can and get as broad an audience for that Community engagement and Community feedback that we could uh social media open houses virtual events um websites standard

[116:03] media uh press releases again in that engagement in that coordination with the other cwpp efforts we made sure we were involved as City Representatives at their Community engagement meetings and they were at our so all of the plans really shared a lot of process so that truly was trying to be more encompassing across the community we shared a public survey um over 1100 respondents to that survey 270 of those folks uh answered that they lived within the city limits and so that's where that 270 number comes from so um by way of comparison um most of the other community W protection plans that our consultant has completed uh the numbers of their respondents was between 20 and 30% of that 270 based on the community so uh we have a really engaged community and that's a that's a really good

[117:03] thing next slide so again to describe the project area uh again our original cwpp effort was uh based solely around the municipal boundary we really didn't expand very far out into U the rest of the county but given our city-owned and managed lands that that spread throughout the county and into Jefferson County and in that little blob at the bottom there um we knew that that that property touched a lot of other communities and a lot of other neighbors and so we wanted to be more look at this more broadly and and Encompass all that and for those of you not familiar the the Big Blob over there on the left side that's what we call our source water protection Zone um and that that's the city owned Watershed above Netherland up to the Silver Lake water uh silver L watershed area so we had to include that as well um as that City owned and manage

[118:01] land you go to the next slide please so all of that data all of those documents and plans that we have all of the fire modeling um and science that we used from the consultant through other uh you know csfs and usfs modeling profiles we created a whole big file of of risk maps for for decision making um some of those Maps listed here a risk to assets rate of spread flame length those are all you know fire suppression models we use to make sure you know figure out what kind of resources we need to fight what kind of fire uh probability of control probably exceeding control which again same in that similar ilk of of can we or can we not fight the fire as it stands given the fuel model and the the typography uh where the fire exist so we place virtual fires all over the landscape and run these models and and make some determinations on risk and you

[119:00] get a whole pile of maps and if you look through the draft plan you can you can definitely cycle through a lot of these and and see how they look and and some of the some of them are a little more uh scary than others there's a lot of red and orange in some of them and not so much um this map you're looking at here is What's called the expected nit value change which to me is one of the more visually ding Maps uh just because it's it's it's pretty easy to see the issue right so what this is saying is based on the burn probability of that fuel and that topography as it sits the colors represent the negative change um to the value or resource so not saying that green is great and it's not creating any negative change it's just that is less negative because that's mostly vegetation whereas we started getting into yellows and reds uh that's where we start reaching improvements infrastructure and all those other things so that's that's a negative impact if if fire were to involve those areas um and that feeds into the next map so you can go to the next slide

[120:01] please so treatments uh and recommended treatments this is I think another one of those really great uh striking maps that shows a really good picture so all of those green blobs you see there are previous fuel treatments either done by us in the city uh through various departments Partners or service our neighboring fire protection districts neighboring communities so that's all work that's already been done uh as recently as the last 10 years so that's that's quite a bit of fuel treatment fuel treatments are can be anything from prescribed fire mechanical thinning so cutting down trees and removing vegetation mowing grazing all of those things are considered fuels reduction treatments um all very important and all tools in the box so to speak one one thing isn't going to solve the problem we need to use them all um congruently and and appropriately the red treatments or the red blobs were treatments that we have already planned so those are

[121:00] already in work plans they're already on the docket uh through either open space in Mountain Parks or parks and wreck or or utilities or or you know those other departments um that that we were working on before we even started this process and then of course purple if you look at the purple it really kind of Dives in and touches on all those red and yellow spots on the previous map and those were the recommended fuel treatments that that came out of the cwpp process again those are those are just fuel treatment recommendations but I I thought this map was a a really good way to show you know some of the work that's already been done and and where we can enhance and do better work um next slide please so with all that again don't want to dive into so many of the details in the science B and and keep this at a higher level but you know pulling out some of the key recommendations not diving through the the I think it's nine pages at least when you printed out of recommendations um as that would take way too long we'll dive in so

[122:00] everything's couched uh in the cwpp through the tenance of the national uh cohesive strategy for wild and fire um and those tenants are safe and effective response resilient Landscapes and fire adapted communities so we we pulled a pull a recommendation out of each one of those those buckets if you will um to really kind of highlight some of those high level places where where we need to work and the big one in safe and effective response is to create a the recommendation out of the plan is to create a tactical and operational fire response and suppression plan with a focus on law fire escalation into em configuration and that's you know I'm I'm delighted to say that that's right in line with the work we're already doing um with our structural protection plan and we are currently starting to work on some operational planning around configration management and suppression uh with our partners at PD and O and the office of disaster management so that to down fast as far as resilient Landscapes um the high level strategy there is to

[123:01] utilize prescribe burning strategically across the landscape to reduce accumulated Hazard vegetation that is uh from the fire management standpoint and from uh a response standpoint uh it's the best bang for the buck as far as removing hazardous fuels accumulations and reducing fire impact or fire severity uh incredible tool and uh I definitely 100% agree with with this particular recommendation is that it's a tool we need to use more often and then lastly in the fire adapted communities section um we want to explore the adoption and enforcement of defensible space and building fund as P said I know that's high on the list of priorities and that is definitely a recommendation we definitely want to follow up on and then again tying into to work that we had already started uh was to establish a defensible grant a defensible space rant program to increase our homeowner mitigation and home hardening actions and again happy to say that that work is already begun and is moving forward um

[124:01] next slide please so to highlight some of those ongoing work pieces at least from from Boulder fire rescue um our home safety assessments or or detailed home assessments for Wildfire risk are are well underwear with our addition of our risk Community risk reduction staff um we've worked through the the previous backlog and and all of that backlog has at least been scheduled for assessment and we're working on accepting new uh detail in assessments and again that program is tied directly to uh the upand cominging grants program that's moving forward some good response system improvements uh we've moved to what we call indices based dispatching and have adopted across our our Consortium Partners In The Fire Service uh what we call a standard of cover so now we are utilizing um real time weather and fuels data to drive our response decision so uh to keep it simple if it's hot dry and windy we are adding way more firefighters and fire engines to the

[125:01] response uh initially as opposed to sending a standard single engine company to determine that they have a problem and ask for more stuff we're stacking that alarm box a little heavier from the get-go if the conditions weren't I think that's that's been a really big uh a really big help in fire suppression ground um and then of course as I mentioned earlier the updated structure protection plan we're almost completed with that and that's been a big lift as we transition from traditionally paper maps and and some other a little more archaic methods to to a more sharable digital platform that that's going to be a lot more user friendly I'm pretty happy that that that's almost done um several updates to our alert and Warning Systems and evacuation planning processes um if there are questions on that of course you can we have some some colleagues in the in the room that will definitely help us explain that and then uh the regional Incident Management team so bould the county U Fields a type

[126:01] three Wildland fire incident management team um and the city my division and my uh colleagues at Boulder County Fire management we co-manage that team that's important because what that does is it helps us uh get the high level response and the the high level incident managers here quickly and it's more and it's a much more collaborative response as things emerge and and become too big for for any one jurisdiction and that's happens more often than not in the Wildfire world so those are some some that's a really again trying to be quick and and keep it high level and not dive into the minutia of of of a million different things within the plan but that's really some high level orientation to the plan some work that ties directly to that plan and that we're we're moving forward through from the fire department and I'd like to turn it over to Dan Burke at open space in Mountain parks to to touch on some of the high level things that open space

[127:00] does that continues this work as well great thank you Brian uh good evening Council it's great to be here to talk about the cwpp um I'm going to bring us home in terms of the presentation got a few more slides for you before we turn it over for questions and a response period um got a few slides that are focus on uh Wildfire resilient Landscapes and some of the work that we're doing and the intention of bringing these slides forward and these updates forward is really to emphasize the fact that the cwpp is filled with recommendations that are we're already doing they're continuing recommendations of enhancing efforts that uh maybe we have done but we need to enhance those bring those up to the next level and a sprinkling of things that we actually need to do some new things that we haven't done before and I want to use my to sort of emphasize those those three points and then I will bring us to conclusion so as most of you know uh open space has uh

[128:00] been in the work of wildfire uh protection mitigation resilience for many many years in fact the city of Boulder was the first one of the first municipalities to develop and Implement a forest ecosystem management plan and in that plan it's it's really about bringing together ecosystem Health Forest Health and then by doing so so you have that co- benefit of re uh mitigating risk of extreme wildfires so uh again that's sort of the blend that open space looks at this issue if we can keep our natural areas healthy uh there's this great co- benefit of reducing the risk of fuel uh uh uh that can fuel extreme wildfires so what is the cwpp do for open space and other land managers that are also adopting uh cwpp throughout the region well really it aims to enhance Wildfire mitigation efforts on City managed lands but to build and Foster new Partnerships for

[129:01] cross cross boundary work as you know our lands intersect with County owned lands and uh Forest lands a lot of private lands and so really it's a a total group partnership effort next slide please so in terms of uh what is that ongoing work the cwpp calls out for us to continue to do and really here are some of the basic uh goto strategies that we have found to be tremendously effective uh tree thinning uh we have uh nearly doubled our Forestry Crew over the over the last few years we now have 13 staff members that are out on our lands uh on a daily basis uh on Forest Health uh um um actions which has that co- benefit of wildfire uh mitigation um uh work uh we also uh work with prescribed burn burning and that is something we do in partnership with

[130:00] Brian and chief color razo's team as well as our County Partners and this year we've done a number of agricultural Burns of grasslands uh in our ditch corridors we would like to bring that program even further to do more landscape level uh burning because that is perhaps one of the most effective ways to reduce our fuels uh prescribed burning is a difficult program uh to enhance uh but we think that uh we can get there and uh through our Partnerships that the cwpp alludes to weed management is one of those things that you may not associate with uh Wildfire uh reduced Wildfire risk but it it but it very much is tied to that and the integrated management approach of reducing noxious weeds uh and prevent their spreads has that co- benefit of reducing fine fu TOS on our system which could uh increase uh uh uh extreme fires the likelihood for it we've also just want to if you are interested in more of

[131:00] these strategies that we do as land managers managers we have a a great website that's developed that talks about these and others in more detail next slide please I mentioned uh ongoing efforts and then those efforts that we are looking to enhance we know that uh for many many years we've worked with local farmers and ranchers you may not know but about 15,000 Acres of our city-owned lands are in some form of agricultural production in any given year we have we partner with between 25 and 30 local farmers and ranchers to carry out agricultural activities on our system well cattle grazing mimics cattle uh uh uh large herbivores that used to be on the system such as bison and what that uh What uh what this does is not is not only an economic uh uh uh contribution to the county but it's also uh uh reduces noxious weeds and it reduces fine fuels in our system

[132:01] so what we have found by doing targeted cattle grazing experiments in the Shanahan Ridge area is through our monitoring this has greatly reduced our fine fuel loads in this area while reducing the presence and keeping at Bay the presence of the noxious weed tall oak grass and so you will see the cattle now up on our system there and there wasn't cattle for many many years up here and we' started to reintroduce reintroduce cattle over the last few years and have expanded that to a number of different enclosures and in the coming uh months we're actually going to be partnering with enar to build a cattle enclosure on incard to help uh uh expand this work of uh fine fuel reduction next slide and finally I want to talk about new work uh something that we're going to be uh undertaking in the next few weeks and we've already started to put the word out on on that we are piloting a perimeter mowing program uh where osmb osmp will mow a 30-foot strip of open

[133:02] space next to four neighborhoods to help reduce Wildfire risks we are targeting mainly grasslands and we are targeting high high uh risk communities on the western interface of the city the goal is to reduce these grasses down to four to six inches in height that will uh uh and the mowing will incur occur twice a year and that what we'll do is we'll be monitoring that to make sure that we're not having any adverse effects to our native grasslands and that we're having the intended effect of reducing fine fuel loads and reducing the risk uh directly adjacent uh to our uh highly prone and more high risk uh community members and and structures and next slide please so what's next well the CD W PP provides the city with a guidance and recommendations for continuing enhancing and developing new strategies and approaches for how to make our community

[134:01] and our natural landscapes more resilient to Wildfire so with the final cwp P finally in hand our attention is turning towards how best to integrate all these cwpp recommendations into existing and future work plans and this will be accomplished through the development of an action plan that will detail timelines identify needed capacities and uh sort of note responsibilities and role Clarity for completing high priority actions projects and programs contained within the cwpp this action plan will be happening at the same time that we are continuing all of the great Wildfire resilience work that the city is already undertaking so the immediate next steps towards this end include we're convening a summit in fact next Friday of the city's wild fire resilient core and executive team members about 30 35 of us in all to begin working on this action plan simultaneously the city is

[135:01] developing a strategic communic is developing strategic Communications of how best to inform educate and encourage community members to join the Wildfire resilience efforts and throughout this implementation process we will seek to keep Council informed and updated and as Pam alluded to there will be specific items that we will be bringing to the council for their consideration and action in the next uh year or two finally we have developed and will soon begin to populate a monitoring and tracking dashboard so the community can follow along with our implementation proog progress a snapshot of that uh dashboard is showing here uh and it will be Community facing and once we begin to populate that dashboard we will do some uh get the word out of of put uh letting the community know where they can kind of track our progress as we start to implement some of these recommendations so that concludes the uh

[136:02] staff presentation portion of this evening and we're kind of anxious and uh excited about getting into the uh question and answer period and we just populated a couple of questions in here for Council to consider does city council have any questions regarding the purpose content or the implementation of the cwpp and which of these recommendations or these recommendation themed areas are of the highest interest to council to be considered as staff begins to develop this action plan so with that I will turn it back over to council member shuart to begin the question and answer period thank you Mr Burke and thank you assistant city manager Pam Davis and team for this um I would suggest as similar for a minute as before uh we could just go in order and um we've got the two questions there folks to reflect on and if you like you could add any other thoughts to your discussion and then we can maybe just do it with one point each um I am now entertaining uh hands raised

[137:02] uh to speak okay council member Marquis yeah um thank you so much for providing the plan and uh it was really long but given the level of interest of wildfire in the community I actually appreciated having a lot of details about what the different groups are doing um to help keep our community safe and resilient toward Wildfire especially when we're still in the aftermath of the Marshall fire so um so it was really with great interest that I read through all 370 Pages um so uh yeah it was great um so I have a couple questions that I think are um particularly important because as you mentioned some of this information will intersect with some of the other decisions we'll be making as a council so the first was um there's a map that shows what the the wooi is the orange area in Boulder but it's different than the somewhat narrow line

[138:01] of orange that will be um that we're going to have the construction code and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about why the area that would have the construction code applied to it if I'm understanding it correctly is so much smaller than the rest of the city I I was surprised it didn't go in very Det into the city of Boulder from the Western Edge is that making sense it it does and and to speak to that and I'll try to speak clearly enough apparently my mic's not working that well um uh so there's there's some operational delineation around wooi and then of course building code around wui and they are uh two separate animals um and I would like to bring in um Fire Marshall David Lowry if he's in the room I believe he is to to kind of Define a little bit of of of why we delineated the the building code woi different from from what we consider as as like operational wio in the Wildland chap if you would please yeah um so uh what you

[139:04] have when we look at like the map links in the city of older and that um smaller thinner line that we kind of made up with the red orange and yellow we defining the ignition resistant type construction and that is out of our current adopted uh uh Wildland interface code that we've had adopted really since 2013 right and that requires that ignition resistant con Construction in that identified Urban interface and we use the definition that we adopted within that code that really is kind of a a definition that specifically talks about the Wild Land as it comes in contact with homes and or structures within that interface to try to resist them from igniting on fire and we've brought it in a little bit more um than than maybe

[140:00] normal as well the wooi Zone the wooy the big orange kind of uh thing that was in the cwpp that was more done from kind of a AI sporadical type data um that just kind of looks at the I don't know exactly how it was done it's kind of almost zip codish type thing and you know where it kind of came in as as Boulder is in the Foothills and it's subject to Wildfire so I can't really explain what what's in the cwpp but I can I can definitely uh you know could go into more detail probably not needed in this meeting about how we looked at and defined uh the wooi as it pertains to our adopted code okay and so would we would you anticipate when we talk about fire resilient construction codes that it would apply to that thin strip or would

[141:02] it go a little bit deeper perhaps until sort of the Broadway area 36 I mean what what's the do do we differentiate in terms of the neighborhoods in terms of vulnerability or how far an ember can fly or whatever the yeah well as we start looking at uh adopting the the next uh set of iodes which the the Wildland interface code be part of that we're certainly going to be looking at that and now that we have more uh you know scientific modeling and Ember casting type modeling that we can do we have already had that discussion of saying you know let's look at this as far as uh interface maybe like a risk and then maybe a an interface impact of what what an IM cast may be and deciding on what hardening methods um we should put in maybe that uh interface impact

[142:01] area Okay so that um helpful so that'll be sort of a more to come in terms of what might be the high priority areas where we would give more um emphasis to on resilient construction codes that not all areas will be treated the same cor correct and they're not now right I mean the different colors the red the orange and the yellow are different different levels of ignition resistant construction so it it would be similar to that okay um my next question is about how the community can connect with the evacuation plans um that we have for different neighborhoods that are close to the urban interface and whether we've done modeling that can help us understand the impact to our um especially to our West East roadways as as well as um impacts for increasing population or decreasing population and how we make sure that we manage that we make decisions especially as it might

[143:00] relate to Iris or as it might relate to increasing density close to the wooy that's a fantastic question and I see he's already taking himself off mute thanks mik odium director Mike Char definitely has has the subject matter expertise in that realm uh a couple of uh ways to answer the question um I'll take what we're doing on the planning side uh part of the configuration planning work we're doing with the fire department we have extended that into the police department and have started that um that planning process what we're doing is taking the evacuation zones that are already established for the Western flank of the city and I've asked our uh traffic uh uh division within Police Department working uh with their sergeants to uh assess the number of officers to go door too assess the routes that would be used even Beyond we already defined as the primary evacuation routes in the city uh

[144:02] and then put a tighter lens on that specific uh polygon area which is the shape that evacuation area and come up with a traffic control plan and identify the traffic control points of the choke points which would require an officer to be there to help keep traffic moving uh also identifying the um critical evacuation facilities within those polygons that will be done in uh this year and that is going to be used and leveraged then to run preparedness meetings within the community to show that information and be able to expand knowledge around what it takes to evacuate we've also done some time studies for clearing those evacuation zones so that and the generally what we're seeing is it's about we call it a a required safe evacuation time each polygon and that's right around two hours about a minute an hour 45 two hours if we have a fire west of the city and it's beyond a decision

[145:00] marker we've also looked at doing fire Behavior modeling and identifying these decision marker Points West of town that if a fire occurs there it'll tell us whether or not we believe we're going to have enough activation time to be able to safely get the beauty out and if not then that changes the operational strategy or the fire department may have to go into a defensive posture about protecting evacuation route access slow the fire as opposed to go direct suppression uh it's all around getting time and and reducing uh the speed of the fire moving into that built environment which is all interconnected with part of that Mowing and getting a 30 foot strip that helps reduce speed and intensity which will then hopefully decrease the Impact Zone into the city which will get us time to be able to stay and offer an advantage to fire control and suppression so that's the piece around the planning effort going now and that'll be occurring on the whole Western flank of the city because our biggest risk is the west to east high wind uh fire and then of course

[146:02] we'll carry that to other areas of the city but we're hitting our greatest risk prioriti priority right now what we're doing the preparedness side of the community I'm sorry go ahead no go ahead I was gonna finish off that we're currently doing around this and have been over the last year and a half is in our preparedness work and not weers are are specialist in our office has developed tremendous number of preparedness documents we've translated those into five different languages we've held Community meetings uh across the city other monthly meetings uh some are in person others are also online um some of the that we're actually doing is like just we have a workshop coming up uh here in May with the West age Wells Center uh expanding it in preparedness to for pet preparedness working with uh we got a homeowners association that's set up for a drill that we're running in July so we're currently doing preparedness work around evacuations and

[147:01] stressing the whole personal preparedness knowing multiple ways out and sharing what we currently are doing in that evacuation space knowing where to go to get information and we've worked very hard to get mths quickly um so we have that as part about learning improvements that Brian was talking about with Bo Co alerts which sends a link to a map and the message that you get right away and we're soon going to be launching uh a real time automated transferring of the alerting polygons to our forward faing Community maps and no interface required by human to get that information up uh and available to the community and then also we're going to be sending out um what's called word as part of our alerting package supports the initial activation that goes out it helps send text updates to our community members and we've actually tied that so for that information to go to our OBM blog and then also goes into our rewell app that we have for um translating in

[148:03] over a 100 languages automatically as our alerts come out of our Dispatch Center so those keyword texts will also go into that U text platform and into that uh rewell app and and translate real time so that's some of the work we're doing on evacuations I'll be able to uh show more of that precise clearance time modeling and work uh in un 24 and we have done some net work around the iris looking at how that would impact with those potential recommendations around options for dealing with the traffic FL during evacuations um and then and that that's like a lot of great information it's really helpful um as we reach out with the community I'm I know that um I had spoken to you before and we talked a little bit about how we address people who are disabled or who don't have cars and this idea of sort of a a place to help connect those people with evacuation routes if they can't evacuate

[149:01] on foot um is that something that's already in place or something that's Forward Thinking uh yes to both of those we have prepared we have developed a preparedness um uh information for pedestrian preparedness and evacuation that's on our odm website and Monica been uh sharing that in the community during her meetings in the the preparedness space it's part of what we've also asked our law enforcement folks to uh you know take into account when they're doing the evacuation uh Mission it's not just going door too traffic management but then also thinking about uh you know folks that don't have vehicles to be able to transport we're also coming up with a strategy that we're using 800 meters in or about 2,000 feet from the Western Edge basically Broadway so we're teaching teing people get west of Broadway by foot and then you're in a much lower risk or Hazard area so we're doing those sort of messaging to the community to arm people with that kind of message of what to do if they're on

[150:01] foot and then some of the work we're doing also with this recent configration planning is incorporating our transportation department about you we may have people have mobility issues how do we uh bring in those transportation resources earlier but once again we're also stressing that people need to be taking some responsibility if you do have those challenges and require extra time to not necessarily wait for an evacuation order but also self-initiate if you get a warning or if you feel you might be in danger start to move ahead of that and and give yourself some extra time so it's within that Community messaging piece it's also trying to make that part of our response planning and getting those uh resources engaged as quickly as we can to support that need okay and then I just have one last question um um which is if a lot of parents um one of the things about the Marshall fire school was not in session that day but a lot of parents have children who are involded in schools

[151:00] that are outside of their neighborhood is it pretty easy to be able to sign up for a alerts that relate to both the school or even if you had an elderly parent or someone disabled in your family who works outside of your neighborhood so that you could receive alerts for both the people who you're uh taken care of as well as yourself so you can get multiple alerts for different areas yes it is capable within our opin system which is everbridge which is our 911 reverse 911 is a layman term for that and we do promote that and advance that message in all our preparedness work and we highlight that and say you have a family member kid at school place of work uh you have elderly parents or whatever and you want to get an alert for their location that can be done and we make and that's in our preparedness information we highlight that in all the in-person preparedness sessions so and if I were wanting to do

[152:00] that right now where would I go to you go to our website and you go to our prepared this page it says preparedness it's highlighted right there and it walks people through it or they can call our office and we'd be happy to walk people through it make sure uh sometimes people just get a little intimidated by that that sign up process we we commonly will help people walk through that all right thanks so much really helpful council member Benjamin appreciate it and thanks for those great questions youa um just for clarity we're going to do questions and then come back to the recommendation question later or do you want to do it all in one I would suggesting just to do it all all in one go yeah yeah no it's fine just wanted to make sure we're on the same page appreciate it um well for one I I've gone through this document twice um it's mey it takes a few looks uh but but I really appreciate the depth of which um the amount of intention that has gone into this it's it's really thorough I

[153:01] know it seems intimidating for certainly a document this comprehensive but there's a lot of great stuff in here and I think our challenge is not the amount of information it's how do we parse out the relevant information to share with our community so so that's going to be an ongoing challenge I think for all of us and but I know that we've got great people to do that right and so I'm confident that but I think that's the that's stage that we're in now is pull out the the good stuff um and and get it into community's hands so that they are have actionable information um I've got uh really three questions then I I I'll I give you quickly my my recommendation numbers for you guys my RLS um so I'll stick it in the lingo that's in the document um it follows on the iode conversation that Tina was going into it's my understanding that even though the iodes will kind of lay out a specific uh geographic area for certain different types of building code it doesn't prohibit us from going above and beyond that is that correct that is correct okay so so so to Tina's Point like even though we might

[154:00] not like we might say that's awfully thin area we could expand that area at our discretion so so we could build that capacity of safety so oh that's good to know awesome um another question is um with regards to a lot of the treatments that map is is really good to show the different treatments and my question centers around is there a way to convey how long those treatments last and the frequency of the application an example is I can imagine the mowing treatment that Dan was referring to is certainly an annual and perhaps even a biannual treatment based on the weather we have and and so that just sets a community expectation of all right I could expect this whereas maybe Forest thinning on the other hand could be a five or 10 year treatment um because it lasts so long and so giving that expectation uh is helpful because when you look at a map and all those colors you're like oh my God look at all the area that's protected you might go well this fall it won't be because we'll have to do that again and so there's a time stamp thing that I think could be really helpful for us to make sure we're not uh we just have a realistic expectation of what those things are doing yeah that's a great question um and I I'll take a quick stab at I see Paul Dennison's

[155:00] taking himself onto the video so he might jump in and help me here um but yeah you're your spot on a fuels mechanical fuels treatment in the forest is probably a five to 10 year effective um prescribed fire or an actual fire that we've managed um same in that 5 to 10 to 15 year realm of of being an effective fuel break mowing is or the grass the fine fuels um and reducing fine fuels is more of a of a biannual thing um and I believe the mowing pilot is to do twice a year so Peak right at the end of peak growing season in the spring and then again in the Flawless things start to we can knock those tall fuels down so yeah that's that is right okay well I appreciate that and you yeah just however we can communicate that that'll help Community I think understand those things especially if they're nearby and might be impacted on it um my other question has to do with how we might evaluate um some of these recommendations with regards to insurance I I if the Marshall fire

[156:00] taught us anything is that insurance is kind of the Lynch pin for residents um and certainly you have the INF Insurance you think and we found it was Gap coverage that was the Achilles heal for most people impacted by the Marshall fire and so I guess and I know this document isn't regulatory but I guess we're kind of lean on you guys as our experts is what are some of those regulatory changes that we could implement or some of these treatments we can invest in at some frequency that perhaps maybe mitigates the insurance Exodus from communities that are in high Wildfire risk like our own um and so I think that would be advice I would I would ask you guys to inform us of what we could do in a in a prioritized manner to help limit th that insurance Exodus um from our community because I think that's probably the biggest thing that community members will be worried about I think we all except we live in a wooi we're going to have a fire it's not a matter of if but when but boy when that comes I want to know I'm protected and my community did the most to make sure

[157:01] that I have an insurance market so I'm not paying out of pocket to replace my home so I'd love some evaluation if that's all possible what what's worked in other communities to help us evaluate a prioritization of those things man that's a fantastic question um I might have to phone another friend might bring back Chief Lowry or chief cous to touch on that but but what I've seen is the the way most the insurance providers are looking at at things in a much broader scale they're not looking at a partial level right so so even if we're requiring home hardening sometimes that's not enough for them to to take on that additional risk because the neighbors aren't or or they can't prove the neighbors aren't so that's that's that's a challenge I think the biggest piece uh for us from a city standpoint is to to engage with the insurance companies create some kind of ification programs or some some mitigation measures that that they can then accept in their their risk profiles that will say yeah okay you are doing enough for us to continue uh with our insurance coverage our insurance providing um

[158:02] that's my take but but maybe maybe Chief C or or or chief Lowry has another take on that one uh good evening Council Mike Al of fire chief just I would I would just add to that that yes that's one of the areas where we definitely want to if we can if we can engage secondary insurers or even primary insurers on the topic and can have a recommendation for Council like what if Council adopted something very uh Progressive would that change anything for the community that's a that's absolutely a question we would love to be able to bring answers to you too when we have more conversations so we we'll work on that appreciate the suggestion I appreciate that Chief and I justess maybe ask it's a staff for Ma just general C like given we have a very busy workload and you're already working on the stuff I just want to ask like is doing that going to add a big increase in workload or is that something that you feel is within the capacity that we can sync our teeth into and in a reasonable amount of time we can get

[159:00] that feedback not only for us to know if there's regulatory actions we can take but also to provide some of that understanding to community I would I would say that I would definitely time that with the the conversations around the ICC adoption process okay um because I do believe that that is exactly when you'll want to consider um and you know more Progressive if you want to be more Progressive or more aggressive with the code itself or even enforcement of the code um but we certainly can um reach out and try to get that information from folks because I'm sure folks have heard of the iso rating schedule and how that sometimes factors some insurers use that um for municipal fire protection um and that's that's that's just in line with some of the conversations we normally have so I don't see it as a as a heavy extra to engage insurers it'll just be a question of of uh what they're willing to commit in terms of answers to us awesome I I appreciate that I think

[160:00] that'll be a big one per our community well and I'll just end thanks for entertaining my answering my questions I see Mike's hand up and I don't know if it was about the same issue yeah it is uh um Matt I think one of things we can do to help tee this up is better Define the problem and using and Leverage The Experience and relationships of our communities that were involved in the Marshall fire there is a wealth of experience from people that lost their homes and experienced that we have existing relationships already in that Community dealing in those recovery spaces be happy uh to uh pull together some of that shared experience that the community had and they think that can Elevate some problems for Council to consider to then know questions to ask and maybe key that up with the insurance companies U to better frame that and uh we'll I'll have something for you down the road we have it in our preparedness uh work to kind of bring that in to learn from that experience to better help folks get effective appreciate that Mike you bet thank you so much well I I'll leave space for other questions from

[161:00] colleagues but I'll just leave you with my recommendations um I think of priority um are your rl2 um with regards to um uh property hardening and mitigation and that zero to3 time frame rl5 grassland I think that's what Dan was me that's that's the work Dan is mentioning I think increasing and enhancing that is key our r l 11 with regards to prescribed Burns I mean these are really active engagements active activities to sort of keep the fuel loads down and then rl13 which is sort of residential overgrowth in rubbish I mean those seem to be like the four big things that if we were to accelerate or or move in a faster timeline on those would I be what I would recommend uh of that list for us to sort of pair down to so I appreciate that thank you guys I also remember Adams and Wier came up around the same time I think I think you're in that order is that right okay council member Adams please awesome thank you so much thank you um to the team for this

[162:00] really robust um presentation and of course and I also just want to thank as a new council member the orientations that we received um you know it just really teed up nicely for this conversation and to be able to read that 370 page document it just was very grounding to have those conversations before having to read that and again you know but our community members don't have that um opportunity and so it's really helpful to see again how you're working with the infrastructure that we have whether it be the community connectors or Partners like the boulder Watershed Collective so um just really grateful around that um only have a couple of questions and responses and I'd say um the most important question that I have is something that we talked about during the council retreat but just the need to have a fcal note um and and this is becoming this is especially important as we think about the different options and to know what the fiscal implications of these different options are I think especially in light

[163:00] of some of the fiscal challenges that we have in other areas would have been really helpful so in general I think that's something as we're making these decision this is a steady session but as it gets to a place where we need to make a decision I think having that fiscal data will be really critical and on that note I had Curiosities just around the climate tax um and how much of that tax is used to support some of this preparedness like where is just kind of the fiscal gaps I know there's a lot of intergovernmental braiding from a funding perspective to make this a reality and so I'm very sensitive to having a better understanding of the fiscal positions and the way that those fundings are braiding um considering some of the um Federal challenges that we are we know that are on the horizon with the end of arpa funds that are impacting some other programs and so again just having that Financial note or financial information will be really critical um and and actually quite frankly it's hard for me to you know I was looking at all the different things I was like yes this one no no no this

[164:00] one no no no no this one and I I when they're all urgent and important it's really hard to figure out what depth we want to lean in um and and you know but to to um Matt's earlier point I certainly think that there are some that rise but even within the rise I can't pick one or two um you know it's usually like three or four so again having that fiscal note and level of information will be really critical um I'm all you know as the only renter on our on our Council I'm always very mindful about bringing up the rental perspective and you know when I think about house hardening as a renter rented for 13 years here um you know in my time and I've had really fantastic property owners that I've had the opportunity to rent from but I don't recall them giving me any information about um you know the status of our home hoening and those kinds of things and so again and also just from a renter perspective those aren't the things that we want to bring up because you know it makes you know our leases are many of us are year toe so when we bring these

[165:01] things up these are just more things that could potentially raise our rent so I also just want to be mindful and and curious about the ways that you are working with property owners uh both for our big uh apartment complex and town homes um as well as our single family home so that's my first question uh that's a great question I appreciate the feedback on the the the financial implications that's that is a big piece um as far as the renters we are working through our crr team um is is trying to create those connections working through Community connectors and some other avenues to to make sure that we're connecting with renters and Property Owners both uh to ensure that that those I mean the assessments are are given to to either right we don't technically need the property owner um we need permission to to come on the property and a renter can do that so so doing assessments and things like that we we provide that for for for both um and then again as we move to implementation or or you're trying to uh or the renters is trying to um make those recommendations happen

[166:03] um we want to connect and and that ties into to that up and cominging grant program where we can also then help provide some of that financial assistance across um that Avenue to to keep that as as as cost minimal as as possible for for the renting population absolutely thank you so much and you know again affordability is always an issue that we have here so you know even if we did do that assessment I could imagine they would have identified things that cost money and so also um again if we can um you know um reduce some of that that burden um I think it will allow more people to be willing to do the assessment in the first place right um and so thank you very much for um for that response I also wanted to um you know bring up the question about um you know there's a lot of public engagement and Public Training and um around this and so just trying to figure

[167:00] out can you talk a little bit about your approach to one determining what does a community know right there's a diversity within the diversity within our community and so I'm just kind of curious what data points here that you're Gathering to determine what grain size of training that you need to provide to our different community members and then the other side of that question is how you're tracking who has been trained so again you know Community is big but there's I'm just curious if you kind of you know I know when I I've done some projects in the past with the boulder Watershed Collective and I know they had been talking in exploring like a a wildlife ambassador program that's really neighborhood specific or but I'm just trying to figure out how you all kind of get a handle on you know who's been trained are the neighborhood captains obviously you know the HOA structure allows for a little bit more um you know collaboration and consistency versus those who aren't on the HOA so just curious how you kind of manage um you know who needs to be be

[168:00] trained on on what and and yeah just just from a community perspective yeah um that's that's a good question I know our CR staff uh has all kinds of of ways they're connecting with the community and ensuring that um that they're they're kind of capturing that um Chief Lowry I would love for you to help us out on on how we how we're Gathering that data from from the community risk reduction standpoint and me the effectiveness of what is being offered yeah I think uh we can certainly do that obviously we're um we're looking at targeting uh the most vulnerable part of our community and that's that that interface area on that western border that we've kind of identified so uh I think our most effective right now has been uh HOAs and their involvement of improving their uh uh Association uh from that risk uh and we've been uh working with and developing Community ambassadors within those neighborhoods

[169:02] whether it's a formal HOA or if it's just a a neighborhood Ambassador uh that really kind of spearheads the uh the spearheads cheerleads kind of that whole uh Wildland effort with uh cleanup days and uh different programs Juniper awareness and and all this kind of stuff that we have been uh working on uh tracking it yeah I mean you know what clarification David on that part um so for for that part um if you're like you're actually tracking you know you kind of like have a map of like who has and and and you know if I wanted to find out who the if I have an ambassador how could I find how would I find that information out we're going to go yeah so uh I don't want to tell you that we have a map of that kind of stuff

[170:01] we have a map of the interface right if if a Community member wanted to know if they had a a wildlife Ambassador for their neighborhood how would they find that information out yeah I mean they can certainly reach out to us and if we know it then then we'll certainly uh we can certainly tell them but uh we don't have a specific um so there is a wild wild fire ambassador program that we've been working on but it's not formal at this time is what I would tell you um we do things like walk arounds and walkabouts with organized groups in our uh Community uh like Devil's Thum HOA Ponderosa mobile home park uh we've got one schu June 3rd or 4th for uh the western part of arapo and that's going to be in in congruent with uh Boulder County and and their Wildfire uh wild

[171:01] fire Partners uh as that goes through there so yeah I mean you know that's that that that's where we're at right now and we we're kind of like trying to she shered in that ambassador program but um you know in that same sense can't force it on uh uh HOAs either right now well you know I was in an HOA for about eight years and now I'm not so and I didn't know that that there were ambassadors for our neighbors so just hopeful that we can find other mechanisms to ensure that our community you again a resource is only as good as our community knowing that it exists so again I'm track them so you understand and we do have formal training um and I think we've done up to 10 members in the formal formal Ambassador training okay well I look forward to another time maybe getting a little bit more information about that um

[172:00] Ambassador training and um as it becomes more formal um and then just lastly I just wanted can I cqu TAA on that HOA piece you just metion can I call on that so if it's my understanding we uh we had a similar sort of disagreement with HOAs with regards to shake shingles and we overcame that because it was critical life safety and so I it it seems like these issues of wildfire hardening and some of this stuff Falls almost directly into the same kind of definition and so it makes me wonder may maybe we do have more Authority here um with regards to getting each HOAs to be consistent with how we Implement with the rest of the city so I just it seems awfully similar to how we were able to get implementation and cohesiveness in our community with regards to the sh shap signals so I just want to throw that out there so um but appreciate it and if I'm wrong I'm wrong but that's how I recall it so any response to mat uh Chief if I could just um throw in

[173:00] there um these are these are great points that you're making council member Adams and I I the data and the connections in the community I I would say that this group um Chief Lowry's team there's um basically we hired uh three additional members for that team and they've only really been operational within the last what is it six months tops that they've really had been able to hit the ground running as a team it's not been super long and so one of the things we're trying to work on those things so having outcomes and um you know making this this more mature in terms of the home assessments and connecting with the community and making sure that folks have a place to go because we need those Force multipliers that's all part of their their mandate but um really it's it's super new last year this time or the year before I was actually using um our emergency response Personnel to help us with the backlog of of Home assessments that had come in

[174:00] because we just didn't have a staffing but we got that Staffing and they're on now on the ground running and those are definitely all your points are things we want to absolutely want um to to bring to bear so outcomes uh making sure folks know who to contact and it's not always just the fire department you've got people right there um embedded with you in your neighborhood absolutely I definitely appreciate that um and then lastly just for you know some lift UPS from the list of themes um evacuations is something I really appreciated Tina what you shared and um Ryan I know this is something that I've discussed with you as well but as we are having more dense Transit oriented communities and less cars there just seems to be a higher level of coordination so Mike I really appreciate the conversations that we've had and the thinking that you already are doing around those who don't have cars or uh people with disabilities Etc uh but again you know I just think of the iris for- all conversation that we're having right now and evacuation was one of the of the pain points that

[175:01] have come up and so again just having um some additional modeling and and support and coordination and again that's where some of that Ambassador work comes into play right to have those relationships before you need them um is is really the name of the game as far as as prevention is concerned so I definitely want to lift that up um the home hardening again I think that was actually something M that we already have as a council priority so if anything I'm curious now that it's a council priority how does that change what was already on the on the radar screen are there more latitude and and opportunities and again this is why I always ask about money and funding um you know we know we have historic climate money on the table right now and and if there's opportunities for us to go after more um I certainly want to be able to do that um grassland a former member of the Colorado natural areas Council I would be remiss if I did not lift up grasslands as a major prevention um opportunity and and I just look at those deep root systems there was a time

[176:00] when I would look and think oh that's a great place to build a strip wall and now I look and say that is 10 feet of deep root systems um that is is the type of resilience that we need so um those are some of the things but as I said I looked at that list and there wasn't anything that I don't think we should do so if anything it's really the question of what are the fiscal implications and limitations of what we can do now um and and you know what is urgent and important versus important so again those are just some of the things oh and then lastly um I I cannot Echo um or cosign the insurance conversation enough um just to watch our insurance companies um leave out of other states is just very scary um and you know again I think I'm curious where there might be opportunities to innovate in ways that we hadn't thought of and then lastly uh I mean this this time is the um arts and so um you know as we are talking about communicating things that are Urgent and important I would be remiss if I didn't

[177:01] say can we not only rely on our Communications engagement team there's a whole music dance theater ways that we can creatively engage and educate our community on these issues and I really encourage us to think differently about the ways that we partner with our Arts Community um um Beyond just the traditional ways that we have so you know again I used to also in the many hats that I wore um I've actually ran and designed Arts education programs and so integrating the Arts into science and math there is tons of evidence around the Imp increased effectiveness of anything you're trying to do when Arts are involved so um just wanted to lift that up as I as I sign off on my questions but again exceptional presentation and materials and just really appreciate um being on this team thank you thank you council member Adams um quick point of order I've been asked to remind folks to please introduce yourselves there's a big team of folks here and we're we're bouncing conversations around so please introduce

[178:00] yourselves so folks can follow thank you for that um and I'll just I think the list I have next is uh council member Wier bulz spear rocket um say something if I got that wrong otherwise that's our 00 hour so um the guys okay go ahead I'm going to make it short do I need to introduce myself no or yes council members don't need to introduce themselves let's let's say that and Ne okay all right so I don't need to repeat everything everybody said I only want to bring up one point and that is the insurance discussion because for uh I know that in the um as my husband tells me the 80302 area code we were dropped from homeowner our insurance company dropped us because of uh our ZIP code 80302 because of um the possibility of fire so then we had a race around

[179:01] looking for insurance and it wasn't easy to get it at all so I I know that really stressed us out and I can't imagine we're the only ones I did a little perusal of good old NEX door and noticed that a lot of people were worried about that so I would say that uh the community would probably want to do anything possible to make sure that we can have insurance right because like Matt said it certainly you don't want to have to build back you know your own house should have burned out so I'm going to say for me anything to do with insurance might be probably one of the Comm I think one of the communities number one stressors right now um so I'm just G to cqu on to everybody else who spoke about insurance and say that I hope that we can prioritize that and whatever we need to

[180:00] do like what we had to do to get insurance was half cut our trees we had to cut our trees of what do you call it when you cut them from down so they what is that called we limbing what liming your trees you oh yeah well now our trees have been hair haircuts is it's I can't even go back there it's phys it's it's offensive to me anyway so that whole situation and then what we had to do with our neighbors to get insurance I feel like is probably on the top of everybody's Minds so if you say and you come back to council and say get rid of your junipers you have to get rid of them or do this or do this or do that because you're going to for insurance sake I think people are going to really care about that aside from all the great things that you said and I'm sure like the the mowing uh on the on the interface and all the other things everybody else mentioned I just want to add that if I'm a case uh you know for what's been

[181:00] happening to some neighborhoods close to the wooi then or on the wooi actually then people are pretty stressed okay is that it for council member Wier okay I think sorry we have uh F's next is that right thanks Ryan please um okay I had one question about something that came up in the presentation and that was the the landscape uh the perimeter Mowing and I was just wondering um is there not a planting buffer or a treatment that could be done that doesn't require mowing twice a year I just was curious how we got to that as the maybe because of the amount of area I'm sure there's lots of reasonable explanations and yeah I think Paul Paul Dennison's uh

[182:01] probably our best subject matter expert on that he's helping to uh develop the uh uh the program and and why we're doing certain things and where just sort of because last week we were having a conversation about gas mowing equipment and oh just sort of interested in how we get here where we're like we're gonna mow more things yeah and this is weed whipping we call on it the mowing program but it's a weed whipping yeah but anyway Paul and you introduce yourself too yes I'm Paul Dennison the Wildland fire senior program manager for open space and Mountain Parks so could you provide a little more background um as to the conversation you mentioned and perhaps less of a Reliance on using gas powered tools is that the concern or do you have other concerns as well yeah I think that was sort of I mean that was what we were discussing last week and generally I'm interested as we look

[183:00] at our Landscaping requirements for um property owners and trying to create more Pathways that are more friendly towards less maintenance um and so this just flagged you know I was just curious how um we get to this point our public lands where the path that makes most sense is more mowing okay uh I'm not sure I completely understand the question the objective is to reduce fire intensity through reducing fuel height so uh we'll expect to see lower rates of spread and lower flame lengths within that 30 foot area and the sites that are selected are very close to Residential Properties so I get that I guess I was wondering more about long-term treatments like would it make sense to have a gravel path through there or to plant something different

[184:01] kinds of plants that don't require mowing that aren't as flammable I don't know I don't have a recommendation for what I think an answer was I just was curious if we'd thought about that yeah I'm a council member and I I'll Paul I'll try to get you out of this one because you weren't at the last meeting okay um I think I know where you're going and and what I might say is maybe we can get back to because I do think we're going that it seems in Congress right that the one side we're thinking about how do we minimize the impacts of gas powerered lawnmowers and yet here we're talking about on open space thinking about that right and I'm totally open to absolutely the absolutely the defin the direction we need to move I was just wondering I think you're asking what alternatives might there be to reduce the need to mow yeah and I'll I'll just say uh council member fulkers that this there's a number of reasons why we're dubbing this as a pilot program and one of the reasons is is to um test the really the

[185:02] feasibility of doing this the scalability and then the effectiveness but and the most part we are dealing with a native landscape so um there's that trade-off question one of the big uh themes that came out of the C WP public engagement is can we do this work while balancing ecosystem Health like can we not can we not do one and and just replace it with the other so we would love to be able to come up with a solution there where we're not replacing our native habitat with man-made materials for instance I think we would get a lot of push back for that so but I I think it's an interesting question about well if it's not native grass what could be there um it's certainly something we can bring into our monitoring we have a whole monitoring program associated with this pilot program so interesting question that sounds great thank you for that um and then I also

[186:03] wanted to touch on the insurance question while I support us trying to look at things to help you know bring properties more into align with what insurance companies are looking for and asking for I've had work recently where insurance companies are asking for some fairly strange things like requiring asphalt shingles on low slope roofs so it seems like they also need to update some of the things around what they consider to be appropriate um and require so where they align with things that we as a city think as best practice I fully support that um but also maybe having some conversations around trying to get them to go in a better Direction when that's appropriate

[187:01] too um and then in terms of what I'd like to see prioritized I really trust our great staff I think you've been you know diving into this um and know the ins and outs of it more than I ever could um and I trust your recommendations in terms of how we move um swiftly and efficiently and effectively so looking forward to hearing more recommendations from you thank you okay is that it council member furz okay so I think we have may approach emisphere next but I see that uh remember Marist and and Adam's hands are up do you both have cqu or your hands not meant to be up reest I'm just Wai I I didn't give my recommendations yet I only did half okay why don't why don't we go to um May J Spear and Brocket and then

[188:01] we'll we'll go we'll go back um to other comments once everybody's had a chance to to go go ahead May thank you um I just had uh one question and then just a couple comments on number two um my question was just around you know you mention the the uh ambassadors the wildare ambassadors kind of volunteer program I was wondering if there's a space for um volunteers or if you're thinking about it in terms of um hardening like uh hardening the areas around people's homes and things like that too um because I'm thinking I absolutely loved our wfire um home assessment was so so useful um and I wish I had a team of of folks who can come in and help and you know I know with osmp and parks and recck right we have space for um even summer uh workers high school students um folks to come out and help with some of this I'm just wondering if there's any space for a similar program to kind of help help the community um help uh homeowners renters

[189:00] anybody that needs a little extra support um in terms of hardening the area around their homes that's a that's fantastic question and it's and it's I think a great idea into Chief C razo's Point uh a little bit ago is is that team is just kind of getting up and running with with some of their programs working through a really heavy backlog of of Home assessments and now they're in a place where they can start diving into some of those things and and I'm sure uh that that's on on the program manager radar screen is to is to start establishing some of those volunteer programs to help Implement some of those recommendations we're making and and Brian I might just add that uh the upcoming Community grants program uh has that as a component so you you go through a detailed home assessment and then they'll educate you about a new grants program which provides funding to implement it and as part of that we're identifying contractors uh that might that would be available to help carry out that work so

[190:01] we're trying to reduce that gap between I got my assessment now what and then you have a funding source you have a list of contractors and and trying to just kind of connect all those dots great um thank you um and on number two just in terms of recommendations I don't have kind of specific lines to recommend but I think what I'm most interested in is spending some time thinking about what the prioritization scheme is going to be and what are the things that we are using to kind of prioritize across all of these different um ideas the uh so you know for example we have our um sustainability equity and resilience framework within the budget you know how do we get to having something like like that that can help us for each of these different possibilities have some information around um how is it going to impact sustainability Equity resilience cost staff time you know how are we going to figure out what's giving us the best

[191:01] thing for um our buck and and how can we do the most good so for example um thinking about our water supply and how we need clean water for the city right so when if there's a fire or some big event up by where our water is coming from and that's that that's a potential you know impact on the entire city um at that point and so just like thinking about how we are getting at the scale of potential threats and how we um I don't I don't know what that answer is you all are you all are the people who are going to figure this out um I'm just really interested in knowing what that prioritization scheme is uh a couple of other things so you know where are we getting the biggest B for a book um both shortterm as well as longterm um is there anything that you know we're in a critical window where we really need to start it in the next zero to five years otherwise we're going to be way behind or it's going to be too late or something that's another thing that i' think about in the prioritization um and um also are there any places

[192:01] where we can kind of catch a ride on some work that's already ongoing um so thinking about our just emergency alert system you know we uh we we just kind of got into a situation again with the power shutdowns where we're really having to think about how are we communicating information with folks in the city are there any places where we can you know combine efforts so that we can get sort of a two for one deal that's another place where I would think about um things being higher priority and then um oh the other thing that um I would also think about in in terms of hitching a ride with other ongoing efforts there's also how to align um efforts so I've mentioned this to the folks who did the uh home Wildfire assessment for me but that the uh the leave the leaves I right that that we should leave our leaves on the ground um that's what we hear from some groups in the city and then hearing from you know fire it's like no no please don't ever do that it's gonna gonna be problematic um so you know how how are we um making sure

[193:01] that as we're educating folks um in different departments were aligning with the education efforts of wildfire prevention too um and then you know the other the other thing that I think is just tricky and I'm I'm so eager to see how you all figure this out um is how do we balance the need for um kind of quicker pivots and some real adaptability as we get farther into the climate crisis with the need to plan and carry out longer term work as well so that if we're starting in a direction and it really looks like with the information we have at the moment that's that's where a priority should be and then we find out in two or three years or maybe after a big um disaster or something that that we really need to be going in different direction where is there um space within this prioritization to be adaptable and flexible as well um so I don't I think I just gave you all more questions instead of offering you recommendations but

[194:00] these are the things I'm thinking about and I will just be so eager to hear how you all are solving these problems um so I I am certainly not capable of doing it but I just so appreciate all the work that you're doing um and and just I'm really grateful for how quickly you've brought so much information together and so many people together to start thinking about this issue um and and giving us such a great starting point so thank you so much for all of your work and uh for the time with us tonight okay we go to Mayor Brockett and then I will take a turn and then we'll do a a last round starting with um mayor bracket all right I'll be quick um just first of all just an enormous thank you for the incredible volume of work and of course we all know how important this is so I really appreciate the all hands on deck approach to this and the report is just uh fantastic the the plan is is phenomenal so really grateful to you for all of that um other council members

[195:00] have asked every question that I might have asked so really appreciate all the intelligent questions for my colleagues and so just my real quick thing in terms of uh feedback would be um Echo what actually Nicole was just saying about um well I'll just say prioritization is of course critically important um but I'm I don't know enough to be the one to say here's all the orders I thought Matt had some great suggestions about some specific ones but really would love for to hear from you all in the next steps about you know an an organizational Matrix about here's what the most bang for the buck is here's the most critical needs and then taking into account um available staff time and then as as Taisha said the the fiscal notes associated with them so um look forward to those next steps in terms of prioritizing the top uh implementation areas and then moving on to getting those done because of course this is critically important for our society and our community's future so thanks again okay I I think I'll go now

[196:01] um I have a few questions um so this is a large document a lot of presenters here thank you everyone and um I am trying to make sure I understand our go our goals overall and um our goals of wildfire protection and I see on the there's a page that says what is the goal of the wp on ES1 there's some paragraphs um this is It's kind of process language in my mind not so much outcome language which maybe this is what we have but I want to ask are these the highest level of goals we have when we think about our fire protection or or the best ways to use that like is there something above the cwpp that would describe trying to I'm not sure I have an answer for that um it it's again the document is is

[197:03] intended to to be a suggestion of of best management practices uh based on things that work everywhere else based on you know the fuels weather topography how to reduce uh home ignitions uh all those things so so I don't know that there's another level above that outside of of of real high level policy changes like we're talking around with code and things like that but um got it okay I can throw in just an outcome uh just so you just to give an idea of what we as a uh a department look at um part of our goals our outcomes when it comes to an actual start so so essentially what we're trying to be as a community is just live with the concept that Wildfire is reality it's going to happen it it even no matter how much hardening we do it's going to happen and so part of our outcomes are being able to confine a

[198:00] fire uh to within a certain uh size and or or minimize the damage to it so those are some of the outcomes that that we um live by um as an overarching objective um but I would also throw in there and they're not fully developed yet are are the ones around how do we get people out of Harm's Way what does success look like there and um and those are those are yet to be really really um fared out I would say so uh we do have more work to do I think you make a great Point what is the big overarching what are the big outcomes here um I would I would just say it they're going to be related to the reality that fire is going to happen and so it will be how quick can we get people out no casualties no fatalities minimum damage um and quickly returning to a state of normaly those are the kinds of outcomes that we as a group are focused on thank you okay then um maybe I'll

[199:02] make a a comment at this point then kind of around your question to us for recommendations so several of my co of my council members have have talked about um not they didn't use the words engaging with the insurance industry but but really there there were there there was the implication of like we need to do work to avoid Insurance you know bad outcomes in insurance so I was listen I've been listening and I I also have that same question but I now I'm wondering like is that in the scope of what you know we have people working on because that you know that if you think about what that entails you know that's that's a pretty deliberate part part of work I so I guess I'll just offer the comment then that um when when I'm reading through this I I I feel like um I would be able to give better advise if I was working from something that was kind of like a framework of outcomes and just for what it's worth what what I'm kind of scribbling here is there's clearly there's there's direct dirsh outcomes with respective to um to

[200:02] damage from fire some of that is human life some of that is property to the extent that we're talking about human life um somewhere in this document had a kind of a framework of vulnerable groups or at least like the start of a framework Within vulnerability or vulnerable groups um it's some people that don't have cars that was specifically pointed out but then there's people with disabilities and you know there's a way to do a taxonomy here to sort of look at and say well to the extent that we're we're seeking to avoid human life loss of human life there must be some kind of sub set of sub outcomes under that would help us to understand if we're being um if we're being successful I don't know to what extent the racial Equity instrument or the scr framework would inform that but I'd be very you know interested to understand if you said okay so human life is avoiding the loss of human life is is an outcome what are kind of the sub outcomes under that so we're talking about same thing because um you know we have an aging population that's going to have less access to Vehicles we're building a more multimodal

[201:00] transportation system and so yeah I guess council member ad pointed this out that that people specifically they don't have cars um I would you'd be able to weigh in maybe more on on my recommendations if I knew like oh this is something that we consider an outcome so that's kind of like the direct stuff and I'm just taking an initial stab at it but um it seems like that's implicitly what we're talking about but I'm having not and not being written down and I guess I'm I guess would like to see like this written down and then on maybe like taking another step to like indirect there's like a wider set of things and you know um I everybody here pretty much all my council members are immediately going to insurance and I was thinking I wanted to talk about insurance too that's not wildfires coming on us directly but that certainly is an indirect effect or I don't know what what language you want to use um I would also say that the power safety shut offs with Excel um those are you know that's we don't run those we also don't run don't run Insurance um but these are things that have a pretty big bearing on our experience with wildfires

[202:01] and so um I suppose I would offer that there is perhaps outcomes we do care about that are around kind of wider indirect effects and maybe there's a way to think about that maybe it literally is just insurance and avoid you know avoiding avoiding negative impacts with insurance loss and avoiding negative impacts with the power shut offs but maybe there's something else too I don't know but again if you know don't know if anybody's we really talked about the power shut offs but I would I would suggest that do care about that certainly Excel is in the driver's seat but if if we say as a community that you know this is one of our this is like a sub outcome then there's that implies there's work for us to do to make sure that we're properly engaging with Excel and that's coming back to um uh to us I know that's happening on on on on on some fronts but um I guess to the extent that we're talking about what are our goals of wild Wildfire protection I would think of that um and council member shuart if I might respond also from kind of the Citywide perspective on on outcomes and things like that you're touching on a a great timely note we

[203:02] have kind of multiple work efforts converging and this um overall program of wildfire resiliency will touch all of them and that is the ongoing work we have through our budgeting resilience process to identify Pro programmatic level outcomes at Short medium and and long-term levels but then also as we tie this work um as I mentioned in the beginning of the presentation you know this is a priority action in the Strategic plan and we're also building out kind of that Suite of outcomes and measurements that tie to those strategies and those sort of macro Community level goals and so I think there is going to be some really nice coming together in the next couple years as we um further refine that work um and so as the team does that initial prioritization exercise we look at the data we do have we identify what are some things that aren't currently being measured that that we should start measuring um I

[204:00] think you'll start to see that threaded um better into the implementation work thank you ssen city manager Pam Davis so you had you had the answer then all along which was we're working on it so fine so that I I look forward very much to that and I'll just conclude my thought this one to say that you maybe there's a third outcome in my mind there is it's something about making sure we have a a very good radar for the the emerging our emerging understanding of the climate catastrophe unfolding around us and what that means not just in the dire sense but also more broadly um this insurance stuff whatever is happening it's going to happen fast and if we're not ahead of it in talking to folks before you know there's not going to be like a lot of leading indicators but but then this is also probably just one example of more things to come so anyway in my mind I that that would be another outcome I would I would hope us to have so thank you for answering that and then I'll I'll just move on um and I guess it's on insurance specifically so um I guess I just want to ask the question do we know what uh or or can find out what

[205:03] the insurance industry like how they're thinking about what would it take for Boulder to be to continue to be an attractive Market or to be a relatively attractive market like is that do we do we have a finger on on that or could we get a finger on that I I'll jump in for a moment and say I don't know that we know that and and certainly people can can um can correct me if I'm wrong but what I what I will say is that I think um Mike you you touched on it the Marshall fire has given us some information um because we've heard like we have community members in our neighboring communities who've actually lived this experience right in in ways that have been um horrific and I think that information Mike that you were referencing that you're able to share with us I think will give us some insight that we have not um that we have not been able to have uh frankly since perhaps this

[206:01] community felt some of that same insurance information from the flood um in 2013 right and I think we're going to be gathering that information will allow us to really have a different conversation and some insight into that very question so while I don't think that perhaps we have that pulse immediately right now I I think that there are mechanisms and there are some ways to think about it and I also think that there are conversations to be had with the county and perhaps those with the community foundations who have had conversations with other folks um in this Arena so um again beyond what our scope has been thus far but I think there have been some folks who have had some conversations that U May inform some of that some of the answers to your question thank you very much okay then I think I will just leave it with the final very tactical recommendation um which is on the subject of insurance one way or another I would I would propose that we we literally ask we find the right people at insurance companies or the

[207:01] industry and we we try to get a direct query on this I mean I know this is going to be limited with what we can expect to get back but I just you know I would want to try to be as direct as possible about what what do we need to do from your perspective I would expect in general there would be some alignment with what we need to do anyway but I but you know as um kmo B was saying maybe not and then so part of part of this also might be us having a role of educating the insurance industry on what what a resilient Community looks like so just just like focusing on this idea that we should try to seek to engage with the inip we can maybe maybe it's harder than you know maybe it's hard but i' love that for that to be something we try and that's that I'll my recommendations that thank you again I see mayor Brocket did you have a call or something if I could call real quick that I appreciate that last Point Ryan I think that's very well taken I've had a couple conversations in the community with experts in this area and I think in addition to the direct insurance Market the reinsurance market is critical to talk to because it's actually their policies that drive so much of the

[208:01] insurance markets uh willingness and cost and and policies as well so just want to get that out on the table in terms of engaging okay thank you for that mayor um so that was it for me unless with any if there's any responses anything I had that's fine otherwise we can um nope not seeing any screens light up okay let's go to council member Maris for a first shot at the our final any final closing recommendations or thoughts um C yes I just did the first part so I um I I'm not GNA make any specific recommendations just to Echo that I support um the goals as Michael uh stated them just about uh safety uh evacuation and prevention but understanding that fires will happen so prevention will not get us there 100% of the way um and then also echoing the insurance piece and just with a you know a gentle awareness that we may not be in a position of power on this um bargaining table so uh education is

[209:01] great and resilience but um I am hearing too many stories of people losing coverage uh in other parts of the country so I hope that we can be sensitive and um in that conversation uh and the the final thing is I'm in terms of next steps I'm hoping that we receive a just a a recommendation or even just an update I um with with the proposed budget and any gaps that are seen I'm not sure I'd want to go through each of these recommendations personally I'm can't imagine that's the plan but I just wanted to kind of understand where we're going from the study session I I trust the staff to make the recommendations and they know their budget um so if it's something additional my guess is it would come to us but if it's within their exist existing budget I'm not so sure any thoughts on that I don't know if the team wants to um me to uh talk a little bit about it and certainly they but I think some of the next steps are to continue to think about that

[210:01] prioritization um there is certainly um funds within uh some of the things that the climate tax uh some of the existing monies as we move forward um and we will they will put forward budget ideas we are in the midst of budget it seems like we are always in the midst of budget season frankly throughout the year um and we will be evaluating those proposals along with every other proposal as we move forward but what's critical to me is what is the council priority what do they have it's not always about the money it's also about staff capacity we can have all the money in the world but if staff doesn't have the capacity to implement it doesn't matter and so we need to think about what is it time for what is it criticality that is where prioritization it's going to be critical um and so we will see what moves forward as uh the budget process follows and you will see it as we present our budget to you okay Council

[211:02] Adams yes this is one thing that I didn't bring up in my last thing and I think it's a nice closing comment if there's are if there are other others and that is and Mike we've talked about this um is the Continuum um um uh between preparedness response and recovery and um you know sometimes it's different people that are doing the preparedness work versus recovery versus response and and sometimes there is some some similarties so again you know just really trying to think about um how do we use the preparedness side to maybe build some of that you know recovery staff you know it's not like the first time they see them when something goes down you know they they they will have already established relationship with the preparedness side of the house and so you know again when you're on your worst day um having somebody who you've already have a relationship with really matters so just curious if we can also find ways to and sometimes there's some

[212:01] silos between the preparedness people and the recovery people and so again I know that you all are working to create more synergies there um but I I always just think about it from that Continuum and then from a partnership perspective because the work is so complex I really app appreciated you all laying out all of the different partners that yall are working with but I think as we move forward really you know it may be more helpful to know like in what ways is the city working what role are they playing in this work and then of course just the relationship between the city and the county which again I think this this you know department and this work is is a real Exemplar of what that relationship is and can look like for other areas but again I don't think that people who aren't in the weeds know how um intensely interconnected the intergovernmental relationship is so we'd really love to lift that up as another area of education so that our community really understands um how strong the work is but also um how much

[213:01] of a need to continue to deepen and strengthen as the um the demands and and incidences um those billion dollar disasters um become more frequent unfortunately so just wanted to to to leave us with that holistic thinking thank you council member Adams I just wanted to appreciate you because you give me a second opportunity to appreciate my chard um uh who really uh spearheaded that uh tabletop exercise today because it really emphasizes that um connection between preparedness and recovery and breaking down those silos uh Mike you did an excellent job I thought this morning as you thought about um uh asking folks to think about building trust because is that what you need to bridge an emergency and critical response into recovery um and so I think it is that very issue you were trying to lift up council member and wanted to take a a moment to appreciate um our

[214:00] director of emergency our disaster management for that very thing so thank you Mike okay last call for any further [Music] thoughts going on going twice okay that's it for this agenda item um city manager nura do you have anything else I do not and just appreciate uh such a thoughtful facilitation council member okay well then with no other items on tonight's agenda I will close this 30 pm Mountain Time great job Ryan Ryan appreciate it thanks Ryan bye everyone everybody good night great job Council job