May 15, 2025 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[4:59] It's 6 o'clock. Good evening everyone

[5:01] and welcome to the Thursday, May 15, 2025 regular meeting of the Boulder City Council. I'm going to go ahead and call us to order and ask Emily to please call the role. Yes. Good evening, everyone. We'll start tonight's roll call with Council Member Adams. Benjamin present. Mayor Brockett present. Folks, present. Marquis, present. Council member Shuhart here. Mayor Prom Spear, council member here. Oh, apologies. Must have had an old script. Council member Wallik here. And Winer here. Mayor, we have our quorum. Thanks so much. All right, our first item tonight is item 1A, which is the archaeology and historic preservation month declaration, which is going to be presented by Mayor Prom Folkarts. And if the people receiving the

[6:01] declaration would like to come on up, please do. How's it going? How are you? May is the National Observance of Archaeology and Historic Preservation Month. It is an opportunity to celebrate our community's historic places and the organizations doing the great work of saving places in ways both big and small. It is an occasion to inspire others to do the same. In 1972, crowds gathered to witness the demolition of the century old Century Central School in downtown Boulder. The destruction galvanized the local grassroots historic preservation movement. In 1974, city council unanimously passed an ordinance drafted in part by Historic Boulder, establishing the city of Boulder's historic preservation program and landmarks board. Over the past five

[7:02] decades, Boulder has designated 10 historic districts and over 220 individual landmarks. that stands as a tangible physical connection to our community's heritage. The mission continues because there are legacy properties from every era, including places that express indigenous, black, Latino, Asia, Asian, LGBTQ plus, and many other histories that contribute to continue to the community's understanding and evolution of Boulder. Historic places serve as shining examples of how preservation can honor the past, orient us today, and inspire the future. Historic preservation is more than just restoring old buildings. It is also part of how we celebrate community, inspire new residential developments, manage climate change, conserve resources, and think about our future.

[8:00] Therefore, we the city council of the city of Boulder, Colorado, declare May 2025 as archaeology and historic preservation month and call upon the people of the city of Boulder to join their fellow residents across Colorado in recognizing and participating in this special observance. And now I'd like to turn it over to Tim to say a few words. Well, thank you, Lauren. I I so appreciate it. And I My name is Tim Plass. I'm the president of Historic Boulder and I'm honored to be here today to accept this uh declaration on behalf of the community really because it takes a a community to do historic preservation and in particular a big shout out to the owners of historic properties that are landmark because you are the backbone of of what we do. So, just briefly, Historic Boulder has been working for over 50 years um to preserve and protect uh uh properties that uh exemplify the the spirit of Boulder, the

[9:01] the heritage of Boulder. Uh and we just are are so pleased to be able to do that and have those tangible um uh physical things that people can look at bricks and mortar to understand their history. and uh want to thank you in particular for taking the time to actually read the declaration tonight. Really appreciate that and for your continued support of the historic preservation program. Uh and as we look forward to the comp plan uh Boulder Valley comprehensive plan update from my days on council and um landmarks board and planning board um uh really hope that you'll continue to value historic preservation and make it a priority. So just a couple words about why preservation is so important and some of it was captured in the declaration but uh you know we have an amazing amount of change in Boulder right now. I mean even from just 10 years ago or even 5 years ago look at Boulder Junction or what used to be the diagonal plaza and you see how much

[10:00] change is really happening. So we have a chance with historic preservation to honor the past and make sure people know about what Boulder was. We honor the architectural styles from uh previous eras, whether it's Victorian or mid-century modern or brutalist. I mean, we have such great representatives of that. And we also um we also call out structures that uh are are related to events and people who were important in Boulder's history. And I will say right now, Historic Boulder is working on raising up the the profile of underrepresented communities. So whether it be LGBTQ or Latino or Asian or African-American or Native American, we really want to make sure that that's part of the story of historic preservation. And finally, I would say that preservation can also really be a positive in terms of addressing climate change. You know, it's it is a maybe trite, but the greenest building is the

[11:01] one that's already built. You think of all the embodied energy that goes into it. So as we move forward, historic preservation I hope will continue to be a priority for all of us and thank you for the time and again thank you for the declaration. Thank you. [Applause] All right. Thanks so much uh Tim and to Historic Boulder and appreciate your current and past service to the community. I get to go in that lucky guy. All right. Uh now we're going to move to open comment. So Emily, if you can go over the public participation guidelines, please. Absolutely. I'd be happy to. The city has engaged with community members to co-create a vision for productive, meaningful, and inclusive civic conversations. This vision supports physical and emotional safety for community members, staff, and council. as well as democracy for people of all

[12:00] ages, identities, lived experiences, and political perspectives. For more information about this vision and the community engagement processes, please visit the website provided. The city will enforce the rules of decorum found in the Boulder Revised Code, including participants are required to sign up to speak using the name they are commonly known by and individuals must display their whole name before being allowed to speak online. Currently, only audio testimony is permitted online. No attendee shall disrupt, disturb, or otherwise impede the orderly conduct of any council meeting in a manner that obstructs the business of the meeting. This also includes failing to obey any lawful order of the presiding officer to leave the meeting room or refrain from addressing the council. Only one person at a time at the podium unless an accommodation like an interpreter is required. All remarks and testimony shall be limited to

[13:00] matters related to city business. No standing in or otherwise blocking the aisles in violation of the fire code or in any way that obstructs the vision or audio of other audience members. No signs or flags shall be permitted in council chambers except for one sign held be held by a person measuring no more than 11 by 17 in which is held no higher than the person's face. No participant shall make threats or use other forms of intimidation against any person. We ask that you not affix items to the podium or deis or walls or other surfaces of the chambers. Signs, flags or other items used to communicate must be held by one person when displayed. Obscenity other epitats based on race, gender or religion and other speech and behavior that disrupts or otherwise impedes the meeting will not be tolerated. In-person participants are asked to refrain from expressing support or disagreement verbally or with sounds

[14:00] such as applause or snapping with the exception of declarations. Traditionally, support is shown through the American Sign Language applause or jazz hands. And that concludes the guidelines for tonight. Thanks so much for that, Emily. I'm going to call uh three names at a time. Each person will have two minutes to speak. I am going to be strict about those time limits in the interest of fairness. And I'll also just note that council members have agreed that any council responses to open comment will be made during the matters for mayor and members of council portion of the agenda towards the end of the meeting. All right, our first three speakers are Edward Heitzman, Evan Ravitz, and Mala Nadavar. And you just come on up to the podium and press the button to turn it on. Um, hello. My name is Edward Heitzman. I am a graduate student at the University of Colorado Boulder where I study the mathematics of electoral systems and I'm here to ask the council to schedule a

[15:00] study session on implementing single transferable vote elections for city council. What the literature consistently shows is that ranked choice voting systems, especially when used in multi-winner elections, lead to more proportional outcomes for underrepresented groups and communities of interest. They are also inherently insulated to gerrymandering while still being sensitive to political geography. Switching to such an electoral system would allow the city of Boulder to align with the goals of the Colorado Voting Rights Act, which was just signed into law this Monday. Another less studied advantage of rank choice voting systems, which I encourage the council to consider, is an increase in voter agency. When such systems have been implemented in the past, they typically led to an increase in voter turnout. This may indicate that voters have higher confidence that their vote has an impact in such an election. So implementing them for city council could help restore some voter confidence in our democratic institutions during these otherwise challenging political times. The most common multi-winner ranked choice voting electoral system is

[16:00] single transferable vote or SDV. This electoral system is wellstudied and it is currently used in four United States cities for city council, most recently in Portland, Oregon. Since the last nationwide push for to implement ST STV in the mid 2000s, auditing methods and vote counting technologies have improved, meaning these elections are now safer and easier to conduct. I encourage the city of Boulder to join these four pioneer cities by scheduling a study session on single transferable vote elections for city council. Thank you. Now we have Evan Rabbitz, Mala Natavar, and Carolyn Beninski. Good evening. Israel's genocide is accelerating and the city's $35 million investment must be doing great. One statistic, 49% of kids there say they want to die and 96% say they expect to die soon.

[17:01] This council likes to impose simple buybook formulas without adapting them to Boulder. Take the planned narrowing of Iris Avenue, please. I'm all for getting people out of cars. I'm vulnerable. Always on my bike all year. But you are not providing more transit as an alternative. And everyone knows you can't put 10 pounds of in a fivepound bag. And traffic is expected to explode on the diagonal which feeds into Iris. And you want to develop thousands of new units in the nearby planning reserve. Boulder already has inherent traffic problems with a big university forcing traffic around it and a creek with limited bridges. But you said to trust the experts. Your experts wait

[18:02] wasted $7 million on making the far north Broadway bike lanes worse. We have forests of dangerous white pipes sticking out of the pavement, obstructing bikes and cars and snow plows in places that have no traffic problems. I bet the director of transportation left her prestigious job because she knows that Iris will be another multi-million dollar disaster. It doesn't matter if the book you follow is the Bible, the New York Times, or something learned in grad school. As Charlie Chaplan said in the great dictator, you are not machines, you are people. Testimony. Now we have Mala Natavar, Carolyn Beninski, and Leslie Gluststrom. My name is Melanetar. I've been a Boulder resident since 2012 when I retired from teaching at Princeton

[19:01] University. Today, May 15th, we commemorate the 77th anniversary of the Nakba, Arabic word for catastrophe in historic Palestine. 1948, the year my father and his family became refugees, fleeing the mass murders and expulsions by Zionists who created the state of Israel. I lost so many of my extended family in Palestine then. And in 2001, I lost my dear father, Dr. Ibrahim Abulk. He was only a teenager when he got on the last boat out of Jaffa, his hometown, to Beirut, Jordan, Nabilis, Boulder, sister city, New York, and Chicago, where he married my mother, an American Jew. Both were prolific scholars who spent years educating people about the plight of Palestinians, meeting with President Ford, George Schultz, and others. Their lives, my life, and that of my siblings, our children, and grandchildren have been spent striving for Palestinian human rights. After my father's death in Palestine, Israeli soldiers raised their guns at me and I ran scared through the checkpoint, dragging a suitcase filled

[20:02] with dad's pillow, blanket, and eyeglasses. The slaughter in Gaza continues. The Israeli assault and ethnic cleansing that began in 1948 when Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes settled in the Gaza Strip as refugees. Since then, Israel has waged over a dozen wars in the Gaza Strip. This Nakba is not just a moment in history. It's happening now. Unspeakable atrocities are being committed. No aid, no water, no fuel, no fuel, no food, no shelter, and mass starvation. Dozens of my relatives have died under the rubble. Israel's relentless goal of the complete extermination of Palestinians is there for you and the world to see. The Popes, ICJ, ICC, UN, and others all call for a ceasefire. I call on you to stand for all humanity and bring an end to this genocide and support a ceasefire. Thank you. Uh, quiet in the audience,

[21:00] please. Noises, no clapping. Consider that a warning. Quiet out there, please. Um, now we have Carolyn Beninsky, Leslie Glustester, and Kristen Marshall. My name is Carolyn Deninski. Th those postcards show the loss of land uh to the Palestinians since 1947. And there's just little parcels left that the Palestinians are in now. Uh since March 1st, Israel has closed the borders into Gaza. As Mecca said, there's been no food, water, medical, or humanitarian supplies for 10 weeks that have been allowed that have not been

[22:01] allowed in. I was struck by what just happened a few minutes ago with the historic preservation. Gaza has been pretty much raised. Every building is is damaged to some degree. they don't have any historic preservation there. Uh, Israel is under humanitarian law and human rights law is supposed to facilitate relief programs is supposed to uh uh preserve institutions devoted to the care and education of children and also hospitals and medical services. Uh so what is the situation today in Kaza? Two days ago on May 13th, the commissioner general of the ENRA, which is a relief agency for p for Palestine, Phipe Lazarini stated that Israel is using food and humanitarian aid as a weapon of war in the Gaza

[23:00] Strip, describing it as a war crime. He stressed that the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza has reached indescribable levels, saying he lacked the words to adequately convey the misery and tragedy the people in Gaza are enduring. Why should this be an issue to to Boulder? First of all, to keep our own humanity. If we don't care about this, our humanity begins to die. Also, because it's funded by US. Your time is up, but thank you for your testimony. Please uh call our next time is up. Quiet in the audience. The next three speakers are Leslie Glustramm, Kristen Marshall, and Tom Mayer. Evening council. Thank you. Uh I'm I'm also very sympathetic on the

[24:03] situation in Gaza as well as of course what happened in Israel. So um uh council members know my name is Lesie Glustrm and I'm a mom and I'm trained as a scientist and I resigned my job 20 odd years ago to work full-time on climate change. That took me to the public utilities commission where I've worked very hard to bring us cleaner electricity and we have made very good progress on that. It has not been easy. It was a 20-year job. And as part of that, I've been up close and personal with our electric provider Excel for over 20 years. Uh council knows that this is a year when we have an off-ramp from our franchise with Excel. And the the basic message is we have a chance to have a vote to let the community have this conversation to decide whether we want to have a monopoly. If we go forward, we'll have a monopoly controlling all

[25:00] aspects of our energy lives as we work to electrify our transportation and our buildings. Currently, Excel can buy wind, solar, and storage for well under 4 cents a kilowatt hour. They sell it to us for just short of 14 cents a kilowatt hour. We have communities all over Colorado that have been able to go shopping. They get a much better deal. They get treated like customers. Much better customer service and support for local generation and innovation. And I'm asking council to take all of this very seriously. Um we we've got endless data. You can't fit it all into a two-minute statement. I've sent a lot of it to you by email. And so again, I would ask you to just let democracy work. Let the the community have this discussion. Thanks so much. Thank you. Now we have Quiet, please. Now we have Kristen Marshall, Tom Mayer, and Rob Smoke.

[26:02] Thank you for this opportunity. I am speaking for the starving children of Gaza. What is happening in Gaza is genocide. When I spoke last month, I mentioned a grad student from TUS who had been arrested by ICE. Arrested after writing about the plight of children in Gaza. Ozurk spent six weeks in detention until public opinion helped attain her release. May 11th was Mother's Day. What was this day like in Gaza? I doubt there is anything more painful than watching your child die. I'm reminded of a line for one of Holly

[27:03] Dear's songs. It is, "Sister, woman, sister, can you remember your name? Or have you forgotten it in your pain? It is time to end the pain. Please speak out against the genocide in Gaza. Just peace. Thank you. Thank you. Now we have Tom Mayor, Rob Smoke, and Alicia Curtain. My name is Tom Mayor. I live in the Fraser Meadows retirement community. I have written three limmericks about the Boulder City

[28:00] Council. Since the council will probably not like these limmericks, I will direct them to the audience. First limmerick. Our council is in illreute. Gaza slaughter. It will not refute. If there is a mass killing, it must be God willing. For these wizards, the issue is moot. Second, limmerick. Zionists ponder this news. Your deeds are no help to Hebrews. Israel is no medic for anti-semitic. It accelerates anger at Jews. Third limmerick. These reps are a guest that I dare. The council to Aishman

[29:00] compare. Their minds must be anal. Much evil is banal. But putting out foul Nazi air. If you want copies of these liicks, I have some. All right, our next three speakers are Rob Smoke, Alicia Cirten, and Akilles Lagra. My name's Rob Smoke. I um I live in Boulder. I've lived in Boulder since 86. Um you know, I don't know where to begin or end it. You know, there are over a hundred cities in the US, including a lot of major ones, that have passed ceasefire resolutions. And this council has told us that that somehow would interfere. Something as simple as that, which is very incomplete, more a lot less than what's

[30:02] needed, would would still be interfering with council doing its business. And um two council members, Mark Wallik and uh Matt Benjamin, put out a an opinion piece in the Daily Camera fairly recently in which they characterized uh protesters coming propal protesters coming to these meetings as coming here like clockwork. Well, the council meetings themselves are held like clockwork. Um, but right now the murder, the senseless, absolutely senseless murder of Palestinian children in Gaza and their families continues like clockwork. And I find it just disgusting and disgraceful that anyone at this point in time could say that, oh, you're being anti-semitic,

[31:00] Rob. There is, if you go to The Hill today, The Hill's fairly conservative publication. You go to The Hill online, there's a recent poll. It says 64% 64% of Jewish Americans do not think it's anti-Semitic to oppose Israel. So, what I've gotten here from council is a lot of inauthentic and uh immoral posturing, and I'm sick of it personally. Thank you. Thanks. Quiet in the audience. All right, folks. Quiet really does mean quiet. So, please none of these additional remarks. Uh, we have Alicia Cirten, Akilles La Grae, and Todd White. Good evening. I'm Alicia Curtain, a mother of four children, a small business owner, and a community

[32:01] volunteer, including a fire adapted Colorado wildfire ambassador for the University Hill Neighborhood. I also sit on the executive committee for the University Hill neighborhood, as well as the Flagstaff Fire Action Prevention Committee. Before I begin, I want to thank you for your service, your time, and your dedication to doing what is best for the whole of Boulder. When I taught first grade, I taught children to read and I felt a tremendous responsibility to do what was in the best in interest of children and put the latest research into practice. Beyond my master's in teaching, I earned a reading specialist certification and then another certification in dyslexia. When I became a parent, it was even more necessary for me to educate myself and I take the responsibility entrusted to me seriously. Similarly, you bear a tremendous responsibility governing the city and once again I deeply thank you for your service. According to the Colorado State

[33:01] Forest Service, the city of Boulder is in the highest category of risk for a Marshall style event conflaguration I think it's I'm having trouble with that word confl conflaguration in the next 10 years. Boulder is a brain trust full of experts on climate, weather, fire, and science. And the data is voluminous to support that it is not a matter of if, but when our beautiful city will be confronted with wildfire. Part of my role as an ambassador for the city, excuse me, for the neighborhood is to disseminate information and education, all of which is steeped in the latest research. My role is simply to inform the community so they can make educated and informed decisions regarding their personal properties, primarily becoming informed via DHAs. Please use the best and latest research making decisions. Thank you. Right now we have Akilas Nagra who

[34:02] I understand will have an interpreter and then Todd White and Susan Hall. And we do allow a little additional time when there's translation to step on it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Could I please have a little bit more time because of the interpretation? We've given you four minutes instead of two. See? Okay.

[35:10] Good evening, members of the council. My name is Achilles and as a member of the Hispanic community, I would like to address you in my native language, Spanish. I'm a first generation immigrant and I've been a member of this community since 1995.

[36:02] Yeah. I just like to tell you a short story. When my grandmother passed away in 2021, my grandfather at the time was an elder of 90 years old. And he just asked the creator for two things. And one was that he could meet her, get back together with her, but not before the Braves of Atlanta won the World Series. There are very few things that unite the Latino community, but our language, um, our, um, love of baseball, and our history in our language, we have a

[37:00] saying, and that is that there's nothing worse than someone blind who would like to see. Who does who doesn't want to see? Excuse me. So, I'm very very discouraged to say that I had written a letter to Boulder County to say that this city has no interest at all in the Iris baseball fields.

[38:01] Anglo. There are very few opportunities for the Hispanic community and the Anglo community to come together, but one of them is having social contact through baseball, through the Iris baseball fields. And we have been building bridges in that way for over 70 years. And ma'am, you can have just enough time to finish translating that stretch. Yes. And for that reason, um, I and members of my community, my neighbors, and we

[39:00] would like to say, um, so much that we have and the very few baseball players that that are that exist. We've offered an initiative to preserve the Iris fields and we hope that we will be received with smiles and that you will give us a hand to do that. And of course, the Braves did win the World Series this year. Thank you. Gracias. Thank you. Okay, our last two in-person speakers are Todd White and Susan Hall. And then we'll go to our three virtual speaker, four virtual speakers. Go ahead, Todd. Check. Hello. Hello, guys. Thank you very much for having me tonight. It's an honor to be here. Um, I tend to find that I need to come and communicate with you guys in person. Uh, sometimes emails of mine just get misinterpreted or sometimes my accounts just flat out get hacked. So, I'm going to come in here and I'm going to talk to you guys. Um, I do have great news, exciting news.

[40:00] I know there's a lot of heavy hearts here tonight, but I get a chance to be on Shark Tank and that's a television show of course we all know and we're all familiar with and I would like to represent Boulder. I have a creative and injure of uh ingenious idea really that's simple that I'm trying to kick off here with climate excuse me climate initiatives. Um there's an expert in here about climate initiatives tonight. So I'll try to talk with her. I just point the ma'am we do need people in seats not in the aisles please for fire reasons. I wanted to thank count. I wanted to thank council for the vote on last uh the redevelopment down south Boulder. That was fantastic, guys. Um and uh I will give my GoFundMe to anybody here who'd like it. Um and I want to spend the last 49 seconds here telling everybody in this audience tonight, worldwide for that matter,

[41:00] suffering is not unnoticed, guys. It doesn't go unnoticed. It does take time for the wheels of justice to turn. It's only so many things seven or eight members can do. They threw 35 million at it, right? There might have been some oversight problems, but that's just life for you. Suffering does not go unnoticed. Period. Okay? And it will come to an end. I can promise you that. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Our last inerson speaker is Susan. What? Susan Hall. and then we'll go to Eric Gross online. Okay. Well, I just wrote down some notes here while I was listening and the wheels of justice may be turning, but they're turning pretty dang slow. A hundred years. A hundred years that uh the Zionists have been taking over Palestine and they have been killing people long before that story about Hansel and Gretle on October 7th. It was the

[42:02] stupidest fabricated story I could ever think of. Some baby was in the oven. That's the Hansel and Gretle story. And besides that, 5,000 babies under five years old have been killing killed that are Palestinians. And and you compare that to one fake story. It's disgusting what Americans believe. It's disgusting that most people don't even know. And uh all this didn't get straightened out or talked about on Mother's Day. I am a mother. I have three children and I marched downtown, I think 10 years ago as a grandmother with my grandkids on this same issue. Uh it wasn't quite a genocide then, but oh yes, they were being killed. And Norman Finkelstein tells you how many people have been killed in this book. And I think it would be good for anybody who is uh has

[43:02] the opportunity to come up against this issue and take a stand to read this book. Norman Finkelstein is a Jewish person. He's dedicated his whole life to the issue and his parents were in concentration camps. And uh I also appreciated uh the Latino coming up here and I realized that there are 32 South American countries that have uh recognized Palestine as a country. They don't have that now and they should have also your time is up. Okay, we're going to go to our virtual speakers and our first three are Eric Gross, Lynn Seagull, and it Palasios. Hello, city council. Uh, yeah, this is Eric Gross. I think you probably remember me, although

[44:01] I know you can't see me because you don't allow that anymore. Um, in the last 24 or 36 hours, um, I mean, you know, everyone here has made a good point about Nakba day. Um, I was recently at an Israel Independence Day celebration where, uh, a Zionist taught his daughter to give us the middle finger and then a 16-year-old boy literally said to me, "I'll kill you." as I stood there silently with a sign that said Israel kills a child every 40 minutes. That's what Zionism is to me. That's what Zionism is. Um, now what you have done over the past 19 months isn't exactly Zionism, but this is a quote from Desmond Tutu. If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your

[45:01] neutrality. You may not be dropping bombs. You may not be dropping white phosphorus or shooting children in the head and chest, but you let it happen. You said it was okay. You gave permission for it to continue day after day after day. Well, I think day 580 something now. Now, I'm the person who made that wanted poster. And Matt Benjamin and Mark Wallik, the thing that you wrote about me in the Daily Camera, I wrote a response and it's going to be published soon. And there's going to be a quote also from Tara Winer in it, which she said to me on the street on Pearl Street that the I promise you the Palestinians are not your friend. That is straight up racism. That's from this council. Divest. Call for an end to the genocide. Ceasefire now. All right. Our last three three speakers

[46:02] are Lin Seagull, its Palacios, and Arum Bingham. Um I need my um timer up, please. Ah, thank you. Um, Donald Trump just allowed 59 Africaners, these are white South Africans as refugees into this country. They are pro-Israel. They are pro- aparthide. And he doesn't let you know his, you know what he thinks about refugees. And he's deporting people. But these 59 people he's bringing in here. and he's bringing them in here to undermine the Palestinian cause in the United States along with the Apac and the right-wing um whole administration. This is just unspeakable. These are aparthide black Africans. They're white

[47:02] South Africans. South Africans, not black. Now, the other thing I have to tell you about is my Excel bill. which I was supported by the city to turn up my heat. Well, guess what? I'm saving every cent for my children for climate change. And so I keep my heat at 54 degrees when someone's not staying with me. And I'm told by the city to turn up my heat when I'm getting um funding through LEAP. And they didn't tell me, the city did not tell me that when I reached $500 credit, they stopped counting it and they dropped my autopay. So, I didn't even know I was having all this happen. I don't look at my bill every month. I lost $1,10 of money I could have had in warmth because Excel makes it a

[48:02] disincentive for me to lower my demand and not use as much energy. That tells you about Excel energy. They want you to Time is up. All right, our final two speakers are Ita Palasios and Arm Bingham. Mayor, I do not see it's online tonight. Okay, we'll finish up with Aron Bingham then. Can you hear me? Yes. Um, I don't want to speak until council members Winer and Shoe Chart are in the room. Can you please reset the clock and tell me where they are? You have two minutes. It's continuing now. Why are they not in the

[49:00] room? I'm sorry, but put the time back. Get them back in the room. This is the one time you let us make public comments. You can like excuse yourself. Take a break when you have to like talk about drainage ditches or like hear from the XL lobbyists or whatever. What level of cowardly and bias is this? I mean, I'm sorry, but like what is going on? Tara Winer already got up, left the room while three pro Palestinian speakers were speaking, came back in beam and fawn over the other speakers talking about fire suppression and baseball. Like, I I met my witsen. I'm going to save the remarks I prepared for you all for another time because like you you are supposed to be accountable to the people and if you can't even listen to them in the highly restricted and contained environment and bounds that you have put on public comment then how how do you have no shame about your role

[50:03] as public officials? This is absurd. Tara Winer also made it so that we can't show slides because she's afraid and threatened by having to witness the atrocities and war crimes that you all are condoning and facilitating with your investments. Like what is going on? If you can't face the facts and face the people, just resign your jobs. This is absurd. Times up. All right, that brings us to the end of open comment. Thanks to folks for their testimony. I'm going to turn to city staff to see if there are any responses. Thanks so much, Mayor. I uh know we had a comment about wildfire. We're going to be discussing that a little bit later. Um I wanted to say

[51:01] [Music] Um, I'll say that I am a I'm a daughter of Puerto Rico, the land of Roberto Clemente. I love baseball. I understand it. I want to say, um, I just wanted to clarify a little bit. Uh the letter that you're referring to that we sent to the county is not that we are not interested in the ball fields is that we are not currently in a financial position to acquire the ball fields. We are hopeful and supportive. We hope that there is resolution. Love to continue to see um ball fields continue to be there or supported in some way. We are continuing to work with the county and hopefully we'll see what the future brings. But just know um that was the intent of our letter. Thanks. Quiet. Quiet in the audience, please. This is a warning. This last warning on being quiet. Teresa, did you have something? Nothing for me. Thank you, mayor. Great. Um any

[52:03] clarifying questions for staff from council? Not seeing any. Um that brings us to the end of open comment. So, we will now go to the consent agenda. Please. Yes. Next on tonight's agenda, we have our consent agenda items A through G. Any uh questions or comments from council on the consent agenda or perhaps a motion? I move the consent agenda. Second. We've got a motion and a second. Emily, can we have a roll call vote, please? Absolutely. We'll start the roll call on tonight's consent agenda with council member Benjamin. Got to find that mute bud. Yes. Mayor Brockett, yes. Mayor Prom Folks, yes. Marquis, yes. Council member

[53:01] Shuhar, yes. Council member Spear, yes. Wallik, yes. And council member Winer, yes. The consent agenda is hereby approved unanimously. Very good. Uh, can we go to our call-up check-in, please? And just if we can have a quiet in the audience while people are le leaving. Yes. Next, we have our callup check-in. And that is item number 4A for a lefthand water district's request for comment regarding a water tap for a property area 3 of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan 5887 Woodborne Hollow Road. Any uh questions, comments, or desire to call this one up from council? Mark, I have no desire to call it up, but my my question is this is an approval of a single tap for a single family home. Is there a reason why this is is not being processed by staff and and comes to council? And do we have

[54:02] much to add? I think we have an intergovernmental agreement that relates to this, but I wonder if we have any city staff that can speak to that question. I see someone coming right on down. Good evening, council. Thank you for the question. Uh, Councilman Wallick, uh, we do have, if you can identify, I'm sorry, Brad Mueller, planning and development services, uh, department. Uh, we do have Chris Wranglas, I believe, online who's been working on this and can explain that, I believe. Uh I don't see Chris online. Okay. Uh in that case, I do not know, but we'll be happy to get back to you about that. Yeah, that that would be that would be great. It just struck me as why are we doing this? Sure. Uh Chris, I introduced Chris Mchuk. Another Chris. If it's not one Chris, it's another. uh Chris Mchuk from the city manager's office and um used to sit in the role

[55:00] that Chris Wranglas has. So um the city has an intergovernmental agreement with the lefthand water district. There was a time in the city's history where our kind of service area for water and sewer and their service area for water overlapped and we wanted to undo that overlap. as a part of that um to ensure that they are are um not encouraging uh kind of urban development in area three. We have an agreement that any properties within area 3 that they are going to provide a water tap to. They have to refer that to the city. It's reviewed by the city's development review committee and then it is brought to uh a council meeting for callup for you to provide any additional comments or to request uh to be present at the public hearing before the lefthand water district board. So that is why it is on your agenda. I I I get it. I'm just wondering why it has to take that last step up to council. I I think uh staff is is more than capable of of doing the analysis and and making a decision. Not that I didn't enjoy reading about this single water tap. Sure. Yeah. The process is

[56:00] defined in the IG, which is is why, but it does date from several decades ago. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Thank you, Chris. All right, Emily, can we go to our public hearing, please? Oh, just to be clear, we are not interested in calling this up. I saw no interest. Absolutely. Next we have our public hearing item and that is item 5A. A second reading and consideration of a motion to adopt ordinance 8695 amending chapter 10-8.5 Wildland Code BRC1 1981 to adopt by reference the 2024 edition of the International Wildland Urban Interface Code of the International Code Council with certain amendments and setting forth related details. Thanks. Sorry. And consideration of a motion to declare the revised wildland urban interface area for Boulder to which the wildland code applies as recommended in the staff memorandum.

[57:02] Thanks so much. There's been a lot of conversation uh about this and this is one of those um I think twofers that we got as a council priority. Don't think we're not continuing to call you sneaky as you got two of these uh in for one. Um and uh to kick us off uh Brad uh I'll send it over to you to just sort of give a quick overview um and framing. Thank you. Thank you, Nura. Uh again, Brad Mueller, director of planning and development services department. I I want to first uh make a comment that we as staff collectively throughout the city have a have a deep appreciation for the concern around wildfire. Uh it is a very serious topic. It's a very important one and we appreciate uh the council has raised this as an issue and have been eager to get into it. Um I do want to point out too that this builds on many years of work. It builds on the study sessions that we've had in the last 6 months uh regarding this more

[58:02] narrow focus on wildfire uh hardening. Uh I'd be remiss to not remind uh ourselves and you that uh regulatory effect is really just one small uh component that the education that we do with the broader public and the incentives we create uh and could create in the future are are just as important if not more important than any um stick that we could cover. Um uh certainly providing uh incentives and and education is equally or more important but we want to build on those existing successes. Uh this is a fairly narrow narrow topic about the wildfire hardening and specifically breaking it into the two parts of bringing the WOOI code which as you know is part of the building code forward tonight. Uh we do have a second part of this uh plan for later in the year uh zoning and other policy elements. And so we hope to speak within the scope of this while also being eager to hear other ideas that you

[59:00] might have that we can capture for the future. Uh I assure you you will get other bites of the apple in the future and in fact uh this is just one apple of many apples in a bushel uh as you'll see of all the various things that we do throughout the city. So uh we know there's a lot to cover but um also hope to um come to some conclusions as we're able to on the WOOI code. I do want to point out you all received uh an addendum memo and ordinance which um really spoke to Mayor Pro Tim's uh suggested amendments and some of the technical aspects which we appreciate. So with that I'll hand it over to our two uh leads on this Lisa Hood and and Dave Lowry who will be representing the presentation but we've got a small uh army of folks uh waiting in the wings for for parts of this as well. So, thank you. Thanks, Brad. Good evening, council members. My name is Lisa Hood. I'm a principal planner with Planning and Development Services. Tonight for our

[60:00] presentation, I'm joined by Chief David Lowry from Boulder Fire Rescue. And then we also have Rob Adriens, our chief building official from Planning and Development Services here as well. Uh this has already been mentioned but as you know this is a council priority the wildfire hardening and water wise landscaping project really focusing on the policies and regulations focused on wildfire hardening really intended to increase protection against wildfire events in Boulder. The project schedule as Brad mentioned and we've talked about in the study session when we saw you back in December is really in two parts. So we've split it into the building code and the land use code. So, right now we're focused on the building code changes. We will come back to you later this summer with uh to check in a bit more before we have another round of changes for the land use code. That'll be more focused on the landscaping side of things, but we'll also have some wildfire hardening in there as well. I also wanted to highlight that the state is currently in the process of adopting a state model code which was referenced

[61:02] in the memo and is kind of happening simultaneously to this. As I said, this is a focus on the building code side of things. And so, the international WOOI code, the wildland urban interface, you'll hear that acronym a lot if you haven't already. Um, is one set or is one code within the international code council suite of codes. You might remember that you adopted the other um building codes just a few months ago. Um, so there are international kind of model codes that communities amend to make them more specific. And right now we're focused on the international WOOI code. One other highlight from that last adoption is with adopting the previous building codes. So a few months ago, we now require window and sighting permits and that will have um a positive impact related to wildfire as well. For engagement for this project, we've really focused on a consult level of engagement. However, because there is that kind of extra layer of the state model code, some aspects have been more

[62:00] on the informed side of things. We had uh community meetings back in March. Um we also mailed out uh postcards to all of the properties that are in the proposed WOOI area. Uh there's an image of the postcard that people would have received. We sent out over 28,000 postcards for the over 16,000 properties that are proposed to be in the WOOI area. Staff was also available for office hours over the last week to answer questions from community members. And we've had a Bee Heard Boulder online engagement page up since March which provides a lot of information about the project as well as an online engagement tool for folks to lead feedback. We've also had new news coverage on the project from multiple different news outlets. Uh planning board reviewed the same thing that you all saw in your packet tonight um and provided a recommendation. They recommended approval of the international WOOI code with the proposed local amendments as well as approved or recommended approval

[63:02] of the proposed WOOI area map. They did add a recommendation that city council direct staff to research methods to produce op or protect opportunities for vegetation and green space in multi-unit housing, higher density zones, and areas of the city with small lots and minimal setbacks. I'm just going to give a brief overview of kind of the city's current efforts and some policy background. This is similar to what you would have seen at the study session back in December. So, I don't want to get too much into detail, but just to refresh your memories. Um this project really helps implement a number of important city policies that have already been adopted um related to or coming from our sustainability, equity and resilience framework, our citywide strategic plan, our bold boulder valley comprehensive plan and really our community wildfire protection plan that council adopted just last year. There was a very specific strategy in there related to fire adapted communities that said that

[64:00] Boulder should update building codes to incorporate effective wildfire resilient construction and also incorporate best practices for defensible space. Um this was a good opportunity to talk a bit about fire adapted communities and the fact that while this is a really important step to ensure um the fire resilience of new construction, it is just one of the tools in a community's toolbox. So you can see highlighted the regulations, policies, and plans within the fire adapted communities. There are a whole suite of things that the city is working on and that the and programs and services that the city can do to better ensure that Boulder is um adapted to fire. And there's not just fire adapted communities. The um community wildfire protection plan also has safe and effective response and resilient landscapes as an important part of our overall strategy. You may remember this slide from um the study session back in December, but

[65:00] essentially the point this is showing all of the different departments in the city that are working on some aspect of reducing wildfire risk, ensuring that Boulder is wildfire resilient. There are so many projects um and work being done every single day in almost every department of the city on this very important issue. So with that background, I'm going to pass it over to Dave or Chief Lowry who will go through the details of the code. Thank you again, Dave Lowry with Boulder Fire Rescue. Um I'm going to kind of go give you guys a quick overview of the code and the proposed amendments that we want to make on it. Some of this you have seen in the past as well um at the study session. So uh we are going to try to go through quick and and open it up here. Um we are trying to update uh our current international wildland urban interface code. We currently have the 2018 adopted at this time. Uh we want to update that to the 2024 with some proposed amendments. Want to point out

[66:00] the purpose of the code like Lisa was already talking about that this is a minimum standard of regulations uh of that one. It is up there for life and property protection as you can look through there. I will not go through this whole thing. Um but this particular code um is for the use of property in the wildland urban interface and I think that's a good point uh to kind of take note um what we have looked at and designated as interface that's what this code applies to it does not apply outside that area that we have uh designated right and again as Lisa mentioned earlier this is a supplement to the building codes that we currently have adopted in that uh the update that we made in March as well. Um, so the interface itself, uh, currently, uh, what you see on the screen right there in the picture is is what we currently have designated as the interface. This is our proposed update to the map itself. It does look quite a bit larger

[67:00] on that. I understand that. Um, but we did look at this and we uh, we approach this in a manner of if a wildfire were to occur. um and the predominantly winds going from west to east is like where could those embers be landing within our community that could be causing spot fires. Um if you look at the yellow, the yellow is a class three ignition resistant construction. And so I think it's important to kind of point out what exactly we're talking about when we start talking about some of these requirements and what the code itself is requiring when we start talking about ignition resistant one, ignition resistant two and ignition resistant three construction. And this is a nice quick table that you can look down. Obviously, the class one ignition resistant is a very um um uh a lot as you can see is going on in there and there's a lot of requirements when we start looking at the one and the two.

[68:01] But when we start talking about the three, a lot of what I would refer to as that home hardening really drops off in that ignition resistant three as that three is really looking at more vegetation management and that ember type protection from vegetation catching fire. So that is a kind of a quick list of that. So, when we talk about that class 3 in just a little more detail, when we talk about uh building construction, when we talk and this is only for new construction or if they're adding on to a structure or something or relocating it in in the WOOI, the gutters and downspouts can't be plastic, they need to be steel. Uh the vents have to have screening on it. Underfloor areas have to be covered up. I would tell you that's fairly uncommon within the city limits of Boulder. And then we're going to propose an amendment for decks and fencing. What really kicks in in the three is that vegetation management planning that we're looking at. So for new construction only, we'd be looking at a non-combustible zone

[69:00] that we're going to talk about in proposed. We are going to talk about low flammability plants, junipers planted within the interface, and any fuels modification that may take place. the stuff that we are adding the expansion if I went back right to here then that's about 98% of what we're we're looking at the proposed amendments come into here we've got a couple of definitions that we have made uh uh um uh changes to one of them is defensible space just to better align with the intent of what we want defensible space to mean and the other one is that non-combustible zone we have a proposed amendment to have a non-combustible zone for new construction construction. In order to do that, we need to define what we mean by that particular non-combustible zone. Uh the proposed amendments, what we currently have in the 2018 talks about decking um and in that particular decking area that we just align with what Boulder County requires within uh

[70:01] and what they allow for the framing and the decking themselves. Uh so and and that's not unsimilar to what we have currently adopted. But what is new um in this one is that in that class three ignition resistant construction, we have proposed that the surface of the decking be a non-combustible material, which since we're looking at ember protection, kind of makes sense, right? For any of the embers to land on a flat surface and start to burn. We do have a um also an amendment that uh would allow them to build the framing out of combustible material but if it's 48 in or less then they need to screen in that particular area. Uh so that is an amendment. This is kind of the reasoning why that we look at of research and science that has happens out there. This is done by uh an organization called the insurance of in insurance of institute for building home and safety. the IBHS uh is that and

[71:01] they're a group that is funded by insurance company to research of what will work in these particular areas. And they basically build a house here. They throw a bunch of embers against it and see what burns. On the one on the right side, you obviously a combustible deck. You see uh uh vegetation within 5 foot of that combustible deck. And on the left side, you see a non-combustible deck, a deck that is screened in to prevent embers from going underneath it. and a five- foot non-combustible zone around it. We have a proposing for fencing on new construction. Um, and you guys have been around long enough that you know that the fencing is basically a fuse uh that burns up to the house in itself. Uh so we are looking at and again new construction uh only uh this is not a retroactive requirement that um anywhere uh uh from 8 foot that there is no combustible fencing to a structure uh of that particular item uh to prevent uh

[72:00] the fire from burning to the house. Here's a couple of pictures. Uh the one on the far left is a gate that was replaced here in Boulder where they replaced it with an aluminum gate uh to meet that particular item. The other one is just a picture from a a company. It's aluminum fence. That brown one in the middle is actually aluminum fencing. And the one on the right is composite fencing. Uh very similar to the decking that meets our non-combustible rating as well. Uh I took that off the company's website, but strangely enough that is City of Boulder uh in our community. Uh the other one that we want to talk about is that the fuels modification uh and adding that non-combustible zone uh in that particular area. This is a non- retroactive requirement again only for new construction. We're not looking to apply this to existing construction. Uh what you see on the screen right now is a uh uh University of California and Berkeley actually had a contest um a

[73:00] design contest of wildfire uh homes. Uh this was strangely a second place winner uh of that particular one of showing of how they can make it wildfire resistant in a landscape design. Uh these are some other items that I have pulled out of it from uh one of our uh partners that we u uh use on our detail at home assessments of just showing what that 5-ft non-combustible zone might look like. Right. Uh the other one that we're looking at is proposed amendments as far as uh the new section um when we start splitting our areas up into zones that you see in that bottom right picture. Uh it's very common in the wildfire industry that is split up into different zones. Zone one is zero to five foot. Zone two is five to 30 feet. Uh that five to 30 feet. We're proposing that non those low flammability plants uh in in planted in that area. Uh this particular one right now we have uh from the Colorado State

[74:00] Forest Service the publication they have uh that designates low flammability plants. Should be noted that we are looking to form our or make our publish our own list here in the city of Boulder with the landscaping standards that is coming later this fall that will be consisted of water-wise plants uh uh low flammability plants pollination shade everything that kind of meets those particular requirements and to so that's a lot really quickly and I apologize for that but kind of to sum that up and what does this all mean? So, what we're looking at here is really is that what is when we get this question a lot is like what do we mean that it only applies to new construction? Well, those are obviously new structures, houses, sheds, decks, right? That can be exterior uh changes to the house like new windows, new sidings, a new roof, right? Can all be considered that new construction. So, what's not considered

[75:00] new construction, right? Anyone doing a interior model of their home, this code does not apply to that interior model. Kitchen, bathrooms, items like that, a basement, anything that would be considered maintenance to the home is not going to be these will not be retroactive on that. Anything type of a repair would also not be kicking into that. So to kind of put that in more of a visual type sense here that if you came uh and needed to pull a permit to replace a deck on your house um then that requires a permit from the city of Boulder that deck is new construction that would have to meet the requirements right whether you're an ignition resistant of the class one ignition resistant two or three that you would need to meet those requirements of that particular new code. Same thing that we were looking at that if you were decided to replace all the siding on your home or the windows, that requires a building permit to do that. If you're in the WOOI, that would only be required in the ignition resistant one and or two class.

[76:02] The class 3 ignition resistant construction does not have requirements for for sighting and or windows. And then if you were just to build a new house in our community, obviously that is a permit. um that would encountist uh construction that's required, the sighting, the windows, the roofing uh of going through there. You would have to have a non a 5-ft non-combustible zone with no combustibles planted in that particular area. That area from 5 to 30 feet out there, you would need low flammability plants. Your decking or appendages would need to meet the requirements for ignition resistant one and ignition resistant two. And if you were to build a new home and you were designated in ignition resistant three, then you don't have any of that other those more expensive home hardening requirements. You have your gutters can't be plastic. Okay? They need to be a metal gutter, right? Uh coming down, but the vegeta the decking would need to meet what we're talking about for that

[77:00] surface. And then you have an option for the framing and screening in depending on the height. uh you would still have to have the non-combustible zone around your home for the embers and you would need the low flammability plants in the defensible space um for that new construction. All right, back to me. So you might be wondering if we adopt this code, we already have the WOOI code, but um if we adopt this code and it applies to uh many more properties, what's the anticipated impact that we'll get from this one one strategy or one piece of the overall city strategy? The anticipated building so the building permit impact the number of permits that we expect based on the last 10 or 11 years of data. This is picking an average per year of how many building permits we get. We would expect in the proposed buoy area, which includes about 16,000 parcels, we'd expect to see 203 building permits per year. 131 of those permits would be for new construction.

[78:00] So, as Dave just explained, that would be um have to come into compliance with those requirements. Uh about 72 of them would be for additions and alterations. Depending on what those were, they might have to meet um like if it's uh gutters or vents or something like that, it might have to meet some of the requirements. So, just to paint a picture of how many um properties would be impacted per year. One thing we don't know is how many window and siding permits we would get per year because we did not used to require that until you adopted that change a couple months ago. So, um but we do think that will have a really significant um and important impact to be requiring that permit and making sure that the windows and siding which are really common remodeling projects um would be in compliance with the WOI standards. When we look at the types of housing that we have in the community, you can see how the WOOI area is broken up. It's about half single family or single unit detached housing. Um 36% multifamily and 10% that are duplex, triplex or town

[79:00] homes. When we take that data and think about how many permits we would have by housing type, this is the total permits that we've had from 2014 to 2024. You can see that the vast majority of permits are for single family or single unit detached dwelling units um or accessory buildings. Um there is a very uh a much smaller percentage of building permits that we would see that would impact multif family or other housing types. So just to uh paint a picture of what we could expect uh the impact of this change to have. The final section of the presentation is just next steps. So, just a reminder that this again is the first step in the wildfire hardening project. We are have planned um the the the check-in with you in July as well as the land use code updates, the zoning side of things in September or October. So, the focus tonight is the building permits. I also wanted to highlight our detailed home assessment program or DHAs. Um that program started in

[80:00] November of 2023. We've completed 600 of those. Um since that time we have 60 of them scheduled just for this month or in the next month and um you can see we get a lot of requests for them. So in just the first quarter we got 200 requests from community members to have um folks from the fire department come out and take a look at their the ways that they could improve their property for fire resilience. Another thing I wanted to highlight is our wildfire resilience assistance program. These are the grants that help property owners complete the improvements to um harden their home and their site. Um that program had a pilot just recently. Uh we did the first pilot program and then there are anticipated updates to the program that are kind of based on the WOWI map as well. Um and so updates on that will be coming soon. Brad already kind of alluded to this but you got in hotline today some amendments to the initial ordinance. So, I just wanted to highlight um they're mostly clarifications or correcting clerical

[81:01] errors. Um but just clarifying some things about how the map applies um using some language more consistently about appendages and projections which are essentially decks. Um correcting some language um uh that Dave was mentioning about the surface of decks cross references. Um he also mentioned the the screening limit that screening under decks would only be if the deck or appendage or projection is 48 inches in height. Um these were primarily in response to Mayor Prom's um careful attention to detail which is very helpful. Um so correcting some of those clerical errors and that's why we wanted to prepare it so that those um you could see that before um tonight. So the suggested motion is slightly different than your original packet because um the with the amendments it would be a motion to amend and pass um which um is the appropriate way to go through the with the amendments and we are happy to take questions. We could talk about this for

[82:00] hours and tried to keep it short so happy to dive into any more details on any of the things. Thank you. Thanks so much Lisa and Dave for that um excellent presentation packed with information um and yet not terribly long. So much appreciated for that. So clarifying questions from council members. I've got a couple myself, but I'll look to my colleagues first. I saw Nicole and then Lauren. Thank you so much for the presentation. Um, thanks also for ask answering so many of my colleagues questions over hotline in the last few days. Um, this first one is just to kind of help me remember u back to April of 2024. So these code updates, these are something that we would do regularly every four or five years or so. Um what changed because we stuck our fingers in the pie back in April 2024. Do you want I can start with it. I'll start. So we adopt the suite of international codes every six years. And so the other two times that we've

[83:01] adopted an international WOI code, it's just come along with all the other building codes. Honestly, if you look at the memos, there was about a paragraph devoted to the international wooi code. And so we put a lot more attention to this and a lot more engagement. So that's why you also seeing this separated from the other international codes is that we had a very intentional engagement process related to the WOOI changes. There was also um I don't believe we had updated the map significantly since 2014. So this is the first significant update to the map. Um I might be speaking out of turn but I believe that's why. Um and also there are more the defensible space standards are definitely um a significant uh or more significant local amendments than we had adopted in previous years. Does that answer your question? Okay. Um and then just a couple of other questions. One was uh I think one of the things that's making it just a little bit challenging to think about what these requirements look like in denser multif family housings um is that

[84:00] there's lots of photos of single family homes on larger lots. Um can you just very briefly like paint a little bit of a picture of what this looks like in a denser um mult more multif family neighborhood? Sure. So the difference um and we talked about this quite a bit with planning board. The international WOI code does not differentiate by housing type. To be frank, fire does not know whether it's multif family or not. Um, but I think that because as you can see, the vast majority of building permits are with the more single unit detached dwelling. Um, a lot of times these wildland urban interfaces areas are in more um like larger lot areas. You know, um we happen to be a fairly urban and suburban community. Um, and so the difference of the code doesn't really there isn't much difference um or there isn't any difference of how it would apply based on housing types. Um, I think that when you don't have 30 feet 30 to 100 feet for that zone 3 um maybe you feel that impacts a little bit more of the how the

[85:01] non-combustible zone in the 5 to 30 feet low flammability plants might affect um the surrounding area of a structure. But again, this is all backed by fire science research and and aims to protect those structures. U but we don't have any pictures or anything that sort of show like kind of like the the the photos you were showing with um or diagrams with the single family homes and showing what kinds of thing like what it looks like, right? Like the design that you showed um it was basically a single family home with this non-combustible zone and and with that sort of thing. We don't have anything like that for some of these other areas, do we? I No. Okay. Those are those zones are kind of set um nationally from the Forest Service typically. Um when we start talking about like zone one, two, and three. Um if we were in California, that would be zone 0, one, and two, right? The distances are exactly the same. um but they're just calling the zones and that's just talking about how we want to

[86:01] differentiate, you know, the the the defensible space to a structure, right? So, I think the go-to is because it's simple to show is that single family home. So, it would be around any property or really any any type of structure out there. Um, if I can just jump in as well and and uh add add to the comments, council member, uh, just to clarify, the various drawings that we used, we did not use for analysis purposes. That was that. But yes, we we don't have any illustrations because I think maybe to your question, uh, a lot of the materials that are in in the books about this tend to try to illustrate the larger site. But we recognize um from some of the pre- discussion that there is a you know is a different scenario when we're talking about small lots. But we don't have any drawings to that effect. Okay. Yeah. No, thank you. I think um uh sometimes the pictures just help. Um and then uh just another

[87:00] clarification. Um if somebody for example is replacing a deck, um that doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to have to replace their windows and and their fence and everything else too, does it? Correct. Uh, going back to this. Oh, go ahead, Rob. I didn't even see him. Take him. Take. Can you hear me there? Okay. Yeah. Rob Adrenans, chief building official, Planning Development Services. Uh, no. You would only need to if the deck itself would need to be brought into compliance. But when you're doing remodeling work like that, it's only the work that's being done. So, if you're in the IR1 zone and you're replacing windows, that doesn't trigger you to replace your siding or your deck, too. only the windows would need to be upgraded or only the decking if you're replacing that. Great. Thank you. Uh if I can follow up on that, Rob, um in particular, would there be anything that would trigger the defensible space requirement? Like if you if you redid your deck, would you then have to have that 5 foot and 30 foot? So only if

[88:02] you're building a new deck, right? Like if you build an addition on a house, the area around the addition would now need to have that 5ft non-combustible zone would need to have the 30 foot combustible zone. If you're replacing your siding, that would not trigger it because that's a pre-existing condition. If you've got vegetation up to your house, we're not going to make you rip it out because you're replacing your siding. Okay. So, only if you expand the footprint of your deck or building. Correct. You would then trigger the zone around that new area, but but not the whole building, just the new area. just the new area. Okay, got it. Thanks. And Tina's got more. Yeah. And then in the same process, if you're making the small change um to the house and they make they change the windows, is the city able to use that opportunity to suggest what other changes they might wish to make even if they're not required. So that the homeowner may not be aware. Um I mean, can you can we use that just as a point to say that there are other ways to

[89:00] protect your home? uh Brad Mueller again. I I think this gets into the larger topic of education and incentives and we haven't contemplated the operational impacts. I'm sure we've got friendly inspectors who would try to make you know general comments but I think it really speaks to both uh an unknown and and maybe an opportunity of what does education look like? Um again we work cross departmentally. we work well together. Um what I'm hear you describe though would be a fairly deliberate effort to do those types of things and I would envision that as part of a bigger um initiative around education for example. Okay, thanks Colink. All right. Um uh just a couple more questions. Um so my postcard I think it came last Thursday in the mail. I was just wondering when when they were mailed out, was that were there any

[90:00] others or was there just the one? So, we mailed them out on Sunday. It took or I guess it wouldn't have been Sunday, but Monday. Um, so it took four days to get to or some people I think did get it on Wednesday. So, it was Wednesday or Thursday. Um, and we decided to do that based on advice from the communications department, just timeliness. So, people, you know, it's about a week before. Um, did that answer your question? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Um, and then, uh, one of the other questions I had is, um, what are the barriers to making the rest of the city, um, be part of class 3? So, just having those be that the class 3 requirements just being city-wide requirements. Is that like a staffing administrative issue? What's the um, yeah, so I know when we talked at the study session, there was interest from council members about expanding the WOOI. We talked about the collar idea. Perhaps the whole city should be in a WOOI. Um what we landed on was this ember modeling uh which Dave described which was um using the science from the

[91:01] embers of how he can explain this better than me. How the embers come from the wildland um and how far that would travel in kind of a typical event um and using that to find a logical boundary. The reason why um uh we didn't propose citywide is just trying to balance the risks and benefits. So if someone is completely um you know it would have to be the absolute most extreme event um maybe it doesn't make sense to have these additional requirements and so we tried to strike a balance between the risks and benefits as well as use the science the backing of the science and the embers um and really the focus has been on those that ember spread because ember spread is um m is a significant contributor to wildfire. So um that was that was how we landed on where the line is. And I think I would just add to that is that you know the the studies in the research like from IBHS and headwater economics they're like anywhere between 85 and 90% of homes in wildfires are are

[92:03] ignited by embers on that. So we knew we needed to address that issue right because in the earlier one we we didn't really have it addressed that way. So we we did want to look at that and it really is based on the embers with our vegetation on the western side with the wind blowing west to east and then those embers coming in that still retained enough energy or enough heat that could start igniting uh vegetation andor landing next to a structure. Right? Possibility they could go further, right? You know, we we don't know what the exactly what the fire is going to do. And then when structures start to burn, then that's a different type of ember at that time. So our goal is not to ever let a structure start to burn. And then we're we're kind of looking at that. But we were trying to base it more off a a science base instead of kind of um just institutional knowledge and experience of what uh we have and our

[93:00] wildland team has. Um, and let me just thank you and u I think it was the answer was a little bit different from the question that I I'm trying to get at. So, apologies for not being super clear tonight. Um, my question is really just around um are there administrative barriers, staffing barriers or other things to just putting these requirements in place for um for the whole city? and not all the requirements, but specifically the uh non-combustible deck, uh the vents, the gutters, those kinds of things. Yeah. U Brad Mueller again, um as you can guess, we didn't look at that question in detail, but just based on a little bit of intuition and I might uh see if Hela wants to speak to the legal aspect of that, but um but we do recognize there would be additional administration and those types of things. Uh really the orientation as Lisa spoke to was trying to find a balance between uh the the risk and the cost and the benefit to to

[94:00] properties. Uh we're certainly not here to say that uh maybe the benefit isn't higher and and we recognize that the policy decision. uh we would want to get back to you about the implications probably of doing that to to think through that carefully, but intuitively it it probably just comes down to um recognizing that it's uh a bigger system to support administratively. I don't know that there would be a legal Okay, Hela shaking her head know that there wouldn't be a explicit legal reason that couldn't be done. Okay. That we know of. Can I ask one more question while Brad's there? Um, you know, so you talked about there being lots of different apples and ways to approach this um issue of wildfire and the threat that it poses to our community. Um, where does the sort of where do the building codes sit in terms of um effective ways to create change and safety for our community? I mean, would would you is it one of the bigger apples that's out there? Is it kind of a medium-sized apple? How would you how would you characterize it? Yeah,

[95:01] my bushel of apples analogy really was illustrated with the slide. I don't know if you want to go back to it of all the things that are happening in the city. And you know, I would rely on the chiefs to kind of talk about what peers have discovered and what's in kind of the fire literature about that. Uh as a you know, department that uh sponsors the building codes, of course, we think those are super super important for safety. Uh Rob could give stories of uh surviving an earthquake and seeing buildings fall. So we we feel passionately about those. Uh but I think uh objectively speaking a lot of uh what takes place for fire um uh wildfire prevention is about daily maintenance decisions of property owners. And while you can regulate a lot of that, at the end of the day when people are making daily changes to their property, going to Home Depot to go buy junipers, for example, um that becomes really hard to regulate on a on just an ongoing basis

[96:02] citywide when we've got what 20,000 units or something. So, um, you know, that's that's where my passion comes from, education and incentives being a really critical part. But of course, we're always going to have a soft spot for building codes, don't we all? Um, I've got Lauren and then Mark and then Matt and then Tara and then me. First of all, thank you for answering my all of my hotline questions and um pivoting uh slightly because of some of them. I appreciate it. Um I'm going to start off with a concern that I heard from a couple community members. I know that in our WOOI designations, one of the things we're taking into account is water accessibility. I did hear from some community members in North Boulder about concerns about water pressure and level

[97:00] of water pressure. Um, is that just something someone could address in terms of that we check that and how often and how we thought about this for designation in these? Well, the short answer is of course we thought about it, right? Um, and you can see up on the slide right there that utilities is part of this. Um, and they're actually very actively involved not only in protecting uh their infrastructure. They actually got like I think it was a $1 million grant to uh do work uh within the infrastructure coming down. Um but also that whole do we have enough water? Do we have enough pressure of that particular area? I can tell you the answer is yes. But then again I mean there is a limit right? I mean water is not infinite in any community out there and pressure is not infinite. So, could we lose pressure if we lost, you know, a certain amount of homes and every uh uh

[98:01] 5/8 3/4 inch tap was squirting straight up in the air, that will affect our pressure. So, during our planning and uh the confration planning that we've been looking at like how do we fix that, right? you know, can we get people in to shut that stick of the water off to regain pressure to the other areas? Can other people can we turn off individual houses while this is going on? The answer is we are working on it and thinking about that that that if and and if this ever does happen um that we need to have a plan in place. So, it is on our mind to to know that that's a possibility. Um I can't tell you exact answer but um but yeah we do know it. Now I would also say the advantage is and I think you guys know this that our utilities department is second to none along this front range and we are blessed with a lot of water and a lot of water pressure. So we're we're good. I mean I I am comfortable. I will tell you

[99:00] that. Thank you so much for that. um kind of sticking with that trend of worstcase scenarios um in a situation where we have a fire that's throwing kind of a this bigger ember cast that we're looking at which I understand is not the maximum but more of a median but in that event and given that we aren't at a place with significant fire hardening in our WOOI yet um what do you think the likelihood is that houses within our WOOI could catch fire and create more ember cast from that. I think part of my concern is kind of talking about what Nicole was talking about with the area three and why that's limited to what it is. To me, it feels like in a significant wind event, um, the likelihood of a structure that could catch fire and then increase the range in which we are concerned about

[100:01] fire seems relatively likely. Is that would you like to convince me otherwise? So, it's a tough question and I think you you know it's a tough question because anything is likely, right? We can't control the wind. We can't control mother nature. we've seen that she's pretty much batten a thousand on every natural disaster out there, right? So, um you know, we can what if it um and so is that possible? Of course, it it can be possible. You know, we can't predict how it's going to happen, but um certainly, you know, hardening or creating that infrastructure is one piece. Yeah. Is one piece to the pie as you see up there, right? Uh we also have our response our what we refer to as our safe and effective response to wildfire, right? Um and so anything can happen. Anything is possible and we you know the wind events

[101:01] we can't predict and we we don't know but um you know we have to address this. I mean this is kind of getting into that longer thing. This has to be addressed as a community, right? And we have to address the fire adaptive community part. We have to look at a resilient landscaping part of this and the and the the response to when the event occurs, right? All three of those have to come in to create this this safe community and fire adaptive community. So what you did say is that you know we we want to try to eliminate structures from catching fire not only because it's bad but because they do create they can create other embers and they create more convective heat and radiant heat right and that also starts igniting the other homes on fire right so that ultimately that's our goal to to try to prevent that and you know the vegetation management that we're talking about in that expanded WOOI is is a big part of it, right?

[102:02] Thank you. That was a tough one just um I know that I asked about this on hotline and I think we didn't have it yet, but is there a chance that we have the updated state map now? They have not published the final. Um but what I heard was that at their last meeting they didn't make changes. So we think we know what it looks like. Um but it hasn't been finalized. um and they are still working on updating the code. They also have a rulemaking process that they have to make the state wildfire resiliency board have to complete by July and so the rule making we think will also inform how the code applies to us. Um so that's kind of where we are right now. Um they're going to they've finished their public hearings on the actual code and map. So technically those are final but not published and then they will work on rule making over the next two months and then the process will be done. So have you seen the updated map and can

[103:01] you provide any information about how it compares to the map that we're proposing? Yeah. So if it if it is the final map that they publish, um there's some slight variations to what we had originally used to create the map, but in the in the scheme of that we have 16,000 parcels, it's maybe like a 100 parcels that we would need to adjust. And so um it's not significantly um it has not significantly changed from when when we did our initial analysis. And I think it should be noted that if you if you look at the map, the majority of our western side they don't call interface, right? So it it's it's not an accurate map for our community. In other words, right? A lot of they have a lot of Boulder County, but when it comes down to the to our city limits, they're not they're not looking at as interface on our western side. So it's a very misleading map and we have

[104:00] to look at that in that sense that we have to adjust our we have to meet their minimum obviously but we have to adjust it and add the parcels that we know are in danger from wildfire as well. I Okay, that makes me a little confused because it feels like if it's not addressing our western side it would be more than a hundred parcels different. No, ours is more right. Theirs is not showing that. Right. So we we have 16,000 parcels. They have a few hundred parcels in our community. So to explain theirs is very minimal. Their map is very minimal, especially along the western boundary. They didn't even have some of the things that we have in our current WOOI in their map. And so we've gone beyond which we can go beyond. You just have to meet the minimum of the map. There are some areas along like the eastern side of the city in Gun Barrel where their map shows parcels as being in the WOOI that we did not originally have because of the change in maps. But along the

[105:01] western boundary, we have included many more parcels than the state has for their minimum. Okay. And they didn't have like an overlay that covers the whole city in terms of more. Okay. No, if you look at it, there's a big donut for Boulder, right? they would you would look at our city's unburnable in that sense. Thank you for that. Um you talked a little bit about what triggers additional compliance and it was mostly that nothing being very few things beyond the scope of what an applicant applies for would have any additional compliance requirements. Um, is it possible that on a smaller lot or on a condo property that an addition um could affect your neighbors vegetation? Uh, no. It wouldn't affect your neighbor's property. It's only on the

[106:00] boundaries within your own property. I would say that on a condo property sometimes there the lots aren't separated. I'll give you a specific example. Okay. Um where which is my HOA where the um the the individual parcels are fee simple owned but there's a common area owned by the HOA. The common area has limited common elements where people can build decks with HOA approval in the limited common element which is the property of the HOA. In that case, if you did add a deck, would that not then trigger those defensible space requirements throughout the HOA property that's within those five or 30 feet boundaries? That's a tough one. Uh uh I'm I'm sorry. I I thought you were talking to Rob. So I was so But what what was the question? I know you said a deck and trigger that. So the the example of of my particular HOA, the the buildings are owned by the the residents, but the uh common areas are owned by the HOA, but there are

[107:01] limited common elements within the HOA property where a resident can build a deck with HOA permission, but it's on HOA property. So if they built that deck, would that then trigger the five and 30 feet defensible space requirements into the common property of the HOA? back actually. Well, I think we would look at it as, you know, the if if it's a new deck, we would want that 5 foot non-combustible zone around it. I think we would look at that for for positive. I don't think it would extend much out as far as having to rellandscape with low flammability plants. That's really not the intent that we're trying to get at with with you needing to add a deck or the HOA or building into that. But we certainly, you know, if you put a deck in there, we we we we don't want it to catch fire and and and spread, right? So, I think that 0 to 5 foot would probably apply if it's a new deck expanding out, not just a replacement like for like and and in the when you say it's not the intent to replace all the plants. So, then where are we seeing that intent? Because I

[108:00] thought the the requirement was the 30-foot low flammability. That's for new construction, but this would I'm sorry, I'm not trying to grill anybody, but this would be if we're talking about a theoretical new deck, which is we're really talking about a new house because for the new deck, you wouldn't have to be submitting a landscape plan. Uh that that's just not part of the permitting process, right? So, when you build a new home, a landscaping plan, and I am correct on that, right? Uh is required, right? So, that's what we're looking at with the low flammability plants. May maybe I can add to this too. So, um back to the deck example uh and the common area and recognizing there's kind of a relationship between those um number one we understand the intent and there's intent language that it be restricted to the specific things. Um, second, those types of permits are going to go through Rob. And Rob um can speak a little bit about the type of discretion that he and the inspectors uh make on a pretty regular basis on

[109:00] similar types of things. Um, because there are a lot of um instances of making kind of those distinctions and recognizing what the actual intent is versus code. Um, maybe you can speak to examples. Yeah, I mean I I'll address this example cuz I I'll be honest, I hadn't encountered that before. So, thank you. I'd like been put on the spot that um you know, in that circumstance, if you came into me for anyone came in and said, "Hey, I want to build a deck and this is HA property." We would we would likely say you have to comply with the 5ft non-combustible zone around the deck, but not the 30 foot. It'd be pretty rare scenario. Even if you're building a deck on a single family home on a quarter acre lot, we it would be very unlikely that we would require you to do the 30foot setback. To Dave's point, if you're building a brand new home or a brand new accessory dwelling unit, that would need to comply with a deck, we don't require a landscaping plan. So, it's just going to be the inspector on site coming out and he's going to walk around and go, "Yeah, you got 5t of gravel. Good job," or whatever it is. Can you maybe give an example of like basement and how Well, and I guess

[110:00] I would just ask like how how we find that in the code. So, like if if somebody came up to me and said, "I'm running into this issue." Where does it say in the code that there's some discretion? Maybe I can tee it up for you. Sure. So, I'm I'm going to try to tee up an example that Rob can speak to. A basement uh finish is a very common thing. And basements um would need to comply with the building code, electrical, etc. But if the ceilings are too low or the stair rise and run don't match, that's where the team exercises the discretion about the intent and also um not undo hardship for an existing condition. Was that a reasonable tea up for you? And that makes total sense. But my question remains about where we can point to in kind of a written language that that shows that discretion that exists. Maybe you can explain your title. Yeah. I mean, yeah, to Brad's point, that would be in chapter one of the all of the international codes, this flexibility that he's talking about

[111:01] where there's interpretation. Um, and you know, actually the definition of approved in the building code is acceptable to the code official, which in this case would be Dave or myself. Um, so it is broad, we have broad discretion and enforcement of these codes, but there isn't an explicit clause like you're saying. You know, if you're in this specific example, you do not have to comply with the 30 foot setback. No, that's really helpful. Thank you for that. And Lauren, I apologize for taking that over. Okay. Um, kind of in a similar vein, are there would we allow any exemptions for historic buildings? Yes, absolutely. Um, we have a long-standing tradition of working well with historic on these issues. So, um, you know, one example I might think of would be a replacement sighting on a historic home. This is actually probably a better example of what Brad was trying to get at before the alternative means and methods discussion might come into the fact, right? It's like, hey, you know, we've got this home, it's got cedar shake sighting and it's an

[112:01] essential part. We can't replace it with anything. But then we might have a discussion like along the lines of okay well would you be willing to do the you know 5 foot non-combustible zone around your property and will that work for historic you know and compromise and find a alternative compliance that achieves the same level of protection. Thank you for that and I appreciate that in my experience the building department has done those things in a reasonable manner but I I would say that one of my concerns is around like if you read the code as a designer you know I think there's an expectation to take it literally all the time and so unless there's like a flag that this is something that there might be potential to negotiate on or that you should talk to the building department about in more detail. I think sometimes that we can get sideways with um people thinking that things are required when they when there might be more flexibility, but I'll leave that to

[113:01] more comments later. Um could I could I address that too? I just want you to know that obviously Landmarks has uh an extreme interest in keeping that house and not having it burn as well. part of the updates of the state code. Uh they put a section in specifically addressing historic. So we don't currently have that. So we may that may be a change that we need to be looking at to add to meet that minimum part as well. I would appreciate that if we looked at that when it comes forward. Um, and then kind of in a similar vein, um, as a response to one of my questions, it was noted that a non-combustible zone is not a landscape area. Are there I see you already. Um, to me, I guess I would like to see that more satisfactoryly called out in the code because it feels confusing. Do you have a recommendation for how we could do that? Yes. And that brings us

[114:01] back to the two-step process. And so the land the land use code is where that definition of landscaped area comes from. And the the plan with the water wise landscaping updates that will come in the fall is a complete rewrite of all of our landscape standards or at least looking at them. And so we'd be looking at that definition and being able to tie it with our wildfire hardening strategies. Thank you. So convenient that we bundled those together. sneaky convenience. Thank you so much. Thoughts. Okay, we got Mark, Matt, Terra, and myself. Okay. Um, let me begin by by thanking those members of staff that responded to my hotline as always. It was definitive and uh thoroughly convincing. Uh my first question uh is um it's obvious that many many departments are working on these issues and many many things are in process. Is it possible for us to get a schedule of the various things that we

[115:02] can expect to come uh over the next period of time on this topic of of wildfire um resilience. There are people in town who don't think we're being aggressive. I think we're being a little more aggressive than they believe and I'd like to be able to demonstrate that and some schedule um of various things that are going to be forthcoming would be very useful. Thank you. I think we're being pretty aggressive, too. So, I appreciate that comment. So, um yes, um we have a uh wildfire resiliency implementation plan. Um, and the folks, uh, mostly, uh, Dan Burke's folks, um, have been organizing that and working on that, and it's pretty amazing to be quite honest with you, where they're at with the spreadsheet, right? It's a very detailed. Now, does it have specific dates on there? I think that's what we're actually trying to final up right

[116:01] now as they've got it all organized and in one location now that it can be seen that uh, now our um, Oh, awesome, Dan. um that um that the the different committees, the fire adaptive uh community, fire adaptive uh community committee, the resilient landscape committee, and the safe and effective response committee are now looking at what's been uh I don't think assigned to them is the proper word, but where it falls into that particular category. Uh and then we're starting to put those dates in there. And Dan, please speak more to that than than me. Dan Burke, director of Open Space, Mountain Parks. Uh, great question, Councilman. Uh, so we, uh, like I, uh, like it was said, we have scoured the community wildlife protection plan as well as 12, uh, 20 other plans throughout the city that have some call out for action for wildfire resilience. We compiled all those. There's over 200 actions that are

[117:00] either planned for or underway. We are putting that into a a wonderful smart sheet spreadsheet and part of what will come out of that uh in Q3 and Q4 is a tracking system. Uh and that would be eventually an external tracking system. So anybody who is interested in going in at a various action could track where that uh item is at. Uh is it is it uh completed? Is it on track? Is it not not started yet? So our goal with putting all of this action under one umbrella is to be able to do that type of reporting. We want to get to the point where we could actually put costing to it. Our first step is going to be doing prioritization out of it. What is it time for in 2025? What is it time for in 2026? Because as you can imagine with over 200 actions that are called for uh we need to make sure that we are doing the highest impact actions first. And so that's our primary action. But a communityfacing tracker is definitely in

[118:02] the works. So you're not going to complete everything by next week. We're completing milestones. So next week we will complete a milestone in that. Uh my my second question um the land use code changes that are upcoming. Uh are they also going to deal only with new construction and and additions as opposed to anything else? That is generally how changes to the land use code apply. When we make changes in ordinances, they apply um to anything that happens after that change. Is there any plan or anything in prospect um to really deal with where the rubber meets the road? And that's u the other 99% of the properties in the WOOI other than the the new construction and new alterations. And obviously we we've heard a lot from the community and and some of the actions that they are very concerned with is juniper removal

[119:03] um having the 5- foot defensible area around all homes um and banning uh flammable fences where they uh touch the homes. another I'm sure there's there's a raft of other uh proposals as well, but those are the ones that keep coming up and I think people would uh would like to address them in one fashion or another and I'll have some comments about that later, but I' I'd like to hear do you have any plans for addressing them? Uh thank you for the question, uh Council Member Wallik. Um I I'll say off the the start that that has not been in the scope of what we looked at. You'll recall that in December um there was some discussion about retroactive and and a straw poll around that. We we do recognize uh and you know part of the transparency in our presentation is the projection of number of building permits in the next on a yearly basis that type of thing. And we

[120:01] recognize that um like many codes it starts with this time moving forward. um we have not analyzed or or researched just the um implications of something that would require uh a new permitting system, a new inspection system, a new uh enforcement system. Uh we do have the work session coming up midsummer and we've got just some very rough um sense of what kind of staffing would be needed on some of the questions that came up about what would it look like to extend the landscaping for example area larger or um requiring at the time of sale of uh property. So we do have that limited amount of of research. Um you know of course we're always happy to act at the pleasure of council. Um, I think we'd have to work with the city manager's office to know what kind of scope and effort that would take in terms of time. As I said, this is where the rubber meets the road and I'm I'm hoping we can

[121:00] uh assuming there is sufficient sentiment on council to do so. I I hope we can take a look at those things. Um, and I guess my last question is, is it possible to get a one paragraph in English, um, plain English explanation of how some properties are in the WOOI and some are not. I mean, it when you're adding um that many properties to to the WOOI, it sometimes looks like names are being picked out of the by the sorting hat at Hogwarts. um the I can't explain to a constituent how this happens and and what standards are being used, what the formula is. I would like to be able to do that and I think a lot of people who don't really want to talk to me about it would like to know it for themselves just by reading and I it is entirely opaque to me and I suspect to most people. Sure. Well, fortunately we lost the sorting hat so we don't use

[122:01] that technique anymore. But um the short answer and I'll ask the chief to elaborate in a short paragraph is it's based on fire science and ember modeling. Well, that's what we based the expansion on, right? Um so our um our answer to your hotline was too complicated, huh? Is that what I'm hearing? Um I wanted to try to be thorough and actually um some of um Dan's team helped with that who actually did the embraing. um a gentleman named Paul Dennison with OSMP who who pursued that. So he he was a big help with that. But um you know our code does um yes I'm sure we can phrase it in a more plain type manner. I mean, I think ultimately that's the answer, but it it does get complicated because we don't want to to assign a WOOI and say it's because we think it's going to happen there or we think that, right? We do

[123:00] want to base it on some sort of science and research because we want to be equitable within the city and not simply, you know, to Dr. Spear is saying, why don't we call the whole city a WOOI? Well, we could, right? But then there's really nothing to to support that in in that sense except that we know that you know we could have a firestorm and it could be another Marshall or Paradise or um anything like that. But but we have to kind of plan for a wildfire that that we we know and we have done other modeling to to try to support this that we hope to have soon. I I and I understand the the difficulty of it, but the task is to do one paragraph. Why are you in the WOOI? Okay. And so that people can understand that and accept that. So a good FAQ question to put up there. I think now that's a good one. Great. That's what I

[124:00] got. Thanks, Mark. We can reclassify these as like zone Hufflepuff Ravenclaws. Um all right. Uh let's see if we can get through our rest of our questions pretty quickly. We got Matt, Terra, me, Tina. Uh, thanks Aaron. Yeah, I'll try not to make any uh Harry Potter uh references here on out. Um, so, so Mark Mark went in larger direction I wanted to go and so I maybe uh won't won't dive too far into it, but my question kind of centers around what's the substantive difference between what we're doing tonight with the WOOI code update and what we'll be discussing in July at July's water wise landscaping wildfire Harding update and pending ordinances because I'm trying to just mostly understand the scope here of how much do we want to press and cram into this and and and and and notwithstanding all of the tremendous work that's gone into creating this wooi code update from all the departments. I I just want to know is there other opportunities for us to tweak and modify and add and is that the plan later on?

[125:01] So I just I just want to know the scope so I know where to draw the line for this stuff versus what we have in our back pocket to sort of work on going forward. Sure, I can take that one. So um the building code is really in um focused on structures. There is we obviously have this explanation about things that affect structures like the fences and decks and the non-combustible zone which kind of gets out of the typical realm of a building code. The land use code is all about sites and so and landscaping. That's where all of our landscaping standards are. And so that's why you don't see a lot of detail about the landscaping in the building code because that's not really the appropriate place to have those kind of regulations. Rob's reviewers of building code, they don't typically look at sites. they don't typically look at landscaping. Uh the zoning planning nerds like me, we look at sites and landscaping. Um and so we want to put more detail about the landscaping um all of the landscaping aspects like specific plants that we call lowflammability. Um what does it actually look like for that

[126:00] non-combustible zone? How does that work with our other many different um zoning standards? That would be in the land use code. But there would be a lot of similarity. What we've seen in other Colorado communities is that they will often adopt this international WOOI code that has the building specific standards. You know, all that detail about windows and siding that's not in a land use code, but all that landscaping detail is in a land use code. And so what you'll see or what we anticipate is that those those sight specific details will be incorporated in the land use code and we will have achieved the more building building structure hardening side of things with this building code update. I I appreciate the detail. So So effectively we'll be able to get into the weeds, pun intended, um at our next sort of update and then subsequent ordinances. Correct. Correct. And it will be a more comprehensive conversation because we will also be talking about water wise landscaping at the same time. Great. Perfect. So um last last question I have is and I think it it it was sort of being posed and

[127:01] danced around a little bit. I think Mark was trying to pry it out. So I maybe it's just we we'll give it a shot. Um, you know, Dave, you you've said this, you've said this to me. You've said this a bunch of times tonight. Every fire expert in the western half the US has said this over and over and over, which is the goal is to not let the first house burn. And so with that being said, I'm just kind of curious as to why in the community wildfire plan that that has been sort of brought up, why in the plan has there not been a addressing or a strategy around how to deal with the existing structures that pose a hazard? Because if the goal is to not prevent the first houses to burn, then I would imagine there would be a strategy as to how do we bring those into compliance. So, I'm just I'm just trying to understand the how and and that it puts council in perhaps a unique predicament to that we have to now make a policy decision to add something that probably should have just been part of the strategy to begin with. Whether or not we could do it and in what way is

[128:00] really irrelevant, but largely probably been part of the strategy. So, I'm just trying to understand the why and the how. Yeah. So, um I I we can I think it is addressed in there. Now, it's not addressed that our goal is to not let a birdhouse burn, but you know, in that CWPP, it is addressed as far as um uh the education and the preparedness uh for that particular area. We talk about the detailed home assessments that we've, you know, mentioned several times in here. So that um that whole area in there where it talks about fire adaptive community um and the resilient landscaping and that safe and effective response all is addressing tried to prevent that first house from burning right that is the plan um but what I would I don't know remind you is that the CWPP is not an ordinance right that is a a plan or a strategic plan that we have within the city and Boulder County has as well uh to work together with us.

[129:02] So when we start talking about some of the other stuff like in some of your hotline uh memos that you have brought up, you know, th those are good, but you know, those are um very much more detailed specific ordinances that that would need to be addressed separately from the building type code issue. And I would also personally I would also kind of look at and say they almost need to be separate from even the water-wise uh uh landscaping standards because they go much more beyond some of that as well. So I'm 100% for talking about that. I mean I don't think right now but I mean obviously uh bringing it up and discussing it in more detail and I I'd welcome it. Wonderful. I appreciate the context and and sort of where that fits in. and I too was struggling with where to fit that in in the greater scheme, but that that's really helpful context. So, I appreciate you bringing that up and and hopefully we can uh bring that up here um in due time and and and really uh bring that bring that about.

[130:01] So, thank you for that. Um and I've got hands from Brad Mueller and Chief Calderzo. So, we got additional answers. I I Chief, do you want to chime in? I I would um appreciate the opportunity. Council Mike Calderzo, fire chief. Hope you can hear me. All right. Um, I just wanted to say about the community wildfire protection plan, it's not typically normal for it to recommend things that are going to have um broader policy implications and take that away from the local jurisdiction. So, that would be entirely up to council. We're talking resource allocation um some additional implications for homeowners and property owners. Um, and so you wouldn't normally see that kind of thing just come forward um as a as a recommendation um or at least it would be it would come forward as a as a consideration for council to adopt. Um and and we we have talked about it, I think, in the past, uh the the implications of the the um adoption of

[131:02] uh the the sh the shake shingle ordinance and how much that was a big deal to the community and giving plenty of runway for folks to um be able to do that over time. This is a little different though when we're talking about implementing um wooi code changes because um there's an enforcement piece to it. there's a and and then even when you do enforce it, you have to go back again like any maintenance code and continue to enforce it. It's not a once one and done kind of thing. So there's there are huge implications with that that we'd want council to to consider carefully. Um and and certainly the CWPP would want council to be able to really deliberate that. Great. Thanks, Chief. Uh Matt, you good? Okay, chair. And hope hopefully the rest of the questions we can ask them quickly and get them answered quickly. So we're way over time. Ter, so just to be clear timing wise, why am I I know we're looking at the sky, but

[132:00] actually we shouldn't be, right? Okay, let me look at Mike. Um, so just to be clear timing wise, today is only this small section. July is going to be we'll let's say we want to talk about for instance um junipers and uh not allowing junipers on already existing properties. We is that for July as well and other ideas that we would come up with? Yeah. So the plan is to focus on the building code changes. We will we're working on like a detailed plant list, the landscaping code changes. We anticipate bringing that to you in July. As well as um at that study at the study session in December, council asked us to look into applying um requirements to at time of property sale and rental licenses which we're still researching. So we'd be bringing answers about that. So plant list, landscaping changes, some of the if you remember we talked about water wise landscaping changes that we could make. So we'd show you what that might look like. Um and then talk about how we

[133:02] would be incorporating the wildfire. Um, like I just said, the lands the land use code side of things of uh wildfire hardening landscaping strategies. That answer that just just to frame what Lisa said too. So Brad Mueller again, director of planning and development services. Um, so those are the topics that we plan to cover. Of course, we can talk about any any scope of items that the council wants to. Those are the things that we'll have answers for though. Um, and those all lead up to zoning code as as Lisa alluded to earlier, which is historically always from a new point in time forward, new construction. Um, that that gets back to those other topics that we would need to scope out for additional research. So, do you want us for instance, let's say this past week, probably all the council members are furiously writing down all the possible ideas and what they were thinking about with class one structures and community members, you know, are worried and please extend this and make

[134:01] this bigger. You want us to just write you an email like point by point and you decide where to put it in or how should we proceed? Yeah, that feedback uh in any form is useful and we can kind of put it into into framing the issues. Um and and to be real clear, the the various questions and feedback that we've gotten already, we recognize those as you did that as potential ones. So, we'll we'll continue to keep a running list of that, but just emphasizing that that kind of is a a topic in its own right that we Right. For sure. And so when Matt was talking about let's say we want to talk about changes that have bigger implications, would that be um like a a 2026 council priority or do since we already have this council priority, do we have to wait till 2026 to keep going along these ways? I'm Yeah, I mean it it certainly could be. I think that gets into the trade-offs that Nuri often speaks about. I mean we can always trade out things. Um, but it it

[135:00] is a it is something as Dave I think just alluded to. We would want to or actually the chief just alluded to about we would want to make sure to give you all the information and implications around right because they're hard decisions and they're multiaceted. So that's the only question I have. Everything else it's too long. So let's move on. Right. Thanks Tara. I get I got a couple. I'll be quick. Um one just one more question about the the fire mapping. So you did the fire science the ember mapping. Like when I think about flood mapping, we're generally planning for the hundred-year flood, right? The one that happens every hundred years. Was there a similar analysis there that it's like the fire that would happen once every hundred years or what was the standard there? There's not. All right. So, wildfire kind of is different from other natural disasters in the fact that um you know um when we start to burn um our built environment starts to become fuel, right? And fire, for lack of better words, fire makes fire, right? Where um the flood is is not doing that. And we

[136:01] have a lot more extensive research on flooding and hurricane mapping and even tornadoes and items like that, volcanic type things. We don't really have that extensive mapping type experience with wildfire. Some are being developed, but there's still it's very hard to develop because everything gets consumed in the fire in the aftermath of it. Uh so we can't really go in and and designate and see what worked and what didn't work right in that where in a hurricane you can go in and say, "Wow, we had winds that were this strong and that building stayed up or this building blew down." And in a fire, you just know that it burnt, right? But you don't know the intensity and the heat. And can I rephrase burning? I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I guess the question is what how did you determine what type of fire you were modeling? Right. What wind speed? Well, windsp speed and um and I I we had put that in

[137:01] uh uh Councilman Wallik's uh hotline question that it came from uh an article and it came from the tree crowning uh 500 meters I believe is what it was and it was from a research that was done about ember spotting. So there is a lot of research on it but developing a a definitive map. I I I would tell you not not to give all the secrets away, we did several mappings on this, right? And it was in and each one was just a little bit different, right? And so we were trying to kind of figure out what really we thought matched in best, not necessarily worst case scenario, not not the least scenario, but what really kind of fell into that type of concept of of what we think was would would meet the need. And we also pulled in obviously our experts from our wildland division to kind of see what they've seen over time and put some experience in that.

[138:00] For a non-expert fire expert, I think the translation is that it is kind of similar to the idea of a hundred-year flood like a typical event rather than an extreme event. That helps. Well, you muddied the the flood waters for me there because I think like a hundred-year event is a pretty extreme event. Yeah. So, I'm just saying it backwards. A typ modeling is like a typical a t not a 100 mph windstorm, but you know, like a a high high wind. Dave, can you explain like a a a serious condition, but not an extreme condition. Exactly. Say correct. That's good enough for me. I'm sorry. You were asking specific wind speed. I don't know exactly what Paul used. I don't know if you knew either, Dan. 35 35 to 40. Our other um model that we just had commissioned um was at 98% came from uh Noah uh historic records from a 10 10year I think and from the western uh climate center uh

[139:00] and that was at 98% was 25 miles per hour and 100% uh of the time was at 50 miles per hour that we have modeled on the one that we should have the results pretty quick. Got it. Okay. Thank you for that answer. I appreciate it. and also just thanks for all the extraordinary work that you all have done to get us to this point. Just a little bit more on the thinking about the zone three and the multif family situation. Um, and in thinking about that, I'm just wondering about the non-combustible zone and what's allowed there. Like, can you put a a a clay planter with a flower in it? You know, can you put things that are that have a little vegetation but are generally non-flammable? Or is it really like it's got to be dirt or rocks? Technically by the definition it is no vegetation in that area. So even if the vegetation is in a planter or pot um we would say that that should not be in the not in combustible zone but like something metal like a sculpture you're fine but but no vegetation. Correct. Okay. Gotcha. And in terms of then that that next zone the five to the 30 ft the

[140:00] low flammability. Um you all are still putting that together like in terms of the plant like do you have a sense of what kinds of plants would be allowed in that zone? Yeah. So, um that Colorado State Forest Service report that Dave mentioned has kind of the the main um features of low flammability plants, we have, I think, eight different departments working together to create the plant list um that will have more detail about which plants and which trees would be appropriate in that area. And we are trying to think of it more cohesively um as things that are wildfire resilient, things that support pollinators, things that support water wise practices. And so it is a pretty comprehensive list that we will come up with as well as we're trying to provide guidance for people. You know, if I can't plant a juniper, what's an appropriate thing to plant in that area? Great. That sounds awesome. I look forward to seeing that list. I if we um if we adopt this tonight and the new map and then somebody like in a month wants to apply for a permit, what would you say to them about what they could put in

[141:00] that that zone? So this the plan is that um although um the so the the other international codes go into effect on August 1. So we've planned that if the international WOI code is adopted, it would go into effect in August and then we'd be coming back just in September and October with the land use code changes. So it'd be a very short period of time before we'd have the more detailed plant list. And in the interim we've put the the Colorado State Forest Service lowflammability plant list. But based on our permit numbers, it's it's it's not many permits that will fit fit into that will um happen during that interim period before they have more detail. Got it. And when you have a minute, do you mind just sending around that list? Like no no no no rush, but the the Colorado one. Yes, definitely. Be interesting to see. That's all I got, Tina. Then Ryan. Yeah. Super quick. Um do we currently offer the um wildfire assessment program or service? Do we offer that to all homes in the city of Boulder or do we prioritize those that

[142:00] are in zones 3, two, and or newly won? Yeah, a detailed home assessment is offered to anyone within the city limits of Boulder. And so the re is the rebate also available to anybody. The what now? The rebate program or the you offer a little bit of money to help people attain some of those? No, I believe the rebate program is only intended for people within the designated WOOI. And is the woo what is the definition? Oh, I'm sorry. The wildland urban interface. Yeah. And is it the red one? Uh, no. It's the red plus orange. All of All of it. All of that. Red, orange. That Well, currently that's it. Okay. And that's what's being proposed. And then the it would extend to the families to the homes and the yellow would be the rebate, but the other homes not in this would not be able to get the rebate. Correct. And I would note that the the I I mentioned that they're trying to we had the pilot program and they're trying to restart the program for this year. And so they are relying on having a new map to um uh establish eligibility for

[143:00] people to get those grants. Okay. And do people closest to the open space in the red, do they qualify for more money? No. No, it's the same regardless. Okay. And then in the low combustible 5-ft area, is irrigated turf an option in that or that's an also a no. That is also vegetation. So that's also no. Just checking. three questions. Um, oh, good. You're on the map. Um, so at the top, area three is an enclave of of white. And Mike, I'm wondering, you don't have to answer this tonight, but can you can you fill that in like as we go? Can we can we know what area three will be with respect to classes? It's all the yellow that you see up there. He's talking about the planning reserve. You mean yeah3 planning reserve that so um I don't think we've talked about that specifically but the the international code says that we need to look at the map every three years and reassess and

[144:00] so if there's been any changes like annexations or anything like that we would reassess the based on the city limits okay is it it is in city limits right though but it's just not developed it's it's city I'm not an expert in that part anyway I just ask you to consider we will be looking at area three you know process ects in the future and it would ideally we see what it look yeah just as any anything changes within the city we would reevaluate within three years. Yeah. Just to clarify area 3 is not annexed yet in in the city. Oh, thank God. Oh, I'm glad I meant that. Okay, then I'll just but but to the point Lisa is making if and when it gets annexed, there's a regular cadence of uh evaluating the WOOI map. So, it would be evaluated as part of that. Okay. It's it seems like it might bear on how we get whether we get to that, but I'll leave it at that. Thank you for that. Um, second question, we talked about um how much do we want to safeguard invest in safeguarding the

[145:00] the city and there was a question about c can we apply some of the the classes to the city more broadly and um and then another question about yeah like why this particular map? Why can't we think about what stands in the way administratively or otherwise of of these um code changes more broadly? And um Chief, I think you heard you said something like um I mean this is kind of the best we have as far as what the science shows. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but something to the effect of we've done what we can with the technical analysis of what we think we have a basis to to provide. Um, but I just you got my attention when you mentioned the 35 mileph wind and I of course there's a whole algor algorithm that I you all haven't you know given us the details on but it just strikes me that um I think winds were 70 miles an hour yesterday. Um and it anyway that that either way it strikes me that there is a subjective values question in public safety and um questions like how much do we want to invest in

[146:01] safeguarding our citizens generally um have uh dimensions that you might look to elected officials for and I'm just wondering are there any values kind of related to you know thinking around this that you'd like our input on with respect to is 35 mph winds enough? Should it be 70? That that sort of thing. It's a highly debated question, right? I mean, what number do you use? And I know, you know, that was very much in that. So, I mean, we, you know, we we could model 70, we could model 25, right? Um, and and I think it does go down to kind of what you're saying is like, well, what is the acceptable loss, right? what what would we look at as an acceptable loss for the community, right? Um and and and that's what I don't have that answer obviously and I don't think any of us really have that right now,

[147:00] right? To to look at that and say that. But um you know again the the model is only good as the inputs that you put into it. So we put 70, we're going to expand that that interface zone that we've been talking about, right? And if we and and and we can make it less. Now, we we did extend it out a little bit um because we wanted to use like it was close to Broadway. Let's use Broadway as that line, right? As as a uh a transportation arterial route to kind of draw that line. The model basically shows very similar to somebody's question about the floods, right? It shows kind of this curve where maybe half a house is in and half a house isn't in. And you can't really do fire that way. So, um I can again it's it's one of those questions of of saying like what numbers do we want to use to kind of determine that and how far in do we want to go? It technically comes back to Dr. Spears talking at the very beginning about

[148:01] could we make the whole city. And to to get to your values question, we did talk about this in the study session and we talked about expanding the map and council gave us the direction. We talked about should it be the whole city, should it be a collar? And the direction that we got was that if it is science-based and data backed, then we agree with what or we would want to see what staff would recommend. And so that's what we brought to you tonight. And we got Chief Calderza with his hands up too. Sorry, I wanted to jump in real quick again. Again, Mike Calderz with fire chiefs. Just wanted to answer your uh just in terms of philosophy the the general idea that we've been using is the 35 to 40 mph wind um events which have been far more frequent um than you know the Marshall fire obviously was uh I won't say once in a lifetime event but it was definitely way beyond what any of us um expected. Obviously, we could plan for that, but we don't typically um build our entire response resource and

[149:03] infrastructure around those things because that would obviously bankrupt us. So, so we stick with the more frequent event around 35 to 50 technically. Um 35 to 40 normally, but that's kind of what we're I hope answers the question a little bit. You Thank you. I had I had one more question, but I was just pondering that. Um, okay. I do remember the caller conversation that wasn't we didn't have a, you know, sort of like a menu of, you know, here here's what a medium investment looks like, here's what a big investment looks like, and here's what a big big one looks like and what you get for it. So, I'm still kind of thinking about it feels to me like there's maybe some values decisions that I I suppose have been have have been presented to us. So, I'll any I'll I'll move on. Um my third question um on the five-foot non-combustible zone um so understood that the the draft proposal would prohibit vegetation in all forms

[150:00] including vegetable gardens with a very low profile such as ground crops like lettuce, underground crops like carrots. Um, and I'm just wondering, has there been any evaluation made of the possibility that in this 0 to5 zone that that there could be vegetation that would be like carrots and um lettuce for just for example that would be minimally risky, but that also they might contribute to other goals like food security, for example, where households that have smaller footprints would really value the right to be able to use their soil to make um to make those sort of crops. And so my question is really have we have we done any kind of an evaluation that would speak to yes, we've looked at that and ruled it out because even carrots like it just is not going to work or or not. Yes, I would say that um what I've learned as not as an fire expert through this project is the absolute vital importance of the 0 to 5 foot non-combustible zone. And so

[151:01] when we we have considered it, we've thought about it, um we understand there are competing priorities for that 5T foot zone, but it is so important to the fire safety of all of these types of structures that we continue to recommend that no vegetation be in those areas. Absolutely. Okay. Correct. So, so got I got it from like a fire um mitigation maximizing standpoint, but I'm also asking when we think about other city goals, have we done any evaluation that is considered, for example, here's the area, you know, probabilistically what we would expect to be on the table as far as soil that we, you know, would we could be used for crops or just how it might impact any other goals besides fire. Yeah, I think and we will be thinking about that also with the plant list that we talked about before and those competing values. There are a number of things that you can do um within the 0 to 5 feet that would not be that would support climate goals like storm water infiltration, things like that. Permeable pavers. There's lots of other

[152:01] benefits that you could accommodate in that area. Um just not combustible ones. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Oh, more because we're we're going real long. Comments. Okay, comments. There you go. All right. Thank you for your extremely detailed answers to all of those very detailed questions. Great questions, colleagues. All right, we're going to the public hearing now. We've got four people signed up, two people in person, two people remote. Each person gets three minutes to speak. Our two in-person speakers are Jan Burton and Claudia theme. Come on down. evening. How do you do this? Actually, we have a third inerson speaker. I'd like to commend staff who has done a good job on this ordinance. I won't be as complimentary

[153:01] of council. Your leadership in this matter is glaringly absent. Four years after a disastrous fire in our own county, we introduce a code that will improve properties at a rate of 1.2% per year. Consider that the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety says that 70% of homes must be upgraded to withstand embers and flames to get community protection. 70% of the entire city. Council's own strategic plan for 24 through 26 indicated strong support quoting priority action to expand efforts in preparedness and resilience strategies including the completion, socialization, and implementation of community wildfire protection plan for all community members. all. Somehow in the past one and a half years, either you lost your focus or

[154:02] your viewpoints caused a watered down ineffective plan for all community members. This shines a light on why the city is not efficient with its tax dollars. Almost two years and nothing to show from a huge amount of process and efforts. Look at your own priorities tracking document highlighted on your website. Strong on process, weak on results. Meanwhile, insurance rates have skyrocketed and many residents have lost or risk losing their policies. Worse, we risk a major urban fire event. Boulder is in the top 3% of cities at risk for an urban fire, much like we saw in Maui, Palisades, and right down the street. This is serious business. Some of us in the community are taking it seriously and were willing to volunteer, advocate, and fix our own homes and yards. In my own neighborhood,

[155:00] a young widow, Alicia, who spoke earlier with four children, is leading the way, pleading with her neighbors to get educated and take action. However, many people put their heads in the sand or are uncooperative. Two of my friends living in zone one of the new WOOI designation had their own assessments, did the work recommended by your fire specialist, and paid thousands to remediate only to live next to a neighbor who refuses to remove the junipers on their property line. Please do us the decency of putting some teeth in an ordinance, setting real goals, both carrots and sticks. identify accountabilities and tracking relevant KPIs that can get community moving towards true fire resiliency. Thank you so much for your service. Thank you. Now we have Claudia theme and then Sarah Glenn in person as well. Good evening council. My name is Claudia

[156:02] Hansen theme. I'm a planning board member but I'm speaking tonight for myself. I'm here to share concerns that I raised when the planning board reviewed this ordinance in April and which led us to request that you take a closer look at the landscaping amendments. I want you to know that before bl joining the planning board, I spent eight years in the CSU extension master gardener program and a decade leading the landscaping team for my condominium association. So when I think about what makes places healthy and high functioning, I think a lot about green things. The 5- foot non-combustible and 30-foot defensible zones you're looking at take landscaping standards that were developed in exurban and rural areas and brings them deep into our smaller lot city neighborhoods where they could have profound impacts on our quality of life. In the Holiday Neighborhood, Boulder's model for middle and middle housing and mixed income housing, many homes have only five feet between their porch and

[157:02] the sidewalk. That's all we get, 5 ft. Neighbors fill these spaces with pocket gardens and durable plants that makes our s that make our sidewalks inviting places to walk and play and that buffer our homes from harsh weather, prying eyes, and street traffic. On some blocks, it's only 20 ft from building to the street. That means our street trees grow in the 30-foot defensible zone. And because they're not aspens or crab apples, which are the only two tree species on the list being written into code, they would not be allowed if we applied these rules retroactively or if we ever wanted to build a neighborhood like Holiday again. On a standard single family lot in Martin Acres, lower Table Mesa, or South Nuland, the entire front and side setbacks of a property are in the 30-foot zone. And many areas, many area streets lack tree lawns. Add an ADU to one of these properties and your entire backyard comes under restrictions. Pearl Street west of Broadway, which is in the

[158:00] new WOOI, would also not pass the test. Most of our downtown trees are within 30 ft of structures, and so on. Our fire officials are arguing that higher density neighborhoods are especially vulnerable and need these restrictive landscaping rules for safety. I respect that. That is their job. But as a member of your planning board, I'm thinking about a whole host of goals that we have for the city. These include increasing access to shade and environmental amenities, encouraging infill development and middle housing, and taking equity seriously, which in this case means taking a hard look at the differential impacts of our building codes in different types of neighborhoods. The proposed landscaping rules will outlaw many of the design elements that make our city neighborhoods good places. So I urge you to reconsider these local amendments or the zone 3 mapping that applies them to so many properties in Boulder from the standard where we code that you will likely adopt tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Now we have Sarah

[159:03] Glenn and then we'll go to Lynn Seagull online. Okay. Yeah, it's fun to be over here. So, I am on the Boulder Open Space Board of Trustees and I'm here tonight as a private citizen. I have lived in Boulder for 26 years now. Um, and I've spent 23 of those years in the WOOI. Uh, I care very much about equity. I care about jobs. I care about um the environment. Uh, and I know that all of these issues intersect here in this conversation. I know that you all care about these things just as much as I do. Uh, there is a lot that is actually included in the code. I want to be very clear. I've spent over a hundred hours this past month reading through these documents, reading different research, talking to interest groups, including um people in the fire department, people all over the city, for better or for worse. Uh, people are starting to know me. Um, so I

[160:01] do feel like I'm coming with an informed perspective here and actually a lot of the things I think there's some confusion. So I would um warn against uh some of that confusion and in particular what we are talking about with the code changes today if you recommend them. Uh it does include defensible space around the home. Now what can we put in the defensible space? That's a topic that we can continue to explore and certainly it's it's not an all or nothing proposition. Um, what I would say, let me go to my notes because there's so much I want to say I and I have not as much time as probably things that I could cover. Um, the this is a great code. Um, it does actually align with the national standards. You guys have done a great job of creating this code. I think the the main issue to consider is that when you had your study session in December, we were living in a different world. the LA neighborhoods had not burned down and we were expecting for our federal

[161:00] government to provide a lot of support uh in the case of an emergency and we were also expecting to have a lot of funding as a city that may be drying up soon to help support education and outreach. So the thing about this code this building code is that it's falling into the building code z world where usually it makes a ton of sense to do this for new homes. This the purpose of this code is not just to protect individual homeowners. It's to protect our city. And I got my calculator out. Uh I have my 12-year-old sitting here with me, so I had him help me. Um if we go at 131 homes per year, it will take us over 60 years to get to the 70% recommendation that is coming from the same organization that you cited. Um, we are using uh what is the I'm always terrible at acronyms. Um, but we are using the insurance industry uh

[162:02] standards. Um, it's just it's IBHS. Uh, and so we're citing those studies already in the foundations that we're laying for this code. Darn. Okay. Times up. But thank you. All right. Our one virtual speaker is Lynn Seagull. this. Where's my timer? Uh, the city of Boulder put a condenser on the side of my property blocking the sideyard setback and then they dropped me from the program that I was eligible for that they were administering in retrofits. This was part of a retrofit and that uh dropping me from that caused this huge condenser that they were putting in there because the they when they drop me in the middle of the program, they don't even need that big condenser because they were going to put that condenser for a um a thing, a

[163:03] coil it's called, and it was going to be in the second stage in the spring. And this was done in November and I've lived with I haven't even used any of the stuff. They want to electrify my place. So they put this thing there. Then they dropped me from the program because I exposed um David Hashimanji with the county as doing an unethical thing 10 years ago and I was being gaslighted. The unethical thing he did was that he forced one of the vendors they offered through their retrofit program then to do a a solar install under adverse conditions that would have hurt the uh vendor because they have to meet their guidelines and um I revealed that. So then I got gaslighted out of my own retrofit. So they put this giant condenser there. I didn't even know what was going on. They put me up for $500 for uh four days. They probably could

[164:00] have easily taken one or two days to do my job. They spent $25,000 putting in an air handler that's 30% less efficient than a simple mini split for $7,000. So, they wasted the taxpayers's money. This it's just the whole thing is a complete joke. They put in a hot water heater in my kitchen living room that makes a loud electronic buzz hum. Um, it's it's just they put a mini split in my dining room and it heats up my dining room, but I don't use my dining room. So, you got to talk to people, you know, but they didn't do that. Um, they then they told me, "Oh, you should uh you should be happy. Turn up your heat." You know, they're telling me, "Turn up my heat because I get this free uh public assistance onto my Excel bill." Um, but then I find out because I'm very conservative. I'm saving for climate change for my kids. That's where I spend my money, so I stay at 54 degrees. As a result of of keeping my heat low,

[165:03] they're telling me to turn the heat up through Excel. It's a disincentive for me to turn my heat down because I lost I was dropped from from the money that was when when I reached $500. Then they dropped me and I lost $1,000 and $1,10 your testimony. Okay, that brings the public hearing to a close. Thanks to folks for speaking. I'm going to bring it back to council. I just want to point out a few things. We're over time. Um, and we have another agenda item and there are some young people waiting to speak to us about that agenda item. we all so what what I would say is that I think we can say for a 100% of us that this is an incredibly important topic that we care about very deeply and also that staff has done extraordinary work to get us to this point. So what I would encourage my colleagues to weigh in on is um is there any change that you would like to see because I I think we're probably

[166:01] generally interested in mostly moving forward. Um, so I would just say rather than all of us give a long speech, does anyone want to propo propose any differences from what we have in front of us? Tina, uh, yeah, thank you um, first staff for all of the information and for taking a science-based approach. Um, sometimes it feels today that science isn't trending, so it was nice to hear that this evening. Um, I just I don't think this is part of the code, so I'm already breaking Erin's request, but I would love to see some incentives for accelerating um meeting these guidelines in zones three and two and then eventually one as well. I think it's really import Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Red and orange. And then um I just think we can do more and I

[167:01] think that if we approach this as a and we work hard to make sure that this is a shared community value, we believe in fire resilience. I know that people don't want to lose their homes and they don't want to make it so that their neighbor loses their homes. I think we're in this together and I think um when people realize that it's not that hard and if the city can help remove barriers to implementing these changes through sourcing materials or making it easy to find, you know, creating plant accessibility, I think we can meet those goals faster. And uh I think we should do everything we can to to do this. Um I also hope at some point, you know, we did a lot around pollinators and creating little signs that certify you as a pollinator garden. I'm hoping that I can put a firewise sign in front of my house and and spread the word with my neighbors that I'm doing what I can for what will inevitably be a terrible fire. I mean, we just know it's going to happen. So, I I'm I'm really thankful

[168:00] for this presentation and look forward to hearing more. Thanks, Tina. So, it's a suggestion for going forward, but not proposal for a change of what's in front of us. Did you have something, Mark? also make a suggestion for going forward, but not for tonight. Okay. Okay. Um, throw it out there. I don't think at the end of the day we can have a program that doesn't address the conditions on 99% of the properties in the WOOI. Um, we're not going to do that tonight. We're not going to do that in the very near future. Um, but I do understand why people are very concerned with it and I think we need to begin um to address it. I obviously staff is going to bear the burden on this. Um and I would ask them uh to look at the various proposals for um changing conditions on properties that currently exist. Which ones make sense? Which ones don't make sense? Is there any validity to the Juniper issue or imposing five foot defensible

[169:02] barriers around existing houses? I don't know the answer. You will probably know the answer. And I'm asking you to take a look at that. Um, uh, I I would ask you to look at which areas are going to be of a primary focus. Going to start with the red homes, red and orange, red, orange, and yellow, whatever combination uh, you you like. Um, what's the prop, if we do something, what's the appropriate time for compliance? 10 years is too long, six months is too short. I think you need to tell us what what is feasible. Um, last two points, community outreach is going to be absolutely critical. Um, the requirements we may ultimately impose will cost money. The community needs to understand what we're doing and that there are valid principles behind each act action. And last, not everyone can afford to do the work we will require. We must have a funding mechanism to assist those who need it. How's this to be done? Sales tax,

[170:00] property tax, some form of fee. We definitely need to create a new pull pool pool of money to assist in this work and in the context of flat or even declining tax revenues for the city. I'm hoping staff will be extremely creative on that. Um, listen, I hope we can begin the work as quickly as possible as time is of the essence, but we need to move forward with thought and act with intention. And it could have been longer. I I it could have been, but thanks for those points. I get Tara and then Ryan and Nicole. First, I want to I want to thank all the community members that reached out to us and all the phone calls we had and meetings. They were so appreciative. I'm so appreciative of it. That didn't come out right. I must be really tired. I'm very appreciative of the amount of outreach we got. And I just want you to know I'm listening. I'm sure we're listening. And I to just the only thing I want to add to what Mark says is I don't want to wait as long as it seems we have to wait

[171:00] for the red and yellow properties. People in the city are very worried about it as you can hear from the uh speeches and all the emails that we got. So I'm hoping that we can move things quickly, relatively quickly for a city anyway. Okay, that's it. Thank you. Thanks Ryan. Okay. I really grateful for all this work and I know we could keep adding to this forever. So, um I I'm I'm saying this with with with some restraint. Um I I would like to see some more analysis on this question of within the 5- foot um combustible zone. Is is there a case that we could look at that considers are is there a a lowrisk a very lowrisk way to have ground and underground crops that would provide value that that we can understand would be important for the community perhaps in particular settings such as compact multif family settings and just have something to look at for for council to see and to say

[172:01] this seems like something we should pursue or not. I will happily back off of this if um we can see it. But um it just feels um like there's something there that we ought to be, you know, really looking at. So if you have a 4 foot by 10 foot vegetable garden, you you can have carrots from August all the way through December, you know, for for a meal a day. Um this is really meaningful to be able to to to use the land. And of course, it's only probably on the south facing side anyway and so on. So, I won't go into the case, but I I would love to see just a little a little bit of analysis to really prove this out and and show that in fact the science says this is a bad idea and and it doesn't work for us. Got it. All right, I'll put that in the hopper. Um I get Nicole and then Lauren. Um thanks. And yeah, mine was also just a as we move forward with this work. Um, so I hear you on um, especially with this non-combustible zone that we're we're really looking at the science and trying to follow that in terms of the

[173:00] risk that we're facing and how we can mitigate mitigate the risk. Um, also I hear you that this applies to um, new construction, not to existing neighborhoods. Um, so where where I'm just a little bit concerned is how we've done the the engagement process with this one, especially um with the people and the businesses in the expanded WOOI area and uh in this class 3 area and it feels like a missed opportunity for education and buyin that I hope as we move forward with the landscaping and all the future work we can just do this a little bit differently. Um, so for example, the postcard that went to everybody a week ago, um, didn't have a link or instructions to sign up for the public hearing. Um, it didn't state the practical implications of the changes in terms that most people could understand. Um, and so as we move forward with some of these other changes, I just like us to be inclusive of um, some of the different housing types and the people who are in these areas, especially when we're making changes to who is in these areas and who these rules apply to. This could be as simple as using visual

[174:01] examples that show what the changes look like for different housing types. Um the way that humans work when we don't have a mental picture, we tend to fill in the gaps. And so I think just showing us what this looks like can go a long way um towards some engagement there. Um using, you know, really practical statements like if you're replacing your your fence, you can't use wood. That that kind of thing. I I think we can use these opportunities for education because we have to get the entire community to buy in to really mitigate the risk especially in these denser um areas. Um and and I think just doing a deeper um engagement, it aligns with our values of inclusion. It's also going to help us go farther to to minimize risk across the city. um the more people we can bring into these conversations and and partner with them to find solutions and address their concerns that they have like not being able to have um vegetables or potted plants or things right next to their home. Um if that's the only space they have, we'll find better solutions

[175:01] if we're talking to the people who are going to be most impacted by these and who um haven't had to think in these wooi uh worlds before. Thank you. But thank you for the work. Appreciate it. Thanks, Lauren. Thank you. Um, it's clear to me that our highest risk areas are structures um in the zones one and two um are the WOOI zones that need really maximum effort. They're our sort of first line for our community. They're most likely to catch fire and also because of their large slightly larger lot sizes, they're where our mitigation efforts will be most effective. Making these homes highly wildfire resistant will have profound impacts for reducing risk to the rest of our community. What I'm slightly less confident about is the with the direction of tonight is area three. um community buyin is such a critical

[176:04] component for making these making this hardening effective. Um and I think that consistency in our regulations is really helpful in creating in in making that easier to communicate and increasing buyin. Um, and even if we don't go this direction tonight or this year, I think that citywide and retroactive code um, requirements related to wildfire are likely in our future. Um, and to help with this future consistency and compromise, I would like to see the non-combustible area in zone three reduced to zero to three feet. I think that's um I know that it is not as good as what our five the five- foot science shows

[177:00] us, but I think that it will be easier to get more people to adopt that voluntarily. And I think that that in and of itself has a huge amount of um value in terms of our overall risk reduction. I'd also be interested in looking at consp zone 3 to cover the entire city, not tonight, but potentially as part of a future update. Thanks for that, Lauren. So, there's a proposal in there. We'll come back to it after I hear from Matt. Matt, you muted. Y uh I'm going to keep it quick and and just ditto what um Mark said. Uh urgency, some retroactive work dealing with existing homes, but most importantly finding the resources to do that. Um but by and large, I think this is really amazing work that gets us a

[178:00] really long way. Um and and I'm I'm happy that we're at this point. Um and look forward to our future discussion on it. So I appreciate that. Thanks, Matt. Um and I'll just echo what Matt just said and others about the importance of acceleration and looking at things like the junipers. what are the the lowhanging evergreens uh that we could make progress quicker progress on um rather than slower and so would invite a look at um some uh retroactive requirements in those kinds of those kinds of areas but I do want to share uh concerns from people who have been kind of coincidentally over in this direction um about the um impact on um multif family housing in in zone 3 um and so Lauren pointed out the combustible um non-combustible space issue And my concern looks a little bit more to the low flammability area. Uh because like in the Holiday neighborhood where I live, I think pretty much um the entire neighborhood um is within that 30 foot range from a building. Like I don't think there's there's maybe a couple places where they're um 50 ft between

[179:00] buildings. So if as uh our one testifier said, if the only things that are trees that are allowed in that area are aspen and crab apples, um that would be a dramatic change to the character of a neighborhood like that. um if it happened in the future. Now, I know we're looking to see what the plant list would be and that's not done yet. Um but I'm without knowing what that's going to look like. Um I'm getting concerned about imposing that requirement for all new developments as well as for um uh additions in existing neighborhoods. So, I might look to you. I mean, is could we um maybe pause that requirement until we finish out these next phases of work and getting the plant list together and then also the the water wise landscaping uh work that we're doing. Sure. Um actually this is a good opportunity to clarify something that was mentioned. So the low flammability plant requirement is 5 to 30 feet but it's or the lot line that comes first. So street trees, things like that would not come in would not be required to um

[180:02] meet that. So, it's just whatever's on the actual private property. So, if if there's a 20 foot setback, it's only those the z the five to 20 feet and then anything beyond that if it's in the street um would not be subject to the low flammability plant list. That wasn't your question. And I did actually I did actually know that, but it's good to clarify that. So, thank you for doing it. But internal to a block like like my block, I don't think every every single bit of land is within that 30 foot, right? Um um we could uh techni yes you could make an amendment or you could include an amendment to the ordinance that would that would essentially strike that low flammability plant requirement from 5 to 30 feet um in the meantime and then tackle that with the land use code. Okay. So that I'll put that out there as a suggestion would be for the time being um to in the zone three to um to to strike the the lowflammability um section. So I'll put that concrete proposal out there or green proposal. Um

[181:02] Ryan, you had something about looking Did you do you have like a request that they evaluate the possibility of maybe some low danger? Yes. I guess I'm not sure the the right procedure, but I I'm um I'm I'm just interested in uh some kind of analysis that would show a um consideration that the the low that I guess to consider if there are in fact a a a category of very low risk uh plants that would be again like crop or ground crop or underground crop. And then secondly, is there a value a social value in us permitting the right to grow those crops on the soil? Just and just kind of show us that and maybe it's as simple as saying the science is clear that tells us that even turnipss and carrots are just as bad. Um, and also this, you know, the the food security

[182:01] issue, you know, it's only this amount of area. But but something to, I guess, spell this out in in a little bit of writing or analysis. um for us to really be clear that um you know the zero to five foot uh zone should really have no uh no vegetation at all. Sorry that's not a very succinct way to put it just a little as I'm repeating back is it a little show the math on the vegetation issue? Yeah I think it's yeah show the math and and also like please with the food part too not not just for fire maximization but other goals. So I guess and the way I piggyback on that is could that be part of this next phase as we're coming to the water-wise landscaping um question. Certainly we can consider that with the the landscaping changes. That's great to hear. And you've already heard the request about looking at the possible you know make moving faster at some point to come back to that. Lauren, did you want to make a formal um you had a range? Did you want to propose

[183:01] something? I propose reducing the non-combustible zone in area three from 0 to 5 ft down to 0 to 3 feet. Okay. So, we've got two proposals out here on the table. I'm going to straw poll these. Um so, I guess I'll I'll start in order that they were put out there. uh which was mine was um to pause which well to to strike in the code for zone 3 the existence of the lowflammability zone with the intention of restoring that once we' gotten potentially restoring that once we've gotten through the next phases of the process. So I just ask for a show of hands if people would be interested in taking that approach. Oh what's Go ahead. And my question was, um, given it's nine o'clock and this is kind of the first year, I'm I'm just curious about your quick take on this, um, it's

[184:01] always hard for me to make changes and decisions late in the process when I don't have your guidance. I have because we already have a two-step process, we have an opportunity to revisit this fairly soon. So, it' be fairly simple to just strike the 603.2.5, 2.5 which is fuels planted in defensible space or specify that it only applies to classes one and two. We can revisit it later. Brad might be adding more. No, that's correct. I just wanted to remind council too that we are looking at a third reading. So we would get that stricken exactly for that language if that's the will. Okay. So all in favor of that one just raise your hand. Physical hand. the the one we're just talking about the flammable space the the low flammability 5 to 30 feet striking that from zone three for the time being temporarily temporarily all in favor raise your hand temporarily okay I got okay I got you

[185:00] eight on that one um the next one is Lauren's suggestion uh to um change the the no combustion zone from 0 to 5t to 0 to 3 feet in class in class three in zone three. Yes. Clarifying question. Yeah, I'm happy to have staff look at it, but I'm a little reluctant to make substantive changes on the fly. Um I I'd like them to tell us if that works or is a good idea. Yeah. And to colloqui I see from all the reading that I did colloqui from all the reading that I did five feet seems to be standard. So, what do you think, Steph? Definitely 5T is the standard. And I will note that Boulder County recently changed their requirement from 3T to 5T for every single uninccorporated property. And the state code is 5 foot right now. I I I just want to say I'm okay with

[186:01] three if if if they bless it. We can't I mean there is no science that supports three-foot. It's all five foot, right? the IBHS, the headwater economics, the NIST uh research and study of postfires. Okay. Lauren has pulled it. Yeah. Okay. Well, then that Matt, did you want to because we're almost done here. Matt, go ahead. Nope. I'm just glad we're sticking to the science. I appreciate that, Chief. Great. Um, it that was direction rather than Yeah, that that's already in there. Yeah. Can um sorry can you give me the the code provision the number for that? Yes. So it's on um or it's section 603.2.5 fuels planted with indefensible space. Um the ordinance the sorry let me get the amended version. It's on page

[187:04] I mean I think that if I have the the number that's probably good enough. Okay. It's on page 14 of your amended ordinance. So, it would just be striking or amending that 603.2.5 to specify that this does not apply to class 3. Okay. I'll I'll go ahead and make a motion if people don't mind, which is um I will move that we um amend and adopt ordinance 8695 amending chapter No, no. Amend and pass. We've got it to go to third reading. Thank you. to amend and pass. So I move that we amend and pass ordinance 8695 amending chapter 1085 wildland code BRC1981 to adopt by reference the 2024 edition of the international wildland and urban interface code of the international code council with certain amendments and setting forth related details with the amendments being those that were sent out by hotline earlier today and also to change

[188:00] 6.03.2.5 to only apply to zones one and two. Is that a properly for formed motion, Teresa? There's a motion on the table. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Um I don't see the need for further discussion. I for myself anyway. So, could we do a roll call vote, please? Absolutely, Mayor. We'll start the roll call vote on ordinance 8695 with you, Mayor Brockett. Yes. Mayor Prom Folkertz. Yes. Marquis, yes. Shuhart, yes. Council member Spear, yes. Wallik, I. Winer, yes. And council member Benjamin, yes. Ordinance 8695 is hereby passed with amendments with a vote of 8 to zero. And while I have the floor, I will move that we declare the revised wildland urban interface area for Boulder to which the wildland code applies as recommended in

[189:01] the staff memorandum. Second. Uh, we have a motion and second. All right, we'll start this roll call vote on this motion with Mayor Prom Folkertz. Yes. Marquis, yes. Shuhard, yes. Spear, yes. Council member Wallak, I. Winer, yes. Council member Benjamin, yes. And Mayor Brockett, yes. All right. This motion passes unanimously. Thank you for all of your amazing work on this and for getting through the evening with us. A lot of things thrown at you. So looking forward to moving this forward expeditiously. Okay. Well, um, for everyone who's been waiting for the next item, thank you for your patience. I hope you enjoyed the discussion about the Wildland urban interface. Can we go to our next item, please, Emily? Absolutely. Our next item is um item number six under matters from the city manager and that is 6A

[190:02] childfriendly cities initiative update and draft youth action plan. Uh the next item council is an exciting item uh mostly because uh it is um introducing some young people something that you don't see so often here. Um it is our update on our childfriendly cities initiative. It's also one of those cross-dep departmental initiatives um that we are doing more and more often uh that is more the norm than the exception these days and just want to thank our um HHS, our parks and recreation, our comms and engagement team and I know that there are so many other departments that you're going to hear about that have been involved in that but and really thank our young people who have listened through a very very long previous item to be with us today. So, thank you Elizabeth. I'll send it to you to kick us off. Thank you, mayor. Good evening, city council. We were actually having a pretty good time downstairs, weren't we? We raided the CMO's snack cabinet, so

[191:01] we're all set. Yeah. Uh we always tell Mario always reminds the youth to just take a deep breath before the next thing. So, you're welcome to join us in taking a nice deep breath after that conversation. Uh my name is Elizabeth Crowe. serve as the deputy director of our housing and human services department. So very pleased to be here representing our uh city staff team. Uh many many folks here are Alli Rhodess, Sarah Huntley, and also uh Mayor Mincer from Growing Up Boulder. We're just a few of the adults that have been supporting this CFCI or Child Friendly Cities initiative for more than two years. And it's a great milestone for us um to be able to support our young people here to speak with their own voices about their own experiences um for what they're recommending for the fam um child-friendly city youth plan. Um I will say after the youth speak um we hope that your questions and comments will be directed at them. However,

[192:01] myself, Ally, and Sarah are available to answer any questions if you have them for us. Um but you're not here to hear from adults. You're here to hear from the youth. So, I'll invite our first two speakers up this evening. Good evening. My name is Rya Haransky and I am the president of the Youth Opportunities Advisory Board. Hello. My name is Rachel Tilton. I'm the vice president of the Youth Opportunities Advisory Board. First of all, we just wanted to say thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to speak before you about the um youth opportunity about the childfriendly cities initiative. Um we're really excited about all the work that we've participated in and the solutions that we've come up with and we're excited to talk with the um childfriendly cities youth council about their work too. The UNICEF Child Friendly Cities Initiative is a global program that encourages cities to prioritize the rights and well-beings of children. The

[193:03] framework Oh, okay. Sorry. The framework is grounded in the UN convention on the rights of the ch of the child which um the image to the left depicts the elements to this convention. This initiative um is taking place in 3,500 cities in over 40 countries and although it is prevalent throughout the globe, Boulder is among one of the first um United States cities um to adopt this child-friendly cities initiative. So there are a lot of reasons why Boulder as a city joined the childfriendly cities initiative, but I think the main reason is that Boulder and its partners, including Growing Up Boulder, have worked collaboratively and intentionally to make Boulder a better place for youth for many years. Um, but the child-friendly cities initiative, the framework associated with that creates a unique opportunity for youth

[194:00] voices to be heard and to be prioritized in a new way. Um, it provides us a strategic youthled approach to systemic change and better outcomes not only for youth but for the entire community. And this aligns with Boulder's values of equity, innovation, and inclusion. This is a timeline for the progression of the child-friendly cities initiative within Boulder. So, the child-friendly cities initiative within Boulder began in April 2023 uh when Boulder officially joined CFCI by signing a memorandum of understanding with Growing Up Boulder, UNICEF USA, and the city of Boulder. Um, the second portion of this process was the recruitment phase in which different organizations throughout the community, including different nonprofit organizations, BBSD, Boulder County, and different city departments along with youth within our community collaborated and started really focusing in on this

[195:01] project. The third portion of the project, it was the situation analysis, which included both community conversations and government data. for community conversations. Youth helped facilitate and lead different workshops where people throughout the community were able to come and share their voices and opinions about the childfriendly cities initiative. And government data um involved the city of Boulder staff and Growing Up Boulder um managing data collected from other organizations and um within the city of Boulder to show the priorities that were most important to um our community. Oh, there's Yeah. Okay. Um, what we've learned through the state of the child report. So, the things that are working in our community is that there's access to nutritious food, there's access to reliable internet, there's access to parks and playgrounds and children feel safe at home. And some of the top

[196:01] concerns that we've identified within our community include harassment and safety in public, um bullying, mental health issues, there's limited access to inclusive recreation, discrimination, lack of youth voice and decision-m and rising child poverty. So the childfriendly cities initiative is working to um face all of these top concerns. So throughout our outreach, we've reached over 900 youth, over 500 adults, 48 community organizations, and various city departments through different facets of outreach, whether that's um workshops or meetings. Um and throughout that, we've prioritized equity and inclusion. So the ways we've done that is through providing stipens, interpretation and translation services as well as food and child care services so that everyone can be a part of this

[197:00] these community um workshops. And then this equity has also been achieved through our partnerships with my emotion healing um yuka consulting among other organizations that were partnered with and we've prioritize youth voices from marginalized communities throughout the program and within the CFCI framework. Um and so I want to talk a little bit about a few examples of how we've done that. So um in the fall of this year we held youth action plan workshops. So we held two of them and in the first one we had a lot of adults attend but very few youth. So most of our data that we gathered from that workshop was primarily from adults and from the youth that were there um not very diverse perspectives. So we changed the way that we marketed the events and we targeted um diverse communities of youth. And in our second workshop, we were able to gain perspectives from a wide variety of youth in Boulder, which was created more

[198:02] meaningful contributions and allowed us to narrow in on the priority areas for the CFCI plan, which the youth council then was able to work with. The second way that we prioritized um equity um in practice was when we were reviewing applications for the CFCI Youth Council. Our first pool of applicants was not diverse and did not represent youth as a whole in Boulder. So again, we we we created targeted marketing strategies to recruit youth who would represent the community in a better way and bring those diverse perspectives. and we created a CFCI youth council that was able to create solutions that identified with many different parts of our community. So on that note, we would love to introduce our CFCI youth council to come and discuss the work that they've done.

[199:00] Hi, I'm Lucia Leman and I'm part of the CFCI Council. Hi, I'm Grayson Michael and I'm part of the CFCI Youth Council. And you can lower that microphone. Hi, I'm Lauren Albert and I'm part of the CFCI Youth Council. The CFCI Youth Council has 10 members with four YOAB administrators and it's both middle school and high school students and we all collaborate to work on the different priority areas we identified. For our strategies we came up with, we focused on things that already exist and should be continued or amplified and also things that could be improved to better serve youth needs and also bright new ideas. The three priorities we identified are addressing and reducing bullying, improving safety and belonging, and sharing opinions with the city. And these are issues that affect youth in their daily lives. The first priority is addressing and

[200:00] reducing bullying. Bullying happens in all sorts of areas like in person, cyber, and also in public spaces. And it's even worse when youth are a part of uh community that's already targeted and treated more unfairly than others. So adults don't always intervene in ways that are most effective towards youth. And so that helped us strategize the best plan. So, the strategies we came up with are co-creating new anti-bullying curriculum with students, training youth facilitators, and then educating adults to be effective upstanders, and launching online safety and digital literacy programs. The supports we need for this are funding, school district and youth collaboration, curriculum specialists, and data collection. The second priority we um came up with was to improve the safety and belonging in Boulder. Youth feel unsafe in public

[201:02] spaces due to harassment, racism, and drug use. The strategies we came up with include to installing lighting in safety infrastructure, perhaps call boxes, providing youth focused self-defense and confidence training provided by the city to create multicultural gathering spaces for all ages and more accessible parks and to launch anti-discrimination awareness campaigns. The supports that are needed for this are cross agency coordination, homeless support services to unhoused population, funding for infrastructure and outreach. A lot of us feel unsafe in public like at parks, on buses, or walking home. That fear grows when people experience beforehand racism or harassment. We want safer spaces, more support, and places where all youth feel like they belong.

[202:00] that includes people with disabilities, LGBTQ plus youth, and youth of color. Our vision is to have young people aware of the safe outdoor play areas and gathering spots in the community and to know what to do in other locations. Our third priority was to share opinions with the city. Uh we did this because youth want influence but lack platforms and trust in the city process. Some strategies that we came up with this was to hope school paste ballot box voting days on youth priorities develop civic engagement catalog uh and leadership fairs uh and also yab listening sessions with younger youth. We would build part partnerships with city boards and commissions to include youth leaders regularly. Some of the

[203:00] supports that we would need would be staff coordination, adult mentors and event logistics. Uh our vision would be for youth in Boulder to be aware of where to find government support and are participating in a range of opportunities to actively contribute to improving our city. We care about what happens in Boulder, but it's hard to be involved. There aren't many chances to speak up, and it can feel like no one's listening. We want more ways to share ideas and actually see change happen because of them. Things like youth voting days, leadership events, and youth spots, and city boards can help. The next steps we will take are to finalize the action plan based off of the feedback we get tonight. Um to develop implementation, role clarity frameworks, accountability and evaluation criteria. submitting our plan to UNICEF USA and to

[204:01] plan our milestone celebration and to begin our program roll out leveraging $2 million in the funding from the sale of Broncos. We're almost done writing it in the youth action plan. We want your feedback before we finalize it. Next, we'll start putting these ideas into action. Uh questions for the council. Does the council have any feedback for the youth participants and staff about the priority focus areas? Uh, does the council have reactions or reflections on the proposed action items? Does the council have any other suggestions that youth leaders and staff should keep in mind as they work to finalize and implement this action plan? In closing, we hope adults will listen to what youth are saying and take seriously the concerns and ideas that we are sharing to help make youth action plan a reality and help other adults see that youth

[205:01] have valuable ideas and lived experience. Thank you for your attention and now we look forward to hearing city council members responses. That was fantastic. Amazing. Love that. That is literally the bre best presentation we have had all year. No, no offense to city staff. Um, so yeah, so much fantastic things that you put together with us and so grateful for all the city staff and for growing up Boulder and your partnership. So I'd love to hear from council about some feedback in terms of their questions or questions that you have for the youth. Um, you know, just feedback and responses, next steps. Who'd like to jump in? Well, I I'm going to second the mayor's comments. That was the best presentation I've heard in a very very long time. That was just excellent. Um I'm almost taken aback by it. It was so good. Uh I I think the

[206:00] priorities were were well thought out. Um uh and I I would endorse every one of them. So, thank you. Nicole, thank you so much for all the work that you have put into this. Um, it is not easy to uh get uh busy adults to engage. It is also hard to get uh busy youth engaged. So, thank you. You've done an amazing job here and I'm so grateful that we have this information and that you're working on this. Um I just wanted to to note kind of to the first question about feedback on the priority focused areas. Um the top areas that you all have identified. These are exactly the areas that I have heard from my kids over the years. Um they have had they and so many of their friends have had issues with bullying, with discrimination, with feeling unsafe, um riding buses, standing at bus stops, those kinds of things, and just feeling

[207:00] left out of city decision-making. So, I just wanted to give you the feedback that your priority focus areas are, at least what I have been hearing about for the last um many, many years in my household. Um, and that even I as a council member haven't been able to fix it for them. And I'm really glad that you all are working on this and making the city better for our kids. Thank you. Um, so glad that you all are working on this. But um in terms of the the proposed action items um I feel like you're you're hitting a lot of the right ones here. One of the things that I was curious to hear your thoughts about. Uh there are other cities in the country who have started uh lowering their voting age for local issues. So not for national elections or anything like that but local issues to 16. And so I was just wondering, is that anything that you all have thought about um as a strategy that we could use here to help uh youth feel more engaged in city decision-m? I think that sounds amazing. I think

[208:01] that's something that all youth in Boulder would like to see. But I'll add to that, in our discussions, we haven't specifically touched on that topic. Um but we are interested in creating other pathways besides just um youth voting for youth to give their input to the community. So um obviously I think that's something that a lot of people would be interested and I think there's also a lot of other ways that youth can give their vote to the to the um to the city of Boulder. Cool. Thank you. Um and then uh any other suggestions to keep in mind um as you work to finalize it? No, just thank you so much for this work. It's really important and I love that we are doing this. Um, thanks thanks to you and I really look forward to seeing the action plan and um and in finalized and being able to work with you all to get it done. Thank you. Thanks, Nicole, Tina and then Tara. Yeah, thank you so much for coming. I

[209:00] know that this is your penultimate week of school and some of you are still navigating finals. So, I especially appreciate you're taking time out of this busy academic time of your academic calendar. Um, and thank you for these priorities. I hear the same priorities particularly around public safety. Um, and I was wondering if one of you would just like to describe what would a change look like. So, like where's an area where you're experiencing this kind of um uncertainty or discomfort and what would a change look like for you? What would the new experience be like? Yeah. Um, thank you. That's a good question. I would say that um I think specifically something that we sort of emphasized was just knowing that there's way to like bring attention if there is like an issue happening. So, um I

[210:02] honestly think that like when you're riding the bus and you see someone who it's more of like an assumption of something like that might happen that would be bad instead of like something actually bad is going to happen. So, I think that just having like safety systems that really like mentally like support youth and like their confidence really would just improve these issues like like the safety boxes and stuff like that. Okay. Thank you. And then um on the school bullying or the bullying um and it it suggests creating a new curriculum around bullying, could you um just describe kind of what you think is lacking from a curriculum point of view in the school district uh because they do some anti-bullying work. Um so at my school there is an anti-bullying curriculum. Um, but sometimes, especially, specifically, I

[211:00] can think of one time when I was in fourth grade that it it just didn't really work. And so, sometimes adults think that things might work, but they really just don't. That's so well said. It's so well said. I have a couple other examples, but I'll leave those on the table tonight. Can I just Sorry. Can I just add um I worked specifically with that group and I think the two things the main things that they emphasized was that there's not enough education specifically for adults um for like to know how to respond like specifically for teachers when they see this happening they don't know what to do because there isn't curriculum focused at them and also sometimes the curriculum isn't created by students. So we emphasized create like having this curriculum be created by students so that it's really the youth who are speaking instead of the adults. Okay, thank you. First, I'm sorry that you had to sit through a super long

[212:01] first. How about that council meeting? That was pretty long, wasn't it? I know. So, sorry about that, but thank you for waiting and not falling asleep. Awesome. Uh, I would like you to be more detailed. For instance, everything was great, but it was also general. So if you wrote more details about what you feel and experience, it would help me to know what would be best in terms of let's say legislation that we would think of or programs, you know what I mean? So like what can what can we do what can we do about you feeling unsafe on a bus? So the more detail that I read, I might get an idea. Also what I would love to do is hang out and let's say oh you know call up and you can meet with us and say this is what bothers me this is what happened to me this is what I love so we can hear more details other than this report

[213:02] which doesn't happen you know once a year I just hung out with you right recently right we hung out okay um and so more feedback that I can get from young people and the better for me that I can like put myself in your position and think more how you think. Yeah, I'll start with the first part of that um comment. So, one thing that we talked about is in this phase of the childfriendly cities initiative plan, it's really just an ideas phase. So, the goal of the council was to just get all their ideas out there, right? Um create just baseline kind of general plans. Um you'll hear some specific ideas such as like ballot boxes or youth voting days or um new curriculum, but it can feel very general right at this stage in the process. Um fortunately in the next stage of the process, it's going to get a lot more

[214:00] detailed with both budget and the specific ideas in terms of finding attainability of each of those. Um, but that said, I think that's a really good idea and I think we can improve that by being very specific about even if it's general, being specific about what we're hoping to accomplish and that's definitely something that we'll work on. So, I appreciate that. Um, and then in terms of having youth be able to connect on a more interpersonal level with um, council members, I think, well, I can't speak for everybody. I would enjoy it. Yeah, for sure. But we do, I think that is an important part of being able to connect with the city, right? Not just in this formal setting, but also in an informal setting. And we're hoping to achieve that through youth participation in not only city council, but youth or but um different commission board meetings, right? Um I think that would really give youth an ability to participate on an equal level to um so many city officials. And so that's part

[215:00] of what we're hoping for. Thanks for being honest and real and telling us your thoughts. Thank you for this presentation. I don't have a significant amount of feedback. I think it was excellent. Um, and I really look forward to seeing what you bring forward in terms of, you know, feasibility and impact and getting more into those specifics. I'm really excited to see Yeah. just to see what that is as you flesh these ideas out more. Um I really appreciate your sort of I'm sorry that you have to and I appreciate that you are continuing to like reenter your own voices in each of these conversations over and over again. I appreciate that, you know, looking at the engagement you noticed that that wasn't what you wanted it to be and made changes. And I appreciate in a lot of these suggestions that you're very specific about um you know who needs to

[216:00] be involved in the process and I yeah just look forward to learning more. Thank you so much. Thanks Lauren Ryan. Then I uh I'm really blown away by your presentation what you've been able to accomplish. Um, and um, you the presentation is very professional and you're you're like Lauren said, you're really talking about who needs to do what. You're talking about action items and um, you give me a lot of um, optimism um, for the future. So, I'll just go through your the questions to us. First one, uh, I have also heard these themes. Um, I have two kids in elementary school. Um, you know, the the youth ballot initiative, ballot box thing really jumped out at me. Uh, I I don't I don't know what it would take to put that together, but I would love that on election day to get to get your your ballots and uh get those counted and um in whatever form that looks like. I think that would be um that would be

[217:01] very valuable for the community. Um, second question on other reactions or reflections. um I'll address you but also um the um the whole team. I would like like to hear from you more. I would like I would like to do this. Um I know this is programmed in for today. Um I hope this we could we could think about how to do this more often with you. Um you know, you bring value to this this forum in ways that you might not appreciate. And let me just think of or mention a few things. One, literally your your perspective. you are you represent a group in our community that um is not well represented at least directly in our in our proceedings. um you are I think implicitly with what you've already shown thinking about the long term in ways that a lot of folks and the majority of I think um comments we get are a little bit more like here's what we need to do right now for this immediate thing today and um we

[218:03] we we need as a community to be thinking about making plans for 10 years and for 20 years um and I I know you're bringing that um also you are saying what you want to do so you saying yes, you are saying you want to build things and we hear a lot of nos, but um you're bringing a lot of value by by saying what you want to create. So just a long way of saying you're bringing value to this and you know we're not being altruists by by having you here like we this this um this our politics needs you. So I hope we can we can think of ways to integrate more of your perspective into um our decisions as we go. And then finally, third one, um suggestions for you. I guess I have two thoughts. One, um I would encourage you to think as you go forward when you run into uh nose or you run into walls. Um you run into we don't have the budget for that. um people scratching their head that that

[219:03] in in those circumstances, that's maybe when you should come seek counsel because this is often the body that um is able to shake things loose or to kind of elevate to a bigger principle. I'm not saying it's easy to say yes, but um I think there's a natural um by definition a bureaucracy in a local government and um that's for good purpose, but um we're here when you need things that are maybe you think there's something more to it. Um and then the final things I just want to um encourage you. So, you know, one of my kids now is um learning about climate change, and one of the things I'm trying to I'm well, we'll see, but I I'm hoping that she'll start to understand sooner than later is that systems change that that policy is really where a lot of the action is. And I would compliment you for being here and having figured that out. Um that coming to these forums at

[220:00] the local level, but but other and higher levels, too. Um it's it's where a lot of the power is. So, um keep it up. Thanks, Ryan. I got Matt. I'm gonna call in myself and we got a couple follow-ups. So, remote Matt. Thanks, Aaron. Um, I I don't have specific feedback because I think my colleagues have covered it, but I what I will say is um I didn't get to see your faces and and the way you presented because I all I got was a slide on my side, but but hearing how articulate um you all were in describing all this work for me reinvigorates my faith in humanity and more importantly the next generations. Um we're dealing with a lot of really rough challenges. Some of our own making, some are not. Um, and it's hard to know how we're going to get through that. Um, but but seeing the work that you're doing gives me faith that we're going to be just fine. Um, and so to Ryan's point, I would love to see you

[221:00] present more to council because when we get dealing with some of the nitty-gritty or some of the tough stuff, it's helpful for us to be reminded that um, we're in good hands with you when you guys become adults and take on the leadership of this city, state, and this country. So, um I I'm just excited by what you presented and uh it warms my heart knowing that that we're going to be in good hands. Um and and we get to hand the reigns over over to you and hopefully we just don't mess it up too much. Um so, but really great job. Thanks, Matt. All right. I have a question for you all because I wanted to ask you about something because when after every council election the council members all get together and they decide what their priorities are and we have like 25 big ideas and we have to like whittle it down to nine or 10 or five would be great. Yes sir. But I'm sure you all had a lot of big ideas. How did you get down to three? Like what was that process for like all working together to to get because it's not it's not easy. I've been there.

[222:00] Yeah, I can talk a little bit about that. So, as I mentioned a little bit before, we held workshops. So, that was the um the primary way that we were able to collect that input. So, at those workshops, we had youth and adults vote on about seven priorities that um had already been determined by um other meetings and other um kind of workshops um what was most important to them. And so then at those two workshops um we were able to determine the first two um priority areas. So that was safety in public spaces and safety from bullying. Um that was important to youth of all different ethnicities, all different identities and all different backgrounds. That was a common theme. And then once we had assembled the youth council, we were able to narrow down on the third priority um which is um youth being more represented in the city and having their voices heard. So the first two were um narrowed down by work the

[223:00] workshops and the last one was narrowed down by the youth council itself. Does that answer a question? Yeah, totally. That was exactly what I was what I was asking about. And so people have given you a lot of great feedback. So I'll just say 10 out of 10 no notes. Just amazing. Um and then just the last bit is your last thing about including the youth v uh voice is that I like everybody else really welcomes that. So, I look forward to hearing more from you all and from your uh friends and neighbors and colleagues, classmates. I don't think you quite use colleagues in in school, but classmates. Uh, all right. I think Tina and then um Nicole had follow-up. Thanks. Yeah, thank you. And I realize I didn't um answer the two other bullet points. So, I'll answer them together. One thing is we as a city are elected to do things in the city and so um the public safety piece and how you feel in public spaces as well as recreation that is sponsored by the city is something that we can directly impact and that is

[224:00] a really good place for us in my opinion to act and also getting youth voice in the city which we're already doing and I feel like you're setting a pathway for that that we can expand on. um developing curriculum for the school district is a little trickier. So they have a separate board that's elected and they also represent seven municipalities of which we're just one. So when we think about, you know, enacting change so that you have a safer um more safety in school, I think that we might be looking at a different group of partners than the one that we would look at when we're thinking about safety in public spaces. um the $2 million that we're looking at can be used in a lot of different ways. So it might be that the school district is the best place to spend those dollars and then you can give the same feedback to them as they continue to work on their bullying program. Um and also they did an excellent u mental health presentation on Tuesday at their board meeting with uh their partnership with the Renee Crown Institute which is worth looking

[225:01] at and and some of the research they've done there which dovetailes really nicely with some of the exact same concerns you shared with us tonight. So, those are the things I'd be thinking about u moving forward just um because we we do have a lot of different people in charge of different um aspects of our community and and some of them might be harder for us and some of them are exactly what we're elected to do. Thank you. Um I just had one uh follow-up point. I wanted to clarify uh what I heard from you in terms of what it is that you all need from us moving forward. Um I heard that um is that are we good? Maybe. Okay. Um uh I what I heard from you is that um you may need some help with funding for some of the ideas that you bring forward. Um support for implementing the things that you identify as priorities. And what I also heard was um learning from you about

[226:00] things like how adults can be better bystanders or upstanders for example. Is that is that right? Am I taking away that in terms of what what you're going to need from this group? Is that about right? Yeah, I think that definitely um encapsulates what we are looking for from city council. I think we're also looking for just like at this moment feedback on the general priorities and whether you think there needs to be any changes to that or whether the um ideas and priorities that we've identified encapsulate um what you guys are looking for. Yep. Cool. Thank you. Yeah. No, I think what what I appreciate about it, and I think this may just be the child-friendly initiatives in general, um is that it really seems to be about uh how youth solving your own problems versus um looking for adults to come and solve them for you because as you said so eloquently, um adults don't always get it right. So, uh anyway, I just I really appreciate that. Um and thank you. Thanks for clarifying that. I look

[227:00] forward to um learning more about how we can support this work. Yeah, because I think to to sum up that rather than trying to give you feedback on what you brought to us is that we're just celebrating that you brought it to us and you did an amazing job doing it and we're really learning and benefiting from hearing from it. So just incredibly grateful for what you've done. Super excited about the next steps. And any final thoughts before we wrap up? Uh we just want to say thank you for giving us this opportunity to present to you and we're grateful to be working on this project with all these amazing people and we think it's just a really important cause and we're dedicated to continue the efforts. Fantastic. The gratitude is mutual. All right. Yes, Elizabeth, you want to finish us up here? Just very quickly, we um we're talking to the youth that we don't um applaud, but maybe everybody could do some jazz hands here for the youth.

[228:00] Also, just wanted to give a shout out to Mario who's here, Martinez Villes, who's our youth opportunities project director, who gets to work with these young people all year long. And um I know we're all a little bit envious about his work there, but thank you all. Well, before you go, I move that we suspend our rules so that we can applaud this initiative. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor, raise your hand. Woohoo. [Applause] [Music] Mayor, I just want to say that Mario is exceptional. I just want to lift that up. Do exceptional. And we can applaud for Mario, too. [Applause] All right. Thanks so much everybody. Really appreciate it. We've got one more little thing to deal with um before we wrap up. But yeah. Um Okay. Go ahead. If you wouldn't just go

[229:00] ahead and say that, but I need to explain why. Okay. So, um well, I think we need to enter it into the record. We can say. So, our last item on tonight's agenda is item 8A, and that is for a discussion on council responses to open comments. Okay, go ahead. This was a suggestion from me uh as to permit um timely responses when any of us are uh called names or or uh criticized on the basis of ethnicity um or political philosophy. I'm going to pull that request because the testimony tonight has convinced me that there is simply no point to it. um we are dealing with with people who appear to be uneducable and unwilling to hear um a different point of view and unwilling uh to behave in

[230:01] any way that is reasonable. U so there's really no point in my um trying to obtain the right to um uh to counter them uh at the moment in time that they make those comments. Um, and I will just point out that this evening alone, uh, we had, uh, open comment from Susan Hall, who appears to be thoroughly ignorant about the events of October 7th and believes no atrocities occurred. The terrorists on October 7th filled their atro filmed their atrocities and put them on social media. I don't know what world she's living in, but it's not the world of reality. Then we had Eric Gross who proudly uh announces that he was the author of the wanted poster which is uh political behavior at the very bottom of the barrel but he thinks it's a source of pride. And lastly we had Aaron Bingham uh who threw a temper tantrum uh

[231:01] because not all council members were present to listen to his sage advice. Um, I I want to point out that none of us is obligated to listen to speakers who are rude and insulting. Uh, and if you don't approve of the way you've been treated, first your recourse is at the ballot box, and I urge you to take it um rather than to throw a tantrum at the council. If you want to be treated more seriously, act in a manner to deserve it. But I don't believe there's any point to be served by my making these comments at the time uh open comment is being made. I'll reserve my comments as I have tonight for the end of the meeting and that will be fine for me. Thank you. Okay, thanks for that Mark. We will consider the suggestion duly pulled. All right. Uh before we end the meeting, does anyone else want to offer any uh final comments with our two-minute uh limit that we give ourselves? Not seeing any hands raised. All right.

[232:01] Well, everybody, thanks for we actually ended on time. No, despite uh going along on our WOOI item. So, thanks everybody for all the robust discussions and great comments. And with that, I 47 p.m. Good night.