Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:04] this year thanks for including us um hope you've had a gander at the agenda and the packet full of juicy goodness because holy smokes the juicy goodness is amazing first things first is our opening exercise which is adorably named because really it's just a game show basically and uh Pam is going to take us through that here in a hot minute I thought you were pointing at me I was like Noe I'm I like my seat okay hi Mark um then uh as you have heard staff has been preparing some uh highlights for you of the juicy things that they are working on and it is during that session when we will use our question tickets um sometimes you remember in earlier years when we used to do dots um members of council would have questions for me like can I Devi can I tear up my DOT into quarters and halves can I sell it and my answer to those things is no

[1:01] so one question one ticket per person it's gonna be fun it's GNA be so fun I'm really jazzed about this and thank you in advance Council for agreeing to this fun tool I think it's GNA really um help us Focus uh Willie dinner around six o'clock and uh come on back and finish our conversation with the directors and then take another break and then um uh city managers office has some great information for you on the uh Citywide strategic plan uh that has been coming along nicely and then toward the end of our time together we'll just check in on the future Retreat schedule and we do have a um midterm uh Retreat survey for you so be gathering your thoughts on whether this was a great best Retreat ever um but is also if you have suggestions for improvement and things you which we had done differently um my mic um is about to be turned off uh by me because I'm officially handing it over to game show co-host

[2:01] extraordinaire Pam Davis thank you very much Heather good afternoon Boulder my name is Pam Davis I am one of your assistant city managers and I had the privilege of being invited by our midterm check-in planning committee of council to have a little fun with you all um we are going to participate in an activity that showcases some of the Lesser seen aspects of our city government government and the services that we provide while also testing your knowledge about our departments in the organization so we have randomly sorted you council members and mayor into three different teams team number one is council member Marquis mayor proem ferz and council member Benjamin team two is council member shuart who's unfortunately on zoom and so we'll just have to cheer on in Spirit uh his team mayor Brockett and council member Wier

[3:00] you'll be holding down the the fort for uh Team two and then team three is Council Members spear Adams and wallik working together this is a uh team-based trivia activity you will be sorted into um physical areas so team number one you're going to meet on this wall team number two you're going to meet in this back corner and team number three you're going to meet along that wall you have a series of 20 Via questions and a series of 20 corresponding red stickers that are numbered by those questions your job in 10 minutes is to place the sticker that represents the question on the department that is the answer now pay close attention to your game board because there are a couple questions that do not have a single clear Department answer or they might not even be a real City thing and we just threw

[4:00] it in there to to confuse you so so it's it's kind of all all out there uh once we finish the game play and the time the 10-minute timer goes off we will go third grade math test scoring style so each team will rotate uh one one scoreboard and grade their competitors game sheet uh you'll pass back those score sheets to me and then we will have a brief but incredible award ceremony and turn it back to our regularly scheduled midterm check-in you well should we model the prize my assistant Megan uh valure here this is a homemade bespoke onetime only gift from the city and each member will be going home with their own personally designed no two are alike certificates of winning

[5:01] all right so with that team members I invite you to gather with your teams next to um your respective game boards and I will look up to see that we have the 10-minute timer going and for those watching when we do the scoring at the end you'll hear what the questions and answers were so everyone will get to follow along all right I will let you know when the timer is ready and we will officially begin oh okay ready go

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[11:22] who's running the show here Heather e

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[16:11] seven six five 4 three two one stickers down stickers down everybody hands up hands up all right now if you were on team number one can you at least one of your team members go over to the team two board to score them team two send a member I'm going to tell you the answers it's going to be really fun just wait team number two can you go to this team three scoreboard and team three can at least one of you go to Team one's scoreboard um there are extra pens on the tables if you need one so how this is going to work I'm going to read each question if you think you know the answer feel free to shout it out but then I'll tell you the right answer

[17:00] um at that point anyone who has their question sticker on the right Department gets one point for that question if it's wrong don't give them a point there are no half points we're going pretty pretty binary here yep exactly and so once we get done scoring then you'll take your score sheets off the wall bring them to me and we will have an award ceremony all right sound good okay question question number one which department is responsible for regulating outdoor be resistant containers planning and development services for one point and Brad is it true that they like designed the original bear resistant container by putting a container in a room with a bear to see if it worked that is true ah Perfect all right question question number two which department

[18:01] manages the city's domestic partnership program anyone it is the city manager's office our city clerk team is located within our city manager's office and fun fact in 2023 the clerk's team processed 375 registrations and in 2024 they processed 421 domestic Partnerships when I did my paperwork I went through HR how long ago was that all [Music] right all right I'm gonna I'm gonna keep us moving you can take up any uh fact checking with me after here question three this entire department was a contracted part-time service until the 1950s anyone City attorney

[19:02] office for one point all right number four this department received the most inquire Boulder tickets in 2024 this is actually a trick question so if you put your sticker in the the sort of multi- Department space uh inquire Boulder tickets are sorted by the obsolete category of Public Works that no longer is a city department and so public works as a category which is a combined ticket system for transportation and utilities received two 2,826 tickets in 2024 all right number five this department relied on volunteers to

[20:00] deliver its services until 1915 oh I heard it fire Boulder Fire Rescue all right number six this department plays a premier role in inspecting for all three of the following fats oils in Greece raccoons and weeds the answer is utilities utilities inspects restaurants for fats oils and GRE so that our Wastewater pipes remain clear they inspect the storm water collection system for the presence of raccoons which endanger our streamwater quality and they monitor weeds in our Greenway system all right question number seven which city Department funds animal workers to assist with City business this is actually a trick question too three departments employ animal workers Boulder Police

[21:01] k9's uh Boulder parks and recreation employs goats in a variety of ways and open space and Mountain Parks funds cows to graze portions of our agricultural properties so objection the cows and the goats are contractors they are they are that's why we said Erin that's why we said funds animal workers not has animal employees so you got to really we were careful we were careful all right question eight if a person wanted to hold an exhibit to show off their animals like a circus carnival or managerie which department would they contact for a license Finance for one points their Licensing Division also handles things like breweries mobile vending cards Pond Brokers secondhand dealers taverns distilleries bed and breakfast marijuana cultivation and more all right number nine this

[22:01] department plays a leading role in maintaining hundreds of miles of irrigation ditches and laterals this is a cross- departmental answer utilities and open space and Mountain Parks both no it's All or Nothing y but hearing the groans terara I think there are a lot of folks whove missed a lot so we're good we're good all right this department was formally created by the city manager in 1972 and it's kind of a miracal the city operated without it until then Human Resources all right question number 11 which department operates the city's cultural field trips fund Community Vitality for one point this is a really cool fund which allows

[23:02] Title One schools in the Boulder Valley School District to have experiences at Arts institutions and cultural destinations all right question 12 which department must use certified climbers to maintain their infrastructure facilities and Fleet to maintain the city's radio infrastructure we must use certified climbers to take care of our radio towers all right this department 13 this department is the only one that operates out of space least from Boulder County the answer Municipal Court our municipal court operates out of the Boulder County Justice Center all right question 14 this department was created in two steps both times starting as a service within the

[24:01] city manager's office first before becoming its own Department Communications and engagement all right couple more question 15 this department is responsible for administering the city's ecopass program trick question several departments man AO passes in the city HR administers the Employee Program transportation and Mobility administers neighborhoods Community Vitality administers downtown employers and the city manager's office administers for boards and commissions I think there's a process Improvement all right this number 16 this department director not touching that one with a 10 foot pole all right this department

[25:01] director for this department has been in their current position the longest out of any Department director Boulder fire rescue chief chief calderazzo is our longest uh tenur as director we do have several directors who have been with the city for even longer but as director cazo is the longest serving oh we didn't actually chart out the whole timeline of director 10 years so I I can't speak with authority on that sorry all right number 17 when the Emergency Operations Center activates there are four departments that always activate regardless of any emergency which of the following is not one of those four departments and your choices were fire police transportation and Mobility Communications and engagement and the city manager's office and the

[26:01] answer is transportation and Mobility transportation and Mobility is a crucial part partner in I would say the majority of our emergencies um when we require evacuations and and other things uh working with our Transit Partners but they are not an automatic mobilization all right 18 this department was officially created as a department by the voters due to a passage of a charter change in 19 1951 the answer is planning and development services really all right 19 this department has hosted 26 community cleanup days at Boulder housing partner properties and manufactured home communities the answer climate initiatives and finally which department separate operated into two different departments in 2012 began dating again

[27:02] in 2017 and were remarried in 2018 to become the department they are now ding ding ding from the city attorney housing and Human Services all right that wraps up our scoring please bring me those score sheets so I can take a quick glance and announce our winners that last one was housing and Human Services yes HHS

[28:01] all right any drum rolls here yeah all right in third place with a total of three correct answers team number [Music] one in second place with a total of four correct answers team number three and finally in first place with a total of seven correct answers we have team number two mayor Brockett and council members Wier and honorary council member shoard congratulations thank you all for tuning in Heather I turn back to you thank you very Stellar gameplay and management Council

[29:02] and Pam that was delightful thank you very much um I just want to say again thank you to the council Retreat committee for endorsing this idea and for staff like that sounded like a lot of work y'all thank you very much for putting all that together for us that was just an absolute Delight you think it was rigged [Laughter] you might have gotten a higher score if you just been like randomly assigned all right um thank you all um for that if you are tracking on the agenda we now pivot to our uh updates uh from staff and uh you have for bigger context a packet of slides um staff is not going to read you these slides so

[30:00] this is just for your own reference um we are going to take staff in the order that you show up in the packets um so if you see where your slide is you'll start coming down you have your T your table tent you'll come sit over here you'll give Council your couple of two three juicy bits um Council this is where you get to spend your three question tickets it's not three questions per Direct it's three questions for the evening um when you spend your qu your question you will give me your ticket and I will hold it close to my heart um Ryan I've got your tickets in my hand so you raise your little e hand up there and when you want to have a ticket and I will spend your ticket for you I will give it to myself like a crazy lady cool okay great um want to make sure Council we have any questions about the process before we jump into it want to make sure we're all real clear on um The Rules of

[31:02] Engagement we good all right in that case who is our presenter on the Bev comp plan please come on down you are the first contestant on hanging out with Council yes ma'am push the bigs the big one yeah thing at the Y um so if we do have more I'm all for the game um if we have more the than the questions is it possible to send a follow-up memo via the hotline um or what mechanism do we have if we have more questions than the three it's cute and great yep all right y okay does one of the other ones work there we go use that

[32:05] one can you hear me okay hey everybody um it's great to be here um council members um it's great to see you all I'm Sarah horn um senior city planner with planning and development services to my left is Vivian Castro wdge our engagement lead and to my right is Christopher Johnson our comprehensive planning manager um and we're um happy to be here to share some Boulder Valley comprehensive plan updates with you um before I get started I just want to give kudos to the very large group of people um who are instrumental in making this a success successful project um the other members of our core team Brad Mueller in the audience our planning and development services director um and many other city and county colleagues and most importantly Our Community Partners and the um Boulder Community members at large so thank you everyone so to jump in our updates touch on the next three months of work so the first update

[33:01] relates to work will be completing in March we'll be wrapping up the vision and focus areas phase of the project a boulder tomorrow next month and on March 20th we'll be submitting an IP memo to you that shares what we've learned from engagement with community members policy makers um and City staff to date and it will also include a draft vision statement and preliminary list of focus areas to organize our upcoming Community conversations on policy options and Analysis our second update is related to work will be starting in April April will Mark the beginning of the third and longest phase of our project a bolder Direction and that's where we're going to evaluate policy options and ultimately make recommendations to incorporate in the draft plan we'll also be holding our second big Community event on Saturday April 12th and there we'll continue to inform people about the comprehensive plan what it does and where we are in the update process and to collect ideas that could be used to develop policy options we'll consider for the update and to help us with this next phase of Engagement we do have an

[34:01] ask of you we could use your help sharing with community members that each phase of the update process Builds on previous phases and that's intentional we know some people are really ready to jump into trade-off conversations and dig in deep and we will get there we're just not there yet it's important that we go through this entire process to bring more people along meaningfully so if you could help us share that message we'd greatly appreciate it and finally our last update relates to some of the work we'll be doing in May building off what we hear from the April 12th Community event staff will be holding joint study session with un planning board on May 22nd and just in FYI our County colleagues will be holding a study session with the two County um policymaking bodies on the 21st so the same week and in our meeting we'll need direction from you on what we're calling a policy Concepts and Analysis road map in other words we'll need your help to set guard rails for the policy evaluations and land use analyses will complete over the summer so that's coming up soon and so just to

[35:01] quickly wrap up in March we'll be sharing an IP memo with you with the vision and focus areas in April will'll begin the longest phase of work and start to get community feedback on potential policy options to test through the summer and in May we'll hold a study session with you to get your direction on the policy Concepts and Analysis roadmap I just mentioned to help guide our analysis of the potential options that we'll test um and with that I'll turn it back over to you and keep my fingers crossed we can answer your question questions thanks so much are there any members of council that would like to spend one of your question tickets on this first project update going once going twice Mark come on we were so close to get quick reminder that once the question starts question and answer we only get three minutes so um brief brief questions and brief answers will be our friend here take it

[36:02] away is there going to be any statistically valid polling that accompanies this or are we simply going to be making choices based on who shows up at at uh these public events great question the answer is yes uh we are planning ahead for a statistically valid survey uh later in the process when we have policy options to weigh and and can express and explain trade-offs of each of those so we're planning that that statistically valid survey would occur sometime in probably the September October time frame and there's the potential that there could be a second one later in the process but we'll have to evaluate that uh as they're not an inexpensive Endeavor they're about $40,000 a piece excellent thanks so much that was worth my nice no regrets I like that excellent anyone else any members of council want to spend another one of your tickets Mark make sure you turn off that microphone um with these fancy mics we do get feedback if multiple mics are on at once so make sure that you turn

[37:00] yours off when you are done visiting going once going twice you have won the opportunity to leave the stage thank you very muchoo whoever is our team for uh Citywide long-term Financial strategy this is your opportunity to come on down for your chat with councel just wanted to confirm on this do we get a new set of tickets for after dinner uh absolutely not thank you okay so this is for the entire this is it this is it yeah yeah thank you right but you do need tickets for dinner one of your questions for me are Limitless unless I find them annoying and then then we're going to put the stop the stop on that all right y'all

[38:01] ready take it away all right good evening council members I'm Charlotte husky budget officer for the city of Boulder good to be here with you this evening I'm here to talk about the long-term Financial strategy the long-term Financial strategy focuses on the development of a comprehensive city-wide strategy to help guide fiscal decision-making and long-term Financial Health of the city the long-term Financial strategy builds upon prior policies recommendations from the Blue Ribbon commission reports of 2008 and 2010 the budgeting for resilience report of 2019 as well as recent Lessons Learned From the pandemic period these reports called for a comprehensive financial plan they cautioned the city's over Reliance on sales tax and the dedication of funding sources and encourag the development of an outcomes based system for budgeting this project is a two-year initiative that will help guide the city forward as we seek to establish an equitable res iant and stable fiscal strategy to meet our greatest need needs as a

[39:02] community the cross departmental project team is advancing this initiative through four primary work streams with two phases of work the first developing a long-term financial plan for the organization the second identifying alternative funding and revenue opportunities the third defining core services and benchmarking against peer communities and the fourth developing a multi-year tax ballot measure strategy with policy guidance and input from The Three Financial strategy committee members the project team is nearing completion of phase one of this effort I'll highlight for city council specific areas of phase one of our current state assessment We performed an initial Citywide inventory of existing fees to understand current cost recovery levels and aligned programs to a core Services hierarchy to understand criticality of services with input from FSC members we developed a multi-year b uh tax ballot measure framework for 2025 and 2026 with

[40:01] the 2025 ballot measures focused on taking care of the city's unmet and underfunded needs phase two of this initiative focuses on the prioritization of next steps within each workstream including the development of a five-year comprehensive financial plan additional research and benchmarking analyses of revenues and service levels identifying 20 identifying our 2026 potential tax B bot measures looking comprehensively and creatively across our existing tax structure and potential new taxes this next phase of work will be further informed by engagement and Communications plans that aim to inform and increase in understanding of the city's Financial constraints as well as receive input from community members to further understand priorities and desired level of service finally our project team will be coming forward to City Council on April 3rd where we will share further detail and

[41:00] have more time for Council discussion and input we look forward to answering any questions this evening as well as at our April 3D meeting thank you very much Council anyone want to spend one of your question tickets regarding the long-term Financial strategy all right Taisha okay um on that note I actually would like to start with racial equity and so I'm just curious how reconciliation and reparations are being considered in this in this process in addition I'm interested in knowing one question oh sorry I thought it was just on this particular topic one question one actual question so yeah I will take that as my question I appreciate the look forward but what about those where we owe them a debt thank you thank you for the uh

[42:00] question council member uh we have worked on developing guiding principles as part of our long-term Financial strategy these guiding principles include fiscal sustainability and sufficiency equity and resiliency and so as part of the work specifically related to equity we are looking across our existing fees our subsidies that we're providing for our fees um we're also looking at potential tax burden as part of the analysis of phase two of this work and so looking at uh potential tax updates and shifts to uh different types of Taxation and tax analysis um and looking deeper into that uh in regards to tax burden thank you very much very efficiently asked and answered anyone else I'm sorry I would I'm hopeful for additional not at this time but that's I I look forward to additional strategies thank you thank you um anyone else want to have a question on the long-term Financial strategy well all right

[43:01] Nicole I'm gonna spend one mostly just because um I would love for you all to uh share with my colleagues a little bit more detail about the uh Communications plan that's coming up because I think that's one of the most exciting pieces of this thank you for the question council member so we look forward to two phases of Engagement for this effort we will uh be leveraging uh existing feedback from the community as part of our 2025 ballot item um this includes looking at our 2024 and 2025 Community budget engagement our work that we have done with Community con connectors and residents over the past couple of years um and we're also performing a statistically significant polling voter survey for our 2025 tax ballot measures we look forward to performing more robust engagement this year from March 2025 to May of 2026 that will focus on looking forward uh on the 2026 ballot items we're as part of this effort we're

[44:02] committed to be inclusive and meaningful both qualitatively and quantitatively we're going to be hosting information and input sessions and also working directly again with Community connectors and residents and receiving input from uh from our partners within that program um and we also intend to perform a polling voter survey uh for uh 2026 as well thank thank you very much anyone else yep Tara okay can you talk a little bit do you have ballot measures in mind or what type of ballot measures are we talking about yeah thank you for the question council member we have worked with the financial strategy committee over the past uh four months I would say in looking at our tax ballot measure framework for 2025 and 2026 2025 is

[45:03] really focused on a more narrow uh incremental approach to tax changes looking at taking care of what we have uh and funding opportunities for core Services we shared forward with Council last year that we have a significant underfunded and unfunded needs list uh for uh 2025 and we're looking to approach that uh uh in our 2025 tax ballot measures our 26 uh framework is looking at a more expanded comprehensive and creative approach for 2026 looking at both meeting our UNM needs and taking care of what we have as well as additional investments in uh core programs and services and and programs we have looked across uh potential tax ballot items uh and received input from the financial strategy committee to focus on uh two specific tax ballot uh items and and uh we have narrowed in on

[46:01] looking at an extension for the community culture resilience and safety tax as well as the uh potential for a public realm tax and both of these would look at uh Capital Focus uh Investments on infrastructure and total cost of ownership um and we have also focused on uh uh looking at additional uh tax ballot measures and pushing those to 2026 um really narrowing in and thinking about the 2025 Focus being taken care of what we have um for unmet and underfunded needs the one thing that I will point to uh that we look forward to Bringing forward a council at our April meeting as well as our May 8th meeting which is a touch point with City Council on ballot measures in addition to a late June meeting um is we are planning a uh to perform a 2025 polling survey and bringing forward those results of that

[47:00] survey that will help to further inform uh our decisions around ballot measures thank you very much Lauren has a question sorry can I use uh 10 more seconds of our three minutes yes just again to reiterate so the April 3D meeting uh Council will receive all the information on the proposed measures and then the FC's recommendations so in your packets soon strategic use of time I liked that Lauren you're up how does the polling on the potential ballot initiatives fit in with when things are coming to council for reviews so like are you pulling on more measures than what FSC um is recommending to bring forward or is that polling happening after a checkin with Council thank you for the question mayor protim uh we are looking

[48:02] and we've uh discussed this uh internally as well with the financial strategy committee we are looking at um incorporating multiple questions in the polling vo voter survey and so we're looking at an expanded uh look at uh questions and categories of questions within the 2025 polling survey uh so it will look at uh at potential options in addition to the ones that we uh have have narrowed in on we will be bringing that forward at the results of the polling survey to Council in late June uh and have a touch point and presentation to council at that time uh that is before the city council makes the decision on uh ballot measures for 2025 I I just don't think that you answered the part about will we have a touch point before you do the polling thank you for the uh clarification we will uh have several touch points with city council so our next one is April 3rd uh at the city council meeting we'll

[49:02] be doing a presentation and Council uh questions at that time a full hour um uh Council Council item on April 3D we also have our next touch point on May 8th with city council where we'll be bringing forward the financial forecast as well as discussion well as well as discussing ballot measures so the poll will be informed by the PO Council CC's conversations and recommendations uh but you won't get to write the PO questions we'll leave that to the the that is excellent clarification Joe all right Council anyone else have a question for this team all right thank you very much congratulations on your winnings you are released homelessness team come on down [Music] woo Council while the homelessness team

[50:00] is getting settled we just had a great reminder of being very thoughtful about how you phrase your question because questions with multiple parts are actually multiple questions so if you can find a way to phrase your question as broadly as possible to get as much information um in your three minutes that might be a strategic calculation you spend a moment on all right trying to take credit for their genius good evening Council my name is Megan Newton I'm the policy adviser on homelessness with housing and Human Services and Kurt H fobber director of Housing and Human Services we just spent a few hours of time with you a couple weeks ago so this will be a quick refresher and review um the three areas

[51:01] around the homelessness programs and innovations that we're focusing on for this priority is the high utilizer initiative the system evaluation and then the homelessness strategy update um where we're at with the high utilizer initiative is that we are we brought a lower budget but still Maximum Impact program proposal forward and we have um engaged with the consultant to work with us in a longterm funding strategy for the system evaluation uh that was completed in January and they did a presentation for you a couple weeks ago and we'll be using that evaluation um to do our homelessness strategy and so the homelessness strategy Group which is clutch Consulting um started doing review of data analysis has been here this week um doing stakeholder engagement and they'll be back in March to do the same um and then April and May they'll give us a strategy up update um with implementation plan and then through the summer they'll help us do the Implement implementation preparation

[52:01] so hopefully we will be done with the strategy update through the end of summer um is the goal so this team already wins excuse me for the shortest presentation council members who would like to spend one of your question tickets on homelessness anyone well okay then thank you very much you are released Economic Development come on [Music] down hi I'm Jennifer pinso um economic Vitality manager in the city

[53:00] manager's office um and I'm here to provide an update on the economic development plan and program enhancements the Project's designed to develop strategies to support economic Vitality address commercial vacancies and broaden small business support with new and enhanced Economic Development tools and programs this work includes development of an does everybody feel that Echo oh okay all right um we're going to out outline an updated approach to economic fality and supporting an healthy inclusive and resilient economy a draft will be presented to Council in April development of the strategy has been informed through research and public engagement including a county and Council Forum last September a survey of over 500 businesses and conversations with business and Community leaders we'll see additional feedback on the draft plan with from for forign participants and

[54:02] others prior to the April council meeting while work is continued on the strategy progress has have been made on addressing current economic challenges including High commercial vacancy rates and the affordability of commercial space with more work to be done while work has continued on the strategy um we've been addressing commercial vacancies with Ed changes to codes and the types of uses requiring a planning board approval continued process Improvement support for added amending tees to commercial space and more proactive work with commercial developers an affordable commercial Grant pilot program was recently launched providing $850,000 in Grants to help address a gap in the market for more affordable commercial space and an opportunity for small businesses to thrive in a commercial centers um and then at the same time we've been working on increasing the awareness of

[55:01] available business resources broadening the city's support for small businesses and enhancing tools available to support Economic Development last year we increased the Operational Support that we provide the boulder sbdc enabling staff to support to spend more time on developing and providing assistance to small businesses and we're also working with Community Partners to explore additional tools to support economic Vitality examples include the lodging business area assessment um was which was recently approved by Council to support the hospitality industry and we are exploring with this we're exploring the state's chips Zone Program which will help support the quantum and semiconductor Industries we're also monitoring potential impacts of federal decisions on businesses the University Federal labs and other aspects of the local economy and we'll be providing a

[56:02] more detailed update on our April 24th thank you excellent thank you very much council members Oh Nicole thank you for the presentation um you tease this right at the end uh as we are U working on this strategy there are some really significant uh economic challenges on the horizon our community's Reliance on federal funding um and how are those changes being incorporated into the plan how are we thinking about that right now we're in that that Gathering phase one of the things that the collabs that we work closely with and the boulder chamber and Workforce Wilder County are doing a survey to try and get an idea of the impact we're also in the process of updating an economic um impact study of the federal Labs the last one was done in 2017 so we have some understanding of how much um Labs just the labs

[57:01] contribute we've been talking with the um university and that'll be incorporated as some of the um emerging issues and challenges as well as the opportunities but that'll yeah we'll incorporate that thank you Council anyone else want to spend a question tickets oh Matt's got one and then Taisha Matt take it away thank you for that um so my question really is really really straightforward will this work identify city codes and policies that inhibit or stifle Economic Development that's a really good question I don't know that it'll get into specific policies I think it'll get into um some of the what so the survey that we did with businesses identified some of those issues but I don't know that it'll get to that granular level and that might be something that's already

[58:00] being worked on with from the planning department and other departments was if I might uh Jennifer markolf assistant city manager I Jennifer is right the the strategy itself won't say this code needs to change but we currently don't have policy direction that says we ought to continue to streamline processes and I think the survey will help identify may maybe some more specific areas so I think it will give us uh some further Direction um I I know uh Brad and his team in planning and development uh have continued to engage with the business Community to look at additional areas where we continue some of our recent process Improvement efforts so they're parallel tracks but I think the strategy will help support the work we'll get Council input on that as we head into April and then we anticipate that additional process improvement work uh will be on the horizon over the next year thanks Mark no no

[59:02] tight TI for answering not for asking um Taisha prepaid with her question so Taisha go ahead so our city invested in a business Equity manager over a year ago um curious to know because any all of this just looks as business as usual there's nothing here that would indicate so I'm just curious um where is what is the state as that work and we'll we these outcomes incl be inclusive of of the goals and strategies and practices and resource allocation recommendations yes um the I'm working closely with Patrick and we are also um we be putting the the strategy through the racial Equity instrument so yes those will be considerations that we include yeah and just uh more specifically uh we are in the process of develop in a Supplier Diversity Program which will be an element of our economic

[60:00] Vitality strategy um in some of uh the engagement so far some of the themes from the community Forum um indicate some areas where we can improve in our small business Outreach and so those will be areas that we'll explore in the strategy as well it's also very closely aligned with some of the work that the Small Business Development Center is doing excellent thank you Tara so while I enjoy discussions um I'm just wondering if the draft plan and the commercial I'm trying to make this one question watch me if the if the draft plan and the commercial vacancy discussions are going to have actual action points by the time you come the council or will they just be talking about what our problems are I think it'll be a bit of both I don't I think we will be identifying the the

[61:01] issues and I think we'll be identifying some actions but some of the actions may be I don't we're not going to get it solved in a couple of months right so there are some things that we know that we can do right away but then there'll be also some follow on um and and the plan is intended to be implemented over three to five years Council anyone else all right thank you very much you are released climate action come on down all right good evening mayor members of

[62:00] council I'm y gishan I'm a principal project manager in climate initiatives and I'm here with my colleague Kate Galo who's our senior sustainability data analyst and we are here to talk to you about the climate Action Plan update so this topic was also recently before you at your December 19th meeting and we just wanted to provide a few highlights and updates for this meeting the climate Action Plan update is a refresh of the plan to provide a streamlined accessible summary of Boulder's climate efforts and it's designed to inform the community of existing priority priorities and areas of focus this plan will continue to emphasize systems level change or what we call our big moves with the intersection of mitigation resilience and climate Equity as a priority we heard a lot of great feedback from you all at your December meeting and I just wanted to highlight a few things that we heard and are working towards first first is the importance of integrating compact land use and planning and connecting this to the work of the

[63:01] Boulder Valley comprehensive Plan update second is strengthening the integration of climate and finance strategies to support implementation so that's both sharing how things are funded and also how we'll be aligning with the city's um long-term Financial strategy and The Guiding principles of that work next is the continued integration um with the climate and water Nexus and also continuing cross- departmental collaboration across City departments for accountability and follow through especially related to resilience and looking at local climate impacts um and lastly just maintaining an emphasis on strategic systems level change also our big moves that we've been talking about we are currently actively dra drafting the climate action plan and the priority over the next few months is finalizing the content and designing the plan and producing the accompanying Communications materials one change

[64:00] since we last spoke in December is we were hoping to launch the plan in the second quarter um we had had initially proposed that but now we realize it will likely be in the third quarter due to um that we're working with external Consultants on copy and design and that's taking a little bit longer than we expected we are working on maintaining the scope and the focus of the plan and continuing to engage across City Department departments on resilience and adaptation efforts this is in support of this increased focus on managing our local climate impacts and risks and this is going to continue to be really important to make sure that the scope remains focused on producing something that's actionable and provides a clear road map that elevates the importance of this collaboration across City departments as well as Community Partners um just to make sure it's clear where various things are landing and things that are related to climate live within the city Organization for next steps we're still planning on bringing forward a

[65:00] resolution in the second or third quarter of this year um to adopt new goals related to climate equity and resilience and those are in addition to our existing mitigation goals and we will launch the cap in the third quarter and execute the communication and engagement plans and lastly just the elephant in the room we're continuing to track any impacts to Federal funding um related to our regional strategies and we'll keep Council posted on any changes that we know about that's it yeah Council who would like to spend a question ticket on climate action plan oh oh taish is going for it third and final all right all right so um thank you so much for the um very extensive feedback already given to my long list of questions provided in advance um so this is actually just specific to the community capacity

[66:01] component I think of the components this is the one I'm most interested in hearing more about and that's around just um to me it translates as Community uh climate literacy water literacy moving I appreciate cool Boulder and um I'm just curious where that work is and and how you all are thinking particularly around the education component thank you yeah it's a it's a great question thank you council member Adams um there's a lot of different strategies I could speak to but I would say some of our work with our partners in the climate Equity space are really um working towards that our work with the the flows organization the formerly climate Justice collaborative and what iteration they're taking on and then we're also partnering with the county on the launch of their climate Equity Fund which hopefully will be launching this year and I just see a lot of opportunity for capacity building um through that work in particular they're forming a Community Council and so it will will really be from the it will be driven by the community and point to where places

[67:02] in the community that that work is is most needed and um most able to be executed so um I'm happy to share more specifics over a hotline or something if you if you would like but that's kind of a general answer right fantastic Council anyone else all right thank you very much commercial area connections and quality of life it is your turn to come on down hello um my name is Matt shansi Regan Brown and I are with the community Vitality department and appreciate the opportunity to update you on projects that support your priority commcial area connections and quality of life

[68:00] improvements as you recall this priority is being addressed through a series of projects across several departments with Community Vitality playing a convening role for work for the work U many of these projects have made progress and some have been completed uh since we checked in at the council meeting last September we can answer questions about those but here are a few that are underway um there are many that are underway we have a few highlights for you uh first up is the University Hill streetcape enhancements uh Community Vitality is working closely with transportation and mobility department on uh Capital project to improve the medians along Broadway adjacent to the Hill district the project will include uh other planning planned enhancements such as Landscaping crosswalks perhaps lighting uh to be shaped by public engagement later this year an additional improvement with the transportation and mobility department in collaboration is the plan sidewalk enhancements that will close gaps along 11th Street on University Hill a critical pedestrian corridor that connects the Civic area and downtown this Improvement follows the path of a pedestrian lighting project

[69:01] that was completed on the hill a few years ago and will create a safer walk the work will be expect is expected to be completed this summer um Regan's going to tell you a little bit about some planning efforts that she's working thank you Matt I'm going to talk a bit about the improvement district analysis project in the commercial areas blueprint project as well so staff is working with Progressive Urban Management Associates out of Denver on the district analysis which is a study of our existing General Improvement districts in recommended actions in the near term this includes the Central Area General improvement district the University Hill General improvement district and the two overlapping districts in Boulder Junction the analysis will recommend financial and governance improvements for our districts and how they should evolve to meet immediate needs it will also consider the connections between these districts and any areas around them that can benefit from Urban management tools the project is underway with findings and recommendations to be presented to

[70:00] council at a study session on April 24th the commercial area's blueprint Builds on the improvement district analysis based on Council feedback staff will staff will prioritize efforts to address long-term needs while also building on visioning and policies associated with the Boulder Valley comprehensive Plan update this could include new or expanded District tools to better support neighborhood hood and Regional commercial centers an RFP for Consulting support for the blueprint work is anticipated to be launched in the second quarter of this year and you know another important thing is in addition to the comprehensive plan um the improvement district analys and the commercial blueprint are goingon to overlap a lot of other plans including the economic development strategy and the long-term Financial strategy um but I also want to talk thanks Regan that was great um we'll want to finish up that with a few activations that are planned uh first the boulder social streets project continues to build on the initial efforts in activating public streets facilitated by our office of special events working across City

[71:01] departments the project will identify streets that can be regularly and safely closed to vehicle traffic for events and other activations the project will recommend infrastructure improvements efficiencies and permitting and provide programming support to make it easier for the community to host engaging activations while the initiative is Citywide it specifically supports this Council priority by improving quality of life through expanded activation in these new places additionally we're working work on with Partners to support summer and fall activations in the commercial area adding public art and advancing the outdoor dining pilot program with our team across departments to evaluate the long-term potential so um we do have next steps for each of these projects but definitely we'll see to be talking to on April 24th and I also want to make sure I thank the many partners across departments that are instrumental to the progress in all of this work Council who's got questions o Aaron's got is first question so exciting longtime listener firsttime talker

[72:01] um so thanks for all that I'm excited about these initiatives you got all kinds of great things in the works I know that when we put this forward that one of the major focuses was the direct connection between the hill and downtown right with The Moxy Hotel already open and Limelight coming soon and um while I understand that a gondola is not going to be a solution to our problems um we are certainly hoping for that improved pedestrian connection so I didn't hear you address that specifically what kinds of either both near-term and then potentially longer term bigger Capital Improvement plans are we looking at for that yeah thank you for the opportunity we weren't able to cover the dozen or so projects that are involved but yeah the the connection between the hill and downtown is a u important part of this and so um we have completed some things like the wayf finding and we're working closely with Parks and Recreation on the connection that's going to be facilitated by the Civic area planning process um and then of course 11th Street Corridor lighting is going to be important to this we're also looking more long term about the entire

[73:00] experience along 13th and trying to gauge that uh we won't have donkey rides up and down the hill but um we will think of lots of creative ways to address how people move back and forth in the levels of activity in between um as well as working with our partners of transportation and a lot of other departments on um specifically the commercial lay blueprint to look at that over the long term because some of these things will take some time and we want to make sure that we engage properly and and figure out all these Solutions and come up with the best ways for leveraging the district the the advantages of improvement district Tools in order to bring those forward so I think that there's going to be a lot more engagement a lot more chance to field ideas on I'm super bummed about the donkeys uh Council any other questions all right thank you very much that must mean that it is time for Wildfire hardening policies and regulations and more words to come on

[74:10] down good evening Council my name is Lisa Hood I'm a principal planner with planning and development services um it's a very long title because it is actually two projects in this one priority so I'll be talking about both Wildfire hardening and waterwise Landscaping um as you know we were we last brought this project to you back in December so we've talked fairly recently um but as we talked about then uh both of these projects are both uh very integral to every Department throughout the city so you might remember that Wildfire uh almost every single department is working every day on something to improve Wildfire resilience in the city so this is the focus on or this priority project focuses on the code and policy update so really the regulatory side in our tool back in our toolbox for Wildfire resilience we've

[75:01] been hard at work since the study session we've been um completing estimates of uh ex expected resourcing for both the wildfire and Landscaping recommendations that were brought to you and we talked about in that study session as well as looking at the additional requests that Council um gave to look into the potential for um applying Wildfire resilience uh compliance at the time of property sales or rental licenses we've also had our um mapping folks focused on mapping and expanded Wildland Urban interface or wooi area based on Ember cast modeling uh the state requirements for the state resiliency code board that will be uh going into effect in a few months and then other data from the fire rescue department for landscaping we've been developing a Citywide Consolidated plant list so we're hard at work at that and reviewing the opportunity used to update our current Landscaping code as far as anticipated upcoming things that you'll

[76:00] see soon we are going to have an engagement window for the adoption of the 2024 international wooi code so that's the building code side of things um is coming we'll have uh several Community meetings in mid-march and then we're planning for adoption or to bring to you for adoption these building code changes in early May so you'll see that we're currently scheduled for May 15th um further out we have more to do because we will continue to work on the land use code side of things so after the building code we'll tackle the land use code and that's where you'll see most of the Landscaping specific things like plant lists and um where we would have the list of fire resilient plants and things like that that we talked about with that study session we anticipate checking in with Council in Late July on some of those more tailored recommendations related to the land use code changes and then the schedule is to bring those landscaping and land use code changes to to the city council for adoption in the September October time frame those are my

[77:01] updates that was two projects one presenter and one Council high five over here did you see that it was a I know it very it was a very exciting moment council members who has a question on these two projects for this one speaker Mark's ready to go all right you get to keep it um when you are returning to council to what extent will you be focused on actionable steps that we can be taking in terms of um creating fire resistance even if it's on open space Properties or shiaka um and other things that we can do uh at the individual home level other than just redefining the wo to be presumably something larger than it is um as we are a lit cigarette away from a

[78:03] bonfire uh I think we need to be as focused and actionable as we can be so could you address that certainly so with both the building code and land use code changes there's actionable changes in both of those so the building code would focus more on the structure hardening so the requirements to when you're upgrading the building um the changes that would need to be made some of the highlights that we talked about with the study session are changes to fencing we saw since the study session actually the LA fires we saw um that the fences really do act as a connective Fuel and so that's a really important step for us to take is to have that fire brake um by making those changes for fences so that's one example and then as far as Landscaping making sure that um there's not combustible um fuel within 5T of the property things like that those are the kind of changes that you would see within the building code and the land use code can can I just finish my question that was the question no no one part of it is

[79:01] uned do you contemplate any changes to land use in the open space areas oh yes sure um so any changes for that relate to the land use code or building code would apply on open space um so that would apply to structures on open space or things like that um we're also working with all of the Departments there's a a great interdepartmental um coordination team related to Wildfire resilience and like I mentioned there's work being done every day with various different departments to improve our Wildfire resilience in lots of different ways not just the code that was a great example of a carefully crafted and punctuated question to ensure that there was just the one question mark thank you for busting me on that um right I'm clever like that all right Ryan looks like you have your hand up I am taking one of your tickets from my Ryan ticket pile and I'm putting it over here go take it away sir thanks Lisa on

[80:00] the Wildfire side this item addresses a really critical part of our Wildfire concerns um clearly though there will also be more potentially we could do to reduce risk and improve our resilience after this you particular initiative is over and so I'm just thinking about as we look forward to the end of this of this this work plan item and imagine a menu of things that we might also want to think about next that would have benefits I'm just trying to think about like H how what is a good way to prepare for that will you naturally come to us with those recommendations or should we start engaging you somehow on what that what that next kind of wider set is just or could you just give some advice on how to think about possible next phases of this sure so the first thing that comes to mind to answer your question um is the community Wildfire protection plan that was adopted by Council last year there's a lot of great implementation steps in there and work

[81:01] that the city's been doing on that and so I think that that has really laid out a many different next steps and this was just one piece um was to tackle the code and policy side of things and so that's what I um keep referring to of the work that the city and all of the Departments are working on collaboratively to move towards that and um that that document has a lot of like Risk analysis and recommendations and things like that um can help move move us forward past uh this project and councilman this is Brad Meer the director of planning and development services I'll just uh piggyback on Lisa's comments to say that there's a interdepartmental working group that uh was initiated uh and out of open space in Mountain Parks uh but has many of us uh departments working on that and that executive team I guess it's called Uh really has ongoing duties that speak to the interconnected and other related items so at least in speaking to of things like operational decisions or

[82:01] opportunities uh future Capital spending those types of things I'll just add to um Ryan it's an excellent question and a little preview to the end of this midterm check-in is that we'll be thinking a little bit about uh future Retreats and uh hopefully get you all thinking about what is uh perhaps a one-year uh sort of truncated Retreat priority into uh future 2-year priority as we get that so there will be time as you think about the work that will be completed now what does come next and what do you want to be thinking about so um I appreciate that you're thinking ahead [Music] is dead so okay so we um have brought up

[83:01] Insurance a lot and continue to hear about community members losing insurance coverage particularly in South Boulder and I'm wondering if this analysis or or some of the information you'll be giving us will'll be contemplating how we can impress an insurance company or tie in um even to the governor's work with insurance companies um uh in a way that's very persuasive that what we're doing will actually help homes not burn thanks for the question council member I'll be happy to takes uh a first effort at that and I might invite Chief calderazzo to come up and speak if I don't fill this out fully but uh what the experts uh mostly in fire have explained to us is that uh to the best of their historic knowledge there's not a clear Nexus between what local governments do and the insurance rates uh they have their own model the insurance companies have their own models and such intuitively of course it it has to help over time uh but what

[84:02] that looks like exactly um is very nebulous and I don't know if Teresa you've got any insights or I Know Carl Castillo uh you know the lobbyist for the city not lobbyist our connection uh with the state uh for the city you know is monitoring those things and it's uh and it's also evolving we do have as you may know neighborhood that are are under a great deal of stress with um insurance rates going up so we're very cognizant of that you tried to phone like three friends I just want to see if any of those three friends wanted to like jump in on that Nia yeah I appreciate it I see Mike coming down I will say as he gets settled that it it's a common question right we're hearing it all over the nation not just here and I I think to your point Brad it's something that we're thinking about I know the chief will probably have better answers than I but I know that there's a lot of uh states that are looking at it a lot of cities that are looking at it there are a lot of insurance companies that are

[85:01] pulling out of the marketplace we're being thoughtful to to think through it to track it to see how it impacts it some of the things frankly we don't have the levers for um but it is something that's on our radar as we continue to think about how does that impact our community and now I'm sure the chief will prove me completely wrong on it 4 seconds okay 40 seconds uh good evening Council Mike alado a fire chief I just blew five seconds there um so I I'll just I can't uh really add much to that our conversations with uh the insurance companies um what little we've had they're very protective of their risk um algorithms and and uh and so they don't typically we've been told informally that we don't they don't really care about how we rate um the the community and and do that I do believe personally and professionally that um the more that communities do the work

[86:02] the count the insurance companies will take notice of that done don't go far just in case yeah actually no it's perfect for the chief to be right there um so one of the most uh important uh things that we've got of resources we've got available with regards to this Wildfire protection stuff is the curbside assessment it's been kind of eye openening for most residents to see what just a quick glance from our uh firefighting professionals think about their home uh some are feel lucky that oh I must be doing the right thing by accident and others go oh my gosh I'm red and what does that mean and it certainly sparked people to have more further detailed home assessments um so given that empowering information is is really key on this piece for people to take some uh personal responsibility we've also discussed the likelihood that the wooi map will likely sort of expand

[87:01] the number of homes within the wooi as we get that as we get those uh changes so assuming that that map expands um what's the what's the likelihood of the curbside Assessment program also expanding with that expanded map so that people within the wooi have that Baseline of information from which to evaluate their own personal circumstances um with their homes so the the short answer to that question is we're we are giving detailed home assessments throughout the city so we are not focused only in the woi although we've gotten a lot of requests there we're we're prioritizing everywhere in the city so wherever we have the time we send our team out that that's the detail I was referring to the curbside assessment map so that's like the first order thing so people can just know where they stand in color yeah I Wasing to the Cur usually it's that that I'm a yellow I need details to

[88:02] figure out what to do so I'm just curious about that first order one um so the simple answer to that is yes the curbside assessments will adjust to the the new boundaries that we draw we're also talking about Ember cast um areas and so so that also we be part of that so it will be wider I I don't want to say it's all wooy but we're calling it in an amcast area and and wanting to look at those properties as well and help those those homeowners wonderful thank you right Council anyone else have a question for this ever growing te all right in that case you are released thank you all very much well done it is six o' my lovies um so that makes it dinner time if you are tracking on your agenda we've allowed for about a half an hour love to see you back your seats at

[89:19] 63 our updates with staff and we find ourselves um with some time with our friend Carl to talk about familyfriendly vibrant neighborhoods take it away Carl thank you heather good evening Council uh my name is Carl Gyer I'm senior policy adviser uh with planning and development services and also the project manager of the family-friendly vibrant neighborhoods project um so this project is as you know it builds off of uh what was done as part of the Zoning for affordable housing project uh from 2023 um that seeks to expand housing choice and support Transit uh In the City by allowing more missing middle housing as

[90:01] a housing type um in the low and medium density residential areas of the city um so the biggest update to offer council tonight is that Council adopted the ordinance on February 6th um to allow for implementation of the project so as you recall uh the ordinance would allow for the option of duplexes along bus corridors uh throughout the city as well as additional housing units uh in our neighborhood center around our neighborhood centers and around downtown um so these new rules will go into effect on March 8th uh presently we are communicating the adopted changes to the community through a website and email updates and we actually are receiving a number of inquiries expressing interest in the changes um so as far as what's next uh we're looking to close out the project in coming days as we move into implementation uh but work on achieving more affordable and missing middle housing is ongoing work um for instance the city is working on a number of projects uh the first of which was

[91:01] already talked about tonight the bbcp uh update uh where they're looking at housing as a primary focus of that project so any changes that come from that update uh following adoption we would then pick up uh in the implementation phase with uh new land use code changes that we'll be bring bringing forward in the future uh another project that we're working on is the Bloomberg Fen thpes uh City leadership initiative um which is meant to explore Innovations in our affordable housing program uh the research includes examining our current inclusionary housing Pro program zoning regulations affordable housing financing structure um and other elements of affordable housing so this work is ant anticipated to be completed uh at the end of summer 2025 um and this aligns very well with the potential for uh looking at policy changes to rbv CP uh in addition to Mayor Brockett our city manager and Deputy city manager uh who are part of the initiative there is

[92:00] a core team um that's been formed across the organization um that's partnering with professionals from Bloomberg Harvard and the center for uh public impact so we'll keep uh Council informed about the progress of this project and any conclusions work plan implications and any of the bbcp policy options associated with the project um and lastly at the request of some council members and subject to Future discussions uh the city may also be exploring other incentives and programs uh related to home ownership uh and housing affordability so that uh concludes my update Council anyone want to spend a question ticket for some time with Carl oh all right thank thanks for the fake tears Carl we release you thank you

[93:02] lovely all right manufactured mobile home Community Support come on down okay thank you I'm Molly tayer and I am a a senior housing project manager with housing and I am delighted to be here tonight to speak with you about the manufactured housing strategy update I want to thank the mayor and all of you for inviting us in this year and welcome back to the table Kurt B

[94:01] sorry okay so an update is what we are what we are providing for you at your request I believe is an update to the city's manufactured housing strategy um it was started in 2019 and it was worked on by staff 2020 to 2022 you um officially received it and accepted it in 2022 and it was implemented since then the action plan for this is also on the web and included in um many of the notes that we've been providing thus far um we are performing an update or spending time revisiting a lot of the collaborative effort that has taken place since this began it is the work of many departments other partners in the community and um a lot of cross functional energy between staff groups um we are beeting with the manufactured housing residents and we are also

[95:02] meeting with property owners inside the city to understand where they are in their maintenance operations um what is going on for their future Investments and how they're operating and performing today and bringing that together with the understanding of is there an opportunity for a future partnership that we could perhaps leverage some kind of agreement with regard to rents so I will come back to you on June 12th with more information about all of that um of the 35 action items in the action strategy that is the remaining one what we will report on in June is everything that has been invested in and carried forward since it was implemented um but the last thing to be looked at is the opportunity to see if we could create a partnership in ex change for some sort of um rent subsidization that I think is all I

[96:01] have all right Council would anyone like to engage a question on this topic we lost Ryan is anyone someone Chuck on that but in the meantime oh here he comes back all right it all right go Mark I'm honored I hate the mic um bear with me for a second um if we are not getting a good response from the owners in terms of uh that kind of collaboration where we get some rent stabilization in exchange for um things we can do for them um how do we proceed from here I mean I

[97:03] assume that the manufactured home park owners are ultimately liable for their water supply and liable for a number of other things do we have to increase enforcement or what's the the way of proceeding um to get a better result from them so Mar Mark I think there's two components of your question um um two two components of your one question um so the uh the first is around the affordability and I think as you know that there's a state prohibition on rent control um so any approach that we would take would have to be a vol AR agreement between two parties um and so we're having those kind of conversations as

[98:01] well we don't know where that could go um but there's um uh within that context it's difficult to have those conversations but I'm also going to ask Chris dille to come up to talk about the infrastructure component of that um and um how we hold um Park owners um sort of accountable for infrastructure hi there good evening Council Chris dille I'm a deputy director in our utilities department so yeah the infrastructure question is a complicated one um infrastructure Replacements or upgrades are quite expensive and there's always going to be that Financial hurdle so without getting into specifics you know years ago I think we did study what it would take to replace wholesale water and wastewater systems within the parks in the city um and yeah the price tag is shocking um I

[99:02] think what I can say is we'll commit to coming back maybe during the the June study session with some more details on really what what options there are um we have not explored that more recently but that's due for a a fresh look all right any other questions okay thank you very much you are released Council process working group I am already here yay and by my calculations I think I can expect to receive 11 questions so I'm quaking in my boots just a little bit all right Council Pam Davis assistant city manager good to be with you all I'm here to represent present the process uh Improvement working group priority that has been a great collaboration between the city manager's office the city attorney's office as

[100:02] well as four of you um so for the last several months we have been working with our four members of the process Improvement working group council members Adams Marquis Spear and Wier under their guidance um last fall we solicited from Full Council any ideas for process Improvement pain points um current policies and procedures that Council operates under that were unclear due for a look Etc from that kind of initial solicitation the group received 36 independent ideas for things that could be improved and of those the process working group members then individually ranked what they saw to be some of the highest impact uh improvements possible from that the group settled on 15 uh priority Improv improvements um those are listed in detail in your packet those 15 items um span uh kind of a full gamut of um of

[101:03] ideas but we believe that they can be accommodated within existing staff Council committee work plans as well as your agenda so those 15 improvements we've sorted into kind of four buckets the first bucket is there are some that are truly administrative in nature and so we can take the feedback that we've received and uh move for forward with making changes and informing you of of that progress the second are items where we got really great clarity on kind of where um folks want to head with them but they will require some sort of final councel action at a regular meeting sometime this year the third category are items that will require input from a relevant Council committee and so we will be forwarding those to the Committees to uh talk through and create recommendations to then be brought back to the full Council and the fourth category of items will require further initial Council direction to sort of get

[102:02] that knot of five to inform us where you want to head we've identified there's a problem with the process but there are many ways we could go with it and so we need to talk to you further those items are right around the corner so we'll be talking to you during the March 13th study session to start to get some of that initial Direction um and then finally while the more formal work of the process working group group itself is complete I want to note that in my memo language I incorrectly stated that they've fully disbanded that's not accurate and I'm sorry for that they do remain a group available to us to provide feedback as we progress on our process improvement work as well as we will have a scheduled kind of early Q4 review to look over the the holistic progress that we made over the course of the council term so y'all aren't done with us yet hopefully and that's my update thank you p now 10 questions here we go all right don't disappoint all right

[103:01] Tara I don't know how excited this is going to sound to the CMO office but we have so enjoyed our time on this subcommittee that we're hoping that it continues on since a process improvement work is never done so I'm hoping and asking don't look how excited she look if it's possible for us to continue with our work and people because people are still coming to us am I right or we're coming with to each other with new process improvements if we can continue holding on to those um for our next upgrade so what I will how I will answer that is when we scoped this particular work we thought of it as kind of the duration of this Council term in its current formation what I will say is in past in the years that I've been with the city nearly every Council term we have some version of conversation around

[104:03] process items and as you mentioned continuous Improvement is kind of a foundational practice that we have in the city so I can't commit necessarily that sort of come December of 2025 we'll reconstitute the exact same working group but what I can tell you is we will always continue to improve our processes and include you in those conversations how's that okay all right Matt right uh great to see that it's not being disbanded saves a question um like wasteful it's like yes or no um so as we've experienced and learned this year in particular uh without a clear process and a commitment to follow them uh we lack a foundation from which to be fair and accountable um and given the

[105:00] acuteness in which we've sort of seen that play out this year I guess my question is is given that this is you mentioned continuous Improvement do we need to make this does this need to really be a council priority or can this just evolve into being a standard committee like our Charter and elections or Council engagement so that we don't have to we don't have to play this uh gamesmanship every two years of should this be a should it not if it's continuous Improvement it should just be standing so that's my question is that the goal is that the intent for it to evolve into a thing that lives in perpetuity my colleague City attorney tapate would like to answer that well certainly we do want a process of continual Improvement there is something helpful about a set of rules that you know and can follow and so I do think that we should think about um perhaps knowing the rules we have and and I I'm not trying I'm not I'm not so

[106:01] um because a lot of what we've seen this year is that if we had been following the rules that perhaps we wouldn't have felt the pressure or pain points that we have um and then I'll let Pam take the part about do we want to continue to do this and and not count it as a council priority but just an add-on our plate you can't guess how I feel about that can you maybe I'll take a stab at it um so I'll say this right in the past there was always uh part of your retreat has always been a process of let's talk about um uh Council process improvements right this took it a step further because you really wanted to delve into the work and really talk about Council priorities in general and there was an ask at some point to take some of this process out of the Retreats and then consequently out of the check-ins and this was a desire to maybe have a broader a more in-depth look at that outside of the

[107:01] context of these conversations I don't necessarily think as we thought about the charter right part of the charter was to end with the term because there there could be perhaps at some point different compositions and for different uh council members they may have different priorities and I think that's why the charter was uh at the end of October of 2025 so we can certainly continue to revisit that the desire however is always to hear what council um working improvements we can do I don't think the issue necessarily is where that takes place I would say imp posit that the issue is how many of those and what is the staff lift on those priorities so for us it's you you we put forward 15 sorry I'll wrap up we put forward 15 and we need to think about how that impacts our work plan so that's the real question sorry team a team effort all

[108:03] right would anyone else like to spend one of your question tickets on the council process working group Ryan I will take one of your tickets take it away thank you and uh thanks to the uh the team Nicole Teran team I'm very impressed with uh all the work you you have done and I'm also uh impressed with all the work there is still to do as some people have pointed to and I guess my question is a little more um direct I have some additional things I'd like this to look at um like one involves boards and commissions just as an example and my my question is um is there sort of thinking about whether like where this what we how we organize going forward I'll just ask directly like if I have some suggestions that I would like for consideration on process Improvement that are beyond what we've done so far who and when should I bring those

[109:02] forward thanks for the question Ryan um couple things one it's great to hear you may specifically have some ideas on boards and commissions uh that was a topic that was raised in this process but is already programmed in our work plan in conjunction with our boards and commissions uh committee so we intend in April uh to come back to you with a a update both on agenda management processes as well as board and commission processes so there that study session would be a natural place to bring for example process items related to that in terms of sort of things that don't naturally fall anywhere honestly I recommend um sort of communicating those to your colleagues and to uh our city manager's office so that we're aware of the interest and can simply consider sort of what the lift is and how to prioritize it

[110:01] all right in that case Council pay increase done and done that means that there are eight unasked questions I the restraint very impressive very impressive all right um first of all staff thank you for all of that that was fantastic Council thanks for the great questions um and uh that takes us then to our next agenda item I assume we can move through the break since we literally just broke and jump into strategic plan um and we'll break at the appropriate time uh as needed Nua are you kicking this one off for us lovely I am indeed thank you so much uh Council as you know we uh came to you last year with a strategic plan right we have been um living in the city with a lot of different plans right we

[111:00] had a lot of business plans a lot of Department plans um we have a framework we wanted to really bring those together to really focus the organization and we came to you in q1 of last year with our first Citywide strategic plan we then needed to focus that that actually integrated existing work in one single place and we wanted to start the process that we had already already begun sort of internally and continuing to align our city work our work plan items into what that looked like 202 uh we want to build on that implementation and really look at enhanced outcome measurements that really builds as you know on what we've been doing for um budgeting for resilience and Equity where we been tracking some key performance metrics as we now look to the new year we're going to be enhancing that measurement of city-wide strategic plan that is for us what's next we've been on a journey as many of our staff know of really looking at measurement and accountability that is really what we've been thinking about

[112:00] and we know that for much of our staff you've heard so much of the work that's been done here it is hard for us to both do the work respond to all of your questions to all of community's questions and to actually make sure that we're keeping track and holding ourselves accountable to it so we've brought in some outside help we've engaged with a consultant to help help us think through what do we do with measurement evaluation accountability so we are doing that now so we're thinking with great strategies clear outcomes and tools to measure our progress this third year of implementation is really thinking about how do we become the highest performing organization we can be so you hope that you see the direction that we are going to of really integrating all of our work in alignment as one so I will uh shift it over to our Deputy city manager our assistant city managers to really run through a little bit of what are uh some brief highlights of some of those goal areas and those strategies as you see what we've done with our strategic plan uh and hope that

[113:01] you see some of the progress as we continue to build on those efforts so Chris get off to you thanks naria and we are we're going to highlight by uh sustainability equity and resilience goal area some of our progress in the Strategic plan so I'm going to kick things off with the safe goal area and as folks may recall the the safe goal area is really about um trying to create a holistic approach to Safety in the community uh and uh making sure that we're following best practices and everything from transportation to policing to emergency preparedness uh and uh as well as employee safety is under this category as well so um there are are three strategies that exist under the safe goal area the first one is really around Community safety efforts in critical locations and so um we've done a lot and you've heard a lot about um the hotspot work that we have

[114:00] done uh through the stratified policing plan and we've had some great success up on the hill and North Boulder as well um the safe and managed public spaces team uh continued to make good progress in 2024 addressed over 1,000 encampments uh in the city uh we also you heard tonight about the high utilizers initiative uh and recently had that at the study session uh and the work that's happening there as well as um we approved a new chronic Nuance ordinance that you may recall that that you all passed um that gives us another set of tools in the toolbox uh to address uh safety in the community uh another thing that we're working on is a review of uh what we call limited commission uh staff in the city so you have staff that are kind of full certified um post certified public peace officers police officers and then we have folks that are what what are called limited commissions so folks that can enforce part of the city code so

[115:00] code enforcement parking enforcement Etc um and we're reviewing um how those staff work across the whole organization and if there are some ways that we can be more effective and efficient there as well as then be able to um be able to to bolster some of our uh efforts in that area uh so that work continues to be underway and then uh the last one in this uh strategy area is really around Vision zero and all of the Capital Improvements that we are focused on uh related to The Vision zero action plan the second strategy under safe is really around disaster prevention preparedness uh and response as well as uh Partnerships and City investments in this area and uh you heard some of that in the uh Wildfire hardening and Landscaping priority here today um but we also made some pretty significant improvements this last year in emergency preparedness especially around Community alerts uh and and

[116:02] evacuation um so if you may recall we implemented a new text alert system uh for the community uh that is we're pretty excited about the ability to really push notifications to folks rather than having them uh kazun uh look at uh web pages to learn for information the other thing that was a real kind of operational challenge for us is when there's a disaster in the community and we uh order evacuation of part of some area of our County it took almost an hour to get that information on a public facing map and some staff have done some incredible work and it is now automated and instantaneous so as soon as the 911 Center issues that alert it instantaneously publishes onto a map which is uh a super huge operational Improvement that angs xiety that people felt in the community uh of not knowing exactly what the heck that description meant now they can see it on a map right away which we're pretty excited about uh

[117:03] another one is around Community preparedness efforts with Boulder Valley School District there was some intensive work with the district um to do evacuation planning for schools um recognizing that that may be a vulnerability if school is in session at the time there's a mass evacuation uh we also as you heard updated the community Wildfire protection plan that's a big one um and uh the last one is uh what you also heard about related to building code and the Wildland Urban interface code so all of that work is continuing as well the last strategy under safe is around an employee workplace safety program not something we typically talk about in this room with Council um but it's something that's really important obviously for our staff um and so we did a whole bunch of work this last year to really bolster and reestablish a city wide safety program versus it kind of being decentralized and independent in each department and so that has a whole team structure now uh as well as there's

[118:01] even a safety mascot Boulder it's a rock safety rocks it's really exciting um yeah uh government excitement here um but then it's uh the the real work that the team is doing is around everything from training um we did some city-wide training um for every supervisor and manager in the city related safety uh as well as um there's now kind of an operational Committee of of Staff in various departments um that are are continuing to support our employee safety program uh so uh those are good progress that uh is happening there so we have wrapped up the first one on safe and with that I'll pass it to mark for the next uh the next category thanks Chris do you want to stop seven or six

[119:03] more great uh and there will be a quiz on the strategies right after this that we play kidding uh good evening Mark wolf assistant city manager happy to introduce the goal area of healthy and socially thriving healthy and socially thriving imagines Boulder as a place where all residents can meet their basic needs while enjoying high levels of social physical and mental well-being this includes access to Services recreational and cultural opportunities that Center on equity and belonging strategy number four in the Citywide strategic plan speaks to strengthening Equity focused programs in advance of to advance this goal specifically we have uh recently leveraged Human Services funding to support emergent needs in community in the areas of rental assistance and Sheltering uh another success early results from our Elevate uh Boulder program the city's guaranteed income pilot project

[120:00] suggests that participants are experiencing improvements in food security their ability to cover utility expenses and overall mental health a key element of this strategy is how uh in is in how we Center equity in all of our uh overall work uh in addition to those previous examples this is also reflected in our approach to the child friendly cities initiative where youth voices will help guide funding choices in the allocation of uh $2 million doll receive that the city received from the proceeds of the sale of the Denver Broncos uh we have also done this in recent engagement work related to Primos Park and you've heard a little bit about this related to the Boulder Valley comp plan update I can move right along into the next goal area uh the goal area of livable uh speaks to the uh Community Vision to have a sustainable Equitable and resilient built environment this includes the concept of 15minute neighborhoods which seeks to accommodate

[121:00] Community needs for working learning playing and living in condensed areas while being affordable and attainable for all strategy number five is about supporting and providing holistic and accessible programs and services to enable diverse individuals and families to live in Boulder key progress to this end includes includes the opening of the modular housing Factory uh Boulder mod produces permanently affordable home ownership opportunities and will begin doing so within the Ponderosa Community uh through the previously mentioned uh Bloomberg initiative uh the city is exploring Innovative approaches to affordable housing uh we are uh very proud of this of the successes that we continue to see in building more affordable uh housing units across the city each year and we know that the current funding does not keep Pace with the need uh we're hopeful that this project can help raise some new strategies to that end and and lastly staff is working on process improvements

[122:00] to streamline the application process for City programs with income eligibility requirements to make accessing assistance easier across multiple programs strategy number six seeks to advance work towards 15minute neighborhoods Council took a a major step forward in implementing the East Boulder sub community plan with the recent adoption of form-based code and as discussed previously much policy work to advance 15minute neighborhoods is anticipated in both the commercial District analysis and the tools associated with that work and the Boulder Valley comp plan update and now I get to hand I didn't know when I moved it if it was gonna make noise hi again Council Pam Davis assistant city manager um I'm honored to support the accessible and connected goal area of our sustainability equity and resilience framework the accessible and connected

[123:00] goal addresses the many def definitions of accessibility that's physical accessibility getting around the community uh multimodal Transportation options as well as digital accessibility and availability of City information and engagement processes for our 24 through 26 strategic plan the city identif ified two primary strategies for this area strategy number seven is investing in maintaining a transportation system with an array of multimodal choices to reduce a vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions our primary Department's working on this it's a wide group of transportation and Mobility Community Vitality planning and development services open space and Mountain parks and others the biggest highlights in this area of course as mentioned in the but Vision zero goal is the enhancement to our City's core arterial Network um that was actually a council priority established in 2022 but it is an

[124:01] extended and long-term implementation so it remains a key part of our City's work plan um as you may well be aware of some recent Communications we have two key projects in the pipeline this summer uh specifically the North 30th Street preliminary design project uh that's between arapo Avenue Avenue and diagonal Highway and the fulam street safety improvements project between Pine and Colorado you also received an update earlier this year related to our access management and parking strategy initiative uh this focus is on three main focus areas off- street parking standards Transportation demand management and on street parking management standards we anticipate that you will be we will be before you again before the end Quarter Two so that we are aligning with State legislation some other strategies that you may not hear about as regularly uh

[125:00] under actions under this strategy include significant enhancement store Trails Trail heads and multi-use paths um several of you I think came out to celebrate the opening of the north sky Trail um recently and and we continue the buildout and enhancements of our open space and Mountain Parks trail system we're doing uh some great Regional collaboration related to the us36 multi-use path and completing that final Northern segment uh that connects to the Rocky Mountain Greenway we're also doing Regional planning around all of the diagonal Highway Colorado 119 multimodal improvements our region can look forward to bus Rapid Transit managed lanes and a commuter bike way between Boulder and Longmont we also in are in Partnership supporting the B Boulder to Erie Regional Trail as well as identifying and improving multimodal access to get to key open space location so a lot of work in that

[126:00] area um also you may recall one of those tuck-in pieces of work that occurred during the uh 2024 Council Retreat um with some feedback related to exploring how we better integrate the concept of access more explicitly in transportation code um for the city um that project as we've dug in is is a little bit of a larger scope than sort of initially thought and so we're having some ongoing conversations about options related to um code changes and there will be more to come this year on that strategy number eight in this area is about improving accessibility to city meetings information and programs through Equitable engagement um as you can imagine this is a lot of uh work really with a lot of our internal Services um including our city manager's office communication and engagement Finance Innovation and Technology Human Resources Etc um key highlights there involve a lot of our digital

[127:01] accessibility work um it's the right thing to do and it was mandated that we enhance digital accessibility at the state level and so our team has been hard at work um we've completed phase one of that work which is enhanced digital access to city services um improved applications for people with disabilities um and again again complying with that legislation our language access program run out of our Communications and engagement department has made some great operational enhancements um a lot of their work has thus far included creating resource guides um internally so that our city staff understand the level of service we need to be providing to non-english speakers in our community um we're also looking at uh some training programs and support for employees who use their SP Spanish language skills at work to support our community we have enhanced support resources for the community connectors program um and we know that has great

[128:01] support from all of you and then again in April I have the privilege of coming again before you to talk about agenda management software enhancements we're making as well as the um very uh exciting looking forward to the improvements to our staff memo templates and giving additional internal training guidance to our city staff on how to create concise and and good information for you all through our Council memos including enhanced racial Equity assessment information um analysis of climate and sustainabil sustainability considerations and use of fiscal notes in policymaking I've just read concise a shorter is that what we're talking about shorter memos I so the other um goal area in our s framework that I want to talk about is the environmentally sustainable goal

[129:01] this goal addresses Community sources of energy Equitable and responsible use of our Earth's resources and production protection and stewardship of Boulder's ecosystems in our current strategic plan there are three primary strategies for this strategy number nine is increasing community and ecosystem resilience to current and future impacts of climate change which is really easy to do in two years in case you are wondering uh so we we have great collaboration across the city it includes of course our great climate initiatives team but Planning and Development utilities open space in Mountain parks and truly um the full uh city city government really touches this in in um in one way or another so you heard a lot tonight about the climate Action Plan update in addition to that there are some in key initiatives around our community heat strategy uh to have the city in Partners work to cool the areas of the city most impacted by

[130:00] extreme heat we have many water conservation programs you heard a little bit about that this evening including support of water-wise landscaping irrigation consultations lawn removal S Services and partnership with resource Central um and a great deal of community outreach and education and then finally um many things are time back to the Boulder Boulder Valley comprehensive Plan update but certainly we'll be having conversations that review and potentially update our City's water policies strategy 10 in this area relates to advancing the city's goal of an 80% reduction in emissions and the CommunityWide goal of a 70% reduction by 2030 the first thing I'll mention about this strategy is as we were creating the Strategic plan we had sort of these two slightly differently worded missions goals part of our work this year is going to sort of clarify and update uh the language of that goal to sort of better clarify what Milestones we're

[131:00] seeking to reach so do expect some um enhancement there um under this goal related to emissions reduction certainly our partnership with XL Energy and the work that we do to expand access to clean Renewable Power um is is a huge uh a huge body of work we recently completed the a quisition of our street light system here in Boulder and are working through the process to convert to LED street lights uh this is a major Initiative for the community that'll save costs update our technology improve reliability and reduce carbon emissions all at the same time we're doing work at shiaka around enhancing resilience um and much of that work will also include undergrounding utility infrastructure and preparing electric infrastructure to transition more of that area off of natural gas um and then finally internal to the city our city facilities um

[132:00] enhancements continue uh we recently featured the opening of our new Fire Station 3 for example that was a great deconstruction project and reuse um we're also replacing other failing buildings conducting energy retrofits and uh electrifying our Fleet our final strategy in this area is to prioritize sustainability values through new and existing policies um this one there's a couple great efforts underway um a couple specific ones are are uh movement toward a socially responsible procurement policy um part of this work eventually will fold in the um incorporation of both the underserved business concept that is well underway and then also looking at op opportunities to incorporate our environmental values into our city purchasing policies we're working through embodied carbon option policy development um in

[133:01] the summer of 2024 you all approved an updated energy conservation code with new incentives for reducing embodied carbon emissions and then finally again all roads lead back to the Boulder Valley comp plan um that's a major initiative with which we will be seeking to align our environmentally sustainable work work throughout I believe with that I get to hand it back to Chris we got two goal areas to go uh I'm going to cover responsibly governed next which uh if you really think about what that goal area is about it's about providing excellent an excellent customer experience uh for our community responsibly managing the city's assets um making datadriven decisions as an organization uh especially grounded in community engagement and then of of course being an employer of choice uh to have great staff as well so there's really two strategy areas within the responsibility governed category um the

[134:00] first one is really around uh it's a really broad strategy that has lots of things happening in it but it's it's about organizational and financial best practices um improving Asset Management customer experience project and program performance is what the strategy says some things that we've done in this last year and are continuing to work on on um we implemented a new Financial system that we went live on on uh uh January 6th um which is a really big deal um if you've been involved in those and that's been a really smooth implementation so far so we're really excited about some improvements there um we've launched a city-wide Asset Management strategy um which sounds super government wonky um but when you really step back the city owns literally billions and billions of dollars of stuff um and responsibly managing that is really important that's a key role of government and um tying that asset management work together with the

[135:00] ultimate goal that if we know about everything we own what condition it's in what it costs to replace it we can make much more strategic budget decisions so that's what we're striving for uh year one is setting the overall strategy uh and then each department will start to inventory all those assets you'll hear how that connects to the long-term fin strategy uh on MAR uh April 3rd as well um the next one is we have now created a Citywide Center of Excellence for project management the city does lots of projects we have lots of project managers we actually created a fun little inventory there's 493 project managers in the city um that are either direct um part of their job is project management and then we threw in all the people that just said I really am interested in project management so so supporting all of those staff um to continue to enhance their project management skills um and to create maybe some uh tools and uh um resources for

[136:00] them so that we can better execute projects is really what that Center is all about um it's been a long dream of some folks and so we're excited to have that happen uh and then you've heard a lot about Western City Campus um and that being a new centralized customer service center um but the work doesn't stop with just building a building and U moving customer service to one location we have a whole lot of process Improvement um and techn technological improvements that we want to make so that by the time we open the doors in that building um our customer experience is going to be enhanced in a in a pretty incredible way so um we have in front of us several years of work to really uh make sure that there's a new experience when you either walk in that building or uh the idea is digitally uh versus in person versus on the phone will all be seamless so we're pretty excited about that work that's coming up uh the other strategy in this uh responsibly governed area is around employee growth retention and employee development and so we've

[137:02] done a a lot of work in this area um supporting leaders across the organization uh so kind of managers uh and and up through directors in the city manager Office um we continued uh a two-day Leadership Summit again for our employees this last year uh and uh we also launched an employee affinity group program um to help support retention of our employees uh and in 2025 we're going to be continuing some of that work as well as continuing to really round out during covid we really um stopped our entire employee development program and so we are rebuilding that program uh and so uh 2025 is really resetting the foundation of that um both in terms of um training all the way through um professional development for uh staff in kind of a cohesive Citywide way so some fun little things around responsibly governed that

[138:00] uh you don't always get to hear about and with that Mark's G to round us out with the final Sarah goal thanks Chris yeah uh last but not least the goal of economically vital which the mascot is no we don't have masc you don't have a mascot it's a it's a vacant commercial build no I'm kidding I'm kiding economically vital envisions a healthy Equitable and resilient local economy that is based on Innovation diversity and collaboration strategy number 14 seeks to build on efforts to bolster our local economy by building on our core strengths promoting economic mobility and aligning with Community Values uh Jennifer Matt and Regan covered many of our Key activities in this area I do want to emphasize a couple of key features of the work the economic Vitality strategy update and the district analysis will help guide small business support activities both this

[139:01] year within budget resources that we do have and in how we prepare for prioritizing needs within the 2026 budget process we are very interested in how public financing tools such as expanded use of General Improvement distri districts or a potential creation of a downtown Development Authority could help accelerate Economic Development and public investment in alignment with our goals something that these documents will explore further and Council will have that discussion in April and finally strategy number 15 is focused on making it easier to do business with the city through streamlined processes in support of priority Community outcomes Council has advanced several items in support of this strategy already including reducing the types of land use cases that require planning Board review streamlined approvals for certain projects via the family-friendly vibrant neighborhoods work that you just

[140:00] heard about historic preservation process simplification and most recently building code simplification all will contribute to more predictable and efficient processes key work plan items on the horizon include our special event process improvements mobile vending cart program improvements M ments uh better internal coordination on development projects to promote efficiency and continued partnership with our development and business Community to identify areas of additional process improvements that we can make in the year ahead and that rep wraps up our overview of others work and I think questions just the remaining tickets right yeah that's it I'll yet before we turn it back to you Heather um I just want to say I hope you see the the amazing breath of work uh that staff is doing in addition to uh all your Council priorities and all the work that we do day in and day out you can see in those dashboards the work plan dashboards all

[141:01] the work and while all the work is tremendously important what I love about the midterm check-in um is the ability to really lift up and highlight and while I love all our children equally uh what I I have to say that responsibly governed is an area soft to my heart and I'm glad that we get to lift it up because you all don't get to see that and our community doesn't get to see that and it really is a lot of the foundation and the backbone it is the place that we get to support our amazing staff it is a place that we get to invest in Tools in development in the ways in which we provide help and support and really sort of provide a better environment and a better way to retain and recruit staff because without them we could do none of this and so I lift that up because there's a lot of work there but without each and every one of our team we could not do any of that and so just the opportunity to be able to lift the amazing team that we have at the city of Boulder um I just

[142:01] wanted to take a moment and give a big shout out to our employees so thank you y'all rock you know that all right um council members questions um you are not limited in number but you are limited in number in sequence so if you have 17 questions and we have time happy to hear them however you get one and then the next person gets one and I'll give everyone one until anybody gets two you dig all right Nicole I noticed you first and I know that you have a question so why don't you go ahead thank you I do I've been sitting on the end of my seat um waiting to ask it but thank you so much um first of all for all the presentations and all the work um it is truly impressive how much that you all get done um in the span of a year so just thank you for that work um a few years ago I think it may not have been at a retreat uh it was maybe at um one

[143:02] of our sessions after the Marshall fire I asked how we were incorporating people without cars into our emergency evacuation plans and at the time we hadn't had a chance to think too much about that yet uh we've done a lot of really good work in the interim um and tonight I kind of have another wrench that I'm going to uh throw out there related to emergency planning um our alert system now depends really heavily on digital devices uh that involve location services as well as social media we're living through some broader changes that are changing people's digital behaviors we've got folks turning off location services setting up vpns turning off devices when they're at home leaving devices at home uh leaving social media how are we considering these Behavior changes and the possibility of more widespread changes along these lines in our emergency alert

[144:03] plans that is an excellent question and uh so I might share a few things uh but quickly is um we have since the Marshall fire developed um a whole bunch of educational materials through our office of disaster management and one of those is specifically around um uh folks that don't have a car don't have a vehicle and what do they need to do to be prepared um and what are the the things and the factors that we need to think about whether you are evacuating by say bicycle or scooter or if then you are going to coordinate with your neighbors uh and get a ride out that sort of thing so we have some educational materials that we are um sharing through our disaster preparedness workshops for folks and then I think broadly at the um the transition of the way people are communicating um our our folks are really thinking a lot about that um both from um how do we continue to encourage

[145:00] folks to sign up for the the text alerts because that's based on cell phone tower so even if you have location services disabled on your phone it's based on what cell tower you're connected to so those text messages will still get get to you so we encourage folks to sign up for uh boo alerts um we're also looking at what are the ways and and I think we've got an interim uh solution uh that we are going to be able to hopefully roll out here shortly um that will reduce our Reliance on social media to be able to get urgent alerts out to the community that maybe are not to the the level of say a reverse 911 um or those boo alerts but it's still information for the community to to know uh and then the other is really how do we start to continue to leverage well to leverage our community connectors and and folks in community um who have those trusted networks to make sure that that we're continuing to support that information flow we had that a lot of those learnings in different fires where even

[146:01] depending on who shows up to knock on the door to tell you to evacuate matters um and then the last one uh that I am now forgetting um was something else really cool and when I think of it I'll tell you what it is um let me add while you're thinking about that but but I want to I want to pull a thread that you were talking about Chris in terms of um really leveraging our not just our connectors in our program but our cultural Brokers our trusted cultural Brokers there's a lot of them in our community and we continue to build trust across uh organizations across um community members we have a lot of folks um that work with our various departments HHS certainly is one of them our um office of equity and belonging certainly is doing that I'll uh give a plug out to our own Chief Red Fern who uh just this past weekend did an entire session at Kasa amista with some folks entirely in Spanish I might add um bridging trust uh and thinking

[147:02] about what that looks like um and so the more that we do that the more that we as Government are able to go into community in ways that are not digital uh and so we continue to think about how do we leverage that in times of Crisis because crisis isn't just in a natural disaster it comes in all shapes and sizes um and certainly we are seeing that in a variety of ways right now I do Sirens we have a we have a really old not exciting Sirens we have a really old outdoor warning system like the Arid Sirens that you hear um and a lot of them frankly have broken and there's no parts to fix them so we have an effort to uh enhance our outdoor siren system um and kind of improve that and actually move some of those to areas where people gather outside that's the point of those is when you're outside and some of them are in the wrong spot so that's another project underway Council we are technically

[148:01] scheduled for a break around this time I'm wondering how many of you are desirous of a break at this particular moment or if we should carry on for a bit finish early carry on all right question who's next Matt you look ready hit it uh yeah I got one question on just to remark if we are doing those Sirens let's maybe do a Sono system so we can like play some music and have neighborhood dance parties or something like that so just and I know with with your uh world-renowned DJ skills um that we could have a a city-wide dance party that would be really good um or just pipe fome music to the whole Community because I'm sure they'd love that um my question is sort of a mix between 15minute neighborhoods and economic Vitality so it's like strategy six and 14 which is in Mark's wheelhouse um so given that we are making concerted effort with 15minute neighborhoods where people won't have to go as far to get most if not can hopefully get all of their needs met in a really close locality to where they live um how does

[149:03] how does that link with our economic development plan because there's going to be we're going have to reconcile some conflicts that if people are getting more of what they need near where they live they're now less likely to go visit our downtown cores to go get those needs and so how does that then go into not just what we're thinking about with the neighborhoods but also our economic development plan because there's some challenges and or new opportunities that come from that change of behavior and dynamic with the built environment that we're starting we're trying to create so I'm just sort of curious how we reconcile those yeah I appreciate uh the question Matt and Brad and Matt are Gonna Keep Me honest if I uh screw up part of the answer here I I think in general so first of all the comp plan update that it's going to be a really good opportunity to Define what we want out of those commercial centers and the comp plan makes it a it distinguishes between those more Regional commercial areas and the more

[150:02] neighborhood based and so the amenities will be different our Economic Development strategy would be different in the downtown than it would be in some of our smaller neighborhood centers across the the community what we do need to do is bolster our our Economic Development strategy for all of those commercial areas so good example is the recent work that we're doing in East Boulder and think around 55th in arapo where our our subcommunity plan calls for some type of public tool General improvement district is the most obvious or what we're most comfortable doing what our district analysis um is doing in part is looking at all of the available tools that could help support those commercial areas and what what we haven't done in the past is create these tools in a way that are flexible enough as conditions change or as policies change or needs change within different neighborhoods and so I I think we're

[151:00] hopeful that there's some short-term strategies that we can do that we we talked about um previously but that between the comp plan update and the district analysis that we can really begin to align our our tools to to our policies in a in a more comprehensive way to support economic development in those areas Brian and then Tina okay um questions for Nua I think um I really admire the plan uh the the both the focus and the breadth and then also how it it gives us a way to rationalize our budget um in new ways and I wish council could take more credit for it but you know the truth is this this was developed by your team and um and and and that was I think because we need a plan like this and and that was done under the opes of of a being operational on the other hand this is the most strategic document that we have as a city in terms of of

[152:01] comprehensiveness and you know spanning multiple years and into the future so I'm just wondering if um if you can n offer any thoughts on the F the future development of this plan um you know what is what will that look like what will the process of um of building it further look like if if you thought about that and I'm fine to wait on that for another day if that's better no I appreciate it Ryan and I I I will say that I think last year we really came to you and asked for forgiveness um because it is a document that we hope to do with you uh in the future it is it is a document uh that we hope to do in conjunction and partnership we I needed a plan quite frankly we needed a plan in the city to really align and bring things together so we went ahead and moved forward um and we we needed to create something that had better alignment we had been operating um frankly in dissonance not that we weren't operating without a variety of good plans because they certainly

[153:00] existed and they existed with a lot of input from community in the past but they really existed in silos and I needed a mechanism to bring a lot of that together uh and I certainly needed that before you set out to Priority Set uh which was a little intentional um but in the future right as we're thinking about that and uh and I know that we've got a couple of years of Elections uh ahead of us we thought about a three-year plan precisely for that so as we're um coming into uh 2027 we are hoping to sit down with you co-create something together uh in the next iteration and so we should be having a different kind of conversation in the future Ys

[154:03] is this better oh I will be heard um so this plan is great and uh thank you for doing it I think some things that would help me would be to still go a little bit on a higher level outcome so if we did some of these things which have a lot of really good it's values and value driven and um all these and activities that we think are good and hope are good but it's not it doesn't it's it would be helpful as a counsel person be able to see a little bit more clear what's working really well for the outcome we want and what are things that we need to Pivot or learn from and and adopt something else and I think it's top of mine because I'm I'm less optimistic about our budget and so the the most informed way that we can address Budget

[155:01] deficiencies um and and really understand what the trade-offs are because every single thing we do is a trade-off there's no excess so um that's where I'm hoping we can get to and I'm wondering what the plans are for that because I had to make it a question we don't mind a statement too we don't disagree with you I I think that is exactly the journey we've been on I mean I again I I so appreciated this started in the finance department uh this started with budgeting uh we needed a place from which to start and it's why budgeting for resilience and Equity started it's why we started as dep Department started with um looking at programs and thinking about what kpis were going to do it's why we have now brought a consultant to help us do that and to there are interviewing departments now we are looking at how do we create outcome measurements because at the end of the day we're really good at looking at metrics that think about outputs I need to answer the question of to what end do we spend our money that

[156:00] is the question we need to do what why are we doing and to what end are we improving anything for a community right if we're spending our money in our budget is it improving people's lives is it doing it what it sets out to do because if not let's pivot and maybe it's doing a good thing but it's not doing to its maximum potential and we can do something else with it that has been the journey right but the reality is we didn't have a good Benchmark from which to start which now we're doing and we're moving into a different direction where we are getting some additional outside help um to continue to support that effort so we will be coming to you you'll be seeing a lot of that we need to hold ourselves accountable to that um and frankly uh as you'll hear a little bit um I believe as we're talking a little bit about the long-term Financial strategy and in the financial forecast um part of that effort too is uh thinking about conversations we hope to

[157:00] have not just with you but with Community as we're thinking and categorizing all of our programs to frankly and I know the uh Financial strategies committee has heard a little preview of this but we are categorizing our programs into um essential and important and amenity and so forth we really looking at our core service levels the plan is to hopefully have a conversation about what level of service does this community really want because we have this pool of money in our budget and this is the desire that we need to have this is what is the desire what is community want because we cannot do it all it is overdue for that conversation so we hope to have that conversation in 2026 as we're thinking about uh that budget year that potential ballot item um and we are gathering that um in anticipation of that but all of that comes with metrics uh and so we are

[158:00] aligned in that both the desire and we are moving in that direction I want to go from the uh big picture uh to the more uh mundane I'm looking a little bit at um strategy number 10 um and my I really have a couple questions with respect to that um are we doing undergrounding of utility wires outside of shiaka or is it limited to the shiaka area and do we have any plans to do so if it's currently limited to shiaka I I'll start Mark uh on that one and um as you you may recall as we uh re-entered into our franchise agreement with Excel we got some catch-up money for undergrounding um the time the money that we missed out on uh while we were out of franchise and so we've been

[159:00] working to uh do undergrounding so we did undergrounding on North Broadway as a part of that Transportation project 19th Street I think if I'm I'm looking for heads to not if I'm off track here in the audience so Mark's giving me the thumbs up good um 19th Street shiaka is on the list right now that's in design design um and that includes the power that goes up to our water tank above shiaka as well um part of what'll be an interesting conversation is that'll up through that project will really exhaust all of our catch-up funds and so there's obviously a little bit of money that goes in each year but then we're gonna have to really think about prioritization of those I know our climate initiatives folks uh are are continuing to look at that I don't remember the details of uh everything that's on the list but um that's uh that's what I recall off the top of my head and anyone else that has more knowledge feel free to is chime in oh there's been conversation around downtown okay Y how am I

[160:04] doing okay is any of that work bondable under the ccrs uh initiative or is it may be expanded in the future uh that is a great question uh ask yeah I think uh from I think it's possible yeah um the the hard part is I think there isn't really any capacity left in ccrs um which is a conversation you're going to hear on April 3D is a part of the financial strategy um that that money is essentially exhausted um so I I think it's it's an interesting conversation to have around if we wanted to accelerate some of that work what's the best way to fund it and and is there lastly is there a a time when we're going to get another update on the Exel partnership and how they're doing and March 13 March 13th

[161:06] okay thank you my question is around the disaster um related one and I was curious about the status of um scenarios and tabletop activities and exercises for Council Members as well as our restaurant community and downtown right like there's just some scenarios that have already happened that it would be wonderful to do some play around and then also just um some different scenarios I think I've mentioned my time at the Colorado Municipal League conference and how valuable the tabletop exercises were um so just was curious to hear more about when we' have opportunities to do that thank you I'll start on that one uh the the the various levels of tabletop exercises and and disaster exercises that's something that we do regularly as a city staff um I think your question is really around what about at the council level

[162:01] do we have a conversation around that and yeah exactly yeah uh and so I think there could be an interesting conversation around um that we've we've touched on slightly before but also the role of Council in those times of emergency and What are the what are the key things and um um Key activities that you can do to to support the community and then for specific uh business groups um there have been there has been work done in the past um that really was spurred out of the 2013 flood where we were doing a lot of then kind of business resilience work on making sure that businesses had continuity of operations plans um we've got a whole new twist now if you know that we EXP experien with the public safety power shut off of for restaurants like what does that look like and do you have refrigeration trucks on call and all these things so um uh I think how we can

[163:00] continue to support businesses and our community in making sure that there is prepared as they can be as well um and doing that in in whether it's tabletop exercises or something that's more than to your point of here's the PowerPoint or here's a flyer for you to read about Coupe plans that are not so exciting sounding sometimes yeah what else you got yeah just to add a little bit on the business side uh Jennifer will add to this if I miss it through our Small Business Development Center uh I believe they've received a grant through the state uh for resilience planning for businesses and so that that service is available they've held several workshops to for businesses to help plan for different scenarios and so we can get a little bit more information out on uh that particular program

[164:13] I'm a trog I I I can't handle these modern devices um I want to go back to Exel have we had any conversation with them about a better pattern when they need to cut off power so that for instance they don't cut off the hospitals they don't cut off the senior home at Golden West um and by the way I live on the in the wooi and they didn't cut off my power and they should have I I I you know it was inexplicable so I mean have we had that conversation to say you know why don't you do something that makes sense we've had a lot of direct very direct conversations with Excel um and they have been very open to that and I think you'll have the opportunity to ask them more about it when uh they're here

[165:01] uh in March as well um but but I I think we've had some really productive conversations around sharing what are the critical facilities in the community um uh if you go read the city's testimony that was filed in their um wildfire protection plan at the Pu you will see some very direct asks of the city around um we're never going to turn the power off to the wastewater treatment plan again are we question mark um and we're having some great conversations of creating additional redundancy with them uh and finding better solutions to ensure that um what we experienced in uh April of last year we don't have that same experience again and I think Excel shares that perspective uh of um wanting to make sure that that we uh if we're going to have to do a public safety power shut off for Wildfire risk that it's done in the best way possible thank you got several so I'll just keep coming back um okay so I'm GNA go next to um

[166:04] responsibly governed I didn't see anything around the tribal Consul consultation work and so I was just curious what's the next iteration of that um so this is specific to the responsible governance section yeah I'll jump in first and uh my colleague Amy Kee is as well as here if I need any backup um so our we have kind of a few layers of our tribal engagement work still proceeding so um as you may recall almost exactly this time last year we had an extensive um couple days of events planned in partnership with our tribal partners and we had a massive snowstorm and so um about 80% of the people expected were already on their way we had a great opportunity to still connect with them but it kind of foiled the plans so we've been in conversations with those tribal Representatives about um sort of reigniting that Gathering a

[167:01] great um enhancement since that time is that um the university has brought on an assistant Vice Chancellor for Indian Affairs at CU and uh Mr Benny shendo and so as we've been partnering with him we've been exploring ways to enhance both the city and the University being collaborators on a future event so the last I heard we are aiming to do something this fall um when talking about scheduling with tribes and sort of that would be a little bit more of an exchange in a Community Learning event you know in the past several years our consultations have been largely closed door sessions working on updating memorandums of understanding and kind of the the higher level policy work we're now sort of transitioning into a relationship that's more Nimble to address specific programs to address kind of more CommunityWide action so um that'll probably be the next major touch point with that group we also in our open space in Mountain parks department have um some great ongoing work in a

[168:01] couple of areas certainly the project out at um Fort Chambers poor farm and the the concept plan that was developed there was in partnership with the shyen and arapo tribes um we're also doing uh we have kind of a tribal working group Where We Gather with tribal Representatives quarterly um and we are kind of conducting a series of focus groups with them to help inform the next iteration of how we do education and interpretation of um information related to indigenous perspectives we're also developing a a more formal cultural resources management plan um that we'll talk about sort of how we deal with sacred sites and and what we may find on it so I could go on for a while but it's it's it's a great great sufficient and again it's so incredible to all the staff work but there's a council role too right because those papers and those Agreements are technically between the council it's a government to government relation and so I want to make sure that all the levels are being respected and

[169:00] not everything only on the staff level because that's not fair too so thank you for the update appreciate it um so this is within the context of Transportation so strategy 7 that's Pam's wheelhouse um this and I know that on April 10th we have a can update and so this is maybe just to prime the pump but get a little more specifics when can we expect to begin discussing the downtown um can study and maybe most importantly when will Council um have a opportunity to help Define uh the scope and the vision of that study I would be remiss not to welcome director uh Valerie Watson down to the hot seat so I think we can still clap

[170:01] woohooo good evening Valerie Watson interim director of transportation and Mobility thanks for asking about the downtown study that that box on the can map um when Council had originally worked with Tab and um con conceptualized the core material Network um so you know really that um as it was brewing I think was described as an operational improvements look at pedestrian safety um bike connectivity through downtown um because that scope has not yet been fully defined and we do not currently have funding um allocated or um any funding that we can draw on to um initiate that that scoping and that work um that is something that we have really more earmarked on our work plan for 2026 and Beyond um and so it really does come

[171:00] down to the resourcing um for that because right now we're so focused on several major Corridor efforts that um we're just Full Throttle on at the moment so just in timing I guess my question is we're trying to uh move along with fulam and hopefully kind of finish off in June July um we've got Iris that's going to sit until we get funding for that the planning is done that's said I assume fulam will take a similar scope um we'll kind of figure out the plan and then I don't think implementation starts immediately and so I'm kind of just curious s why I'm I'm just maybe guess I'm not I'm not satisfied with it being way pushed that far and so I'd love to maybe come back and figure out why why we're not tackling that perhaps sooner even though we don't have funding for some parts it does seem like that needs to be started in particular because we've got Economic Development strategy that we're in the process of that feeds into it

[172:01] we've got the 50th um anniversary of Pearl Street the downtown area so there's a lot of things that link into that uh maybe have Sundance in which case they're going to have a stake and how we think about that area so I just I I think having that more holistic look like this study maybe is envisioned to be on the front of some of those discussions may be more beneficial so any I just maybe we can flag that in in talking about that down the road thanks so this is Chris's I don't like Matt I don't actually remember all the numbers so good for you for remembering the different numbers really cheater this this wasn't regards to uh The Chronic nuisance ordinance and I'm sorry to get in the weeds but that's CR enforcement yeah chronic new oh very funny did you hear his joke he said okay

[173:01] did you hear his joke okay so I do we have so I'm wondering do you think that we are doing a good job with the chronic news Ordinance do you think we have enough officers um I'm just do you think it's working I remember back when in our first term oh is it an officer is it a person what is it yeah I'm saying this just because you know reading the different um Hill conversations they're concerned how long it takes and I'm not sure if that's just the way it is or we just need to do better or you know yeah excuse me hicups uh Brad Muer planning and devel velopment Services thanks for the question council member uh I would actually characterize probably what you're hearing from the hill as just general um enforcement of nuisance which is shared between police

[174:01] and Community Development Community Development it's getting late sorry planning and development services tattooed on my arm here um so we know that there continue to be you know inquiries in in the hill is always fairly vocal and and a place where a lot of activity is happening we have a targeted group uh the hill revitalization working group that tackles that on a regular basis monthly uh cooperatively with the community um chronic nuisance uh you'll recall takes uh a number of incidents confirmed incidents within a year so we're not at that point yet where we'd be able to evaluate that but certainly that's an important tool in our toolbox um as we represent at the time we don't actually anticipate there'll be that many that get caught in that net so to speak it's the knowledge of it and US advising people about it um so the short

[175:02] answer about resources of is going to lie ultimately with the budgeting process I think nuur has got a robust idea of how we'll be bringing that forward at some point but and I'll get you off the hook rad for a minute because I I just want to honor the fact that when we brought IC nuisance forward we also said we weren't staed for it and I just want to say that out loud right we knew that at the time um we knew we wanted to grow uh what that looked like and so we knew we were uh a bit uh short staffed there I'm reminded I was reminded today from our chief as well that he is finally fully staffed and that I should expect a budget requests from him as well and so we know that we're going to be um seeing as we continue to see those needs from a variety of areas um a request for a variety of staff and this is certainly one area as we continue to um hear from you and see frankly uh ordinances in this area grow whether it's parking enforcement or chronic nuisance and so

[176:02] forth so we're going to have to continue to address it at the same time that we have I'm sorry what was that word we're financially constrained I believe um so it is the thing right it is what we continue to think about it is a and I'll uh recall what Mark was talking about that as it is one of the reasons that we're looking into um sort of our limited commission project too so we're looking at are there efficiencies within the teams that we have currently are there ways to leverage our current staff even better and then are there ways that we're going to enhance because I can tell you now that we need to enhance the question will be how much can we enhance at any given time given the budget that we have and frankly I'll you know I'm always honest with you given what what we don't know yet about whatever Federal funding impacts we may have and so we will likely be putting something forward in our budget at some point will that be sufficient likely not in the beginning

[177:00] but we will continue to grow as we can oh trust me he told me today thanks so just kind of following up on what you were saying I sometimes look at all of these priorities and the size of our city and have concerns that we're doing a ton of different things and I don't know if we're doing them well and I'm I'm worried we're spread thin and I'm worried we're pressuring staff to say yes when you may not be set up to do something whatever it is is um and so how can we ensure that we're not overextending ourselves especially when we think we may be we have pressures of things that we prioritize like the

[178:00] police department we're hearing about baseball Tennis Courts South bow D Center a train you know Town Homes we got to do it all right now but I'm I'm concerned yeah we are too we talk about it often um it's a complic ated question I mean I'm glad you're asking it's a complicated question we try when you when when we're considering when you're considering ordinances I encourage staff I certainly try to be as honest with you all and with Community about what their resource implications are chronic nuisance is a good example we knew what that looked like we told you what it would look like and we knew that we would build it it doesn't mean you can't move forward but we're honest about what it would take to completely enforce so that we not caught in a situation where we're not being candid right that is my commitment always to you and to our community that I will be candid about what we can do it is the reason we are undergoing a current fee study it is the

[179:00] reason we are looking at categorizing our programs it is the reason we are talking about total cost of ownership and our unfunded needs so that when we're making budget decisions we hope that when we bring It Forward you understand the reason that we're bringing forward because we cannot fund every desire and every ask uh not neither of the Departments bring forward nor that Community wants of us um and we hope that when we're that's one of the reasons and I'm so excited that you all have thought that fiscal notes is also important because we want you to know what the impact of um what your policy decisions are because there are some financial implications of those so the best we can do is to bring those forward and to lift up what the costs are and what the tradeoffs are are that's the most we can do we hope your responsibility is that you will take that into account and make decisions

[180:00] accordingly um yeah I just wanted to follow up on that and use it as an opportunity to uh tease out a little bit more of what I was hoping to get with my question ticket earlier um about some of the work in the long-term Financial strategy um and what we are doing there in terms of educating Community about how the budget works and helping um helping our community have the knowledge that they need to weigh in and let us know what services really are the most important to community as we are up against these um very real limits of of what we can and can't do so just wondering if someone could speak to that a little bit more um just to share out some of of those things because I think it is a really uh really important place for Community to way in and for us to get more of this information so we can have exactly that conversation you were just talking about Tina I'll start and I'm I'm gonna look to Charlotte and Joel if I need more help here um but we're gonna we're gonna

[181:02] be able to flush this out a little bit more for you all uh on April 3D when we bring the long-term Financial strategy forward um but there's there's the short-term education as we think about the context of uh your all's decision of whether to bring forward a ballot item in 2025 um related to to taxes um and what's the education necessary to the community to understand what the need is um and so I think there's some short-term education and recognizing that that quite frankly that's that's a responsibility that Council will have to carry um because as staff we can't do that once you place it on the ballot um but then there's a much more uh indepth um really important conversation for the community to have that Charlotte mentioned earlier and Nua mentioned as well which is we have to we have to start having the trade-off conversations as a community that I think we've we've avoided wanting to have or we've had those but in silos of focus areas um and

[182:04] so how do we bring that together so we've we've been thinking about there's a I think there's a quarter two quarter three conversation study session with Council where we can start to put some shape to that of how how should we go engage with the community and have a conversation around what what how how do you want us to deliver these various services and is if it's but holes and snow plowing you know and we start to have to have a trade-off conversation what does that look like um and though I I don't I think how we have those conversations is going to be really important uh and we want to explore that with you what's the best way to do that um recognizing that we want it to be uh constructive for the community and we also want it to be one that helps inform where we where we can make decisions and then I think it ties to Nua what you were saying uh with the last question is and how do we also

[183:00] connect that to the work that we're doing of measuring the programs that we're delivering um and recognizing the ones that are working recognizing the ones that are to Tina your question aren't aren't working and so let's make a change there to to better deliver to the community so I think that's that Foundation Building that as we connect all these pieces and parts together I think we're going to be able to make much more strategic decisions so I was gonna say is there anyone has a first or second question before we go to Third and Lauren has our first question so this oh is going to be on theme with um the previous questions as we think about you know the implementation of our outcome based budgeting and trying to make these tradeoffs and our constrained budget environment um have you thought at all

[184:01] about how our next budgeting process might change from our last not just Community engagement wise but Council engagement wise and how we might help participate in some of those tradeoff decisions or make make it more challenging you know well no I um we have yet to kick off uh our budget process we're about to do that actually pretty soon um and we have some interesting uh or not interesting we've got some engagement strategy set out we actually are looking to get some uh earlier engagement from you and part of that is frankly uh will be part of this um April 3D conversation the May conversation we're looking to get some insight from you much earlier on than we have uh in the past departments will be

[185:00] looking to start to create that but some of the Insight that you will give us both in April and in May uh will actually help them as they're creating their budget um but we need some time then to be considering what that looks like uh as you all but there's also just a timing issue right um as they give us our that's why these two early conversations will be great um departments will then give that to us and then frankly while you are alarm break uh that is the time that we are sitting down and reviewing budgets and making decisions because we need to give that to you all in August um so I would say take advantage of those two really critical conversations to let us know what those priorities are it is those times that we bring it ear that we bring it to you really to get an sense of what are the important things early on um because it's just a it's a constant revolving um fast-paced time for Budget creation as we move forward but we certainly need to hear those priorities

[186:01] as we move in anyone else on first or second questions before we go for third's all right uh anyone else want to go again TAA I love it till 9:30 all right um okay also I appreciate um people wanted to drive through but you're driving against Brain science so breaks are not a terrible thing and I would love us to have a vote when that happens and not just informal thing having moving forward um I'm now on environmental sustainability it is wonderful to see all of the incredible efforts um particularly around the measurement and monitoring I did notice though um or rather had Curiosities around the ways that um um food and you know I can I can't unhear food as a utility from the incredible um session that once in

[187:01] future green and flows host co-hosted um grateful to have been one of the the only uh council member that was um able to join that one and and I know we wanted to keep that one close so I was happy to be able to be there um but it really got me thinking of about you know when we're talking about our climate initiatives rarely do I hear Agriculture and regenerative agriculture in particular so just curious to hear a little bit more um about that as well as Wildlife corridors so again I care about emissions but the global um the scientific Community has been pretty clear that we need to not only and I think our Council I mean our the staff has done a wonderful job of of the biodiversity work through cob Boulder and others but it's not elevated to an accountability component and so I'm just curious again Food Systems and um Wildlife corridors um and just kind of where we beyond immigrant Beyond emissions thank

[188:02] you thanks for the question council member Adams and the feedback some of this I think we'll have to bring back to you given kind of who we have present here in the room tonight so um I'll I will offer uh y an opportunity to address anything here in the moment and then we can certainly follow up sure hi elishan climate initiatives and I apologize I'm standing in for um Jonathan tonight here and um I will say that as I currently see it Food Systems isn't really within the scope of what we are doing in climate initiatives and it's one of those things that I think that I've heard in this conversation tonight of how do we balance the things that come on our plate and the things that we um have purview over the things that we have leverage over and I would say there are regenerative agriculture systems that happen throughout the city and that piece I would see happening also with our open space um partnership as well as the wildlife Corridor piece there um so I think there's a weaving

[189:00] and an overlap and I'm hoping that some of these things get pointed out in our climate action plan as we look at mapping across the city and Partnerships with other department but you know as Food Systems as I hear it being talked about isn't currently in our climate action work and I think that's a conversation that we would need to have with our um our trade-offs and how we we weave that in um in places that it's not happening so awesome thank you so much I really appreciate that um and look forward to more conversations with my colleagues and others around how we can ensure that food is a part of our climate resilience response um also just again there is this expect there is an assumption that our Wildlife corridors are thriving because people tend to only look at the west side but the east side are our Wildlife Cor doors aren't thriving so I just um I'm grateful to hear that there is more effort in work in that area and look forward to continued conversation thank you thanks tasa and it sounds like maybe a break be good I'm taking one anyway y'all do what

[190:02] you want um why don't we take five quick Comfort break and come on back and then we'll carry on want to make sure we get your questions answered go ahead all right time is 815 you left just in time so uh come back at A2 e

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[199:16] did anybody else have any outstanding questions just for time management issues all right Taisha has two more Taisha is going to hit those and then we're going to transition um and thank you everyone for your fortitude and patience but also for your thoughtful questions right there's a balance there um Taisha you had two more go ahead lovely okay so um actually three one is on just the Elevate Boulder program it's not I don't need a response it's more so just like hey no notice it ends in 2025 also noticing more people falling in needing that kind of support so just wanted to lift that up in the budget conversation is one and I look forward to conversations around that um two is

[200:00] the safe category and just lifting up the request again for human relations I know that we're navigating what can we say in Front Street what can we say d and right we have all these wonderful things about discrimination and care and workers and tenants and all of these different constituent groups that we know um are going to be disproportionately impacted even more um given the uncertainty so just would love to hear and figure out a way right that we can get um a deeper understanding of what is happening um and how we're monitoring and tracking and responding to different kinds of complaints whether it be for housing or employment or those kinds of things and then lastly is the 15minute neighborhood and I just just ask us to consider renaming that or something my concern is when I hear 15-minute neighborhood it gives it gives self-containing it's giving mini bubble

[201:01] it's giving I'm operating I'm generating everything in that 15 minutes and that's not the case you're not generating water or energy in that 15 minutes you didn't grow food in the 15 minutes and so how are we tracking um not just the vehicle mod but like food miles and just you know I I just if it was walkable neighborhood I would even be able to lean in more but there's just something about that language that's really um challenging for me uh even with waste management or sorry materials management right that's not happening in 15 minutes so again where is I I understand like cognitively um but when I connect it to other issues that our fit city is facing it's an illusion of separation so just how are we balancing the 15minute concept with what um that you know it's not self-contained thank you would you like me to answer okay I'm

[202:03] I'm just hanging out uh seemed like seemed like all the fun all the fun was happening up here and you know we're we're pretty somber back there so it's just a thought uh I am still Brad Mueller with uh planning and development services department um so uh it's interesting actually you asked that question council member Adams um because in the context of the community assembly which by the way the mailings just went out and are hitting uh doorsteps now um we asked ourselves that question about whether there was a different name uh for that that would be appli because it's it is a bit of a a shortcut label what we found out is it's so embedded in so many of our other plans and it's an roughly understood Concept in the community that we didn't want to confuse people by you know shifting that and

[203:01] then it becoming a point of of confusion uh there's no good single term but the basic concept of 50 minutes is that you could walk a roll to destinations within an activity center that is um not going to be whole in in all aspects of land use or or resource use but certainly is designed to create efficiencies and really quality of life and and uh many many kind of things that are embedded in in a lot of our values uh we will take pains to make sure that that Fuller understanding of it is taken when we are in these Fuller conversations but um for when we're needing to do more shorthand that's that's kind of the best that came up without disconnecting with a lot of other past work all right for the great conversation on the Strategic plan um I always tell you guys this but like I was bragging on your

[204:00] strategic plan to another Council recently they were like a council member said councils don't esta or cities don't do strategic plans and I was like J and I could show you one that's kind of the bomb diggity um so thank you all for that thanks for your great questions of do you have a final question no no that's fine that's fine you you you go you go with your bad self girl all right this is for um I think more for naria and Teresa but but really for kind of all staff but I think you two are probably the ones to run it through uh my question is really how can we show our appreciation for all that you do um because I mean it's hard to be alive right now in 2025 with what's going on um in so many ways and you deal with it in your own lives with your own families and then you show up here and you do it

[205:00] here for a whole city too and not just the people that live here but the people who study here and work here and visit here as well and it is so much and so what can we do how can we help well I will say council member spear you just did um um uh I I appreciate it when um I appreciate it when you lift uh staff up I appreciate it when you do it at Council meetings um I know staff appreciates it I appreciate it when you uh take the time I know that sometimes you uh after staff meetings or Council meetings or study sessions some of you send me a note to send a staff and I certainly pass that on or you send a note to staff directly and um I can't tell you how much that means it is is a difficult time that we are in it's always difficult to be in city government I will say um we Face a lot of pressures and rightly so Community expects a lot from us I wouldn't expect anything less um that is why we are here we are here to serve and so it is not a

[206:02] it is we do not shy away from it we know what we do when we get into public service it is why we serve um but when we are living in times uh where those tensions are even higher uh we certainly feel that we are in I would say in those moments um and each and every one of the public servants both in this room and throughout the organization knows what that looks like and feels it and yet they go home and they have lives and families uh and uh they are also dealing with those pressures so um giving staff Grace is the most I can ask um it is what I ask of them when they are dealing with their own staff and with each other um and so I appreciate those moments of taking a moment and giving staff the benefit of the doubt when you get an Irate email from someone in community to know that maybe there's another side and another perspective um that when you're getting an answer that is perhaps a not

[207:00] this but maybe there's another way um that you understand where staff is coming from and that if there's still an issue that perhaps you come to me so that we can talk about it a little bit more um versus um taking frustrations out IR ly on staff who uh don't need to do that that is why you have me quite frankly um and so but lifting staff up and talking to staff uh and lifting up the great work is the most I can ask and I thank you because you do that often and you do that well and so I appreciate um the support that you give each and every one of us Nicole thanks for the question and thanks for the great answer that's excellent um let us transition now Nua you want to talk a little bit about the future Retreat schedule y'all been giving this some thought I am happy to um we know that we have two years of Elections we're so excited about two

[208:01] years of Elections ahead of us um can't even tell you uh so we have of course we are finishing up um this uh term we've got great work you've heard of that the great work um we will be finishing up your Council prior priorities um in 2025 at the end of the year um we will and we have been we've talked about it we plan a kind of a truncated one-year um Retreat plan for 2026 um knowing that we have another election um that later on that year that spring of 2027 we will have another Retreat or whenever it is that we schedule it right whether it's early in January February or or March um we will have a full two-year Retreat for two-year priorities and then we will fall in our regular Cadence uh and so just know that for 2026 we will I hope that you're thinking about one-ear priorities instead of two-year priorities uh have those in your mind um

[209:01] as we're thinking about how we move forward and then we will get back on our regular schedule in 2027 so we're excited about it question makes great sense great fantastic in that case the other thing you have in your packet is your fancy QR code where we welcome your feedback uh on behalf of the retreat committee um what did you like um I Heard maybe we ran out of carrots early so just a note about the carrots or other things um Retreat committee uh Tara and Nicole and staff um really hustled on this one a lot of work behind it and I hope we hope you enjoyed it but let us know what we could do better in the future um always welcome your feedback uh Mr Mayor any final thoughts for our bunch I I just might have a couple brief ones uh first I wanted to thank Nicole that was a beautiful question and I really appreciated you doing that I just want to say like and

[210:00] to your point um there is so much dysfunction in government right now right and of course the craziness at the federal level but there are all kinds of other cities where uh council members are tearing each other apart staff and Council are Waring with each other and just see see the incredibly high level of functionality in this room for this evening is to me just incredibly inspiring right like the partnership that we have between our legislative branch and our executive branch and our staff team I think is as good as it gets um and this is I think the best damn team in city government just and full stop very best and and I feel that very strongly so thanks to everyone for spending uh the last few hours with this and for the incredible work that you do for your community uh our community every day and we do certainly get those I rate emails right and boy some of them are real R rate um but we we keep at it and uh

[211:02] every day um things in Boulder a little better than the day before because of this team and everybody here doing amazing work so thanks everyone um and we'll keep at it and before we leave we have to thank the facilitator with the the mostest Heather here so if we could have a round of applause for her extraordinary work I would just say as a facilitator with at least some I don't know if it's the most is if you need stories to make you so sure that what Aaron just said about other governments is accurate I got stories you're like one of I think 12 Retreats we're doing this year and thank you for being a ray of joy and sun shine in my government nerd life um cuz we got a couple bumpy ones ahead so thanks for just being you you guys are always so fun thanks Ed we adjourned we're adjourned go back and do family things

[212:02] be well be safe do good