August 1, 2024 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[5:06] all right or can we start recording please good to go yes okay great well good evening everyone and welcome to the August 1st 2012 2024 meeting of the Boulder City Council I'm going to go ahead and call us to order and Elisha if you could do a roll call please yes sir thank you and good evening everyone and thank you for joining us we'll start tonight's roll call as usual with council member Adams present Benjamin present mayor bronet present council member fulkers present markquis present council member shuart is absent mayor Pro Tim spear present council member wallik present M Wier

[6:00] present mayor we have our Corum thank you so much all right I'm going to start by requesting a motion to amend the agenda to add item 6C a council process Improvement working group update so moved second got a motion in second all in favor raise your hand right got the majority on that one so the agenda is amended and we are now going to go into item 1A which is the Jennifer Buu housing Legacy declaration presented by myself Jennifer if you could come on up please

[7:02] all right so Jennifer Buu has generously decided to donate her home to benefit affordable home ownership through the city's housing Legacy program so her Legacy will grow and endure through her contribution to affordable housing in Boulder the housing Legacy program facilitates the donation or bequest of homes by Boulder homeowners wishing to leave a legacy of affordable home ownership for future Generations although Jennifer is not donating her home home entirely to the program she has identified A New Path forward that allows Boulder residents to leave to their estate some proceeds from the sale while ensuring that the home is Affordable to Future Generations so Jenny moved to Colorado in the late 1970s and after a few years in the mountains she set down roots in Boulder because of the proximity to the mountains in Denver and the vibrant atmosphere but over the years she became increasingly concerned about housing affordability in Boulder a concern that we share she first learned about the city's affordable home ownership programs when she was looking to purchase a home 15

[8:00] years ago and she been toured a few affordable options during her search but settled on a market rate town home quote I wish Boulder was more affordable and donating my townhouse to this program is a way I feel like I can make an impact to help with that said Jenny it's important to me that people with a range of incomes can live in Boulder Jennifer Buu should be recognized and celebrated for her contribution to the community as well as your ongoing support and dedication to the permanently affordable home ownership in Boulder therefore we the city council of the city of Boulder Colorado declare August 4 1st 2024 as Jennifer Buu housing Legacy Day and urge all members of our community to recognize this special occasion thank you so much [Applause] Jenny and then I'd welcome to give you you'd love to have a chance to have you say a few words well you've said most everything I had planned on saying um can say

[9:01] together um as he said I moved to Colorado in the late 70s and lived in the mountains for several years and uh then moved down to Boulder and I've been here for 45 years um and I really love it um uh My Hope in in um adding my home to the affordable housing program is that a young family might be able to buy it um I know um there are a lot of people that can no longer afford to live here and that's been my vision in owning this home that a young family might have a chance well that's inspirational thank you so much that thanks again jeny take care thank you sir

[10:06] all right um so we're going to go to item two open comment before we do that I just wanted to say um a couple of quick words just to offer uh the Deep gratitude to the firefighters and the other First Responders who are out there U fighting these terrible fires that are burning around our region congratulations to them for putting out the Lake Shore Fire so expeditiously yesterday and just deeply appreciate how they're putting themselves in harms way to make sure that the rest of our safety is assured so thank [Applause] you all right Elisha if you can go over the public participation guidelines please yes sir thank you and again good evening everyone and thank you for being here I'll go over our public participation at council meeting guidelines the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive meaningful and inclusive Civic conversations the Vision supports

[11:00] physical and emotional safety for community members staff and Council as well as democracy for people of all ages identities lived experiences and political perp perspectives for more information about this vision and the community engagement processes please visit our website at bouldercolorado.gov Services productive D atmosphere the following are examp examples of rules of decorum found in the boulder Revised Code and other guidelines that support this Vision these will be upheld during this meeting participants are required to sign up to speak using the name they are commonly known by and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online currently only audio testimony is permitted online only one person at a time at the podium unless an accommodation like an interpreter is required all remarks and testimonies shall be

[12:01] limited to matters related to City business no standing in or otherwise blocking of the aisles no participant shall stand or hold items such as signs or Flags in a manner that would block the view of another person no participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person we ask that you not off fix items to the podium or deis or walls or other surfaces of the chamber signs Flags or other items used to communicate must be held by one person when displayed obsin other epithets based on race gender or religion and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the meeting will not be tolerated in-person participants are asked to refrain from expressing support or disagreement verbally or with sounds such as Applause or snapping with the exception of declarations traditionally support is shown through American Sign

[13:00] Language Applause or jazz hands again thank you for listening and thank you for joining us thank you Alicia all right so each person will get two minutes to speak I'll call three names at a time if you can move towards the front as your time is approaching it would be fantastic our first three speakers are Trish Emer Alexi Davies and Casey Mendoza yes that's good been do pardon that was weird it includes false claims that have been documented as

[14:01] untrue since last fall I'm a it's a little weird Echo can we adjust thanks I'm a witness to many positive interactions with Mr Redfern in our community his leadership appears to influence the most compassionate off officers that I've ever met I encourage us all to be a little more bolder where we reject the division in favor of respect for one another thank you thank you now we have Alexi Davies Casey Mendoza and quintis Bren good evening my name is Alexi Davis and I'm speaking on behalf of community Cycles iris is part of the core arterial Network initiative which helps meet our

[15:01] transportation master plan goals achieve a low stress walk and bite Network and reflects a strong Community desire for safer streets cyclists need a safe connected and direct network not side streets Community Cycles fully supports alternative B for the iris Avenue improvements first reducing travel Lanes from 4 to three will significantly improve safety iris is part of the high-risk Network averaging one crash per week Lane repurposing will reduce rearend collisions with a center turn lane will calm traffic reduce dangerous speeds make Iris safer to cross and more pleasant for everybody studies show traffic will slow will flow smoothly just at safer speeds and we've seen this work with similar streets secondly our firefighters and emergency responders

[16:00] like alternative B because the middle turning lane will be helpful to them and for emergencies the cycle track can serve as contraflow e evacuation Lane cycle tracks have been used successfully in cities throughout the US and Europe we believe a cycle track with tall curb protection protected signal phasing for all users and improved sidewalks on the South Side can help ensure the safest possible design in conclusion alternative be aligns with our City's goals for safety and will encourage additional cycling and walking in Boulder we encourage Council to honor their commitments to road safety and vote in favor of alternative be thank you thanks now we have Casey Mendoza quintis Bren and Tamara sturz hi had a slideshow I shared as

[17:00] well to share up on the screens thank you so much all right hello Council my name is Casey Mendoza and I've been a resident of Boulder County for the majority of my life I'm also a member of the naacp's Boulder County Branch tonight I'm here to add to the conversation about policing in Boulder issues related to ethical policing in America seem to be unremitting Sonia Macy has been making headlines in recent weeks after she was shot to death by Illinois Law Enforcement on July 6th and her story is a painful reminder that unethical police are still afflicting innocent citizens on a constant basis I think the main way we can combat this issue is ensuring police officers are acting out of the best interest for the collective without actually seeking to understand the community's perspective this is impossible thus public distrust in the police system increases I wanted to take the approach I'm advocating for prior to speaking tonight the NAACP has been raising concerns about the city's interim police chief officer Stephen Redfern since last year I'd like to share a few perspectives that I gathered from a public opinion survey involving actual Boulder residents so that city council is aware of the community stance I wanted to represent a broad range of residents so I left other nacp members

[18:00] out of this survey I asked respondents to review some information on officer Redfern the successes of his career and some of his disputed history all derived from online news sources if we go to the next slide please as this chart demonstrates roughly 72% of participants resolutely voted that officer Redfern was not fit to become Boulder's police chief as opposed to the 11.1% who are fully on board just under 17% of respondents were on the fence next slide please I wanted to gain some insight on the specific reasons that motiv these previous responses the majority took issue with the fact that he altered call logs to reflect inaccurate information even after owning up to the fact and were driven by the class action lawsuit that he was named defendant of Officer red friend supporters were driven by his endorsement of Boulder's reimagined policing plan and triumphs in his career next slide please I'd like to leave you with this free response comment and another chart before my time is up regardless of precise answers it's clear that the main thing Boulders residents want and a police chief is someone who is transparent engaged and able to be held accountable thank you thank you now we have uh Quinta Bren

[19:02] Tamara sturz and Jessica Dion do we have quintis in the room all right mayor Brocket this is Taisha Adams on the zoom and I'm not able to see the slides should I Matt is that is that just something we're not allow we're not able to see when we're doing the okay thank you very much sorry this is my first virtual attendance of a of a meeting yeah thank you all good thanks for checking in TAA okay we'll move to Tamara sturs then my name is Tamara sturz and I've lived in Boulder County my entire life tonight I'm here to speak about my significant concerns about the hiring process for the next chief of police and Boulder the city should base its selection on important criteria in suggest transparency commitment to

[20:01] Public Safety and not just the safety of police officers and to Equitable treatment of community members sadly interim Chief Redfern fails to meet these criteria he testified that he changed the call logs Regarding why Elijah mlan was stopped by police in Aurora from suspicious person to assault on an officer without an investigation into the truth of that false claim he has since claimed that is what officers on the seene told him and he had no reason to question them it appears he has not read attorney Attorney General Phil weiser's report on Aurora PD's patterns and practices because such claims as stop resisting are made by APD officers on bodyw warn camera when there is no evidence to support the claim in fact Aurora ranks at the bottom percentile for cities its size for excessive force complaints upheld providing an inference that APD allows and permits officers to routinely use

[21:01] excessive force further based on population a black person was 3.9 times as likely to be killed by police as a white person in Aurora we should not hire a chief of police that came from a police agency with such a terrible history of treatment of black people even based on these few credible examples the city manager can hardly claim she cannot find a more qualified candidate than red fern given his background with APD let's have a competitive search not a coronation thank you now we have Jessica Dion Philip ogren and Chris Alid do we have Jessica here not seeing Jessica how about Philip ogan all right Phillip I work in a corporate research lab and

[22:01] from time to time I file software patents this involves me sending a patent lawyer a four-page detailed technical description which they turn into 40 pages of legal ease before it is submitted I was thinking about this when I read the recent court filing the city submitted last week challenging the faa's claim that there that the city does not have the right to close the airport it weighs in at a tidy 19 pages and it is for a legal document an easy read that is well organized into the point despite the fact that you could give a detailed summary of the filing in less than two pages I encourage you all to read it if you haven't already I'd like to give you a sample after quoting a passage from a 1991 Grant agreement the filing States the city reasonably understood the durational language with respect to real property acquired with federal funds to not include the acquisition of the construction easement but rather only the acquisition of land indeed the FAA had never taken the position prior to 1991 that the Federal assisted acquisition of an easement

[23:00] would obligate an airport sponsor to operate an airport in perpetuity the city would not and did not agree to obligate itself to operate the airport in perpetuity in exchange for a mere $5,800 and federal assistance to acquire the easement seriously I come here today with gratitude to City staff and their legal team for filing this case I am a member of the airport neighborhood campaign and spend much effort thinking about how to attract voters to our cause one of the themes that is common even among people who are both pro- housing and against the airport is the concern that we will find ourselves in a legal Quagmire like the Excel immun effort our right to close the airport if voter CH voters choose to do this in the fall does not seem complicated to me but nothing I could say could be as effective at persuading doubters than this simple title dispute the FAA cannot simply retroactively apply regulations that were created decades after contracts were signed it's not complicated thank you for your efforts here you knocked it

[24:01] out of the park good luck I hope they settle quickly out of court and if not that you win decisively thank you now we have Chris alred Dan Winters and Doug Hamilton good evening Council hi my name is Chris aled commenting on behalf of Rocky Mountain peace and Justice Center I'm here tonight to request transparency the hiring process for the Boulder police chief many have reached out to you who agree that Steven Redfern is not the right choice for the job there are significant reasons for this first I hope the council is all aware of the life of Elijah mlan he was a gentleman a musician I wish I had the chance to know him Elijah did nothing wrong yet he was murdered as the result of a violent police response Mr Redfern was a captain with Aurora Police Department at the time as you've heard from others the fact that

[25:02] he changed the call logs regarding the basis for the dispatch call from suspicious person to assault on an officer later at a peaceful violin vigil in remembrance of Elijah as a violin player Mr Redfern oversaw a violent police response to disperse protesters chemical agents were deployed on Peaceful protesters playing violin Aurora Police Department has a history of racial discrimination this is all documented information that we can provide the citations we're here to say that we will not be silent to this Injustice we will not be silent to Violent policing Boulder should not be welcoming someone with this history I saw Boulder Police Department's response to Zade Atkinson and Sammy Lawrence and I will not forget violent policing and racial discrimination must be called out will be respectful in doing so for there

[26:02] to be peace there must first be Justice we will not accept a passive peace I know there are others on the council who agree so I'll close in asking the council and city manager to please make the police chief hiring process transparent do not hire Steven Redfern remember Elijah mlan send love to his family and friends thank you thank you now we have Dan Winters Doug Hamilton and Evan rabitz I am Dancy wyers and I have lived in the city for 45 years along with my wife now of 62 years marriage I have some health issues and have not kept up with counsel issues so I may go over some things that you've already discussed sorry I speak only for myself not for anyone else else in the interest of full disclosure I was

[27:01] with the US group bringing medicine to alifa hospital in Gaza in 2009 it has since been destroyed many the doctors murdered and in Lebanon in 2006 I helped fund the only Prosthetics facility in the entire country Council should take up international issues that they said that's beyond our purview as was suggested by council members speak year in February since then over 25,000 perhaps close to 50,000 have died in Gaza Council was asked to support a Gaza ceasefire resolution it was voted down among reasons given was council's position on international issues should that it should focus on difficult issues people dying right now in Boulder should be looked at elected to address M Municipal Pro problems the is is impossibly challenging one member

[28:01] said others supported consideration now saying they did not come to Boulder to be in a bubble Boulder voice collectively matters our tax dollars your tax dollars support issues that affect Boulder internationally the very nature of city council as you well know is to take up difficult issues diverse issues no clear answer issues if they were only going to take up easy issues then I could program a computer to make automatic answers and relieve you of any responsibility I'm not asking that you make a ceasefire resolution although it would be advisable sir your time is up but you're welcome to email us the remainder of your comments I'm I'm sorry your time is up but you're welcome to email us the rest of your comments thank you now we have Doug Hamilton Evan rabbitz and Lisa

[29:02] Spalding hello okay hi my name is Doug Hamilton and I live in Boulder I have lots of topics but three I'm going to talk about tonight last Thursday I attended a rally for workers in Boulder seeking to raise the minimum wage to $25 by 2030 I heard stories from businesses who are having difficulty attracting workers to Boulder and from workers who struggle to pay rent and bills in Boulder raising the minimum wage will help all workers even those making above the minimum wage it's been called an natural anti-depressant and allows workers to spend more time with their families and loved ones and experience less stress workers don't want a handout they want a decent day's pay for a decent day's work please vote this year to increase the minimum wage to hit 25 by 2030 I've also been organizing people to petition the city to increase the newer fee as Allowed by law with the rate of inflation newer has passed uh passed in 2020 and I've been speaking with staff and some members of the tenant advisory committee and I fear the staff is only looking at two years of

[30:00] inflation data and not increasing the fee until 2025 I can understand the 2025 implementation but it but we should be looking at inflation from 21 to 24 this is a great law and the fee not only helps renters it's a cheap insurance po policy for landlords directly paying landlords cash for program participants please talk with staff about including all years of inflation finally the iris alternative B completes the promises of previous Council to the core arterial Network the REM recommendation is something that we can accomplish on a reasonable budget and timeline cars hitting children is probably the leading cause of death and serious injury for children in Boulder as a parent of two teenage do daughters navigating the North Boulder streets by bike and nearly a daily driver on Iris safe separate bike infrastructure is essential to everyone's safety reducing car traffic is imperative to our future future climate and air quality goals please move forward with this option thank you thank you now we have Evan rabbitz Lisa

[31:01] Spalding and Mike Mills three things tonight the city's plan for iris is going to make things worse for cyclists like me and drivers it would be nice if this got drivers to cycle but I bet the majority on Iris are going to and from Longmont which is 15 mil away too far even on an ebik when traffic backs up onto the diagonal the state will force the city to undo its multi-million doll mistake something like the falsom failure Transportation Division division is happy to spend Millions doing and undoing These Foolish performances including slip Lanes things will be worse for us cyclist because drivers will be using the

[32:01] parallel routes of Glenwood Hawthorne and Calia speeding to make up time these are now almost traffic free worse the city intends to put speed bumps on these roads and the city refuses to leave slots through the bumps for cyclist two there is a parallel between the Sand Creek Massacre and AA Governor Evans told chief nawat that Indians would be safe at Sand Creek but instead Massacre them Israel does this repeatedly in Gaza killing hundreds of times more you should ask the American Indian Community connectors they want a ceasefire and for Palestine to be free knowing all about settler colonialism St stand with them to redeem Boulder's role

[33:01] in the Sand Creek Massacre stand with our sister city Nabis which has also been attacked by Israel Steven Redfern shouldn't be thank you now we have Lisa Spalding Mike Mills and Charles Leaf Lisa spaling I've lived on University Hill since 1999 and consequently ly I've had many occasions to talk with Boulder Police and to work with a Boulder Police I was thrilled when Chief heral came to Boulder because she had experience working for a campus police force and a municipal police force the only consolation when she left to bring her ground baking police reform strategies to the doj was our Deputy police chief Steven Redfern the two of them work together on Boulder's reimagining police Pro policing program the most

[34:01] Progressive law enforcement's plan in the country an interim police chief Redfern is uniquely qualified to continue to implement it he is responsible for the remarkable drop in crime on the hill because he has worked with City staff and CU to introduce new ordinances but more importantly because he has been directing the daily enforcement of those ordinances based on datadriven Str strategies he has also maintained the hill police team to ensure the improvements continue apparently neither the Rocky Mountain chapter of the NAACP nor the national headquarters have sanctioned the accusations made against interim Chief Redfern by Darren oconor Jude lansman and Annette James for good reason our city manager looked into the accusations and disproved them trying to tie chief Fern a man of integrity and compassion

[35:00] to a cover up of the tragic murder of Elijah mlan is unforgivable I urge our city manager to appoint interim Chief Redfern permanently to his job as soon as possible if we lose Chief Redfern we lose our chance of having the most Progressive Police Department in the country and I would also say people who are dumping the entire aora police department on his shoulders should remember that he left and he came here thank you thank you now we have Mike Mills Charles leaf and Leslie glustrom good evening uh I'm a member of the city's Transportation Advisory board but I'm here representing Community Cycles we have collected 78 letters on Bike To Work Day and at our annual member party uh 77 of the 78 are fully supportive of Alternatives A or B um and one of them them supports alternative C I'm just

[36:00] going to read some of them in my time I'm a resident and I support changes to Iris Avenue as soon as possible to support safety and convenience for everyone no matter how they travel I urge you to approve option A or B to preserve tree cover reduce the risk of rear-end collisions and provide safety for cyclists at much lower costs than options C or D dear Council please prioritize bike bike safety and choose option A or B growing trees I strongly support changes to Iris as soon as possible my kids go to preschool on fulam and Iris and we need a safe solution as soon as possible I urge you to approve option A or B for Iris Avenue because it is feasible in the near future dear city council I am 13 years old I'm a 13-year-old who lives in Boulder please change Iris to option A orb to make Iris safer thanks please support option AR or B for Iris I would like to have bike lane before I kick the

[37:01] bucket as a bicycler and Boulder I support option b for the iris design the center lane will add safety and help traffic while providing space for two-way bike lane to improve the environment and safety as a resident I support Iris Avenue changes quickly and for safety I strongly prefer options A and B because they are less expensive faster to complete and safer please support option A or B that would be simpler to implement and and enjoy sooner thanks I'm a resident and a bike commuter I strongly prefer one of the two lane Iris Alternatives I even agree as a driver all right thank you thank you all right our last our last two inperson speakers are Charles leaf and Leslie glustrom and then we'll go to the virtual ones uh good evening I'm Chuck Leaf I'm a resident of Boulder I serve as the President of neuropa University and I say this now for the next 12 months celebrating our 50th Anniversary founded

[38:00] in Boulder in the summer of 1974 uh I'm here to just frame a few questions about the upcoming conversation around the natural medicines Health act and zoning and we'll have more to say over time but I wanted to just uh offer a few points as you have your conversation with the city manager uh naropa University at this point is has the largest uh training program for postgraduate clinicians in psychedelic assisted therapy in the country uh we are in our third cohort and we've trained about 450 clinical practitioners who are getting ready to be able to work with these medicines going forward we are also one of the three approved programs in the state of Colorado to offer psilocybin facilitation training there will be more no doubt but we were the second and the only University so far that has uh been approved we are launching that training next month um I want to talk about a few things concerning the uh facilitation centers and in part to talk about what they're

[39:01] not because I think it is very important it's a it's a very New Concept and it's easy to equate them with things that we're already familiar with and I think most notably with um uh cannabis uh facilities what this is not these centers are not retail in Focus they're not high traffic they're not unscheduled so people that will be coming to the centers the facilitation centers will be doing it on an appointment basis uh they're managed by trained and licensed uh practitioners and so uh they are much more like the medical office which I understand is the zone that that is being looked at what I want to particularly point out at the end here is the thousand foot setback the thousand foot setback may work for what I said we are not in these facilitation centers here it will restrict dramatically where these offices can be located thank you thanks Leslie glrm is our last in person

[40:02] speaker uh good evening Council my name is lesle glustrom and as always I really appreciate all your work on so many issues and I wanted to just say that I'm part of a big team uh some of you know I'm a biochemist by training but I resigned my job in 2004 to work full-time on climate change that means I've spent now spent 20 years at the Public Utilities Commission and at the legislature working climate policy for the state electricity was the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions so I and others went to the Public Utilities Commission and said we must clean up our electricity we they tried to laugh us out of the room for about 10 years but we just kept showing up and uh now we're on track for clean electricity which is fabulous but it appears to be kind of electricity at any price EXL is paying about under 4 cents a kilowatt hour for wind solar and storage and their financial reports tell us that their

[41:00] charging residen is 13.6 C buying it for under four selling it for 13.6 that creates a very large margin for those in the room you can see the graph the blue line which members have council members have seen before but it's very important you're going to see this graph a lot because it's the it summarizes what I've experienced in thousands of hours down at the Utilities Commission blue line is XL sales the red line that's going straight up is their profits The Gray Line which is a little harder to see but that's what their profits would have done if they'd gone up at the rate of inflation so I and others will be here 2025 is an important year for the community we can make a decision then about whether we want to stay with XL and their Monopoly I always want to defend the people who work for XL they're good people they care they work hard all of that but a monopoly is a monopoly and you don't have competition and you don't have price discipline they're taking over 20 million a year

[42:00] out of our community every year in after tax profits we can do better communities all around the state have been able to go to market and they're doing a lot better so thank you so much I appreciate it thank you our first three virtual speakers are Emily Reynolds Peggy Sans and Elise moros Emily Reynolds good evening Council and thank you I support interim police chief Ste Steven Redfern a dedicated leader who cares about our welfare last time we had a qual qualified Visionary police reformer as Chief she finally gave up on Boulder and quit for greener pastures how sad if we lose another imminently well-qualified Chief the word Progressive no longer carries its original meaning the local NAACP is now dominated by pretend progressives who were more than against

[43:01] policing I dare say most people in Boulder are pro policing in the face of the daily onslaught of threats violence thefts assaults unfettered drug use and undet criminals who continue taking over our public spaces the majority Caucasian progressives in the local NAACP orchestrated a smear campaign getting people from Denver to write to Boulder City Council to defame Chief Redfern this week how is that okay reminiscent of the dark money from the Brooklyn Democratic socialists to influence our last several local elections it would benefit bold rights if Council would work to protect people rather than doing the opposite of what people want support Steven Redfern I remember when the public could use our public spaces with without fear and without Bears spray I look forward to

[44:00] that time again as Chief redf works for our safety thank you so much thank you now we have Peggy sanss then Elise moros and Daniel Eisenman mute hi everybody I'm Peggy Sans and um I would like to see Chief fredrin remain police chief of Boulder and there's a few points I want to address the first is the smear campaign against him where Darren oconor and friends are claiming that red fern uh conspired to create a narrative uh that um he changed the call logs and therefore he wanted to protect the police officers down in Aurora who murdered alijah McCain but it was Redfern who ordered the investigation of these officers and a test ified against them in court so how is that a cover up if he's

[45:02] testifying against them I believe in honesty I believe in Integrity I believe that facts and Truth matter and I think the transparency that people are calling for here is to look at what actually happened and not listen to a smear campaign based on cherry pick data taken out of context and woven together to create a narrative that doesn't correspond with reality if you want the facts and if you want the truth on this please talk to Nua our city manager who has investigated this this is important I want to point out that the entire police force loves and respects Red Fern and wants him to remain replacing him will demoralize the BPD potentially anger them and the replacement Chief will be met probably with resentment because that's what people do I don't think a police department in disarray is a good thing considering what's coming down the pike in the next few months and our country the um third thing that I want

[46:00] to point out is that the words I've heard describing redr are honest transparent and accessible he is he worked on the reimagining policing plan with Chief Herald which is being adopted by cities across the country and in light of all this I think he should be the one to implement the plan as he understands it and exemplifies it from the inside out we have policey your time is up but thank you for your testimony all right our last three speakers are Elise mordos Daniel Eisenman and Dick Lan hi can you hear me yes thanks okay so uh thank you for your time today um I'm here to discuss a public safety concern uh I know you guys put out a press release regarding a female who was walking on on Broadway and Baseline and she narrowly escaped a sexual assault she was dragged under under an underpass it's located right near the university uh and this is obviously very

[47:02] concerning because I uh I bike and I run in this area and I run uh I know other females do actually I learned of this from another female who expressed concern regarding this matter if you go around throughout the bike pass you'll see that some of the underpasses are definitely I would not describe them as being safe um and I would like to know what the city's plan is to address this I know obviously the sexual assault attempt at a sexual assault is obviously a police matter but it also is a a City Concern because it occurred at an underpass that you guys obviously have some level of jurisdiction over and this pm on July 4th so it was Daylight people were around just wasn't some random thing that I mean it was random act obviously of violence but uh not like this occurred at night and you know some kind of not densely populated area this could

[48:01] happen to anybody um and it located right near the university uh which is obviously a big concern uh with kids coming back to school and this as salent still being out on the loose so uh thank you that is all I have today thank you now we have Daniel Eisenman and dicka Leon I do not see Daniel online but I do see our last speaker here all right we'll go to di Leon then hello can you hear me yes okay uh thank you city council for allowing me to share my concerns uh the safety and well-being of our Jewish community at in at suu Boulder and within the city are at risk we have learned that multiple organizations known for their anti-semitic behavior in harassment of Jewish students plan to escalate their activity this fall this poses a direct threat to our Jewish

[49:01] residents given that CU Boulder as a public university within Boulder I believe the city has jur jurisdiction over this matter and hope you are already collaborating with law enforcement and CU Administration if not I strongly urge you to start such dialogue immediately it's important to recognize that the threat to Jewish students and community community members is part of a broader issue Israel's enemies are America's enemies I'd like to commend the idef for elimination of fuad shuker a high ranking hisbah operative uh responsible for the deaths of over 240 US Marines in N 1983 bombing Sher had five um million dollars bounty on his head and his elimination highlighted the interconnected nature of global threats to our Safety and Security in

[50:02] this context we must understand that the safety of Jewish students at Su Boulder is not just a local issue it is part of a broader struggle against forces that threaten democratic values and human rights globally I hope to see Boulders stand firmly against anti-sm anti-Semitism in all forms of hatred by taking every necessary measure to protect its residence and uphold the principles of Justice safety and Community thank you so much thank you all right that's our last speaker so I will turn to City staff to see if there are any responses thank you so much uh mayor and uh a couple things um I will say and I I've heard some speakers uh speak about uh what's happening on the can project in Iris and I'll say that uh iris is coming back to Council in September so we'll hear more about that uh I heard a comment about um newer and I know that

[51:01] we will be bringing that conversation the newer tax uh back to council as part of the budget process so stay tuned for more conversation about that um to the recent to the um Calla that just C about the incident um near the university I'll say I'll be looking into that but uh I'll just want to say that our Boulder Police Department looks at every incident of crime in the city we track those incidents we make sure that we are looking for patterns We are following up um and we adjust our strategies accordingly to make sure that we are figuring out if there are um any adjustments we need to make accordingly uh I'm happy to follow up and make sure that BPD um responds to this one but I know that we take every incident seriously and we follow up accordingly with our data so happy to um follow up on this one as well um certainly there have been a lot of ation about um the process of the hiring of our next police

[52:01] chief and about interim Chief Renford and so I'll address that very directly I want to say UPF front uh that I respect community's rights to voice their perspective on any City matter as I told Council and Community last year when this issue uh first came up at No Time have there been allegations of misconduct against interim Chief Redfern related to the investigation into the horrible death of Elijah mlan at the hands of those sworn to protect him interim Chief Redford's work in our community has been exemplary and I continue to have the utmost confidence in our interim please Chief as he goes about serving the best interests of ar City separately as is customary with all our leadership positions we have indeed embarked on a competitive search for a new director and in this case a new chief of police as with any Personnel process the details of the search are confidential to protect candidates searching for new opportunities but I do have permission to share that we have received 30 applicants including interim

[53:00] Chief Redfern with the help of our external and independent recruiter and rhr director we are winnowing down those candidates to a subset of semi-finalist and will be creating a variety of interview panels that will include numerous stakeholders including members of the community City Partners members of the police oversight panel and of course members of Staff including the Boulder Police Department following that we hope to have two or three finalists that willon undergo an additional series of interviews with similar panels including a larger Community Forum open to the public while calendaring for all these interviews is tricky our hope is to get those schedules dur scheduled during the last two weeks of August but in any event we'll update our website and announce the date for the community Forum once we get down to our finalist so in no way have we not been transparent that is information that soon will be updated on the website but we do have some information about the search process on the webite on the website so we thank Community for staying engaged in the process and we will

[54:01] continue to consider all of community's feedback as we move through the process that is all that I have thanks SAR I appreciate that update I've got thought or Trace did you have anything no nothing from me okay I'll turn to council I got a couple hands up I got I saw Mark first and then Nicole uh actually I do have a few remarks about some of the open comment we've heard this evening as well as the numerous emails we've received first if anybody is not aware the hiring decision with respect to the chief of police is solely within the province of the city manager members of this Council May Express their individual opinions but we have no authority to direct the city manager in the exercise of her discretion the campaign of emails advocating our participation in this decision does nothing more than clutter up our inboxes we have no role to play in the process however having said that I do

[55:00] want to express my individual opinion um first I deeply regret the campaign to slander and impune the qualities and capabilities of interim Chief Redfern and to politicize this entire process in a manner that I consider inappropriate this campaign is a tired rehash of the arguments that were made and completely refuted in the previous campaign to have then Chief Maris Harold fire Mr Redfern those arguments were unsuccessful then for good and sufficient reasons and have not become more meritorious with the passage of time it appears that the principles of the earlier campaign have merely double down on their arguments uh from their previous efforts although this time apparently without the endorsement of the NAACP those arguments remain spurious and unfounded in indeed interim Chief Redfern has earned the respect of the community of Boulder as well as the men

[56:01] and women of the police department his performance in my personal view has been exceptional and very much worthy of permanent appointment that is my firm opinion and all the emails in the world will not cause me to change that view but while none of this is relevant to the deliberations of the city manager and the process of making the ultimate appointment I want to committee to know that the efforts to uh bully this Council into taking the highly inappropriate action of directing or pressuring the city manager on this hiring decision will not be rewarded thank you thanks good Nicole um yeah and um Mark kind of hit on one of the questions that I had for you Teresa um but um Mark was saying that you know we don't have the authority to weigh in on staff hiring decisions I just want to confirm it's not that we uh not just that we don't have the authority we are expressly prohibited from city code um in city

[57:02] code from influencing or in any way having anything to do with the hiring process for staff is that correct uh mayor protim spirit's actually in the charter rather than the code so it's it's in our governing documents and um it's quite clear that Council has no input or decision making and hiring firing um or discipline of any employee thank you um and niia from what you were saying about the timeline it sounds like the time to uh weigh in for community that there'll be opportunities for that toward the end of this month um if everything is kind of going for schedule so just wondering um you know where so that folks know um where to go to um have their input be heard by the people who will uh be making the decisions uh we have on the website and I apologize I don't have that in front of me but we have um actually placed on the website and if you look for a police chief job description or hire or

[58:01] something and I'll find that and put that out there or give that to you but we have put the job brochure the job description we have tried to keep that up to date and we will send that out um but when we have that date we will put that on there as well we will announce that we will put that and publicize it we want to make sure that people come to the community Forum feedback is sought out for we are interested um we will be streaming that as well and so we will find ways to publicize that thanks for the clarification I've got Taisha um thank you so much I just had a clarification question on who has the authority to change that rule so I just needed to be a refresher on who has the authority to change the charter uh yes council member Adams the voters can change the charter okay so I just wanted to clarify that there is that you know people make rules rules

[59:00] can be changed and if there is interest by the community for the council to have more Authority on policing and police decisions like hiring the chief like the um Police contract Etc um that is at the discretion of our community members and the voters to do so so thank you I appreciate that clarification thank you anything else all right seeing none we'll go ahead and move on from open comment and Elisha if you could take us to our first matters item please oh no no I'm out of order item number three is our consent agenda could could we go through that please I gotta all right our consent agenda is item number three on tonight's agenda and it consists of items 3 a through 3F and and I'll just say thanks to the the speakers today by the way thanks to for the contribution from the community we appreciate it um any uh questions or comments on the consent

[60:05] agenda not seeing any per perhaps a a motion if there's no comments I'll move the consent agenda second we've got a motion in a second uh any comments from motion or and seconder seeing none I'll go ahead and move to vote please Elicia thank you sir we'll start the vote tonight for the consent agenda items 3A through 3F with council member Wier yes Adams yes Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes council member fols yes Marquis yes mayor Pro Tim spear yes

[61:01] and council member wallet yes with the exception of item D thank you sir duly noted the consent agenda items a through f are hereby passed unanimously except for the noted Nay with item 3D from council member wal thanks very much and now the moment that I was trying to get to can you take take us to our first matters item please Alicia yes sir thank you our matters items are number six on tonight's agenda and 6A is the discussion and feedback on a potential approach to local zoning regulations and Licensing regimen in response to the natural medicine Health Act of 2022 as amended by Colorado State Senate bill 23-29 and State regulations thank you so much uh and to

[62:01] we're going to go straight to the Asylum to uh Carl gerer uh this is a matter that the state recently took up and we're hoping to um share an update with you Carl thank you naria good evening council members tonight we're going to talk about natural medicine related uses uh and how they would be addressed in the city of Boulder so before you tonight is the matters item title uh there's no action being requested tonight related to an ordinance but we are looking for direction uh as the state has passed legislation related to natural medicine which I'll uh Define in the presentation but tonight we really just want to go over the the state legislation what pure communities have done and are doing uh staff's initial thinking on engagement uh a licensing regime and potential zoning approaches to natural medicine related uses uh and also asking for the feedback of the council before before we move forward so the goal of this item is that uh we really need to have any reg local

[63:02] regulation in place by January 1st 2025 uh if that's what we elect to do uh the state has specified uh what authorities the cities have and Counties have on this item so we do need to work relatively swiftly to get any changes in the code before any licenses get issued uh by the state so the questions we have for council tonight or does city council have any questions about the scope of the project or the proposed approach or any recommendations for changes does city council have any specific feedback on the proposed approach for licensing and Zoning for natural medicine related uses so first off what is natural medicine it's generically or generally referred to as magic mushrooms um um in in the Community uh it's more specifically defined as we have on the slide um it relates to psilocybin or

[64:03] syosin which is a a substance that comes from uh 200 plus types of mushrooms uh it's uh there's some names up there that I'm not going to pronounce uh it does not include um any synthetic items and it does not include peyote um natural medicine products are those that have psilocybin in it it uh in in the products intended for consumption so the natural medicine is basically intended to treat depression anxiety uh and mental illness uh it's something that's been done for Generations in indigenous people's communities and practices um there is a working group that's been uh comprised of uh indigenous and tribal leaders uh to provide uh input on the state legislation as it moves forward in really in efforts to avoid any overc commercialization of the of the products

[65:00] and to not uh lead to any kind of exploitation uh so that's been ongoing as as this moves forward so as far as the state legislation history uh going back in time a couple years uh proposition 122 was passed by Colorado voters in November 2022 so it made cybin legal for treating mental health issues uh what basically that resulted in the the natural medicine Health Act of 2022 what that act said is that local governments May regulate the time Manner and place of natural medicine businesses uh but they're not allowed to prohibit them and they're not allowed to create any unreasonable regulations so this is a little different than like the marijuana legislation which did allow jurisdictions to opt out this says you can't prohibit them so then this the state came back a year later and did Colorado bill 23290 this is also known as the Colorado natural medicine code this is where it

[66:01] amended the act and created the Regulatory and Licensing framework uh for natural medicine businesses in Colorado so it goes into a lot more detail each one of these is basically a funnel that leads to to more and more detail so what has recently been occurring after the state bill is state rulemaking so this gets even more fine grain um these are the preparation of specific regulations that go over a number of things which I'll talk about on a different slide so this just recently concluded on July 25th um based on their website they've not yet been adopted but we're anticipating that that they'll be adopted in the coming weeks so just uh getting into the the overview of the state legislation it allows persons over 21 years old to possess share cultivate uh and manufacture certain regulated na natural medicine U uses for personal use without payment so this does not include a retail component it can only be used um in um in licensed

[67:02] establishments or for personal use but not in public and not for retail buying um it creates a State Licensing program for natural medicine businesses uh with certification permitting and registration requirements uh it also sets up an Advisory Board um that guides the whole process so some of the rules that I'll highlight uh that are part of the state legislation is it does include a thousand foot distance requirement from Child Care Centers preschools elementary middle and junior high schools and CH residential Child Care Facilities it does set up specific regulations for cultivation manufacturing testing storing distribution transportation and dispensation um of natural medicine and related products it also specifies exactly what the powers of the local government are it says we this local government governments May enact ordinances or regulations that govern time Manner and place of the operation

[68:00] of the licensed establishments but it has to be pursuant to the Colorado natural medicine code so we're as a city not allowed to prohibit these establishments um cities can't prohibit the transportation of the product through the cities within their boundaries and cities and other jurisdictions cannot adopt ordinances that are considered unreasonable or conflict with the state law so this slide basically goes over all of the different things that are handled in the state rulemaking we did provide a link within the memo to um what is now the final draft standards for review so if you look at that you can see it's a pretty comp complicated code that handles a number of different things from I'm not going to read them all but General requirements licensing and renewals background checks security standards for for establishments sanitation and safety transportation of of materials packaging and labeling handling of chemicals uh equipment that

[69:01] they have to use manufacturing procedures and cultivation so again this concluded um on July 25th so we're anticipating that those rules will be adopted uh in in coming days these are the four primary natural medicine businesses um that we've been looking at um that are defined in the state law so we have a natural medicine Healing Center uh natural medicine cultivation facility natural medicine products manufacturer and natural medicine testing facility so we've provided those definitions within the memo um the first one The Healing Center is really not too different from a typical therapy office so I'll get into the characteristics and potential impacts of these uses we wanted to provide some pictures for reference so what we've heard from talking to Industry experts is that these would operate much like a typical therapy off office the the latter three are more Industrial in character so the cultivation uh we'd probably see them more in like warehouse

[70:01] and Industrial uh type areas uh testing facilities and product manufacturers although as I'll talk about on coming slides the scale of this related to um marijuana is much less so I know there's a lot of uh words on the slide I'm just going to highlight some things you can read along if you wanted to um Healing Centers um just wanted to point out that they're not allowed to operate in locations where there's an existing liquor or marijuana license uh they have to be a th000 feet from schools and child care as I noted um they operate much like licensed medical or therapy offices um they do have to have facilitated supervised sessions and we've put uh in the memo the different categories of sessions that people go in one thing we've learned is that these sessions can last for quite some time they can be six to eight hours the effect of of using pill pillos cybin is four to six hours on average um it can

[71:01] be longer for some people so um even longer than the 6 to8 hours we've heard um there is no retail component so as we noticed they're largely analogous to medical clinics or therapy offices um worst case scenarios there could be patients that are impaired after use um the proposed rules do address Transportation plans to and from the business there are requirements that say say that um you know a facilitator is not allowed to to a patient to leave until they've reached a certain level of Consciousness after using the psilocybin um getting on to the um industrial type uses these are very much Industrial in character from what we've learned um they're not unlike other industrial uses where you have equipment creating a a product or growing equipment you have humidifiers air handling use of chemicals storage not unlike other industrial uses that are

[72:01] also subject to federal and state law um except in this case obviously they would be in much smaller in volume what we've learned and I don't have the metrics in front of me but like the the actual mushrooms that would need to be grown for the whole state is significantly less than marijuana takes up much less space there wouldn't be nearly as much uh product going out into the market um so again you know as far as potential impacts similar impacts to Industrial uses delivery trucks boxing equipment some noise that might come from those uses um other potential impacts are you know what came up in some meetings are non-compliance issues like if a establishment did not comply with State rules uh that related to Smells mold growth fire air particulates or improper uh disposal of waste but again the the ru making has really been uh put together to address a lot of those impacts so because this is a kind of new

[73:00] territory for Colorado and for Boulder in particular um we've had to look at some peer communities and Oregon passed a similar state law uh in 2020 so they're about two years ahead of us so it's a similar law largely although it does have uh one key difference is that they did have an opt out provision like our marijuana regs in in the state so some jurisdictions have voted to opt out um I've tried to put up some uh examples of who we've reached out to and what we've heard from them um dutes County was one of those communities that actually tried to opt out but in the vote it did not pass so they do have regulations uh in dutes County they've taken a bit of a more um conservative approach to uh what they call S ayban service centers um they're specifically defined in their code and they require a conditional use permit which is similar to our our use review process so they're

[74:01] allowed in most of their zones commercial mixed use in what they call a resort Zone uh but they are not uh permitted in residential zones when we look at Eugene I'll jump to that uh they do allow those uses with um as medical clinics or medical offices uh Eugene does permit them in residential zones with a conditional use permit like our use review it's a permitted use in their commercial zone so it's a little more on the other side of the coin more on the lack side I'd say the other communities that we looked at Bend Portland and Salem um they don't allow them in residential zones but they do permit them as allowed uses and as as medical office offices predominantly and Manufacturing facilities as allowed uses in the industrial zones and the commercial zones and then moving to Colorado I mean most most mostly what we've heard from Colorado communities is that they're in a wait and see pattern they wanted to

[75:00] see what the results of the the rule making were some of them haven't really moved into it yet but these are some of the responses that we heard a lot of them are moving in the direction of considering them Medical Offices or industrial uses um Parker is the First Community to actually adopt regulations I think it was in February or March um they have them as allowed uses in commercial commercial zones and Industrial zones but they did add a thousand foot uh distance requirement from any residential use they do have 00 am to to 5:00 pm and they've also come up with screening requirements and Outdoor Storage uh requirements as well as local penalties and violations in their code um there was an article that just came out I think in the last week that says that Castle Rock is looking to take a similar approach as part when we've talked to most of the other communities um again none of them have committed to a a firm approach but most

[76:02] of them of the other communities Arvada Aurora um Denver Fort Collins and thoron have uh been looking at treating them like Medical Offices uh and and none have indicated uh any intent to do local licensing not to say that they won't but uh we we didn't hear that they were doing that so as far as as far as our proposed approach I wanted to put a summary slide up uh and then go into kind of the details of of our rationale for each of these uh so starting with uh Community engagement uh We've we've moved forward with to implement this on a level of consult with the community since it's a state mandate um we we we do realize that we have to recognize the sensitivities of indigenous people so um we will be applying the racial Equity instrument uh to this project uh we have gotten some feedback already that uh indicates some concern about limiting

[77:01] hours of operation just because the more traditional practices of natural medicine are are at nighttime and we've also heard concerns from others that relate to um you know if we I talked about the duration of when somebody's um under the influence of cybin it could be a dangerous situation if they let out somebody too early because they have to close so we've we've shown some sensitivity to those those concerns uh we've been meeting with some industry experts and we we intend to continue coordination with other jurisdictions in the state we've been uh sitting in on state meetings and meetings uh with the city of Denver to kind of understand this more we're looking at doing like a virtual openhouse or an expert panel where there can be like a Q&A session uh we're also going to be using our existing tools like our newsletter and beard Boulder uh to keep people informed on this project uh as far as licensing our approach and I'll go into more detail on this on a

[78:00] different slide our our starting approach was to not do a local licensing regime for this but uh we will point out some Nuance to that um as far as zoning uh we're looking to move forward with regulating Healing Centers as medical office uses and the other three uses the cultivation testing facilities and Manufacturing uh facilities as light manufacturing um in our zoning code um so I'll talk more about that so starting with engagement uh we wanted to ask PE you know folks in the community what their thoughts are about this approach see if there's any differing opinions of that we could use beard Boulder as a platform uh to get an idea of where people are on this issue um we think this is the right approach because allows people to hear or allows the city to hear Community feedback and concerns but also allow some mutual understanding of of this because it's kind of a new territory for everyone and I've mentioned what we've heard already as far as um the

[79:01] restriction on hours uh We've also been hearing concerns in recent correspondents about the proposed thousand foot distance requirement so we can talk more about that um as far as licensing prior to the discussion we were moving towards looking at this a little bit differently than how we look at alcohol and marijuana because it has been approached differently by the state in in that manner uh for instance the state does not require a dual licensing Authority like as is done with alcohol and marijuana part of the reason for that is that uh consumption is only permitted in Healing Centers uh and it can't be purchased at retail establishments as I noted before the extent and volume of natural medicine is significantly less than the alcohol or marijuana Industries um we feel that the the ru making is moving in a direction of having comprehensive standards um that best handle a lot of the impacts uh we will note that in recent discussions with the police uh they do have some

[80:01] concerns about um being able to inspect these facilities like they do marijuana facilities for from a safety perspective to make sure that natural medicine is properly stored and that there's not uh any conditions on the premises that could create a danger so that does speak to potentially doing some sort of Licensing regime uh so we would like to get city council's feedback on that direction so again the zoning approach is to regulate them under current uh uses uh medical office and light manufacturing um a little bit of nuance to this as well um some of our rationale is that the uses are most analogous to these existing uses uh we didn't find any impacts from these uses that were above a typical uh medical officer manufacturing use that made us believe believe that we felt like this had to be a specifically defined use in the code that has to have specific conditional

[81:01] use standards we felt that it it felt more in line with the uses that are already in the code um for instance an addiction recovery uh facility is under the medical office definition so medical offices are permitted in the city in the business downtown mixed use and in um as allowed uses in the industrial zones they're conditional uses um they can be located around the hospital with uh with special approval um they're also allowed as a use review use in a residential Zone we don't see a lot of requests for medical offices and residential zones uh but what it would be uh through use review so given um looking at peer communities and that we are in some new territory here um we feel that uh maybe it isn't we should follow the lead of some of the Oregon communities that it shouldn't be an allowed use in residential zones so we could craft the zoning ordinance to say that if it's a use that's a use review use then it

[82:01] would be prohibited wherever it's you required uh with use review which means it wouldn't be allowed in residential zones um we've also proposed to have the thousand foot distance requirement from any residential uses uh we've heard some push back um from some folks on that so uh we certainly could uh reconsider that U we're trying to again kind of walk into this as as a new use that has some unknowns associated with it we're not proposing the hours of operation as I noted because we didn't want to conflict with the traditional practices or uh create that condition where people might be um let out um inappropriately so that's kind of where we stand at this point on our approach so we certainly look forward to the city council's uh discussion on this as far as next steps we want to move forward with Community engagement on the proposed approach obviously as informed by uh your guidance tonight uh we'll be continuing coordination with other Colorado communities and Industry

[83:00] experts uh we do have to begin PR preparation of the ordinance to make sure that we have it uh in our code before the end of the year so our tenative schedule at this point is to come to planning board on November 5th with an ordinance that date may change because that's election day so it could uh shift to another day um first reading is set for December 5th and then second reading is set for December 19th so uh if we do come on December 19th we would have to uh have the ordinance adopted on emergency just to make sure that it's in effect when the state starts issuing licenses on uh January 1st so that concludes the presentation I I'll uh leave it at the questions that we have for Council all right car thanks so much that was really helpful so uh Council why don't we uh start with clarifying questions and once we get those answers we can weigh in with any specific feedback I saw tera's hand and then Nico's and I've got one too and thank you that was great tell me

[84:03] what is the thinking behind the thousand feet so what did Portland give a reason or did the different cities give a reason why they chose a th000 ft res from the residences and what is your what is also your like what are the opinions out there for the pro and con I I read it I tried to find it in the packet mhm and all it said was that uh you know medical you want to do the same as the medical um I don't know that any of the um jurisdictions gave us specific reasoning for not allowing in residential zones I I think you know part of it again is it's a new industry and there's some caution um but I think our our thinking behind it is that typical Medical Offices have typical office hours you know they're typically 8 to5 we're we're trying to be sensitive to the the hours where could be some nighttime use uh for the traditional aspects or again to not

[85:00] create that condition where someone might be let out when they're unready to be let out so if we're talking about potential late night type operation maybe it's more appropriate to have that in a business or a commercial Zone I got Nicole Tina Lauren Taisha Matt um Tera just ask my first question um so second question is uh do we have restrictions on other forms of therapeutic spaces in terms of their operating hours you know would do do we put this residential restriction in place for um say a counseling office or U maybe a chiropractor or something like that uh we do not unless it's uh under a use review so if there's a use review then the city has discretion to look at each individual case and might limit office of you know hours of operation or other operating characteristics through conditions thank you

[86:01] Tina yeah thank you for all of this um has have any of the jurisdictions in Oregon seen any unexpected um outcomes or share any experiences when we reached out to them they none of them indicated any issues um we could certainly go further and ask them you know more questions uh but none of them have a identified it as an issue okay and then in the medical office um environment do they do an identification check for age or how does that work it's a little different because a lot of medical offices don't discriminate on age but this particular use does I mean again I think any licensed practitioner for natural medicine would have to follow the rules that come from the state so the state does have specific licensing requirements and verification requirements and I think I do remember seeing verification of age uh in the ru making

[87:01] okay um and then another question is has CU um given us any thoughts about it because they have a big population um and would a dormatory be considered residential uh We've not gotten any feedback from CU [Music] um the the college is is basic basically a public use it's independent of our zoning restrictions so even if we adopted any regulations related to residential it wouldn't apply uh to CU um yeah okay um and then another question I had was around um it says that the first ordin said that you have the right to or you're allowed to share and possess um s sllan how would that work in a a group if you shared it with someone do you have any responsibility to make sure that they

[88:02] are able to you know operate a vehicle or have do Transportation council member marus I believe that that is about the decriminalization and different than the medical uses for it okay but so you could share for non-medical use you could share for recreational use is that so the practitioners would be administering and they would be administering to an individual okay if that I don't I don't know and I think we don't know yet the details of whether um whether they could provide psilocybin that could be taken off premises I'm unsure about that okay I'd be interested just to learn more about that area I will note that uh we we may have some folks on the call

[89:02] that um are industry experts uh they could be promoted to answer such questions uh if they're available maybe they could just get back to us with that answer is that works for me okay absolutely um let's see yeah um oh and then is there a public education of campaign that goes along from the state uh to talk about what natural healing is and what it isn't and sort of a community awareness campaign I mean there's certainly the the working groups have been ongoing for for several months now and I think there's a lot of materials that are on the State website about the rules and and what the benefits of natural medicine is and and kind of the things they're all looking at I don't know if it's a specific public education campaign um beyond that

[90:01] but U there is a lot of information online on the state okay site all right thanks thanks Lauren thank you um so with the thousand foot setback it looked like that was also from residential areas in what we're proposing um what amount of the city that is currently medical office would that prohibit this use within like is it is this something that happens commonly in our community or where we're going to be excluding a large amount of our medical office space or not it's kind of it's not common and I don't have a specific answer to your question but um certainly something we could look at I appreciate just the general um answer um and then my other main question is just about scheduling is it possible to

[91:00] schedule this so that we don't have to be looking at an emergency measure at the end of the year I think it's possible it's just the we have a lot of items and a lot of meetings and they're filling up very quickly and this is kind of how it shook out but we can certainly try to move it up I mean I I think if the zoning technical solution doesn't uh require a lot of changes uh and we have appropriate time for you know Community engagement and everything we could try to you know move it up I would appreciate that I mean it just the state law changed and we knew it was going to change and I don't love how it looks when we have to put things on emergency so thank you Taisha that thank you um I had a question about um whether the um what is it the

[92:04] drugs and the marijuana and alcohol um boards and commissions I noticed that the planning board will be engaged and obviously because of some of the zoning potential but I'm also curious if there were any considerations of also including the um the U board that actually you know kind of deals has a little bit more expertise though obviously with other drugs um but I'm just curious if that was a part of the consideration yeah I mean we've talked about that but it's it's not within the scope of the authority of those boards uh so we've not scheduled that right but this is a new law we don't have anything that you know would would f fit so it's good to hear that um the conversation is happening and it because we don't have um a board that has more

[93:01] expertise or specific expertise around this spe specific um controlled um you know substance um you know I am curious to hear um the expertise of those who have more experience in this area um that could be transferable to the situation until we do have something um and or and or expand and as we consider uh continuing to strengthen our boards and commissions uh I also had a question about the um Community engagement piece so it sounds like I read in the thing that it says propos engagement but in your presentation you indicated that you actually had talk spoken to um some folks so I was just kind of curious um what level of Engagement was used to create and and inform this specific document yeah I mean I think what we're talking about an engagement is kind of more for the broader Community um in preparation of this item it was more uh

[94:01] staff meeting with folks that actually uh worked on the the state legislation or actual practitioners uh just so we could have a a comprehensive understanding of what the nature of the uses would be and were any users also um dis um talked or um brought in to inform this initi draft um not that I'm aware of okay thank you thanks Matt I appreciate it um thanks for the presentation on this it's a certainly a fascinating Evolution uh where we've come all of a sudden um so we got moving quick and adaptation um but my question centers around a point in the slide actually got two questions is it says may not operate where existing liquor or marijuana license is issued could you remind me what what that means per se is it the same building same general development what uh what does that

[95:02] mean I I read that in the state code today um but I don't know the Nuance to that to answer that properly I'd have to dig around I I could follow up if that's okay I appreciate it I just it's a very very Loosely stated thing so I just curious if there's some actual parameters attached to that that give us some sense kind of following on Lauren's question of what does a th000 feet actually mean what does not being near liquor or marijuana actually mean um in terms of how impacts around the community so I'd appreciate that yeah I think I even it in the code but I'll I'll look it up again appreciate it girl um the other question I have is kind of around financing a little bit you know kind of like again I know we're not it's not retail but kind of like we saw when we unleashed um uh either medicinal and recreational Cannabis was that there was it was all cash trans transactions because Banks weren't recognizing those transactions is that it how do we have any sense about those financial impacts

[96:01] on the um uh practitioners and are they going to be able to take card or are we going to see issues where there's maybe security issues again it's not the volume of resource but I'm just worried if there's concerns about cash and people knowing there's lots of cash in a particular uh business or if in case a residence or wherever they're practicing I'm just has there been discussion about how that is going to how the transactions of this work will be um undertaken the the state rulemaking does have a lot of sections on renumeration and also on the security issue they have specific regulations on security so if it's an establishment that has more than a certain amount of psilocybin in it they have to have certain security requirements like surveillance cameras locking mechanisms things of that nature okay uh I appreciate that um thanks all right and I got one question and I'll go back to Nicole after that so

[97:01] the um Carl in terms of the proposed thousand foot uh requirement I saw that as a residential use not a Zone did I have that right that's right so if we had like a residential development in an industrial Zone it would be required to be 1,000 ft from from that yes okay that's the proposal thanks for clarifying mhm so like if if there were a residential development in an industrial Zone a natural Healing Center would have to be at least 1,000 feet from that residential development in the industrial Zone as proposed but I think we'll talk about this yeah uh Nicole followup yeah sorry I had one more question um do we have local licensing of pharmacies is that or is that just all state regulated do we know that I don't know yes oh State it's it's state regulated okay so there's no we don't have any local okay thank you all right got all of our questions there so now we'll move on to whether we have

[98:01] specific feedback on their proposed approach I was thinking about grouping this into key issues I've currently got one identified key issue which is about where the these might be prohibited in terms of residential uses or zones does anybody else have another key issue they'd like to have out on the table for discussion I'm sorry is point of clarification are you asking for a key issue or another question is comment time or is this more questions what I'm asking is for PE if people have another key issue they would like to have discussed if you could put that out on the table oh okay thank you um then I would like to um raise the community engagement topic excellent any other tiers and I just it's more a comment not necessarily I don't I don't know if it needs um discussion but it's just around uh the uh um local licensing um

[99:04] requirements of this was specifically in relation to I think people um some of the BPD concerns um that came up and it's just purely a comment and a question for whenever this comes back to us so I don't know where that fits in great maybe we can get to it after the two key issues if that's right okay I don't know if mine is an issue okay we we'll get to you Tai I we got you um okay so the first one is about the uh where these might be prohibited um I've gotten I'm just going to get this started for point of discussion from the questions I've heard from Council and um perhaps this is something we might want to take a different approach from what is proposed what would people think about not having the thousand foot setback requirement but perhaps just a requirement that it couldn't be in a residential Zone I'll put that out on the table for a discussion thoughts Nicole just a um question to that point

[100:01] I think aren't there already state regulations around not having it be in a residential zone or did I miss it and it was really no it's it's a th feet from any schools or Child Care Facilities okay then can I ask a follow-up clarifying question before I decide um and and this is just around other types of um therapy utic spaces do we allow those in residential areas so for example what I mentioned before counselor chiropractor at that type of yeah those types of uses um like chiropractors and acupuncture things like that we call personal service uses and sometimes they can include therapy uh we do allow them with use review in residential zones we did compare that use with medical office they're it's largely analogous but where they're allowed in the city there's some zones that are different um I think personal services allowed in more residential zones uh and one more industrial Zone

[101:00] but they're largely the same sure go ahead while you get the floor okay um I I don't really feel like it's necessary to kind of restrict anymore I feel like the um medical office designation is a perfectly good one um I I don't know that it's going to happen often enough that we should put out any anything specifically about not having them in residential um are and um I think also the um the I'm not interested in the thousand feet from um residential areas so I mean to me just to expand since we're in comment time um this really is like like therapy counseling there's an additional tool there um for for folks who are wanting to use that but I expect that you know some of these areas or these types of places that's going to have minimal impact on the people around in the same way that therapy and other um forms of treatment have minimal impact on the people uh around thanks for that Nicole so then the idea being that we would

[102:01] just regulated as a medical office just like any other okay and I'm personally I'm comfortable with that approach as well Taisha um I'm sorry am I speaking for about this particular topic or what I wanted to talk about this particular topic if you wouldn't mind please okay no problem um I agree with um mayor Pro Tim spear on reducing bureaucratic burdens um especially recognizing that these therapies uh and again this is where it would be very helpful um to have more um engagement by you know practitioners and and have uh more rigor in and More in public engagement before we asked questions like these um you you know it's very difficult to give my opinion when we don't have um some of that feedback by user groups um more

[103:00] practitioners uh and just a broader swath of people engaged in this preliminary draft so um at this point as I mentioned I air towards um mayor protm spear um and if anything um am open to having more robust conversations with our indigenous um um community members and others um as we as as was mentioned in the in the presentation um but again would would um welcome um more um direct feedback from them on when where how they're going to be using it um of course um with this medical offices piece I'm also I also just have some concerns around the the terminology around medical offices and kind of um pigeon hole you know this particular natural medicine as a western medicine um you know again I just am very mindful of um

[104:01] the cultural um Dynamic nature of this um natural medicine um not just for indigenous uh to Turtle Island but others as well um and yeah so just something that came to mind but to the direct question um I agree with Council uh member uh mayor protim spear thank you great thanks TAA and I'll just uh call out that we are giving initial feedback for the next directions but we will not be making a final decision tonight and after the commune engagement when the ordinance comes back we'll be able to make a final decision at that time I got Tina and then Tera then Mark for you um sorry I just have one question did we consider um uh any other distances from residential areas that my provide a little more Comfort here in terms of 750 ft 500 ft uh no we did not how did we

[105:01] settle on a thousand well just because the the state rules talk about a th000 feet from certain uses I think even the Oregon rules had 1,000 feet in it and then when Parker enacted their reg regulations they opted for 1,000 feet from residential uses so we were just looking at those examples okay thank you Mark do you have an opinion on how we might approach that um yeah I'm generally inclined to go with the staff recommendation okay they've studied it a little more than I have thanks uh Tina M yeah um just on the thousand feet um one thing that mayor proem spear said at the end was it would be like a therapist but some of the therapists I'm just clarifying this are actually personal services not Medical Offices is that correct a a typical therapy office yes and I think these these uses appear to be much like therapy offices but I think

[106:01] because peer communities have put them in that medical office category and the fact that they have to have licensed practitioners that administer a medicine that's why we opted with medical office okay and but I mean but they'll be referred to as Healing Centers uh most likely not a medical office yeah well it would fall under the definition of medical office but I think I think what we would do is we would Define natural medicine businesses in our land use code and add that into the medical office definition okay um so yeah my inclination is to go with the staff recommendation of a th000 feet but understanding that um we can change that and see how this goes I would also be interested to understand um what that looks like in terms of mapping the city unless this is incredibly burdensome but to see if we have 1,000 ft from a residential Zone what is available then in terms of the medical offices and how does it

[107:01] differ if we don't have the 1,00 foot uh piece in there so I'm trying to get kind of an idea of is it a really big difference and then my understanding is we can change that rule whenever we want yeah I mean we we could pull it out of any draft ordinance or we could pull it out uh in the future with a with a change yeah yeah my my inclination is to start with the staff recommendation and then change it if we feel that it didn't meet the needs of our community got it CH as is typical of me let me take this off I see both sides so it's hard for me to make a decision but I do have a few questions I tend to not want to add rules but my first question is I'd want to hear from BPD and the community and I want to hear from those other cities like specifically the ones that don't have that thousand feet do they have a list of things that might have happened um and you if we didn't have it in there can we put it back in there if

[108:01] we see that it is uh harmful to let's say the community yeah of course like any use like if there's like impacts that start showing up we can amend the code to to add in requirements and in which case where would you start Tara right in the middle and how would you define middle I think that I would start with not having 1,000 ft except if I hear from the community and other stakeholders and they sway me otherwise and I want to be able to have room to be swayed just in case I'm not uh I don't have all the facts right now yeah so you'd start without the Thousand F requirement okay Lauren um I would start without the thousand foot requirement as well I and if we get a lot of community feedback and look at adding that back in um one of my I would rather see it around zoning

[109:03] designations rather than uses because especially in the East Boulder sub community plan area we allow for a lot of residential in our industrial and other kinds of zones and you might end up in an environment where the rules are changing on the businesses that are already located there and I would like to avoid that to the extent possible thank you thanks Lauren Matt appreciate that Aon um yeah I mean I I think taking this with some caution is is is prudent without knowing where where we're at headed headed it's always easier to loosen the reins than to tighten them once you get going um but with that said since we haven't really done the broad engagement I I'm okay with sort of uh looking a little broader we have the thous F feet from schools and and um and the other SP and with liquor and marijuana so there's already going to be some restrictions that are going to be quite robust throughout our city so I'm

[110:02] okay keeping it a little broader and if the community tells us we need to tighten it up then we tighten it up but this is an easy thing to add back in it's a line item so so I think um I'm okay with where um mer protm spear was was headed with this um on that front but we we got a ways to go to here and likely tweak this as we come before it comes back to us okay thanks Matt so we've heard from everybody and so what I'm hearing is a majority of council would prefer to not have the thousand foot um set back from residential uses and sounds like there was support for Nicole's point of um regulating them like um medical offices for a starting point to for public engagement is Council comfortable with that conclusion okay great um our what sorry uh I agree with Mark that it is possible to do something something between a thou I was going to actually suggest what about 500 ft I guess I would want to see the map because I don't you know the the voter spoke and

[111:01] they want this so I am a believer in balot measures once the voters speak right but perhaps there is something we should do right in between and of course unless we see the map about what 1,000 ft really entails that's also another option that I'm going agree with Mark you've shifted the middle to now a 500t rather than I'm just saying I I would say that giving the community two options 1,000 ft versus nothing there are other options between 1,000 feet I mean a th000 feet sounds like a lot to me in a very dense City that we have so I'm saying can we have a different option other than just a th000 ft I'm throwing that out there you can all say no and I'm cool okay so you're proposing to your colleagues maybe consider 500 ft instead uh colleagues who are interested in not having a setback how do you feel would you be okay with a 500 raise your hand if you would like to consider 500 I don't I don't think we got enough

[112:00] takers there Tara but appreciate the proposal um okay so our next topic is about um engagement with the public and so uh Taisha you already raised that would you like to to weigh in a little bit more on um what you'd like to see in terms of Engagement uh actually um so usually we do um the questions and then the comments so this was more of a comment than it was a topic for discussion okay um and it was primarily and obviously the issue was public engagement and I was thinking about um our conversation that we're going to be having later this evening about the community um engagement um work that has been happening and sorry I'm going through toggling between so many tabs trying to find uh what I'm looking for and the objective to that uh engagement was to increase opportunities for Meaningful engagement by responding to community's

[113:01] desire to engage on Council DEC decisions sooner in the decision process strengthening the decision process by hearing deservers perspectives um etc etc and so again I just you know um I take data and planning very seriously as you all know and um it is difficult to receive an initial document like this and then asked to provide feedback when we haven't conducted um Community feedback and to me um everybody's opinion in our community you know each can each stakeholder group um matters and so what I'm noticing is a pattern of the first initial um draft is done in a very um contained isolated um you know um process usually with staff and maybe one or two

[114:01] consultants in this case um a few people were contacted it's not clear what criteria was used to identify the practitioners it's not clear if there was a sufficient depth um uh scope in in the types of practices it's not no uh actual practitioners were engaged um in the development of this initial plan um and so it just is something that I'm hopeful um and even in the um memo it talks about you know we are staying for this project in um kind of that in in in form um and in consult in insult consult space and I'm curious uh or rather I'm hopeful um that we can move towards um a a process that is has more rigorous community engagement at the very beginning when the most important decisions are being made that first draft already puts parameters and

[115:01] barriers um in into play that then others are going to have to who weren't engaged during that initial um component who aren't on staff or on the consultant groups that are chosen and so um I'm just concerned um about um the current process that we're using um um because it's not increasing um Community decision- making earlier in the process um and so yeah I just wanted to to share that as um you know I'm concerned that uh a concern that has been raised by Community um pretty consistently it's in the racial Equity plan um announ hotline that I put in around a request to get an update around um Community engagement and the framework here um but it's just something a p that I'm I've noticed and it is concerning um it is not Equitable uh it is not an equitable practice and

[116:00] um I'm I'm I'm just concerned so I wanted to raise that to my fellow Council colleagues staff and the public thank you thanks for that point T I appreciate it um any other comments on public engagement as we move forward Nicole and I got one um yeah just uh adding on to um to tesa's comments um one I'm just wondering if there's any way of uh trying to find folks who may be using these Healing Centers um I expect it's probably going to be easier to find practitioners um then then it will to be to to find um potential clients but I would be just curious what what they have to say about ours like I can imagine folks who are working for example may not be able to get there during the day they may have different hour needs as well um anyway so just if there's any any way of um doing that um my second question I'm going to figure out how to word this in a way that

[117:00] doesn't make it completely confusing U but one of the things I I'm curious to hear from practitioners um is whether they see any potential impact on the use of these facilities from the regulations that we um put in place or the way we word these regulations um that might influence how people are thinking about these facilities whether they see them as treatment options um especially when they're regulations that may not impact that many places in town um so for example the the thousand foot restriction um it can make it seem like this might be dangerous or disruptive or something like that so I'd be really curious to hear what um what the practitioners think specifically about how we are talking about these facilities in the context of the regulations did that make sense yeah makes sense perfect thank you um and I mean I think especially just because this is you know it's state licensed um it's not like folks are just kind of deciding to do this I expect the state

[118:00] process is going to be pretty rigorous as it is for most other forms of um uh medicine natural and otherwise um and then one of the things I would love some more information on this was actually my last point but it fits into engagement so I'm going to put it here too um is why uh why local licensing might be required so if people are already licensed by the state um what's the concern what is it that uh people are worried about that make it feel like um having some sort of local licensing process would be uh would add to it um generally I prefer not to add more tasks to um our city staff as well when it comes to monitoring and things like that so where are the gaps I guess is my question in the State Licensing uh and how do folks think that we can address that at the local level thank you did you did you want an answer to that now or to get back to you with it oh no I'm I'm assuming this is all going to just come back these are just things that I would be really uh interested in

[119:01] having as part of the engagement process great and I'll just calling myself on engagement uh looking forward to the result of that it looks like you have a good plan put together appreciate you running it through the racial Equity instrument and uh share with my colleagues a desire to hear from practitioners um ex existing ones uh who might be using these and particularly from the indigenous communities if they're available that's what I got on that um okay any other Council comments in terms of specific feedback on the next steps got another one go for it I was just going to say thank you for doing this uh this initial work of um trying to adapt some state regulations um implemented by voters Changed by the legislature and then trying to figure out how we do it locally so thank you for the work of of starting starting that process yeah and I'll I'll Echo the thank you it was very professional work in figuring out what the next steps are so Carl really appreciate you and

[120:00] everybody who's in involved in this and it'll be an interesting Journey right this will be a new healing option for our community and um I appreciate that we're being proactive in terms of how that's being offered uh to folks and particularly we have some preeminent um practitioners in neuropa University here in our own community so looking forward to seeing how it all evolves do you need anything else from us uh the only other thing I can think of is is is Council okay with us moving forward with talking more to sounds like you are uh but to talk to Boulder uh police about the licensing option and or whether there were other sentiments on the local licensing I know uh council member spear had indicated that you know maybe looking away from it but are are there thoughts that maybe we should have a local licensing at least at this point or is that to be informed by police and other conversations does does anyone want to speak up to advocate for local licensing um yes so nobody's advocating for it okay so it doesn't seem like a

[121:00] path we're terribly interested in going down thank you is that good enough cool okay okay great well thanks again and we'll see you if I can just recommend you not have a planning board hearing on Election night they might be a little distracted all right uh can we go to 8B please youa 6B all all right thank you sir 6B on tonight's agenda is an update on community and Council forums pilot which was formerly known as the community study session pilot thank you so much and for that I'm going to invite uh our assistant city manager Mark wolf to kick us off and then I know that um he's going to invite some of our council members to speak to it as well Mark thank you Nua good evening Council Mark wolf assistant city manager I'm staying here because I'll be brief uh this evening so we're bringing uh back uh the uh proposed pilot for uh what we

[122:01] were looking at a study SE session uh now calling a community and Council Forum so I'll just explain uh briefly what that means and then happy to kick it over to council members Wier and Benjamin who are your subcommittee members uh so this is back in front of you based on June 6 feedback that Council provided uh help level of skepticism I I believe was the theme of the night uh so what we have uh tried to do is take that feedback and um propose the pilot um considering some of that feedback hopefully you all will find that in a better place heading into our proposed date which is September 26 so recognizing that's right around the corner the reason uh we're here tonight is just to make sure that we're on the same page before we send out invitations and lock that pilot in in uh so uh some of the specific feedback we heard uh was uh looking at uh an interest in ensuring

[123:01] that stakeholders uh that had particular expertise uh interest or lived experience in the topic uh could have a seat at the table that uh we create an environment that could be a little bit more informal for back and forth conversation between uh Council and community members and uh further refining our intended outcomes you defining what success might look like in such a pilot so that information is contained uh within the packet and just recognizing our uh comms and engagement staff especially Ryan Hansen who has put together that information um so I'm standing in his place uh tonight and then um I'll just explain the major changes very briefly is is not only the retitling of the Forum but really that would allow us so replacing the studies session with this uh community and Council Forum so that we could actually break into small groups and and have that more intimate discussion uh instead

[124:00] of just a a full group 20 plus uh back and forth and so there still would be a presentation at the beginning some Q&A but then we'd break out into small uh groups and then report out and so um while that wouldn't be as accessable broadly recorded on Zoom we would still make sure that the first and last pieces are recorded So so that we're still capturing the small group discussion to be able to report out uh and and record that piece for the broader uh Community uh and then last we we'd make sure that we would have uh specific invitations so we're imagining that um as mentioned back in June that our Economic Development strategy would be the main focus of this proposed uh Forum in September uh we would engage and have begun early conversations with uh our economic Vitality Partners including cluding uh Boulder chamber downtown Boulder partnership Latino Chamber of Commerce uh Small Business Development Center and others to be at the table and

[125:00] we'd also extend invitations specifically to some of our small uh local uh business owners as well so that would kind of be the core and then there would be um additional um seats uh for that evening for um the general uh community members as well uh so trying to strike that balance between um some uh broader engagement but also making sure that we're able to uh receive some of that meaningful input from those that either have the relevant lived experience or uh are are within the in this case economic Vitality uh itself so that's probably enough in terms of framing happy to answer questions but invite um Tara and Matt if you'd like to add any uh any flavor to that as we've um considered Council feedback from June thanks you first Matt okay I appreciate that uh thanks Mark for laying that out um and I'll

[126:00] just sort of point out um this was no small task certainly by the work of staff and and our committee to synthesize a lot of that feedback that we got on June 6 mind you it was yes that discussion was just like the day was commemorating it was kind of D-Day for for this particular pilot um but I think what comes back to the why right this was about a a fundamental need that Community has expressed to us about wanting to have greater interaction with Council further Upstream of our decision- making um and as we saw tonight we have an open comment in public you know and there's public hearings and that's usually the first time and the only time they get to interact with us um so this is an opportunity for that um one piece that I think might be helpful to frame that I know that Tara and I and staff were talking about we kind of more or less flipped the coin we were kind of agnostic either way but it's still a decision point it has to do with facilitation and I think I've sort of heard from a few folks of our colleagues here um that there might be some

[127:01] preference to which way we go um and so I just maybe want to toss out that the original plan was to have Council facilitate these breakout sessions um and that was most only purely because we feel that Council and Community want those interactions and so as a result hi aelyn thank you can you out yeah yeah um um so as a result um we were just sort of agnostic to whether it was Council l or staff L but we started with Council knowing that we'll get to do this again and we can always do the other way um and let it be staffed so if there's a straw poll or anything we can go either way it's plug we can plug it in but I think it was an opportunity here for us to just hear if there's a preference on whether we have it staff l or Council LED for the inaugural um one there and if it's Council Le then there would be an opportunity for perhaps some trainings of Council or if it's staff L we learn from staff and then turn around and do it ourselves so I want to put that out to you all to see if you have a

[128:00] preference so by the end of that last meeting that we had I was even going to vote no on this so I was at first excited then I got kind of down and said yeah they're right you know the wisdom of many people on Council I take that seriously but then with this new idea I got re excited and I got even more excited when I went to the Latino Chamber of Commerce meeting because there were people there that we never hear from they have Micro businesses but they also don't want to say anything they they don't feel comfortable saying anything for a lot of reasons I don't need to go into it now for those of you that were here but having the opportunity to hear from people we never hear from to go out of our way to extend our desire to hear from them is really meaningful to me especially early in the process so now I'm excited again and I hope we can do this by the way whether or not we lead

[129:01] it or staff leads it my initial thought was that we should lead it um because that gives us more opportunity to uh have back and forth with community members um that's just me personally but that's either way I'm fine all right thanks to you both for working on this Mark does staff have an opinion on who should be facilitating the small group discussions I I think it works either way um certainly we have many of our wonderful uh communication engagement staff that have done this and so they're equipped to to handle and not that you all can't it allows you to engage directly in that conversation either way staff will be at the tables uh to support so it really is your preference um I I think facilitation will be simply asking a series of questions and uh we'll be there and support however you'd like to handle it so in other words if we are not leading it we can be more engaged and listening better that makes

[130:00] sense U Nicole yeah well for sure I was just I was gonna zero in on this one and just maybe do mind if I pin that down oh yeah that was what I was okay um so uh maybe we just start and say okay little straw pole how many people want staff to to facilitate versus Council and if you want I'm sorry before we I appreciate the straw poll and right um I would like to just share my opinion um on this before we to inform the poll please um as a facilitator it is a skill it is something that you practice over years and decades some of us um particularly to gain the cultural confidence necessary to be able to facilitate a conversation between groups who don't typically talk to each other um and and to um Tara's comment around by allowing a

[131:00] professional with facilitation skills um experience and expertise especially these are high stakes conversations because they um haven't happened before and the reason they haven't happened remember you know our city has been designed to divide socioeconomically um race and ethically um and so so you know I am very I want us to treat these relationships with a lot of preciousness um just like we would want to have somebody with a certification of some kind when they're administering a drug of some kind so too would I would love to have people with expertise when they are going to be managing these very um important relationships so I I I urge us to consider um allowing staff and not just any staff right but staff who who have expertise in facilitating conversations between user groups that are not used to being with each other between user groups where there is mistrust where

[132:01] there is a history of hurt where there maybe even a history of present hurt and so that's why I encourage us strongly um to to consider allowing our staff U with expertise in and cultural competence um to be able to facilitate these and and that would allow us um to really be more involved and engaged so that would be um something I request before as information um as you're considering thanks I got Nicole and then Mark and then maybe we can finalize that yep um I'm just gonna plus one TI's comments because she said it uh far better than I would and just note that only one of us on Council is uh paid to do professional facilitation where as staff are all paid to do that so um anyway I that that would be my my vote thanks right Mark uh yeah I want to support what Taisha has said uh I think she said it better than I could and uh um I you know I

[133:02] think she's on the right track so um that would be the way I would want to go very good I agree as well so all in favor of having staff facilitate the discussion okay that that looks like everybody very good do you need anything else from Mark any other can I just thank Taisha thank you for that point of view I wouldn't have thought about it I really appreciated it well said no worries thank you so much appreciate you okay very good thanks Mark all right Elicia can we give it a 6C please yes sir thank you suceed on tonight's agenda is the council process Improvement working group update oh wait so I'm sorry was that the end of that last one we're not talking sorry that's right would you like I have other things on that one I didn't I just thought we were closing that topic don't worry Matt this is just an easy one um so the the the other thing that I wanted

[134:01] us to revisit were the questions that are being asked and the timelines so I believe the meeting is like an hour and 80 minutes and only 60 Minutes of that is actually a small group time there's like 25 minutes of present nobody wants this I promise you please let us think differently about how we're designing so the front end is not a whole sit in get for 40 minutes because after I work all day I don't want to come and sit for 40 minutes before I get to talk about something when I've been told that this is a community engagement meeting so just so we're clear on that I just saw some some pieces there and then the questions themselves it was my understanding that the effort was really around trying to inform the decisions that we making but the questions seemed to be more so grounded around one of the barriers which it was my understanding that that was the purpose of the previous stud study so I'm hopeful that as we're revisiting and finalizing some of the questions um around the uh economic impacts um that we might be

[135:01] able to draw in some more specific um projects and plans um or maybe it's a teup to um the bbcp update but just something that you know people who are coming to this know that their feedback is impacting something specific um I I think again we keep getting inviting historically marginalized people to come and give feedback but it we get there and it just doesn't um it doesn't feel like it feels when I'm in me rooms and meetings like this so I'm hopeful that you know as the the topic area was identified that um within that we can identify some real pain points um that are specific as far as the plans and projects and and not more of what we have already captured in previous um entities thank you thanks for that Taisha Mark is duly noting that I could tell from the look on his

[136:01] space okay anything else on this one okay thanks TAA sometimes I move a little quick all right now now we'll go to um 6C please yes sir thank you again 6C on tonight's agenda is the council process Improvement working group update well thank you Alicia and hopefully I can be just as quick mayor um Council one of your Council priorities uh was the establishment of a council process Improvement working group that's um a mouthy title uh as approved at The Retreat the purpose of the group was not to work on substantive matters but rather to work together with a member of uh City manager's office and a member of uh the city attorney's office to review Council process items brought forward by your colleagues and sort of triage them so as to refer them to the appropriate Council committees at The Retreat some of the ideas that were talked about being referred to this working group were at the time changes to study

[137:01] sessions for example hosting sessions during the day reducing to one study session per month to accommodate more business meetings for example revisions to guidelines to the use of hotline revise the approach to mayoral and Council declarations or even looking at the timing of public hearings like possibly holding them on the first reading and item or two weeks ahead of when Council votes and some of that came up in the previous discussion the original thought was that this working group could be comprised of Staff along with two council members as we had spoken with you but as we spoke with you engaged interest it turned out that four of you were interested and serving having four people in this working group would certainly be okay as it would not constitute Quorum but now it' be subject to a public meeting rules and would require proper notification staff is prepared to support Council in this working group and should there be Direction on whether to move forward with all the members who have expressed interest we could bring that forward for a formal vote at the next meeting the current council members

[138:00] who have indicated an interest are mayor protm spear council member weiner council member Adams and council member Maris we turn it back to you mayor and believed a quick straw pull would suffice well and I'll make it even even quicker does anyone object to moving forward with the four council members who have expressed interest I got Taisha and Matt raising your 30 at night or whatever wherever right now ah okay um I would like to um I'm sorry I'll have to go back to come back to me Matt go ahead go ahead Matt I've lost my train of appreciate it um no mine's just a question of just uh differences on whether or not I what are the structural differences of having four people versus

[139:01] having two and is there any advantage to to trying to keep with two in terms of efficiency and and moving the conversation forward for some rather you know smaller processes I would imagine versus having to be big and so I'm just wondering if if we go forward do it really sort of Albatross and become a much slower thing than if it's two I'm just wondering if there's structural differences that might inform what might be a preferential Direction between four or two people so I would say that we are prepared to support both the differences would be one is we we have to schedule right around um uh four calendars right as opposed to two and we would have to notify and um make those meetings public which we do for a variety of subcommittees anyway um but other than that we would continue to move forward on our meeting schedules okay Mark and then I'll come back to TAA uh I have no question that the

[140:00] matter is correct that four will be less efficient than two but if there are four members of this body that want to do the work I say have had it tasa I'm wondering if it would be possible to revisit what the specific topics were and and set you kind of create two groups because then we would be able to actually address a lot of things faster um and there might be interest in particular areas or of the update versus others so I just wanted to lift that up as an opportunity that would allow for easier scheduling um and exped expedit process but again it would also be you know still um more laborious for staff so I apologize on that but uh but I I I do feel like there were quite a few things on there and um instead of trying to coordinate four schedules um in a long list I'm curious if we could potentially revisit so that would be my

[141:00] recommendation otherwise I would defer to the four thank you thanks tasa and N I wonder if that could be a topic for the first meeting of the Committees is to discuss subcommittees it it certainly could and I just wanted to um name and certainly didn't mean to confuse the conversation those were items that just simply came up at the retreat but I believe that the purpose and the thought behind it and council member spear certainly you can speak to it because you brought it up was that as items come up throughout the year certainly there were a list of potential Council processes that were interested uh that Council brought forward at different times this could be a place to figure out what committee it should go to and so we're certainly not limited to these but as they popped up to council uh that this working group could be helpful in triaging um any additional items that came up and triage it to the appropriate subcommittee for Teresa you have a thought I just want to clarify that when nura says subcommittee she doesn't mean a subcommittee of this working group she

[142:00] means a subcommittee that already exists and so when I'm hearing the idea of this group breaking into subcommittees what I'm hearing is a much heavier lift than was was proposed oh that's not what I meant okay interesting okay isn't it nice scen area that Teresa knows what you're thinking that's great to have a partner like that we're Wonder Twins here mayor we're all synced that's great Nicole um yeah and I was just going to say when I had pitched this idea at the council Retreat um the idea is that this group would really be the organizing group so not necessarily working on the process related things um but sort of you know will soliciting ideas from um from everyone and then um grouping them off by uh committee a council committee um but I think I had noted you know if there are things that don't really fit in with any committee then maybe um this group could take on uh potential changes for um for those

[143:03] kinds of things and um if there's if there if there is an idea of um if there is a long list of those and it would make sense to divide them into topics then you know maybe it could you know we could just decide that there's um one group one working group on something one one can group on another but I think until we have uh the collection of ideas from everyone it's not really clear yet what can go to committees and what um and what may be left orphaned without a committee to go to that makes sense yeah so something that the committee would would tackle great thanks for those thoughts um so I'll come back does anyone object to moving forward with the four council members who are interested I'm seeing no objection well thanks very much to the four of you for tossing your hat in the ring and I'm really looking forward to hearing what you come up with all right I think that's it on that item was there a not was there approval

[144:02] a odd for there there was then excellent uh if we can go to AA please Elicia all right sir thank you 8A is our Matters from the mayor and members of council and it is the Denver Regional Council government's draft Regional Housing needs assessment process discussion Nicole you want to take that away that's from you yep and thank you um and just as a reminder in case um anybody hasn't read the um the hotline that I sent out a couple weeks ago um the Denver Regional Council of government started working on our Regional Housing needs assessment last year and it's basically done um the summary that I sent out a couple weeks ago I hope um everyone will get a chance to read it eventually when you have time to read a really long hotline that might actually rival some of marks um I won't have any new information for you in a few months um when it's finalized Beyond

[145:01] what's going to be publicly available via a dashboard that will provide some information on city and county specific data um so just thanks to Ain and taesa on CAC for giving me a chance to answer any questions that folks may have while it's still fresh in my mind um the upshot of the report is that our region has some catching up to do to make up for Decades of under producing housing um we have some pretty significant demographic shifts that are coming up and this is just something we need to be mindful of uh as we're thinking about matching the housing units that we have and will produce to the types and costs of units current and future people need um there's just a couple of things that I wanted to highlight that um weren't weren't um highlighted in my summary quite as much um we won't get a report on specific housing needs for our city or county there's going to be a dashboard available later this fall that we can all go to so we can see some of this information listed by cities and counties um the information in the report I mean but they aren't creating a separate needs assessment for each city

[146:00] or county or anything like that so this uh really this main report really is kind of the main main report to work from um the only Boulder specific information that was there at the moment showed up in appendix 2 when it talked about um households renting up across the region um just meaning that a household is renting a unit that costs more than what their income can reasonably afford um we had the highest rate of renters renting up across the Dr Cog region which again is much of the um Front Range um one of the other things I thought was of note um in the region housing production has kept up with population growth in the past few years but because we're working from a place of historic deficit and under production um that that's why we're starting from a deficit uh also our existing housing stock doesn't support the diversity of of housing needs across income levels and household types especially with um changing demographics including um house household sizes and what we can expect

[147:00] um the one of the things that I thought was really interesting about the report is that the models used to create the estimates of how much housing and at what type and price um they can actually be changed as new information comes in uh so for example I'd asked Dr Cog staff how to account for climate related migration for example as sea levels rise in some are of our country and World become more and more inhospitable to human life in a hotter and drier climate um they said that no one really has good models right now for how to predict this behavior um but the model can be adapted as we get new information uh so I think when the dashboard comes in I'll send out a note so that everybody sees it but um really think about it as a dynamic resource not a static one um it will be updated on a regular basis and I should have information about um what regular means as it comes online um and um for for those of you that have questions about some of the barriers that were noted in the report appendix D has a lot more detail on those barriers so if you're interested that's the one that

[148:00] you can dive into um so I just wanted to offer people a chance to have uh ask any questions about what this is how it came to be um or any questions or comments you may have that you would like me to take back and get answered um in particular are there any uh pieces of data or anything that you would like me to advocate for including in the dashboard Bo as that gets put together thanks so much for that Nicole uh questions or comments for Nicole on this topic yeah um I think there's some overlap but I'm not sure um from the people who produced The Dr Cog report and the people who produced the demographic report for the CU Regents last month and I'm just curious if there's a way to um to to add a different layer to Boulder where we think about our student and our non-student populations particular as we look at increased housing starts coming from CU through CU South that come online in five years and

[149:00] how those kind of interact um as well as their demographic Cliff that they're hitting um which is pretty interesting too and will have a unique impact on our community thanks yeah I can definitely bring that up with them um and I'll call on myself and it was a really interesting read Nicole thanks for passing that along and high lighting it uh one thing I'm looking forward to is the disaggregation of us from Weld County you know for more Boulder County and the city of Boulder specific information so that'll be really interesting to see Taisha thank you um and thank you for the um extensive update as well um I was curious if there were um conversations about the use of um I'm sorry I'm sorry I've been up since five I've lost it thank you you can always

[150:02] follow up with an email it's all good thank you um any other thoughts on this topic all right I don't see any so thanks again Nicole and with that we have reached the end of our agenda does anyone have any final thoughts before we wrap up I do have a final thought and it's the thought um that I forgot before which is um this is a great resource and I'm curious if the if there has been any conversations about um hosting another housing Forum now that we have this information it seems like a really great opportunity for all of us to come back together and unpack that and you know continue to work um regionally um I just thought it was really powerful and I think there you know while we're there there's other topics we could potentially consider

[151:00] like um our coordinated effort around homelessness in the UNH House mental health I there's just so many things but this particular Topic in in and I know there was like kind a threee threeyear low um between the first housing forum and the second but you know covid pandemic that that makes sense but I was just curious if there had been conversations around um that group coming back together especially now that we have this robust um set of information and Tina referenced more data from CU and I imagine the bbsd folks would also love to be in that conversation and so yeah I'd love to know um if there had been conversations around that and we actually have housing Human Services director Kurt fobber in the room ready to answer that question oh awesome I saw all these heads of like something is about to happen but I didn't I can't see the audience like I was in a movie go ahead Kurt good evening Council uh Kurt fower

[152:01] director of housing Human Services uh thanks for that uh question uh so that the uh the housing Summit um that occurred a few months ago was put on by the uh the Regional Housing Partnership which is made up of Boulder County uh long Boulder and the other uh surrounding uh municipalities and um uh the cost for covering that and the staff capacity mostly ran uh out of the county so that's a a question that we can ask them um about the capacity to have a similar Summit and what the timing of that would be um alternatively uh in the past we've occasionally had sort of uh housing updates to council um so that could be um more of a local Boulder uh housing update as well so that's another thing we could uh

[153:02] consider awesome but just to clarify Kurt that there had not been a discussion that you're aware of around we doing that Summit uh there as far as far as I'm aware there hasn't been a conversation about the timing of the next Summit okay thank you so much y I got Lauren Nicole this would also be something I'd be happy to bring forward to the Consortium of cities in terms of a topic to discuss and bring um attention to I think that as then each Community could kind of share out plans around their um housing plans and how that fits into what's being shown or not as the case may be thanks for the out Lauren Nicole yeah that would be a great thanks Lauren um the other thing that I was just going to offer is uh the next

[154:00] step of this process that will be starting this fall um is kind of a similar thing but more around the what do we do what are the strategies for how we can um address the needs and things identified in this report so I think that um there there will be some more of those types of conversations um coming out and it's not it's not the same it's not the same as the housing Forum but it at least is uh bringing you know many different stakeholders together to try to figure out um what are our strategies at really every level for trying to um fill this Gap uh that we've got and um and and I think um in just to kind of Kurt since you're here um just to do a little shout out for the work for example the HHS has done with the lifelong Boulder initiative um I think we are already ahead in some of these ways and thinking about the demographic shifts and thinking about um what the people who are going to be here in 20 to 25 years are really going to be needing um in terms of services for the city and

[155:00] stuff so I I expect that as they kind of come back and involve some of the local communities in these discussions um communities like ours that are already thinking about some of these things will um will hopefully have an opportunity to weigh in as well in in thinking about those strategies but I love the idea of having another um forum and thank you for bringing that up as potential um uh at the the county level too thank you okay great any final final thoughts all right seeing none I'll go ahead no of course I have final thoughts I'm tired go ahead what what you got well because I have to lift up the council chats the council chats with the role and the role and talk um my really appreciated the um report that was shared um and the opportunity to reconnect with our commun our disabled Community um on on a nature hike and

[156:02] that those offerings exist um and I also just wanted again lift up some of the very specific policy recommendations that and themes that they brought up in um in the memo that we were provided um just again really thinking not just about um the technical um aspects of accessibility but also the cultural components and so I really um thought it was interesting um Tina don't know I'm curious your thoughts on on the individual what is it uh in individualized education plan concept of of supporting um you know um specific families and and um um community members uh with disabilities in in in their in accessing their needs um uh to ensure a fuller experience in the outdoors and so um you know recognizing that some of their Rec recommendations really cross

[157:00] multiple departments and components and areas of our work and I'm excited to hear from staff um as these recommendations touch their work um how the how their how this feedback is being incorporated into the design of the work into any kind of revisions or updates and so again I just want want to honor and thank um council members who were able to participate and for those who aren't um I wanted to just let you all know that they do that the um mark and um the other Fell's name I can't remember at the moment um offer these kinds of programs I think on a monthly basis and it just it's such it was such a powerful experience and so if you haven't already had an opportunity to do a rle and stroll um I strongly encourage it so thank you thanks for that all right going once going twice no I don't think so uh going once going twice