August 15, 2024 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[5:01] all right good evening everyone and welcome to the Thursday August 15th 2024 regular 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 and good evening everyone and thank you for joining us we'll start tonight's roll call with council member Adams present Benjamin present oh that's hot May Brocket present council member fulkers present Marquis present shuart here mayor Pro Tim spear present council member wallik here M Wier pres mayor we have our cor excellent and also very live mics sounding good all right I would like to begin by requesting a motion to amend the agenda to add item 3C which is a consideration of a motion

[6:00] to approve the appointments of Mayor protm Spear and council members Adams Marquis and Wier to the council process Improvement working group so moved second uh we've got a motion in a second all in favor raise your hand okay that's unanimous unless Mark did you want to raise your hand yeah I did okay there you go so the agenda has been amended all right we're going to start next with item 1A which is a declaration honoring WK real estate presented by council member shuart so if you want to kick us off Ryan good evening I have a declaration honoring WK real estate WK real estate is a locally owned company of real estate professionals that has been in business since 1976 during those 46 years WK leadership

[7:02] and Associates have consistently shown up as a community partner to support events and organizations that enhance the vibrancy of our city and quality of life for 24 years WK real estate's financial support provided the funding necessary to light up Boulder's night sky with fireworks and drones on the 4th of July their staff dedicated countless hours to support the planning and Logistics of this Boulder tradition always thinking about ways that would make the event fun and inclusive we the city council of the city of Boulder Colorado recognize honor and appreciate the significant contributions to the community made by WK real estate would you like to say a few sure just want to take a moment to thank you for the recognition um it's a team effort I have the pleasure of standing before you tonight um but it's a it's a we have a fabulous team

[8:00] and we have for 48 years um we're a local independent company being a part of the community is really important to us it's part of our DNA so appreciate being recognized tonight for those efforts and we're going to carry on uh with the star uh moving forward in the future but um in different different events that we're a part of but thank you for the recognition it means a lot thank you [Applause] D thanks for that uh our next item is 1B the Constitution Day declaration presented by council member Wier hey I'd like to call up Tracy sandine did I pronounce it the right way okay great and Angela mcleen are you gonna come up great okay I'm going to read this declaration Constitution Day September 17 2024 September 17th 2024 marks the 236th anniversary for I'm starting all

[9:00] over again yeah okay September 17 2024 marks the 236th anniversary of the drafting of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Constitutional Convention it is fitting and proper to Accord official recognition to This Magnificent document and its memorable anniversary and to the Patriotic celebrations which will 15 guarantees the issuing of a clamation each year by the president of the United States of America designating September 17th through 23rd as Constitution week we the city council of the city of Boulder Colorado recognize September 17th 2024 as Constitution Day and ask our residents to reaffirm the the ideals that the framers of the Constitutions had in 1787 by vigilantly protecting the freedoms guaranteed to us through this guardian of our liberties remembering

[10:01] that lost rights may never be regained who would like to say a word thank you very much mayor Brockett and city council members and citizens of Boulder it's my honor to accept this Proclamation from the city of Boulder celebrating the September 17th 1787 signing of the United States Constitution by members of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia Pennsylvania my name is Tracy sand region of the arapo chapter National Society Daughters of the American Revolution commonly known as the D I am joined today by our chapter chair for bells Across America Angela mlan you did such a great job with that Proclamation I'll skip the next little bit and just give a thank you to Megs valir for who helped us with this process and thank you all so much for your support and now I'd like to ask Angela to share an invitation well Bells Across America is an annual

[11:01] celebration that we started last year with mayor Brockett it's a celebration as we say of the signing of the Constitution and it happens around the United States at exactly 4M eastern time so what we're doing is inviting people to come with bells right here in front of the City municipal building and we will be ringing bells on September 17th p.m. which will be 400 p.m. Eastern we'll be meeting here around 1:00 so if you are coming you have to bring your own Bell and I just really want to thank everybody for being here tonight especially our mayor our city council and I would love to recognize me Megs who is a great Communications coordinator thank you everybody and here's your invitation and here's your declaration you very much thanks so much for that Tracy and Angela and uh we'll be there with bells

[12:02] on all right it's time for open comment Elisha if you can go over the public participation guidelines please yes sir thank you and thank you again everyone for joining us I'll now go over the public participation at City Council meetings guidelines the city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for a productive meaningful and inclusive Civic conversations this Vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members staff and Council as well as democracy for people of all ages identities lived experiences and political perspectives for more information about this vision and the community engagement processes please visit our website at bouldercolorado.gov Services productive D atmospheres the following AR examples of

[13:00] rules of theorum 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 our remarks and testimonies shall be limited to matters related to City business no standing in or otherwise blocking the aisles no participant shall stand or hold items such as signs or Flags in a manner that will 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 a fix items

[14:00] 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 being displayed obscenity 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 that is with the exception of declarations traditionally support is shown through the American Sign Language Applause or jazz hands we appreciate your presence and again thank you for being here thank you Elicia all right each speaker will have two minutes to speak I'll call three names at a time and as your time approaches if you can come on down towards the front our first three inperson speakers are ctin metf Len Harris and Aaron Brooks so

[15:07] ctin if you can speak right into the microphone please there we go hello oh they're really loud hi I am ctin metf about a 50-year resident of Boulder I've owned three homes in Boulder all of which they couldn't give away when I purchased them one is now Worth close to a half a million and the other two are definitely in the millions I currently live in a lowincome mobile home Community I was a volunteer first responder victim Advocate with the city of Boulder for 26 years I have watched Boulder grow Beyond its seams my first job in Boulder back in the day paid about $2 an hour plus tips

[16:00] and the economy of Boulder was nothing like it is today I'm here to ask you to increase the local minimum wage so those of us who hold the lowest paid jobs can make ends meet and continue to live in our city the current minimum wage in Boulder with tips today is 1162 airing on the high side of $2 an hour simply put that is a $9 in 62 increase in 50 years about 2 cents a year 50 years on top of rising costs food housing utilities medical both my homeowners insurance and auto insurance all but doubled which has had a profound impact on my financial stability throughout my decades in Boulder 90 95% of my jobs have been with locally owned businesses which I always choose to

[17:02] support they have all made a profit and provided realistic and healthy compensation for their employees this Fair compensation is not just a matter of financial stability but also a reflection of the employer's care almost done well actually ma'am your time is up so oh really you're welcome to email us the rest of your statement I will care and respect for the employees which they appreciate app we the plean thank you so much now we have uh Lynn Harris Aon Brooks and Alma salamona hello um thank you so much for having me my name is len Harris I'm a union organizer for the colado AFL CIO it's about 180 unions which approximates to about 150,000 workers across the state of Colorado um I actually used to live in Boulder when I first moved here in 2016 um and I was expeditiously ousted

[18:01] from the community um when I could no longer afford the rent within one year so in 2017 I moved up to uh Brimfield and it has since is this getting quieter um and it has since yeah either way um I've lived there ever since currently at the job that I'm at I make $35 an hour which approximates to about 72,500 a year before taxes and then after taxes it comes to $48,000 as it stands currently I cannot afford to live in Boulder the minimum wage that we are attempting to get to is 25 by 2030 $10 less than what I make currently within six years now the longer wages stay low uh the faster communities tend to erode if workers cannot afford to stay in a community they can't commute they end up leaving the businesses end up leaving as well and it's a waterfall effect where I understand small and micro businesses and minority-owned businesses and especially would be

[19:00] hypothetically impacted a vast majority of minorities currently are disproportionately affected by low wages as a union organizer working with businesses is our priority um if we don't have a place of business we don't have work so I completely understand the difficulty businesses may go through with the wage increase but it is not only our priority to work with them and ensure that they continue to run but that we can raise that wage effectively so that our community can continue to thrive thank you thank you so much thank you now we have Aaron Brooks Alma Salena and Lara Gonzalez my name is Aaron Brooks and I'm here to speak about a local issue the boulder nablo sister city project in following their Facebook page over the past few months I've discovered that they have been consistently sharing information that raises significant concerns for the following reasons I've seen numerous posts that present

[20:00] controversial news without credible sources some reports come from websites known for spreading propaganda lacking author attribution and and ver re reliable verification one is even known as a quote unquote propaganda machine this is troubling as it undermines the integrity and and credibility of the information shared as well as a sister city program itself community members who attended at least one of their public meetings were made to feel uncomfortable to the point of need to leave I was personally blocked from their Facebook page as were others for simply liking a comment that respectfully asked for a source on a supposed news story a very fair request as an entity that I believe gets at least some of its funding from from from all Boulder taxpayers and I have not confirmed that by the way in all fairness is that appropriate particularly for a city that Prides itself on inclusivity for all I understand that Miss Adams specifically is liaison is a liaison to this sister city after repeated complaints about the

[21:00] nablo program rather than doing her job in overseeing this program she instead proposed a review of all sister city programs which raises questions why review all programs when This concerns are specific to Nao that seems like a terrible waste of taxpayer money I'm not here to make demands driving in or dialing remotely from Denver as other groups have done but as a local taxpayer I'm here to request the city council heed the repeated complaints and and investigate this apparent misbehavior and report back to tax faers at an upcoming meeting additionally it is important that any investigation investigation I should say be free from bias particularly given Miss Adams documented known positions on related issues thank you thank you um and I've been told that Laro Gonzalez is testifying remotely so our next three speakers are Alma salaman Chris Hoffman and Robert smoke good afternoon thank you to the Boulder City Council for the opportunity

[22:00] to be here today my name is Alma salaman and I'm here to Advocate uh for an increase to the minimum wage on behalf of domestic violence survivors I believe that raising the minimum wage significantly support DV survivors in many ways for one it will help reduce the economic dependence that a Survivor would have on an abusive partner as many of us know 99% of survivors across the country site finances as a main barrier to leaving an abusive situation additionally this will allow survivors to increase their SA savings for um Financial emergencies such as leaving an abusive situation and also maintaining safe housing after they leave an abusive situation an increase to wages will also improve access to resources such as transportation and housing um for DV shelters of stay is typically about six weeks long and it usually takes a household much longer to Access housing so an increase in wages will reduce the risk of homelessness for DB survivors and their children it will also improve health outcomes for these families um because it will have less of a

[23:00] barrier to have to pay for medical expenses and rent food child care and other cost this will also support survivors in empowerment and stabilities higher wages can mean greater job stability and less turnover in workplaces and it will also help improve self-confidence self of self of Independence and self-determination thank you thank you now we have Chris Hoffman Robert smoke and Don reinfeld thank you for devoting your time and energy to serve on Council I'm speaking on behalf of Empower our future a Citizens group Advocate advancing a socially just clean energy economy in 2025 the city will face a consequential decision about our Energy Future as you know the franchise agreement with Excel allows the city the unconditional right to withdraw from the franchise in January

[24:00] 2026 but to do so Boulder must inform Excel before December 15 2025 so that the council might make an informed decision we are urging the council to begin a community conversation about this decision right now some points for your consideration given the massive power shut off earlier this year and concerns about sufficient fire mitigation and ever increasing rates there are L some individuals and businesses who are not happy with Excel historically Boulder was out of franchise with Excel for 10 years from January 2011 until January 2021 during this period Excel continued to deliver electricity and maintain its system as usual from the start of the new franchise in 2021 until today not a single kilowatt hour of renewable energy has been added to Boulder's grid as a result of the franchise leaving the franchise might be a good idea because

[25:01] it would give Boulder more flexibility in determining our Energy Future as long as we are locked into a franchise we cannot take advantage of emerging opportunities for cleaner cheaper more reliable electricity often the advice for someone in a bad relationship is to leave it but all of this should be discussed by the community given that there is a specific deadline for making this decision we believe that the conversation should begin now thank you now we have Robert smoke Don reinfeld and Katrina stad good evening my name is Rob smoke and uh I've lived in uh Boulder or mostly in Boulder for the past uh 38 years and um I've even had the honor of chairing meetings in this chamber for

[26:02] the human relations commission where I served from 2003 to 2008 um very briefly what I want to talk about is um um well uh the council passed uh a rule involving bringing signs to council and and the rule says that they have to be 11 by 17 um you can bring no more than one and uh has to be held below the chin and the problem I have with this is I've been to hundreds of Council meetings and never once have I heard over the years over decades have I heard a council member say hey we got a problem with signs here there's too many signs they're making it unsafe it's emotionally unsafe people can't see never heard that but somehow the signs all being on one topic here uh

[27:00] freedom for Palestine uh somehow that needs to be addressed so uh Council has uh done its best to make the sign issue more palatable for itself when many many people in our community uh find the situation the genocide that is occurring that humanitarian organizations to the world over is occurring in Gaza people find that completely unpalatable and there's a huge disconnect when council is you know working on getting the signage right and people desperately need to express themselves and be heard by their elected officials free Palestine thank you now we have Don reinfeld Katrina stad and Lucy Carlson crack off hi I'm Don reinfeld and actually

[28:04] prior to this most recent speaker I was going to say how wonderful it is to be here and have the speakers address local issues like you are elected to do um but I am here to extend my support for the interim Police Chief Red Fern I run an organization that works with families that have lost children to fenal poisoning many many of our families have not found any justice in the deaths of their children last summer I accompanied a couple that lost their college Aid student to fenal poisoning to meet with the Boulder Police Chief and Deputy the death the death of this young woman had happened before Chief Herod and interim Chief Redfern were part of BPD this couple wanted to better understand their daughter's case and share with the current police Administration the ways they had felt overlooked and dismissed by the previous police

[29:00] Administration what we experienced in the meeting was the utmost respect and compassion from Chief harid Herold I can't remember how you pronounce it and current interim Chief Redfern Chief Redfern was kind and patient and openhearted the meeting was painful for all of us and we had some important suggestions and criticisms and perspectives to share with the Boulder Police how to better support victims of fenal poisoning and deal with the trauma that families experience we requested that each family um receive a victim's Advocate to be assigned to them regardless of whether charges were filed against the dealer or regardless of whether any crime is eventually found to be committed the request was accepted and put into effect right away and this may seem like a small gesture but to families that have lost a child it is deeply important to leave a better path for the others that come after them and

[30:00] I believe he will be um he cares deeply about the community and will be an excellent police chief thank you thank you now we have Katrina strad Lucy Carlson krof and Zoe Silverman hello oh sorry sorry I've never done this before uh hello I'm here on behalf of New Era Colorado to demand the city government to raise the minimum wage to 25 hour $25 per hour by 2030 I lived in Boulder for most of my life and I'm lucky to be here Boulder is ranked one of the best cities to raise children has one of the best universities and has one of the most vibrant art communities in the country yet its quality of life is slowly diminishing as residents are encumbered by the high cost of living according to the cclp it takes an income of about $107,000 for a family afford to live in Boulder County a single adult needs to earn 26 $263 36 cents per hour so we're already

[31:01] behind on tackling poverty Boulder is ranked number 23 and most expensive city in the United States and it shouldn't be that way Governor Jared pus has repeatedly repeatedly failed to make housing more affordable and turned its back on our labor unions it is therefore up to Municipal governments to fight for the working class research has found that higher minimum wages lead to private sector and middle class growth businesses Thrive as it reduces job turnover costs improve organizational efficiency reduces worker absenteeism and increases worker productivity in addition employees improve in their physical health are more likely to contribute to the local economy and their children are less likely to be neglected and experience higher educational attainment Boulder is a beautiful city and so let's keep it that way our Open Spaces higher education and

[32:00] our communities should not be reserved for the elite but for everyone it's time to raise the minimum wage before residents need to find somewhere else to live thank you thank you now we have Lucy Carlson krov Zoe Silverman and Sarah navidi good evening Council my name is Lucy lifelong Boulder resident I am speaking today in favor of increasing Boulder's minimum wage to $25 per hour by 2030 if not more I have worked minimum wage jobs in Boulder most notably as a Brea making minimum wage before tips although tips sometimes increased us to higher often they did not as a former minimum wage employee I can speak to the importance of dignity and self-sufficiency for all workers minimum wage workers in Boulder deserve to pay rent buy food and transport themselves and pay for healthare without stress or assistance from government or nonprofits I have a message from from Johnny Jenkins the owner of local business The Laughing goat large

[33:01] employer and Boulder actually a small business um he could not attend this meeting tonight but asked me to relay the message um that as a local in FA local employer and business owner he's in favor of this proposal quote from Johnny I just think we should do what we can to try to help people reach a live wage here and housing costs keep going up Johnny pays his workers much more than the current minimum wage we have kept people waiting for a verdict on this issue now is the time to take action we must include a wage escalator that keeps up with inflation in an ordinance so that workers do not have to keep coming back and back to advocate for wages that allow them to cover their basic needs as cost of living continues to go up in Boulder last reminder to Aaron Ryan Taisha and Nicole Boulder progressives elected you be Progressive thank you for considering this issue thank you now we have Zoe Silverman s nidi and Carl

[34:01] lapam hello I am Zoe Silverman and I am a resident of Boulder Colorado I am speaking here today asking the city council to pass a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza when discussing the previous resolution City councilors made the point that they were unable to take a stance because it was not the place of our city council to comment on foreign policy and that we should focus on local issues instead I struggle to see how the call for an immediate ceasefire is not a local issue Colorado based company Woodward is the defense contractor of boms bombs being dropped on innocent people and innocent children the tax dollars of everyone in this room is being used to fund Israeli war crimes as opposed to education or health care or housing tens of billion dollars in 2024 alone have being used to fund

[35:01] the Israeli military the genocide in Gaza is a local issue as much as it is an international issue I implore my city council to take immediate action and call for an immediate ceasefire as a Jewish member of this community I stand strong in the condemnation of genocide and in solidarity with the Palestinian Community never again means never again for anyone anywhere a ceasefire is not a permanent solution but it is where the boulder but is where Boulder must start I hope the Boulder City Council sees our direct role in this genocide and chooses to pass an immediate ceasefire resolution thank you so much thank you now we've got Sarah nidi Carl lapam and Connor Hall

[36:05] good evening Council I'm here today in support of increasing the minimum wage for Boulder County I began residing in Boulder in 2019 when I started attending the University of Colorado Boulder and I'm currently employed in residing in the area throughout this time I have consistently been seeing the negative impacts a lack of sustainable wage has had on our community the price of housing particularly has been forcing much of Boulder's Workforce to commute to their place of employment from other cities leading to detrimental effects on people's sense of community and identity the 2016 Boulder County Intercounty commute analysis determined that more than 50% of the lowincome workers live outside of Boulder County a 2022 Boulder Valley survey similarly determined that 66% of their employees were non-residents why is it that our Workforce can't afford to live in the Community they serve in can we really

[37:00] even call this a community at this point the disparity between the cost of living and the minimum wage in Boulder County goes far behind Beyond housing however working as a medical assistant it is disheartening to see how many of our patients lack the funds for Imaging lab work and treatments they need a large portion of these patients struggle to support their families and support their health with the wages they receive I myself am largely struggling to support myself while trying to balance working and applying to medical school as a community we have the responsibility to support one another and not underestimate the human right to sustainable wage thank you thank you our last two in-person speakers are Carl lapam and Connor Hall hi council members um I am here in my capacity as the boulder organizer for new air Colorado um as well as a young person trying to live in Boulder and of course as a member of the minimum wage

[38:00] Coalition I've gotten to speak with a few of you over the last couple of weeks about this increase in the minimum wage you've heard a lot of Statistics tonight um but I would like to share with you the sheer Panic that went through my mind in May when I graduated uh a lot of the stress that came with graduating was a desire to stay in the community to invest in this community and to see become the city that we all appreciate it to be um there were two things in the way of that there were the cost of housing and the fact that I did not have a job that paid me enough to live here I spent two years of my college working minimum wage jobs in Boulder um and I was unable to afford even half of the expenses that it cost to live here uh as you know the economic data report came out um and I'm sure that some of you have gotten the chance to read it um I have as well and that is why I'm advocating for solution one which would

[39:01] see an immediate 15% increase to the minimum wage followed by subsequent 8% increases and finishing out with a nice low 3% wage increase um I believe that young people need relief now and a 15% increase to the wage would doe just that um it is not a situation where we can afford to wait another 10 years um that will be two more cycles of Cu students not not only that but also the rest of the young people in Boulder and the 60% of us who cannot afford to live here um but are still trying to anyways I ask that you take this solution for the 15% increase starting in January and that you allow young people who come to school here because of the beauty of the city because the beauty of the flat irons to stay here and invest in their communities thank you thank you now we have Connor Hall and then our last inperson speaker is ly seagull hi my name is Connor

[40:01] Hall I'm a member of local UFCW Local 7 working out of the deli um at king supers here in Boulder I'm also member of the executive board and I'm here to speak in favor of an immediate increase to the minimum wage and ultimately uh 25 eventually the $25 an hour and a continuing uh movement going forward um I don't need to remind you you all are aware of the need for this increase you've been aware for years I mean I we are getting serious Deja Vu from last summer if I had the opportunity to now have two reports on it uh I like many others like many of the stories you've heard year after year after year have been priced out of Boulder I first came here with my mom and my parents got divorced uh because we had a strong family Network you know we were able to live with some assistance uh up on Shanahan Ridge when I went to Fairview uh because we were very close to my grandfather um as the years have gone on uh none of my family lives in Boulder

[41:01] anymore none of us are here anymore um and that's simply because it has become so unaffordable uh forgive me uh uh for a community that is that Prides itself so much on Equity Justice inclusion this is a catastrophic failure to live up to those ideals um the very members the very the people in your community who have put the most work into generating a prosperous Society prosperous Community have been most excluded from it uh sorry guys it's been a minute since I've done this uh very soon we are going to build a future here in in in the city of Boulder that fully excludes the working class that

[42:00] fully excludes the workers that fully excludes our most vulnerable thank you thank you our last in-person speaker is Lyn seagull my porch light nin can't fix it okay Wayne Selzer says no landfill electronic LED I'm trying to be a good person here you know what gives where's Emily Freeman when you need her there she's hearing about this they can modify this the electronics inside don't work thousands of people have bought this installed it dumped it from a Home Depot na will replace it I don't want it replaced I want it reused the way it should be working this is an example of what happens with Contracting

[43:00] in Boulder period but what I want to talk today about twins yesterday were born the day before they were born their dad went to pick up their birth certificate and Israel blasted them to Kingdom Come twins newborns the mom and the Mother-in-law this is sick and disgusting disgusting 20 billion that's not our problem every single sensient being on the face the planet is Boulder's problem Big [Music] Time senty link went out this week whoops we can't see for a week is Boulder

[44:00] overpopulated is the world overpopulated when in a week I can't get my internet back and I have to carry my computer everywhere with me so it can get stolen like my computer bag got stolen from city employees in the municipal building September 14th last year I carry my computer around with me now got the idea thank you all right our first three remote speakers are Steve Whitaker Eric bud and Mary faltinsky thank you mayor and council members in November of 2020 Boulder voters approved a franchise agreement and partnership agreement with Excel the partnership agreement called called for the use of local projects and initiatives to reduce energy related

[45:02] emissions and improve resilience and reliability in addition it was to address the gap between excel's 80% carbon emissions reduction by 2030 and Boulder's 2030 goal of 100% renewable electricity serving Boulder after nearly four years I'm at a loss to find any amount of pollution reduction as a direct and sole consequence of the partnership agreement the power shut off we experienced in April of this year demonstrated the poor current state of resilience and reliability of our electrical system and I cannot find any concrete plan with implementation Milestones to give us a 100% renewable electricity by 2030 as a community we need to talk about

[46:00] this I asking the council to schedule a study session and subsequent Council meetings focused on the franchise agreement with Excel and what action we want to take as a community when we can opt out of the agreement next year I'm asking the city Administration to schedule quarterly public sessions with residential input that f focuses on city-led climate actions the franchise agreement partnership agreement and the path to accomplishing the city's climate goals thank you thank you now we have Eric Bud Mary faltinsky and Sophie Mariam hi Council Eric bud I live in Boulder I'm I'm also speaking tonight in support of establishing a local minimum wage that's higher than the state of Colorado's I was reading through the

[47:00] economic uh report that was published recently um in the city packet and it looks like there were a couple decisions that you all be making um one in particular there was one option that would establish a minimum wage as high as uh at the rate of Denver and I I think it's really it's really clear that Boulder needs a higher minimum wage and the the data absolutely supports that the other decision you all make is how fast to implement this minimum wage and I think we've heard a lot of testimony tonight just talking about the urgency particularly with housing costs um of not only establishing this higher minimum wage but also uh increasing it at a rate to get to the level of what Boulder County has established as soon as as feasible for the city and if um some City councilors are are worried about the effects of that I think there are a couple really important things to

[48:00] keep in mind that um this higher wage is going to be an economic boost that's a lot of this money is going to go right back into the community and also if you're interested in City budgets that also means higher sales tax revenues and more money for the city to spend um to benefit the community and um you all be talking about another issue tonight which is um a ballot measure that would uh increase the wage for city council members and I won't go into the details on that I I definitely support that measure um but one of the things that I found in researching that was um the city council pay was first established in 1989 at $5,000 um a year and since that time housing costs have increased seven and a half times since 1989 um we need to raise the wage so that workingclass people can afford to live here thank you thank you now we have Mary faltinsky Sophie Mariam and Jan

[49:03] Nel hello uh thank you for letting me come and speak to you tonight um my name is Mary faltinsky I live in the city of Boulder and I work with high-risk young families throughout the county my comments tonight are my personal opinion I wanted to address a question that City staff have addressed to you in your preparation for speaking about the minimum wage they ask you if you should exempt unemancipated miners from the minimum wage I ask you please do not exempt minors from the minimum wage Colorado has no statutory route for emancipation so exempting unemancipated minors is essentially exempting all minors Miners and young people are experiencing Financial strain in today's economy at work on Monday I a staff person came to me and talked about a family we thought was in a safe home with their parents this a 16-year-old

[50:01] girl who is pregnant and her 17-year-old boyfriend the family said you guys have to start paying $900 a month in rent or we're kicking you out so it is not uncommon for young parents to be expected to contribute to their family's support even if they're living in their parents homes and this is not uncommon last year 278 births were to people under the age of 24 in Boulder County that's 12% of births are to young parents who are the people most likely to be working in minimum wage jobs um they haven't had the opportunity to have experience and knowledge and they definitely need the support of a living wage and the students are not exempt 20 to 25% of undergraduate students in the United States are parents so even people who are trying to get those Advanced degrees they need to be able to earn a livable

[51:02] wage while they're in school so please support young people and include them in all your increases in the minimum wage thank you all right now we have Sophie Mariam Joan Nigel and laa Gonzalez good evening city council my name is Sophie miam and I am a labor policy Analyst at the Colorado fiscal Institute or CFI we're a Statewide nonprofit that works to make Colorado a state where fiscal and tax policies promote equity and widespread economic Prosperity CFI strongly urges Boulder to raise the minimum wage by at least $25 by 2030 and I'll Focus my time on some common misconceptions about existing research and data on minimum wage and respond to the recent uh study released by Eco Northwest which I know some of you has have had the opportunity to look at the report disproportionately focuses on potential negative effects of raising the wage with positive findings either

[52:00] downplayed or heavily caveat which presents a skewed perspective that does not align with a broader body of research for example the report reflects a bias towards studies that reflect negative employment effects which fails to repr the bulk of modern research for example a recent meta analysis of uh 27 studies published over 15 years found no support for the proposition that the minimum wage has an important effect on employment and in fact some Recent research suggests that minimum wage increases can boost employment uh the report also emphasizes potential negative outcomes on businesses when as previous uh citizens have highlighted in fact minimum wage increases can improve labor market conditions without causing negative harmful side effects because businesses have channels of adjustment to accommodate the change including reducing worker turnover or they save those costs and slight consumer price increases in fact 23 study found that even for small businesses minimum wage increases do not cause job losses but it

[53:02] allows them to recruit workers and retain them more easily reduce turnover and they kind of account for it through a small price increase that is is not harmful for consumers the report also failed to account for the fact that uh the minimum wage increase in Denver led to an increase in sales tax revenue and a boost in the local economy I'll conclude that poverty's a policy your your time is up but feel free to email the rest of of your comments thank you our last two speakers are Joan Nagel and laa Gonzalez can you hear he me yes okay um

[54:00] my name is johnel I've been a resident of Boulder for 50 years toate not to consider issues I want to yield the rest of my time back to the council you can handle local issues thank you thank you our last speaker is laara Gonzalez can you hear me yes okay hello I've been a resident longer than city council member Tera Wier and I remind you all that I am not a settler I am here to demand that you stop all your EDI performance which is a local issue because it is very offensive how dare you say today last rights will never be regained yet you remov more rights from the city council rules because of your wife discomfort and fragility oh yeah I forgot uh you only care about rules when it applies to

[55:01] white people not for those of people of color who are oppressed and let's be real this was not a problem with the scientist sellers where the public commenters as a majority carrying big flaps and posters so please stop doing a land acknowledgement a holocaust M States asso you don't care about the current genocides in Palestine Congo and Sudan and I bet you never heard about the silent Holocaust as it's highly insulting that you are sending one .6 million of for hardworking tax dollars annually to bomb innocent children about 50,000 right now and guess what when we do white FAL for us it does impact us here locally to fers thank you for standing loud and clear and aing that your colleagues prioritize the quum over engaging the most oppressive voices in our community I appreciate you all of those voices that voted to pass his oppressor rues Su silence black brown and Cur voices you are the living proof of what MLK warned us about we do not need more allies more devoted to order than to Justice so please stop performing your allyship I am also here to demand another local

[56:01] issue please eliminate our sister city relationship with Ramat Hanes this program is claiming nonprofit status th not only do they not pay taxes to our state which we should benefit from but you allow donations to go to commit the crime of apoy also that man the prison or let's call it concentration camp is less than 40 miles away from that sister city it's like going from here to Littletown one this person is attaining Palestinian for month without a charge and under torture and rape condition there was a mass rape where they murdered one person with or tax dollars and with the donations where they don't pay taxes that go into the sister city two this city is committing the international crime of a part you're welcome to email us the rest of your comments all right that brings us to the end of our open comment period I'd like to thank people who who came out to speak to us whether in person or virtually and I will turn to CF to see if there any responses thank you mayor uh good evening I'm assistant city manager Mark

[57:01] wolf filling in big shoes for Nua this evening uh at a conference uh just appreciate uh everybody coming out to speak this evening uh just a couple notes we have uh minimum wage scheduled uh next week so looking forward to a a hefty conversation and a hefty packet uh for those uh following along so appreciate those that came to speak about minimum wage we're looking forward to that discussion and then a couple speakers uh referenced our sister sister city program just want to clarify that there is no direct City uh support direct City dollars of our sister city committees so just wanted to make that clarification that's it thanks for that Mark Teresa nothing from me thank you thanks Council any comments followup you got one okay Taisha all right thank you so much for all of those who came and spoke today um I also

[58:04] want to thank um our community member who brought up the issues that we have been hearing about regarding our noas sister city as the representative I have been reaching out since I became the representative and I'm not surprised that we haven't heard back from them as some of you may know they are still facing settlers illegally trying to take their land that is happening right now in addition to many of their family their community members who are dead because of what we are seeing and what we are funding and so I am grateful to our city staff for continuing to help me in reaching out even though that is outside of the scope of their work and outside of what we do for sister cities which is

[59:00] why I was actually asking for an evaluation so that it's not some Pet Project by those city council members who want to do something and I I commend those of you who are taking your sister City's work um and and going above and beyond and and really doing what that work is meant to do which is to Foster international relations and Affairs and as somebody who has a degree in International Education with a focus on International Affairs and United Nations in particular um I have been disheartened by what I've seen and so um know that we have reached out um that that I did ask for a um not an evaluation but an update on the program so that as we are updating our 10-year plan and other things related to our city we can think about ways do we want to integrate this program into something more meaningful there are rich opportunities we have the dambi tea house because of this relationship and so again recognizing that this one issue and and anybody who knows me knows I say this all the time is one leaf on a forest of things that we have to address

[60:00] as a community so know that that is why I asked about that um and I'm hopeful that um our council members our my fellow council members and staff can have a more robust conversation and Community about our sister City's program and what we want to do with it in addition I wanted to again lift up my voice um in support of our Council being able to not only discuss international issues but also for an immediate ceasefire every day I meet with a variety of stakeholders at the federal state and local levels on issues related to environment conservation and education every single one of them talks about how they don't have money to do the work that they need to do and to see our military receive another 20 million billion with a B Doll and I did some rough math so let me just take the time to share some rough math so so $220 billion divided by 200 by

[61:01] 345 M6 53,9 53 which is the US population right now as of 2024 is $ 5786 a person you multiply that by roughly $12,000 and that's $5.9 million just for the city of Boulder just for the 20 million and so I will say again that this is a local issue when we are at a problem with our finances however I do not have the majority of my fellow council members in the not of five needed in order to have us discuss international issues I respect the decision of my fellow members right because there's other

[62:02] things that we need to talk about as a community that we do agree on that we are all full steam ahead on and so hold on please just you can but not while I'm talking and so no I'm not cameling anybody I'm taing but what I am saying is community I do hear you we do hear you we may have a difference of agreement on what our city role is on this but again our elections are coming up in 2026 you want to see something different vote for something different but know that everybody that I get an opportunity to work with I value their opinion I value their thoughts and they have made our city better in a variety of different ways and I need you to see that too thank you so much for the opportunity to serve I know we all don't agree you all are welcome to say something but it is our silence that allows them to add on whatever their thoughts are on what we think and so if

[63:01] you don't want to talk about it in a not of five then I can take my Liberty to respond to public comment and that is what I did today and I did with all respect for the decisions that you make and I cannot wait to continue to do the rough work that we do together thank you so much okay thanks I got Nicole queued up and does anybody else have want to go after that [Music] um I just want to say thank you uh Taisha first of all for um your work with this just trying to reach out to um our sister city I I do appreciate that you're doing that um I think uh I I also um value your suggestion of looking at the sister city project um my sister city Monte I have not once um been able to connect with them uh because of the struggles that they're having in their Community um and I I I just I think it is it is worth looking at um in general but it's not like we have an abundance of issues that we don't have time to to

[64:01] get to but um I also just wanted to thank everybody who came and spoke tonight um and thank especially the workers who took time out of their days to come and um be heard I know that all of our time is money and yours is especially money and so thank you um for the value that you brought in sharing your opinions with us tonight all right I don't see any other hands did you want to go point of order about long lectures I'm just bringing that up that I'm pretty sure that in our book that we should not have to listen to Once something is litigated a long speech after that point of order go ahead do we have any rules around how of how what constitutes a lecture and do we have can I have somebody let me know how long I spoke for that amount of time and if there are

[65:00] any issues around that I'm more than happy to do an investigation of how long others have spoke so that we can decide what the average speaking time is for Council respon I'm looking at you because you clerk you know I know you got a lot you got the data so I look at the people got the data okay and so that's my port of Ider on that thank you so much great and I'll I'll say that I don't believe we have a definition of lecture we do have some language about Rel litigation relate Teresa did you I don't know if you have that handy I'm afraid I don't have the citation handy but um it does require a material change of facts uh or law to revisit a subject that we've already um that the council has already decided of order yes the issues that I rose that I raised were actually new issues and so actually I'm still um actually um in in uh not in in violation

[66:02] of our code so thank you all right if we maybe can move on or Mark go ahead just I got Lauren too okay just very quickly um I I do not think we were raising new issues today uh I and I believe we have made this decision um we did it fairly decisively and and I think that decision ought to be honored not in the breach but in the substance and I would appreciate it if if all of my colleagues did that going forward that doesn't mean you have to agree with with what was done um many do not many in the audience do not and that's fine um but that's a decision we have made and it's not productive for us to continue to relitigate it um on a weekly basis thank you thanks I got

[67:00] Lauren yeah I just wanted to thank everyone community members for coming out to speak today um and I in what I heard from Taisha was not an attempt to relitigate something but a point of view and an addressing of comments that had come up I seems to me like Rel litigation would be to ask us to vote on this again and that is not what I heard a request for um I do appreciate the idea of reviewing the sister cities um and would be in support of that thank you thanks Lauren all right I'm not seeing any other hands raised so I think we can move on from open comment thanks again to the folks who came out and spoke if we can go to consent agenda please yes sir thank you our cons quiet in the room

[68:06] please our consent agenda is item number three on tonight's agenda and it consists of items 3A through 3C any questions or comments about the consent agenda or perhaps a motion I make a motion to pass our consent agenda second got a motion in a second can we do a roll call please Elicia yes sir we'll start the roll call on consent agenda items 3A through 3C with council member Adams yes Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes council member FAL yes Marquis yes shueh hard yes mayor Pro Tim spear yes council member wall yes and Wier yes the consent agenda is hereby

[69:01] app passed unanimously thank you can you go to our callup check-in please yes sir thank you our callup check-in is actually item number four on tonight's agenda for a is the concept plan review and comment request on a partial Redevelopment of the 1. 1877 acre developed property at 2717 Glenwood Drive the existing 37 unit two-story walk up L-shaped apartment building would remain and a proposed three-story 22 unit multif family building would be constructed over a portion of the existing parking lot two stories of residential overp parking proposed unit types include efficiency living units one bedroom and two bedroom units this is reviewed under case number l224 one two thanks any questions or comments or desire to call this one

[70:01] up Tina yeah I'm not looking to call it up but I do have a question there are some really good comments um from the planning board in this particular development and I'm wondering how we're um keeping a log of those kinds of comments so that when we move to less or to more administrative review rather than um the review prices that we have under hp24 13313 um that we can capture some of that thoughtfulness is there do we have a system for that well we've got planning director Brad Mueller in the room to come address that question come on thank you good evening council members uh Brad Mueller planning director um thanks for that question and um we we do attempt to capture that in the not and staff report we do keep very close notes about what the planning uh

[71:00] board does say about a particular item it gets Incorporated really in the follow-up discussion to in a real practical actionable way with the applicants um we we are all constantly trying to find what the right balance of capturing that in minutes without you know creating uh a duplication of the um recorded record but uh but we do make a point to do that and can I ask another question then just um and I I'm a little bit newer to some of the review process could you talk about the um the maximum efficiency unit number that I noticed in the development plan it said that it was at the 40% maximum uh I cannot but we do have uh Shannon Mohler on online who can speak to that who's the case I'm just not familiar with that particular Shannon do you want to respond to that yes um hi good even Council my name is Shannon Muller I'm with the city um planning and development services

[72:00] department um yes I believe in our code there is a stipulation um just regarding that the percentage of units that can be efficiency living units um on a property um and so I think that was just a reference to that percentage okay thank you thanks shanon and uh Lauren uh like Tina I really appreciated some of the comments that planning board brought up and I was hoping someone could remind me if we wanted design Advisory Board to look at this before it comes back to planning board or Council would we have to call it up or can we just request that oh sorry yeah the design Advisory Board take a look at it you we do not need to call it up we would just need a motion to do so in that case I would like to make a

[73:00] motion to have design Advisory Board um weigh in on this project before it comes back to planning board or to this Council second second the second went to Nicole I'll just call for a vote this is a show of hands all in favor of send ask a clarify question um does this add time to the process it does and how much time Brad do you know about how much time we add um I I would expect it's fairly minimum uh Shannon maybe you've got a more precise time I'm thinking maybe you know a couple weeks at the most that's about right we can usually um process that just during the review process kind of while it's in the staff review um have a go to dab during that time okay yes Ryan I I think I'm ready to vote for but can do we have any direction for design board what what what instructions do we have for them if any I thought planning boards um

[74:02] requests made sense to for me it's mostly about the human scale of the building um and either massing or material choices to make um it more human scaled and and I'll Pigg you back on that if you don't mind Lauren just that I I thought the project was really creative the way it put the new building in the parking lot and preserve the older buildings but I think it does present some design challenges and so I would I'd be very interested in hearing the design advisory board's comments I think it'd be valuable for the project in that area that kind of combination of the old and the new I yes T and I I just um again I'm thinking about how we're going to look at the new um Bill 1313 and this wouldn't be um able to necessarily be part of that process so we need to think about how we come up with a review without these extra steps I think we can flag that for consideration for later on

[75:02] great all right I'll go ahead and call the vote raise your hand if you agree on sending it to DB all right a unanimous vote so we'll be referring that to dab Lauren any other comments oh just that I really appreciate the idea of having the additional housing on top of the um parking lot I otherwise I'm very excited about this project thank you well said and I'm not seeing anybody else's hand so I'll just call on myself just to Triple down on the uh planning board comments being excellent that I think this Project's going in the right direction but also needs a little tweaking to get to that livability in human scale so looking forward to seeing it come back not seeing any other hands on this one U didn't see any interest in calling it up but we did do the referral to dab all right let's go to our first public hearing please thank you sir this is rather

[76:01] lengthy so I appreciate everyone's patience our public hearings are item number five on tonight's agenda and it is the consideration of the following ordinance related to the 2024 special Municipal coordinated election first ordinance is on second reading it is 8639 amending section 130 of the Boulder Home Charter and it is related to boards and commissions second ordinance also on second reading ordinance 8640 which is amending section seven of the charter and it is related to council compensation ordinance number three is the second reading as well for ordinance 8641 amending section n of the charter to allow executive sessions next we have ordinance number four which is the petitioner ordinances and 4 a is the second reading of ordinance 8638 which is related to decommissioning

[77:03] airport commonly known as repurpose or runways for B is the second reading of ordinance 8643 which is also again a petitioner's ordinance and it is related to runways to neighborhoods next we have our alternate ordinances for C is ordinance 8647 it is on it is on first reading and a public hearing and it is related to repurchase repurpose our runways and 4D is also introduced ordinance 8648 related to runways to neighborhoods that was a mouthful thanks Elisha and just to lay out our process here we're going going to have a presentation by City staff on all of these ordinances followed by Council

[78:00] questions um then we'll go to the public hearing and then come back for deliberation so Mark if I can pass it over to you please thank you mayor um just short comments uh for me on this one just appreciate all the work that is uh gone behind the scenes to get here both from the the petitioners community and staff uh I'll just recognize that we also have uh Deputy city manager Chris Meek on Line Tonight uh he has been gracious enough to join us from the East Coast so getting later over there but uh he's been a part of conversations with the petitioners uh so if you do have any additional questions on that um he is available uh otherwise uh we have Deputy City attorney tonight Aron Poe that will walk through the uh ordinances as uh mentioned and uh some uh discussion on process to help guide this evening right thank you for the introduction uh Aaron Poe uh good evening mayor and members of council and I'm here tonight with our 2024 potential

[79:01] ballot measures tonight we have ballot measures for Council consideration we have three Charter revisions brought forward from the June 20th Council discussion these are Council referred measures they are Council compensation executive sessions and changes to advisory boards and commissions we also have four measures regarding the boulder municipal airport two our citizen initiated measures repurpose our runways and runways to neighborhoods and to Alterna alternate versions negotiated between the petition committee and the city manager's office first we have Council compensation which is ordinance 8640 this would amend Charter section 7 to increase Council compensation in move to an annual Ami calculation to reflect the increased quantity and complexity of

[80:00] council work changes made based on Council feedback from June 20th are that the mayor would receive 50% of the Ami and other council members 40% and it would take effect upon the swearing in date in December 2026 next we have executive sessions ordinance 8641 this would amend Charter section 9 and add a new Charter section 21A for executive sessions as Allowed by state law for reasons such as receiving legal advice and discussing negotiation strategy the change made based on Council feedback from June 20th is that this would take effect January 1 2025 all right and our last Charter issue is changes to advisory boards and commissions which is ordinance 8639 this would amend Charter section 130 to allow Council to vary the terms

[81:02] eligibility and meeting schedule by ordinance for boards that do not have enabling Charter sections and update the removal language changes made based on Council feedback from June 20th are that it would take effect January 1st 2025 and the prior first sentence in subsection D which read all board and commission members serve at the pleasure of council has been removed our next steps on Charter measures would be to adopt on continued second reading September 5th or this would be a third reading if changes are made tonight the goal is to have the same go dark period as the airport measures and the go dark period starts on the date that a ballot title is fixed by Council and after which city resources cannot be used to fund Express advocacy all right as we move into our

[82:02] airport measures there are two definitions uh that I want to explain the first is the term citizen initiated petitions this is ordinance 8638 repurpose our runways and ordinance 8643 runways to neighborhoods normally we avoid the term citizen because it's not welcoming to all members of the community however I am using it tonight is a commonly used legal term of art because a person must be a registered voter and therefore a citizen to legally bring a petition measure uh the airport conversation is a contentious item and I want to ensure that our record uses terms that will be understand by understood by anyone who looks at it in the future the second definition is alternate measures which means ordinance 8647 the alternate repurpose our runways and 8648 Alternate runways to neighborhoods

[83:00] these have language negotiated between the petitioner committee and the city manager's office if adopted these would become Council initiated ballot measures okay for the citizen initiated measures repurpose our runways this would adopt a new section 11-48 decommissioning the airport in the boulder revised code this new ordinance would decommission the airport except for emergency helicopters it would prohibit acceptance of state or federal funding with obligations that would delay decommissioning and guide site activities prior to decommissioning the second repurpose I'm sorry the second runways to neighborhoods would take effect only if repurpose our runways also passes and it would adopt subsection 11-4 AE that would repurpose the airport as sustainable mixed use neighborhoods with at least 50% of on-site housing units

[84:03] designated as permanently affordable for low moderate and middle- inome residents and require input from a community board for redevelopment all right for the alternate measures these have the same goals as a citizen initiated measures but with revised language the alternate repurpose our run ways the language is more land use oriented and less administrative it has a requirement to the extent feasible to negotiate or litigate to end existing Grant commitments to the FAA and acknowledges that future amendments or repeal may occur via a vote of the people if decommissioning is not feasible all right in the alternate runways to neighborhoods the language again is more land use oriented and less administrative it changes specific terminology area plan becomes Vision

[85:02] community board to working group and the requirement of at least 50% affordable housing is changed to a fundamental desired outcome a new subsection is added with an intent statement explaining that the intent is to repurpose the site to serve housing needs as identified at the time of Redevelopment and states that change es in future Community needs can be addressed by another ballot measure so this slide is a general overview of options with petition initiatives one Council May adopt the language as an ordinance in lie of placing it on the ballot in this circumstance council could pass 11-48 as an emergency ordinance and no measures would go to the ballot a second option would be to submit the citizen initiatives to the voters third Council may pass the

[86:02] negotiated alternate measures to the ballot petitioners would withdraw their initiatives and the alternate measures become a council referred ballot measure going to the voters and last council could place a competing measure on the ballot so tonight is a decision Point does council want to act affirmatively to decommission the airport and set housing requirements if yes there are options Council May place the alternate measures on the ballot they become ballot items brought forward by Council and the petition committee would withdraw the citizen initiated petitions or on September 5th Council would pass the alternate language as an emergency ordinance with petitioner commitment to withdraw the petitions or council could pass the original petitioner language this would eliminate the need for ballot items if no council would pass forward

[87:03] both citizen initiated measures at continued second reading on September 5th for voter consideration and the alternate measures would not need to pass on first reading tonight so the September 5th meeting is currently scheduled for second reading of the alternate measures continued second reading of the charter measures and citizen initiated measures this would also be a third reading if there are changes brought tonight to the alternate measure or to Charter items it could also be used to adopt 11-48 as an emergency ordinance September 5th uh will start the go dark period for all items on the same date and we do have a firm deadline ballot titles must be submitted to the county clerk by noon on September 6 2024 any not submitted will not appear

[88:02] on the voters ballot uh thank you this concludes the slideshow and staff is ready to answer any questions thanks so much for that Aon I think the image of the scared dog really speaks for all of us does great so um clarifying questions for City staff Tina yeah I have a question about um whether there's any time that we historically or need to right now um submit an airport plan to the FAA is that something we have to do at a specific time or is that something we do at our pleasure that's a good question I think I'm going to turn to our short-timer uh Natalie Stiffler coming up Natalie Stiffler come on down it's only been two days your mic's not on good evening

[89:03] Council Natalie Stiffler director of Transportation Mobility um we it's at our Leisure we don't have any plans to update our master plan or the Alp right now that would be um something that we could do in the future but we don't have any plans to do that glad to get you up here one more time Natalie before you're done with us any other clarifying questions Matt yeah so U my clarify question has to do with uh slide 12 in in kind of with regards to the options um it says sort of if no I think there's more agnosticism with that one perhaps because it doesn't necess if we choose but to put the citizen initiative of it doesn't it's not our decision to vote to to not decommission or to decommission there's it's agnostic we're we're not making making a decision at all we're just referring the original measure to the ballot is that correct because I didn't want to see that these were binary by decision it was um we're

[90:01] actually stepping out of the decision-making process entirely by not referring it to the ballot is that correct that is correct that's a fair characterization okay appreciate it thanks if we use the alternative language um just to provide more clarity or whatever the benefits we deem that language to have that doesn't necess necessarily imply an endorsement of decommissioning does it um if good evening Council if you were to um put forward the the alternate measures um it would not necessarily uh put a thumb on the scale one way or the other okay um okay so something is going to be on the ballot uh unless we put on our own

[91:03] competing ordinance um but if we're choosing between one or two uh we have the flexibility to do the one that has what we think is superior language without necessarily saying that you know we're putting our thumb on the scale I think that's accurate okay do you mind if I follow up on that Mark I guess Teresa but there would be a distinction in that it would no longer be a citizen initiated ballot measure it would be a council initiated ballot measure so that's a distinction right absolutely that's right right so it doesn't necessarily put our thumb on the scale but there's something of a difference there there is can I can I call aen I I you're the third Matt I got I got Taisha and Tina here first and then I'll get to you T should you want to go ahead oh I didn't know I was in I just came in at the end I saw you first but

[92:00] right um so on this thumb on the thing though when you say not Material changing the language from 50% though to whatever not specific that seems like it would be substantive to me am I missing something I agree that that's a substantive change thank you yeah and could you explain any anything else that changes if it's Council initiative initiated rather than citizen initiated is that right I'm going to decline to give you legal advice you are okay but I would remind you that you did receive a confidential memo um that outlined some distinctions that would be legally important um if if we were to refer this measure to the ballot um wouldn't we be in a position by Sid stepping Andor skipping quite a bit bit of our regular land use discretionary process because it is th predefined in the ordinance and

[93:01] so would it be a way to characterize that by doing so we would be usurping the very process that we rely on to dictate land use in our community uh I'm going to decline to to characterize it as usurping or not um but I what I would say is that it is uncommon to see legislation that that proactively says how the council must Zone a particular area of land that is unusual appreciate that thank you Nicole yeah um I just wanted to clarify u in the uh modified alternate uh measures the petitioners were involved in that right they kind of talk through it with us and um agreed to the changes that we see here is that correct that's right this Council um instructed the city manager's office to work with the petitioners to negotiate some language this is the

[94:01] language that was arrived upon that both parties could agree upon um I don't think it represents everything that either side wanted as most negotiations turn out right yeah and that I just wanted to to make sure there were things that they wanted there were things that we wanted that did not appear in here that's accurate thank you all right I'm not seeing any other hands so TAA did you have another question yes I did have a question and it was about so you said I'm trying to catch it before it's gone it's all right I'll get I'll come back in comments thank you all right let's go ahead and move to the public hearing uh we've already heard our public participation guidelines earlier in the evening um so we've got um so our first speaker is Laura Kaplan who is pooling with Anne Wilson and Philip Ogen are you all in the house there you are so Laura you'll

[95:02] get five minutes and then after that we'll go to Robert kosi and Aiden Reed thank you and um I won't take five minutes but it's nice not to have to rush so good evening members of council and I apologize I'm having some vocal issues so I might cough or uh sound a little choked but it's not serious I promise I won't die so um good evening Laura Kaplan here in my personal capacity and representing the airport neighborhood campaign it's nice to see you all on this beautiful summer night it's uh 82 days before the election and you are doing some very important work here with all of the ballot measures that are in front of you so um as you know airport neighborhood campaign successfully petitioned to put our two measures on this Falls ballot and they are called repurpose our runways and runways to neighborhoods your choice tonight tonight is whether to accept and put forward an alternate version of these measures that staff worked on collaboratively with

[96:00] thec or to see the original petition language move forward to the ballot as a side note I want to mention that we thec did not call out our supporters tonight to come and testify on mass we figured that that wasn't necessary we stand on the strength of the 3400 plus signatures that we gathered to put these on the ballot and we figured we don't need to draw out the evening and that you would rather get to work so regarding the two versions in front of you first I'd like to talk about the original petition language as is customary thec worked with the city attorney's office on this original petition language to ensure that it was appropriate for city code and could be implemented this draft was provided to staff for comment before it was accepted for petitioning before we gathered a single signatur and we were and we still are happy with that original petition language however that happened back in March of this year and with time and perspective and additional conversations sometimes a

[97:00] good thing can be further improved so now I'd like to talk about the alternate measures um we at thec would like to thank staff especially Nua and Chris meschuk Who's online for their diligent work to collect ideas from Council and staff for refining our ballot measures Chris and Nua worked with us in a truly collaborative interest based fashion to find tweaks to the language and in particular those that would make the ballot measure smoother for the city to implement uh and to administer should the ballot measures pass we think that staff did a great job of describing the changes and the reasons for those changes in the memo for tonight and in ain's presentation so we are happy to support the alternate versions if that is the will of council we do think that the alternate versions honor the suggestions of council and staff they reflect that hard work of staff and they stay true to the original vision and intent that found favor with our thousands of petition signers we worked hard to be good partners in the collaborative process and we very much appreciate that

[98:01] staff did the same we are also ready to hear and work with you on any additional changes that you the city council members would like to propose tonight for that alternate language and finally I was a little bit surprised to see that slide that said that if you accept the alternate measures that that somehow indicates that you support decommissioning and I think that your conversation helped clear up a little bit that does not seem like that's the case um we certainly do not take your decision whichever ones you you move forward to the ballot to indicate support or non-s support for closure we will not try to spin it that way you have our word um you know the decision tonight is just which version of these ballot measures you think would be better for the city of Boulder if they were to pass and so thank you very much for your thoughtful consideration tonight and I would be happy to answer any questions that come come up in discussion if that is appropriate thank you Laura all right um now we have Robert

[99:02] creasi Aiden Reed and Lyn seagull each of whom will get three minutes is Robert in the room not seeing him all right Aiden you're up okay good evening Council thank you um I had signed up to talk about Council pay is this still one I should speak okay absolutely um so good evening my name is Aiden U my pronouns are he him I'm a boulder resident and I'm here to speak this evening in favor of the proposed ballot initiative to increase uh Council pay I think increasing council salary is a good idea as it could potentially enable more workingclass people to run for and win public office which could y build public policies more reflective of the electorate across an array of policy areas including housing Education Health

[100:00] Care and climate however if council is going to increase its pay I think it should do the same for the city's minimum wage workers how can a working-class person hope to run for a public office and serve on Council um if they cannot afford to live in and work in Boulder do we want more inclusive Equitable policy outcomes or not Council members work hard and should be able to serve without making poverty wages or rely on a spouse or partner's salary if we want a future city council that is truly reflective of the Boulder Community we must first make it possible for workingclass people to live and work here before they run for all also not for nothing the death toll in Gaza today surpassed 40K which is surely an undercount of those dead at least 16,45 are children and 11,000 are women thank you thank you our last in-person speaker is Lyn seagull and then we have one remote

[101:04] speaker this is premature premature first we should know if we have an obligation to the FAA for perpetuity know I lost $34,000 because the mail was sent to the wrong address for my retirement fund I can't sue the post office they returned the mail finally 22 years after I moved 4 years is what I lost as a result of not knowing that I had the retirement account you know the FAA city of Boulders going to sue the FAA Teresa hello I don't think so you know there's some things in our government you just can't do we've spent

[102:02] all this money all this investigation all this time all these resources in a inflationary Bend and you heard the people tonight no one can afford to live here we aren't balancing jobs housing you know what are you spending money on for housing is never going to be cheap in Boulder no matter if you put housing everywhere up to the top of the flat IRS people are still going to come here it really doesn't matter so I don't support the change at the airport granted my dad worked for the FAA and DC and I won't fly because I was thrown off the airplane for for not wanting to watch the TV because I don't watch TV and you know how stewardesses are they're overworked and overstressed and you know I don't blame

[103:00] them but I support the airport being there and even if the airport isn't there and that's the thing with John tayer the fact that he supports housing there if it passes that is revolting that's his revolting is Gaza you know I was surprised that he didn't you know that he supports the airport staying there but then that completely you know you can't have your cake and eat it too John's very confused and he's running the Chamber of Commerce of our city this is a problem um and like I said this is premature why have we spent all this money mark why have we spent all this money on what a Fool's run for this whole thing when the FAA is not going to

[104:02] you know allow this thing anyway and meantime have we lost any money in the grants not accepting the grants because that's our money uh Lynn your time is up thank you for your comments okay we have one virtual speakers cfta Fafa are they present online I do not sorry I couldn't quite understand that not okay thank you right so they're not present so that brings us to the close of the public hearing thanks folks for coming out and speaking to us so we come back to council uh for a discussion TAA did you remember your question yes well kind of answered but I guess I would like to sure go ahead um so I was curious if or what percentage of the

[105:01] signers were consulted in any of the updates to um the negotiated changes so typically we would work with the petition committee um rather than rather than each individual um signature and so here I believe that um Laura served as the representative of the petition committee right so that that was my question to to her and and the other Representatives is how and in what ways were the signers involved in the adjustments to that were made um to the petition so um you do have the right to ask to Laura to come up and answer the question she would you like to ask her come you mind or and if there were the other represent I mean I think you're representing both of them so my specific question is um in what ways were the signers engaged

[106:03] in the updates to the um to the language and um if they were engaged what percentage would you say were engaged so good evening council member Adams thank you for your question so when we went out and petitioned we were gathering signatures from people who were strangers to us but we talked with them they read our petitions and they signed it we did not gather their contact information so that's not part of the process but as part of thec we do have a core team that has multiple members so there're about 10 people I would say that were involved in in reviewing this language okay thank you thank you all right so I've got two key issues identified of course one of them is which set of ballot measures we should move forward regarding the air report and then the other one is um Tina had sent in some suggested um language changes to the boards and commission's

[107:00] ordinance does anybody else have any topics that they want us to consider as part of our discussion Mark just an administrative thing uh in a hotline I propos some additional language changes and I'm going to withdraw that just to keep this simple okay so that we choose between the the work product uh provided by staff and the committee uh and the original language so we do not have to go through the histrionics of discussing uh my language changes okay sounds good thank you all right so so those are seeing No Hands those are the two major issues I've got for our discussion so why don't we dive right into the question of the airport ballot measures so we have in front of us a decision of whether to to pass along ordinances 8638 and 864 3 which were have the original language that was signed um by the petitioners or the alternates of 8647 and 8648 with the

[108:02] uh negotiated updated language uh does somebody want to kick us off with the the which direction we should go here y I got Mark um I can live with either but I'm going to support the amended language uh for the following reasons first um this is what we tasked staff to do they are only they've only had these conversations and they have only come up with these alternates at our request um and uh I'm loathed to Simply toss that aside um and I on a substantive level I think the alternate language is Superior in a couple of ways and having established that um neither uh the citizen initiated language or the alternate language as provided by staff in consultation with the committee uh

[109:01] represents a formal decision by this Council on decommissioning I would rather go with better language than worse especially since it is language that we have asked them to provide so thanks Matt yeah I'm going to Advocate that we just let the original petition um um go to the ballot and and for these reasons um you know um Laura brought up I think very well that you know this committee stands by the strength of the 3,400 uh people that signed the petition and I think it's vital that we respect that and let them see the ordinance on the ballot as they signed I think that's one of the critical things in direct democracy that we allow um you know it's really interesting that if we take this ballot measure and put it on we are endorsing it because most of the petitions the council has referred to the ballot pass and they pass because

[110:01] they think of us as a deliberative body that when we put something on we mean it and it's thoughtful by that majority so it may not be a tacit endorsement but it effectively and deao is and I think that's problematic because of the fact as we discussed in the questions this lacks our land use process that we've come to appreciate and we have worked so so hard over the years to build our community connectors program our racial Equity instrument that informs our land use and we would be abdicating intentionally that land use decision to the voters without that deliberate process that we rely on so heavily for Community to inform us what to do with our spaces and I think there's you know more problems with referring it to the ballot that this Council would be okay with this ballot measure passing if we refer it for the simp simple reason of environmental justice we would be saying it's okay to put 50% affordable housing on a

[111:00] contaminated site all of the work that we've done in environmental justice says very clearly environmental justice essentially means that everyone regardless of race color national origin or income has the right to the same Environmental Protections and benefits as well as meaningful involvement in the policies that shape their communities but rarely has this SP the reality for people of color and those with low incomes that's critical because it is Meaningful involvement of these policies that shape their communities and yet we would set up a process that would bypass our community connectors and use of our racial Equity instrument and deliberately put our lowest income people paraply families and people of color on a knowingly contaminated site if the voters want to take that they're willing to do so and I'm okay with that but it is I am not okay with this Council saying that we're okay putting it on the ballot we have a deliberate

[112:00] process that we should follow so I'm not saying close or no close I'm just saying we have a process and we should follow that and follow it well um so I think that's really something to to be very clear on um and so I really hope this dis takes its core responsibility not to its ideology or foregone conclusion but to the oath to protect this city and therefore those that are most vulnerable able and I think we can do so in a deliberate manner with the processes we've set in place adopting the alternative language bypasses that core work and I think we let the language stand as was passed by the petitioners may I cqu for a second sure quick cqu yeah just a question are are you suggesting that housing would actually be built on this site without any adequate remediation of whatever environmental conditions exist which we do not know that they do uh and we do not know that the cost of correcting them but are you suggesting that we would actually build housing there without addressing that issue I'm not the one suggesting it the petitioners

[113:01] are so my point is um very clearly you can there's a reason why Santa Monica Airport deliberately passed their rule not to build housing the residents of Santa Monica said we want this to be a park one of the main reasons for that is They too had a discussion about environmental justice and so having a park was better with regards to remediation because remediation does not remove all the contaminants it just makes it okay to meet a standard and is that the standard that we want to put 50% affordable housing in some of our lowest income residents in a place that just sort of quote unquote meets a standard I think we can do better as a community and our process and the way we do it is better not referring to a ballot measure that hasn't gone through that process that's why I don't think it's appropriate for us to refer it because we're endorsing the Sid stepping of those process cesses that we've put in place to protect the very people that we're claiming we want to house here in Boulder and I think it's critical we fall back on our process but but Matt

[114:01] you you've been a a very strong advocate for continued operation of the airport if it is such a deadly contaminator of our community why is that so I would rather not get into a back and forth argument if you all will indulge me here but um so other thoughts and I'll just say that not everybody has to speak we'll do a straw poll here once comments are complete so if you want to just weigh in on the straw pole you're welcome to but I got TAA and then Nicole and then Tara the list today all right so um thank you for the opportunity to speak on this critical issue um I my preference is to stick with the original language primarily um for the following reasons one um the signers signed for a particular um set of things and as our petition indicated there was not any followup by again because of the way that we have our things they didn't have contact information my larger point is

[115:01] it reminds me of the Arts tax and what petitioner signed versus what actually made onto the ballot and now the conversations that we are getting from folks who signed that ballot thinking it was going to be one thing and that it is actually another thing so my preference is to keep it as the way say the signer although I appreciate the efforts of the 10 people that came together it's not representative uh statistically of the thousands of peoples who signed on to 50% language and it is that 50% language that is what I find most concerning if there were not substantive changes um and I do believe that 50% taking out that 50% affordability language is a substantive change that we are making that we would then be approving that doesn't uh pass the St the sniff test for me um so for those Reasons I'm hopeful that or rather I will be voting to keep the original language um and I appreciate the efforts although again and I'm not sure if we voted on um

[116:02] requesting that the staff take a look at these measures and all of them because I've never been a supporter of decommissioning the airport so when that topic came up I was hopeful around just you know I didn't know that I had the authority to say no on that so again I'm new I apologize that would I did not want your efforts to go to waste um but I've been pretty clear on the campaign Trail um on where I stand on this and so um yeah for those reasons thank you so much thanks I got um Nicole n um first I just wanted to say thank you uh to the airport neighborhood campaign and to staff for your work to create um these alternate measures for us to consider um I just keep it short I agree with Mark um I think either one is fine it's giving the voters a chance to um to vote on this issue that has been a topic of community discussion for quite some time um we said a couple weeks ago that we wanted to wait for voters to weigh in before deciding how to proceed

[117:01] with the airport's financial future um so I'm actually comfortable with moving the modified measures forward um on our on our own accord because we did say that we wanted to hear um from the voters first if they pass and I think there is a good chance that they'll um pass with a presidential year electorate the modified measures seem as though they will have a smoother implementation of the voters desires um and then just kind of to the point of Engagement um and the city's role in engagement I think in an evene election when we have the most evene presidential election when we have the highest voter turnout that we ever have um we are likely to get many more people engaged on this issue than we would ever get um doing our own form of Engagement here um and any future implementation I think would would then go through our typical process so anyway we said we wanted the voters to win I would be comfortable moving forward I think I'm likely to be in the minority but um I I would support

[118:00] moving forward with the alternate measures and really appreciate everybody's time and energy whichever way we go thanks Tara first I want to thank first I want to thank you Laura that was a great speech and what I liked about it was that you said that you are glad and ha you were happy with the original language so that takes the stress off of us and you know um and I also want to thank your group of which the acronyms I forget the a MNC um for all the hard work that they put in so how I feel is um I think that citizen initiative ballot measures are very powerful and for that reason I want to keep the original language and keep it as a citizen initiated ballot measure thank you for releasing me to to do that in your speech I appreciate it I want to leave it to the voters um to have it the way was

[119:00] presented to the voters at the uh signature at the time that you got the signatures and um so I'm excited for you and I hope it goes well that's all I'm going to say thanks Ryan I'd like to thank staff for working on this doing so much so quickly I'm really impressed and appreciative of that I also want to thank Laura and and uh her team for um developing a set of uh Alternatives in which I think you said you were equally happy and that's a um a good place to be I've heard a lot of things I agree with from my colleagues this is not an obvious decision for me I think I'm ultimately swayed by uh tesa's uh points um about deferring as much as we can to the those who signed the ballot initiative again this is this is a not an obvious one um but yeah I'll be voting to keep the um original language thanks um I'll go ahead and call on myself just want to Echo the

[120:00] thanks uh to City staff for working hard on these negotiations and also to the Laura and thec team for engaging with in those in good faith I'm going to join my colleagues in uh expressing a desire to go with the original language rather than the revised language um not everybody got everything that they wanted um I think it fundamentally gets to the same place I think the voters fun mentally have the same decision either way um so I'll just go with the original language that the petitioners all signed so appreciate the work that people did but um I'll go with the original language and the voters will have I think a a clear choice about what the what they want to decide in the fall right I'm not seeing any hands raised so I might just call for a quick straw poll um who would like to stick with the original language as the seen by the petitioners raise your hand okay I got one two three four five six okay and I guess we don't um who

[121:01] would rather use the alternate language just to be clear all right we got three okay well thanks for the discussion folks we'll go with the um original petition language and so if we can turn now to Tina's proposal Tina do you want to reintroduce that to yeah um I as I put in my hotline I just wanted to make a further change to the boards and commission language to remove the sentence that um requires or sets a a a gender quota I suppose as well as some subjective language describing the individuals that might participate into the board there and there it is in B sorry I didn't see the slide so and just the rationale is um I appreciate a diversity of genders on any board but it's not the only diversity trait I would lift up so I think that to give um to weigh importance for just that one characteristic or demographic um doesn't make sense to me um and then the other

[122:02] piece is we've run into some trouble historically with subjective language um and I think the when we did our conversations about the boards and commission's appointments I thought we all considered a lot of different factors that aren't fully represented in this language and we did a good job on our with our own work so just so people don't get caught up in it I would prefer to remove it so um from five City residents and then taking out everything until it says who are at least 18 year olds Etc thanks thanks for that uh any clarifying questions or comments on Tina's proposal I can just straw pull it sure it's so go to be and then the second line do you see five City residents and then from there until the

[123:04] two lines down that says and who are at least 18 years I'm going to read the language if you don't mind so the language to be removed would be the language that says not all of One gender identity who are well known for their ability probity public spirit and particular Fitness to serve on such respective commissions question yep why did could you describe uh explain why you want to take out not all of one we were trying to in the past make it so that it isn't like uh like all men or something like that so tell me why you disagree with it I first I don't think it needs to be in the language I think we can do that informally but I also think that if looking at characteristics that we think would lead to better or more representative decision- making I'm not convinced that gender is the only

[124:00] characteristic to focus on um and that as a council we can look at a variety of characteristics um not putting gender Above All Else by calling it out in our language Lauren thank you I really appreciate you bringing this forward Tina and I support most of the change I however would like to see us keep the um not all of One gender identity portion because I I think without it I mean just there are a number of times where we have not been able to make that quota or you know like we have a number of boards commissions that only are maintaining one person of a different gender identity because we have this

[125:01] Rule and I do think that while it is certainly not the only type of diversity we should be looking for in a board or commission member it is still important an important thing for us to be looking at in the makeup of our boards and commissions thanks thanks Lauren did you want to respond yeah Lauren did so do you feel in those situations that you would not have been able to um come to the same representation without this language that this is the language you relied on to make that decision so in many cases we have low numbers of applicants for a border commission and we decide to hold open that position for another for a long longer period to get more applicants because we don't have an applicant fitting um this requirement and I think that without

[126:01] this rule we would be less inclined um to continue holding open those positions and continuing the search I think Mark did you want to chime in here yeah just a clarification so that uh the language here in B is your default language if you do not have an ordinance in place so the intent here is that if voters do pass this initiative this change you would be able to we would be able to bring forward an ordinance that sets forward criteria as you wish and so there there there's another opportunity so appreciate the discussion and and still important because it's your default if an ordinance doesn't come forward but our intent if passed uh in November would be to come with an ordinance in short order after that so in other words that we wouldn't have to go back to the voters to remove or replace that that clause about gender identity correct you can policy and code it's helpful to understand Mark yeah a question not

[127:01] related to deleting the gender identity language are are you also looking to delete all of the language uh that relates to Ability prober public spirit and particular Fitness are there any particular standards you would want to have in its place or simply leave it to the full discretion of Council on whatever basis they want to proceed I think in this case it would be up to council and I think that the new language does give give us flexibility by commission um and I think that this is so subjective it doesn't and it certainly didn't come up during our discussions during the board and commission appointment so I just um I I just think it's unnecessary language okay um I think I'd probably take a different view on that one okay I'm not seeing other hands raised so I'm going to try two separate

[128:00] straw polles if if that's right because I think we got two separate issues here to some extent so the the first straw poll I'm going to be do is about removing the statement who are well known for their ability probity public spirit and particular Fitness to serve on such respective commissions and and I'll just call on myself here and say that I support removing this because we don't look for people who are well known necessarily for these things so I don't think it's generally been practice so all in favor of removing that Clause raise your hand I got six seven eight okay so we'll remove that Clause so now a separate straw poll of who would like to remove the language not all of One gender identity can raise your hand we got one on that one okay well Tina thanks for the bring the proposal forward um so it looks like we'll be removing that second Clause

[129:01] from that language all right so we've now worked through our key issues um I would look to staff my understanding is that we want to continue the public hearing but we also need to give guidance about which ordinances we're moving forward to that continued hearing could you just give us a guidance on exactly what kind of a motion you would need yes we would need a motion to continue the uh original citizen initiated petitions to a continued September continued second reading on September 5th the charter items uh for executive sessions and Council compensation would ALS also be continued second reading the board and commission ordinance would be scheduled for third reading so that we can make that change and bring it back then do you want us to make a maybe a separate motion to pass on second reading the board and commission one to include that change yes that would work thank

[130:00] you I can just run this unless people would like to make the Motions okay um well let me make sure I got that okay so I'll go ahead and move that we pass on second reading ordinance 8639 um and I'm not going to read all the rest of the language but with the modification of removing the language as discussed is that good enough yes second all right do we want a roll call for that Elicia yes sir all right please we got a motion in second roll call we'll start the roll call for ordinance 8639 with council member Benjamin yes mayor Brockett yes council member bers yes Marquis yes SHO guard yes mayor Pro Tim spear yes council member wallik yes Wier yes and Adams yes ordinance 83

[131:05] 8639 is hereby approved continued as amended great I think it was just approved rather than continued yes and it will be for third reading on the fifth thank you and then I'll go ahead and make an additional motion to continue the second reading hearing to September 5th of ordinances 8640 which is about Council compensation 8641 about executive sessions 8638 which is the decommissioning the airport ballot measure and 8643 which is the repurpose R runways ballot measure second got a motion in a second another roll call please Elicia and just for clarifications with the city attorney's office do I need to call the roll call for each individual item or because the mayor group the motion I believe ordinances are

[132:00] typically done by roll call exactly okay my apologies I was trying to shortcut us a little bit then right well let's start with 8640 then all right thank you mayor Brockett and it was seconded by I'm sorry council member Marquis oh no spe spe perfect thank you we'll start the rad call on 8 6 ordinance 8640 with mayor Brockett yes council member farts yes Marquis yes shoard yes mayor Pro Tim spear yes council member wallik I'm going to decline thank you thank you Adams yes yes and Benjamin I miss you I'm sorry

[133:00] counc I'm going to say yes but I want to make a statement at some point that is extremely short you let me know when I should let's finish the vote and then you can go council member Wier yes and Adams yes and Benjamin I think don't forget me yes didn't forget did I forget you council member Benjamin I got colors going on all thank you it's still a yes okay thank you thanks for your understanding I'll get better at this okay so 86 ordinance 8640 is hereby continued and approved with a vote of eight to one with council member wallik declining which is a name great and Tara did you want to say something on this for the record even though I said yes I am not saying that I'm for or against it but I'm just moving it along and we can all talk about that during election

[134:01] time duly noted right I'll go ahead and then move that we continue the second reading to September 5th for ordinance 8641 thank you mayor Brockett we'll start the work do I have a second oh we're doing indiv yeah second great we have a motion I know I wasn't allowed to do the package motion a second roll call please okay thank you or the roll call for ordinance 8641 will start with council member fuler no Marquis yes shuart yes mayor Pro Tim spear yes council member wallik uh point of order um we haven't discussed any of this this evening is this just moving it

[135:00] along it's just moving it along correct then yes but if you if you wanted to make any changes now would be a great time to do it well I only have a couple of questions so may may I well let's well they they could become changes we kind of in the motion in a second in the middle voting I'm okay so do do as a point of I'm going to I'm going to withdraw my motion if for the moment and give Mark a chance to ask his questions and there's just a couple um uh this is on Executive session uh the last entry for what we may do on Executive session uh lacks a little context finalists for what I'm sure there's some definition of what finalists we can go into executive session for but I don't know what they

[136:02] are thank you for your question it would be finalist for positions hired by the council so for us that would be the city manager City attorney and Municipal Court Judge okay but it doesn't quite say that and so I don't you know I I prefer some Precision in my uh Charter amendments thank you if I could explain this language is taken directly from state law so that we can use State cases and uh that sort of interpretive standards so if it came up we would look to state law to see how that's been defined I I I I do understand but it it it's a like a fragment it says um we can use executive session when reviewing finalists and that doesn't clarify for me who we are using executive session on and I I I agree with what you're

[137:01] saying that it should be for the uh positions that we actually can hire and fire but I I just finding the language to be imprecise we we could we could add a definition certainly okay so Nicole I think had a cqu on that yes and I think it um was something I heard possibly from Matt um but just if we could just say as per state law if that finalist as per state law or something like that that'll work for me sufficiently clear but yeah I think it was you Matt who said that but anyway yeah but if if we wouldn't that require us to put it off for a meeting isn't that an amendment you we we'd pass it on second reading tonight and it would go to a third reading on September 5th okay then I might as well well request the the precise definition of who we can go into executive session for if could I make a suggestion in instead of putting it in

[138:00] the charter I would suggest putting it in ordinance because we will need to develop procedures to implement executive sessions some of which might be by ordinance because once we put it in the charter we can only change it by another vote then then I can I can live with the the definition as permitted by state law but the language as is just it doesn't really say anything are you saying it in follow-up ordinance to clarify that the defition use the proposed language that we're going to do this in accordance with state law I'm fine um and that would be part of our ordinance and then as that would be part of our Charter and then if we want to do a follow-up ordinance at any point to more specifically Define who we can conduct EX itive session on we're free to do that yeah go ahead Matt just to clarify maybe this is what your suggesting Mark isn't change to this ordinance in its

[139:02] current form which would be a charter change therefore not changing our schedule to require a pass on emergency is that correct that's my understanding okay I just want to clarify that we're not changing the schedule but it would be an ad adaptation in an ordinance at a later date to take care of this concern correct yeah I I I want to be clear this I didn't think this was going to be particularly controversial the language simply says in addition to interviewing finalists in a public forum the council May interview finalists in executive session I want to know what finalists we're talking about and and if it's finalist as defined in in state law I'm fine with that so I'm going to call on myself and then reach out to Teresa here I think the the value in using the exact language we've got here is that it exactly matches state law and allows us to to rely on all the case law for State for the state law for matters of clarification and well I get that that's

[140:01] just clarification language to say as in state law it then is no longer the same as state law but so I wanted to check Teresa do you feel like that puts us maybe in a slightly weaker state if we add that clause or not no I think if we were to Simply add as per state law that would be perfectly fine I do believe it would require an am an amendment tonight it would so that we could go to third reading on the fth okay then I'm fine with it if Teresa says that I'm fine with it TAA you want to chime in you know I'm serious when I move over my stuff um it is conf oh writing my own quote it is confusing to the voter um and that is my concern so as a voter I I would like to remind us that it took two Statewide elections for us to actually remove enslavement from our constitution because of the way that it was written and I would hate to jeopardize this

[141:00] effort because one before I joined city council I did not know who the city council had three members of the thing that we you know were direct etc etc so uh again my preference is actually to do both to do both the it's the law and to add the definition and to the point of we'd have to change the rules well we would have to change the rules anyway because we only have authority over those three people right now so again I I don't get shook by we have to go change the rules especially if we would have to change the rules anyway um to accommodate the authorities that we currently have so my request is that we be as specific as possible to our voters they know exactly what they are voting on and so as I said that you know again if we have a majority to just change it to the state thing I'll go with but I would like us to really consider let's be specific about what we want we're asking for executive sessions around finalists we have major um uh

[142:00] decisions that are going to be coming up um that are outside of those three folks and so again I just don't want anything that would um create confusion for our voters in how we language this so that is um my thoughts and recommendations thank you so TAA to to clarify so in addition to as defined by state law you had another change that you want to make I didn't quite catch what that would be I'm still not clear on why we won't don't want to be as specific as possible by adding something in our definitions that says finalists are specific to the three employees that Council has permission on because the way that reads right now is that every finalist for for example our Department of Transportation our department of right like we and that is going to be the expectation when people sign this and that might be a reason why people don't sign this because they think that they're giving us that Authority and

[143:00] they're not giving us that Authority so that's my concern yeah no I hear your concern question well the question was the specific change so the specific change is to add a definition of what the meaning finalist is yes I'll look to our attorneys here about well said we would have to yeah if we wanted to do it within the charter provision so that it's all out out there what I think we could change the language to under Section 8 here would be in addition to interviewing finalists new language for the positions of City attorney city manager and presiding Municipal Court Judge thank you that sounds great to me thank you okay I'm good cank you good okay Nicole I'll St so I think there's one more though right the auditor that's correct Okay add that too and I guess my question is um and because I think the first time that we came around to this question there was a concern that you all had and it was

[144:00] something about then if anything were to ever change then it would have to go back to a vote um in order to change that but I guess my question is could anything ever change that would not have to go back to a vote anyway right so if we were to all of a sudden there's I don't know a new Council employee um wouldn't that have to go to the voters as well and so could that be addressed at that point to kind of adjust them both I can't even imagine what that would be at this point just for future I think that's correct because who reports to the city council as direct employees is in the charter so there would need to be a charter change first to give you authority over that employee so when we went and made that change we could come back to this one and add that position in okay and thank you then I'm comfortable with moving forward with more specific language there okay can I straw straw and Eric Erin do you mind repeating that language

[145:01] say fresh in people's mind okay so uh subsection 8 would read in addition to interviewing finalists for the positions of city manager City attorney presiding municipal court judge and City Auditor in a public forum uh all in favor straw poll of people who'd like to see us make that change can I clarify I think I got unanimous what's that meant just clarify this will this Force us are we adopting going to adopt this tonight so that we don't have to do this on emergency on the fifth yeah we'll we'll now pass it amended make sure yeah sensitive to doing emergencies emergencies okay so Mark you had another question I'm no just sorry for the inconvenience all right great so I if people don't mind I'll pick this back up again and move that we pass on second

[146:01] reading ordinance 8641 as with the amendment as specified by Aaron po second all right got a motion a second let's get back to voting on this this ordinance here thank you sir I get my notes up here all right four we'll start the vote with 86 for 8641 with council member fers no marz yes shoard yes mayor Pro Tim spear yes council member wall yes Wier yes Adams yes Benjamin yes and mayor Brockett yes ordinance 8641 is hereby passed as amended with a vote of 8 to

[147:01] one great we'll finish out our last two I move that we continue the second reading to September 5th for ordinance 8638 regarding decommissioning the airport do we have a second second okay motion second roll call please Elicia yes sir thank you we'll start the roll call for 8638 with council member marus yes shoe hard yes mayor Pro Tim spear yes council member wallik yes Winer yes Adams no all right what are we voting on my problem is I'm looking at this thing and it's saying something different than what we're doing so I'm just I'm on The Struggle Bus my 8638 ordinance 8638 this

[148:00] is the citizen initiated ballot measure the original language to tera's earlier point of I may not agree but I agree with a voter's right to vote on it right so then yes thank you for that clarification all right thank you maam council member Benjamin yes mayor bronet yes and council member fuls yes ordinance 8638 is hereby approved continued as Contin and continued thank you or continued rather than approved just to be clear approved to be continued there you go love it love it that's what I meant to say okay and then finally I'll move that we continue the second reading uh to September 5th of ordinance 8643 regarding repurpose our runways second motion a second roll call please El yes sir we'll start the road call for ordinance 86 43's continuance and approval with council member

[149:00] shuart yes mayor protim spear yes council member wallik yes Winer yes Adams yes Benjamin yes mayor bronet yes council member fuls yes and marz yes ordinance 8643 is hereby approved to be continued all right everybody thanks for working through the legislative sausage there and thanks again to City staff for all their work on this and to thec committee um for their collaboration all right can we move to our second and final public hearing please yes sir thank you our second public hearing on tonight's agenda is item 5B it is the consideration of the following items related to the North voer subc Community Plan item number one

[150:00] is the consideration of a motion to approve limited amendments to the North Boulder subc community plan to include a vision for a mixed use creative campus in the Village Center area and update the land use description for the Ponderosa manufactured housing community as outlined in attachment Aid to staff memorandum and item number two is the consideration of the following conditions approved by the planning board on August the 6 2024 first that item is that the community facilities map on page 18 and any Associated text be updated with any facilities that have been completed to date and second that the creative campus boundary in the Village Center diagram on page 15 include the mixed use area of the east side of Broadway thanks Elicia great job giving the team time to to settle in and sit down Mark you want to get us started thanks mayor it's like almost enough time it's like uh getting into a bob

[151:02] sled over here appreciate the time uh all right one more item tonight um thanks Alicia for outlining the item uh these are uh some original Project Specific amendments uh to the North Boulder subc Community Plan uh we also took the opportunity to do some uh cleanup related to some recent uh projects of Ponderosa as well so um I am delaying and about to hand off to Christopher Johnson and Sarah horn from Planning and Development which will walk us through a short presentation uh and then we are open for questions do you all need the clerk's office to pull up the slides got it we do okay okay we'll pull them up over here

[152:00] give us a minute we got it okay thank you for your patience um I'm Sarah horn senior city planner on the comp planning team and tonight I'm going to walk you through proposed amendments to the North Boulder sub community plan and Christopher Johnson the comprehensive planning manager is here with me so our objective this evening is a public hearing and the consideration of a motion to approve limited amendments to the North Boulder sub community plan to include a vision for a mixed use creative campus in the Village Center area and update the land use description

[153:01] for the Ponderosa manufactured community housing community as outlined in attachment a to the staff memorandum you have and also two additional amendments approved by planning board last week on August 6th one that the community facilities map on page 18 and any Associated text be updated with any facilities that have been completed to date and that the creative campus boundary in the Village Center diagram on page 15 includes the mixed use area on the east side of Broadway and I'll get into more detail on those in a little bit so our agenda for this item includes the staff presentation and then a public hearing and Council action so first I'll talk about the background and process um for the proposed amendments so for a little context Boulder has 10 distinct subcommunities and these are areas as you may know within the service area of the city that

[154:00] are defined by physical boundaries such as roads waterways or topography and our discussion tonight is centered on North Boulder um seen in light green on the top left corner of the graphic from the comprehensive plan it sits on the northwest side of the city and includes various neighborhoods um and facili ities uh you can go to the next slide right oh no no that's okay um sorry I just want to describe some of the um facilities that are in North Boulder just to give you an idea like the North Boulder Library the boulder shelter Primos Park Boulder Meadows the holiday neighborhood the Ponderosa community and there are a variety of local businesses in the area Okay and then here this is just a timeline of some significant events related to the North Boulder subc Community um that apply to this item so in 1995 the North Boulder subc Community Plan becomes the first of the city subcommunity plans in 2017 the North

[155:02] Boulder Art District was formalized by Council and in 2022 a concept plan for 4401 Broadway was submitted that was generally supported by planning board and Council but had some inconsistencies with the subcommunity plan staff subsequently received direction to amend the North Boulder subc Community Plan which is where we are today and it's highlighted by the yellow bar on the timeline a future step on the timeline will be updating the bbcp land use map um and that will be done as part of a comp plan major update or as part of a future development review process it's not part of the discussion this evening and then um a subc commmunity plan um I communic Ates the expectations about the future of a subc commmunity and guides decision-making about subcommunity resilience and evolution into the future the North Boulder subc commmunity

[156:00] plan envisions a beautiful diverse inclusive and adaptive North Boulder in the past 30 years since the plan was written the subc community has been evolving from a largely rural area to an area with nodes of more urban mixed use neighborhoods and this Evolution has been Guided by the subc commmunity plan North Boulder has also become a focal point for arts and creative Industries in the city and this activity was enhanced by the official art district designation it received in 2017 the district is highlighted in dark gray on this map on the screen and encompasses the areas along Broadway north of violet and ab buding properties to the West and East of Broadway and within this area as I mentioned on the timeline in 2022 an early concept plan package for 4401 Broadway was submitted it's pictured on the screen with North at the bottom of the screen the plan includes 4481 Broadway which is the area along fourmile Canyon Creek to the north which

[157:00] is at the bottom of the screen as I said and it also includes Parcels that take up the northwest corner of violet and Broadway when the concept package was submitted it included a new location for the boulder Museum of Contemporary Art live work units other residential units and Commercial spaces the project team engaged the community in a variety of ways during that process and as I mentioned earlier Garner General support from the community and from planning board and Council and that brings us to the character and vision described for this area in the subc commmunity plan there are several recommendations for this corner based on its strategic location within what the plan envisioned as a Village Center the diagram you see North facing up this time illustrates the illustrates The Village Center area concept and that it become a place where people can live in close proximity to work the plan also calls for the Western portion of the red outlined area which is a little hard to see but the left side of

[158:00] the outlined portion with a diagonal hatching to contain res residential uses at mixed use densities in terms of land use the plan assigns broad future land use categories across the entire subc Community here you see the corner that we're talking about of Broadway and violet North is the top again of the image the blue shaded area was designated in the plan to be medium density residential and the red was designated as low density residential and this is where there's a bit of inconsistency in the plan especially along Broadway like I discussed in the previous slide this area is part of the Village Center and the character andv vision for the Village Center calls for a mix of uses to complement the Main Street business area to the north excuse me even so the future land use categories in the plan are residential only in nature later in the presentation I will explain how our proposed amendments intend to address this the last element of the current

[159:01] plan that I'll touch on is the existing land use in the Ponderosa Community which you see outlined in red on this diagram located just Northwest of Broadway and violet the site was designated as manufactured housing in the plan in 2019 a site plan with a land use change request was approved D for this community that approval initiated a bbcp or the comp plan land use change for the property from manufactured housing to medium density residential staff were proposing to correctly align the subc commmunity plan with the current bbcp land use designation based on city attorney's recommendation so this is merely a cleanup item so based on that context I'll now move on to the proposed amendments the proposed amendment updates to the subc commmunity plan include adding a description of the character and future land use for a proposed creative campus area at the corner of Broadway and violet and updating the Ponderosa Community Land

[160:00] Use map to align with the bbcp land use designation as I've mentioned the page is listed here are the pages from the existing plan that will potentially be updated after I go over the community process for this amendment proposal I'll cover each of them individually so for Community engagement our goals for this process were to first to ensure our community was aware that this process is underway second to ensure that the most impacted stakeholders knew how to get involved in the process and participate in the public hearings and third to gather and share any feedback we heard from them with you we worked on focused Outreach to connect with local tenants and business owners and the residents of the nearby Ponderosa and Boulder Meadows manufactured housing communities we co-designed the community meeting with two Community connectors from the pond Roa community and shared information with connectors from Boulder Meadows we mailed informational postcards with engagement information to 760 residents and renters within 600 ft of the property and we

[161:01] translated the postcards into both Spanish and Nepali and we had a Spanish interpreter at the meeting and Vivien Castor walridge an engagement specialist and I went door too to the business owners and employees um at the sites at on the site of the corner of Broadway and violet to share information about the process and invite them to the community meeting and many of them spoke Spanish and um Vivien spoke with them in Spanish to inform them of the meeting and we held the meeting on June 1st of this year where we described our role the city's role in the sub community plan amendment process and gave attendees the opportunity to share any concerns or questions they had 15 community members attended and all of their questions were related to the property owner specific plans for the site and not the proposed Amendment the property owner also attended the meeting with representatives from boka as well and he was able to answer their questions directly and he also mentioned to the group that he was committed to

[162:00] continuing to communicate with the community throughout the planning process now to the details of the proposed amendment updates to page 13 in the neighborhood section of the plan include the addition of the map on the right side of the screen which shows the noo Art District boundaries within the sub Community again in dark gray accompanied by a description of the district updates here also include a description of a creative campus indicated by the red circle on the map the vision for this creative campus area will include a range of uses at a higher density intensity excuse me than the existing Plan called for in 1995 next on page 15 and 17 we have proposed to include the addition of a creative campus location to the Village Center diagram seen on the right side of the screen highlighted in red on the west side of Broadway also noted by the red dashbox on the east side is the area that would be included as a future creative campus in response to the

[163:01] additional Amendment approved by planning board along with the change to this diagram we've proposed language which describes how a creative campus could serve as an anchor to the noo Arts District and could include a mix of uses such as housing retail light industrial manufacturing art studios and a mum Museum and then moving on to page 18 the map of community facilities we're proposing to add an indicator of the proposed creative campus location to this map with a red triangle as you can see on the diagram and the intention of this is just to add a geographic Geographic recommendation for the location to the plan and as noted earlier planning board approved an additional amendment to update this diagram and any Associated text with any project that have been completed in the sub Community to date and then lastly staff proposes to update page 34 of the plan which includes a future growth land use map

[164:01] changes to this map include updating the future land use for the proposed creative campus area from low and medium density residential to mixed use this is the area outlined in r on the map with the proposed IMU designation mixed use would allow the flexibility to support the types of uses and intensity desired for a creative campus and then updates to this map would also include the land use change from manufactured housing to medium density residential for the Ponderosa community that I described earlier you can see it outlined in red with the Mr designation and that again is just simply a cleanup item and then so the changes that I just discussed with you are consistent with the bbcp policies on the screen perr will just point out 2.14 and 2 .33 the amendment introduces infill development with a variety of complimentary uses to Main Street business to the Main Street business area and acts as a transition to nearby residential the creative campus is also

[165:02] meant to serve as a community entryway to the noo Arts District with a distinct sense of arrival the amendment reinforces that the area should not include singularly residential uses but instead be a com Compact and mixed use hub for arts and culture with opportunities to live in Clos proximity to work which is more appropriate for a Gateway location along Broadway so we brought the proposed amendments to planning board as I mentioned on August 6th after questions and comments from the board and the public planning board voted 5 to zero to approve the limited amendments to the subcommunity plan that are described in attachment a of your memo in addition planning board approved the following two additional amendments to update the community facilities map and text with the facilities completed to date as I mentioned and to expand the creative campus boundary on the diagram to include the mixed use area on the east side of Broadway so tonight staff recommends

[166:00] that you Council approve the Amendments proposed by staff in attachment a and the two additional amendments approved by planning board on August 6th so I'll now turn it over to you mayor for the public hearing and comments and questions from Council all right thanks so much for walking us through all that appreciate it any clarifying questions from council members Mark um can you tell me what impact you expect these changes to have on the light industrial uses and other commercial uses on Broadway yeah thanks for the question uh council member we anticipate that this change within the subc community plan um is likely to have a a very limited effect on those existing uses in particular along Broadway um you know right now that uh designation is medium density residential within the subc community plan and so changing that to

[167:01] mixed use would actually conceivably encourage or allow a greater number of light industrial types of uses in that area than what is currently within the subc community plan okay um and I guess I'm kind of serous after all that effort you only we only got 15 people to go to a community meeting I mean that seems rather meager if I can say so yeah um I'm not I'm not disputing the effort that was put into it but the results are not exactly a resounding indorsement of of what we're doing in some fashion did you you have a question there mark yeah yeah I mean do you have any thoughts about that um we we we tried we reached out we you know did a lot of work I

[168:01] think maybe I I don't know I but your point is taken and yes it's hard when you do all of that planning and I mean it's great that 15 people showed up I guess that's how I'm trying to look at it okay thank you br Brad did you want to add to that I do Brad Mueller Planning and Development service director um you know having done uh planning processes for a lot of years now there are some that uh resonate more with residents than others uh I myself been involved in you know efforts that were very extensive to try to get input um uh over the years and and I would say you know one thing is this is a little obuse to the average reader when you're when you're sending it out and I also think that there was some level of recognition that these are um somewhat technical uh cleanup matters and or uh necessary

[169:00] technical consequences of the feedback that Council previously gave so that would be my opinion about that got it you're saying not everyone is fascinated by updates to subc community plans Tina I also heard though that the community connectors were involved in having active conversations that may not be reflected in the number of people that went to our meeting but in fact those meetings took place where they lived and uh that feedback might have happened in a number that we're not seeing as well TAA thank you um council member for that um generous component that there may be others that were consulted and aren't reflected in this report but if they're not in this report they're not in this report so if we're having conversations with Community connectors and I would want to know how many where were they located right I mean and this is

[170:00] actually why I don't know if if some of you all had a chance to read the council agenda committee request that I had around our community engagement framework and learning more about the framework and its implementation as a whole as opposed to project to project to project to project because we're seeing some significant inconsistencies in the level of Engagement um and so again I'm I too am grateful for the 15 that showed up I'm grateful that the community connectors are doing the work that they're doing to supplement but where I'm underwhelmed is the protocols of oh okay it's 15 all right then what do we do we know that's a low threshold okay well we got the community connectors I just need to know you know um that there's more uh that there's a deeper level of communic of community engagement and for something that's going to have such a significant impact on the look and feel of our community the construction cost it is a significant effort that is about to happen and so um that's why I would love to see more so I did make a note about that 15 number and some concerns around

[171:00] is that reflective of their interest I'm not saying yes or no but I it does raise a flag um I actually had a question just around the Arts commission again although I appreciate the planning board and all of the rules around the when and where they need to be engaged I also honor that they do not have all of the expertise that we need in the conversations that we're having and I'm specifically talking about mixed use and arts and all of these things and I'm just curious the level of expertise on the planning board on its own to talk about these things and I would have love so I'm curious to know if at any point the Arts commission had been involved and if so if there were any um you know feedback to these types of recommendations I'm specifically speaking to the issue related to mix use and residential um again from the artists um that I've you know had the privilege of meeting and talking with that need for housing has is is quite significant um and and as is the need

[172:01] for for space to work and and to to show the work and sell the work and and so again just curious one if the Arts commission was engaged and two for our fellow council members as we're thinking about the ways to deepen our boards and commissions work that this is yet another example where we went to our default when we we've got players who could have sub substantively um contributed on this topic thank you yeah I think thank you for the uh for the question council member uh we did not reach out to the Arts commission specifically on this particular Amendment for the subc commmunity plan um I am not aware if they were consulted as part of the concept plan review my my suspicion is that they probably were part of that conversation and certainly if a future um full development review process would come forward that would certainly be an aspect that that we would be interested in exploring in a lot more depth um but because this amendment to the subc commmunity plan was very limited in scope and really just ch changing the uh you know the the

[173:01] use category as described in the subc commmunity plan to be mixed use um and allow for these range of things including art studios and housing and mixed use um that we did not consult them directly okay can I can I call just add a little to that um so um so I'm the council representative for boka um and so I can tell you that at at many phases the Arts commission has been uh very much not just part of it but has been a eager and uh supporter of this creative campus and what it can be and that unique combination of residence and art and so I think to KJ's point maybe not at this particular place but in terms of when we get into the more details of the how the spaces are uniquely set up and that sort of thing I think the Arts commission will play yet again um certainly when we get to the cultural master plan um that will really sort of help uh link back up with what the creative campus is so they've had they've had some roles when it was defined and needed and then it's planning and that sort thing and then

[174:00] they'll get back into the mix as we get closer into those pieces I absolutely re appreciate that knowing and again this is about their lives their livelihood and where they're working and I want to hear directly from artists so um in in addition to all of the incredible expertise that we have on planning so again I always ask the question of who gets the who gets the privilege air quotes of making of being in the conversation when we're making the the the structural decisions right you're talking about window dressed and you know what color we want the walls right I'm we're at this moment though we're talking about how much residential would potentially be available to artists and I would like our artist communities to be involved on this specific decision so um you know I understand the process and all of the things but that's why I ran for office so I could be on the microphone and say hey would be I would love to have our the folks who have lived and learned experience who will be the most impacted by what policy decisions that we're making that they are actively participating when we're making the

[175:01] structural decisions that we're making so again great to hear that they are involved throughout the process disappointed to hear they were not involved in this particular aspect thank you all right I'm going to call it myself I do have a question the the planning board had that recommendation to extend the creative campus across Broadway and so that that section that would be extended to is currently it's like relatively recently built Apartments maybe 10 odd years old so what would be the the functional outcome of adding that section to the creative campus designation yeah thank you um it it's probably going to be fairly minimal I would say it's um you know it's really an opportunity to as as we know this sub community plan has has a 30-year lifespan and will continue on for some period of time and so it's unlikely but potentially that area could redevelop at some point in the future and that would at least just allow for the opportunity for that notion of a mixed use creative

[176:01] campus to expand to the east side of Broadway really act as a as a Gateway that that spans both sides of the street but uh you know on the ground and and from a functional standpoint going forward I think it would have very minimal impact which is partly why you know staff is comfortable making that change as part of the amendments got it so potentially a increase in flexibility down the road if and when somebody thought about redeveloping that cider that's correct renovating or something okay great thanks any other questions seeing none um one let's go ahead and go to our public hearing so we have one person signed up to speak and that is Lyn seagull Lynn you get three minutes I remember the old days of the Safeway going to a vote of all

[177:01] the people of Boulder um I love the Arts as much as anybody but I like to see some arts in downtown Boulder not in a suburb of Boulder which I consider this to be and all I can do in central Boulder is go out to eat which I don't or go visit a commercial property that is not occupied because Steven TBO just holds it because he can with nobody even in there where's September school as an art center where's our art center all we've got is the dairy what the hey Central Boulder is where the big art centers belong and I talk to the guy that's here today about you know boka

[178:01] and supposedly it's supposed to go up there well where's our Arts where's our arts and culture in Boulder that isn't Boulder that's North that's a suburb like arapo is way the like the weather vein is you know an isolated area um I don't support more and more development more and more density more and more times when my internet goes out and it's a week before someone comes because they can't afford to hire anybody because we're overpopulated sorry that's my problem with no noo we're already too overpopulated we were too overpopulated when my dad came here in 48 at 30,000 so that's just my opinion and September school's supposed

[179:00] to be a heroin Recovery Center that's what Michael bosma said when we threatened him you know that we didn't want 311 Mapleton the academy up there said hey you oppose us and we're going to stick a heroin Recovery Center up at the 11 Mapleton instead he went ahead and he's proposing it for the September School where's our Arts Center in Boulder you tell me there's nothing to do but ride my bike around and North Boulder doesn't even have a decent grocery other than ideal for that whole huge massive development all those condos up there with the armory what is this [Music] place got no soul and the center needs to be the

[180:00] center arts and culture thank you that brings our public hearing to a close I'll bring us back to council for discussion of the proposed amendments to the north po sub community plan Matt yeah I just want to add some further context to to for you all to sort of know in some greater detail the thoroughness and thoughtfulness that the boka and their hired team have been doing um in pursuit of this creative campus it has gone through multiple iterations and I think there's some really cool news coming on right just recently I know uh via just sent us an email regarding that they've down selected from 65 candidates for architect down to five um and hope to have the final three selected right around the November time frame so the all is moving and there is and and these and these firms look really really awesome and really cool and and so I think there's a just a great opportunity here with this campus and I just want to give credit to uh uh D donon over there

[181:00] and you know he he and the work that his team have done have been fantastic and just watching it um from the board has been really inspiring to see it and I think it's going to come together real nicely and so I just appreciate where the support has been for us to keep moving that ball forward but um it's it's pretty tremendous and I I think it's quite a vision uh it's it's quite inspiring so hopefully make it come to fruition y TAA thank you and Matt this is the perfect example of why also in that Council agenda committee requests to get updates from our the different um boards and commissions that we represent the city on um for for information exactly like this to know that oh you all have been talking about that this has been something um so to get those kind of updates so we don't have to wait for moments like this where you know the community assumes that nothing's happening when absolutely lots have been happening um I also just want to lift up that as a former North Boulder resident

[182:00] for eight years North Boulder is 100% a part of Boulder and so I just commend our community for thinking about North Boulder and not having everything in one location but recognizing that we actually for a lot of different reasons need to spread the joy across the landscape of across the footprint of of our city I will say though that you know um now that we mocha and that museum is leaving the downtown do recognize that there is right a gap in in that you know in the the diversity of options that are available down there and I Look to You know our downtown Boulder partners and others to think about how we can make sure that we have a very strong artistic footprint across our city so thank you again M Matt for representing us and for that additional information about boka anything else thanks I don't see any hands raised but somebody could potentially make a motion oh whoops sorry I forgot this last thing because I didn't have a circle facilities so what are we doing with some of the facilities

[183:00] of of that so again I know that some of these conversations may have happened before um some of us newbies got on Council but um you know as that information becomes available on you know or yeah what our facilities footprint and maybe that's something we'll talk about at the update to the Boulder Valley comp plan as well so I'm I'm patient but I am curious okay yeah maybe put a a flag on that one and aties have to be thinking about that for future updates okay and Matt looked like he was going to say something no about the what we going to do with the building you have any intel on that and what the building just over there Thea building has boka talked about like and they're going to move and so yeah those are ongoing discussions uh between you know mocha and and the city manager's office and and sort of where it fits in with everything else that's happening along 13 those are ongoing conversations but the Focus right now is to get this creative campus up and running and that conversation I'm sure will come later

[184:00] awesome thank you all right anybody want to raise their hand maybe get a motion on the table oh Lawrence got it I would like to make a motion to approve limited amendments of the to the North Boulder subcommunity plan including a vision for a mixed use creative campus in the Village Center area and update the land use description for the Ponderosa manufactured housing community as outlined in attachment a to the staff memorandum although I would be interested in also including the area as called out by planning board I think you can keep going in the suggested motion language it includes those two amendments or at least the copy I've got does copy I have does not okay so we we've got Lauren's got a

[185:01] motion on the table maybe I'll I'll get to an amendment to that have the Ping board things does anybody want to second that but second we got to keep the ball rolling yeah okay so so we got a motion there with a second and then I'm just going to offer an amendment to the motion um to add uh the following conditions approved by planning board on August 6 6 2024 that the community facilities map on page 18 and any Associated text be updated with any facilities that have been completed to date and that the creative campus boundary in the Village Center diagram on page 15 include the mixed use area on the side of Broadway Lauren do you I'll offer that as a friendly Amendment do you accept that I very much appreciate that friendly Amendment okay and the seconder as well okay great a second um okay did you want to speak to your motion Lauren uh sure I really appreciate the

[186:03] thoughtful work that staff put into this I think um part of why we're not having a long discussion is that this all seems very well reasoned um and thought through I also appreciated the thoughtful input from planning board thanks Matt CH have anything else okay great I'll just call on myself before we vote and just really appreciate the staff work on this very excited about this creative campus um big thanks to uh boka director Davi donon and the property owner Andrew gimi for working through this process with the city um as a resident of North Boulder myself which does have a lot of soul um uh I'm very excited to see the promise of the North Boulder Arts District being being realized and this will be a phenomenal anchor along with the new North Boulder library branch that was just finished across the street so excited for these changes any other final thoughts before

[187:01] vote all right can I do a show of hands on this one or do we need a roll call I would prefer a roll call yes ma'am thank you we'll start the roll call related to the items for the North Boulder subc Community Plan amendments which council member Wier yes Adams yes Benjamin enthusiastic yes mayor bronet yes council member fuls yes Marquis yes Shu hard yes mayor protim spear yes and council member wallet yes the items related to the north bowler subc community plan amendments are hereby approved unanimously great thanks again so much for all your work on this really appreciate it that brings us to the end of our agenda and does anybody have any final

[188:00] thoughts before I gavalis closed oh Tara I just wanted to give a shout out to Kurt did he leave oh good Kurt may may approach Nicole Spear and I got an opportunity to see the module Home factory it is almost done it was incredibly exciting and also quiet so I just want to throw that out there it was a great time yeah anything to add Nicole I would love to add that I believe the date for the um ribbon cutting that we should be invited to is October 23rd so if you want to mark it on your calendar it was really cool to see um see it in progress and just amazing the amount of work that has been done so thank you right on okay well with that I'll go ahead