November 14, 2023 — Downtown Management Commission Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:02] And we are officially recording. Welcome to the Downtown Management Commission meeting. It is Tuesday, November fourteenth, and I will call Roll Susan Newsom here. Don Po. present Stephanie treats here. and Justin Calvin here. and turn the meeting over to our chair for procedural items. Would anyone like to approve. or the minutes from last time move to approve those minutes do we hear a second seconded? So they are approved. So now we're moving on to our long awaited elections. For the board! And in the past I have been the chair for the past, while, Susan, I understand your term limiting out soon, so I imagine you would

[1:05] not throw your name in the hat. No, thank you. Alright. My name mentioned, but I'll I don't know, I guess not made to have you remain chair, but I could also take that on cool. And, Stephanie, you have also expressed interest in being chair as well. Yes, I have decided that I would like to be chair if my Hello chair people would like to have me so. How do we do this, Stephanie? Trace to be chair. Well, it Don was here. We could have a cage match, but I think we just whoever's interested talk about why they're interested. And then we there? And just to put it out there, I am happy to be chair continuing, should you want me to. I am also happy to be vice chair. I do feel I've been effective

[2:04] in helping lead the team getting us our new guidelines for what? What our vision statement is helping us, heading our plan for the past year and leading us with working with the downtown boulder partnership and things like that as well, and working with other boards as well. So but I also see value in spreading the knowledge out. And so going to those other off month meetings that we have, I think, has been very valuable to helping guide what the trajectory of what our Board can do and what's important to us, and what we actually get to tackle at our meetings by planning those agendas is a a really important part that I didn't really understand how critical that part was. So I would appreciate being vice chair. Still, if that's agreeable as well. But I want everyone to have a chance to put their name in the hat and kinda like Susan said, kind of state their case.

[3:08] But okay, you ever see jury? Don. We've spoken about this a couple of times, but I reiterate the point that I, as as voiced here as I started to attend the Off Cycle preparation meetings, and we'll head to the Dvp. Meeting this week I feel that. I have good contacts to kind of switch and swap with the role of chair and vice chair. I think, for my own personal development and growth. Integrity been on the Commission for a couple of years, and in the second part of my term it would be. I think, Ni nice for me to learn all the Roberts rules. But also do take more of a active leadership role. For this commission and continue to push forward

[4:02] the goals that we've collectively decided on. I think I'm with Don. I think we make a good team, and I think swapping us out. I think we'll probably continue to help us make progress on what we're doing, but won't be won't be a big deal either way. But I'm raising my hand to volunteer to do a bit more of the extra work to leave this and hopefully take some of that off your plate. Great. So, Justin, I wanna make sure you're comfortable with this. I know you had also expressed interest as well. So I wanna make you said you resend. But I also want to if you want to have a voice or or speak, you know it's not speaking our forever. Hold your piece. But, you know, I want you to make sure you get a voice here, too. I appreciate the move to better efficiency when we are in these meetings. So I like everything that's been done, and if you're already involved having a view point of view in those roles seems fine to me

[5:03] great. So I will. Let's see, Chris, can I move that I am vice chair, and that Stephanie, is chair. Is that our process here? Is there? I think the Commission could entertain a motion to that end, but but probably not coming from a person that is being considered alright. So I'll nominate Stephanie as chair don as vice chair and Justin runner up for next year. I second, that Hi, if we have to vote. do, and it sounds that's so. You're not great. The one thing I will note is I. My term limit is next up. I believe so. It will be a natural evolution. As Susan steps down eventually here that mine is, I think, the next one in the list of people who

[6:05] on the back of the agenda says that all 3 of you are 2026. That's not accurate. because I know we had staged times. I did. And I think Justin stepped in for forgetting that the woman who moved no, that was possibility, but took the citizen at large position. May I make a request that that we follow up on this outside of the meeting to check for sure. And now that well, now that we have a new chair elected. We could pass the the gavel at this time. Unless you would, Stephanie, like Verdun, to continue as chair for the rest of the day. I'm fine with Don, continuing.

[7:07] as I learned, the Roberts rules, and so he has his final time to shine. So this will be a benevolent dictatorship for the rest of today. sorry this is where my coal oh, I'm happy to if you're feeling too sick, though. No, I'm good for now. So next we have to approve the proposed 2024 meeting dates. I see that in this is on page 9 of the Pdf. That in January and July they suggested moving A week later. I would say that probably no harm with this much planning ahead. Is there? Is anyone move to approve those suggested dates to to approve those suggested dates

[8:04] will be out of town on the sixteenth of July, but I could probably call in, but I won't be here in person. so that's I will also be out of town on the ninth, so I probably doesn't make a difference. Let's move it out of July. Them this does mean my birthday is on a Wednesday. I see now that I see when January ninth is, and when January tenth would then logically be so. That has no bearing on this. So do I hear a second on these updated meeting times. I'll second great. We have now changed our schedule for 2024 public participation is nest next, is there anyone from the public in the a

[9:01] waiting room. not seeing any general members of the public in the attendees. Great. So then we move on to the consent agenda unless people have questions around this. And this is pages 1011, 12 13 the fund financial service. So so through page 12 I did have one question myself as I was looking on page 12, the affordable commercial program development. This is something that I've been personally tracking each time, and it's talks about halfway through that, as the next step, the staff will explore options of bringing on a program administrator to develop a formal implementation and an administration or type of this program, they'll conduct, outreach, and engage with various community partners to develop an Rfp with the goal of entering into agreement with community organization.

[10:03] And so I just wanted to understand what that, because we're. I assume this is with using the properties that Dmc oversees. I wanted to just learn a little bit more about what the Rfp. Might entail and what community types of organizations that community vitality was thinking of for that. I'll start and then pass it over to Regan to add first, it's not necessarily in properties that are owned by the central area district. but would certainly be, probably considered for properties that are within the central area general improvement district, and we have resources identified that are in Kaja dollars that we are using to match with arpa-dollars. The American Rescue Plan Act dollars in support of an affordable commercial program. So combining those 2 2 resource resources together to work with the community partner. What we've been thinking as we, you know, we, the concept of our approach has been

[11:15] it reviewed by council in a study session earlier this year, and we got a thumbs up from council to proceed. So that's where our next steps are. This concept of a community partner could be an organization like the Boulder County Farmers market. That's been looking to an opportunity to have end of a year round boulder market, possibly other or other similar organizations that work really closely with the business community that would like to. I'll take the lead and organizing vendors in a master lease. Space. Still a lot of work to do between now and discovering who that partner is. But, Regan, is there anything more you want to share in the direction of that work? American Rescue Plan Act

[12:09] funds to bring on a community organization to help us develop and administer this program. And those funds need to be encumbered by the end of 2024. So ideally, we're looking at. Really kick it, kick. Starting this work at the beginning of 2024 and then to Chris's point correctly, if I'm wrong, but program development will be citywide in the sense that the client developed can be applied anywhere in the city. But actual program and implementation would likely land in paging, using those pages dollars interesting. So what I hear is that it's gonna be kind of like a working with like a parent type of organization, whether it's the farmer's market, or something like a

[13:00] one of the food Court kind of things, you know, where they kind of bring in sub businesses underneath it. To kind of manage it out of one central facility, so won't necessarily be like one place here and one another place down the street. Down there we're gonna find one property that will kind of function as this kind of artmark of sorts for the city. If you kinda get my metaphors. that is the intention of the current direction. Yes. cool. I'm excited to see what comes of that. I'm I've really been tracking that one a lot, and I'm excited about it did the other Commissioners have any other comments on through page 12 on the consent agenda. I have a question. So I assume we'll talk about gateless later. So easy to do that now. But the status of the parking garage, capital improvements. projects, and the outdoor dining. We haven't heard much about that recently. How are those things going?

[14:03] So I can speak to the capital projects we are thankfully wrapping up you. You might recall we had work happening in almost every single one of the garages throughout the summer. Some just like refresh from just like power washing and restriping so much more intensive. We close the Randolph Center Garage for the entire month of October is back open. Yes, So a lot of that work is wrapping up. We still have some stairwell work happening at spruce garage. But the next big push is at the St. Julian. We postponed the work that we had originally planned to do in Saint Julian's beginning in spring. due to unanticipated higher levels of noise complaints from hotel. Yes. So we work with the same Julian to identify a couple of weeks during their slow season. So coming up here next week, and a week in December, and a couple of weeks in January. We're gonna be doing high intensity work in the Saint Julian garage to try to hammer that out quickly in those small dose of time.

[15:14] So those are the. Those are the big capital projects. Then we also have done the lollipop sign replacements. Those are up and working for the most part, except for a couple so making great progress there, if you haven't seen them, they've got nice, pleasant messages. They're communicating the number of spaces available in the in the garage in real time. We're also another component of that is, there are internal signs that are aren't not up and running yet, but they should be soon. That direct folks let them know. Return left. Here's how many park spaces are this way. Turn right. Here's many park spaces are that way. We might be able to get an update from Sam Bromberg on the metropolis. Conversation on that specific component but a little bit, you know, odds and ends here, but

[16:04] made a ton of progress. Almost through a bulk of that work. And then on outdoor dining, we're really transitioning into just a regular program. the Regan is Project Manager has been contemplating some changes to our approach in the next year, so we can. When I talk about that Yup so outdoor dining, it runs. The program runs till 2027. Unless extended. There are currently, I think, 25 participants. A lot of them downtown. I'm working on some program enhancements at the moment. So we've run into some challenges just with getting the word out and business business owners being a bit confused about the required documentation. And then there being delays in the Permit review process so trying to mitigate some of those challenges moving forward. We're enhancing the website. I'm creating a new outdoor dive, dining pilot and book. So it's a little bit more digestible to the business community. And then we're planning on hosting a workshop in January to any interested businesses that want to come, attend and ask questions, help draft their site plans on site again, trying to mitigate some of those challenges we've seen in previous years, and I assume that was

[17:22] cold weather really hits so sort of the dormant more or less. Yeah, yeah, it's a year round program. The application period is open. February one to march one each year. So that's when we'll really start for 3 years, and they can renew so technically, once they're in there and they pay an annual fee, and if they're in a revocable permit fee as well. We see if they're leasing infrastructure from the city. Okay? When Council approved the pilot program, they did ask for a review after 2 years. So that will be, and that is next year already. So I mean anticipating that folks are are enjoying the program. Certainly probably just wanting to see more of it. More places.

[18:20] But looking forward to see how we leave that into. Yeah, it sounds like you're proactively keeping things going. II think it's I mean, settled in nicely. It's really nice addition for those who use it. Christine Edwards also was chiming in. She had raised her hand on Zoom, if you need. We needed her to have any additional answer. Christine, you should be able to unmute yourself. Now I think I did. You guys hear me? Yay. So if you guys have any other questions about capital improvements, one other thing to keep in mind is that we are doing a big push right now in the Saint Julian, and then after that there will still be work going on St. Julian and Randall into the beginning of February, but it won't be nearly as intrusive as

[19:12] we've experienced over the summer, so just let you all know, and just set expectations on that. Can I ask? Oh, go ahead! I'm not sure if this is your purview, Christine, but related to the garages, the art on the Eleventh Street garage. I know I was involved in that. But I haven't heard much recently. Do you think we could get an update in a future meeting, or you could provide one now? So I see Matt is on the call. But also, if if that greeting can you hear me? Okay, yep. alright, thanks. Everyone matches Ansi with the Office of arts and culture. And so the project is still moving ahead for the public art on the 1,100 spruce garage. We're working in the design process right now. And so we're in a pre application point. We have to finish up some drawings, but everything is on schedule, so we will

[20:11] wrap this up and get a construction schedule out as soon as we can, but it is looking like completion will happen next year. You're going to see it. Thanks, Matt. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you. And I have a question about another. Is there another question in the chat? Okay, another topic that I and see well, I sort of saw on the consent agenda around the elections for next year. Oh, was there anything that came out of the Boarding Commission consulting project that influences all their how counsel is trying to recruit and do the Board chief commissions aboard elections?

[21:01] Yes, so A a number of you are likely involved in some interview and surveying work that was done by the consultant team on the Board and Commission program assessment that work and their recommendations went to council last week in a study session. And Council supported the direction of the recommendations. Thus far there were some specific recommendations for each of our general improvement district. Commissions that includes shortening the term from 5 years to 2 years. and also moving appointment from Council appointments to city manager appointments. So A lot of implications there, and our from our current approach to that recommended approach, a lot more work still to be done. To determine whether or not that's that's actually going to be implemented. It was a study session. So there wasn't a formal vote on on actual changes to the program. So we'll continue to follow that process. But those were the those were the major recommendations for our did commissions.

[22:17] It hasn't been such a challenge with the Downtown Management Commission, although we have had a vacancy for some time. But particularly the Boulder Junction Commission which doesn't have a fully developed business community yet. And it's a much smaller district. We've really struggled to even get a quorum at meetings. And so the thinking is by reducing the the term length to 2 years, hopefully, probably contemplating an adjustment in the term limits. Because, if we, if you reduce the term length, and then still make it no more than one consecutive. You can have more than one term. Then we're actually struggling a lot harder. Yes, so hopefully the the as more details come out. We'll learn more about that recommendation.

[23:06] But allowing us to more proactively identify community partners who could be a really good fit for one of our commissions as opposed to waiting for the volunteer process Through Council to identify Commissioners could actually be really helpful. In the work that we do, and that recommendation is not just, for as far as having city manager appointed Commissioners. That recommendation also. Goes for all of the advisory boards. So think about the Transportation Advisory Board. the Arts Commission, I think to a certain extent is is listed on those any of those boards that are strictly advisory and don't have any quasi judicial requirements like the planning board or the beverage Licensing board. Would no longer be appointed by council.

[24:02] If we, if we implement the recommendations, a lot of work still needs to happen before. That actually gets contemplated and voted on. But those are the big implications for for our efficiency from a personal perspective. 2 years sounds a little short for a term. You just kind of get in your. So maybe 3 or 4. But here's so. It's a long commitment. and in terms of the city manager appointment, I mean, I feel like we're already so far removed from council that just like takes it another step away. Well, so maybe there could be some sort of formal communication process with. There's political motivations for who they choose, probably, and that feels like an unnecessary.

[25:00] like an unnecessary part of the Commission that's supposed to not have strong opinions about policy. I think I see the role of commissions to like. Listen our new information and kind of help pull it together, and be rather than have come in with the key, like political agenda, so separating from like an elected audience, would help increase, I think neutrality, which is what I imagine. Why, they would make that recommendation partially, and to reduce the work on council also. Which but yeah, II could see it like that. But I realize that we always think we're trying to influence what counsel focus is on. So we might be worried about that. But maybe there are other ways rather than the appointments themselves. Yeah. Yeah. And the term 5 years is very long. Yes, but it might be timelines there, because I think we can certainly share your feedback.

[26:20] and I have my own, you know, issues with the 2 year term. 2 year with 3 term, you know, a a 3 term limit by actually work really nicely. Cause then we could another year longer. But I again, I think a lot more details to be worked out. Those are the high level. Recommendations can certainly share the feedback from you all. But we'll also see what their next steps are, will it affect the elections? Answers before January? No, no, okay. So we're gonna keep with the 5 year approach. So

[27:22] and I think we have a business seat vacant. Is that right? I don't know. Are we? Would we be able to ask for some recommendations from downtown boulder partnerships. perhaps on potential businesses that might be interested. I'm going there on Thursday. So I'm just thinking we certainly can. And I've tried to recruit people, too, as well, just from like people that I know. So I think that's a great idea to when you go to that meeting. pitch it. That's very much worth doing, and whether it's not one of them doing it. But they can tell their friends

[28:03] to join to. Yeah, that's perfectly acceptable. And encouraged and noted property owner or property owner, representative, which could be a business owner. But just making sure you're clear in that, because it's if you own a business. But you don't own the building unless you have a good relationship with your property. You know whoever owns the property property owners or business representatives who might not have already been asked and said, no. we do not keep a database appropriate. but there's no harm in asking people more than once that shows that we're interested. I've lost video to the

[29:01] yeah. Made room. I don't hear you, either, but it doesn't. I hear, Christine, but I don't hear the Dmc. I hear Chris a. So to do. Not that I need video, but I just wanted to make sure I still heard you, but I hear you switch them off and then go, yeah, go to integrated camera. And now go to. Well, let's face it. Yeah, our camera has decided to stop functioning. But you can hear us. Yes, we can hear icon is all if we're done with consent. Agenda, was there anything on the next page 13? That's the fund financials? If anyone had questions on that, we covered that quite a bit last time. So

[30:09] oh, we got camera. I see people looking at the fund financials. Any questions, or should we move on me? And for me? That is a relief, because since our last meeting Theresa Pinkle has left us for an opportunity in Utah. But we have announced a replacement or business services. Senior manager will be Elliot Levanti. So those of you who been with us for a little bit might recognize that name. But this a couple of years ago for the Budget Office. He's now coming back to community vitality. So really lucky to have someone who has worked really closely with Mark Wolf, who is now assistant manager, coming back to Cb. To to support us at the level. He doesn't start till the 27. So if you had any questions on fun financials, I would have funded, anyway.

[31:14] Well, moving on to public safety. Hi, everybody. I'm Michael Beeth. I'm one of the full commanders with for the police department Chief Red, for instance, his apologies, work done today. So I got set in this place. So certainly, if there's anything that I miss, or any updates, or anything that you guys want ask, I'll try to try to do him justice here. Just kind of overall looking at some of the statistics down here we are seeing a decrease in overall person crimes? So that's that's a good thing. Unfortunately, we're seeing an increase and some of the property crimes specifically for motor vehicles. So that's something that we're gonna take a look at, and one we can certainly put out some education, especially with the holidays coming and folks doing holiday shopping and leave the packages and cars. So who would put out education every year to that effect? And we'll certainly be doing that this year as well.

[32:16] also seeing a decrease in auto theft. So that's a very good thing, especially when you look at Colorado. We're very typically in the last few years one of the highest with auto theft. So for us to see a decrease that's very positive thing. So that's kind of the the basics of what we're seeing with primes. To give you some updates. One heard Halloween come up, so let me try a little bit about Halloween. Halloween was great downtown. Did not have any wall crawl so kind of talk a little bit through some planning that went into that we had a couple of different phases

[33:00] depending on when that was supposed to occur. We really weren't getting anything on social media that was giving us a date. So we went with Saturday. We had some special event down on the Mall, so we worked, kind of scrambled with a few folks, work with Lane and Terry and Chris, and out of roads to come up with some solid plan to address all of the tents and that festival that was downtown. And then, lo and behold! Hey! We're gonna do it on Friday, so that shifted gears for us. But luckily we did have some other plans in place to put some barricades up, so you might have seen some of those barricades, especially in the 1,100 block and the 1,200 block. And those were areas that we saw some property damage and issues last year. And basically personal buffs is typically the thing for social media that is driving this. They were driving the. This is gonna happen on Friday night, and as soon as they saw some br, some of those barricades go up, they put a post out, was canceled and remove their posts.

[34:09] and then it was a very smooth even if I think the cold certainly helped out with that but it's certainly something that we want to continue to be on top of and not just cross our fingers and hope we get cold weather, so we'll probably be looking at doing the same type of thing next year. And it might even be worth having a discussion do some activation down there is a little bit concerning how that might be negatively impact. But I think some of the planning that we put together last minute might lead us to. Well, let's maybe actually have something going on down on wall. But all discussions that we can have moving forward. So staffing. So I'm sure you guys have heard, for at least the last year or more. Staffing is horrible. We're getting more officers, we promise we're gonna get them just put 13 new officers out on the street. We're looking at putting another 3 out from that group here shortly.

[35:07] We've got one person currently in the lateral process. So that's a that's a shortened training process to get them on the street. And then we've also got another group, and I believe 6 that are in Academy that will have to go through the rest of the training program so hopefully middle of next year. So those are all really, really good, positive things. What that's allowed us to do is we are adding 2 prostate all officers to the group. So we're very happy that we're able to do that. Those officers. They'll have Sunday, Monday, Tuesday off, and they're gonna work a little bit later. So their typical hours are gonna be from 9 to 7 pm. So right now our pro stream. Excuse me, our prostate Mall officers are only working up until 4 we always have some live to that. We can work with them. But we really want to have a couple of those officers dedicated to the Mall

[36:01] some to some later hours. So that's a huge benefit, I think. That'll make a significant impact to everything going on, especially on Pro Street Mall and the surrounding area. We've also been able to add one officer to our encampment cleanup team. So that's another positive impact that will happen downtown. So all good things with staffing. Hopefully, we continue and hopefully, we don't lose too many more folks in that process. But that's looking very positive. One of the other things we did this last year. We'll be doing again this year. So we were doing holiday saturation patrols. Basically, we're looking at the business areas and allowing officers to either come in early for their swing shift. So a couple of hours early, or stay after the day shift hours, so that we're covering from basically noon to about 6 pm. You know it's not. There's no guarantee that we'll get officers every day, but from Thanksgiving to Christmas we're just looking to have some extra presence out there to really

[37:09] hit the the business areas, the parking garages, and that'll really help us, I think, with those special vehicles. Last year it helped us catch a bank robber from 20 Ninth Street Mall. So extremely successful we didn't have any other positive results from it. The Matt that was very successful. We apprehended him within minutes of the bank robbery happening. So we will be doing that process again this year. So that was a real good. I don't know the Roberts rule. So if I can make any of those you're gonna have to tell me, but absolutely go ahead. Do you know, like what the typical time is when most of the either stealing cars or things within cars and business burglary happens. My gets was at night, and then but if that's not the case, I'm curious.

[38:09] So a lot a lot more of the stuff is happens during the day than you would pay just because especially downtown. Right? That's a it's a target, rich environment with all of the folks that come in downtown during the day, so that we really do structure or staffing any overtime like A, the saturation controls based on basic with the data. II don't have those numbers in front of me that I could associate with times. But I was looking at it for the saturation controls, if for the most part it was during the week, and it was kind of between those noon noon to 6 timeframes. And so that's why we're doing those extra patrons and those. And what's great about it, too, is those officers? They're not. They're not tied to going to calls for service. I mean, they are that high visibility. So even if we're not making necessarily a rest we're hoping to see is that reduction? Because if folks coming into town we're gonna go to the target and shoplift, or they're gonna

[39:12] to go to home depot and break into cars or whatever, and they're just constantly seeing patrol cars. you know, hitting those lots or downtown. Then they might think think twice about it and go to another jurisdiction as opposed to hitting Boulder. Okay, thanks. And the related question just about the night time. I I know that you mentioned that the ships ended 7, and that's a lot later than it was. Do you know, maybe between the police and the ambassadors. what happens from the 7 7 Pm. On period. I think my experience has been that we go out. My husband, I go out to dinner later. Typically, which is unusual for Boulder. But you know we're out. It's like 8. So it's like

[40:01] somewhat even on a weeknight, pretty empty. And I think there's the perception. We talked about this in our previous meeting of feeling unsafe when there's just not a lot of people around. and you don't see any police officers anywhere, and maybe there's like an ambassador, one ambassador occasionally. So I feel like that that time period. And if we want to stimulate nightlife and have people to feel comfortable like we need to create at least the perception, some perception, more safety than exists. Did. Have you talked about that as a team? I know. Maybe. Yeah, absolutely. So a few things. One, again, right? We're doing our staffing based on what we're seeing. The data show. That shows that right? We have more calls for service during these days during this timeframe. And so that's where we're gonna hear our staffing. And even though

[41:00] these are great numbers for staff and great increases. We're still down quite a quite few officers. We did add some officers to the neighborhood impact team. So that's kind of that Hill Mall more so during the evening hours. So we've added officers there as well. And then we've also added to patrol. So patrol should be sitting at. We were anywhere from 2123, maybe officers on each shift. We're doing shift bid today. So I've got watch. One mine will be at 24, but I also have the support of them all, and traffic officers. I've got a lot more support during the day than the others. And the other 2 shifts are, watch 2 and watch. 3 shifts are gonna be all at 25. So those are those are increases as well. And just because they're not necessarily assigned to Pearl Street, Mall. They're assigned districts, and they have the responsibility to be out, and they share their courage just to get out on on foot as well. But so, but

[42:14] yeah, yeah, look at it. The the times of the day. That's why we put those officers in those roles during that time. So there is an increase in overall for each of the shifts. the neighborhood impact that's responding officers rather than like patrolling. Yeah. So neighborhood impact team. They do a lot of stuff up on the University Hill. They work a lot with the students. But something that always kind of taken on to, and it was more so. I mean, Barclays is definitely not the same as it used to be when I started 20 years ago. Right? And so that was also kind of part of those responsibilities like, Alright. where's the need? But I mean, they're responding to calls as well calls for service. But they're more focused in those areas of University Hill and downtown. So oh.

[43:07] after going to the downtown Boulder partnership meeting a a few weeks ago, one of the things I mentioned is that a lot of the business owners have a lot of issues early in the morning, with all their workers coming in, and homeless people kinda in in their corridors and stuff like that with the is that and Terry's here, so maybe Terry can equally chime in on this. But is that something that more that the downtown ambassadors are handling? Or do we need support in the morning from that? And I guess maybe that's more a question for Terry, who might know more directly how that's impacting everyone. Don, you know. that's a great question. I usually get into work between 8 and 90'clock, and when I see it I just call our ambassadors, and our ambassador team is awesome. They are usually the first point of contact. They'll go over and see if they can wake someone up and ask them to move.

[44:04] At that meeting. You recall, Mayor, strongly encourage us to continue to call police to make sure that we're not being our our ambassadors in any sort of danger. So if there's somebody that is not responding well to an ambassador, they definitely will call on emergency and try to get back up to get people removed. As the weather gets colder, patterns start changing. So it's really hard to tell at this moment. In time we haven't noticed an extreme uptick and more people in the morning hours versus the night time hours. It's kind of been steady for the past few months. and our officers, you know, they work with those ambassadors. And we always encourage anybody that if you're ever uncomfortable, don't hesitate. Just calls you know. We don't want to put anybody in harm's way.

[45:01] not for the sake of well, we don't think this is important enough to call police like. If it's making you feel uncomfortable, then call us, and that is absolutely why we're here. We have those officers that are dedicated to pro street work, especially if we do, you know, have officers early. They're starting their shift at 6 Am. And if we have, especially if we have repeat offenders or areas that are significantly being impacted. That's something that we can be very proactive about, and not only just with our Pro Street ball officers, but also having our nighttime officers go around and make contacts during the night. be able to write tickets and and take some Enforcement action. So great. The other thing I'll mention is, my building has been tagged by massive graffiti 5 times in the past couple of weeks. and thanks to the Dad, to the ambassadors for helping with painting, because, man, I can't keep up with it. I've been tagged a lot, and I even got the guy in video.

[46:00] And so it's probably been a so just out of curiosity. How are you? Are you reporting that to Pd, are you? Just you are. And you're providing that. Are you doing that online? Are you speaking to an officer one time when one of my friends actually was driving by is like, Hey, Don, someone's tagging your building right now and like, why are you calling me call the cops? But I did call the police got there quickly, but the guy had already left. I submitted that directly through the you know 9, 1 one because we he was actually there, and I could see him on camera. The other ones I did online after the fact. And it took a week. And I got like a report online that had been approved as an online and report. yeah, I'd say, anytime you have suspect information. I know it's more convenient to go online. But if you, if you report that to to an actual officer, making sure that we get that suspect information, can, just if you've got good footage where we can put a bulletin out to other officers. It's amazing how some of our officers know the community and we'll put an email out. And within minutes somebody is responded, saying, this is so and so.

[47:08] So the best way to do that is to actually have have a report directly to an officer, so that it doesn't get lost in that online. I mean, they should be get kicked back to you if there's suspect information. But you know there's there's always flaws with technology. So I'd encourage you to reach out and get it off. Server great. just a lot of footage to sift through, because I'm not there every day, and so every third day I'm there, and I'm like, Oh, my God! I have like all this footage to sift through to see! When the guy did. Sure, absolutely. Yeah. But any other questions for the officer commissioners question, how do you anticipate? I guess. Particularly the encampment team. Your response to the passage of Oh, so you know that came up in our Sams meeting.

[48:04] and I gotta be honest with you. It kind of got lost over, and so I don't have an answer for you. But I'll certainly, but I will certainly. Yeah, that I will have an answer for you, and I can report back. Seems like everything from that is kind of already covered in a weird way. It's like a duplicate piece of legislation. That seems like, yeah, II apologize that I'm a better answer for you. But yeah, and there will. There will be a resource question of if this particular you know new guidance wants to be really strictly enforced, then that takes resources, and those resources need to come from somewhere else. And so there will be a conversation with Council and the new Council. On how much of a priority enforcement upset lies, because we have a lot of loss on the books, and some are higher priorities and a lot more attention than others. And this is this will be one of those and so that conversation will be had.

[49:09] and it will come at a cost. Strong majority, though it's surprising. Actually, yeah. Well, great. Thank you for your time, officer, for coming in. And give red for our best. We fully support him in all of his endeavors. Well, that is very much appreciated. so moving on, Terry, your camera's on, you're next everyone I wrote a bunch of step down. So I apologize. If I kind of go all over the place in this update. First. Most exciting news. The Tina's weather will be starting as our new CEO on Monday, November twenty-seventh. so hopefully everybody will have a chance to meet her on November 20 ninth at our annual holiday party at the Boulderado. If you haven't received an invitation it's a DVD. Member party, but please let me know as we would love to invite you all to meet her.

[50:15] Over the course of the next month I will be onboarding her and make email or reductions, and giving everybody a chance to connect with her directly to set up meetings and she will be present at the next Dmc. Meeting, and I know she's looking forward to starting to work with all of you, and we're excited to have her forward just for some clarification. So Don attended the downtown holder partnership for meeting last month. The downtown holder partnership is our avid. C. 501 c. 6. Organization. That's where our membership this house. The meeting this week is the Business Improvement District Board of Directors. So Their charge is a little bit different than DVD peak.

[51:05] And then our third board is the downtown older community initiative, and they are 5, a one seat free nonprofit. So if anyone ever needs any provocation on our 3 organizations. Please don't hesitate to reach out, as they all wear different hats. In all the work that we do. Maybe my one question on that terrier is, when are the next meetings? Because we would like to continue to just have a collabor participation, or, you know, attendance? Could you maybe send that to Lisa? And she could put it out to all of us so we can wha once Patina gets on board we need to talk to her about how all of those board meetings are. Gonna look moving forward. So 3 board meetings a month is a lot. So we're trying to figure out we can condense combined. So we all have meeting dates scheduled past this point just yet. But we'll keep posted. II was added to the invite for Thursday. That meeting still happening. And should I go? Yes, correct. That's the Business Improvement District Board meeting.

[52:06] If that board meeting works cited, we'll actually have a representative from the Sams team. Come and give an update and kind of an overview of what they're working on. So we're excited to have them join us. A huge thank you to Dmc. As well as city staff and city council. The request for the additional $103,000 in funding for the Ambassador program was approved. And just today we got word from our friends at See you that they've extended their pilot program of the ambassadors. Originally was scheduled to end that first quarter next year, but they have agreed to extend it through the entire calendar year. So in our negotiations with block by block it just provides a much more seamless program for the entire year. So Ana on our team is finalizing the block by block contract with the city and

[53:08] see you fully on board. We are excited to be able to offer the ambassadors about a dollar an hour raise and keep their hours consistent with what we've seen this year, both in the downtown district and on the hill. We also will be working closely with the city in negotiations next year. Technically, the Ambassador pilot program ends at the end of 2024. So we really need to look ahead and start talking about what the Ambassador program could look like moving forward and really discussing funding sources, and how that could look to be established as a permanent part of the services we provide. We also have a survey out right now about the Ambassador program. Really quick, just touch point survey, asking a few questions. We have it open through next week. The city's been great and helping us get

[54:07] survey Link out to residents. We really push it out for our business community. Just kind of glancing over it today. There's a lot of great feedback and a lot of positive reactions. The residents are pretty vocal about the fact that the ambassadors don't enforce things like dogs on the malls, smoking all of those things that we don't have enforcement power on. That's what Pd does. So the ambassadors educate people. And I think it's just a matter of educating everybody on the role of the ambassadors, and how it differs from the role of police and the fact that the investors do not have enforcement power on those ordinances. Be sure to share. I'm sure Chris, too, will share the results of the survey. Once it closes, we have a chance to analyze everything further.

[55:04] in terms also sticking on with safety. And Pd, we got an update last week from the Facilities Department. I don't know. All of you are aware of Edwin from the city, feel free to jump in with more eloquent update on this. But the bathrooms on the 1,300 block. We're going to try a new pilot system there. Those are being installed, and we're still trying to work out what that'll look like. The doors will be opened and locked remotely, and sometimes, if needed, the ambassadors will have to keep up. It will allow people to get in. Those details are still being worked out, but the city is launched a pilot program with something called halo software. So what the halo does is it can monitor things sensor things like, how many people are in the bathroom a time. If a person standing, sitting

[56:11] or moving around it even senses if somebody is smoking and what they're smoking. So it's a pretty advanced system that the city is just kind of getting ready to launch. We had one meeting last week, and I think we'll probably have to have one more before it goes into full effect. But PD. Is in on it, and everybody's trying to decide how notifications will be sent through one person or through. If it's a serious enough crime, if Pd. Will be notified directly. and but we're excited to have that launched, as throughout the summer months. There was a lot of relief. bad activity happening in those public restrooms, and when they are closed down, the burden that that puts on our businesses is quite great. So if we can get that figured out and have safe public restrooms

[57:09] will be really excited to have that in place before seasons season season starts in 2,024 additionally. On Saturday, Todd Reid had a really unfortunate incident. With 3 individuals that came in and distracted staff. 2 rolex watches were stolen and they got away with a pretty big hall. So I continue. Just every time I get a report of something like this happening. I send out an email with video or images to the entire business community and a lot of times that's super helpful, because people will recognize people who tend to come into other shops. and I work closely with that to try and connect cases. If it's something that happens.

[58:00] multiple times. Let's see. On the Advocacy side of things. The downtown Partnership Board of Directors voted last week to send a letter to council that's going out first thing tomorrow. In support of ordnance. 85 90 health business community. If downtown businesses would be willing to support that. And we made sure, we got feedback from the restaurant community. In particular. The downtown restaurant community really feels like having the zoning equalize and the additional restrictions taken off the hill businesses is really going to be a great benefit to all all holders. So that letter will be going out and support of that ordinance which is up for Council consideration on Thursday.

[59:01] let's see, other than that. We ended our Boulder Social Streets program, which was a pilot program that we contractors with the city. That ended in September. And in addition, we did another program called the Placeholder Festival That went really well in October. And we learned some things and got some good feedback. We're working on final reports for the city. All of those initiatives. We did a few other projects this summer as well, so we'll be presenting those to the the city. At the end of the month. Right now we're gearing up for the holiday season. So switch on the holiday kicks off this Sunday. We have a big program in place. and then we're doing some other fun initiatives throughout the season. We're bringing back the AR experience where you'll see those signs all along the Mall on the east and West end

[60:05] the city's partnered with us. They're doing stuff near the civic area by the library. So you'll see these signs. You scan a QR. Code. They open up fun filters and Instagram we did that last year and got a really good response from the public. We're also doing find freeze, which is a shopping event to try to encourage people to go in to the stores this holiday season. We'll be celebrating small business Saturday next week. and then we have our like December. Pray happening the first week of December and the haughty season concludes with breezy fest, which is December ninth. Again partnering closely with the city on a lot of the stuff that we're working on. A utility bill insert will go out in December. promoting all of the events through the winter season, and also includes a

[61:02] coupon to encourage people to check out the new giglest garages. Other than that, Regan and I. We're both in Chicago in early October for the International Downtown Association, Annual Conference. It's a great time to get together with other downtown organizations, cities place making professionals and talk about a lot of the things. That are not unique to holders. You can imagine, whether it be the unhoused population affordability. Office use. It's a great time to collaborate with our peers and get ideas for best practices and share innovative things that we're doing as the city and account district. I think that's all I have, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

[62:04] My question is, when you say that they can't. The ambassadors can't enforce rules. Are you thinking of like ticketing or some action? What do they currently do today? They say that's not allowed. And then the person says, I don't care or something. and then they say I will, and they can't like technically report them or take their name down, or anything like that. No, yeah. If it escalates to a certain degree, they'll call Pd, but unfortunately we're we're thrilled that we're getting those 2 additional officers. but in terms of those lower level offenses the officers just don't have time to respond to the smoking dogs things like that. And do you feel like that. It's out of control, or just typical people

[63:01] not wanting to follow rules. and it is definitely grown worse over the course of the last several years. If you go downtown you'll see a lot more dogs than you've ever seen before. People know that nothing happens in certain instances, and what we've noticed is an increase in people getting really defensive and really pretty aggressive and brute to our ambassadors. When they try to approach people to ask them kindly to follow the rules. Thank you, guys. thank you. Thanks, Terry, for joining me. I can't say enough good things about the ambassadors, though. Matters from staff gateless garage updates. Samantha, you're next.

[64:07] Hi, can you guys hear me? Okay. we got you. Okay. Great. Let me pull up my little slideshow. Here. joining us from the flyers. And okay. is that working? All right? Yep, yes. Great. Okay. Well, thanks for having me here tonight. Sorry I have to join remotely. I'm also feeling a little under the weather. So if I have a little, I'm a little brain foggy. Please excuse me. but I'm here to just give an update on our gate, less rollout, how things are going. And then we do have a staff recommendation in the presentation tonight. So I'll go ahead and get started with my slides. So far the rollout of gateless has gone very smoothly. On the right I have a photo from our gate retirement party, and on the left are a few facts and figures that I'd like to share with you tonight.

[65:11] Prior to Rollout we launched a comprehensive communications campaign, and through our efforts we had over 20,000 people register for metropolis prior to go live using the $5 promo code we distributed by the second week of rollout we had nearly every single permit holder transition to the new system. No major transition is without its bumps, and with a big change in removing the gates and removing and moving to a new payment system. We have seen a small dip in revenue year over year for October. We do believe that this dip is due to payment compliance with the gateless system, however, it could be impacted by the closure of the Randolph garage the month of October for capital improvements. That garage is now open again, but it was closed for the entire month of October, which is what we were looking at for these facts

[66:02] despite compliance, numbers being consistency with the industry average. For this type of system, we are confident that turning on citations will improve compliance, and we do plan to continue soft enforcement efforts as well, which involves leaving payment instructions on vehicles that haven't registered for the system. The citations were officially turned on in early November, and they should start hitting homes by mid November. As registration is a one time event. Once we get repeat, offenders registered with the system, we should see an increase in compliance. That being said, revenue from citations along with the reduced maintenance cost of the system, will keep us on track for remaining revenue neutral for the program. On this slide I have some initial survey results from the built in metropolis survey that's hosted on their platform. Vast majority of people are enjoying the use of the new platform. The system.

[67:01] Those who do not like the garage indicated pricing is their main concern, followed by exit, issue and lack of app instructions. We do plan to conduct a more comprehensive survey. By the city, and we'll report on the results when we have them. So I'll just take a moment here and I can go back to the previous slide. If anyone has questions about how the rollout went and how the current gateless operations are are functioning as well. While I saw Chris having to post on neighborhood. About some. of course, people online never have good things to say. It's the 14 that we're chiming in on neighborhood. But did Samantha or Chris, do you have any additional thoughts based on what that is, or is that you know I'll let you put it in your own words.

[68:02] Sure, I'm I'm happy to address it, and Chris feel free to chime in. I can't see anyone in the conference room, so I can't see going to speak or not. But yeah. So one issue that we found it's not an issue that is unique to boulder by any means. This is just a QR code issue. Like all across the Us. If people are you, some people will download a third party, Qo QR. Code scanning app as opposed to using the camera on their phone. There's a couple of reasons they might do that. One is that they just don't know that they can use the camera on their phone to scan it, and other reason might be if they have a a old, older android device. Some of those older devices can't scan QR codes. They need that third party. But when you do use that third party, QR. Code, reader, we've seen some of them like try to have like phishing weird links that lead you astray to fishing kind of websites. And so we've had a couple of people have issues with that. Like I said, it's not. It's not unique to boulder per se. I actually got an email from my bank like a week or 2 ago warning me about this scam that's going on. And it's an issue across the Us. But it's definitely caused a bit of a

[69:21] a bit of a commotion on next door, which is, you know, known to have that type of reaction to when things go wrong. But you know, we're trying our best to get the correct information out there, and we're working on our messaging with some of the electronic signs to see if we can't find people in the right direction of using the camera on their phones, and not some sketchy third party app does it actually list the URL. So you don't have to QR code it that you could just type in the long URL. If you had to. We we've since added signs with the URL. And we're we're working like I said, on the electronic signage as well. One of the reasons we decided not to add it originally before we knew that this QR. Scanning, scanning, scanning thing an issue, and hopefully can't hear my dogs in the background here. But

[70:17] it the URL for the metropolis site. It doesn't really look like a URL to people who might also have trouble with technology because it's app metropolis, dot I/O there's no.com, and there's no www, and so when we were thinking through all the signage. It was, we kind of came to the conclusion that we have the help line for people who are gonna be confused as opposed to putting the URL. That doesn't look like a URL. So we're going back through and trying to kind of add the URL in more places. But that's sort of a communication challenge for us as well. And how do we make it known that that is a URL that you can type into your browser window?

[71:03] I would just add real quickly that we've had well, over 36,000 unique visits since October first, and we've received less than half a dozen complaints. About the experience. Not that those complaints aren't valid, and then it's unfortunate folks. Some folks are, as I said, earlier in this process on the struggle bus, for whatever reason. And we want to work with Metropolis to try to mitigate that outcome to the greatest extent possible in large part, as the vast vast majority of the folks who have been using the system have been able to to do so seamlessly. I might add, just, I've used them a good amount, just seeing how the system works. But seems like the cameras have trouble reading temporary tags like I almost always have to manually enter

[72:00] my tag when I go in and then verify that my car was the the car photographed that might be something to look into as well. We can definitely bring that up with a team found myself in violation. But not really. Yeah. I had to get a second temporary. That sounds like a success to me. By the way, just I'm just so congrats on that. Yeah, there always are people that struggle with new technology. But since it's a one time thing. Eventually you'll get it. And I know there's been a lot of struggle with the former payment system as well calling and support. So

[73:05] in my mind, this looks like a success with the 85%. One thing we're really excited about is the week of launch metropolis announced. Announced that they purchased Sp plus for 1.5 billion dollars. I think I got that number right. Sp, plus operates, 3,000 plus parking locations throughout the country, and number of them at airports. So folks who use like parking shuttles at at airports over time, presumably will get registered with metropolis through their other parking visit, which means that when they arrive in boulder and use our garages, there are going to be already going to be signed up. So the more if metropolis is, is out there across the country, and the more likely folks who are visiting Boulder for the first time will already be registered to their system.

[74:00] Cause, that's our that's our biggest concern. It's one thing to be able to notify people in the community. You've got to remind reminding them through utility. Bill inserts that you could just sign up for this thing in advance. It's the folks who are coming in from out of town. That we're concerned about and because the last thing we want to do is have them struggle with the system not get signed up or give up on that, but still enjoy downtown boulder, and then, a couple of weeks later, get a $30 bill in the mail for their visit as well. Cause we're gonna hear from those folks. Those folks are not showing up in these statistics because we didn't turn enforcement on yet, so we will learn more, as we start hearing more from folks who struggled, and then we'll be hearing. They'll be hearing from us. So does that, then require additional communication, signage and stuff, saying, Hey, if you're part of this system, this is cause like I won't even like I don't even know what Denver uses. So I don't know what I signed up for. Does it like when they register does? It? Says you're already in the system. Thank you.

[75:04] Yeah. I should recognize their phone number as soon as they put it in. Exactly. Yeah. So first they get a, if they're in the system, they'll get a text message when they arrive, saying. Welcome to a metropolis garage. In the event that doesn't happen. The minute that they try to register their same phone number or license plate. Again, they'll say, Oh, you've already just we already see you in the garage, because they're all connected similar. Do you know, was there a negative response, like a similar percentage after the like bark, mobile transition. the meters, because that it just feels very similar to me like having to pay online and register your license plate and such. I would say, no. Just because the On Street pay station option still exists. So if you're not a fan of the Park Mobile. You can still do that. You can still pay the old way. We have reduced the number of on street pay stations

[76:08] prior to the pandemic park. Mobile was maybe a quarter of all of our on street parking transactions. Now they're over 50 transactions. So those people likely that are in this group don't use the park mobile like they like the old way of doing things. And why do? Why do you have to change Terry here from downtown boulder. I just wondered if Terry, have you heard anything different about the parking garage? Is there any information, Terri? You may not be paying attention. So I'm seeing your name a couple of more times. Terry here is. That's the building understandable if this is a lot to sit through. Well, I just wondered if and Don Terry and I have been in really close communication throughout all of this. So there's definitely feedback. She's gotten that. She's Funnel Tim myself. And we've worked together on a couple of different issues that have been raised.

[77:12] and so yeah, I mean, I would say, overall, it's it's definitely been a pretty successful rollout. It's not without some bumps in the road which is kind of to be expected. And we're continuing to kind of fine tune things and try and listen to what the community saying about the system, and see what other improvements could be made, whether it's through signage or other educational efforts about, you know, scanning QR codes, or or what, whatever the issue might be. I thought it was really nice. Chris was just gonna volunteer to stand around out there on Black Friday to and small business Saturday to personally go out and help people. So thank you. Chris Parking is free in the garages on at least Saturday, if not black. Friday, I think we yeah. Yeah. So fortunately, when parking is free in the garages citations are not mailed for people who fail to to sign up. But

[78:10] II like the suggestion that I'm done. and I think Terry Terry is able to chime in. Just wanted to publicly. say, thank you to Samantha. She has done an outstanding job with all of this. She's been incredibly communicative. I have asked a million random questions, and she responds back right away. If she doesn't know the answer she gets it from metropolis, I will tell you that. Between our staff and the ambassadors we've only had one incident, and it had to do with the QR. Code. That somebody has complained, and normally. with any sort of change. we get the brand of all of the public finding us and complaining to us. We haven't had that at all. So I think the city did a really outstanding job in the launch of this. And again, a million. Thank you. To Samantha, who has done a really solid job in communication and

[79:10] supporting the rollout. Thanks, Sarah. alright. Well, thank you. So thank you, Samantha. Sorry the dogs are wrestling in the background. So if if there are no other questions on these slides, I'll go ahead and continue on to my presentation. It's good. I'm gonna change tax a little bit what! We can always come back and revisit this later. Just quickly next steps for the garages. We do have plans to continually improve the signage. We are working on the digital signage that's outside of the garages that's outside of 4 garages, and we're still working on fifteenth and pearl, but all of the other ones do have live counts, as Chris mentioned, which is pretty exciting. It's taking us a while to get there. We're installing more traffic, calming devices to the garages just to make sure they're actual safe for folks.

[80:10] And our parking guided system is going to be completed hopefully in the next 2 weeks. That's what we're shooting for, and then additional power washing and re stripping will be happening in the coming year as well. on top of that staff are currently preparing to complete a comprehensive product review for all of our parking products, and to kick this off. We do have an immediate recommendation to discontinue one of our parking products in the garages which is our our current cash pass product. So currently, we offer 3 products in the garages. Subscriptions which are essentially monthly permits 20 day passes which are slightly more flexible for hybrid workers and the cash passes previously the Cash Pass product was created for frequent users of the garages to have an option which was more efficient than pulling a ticket every time they came in. The discount offered on the product was meant to incentivize the purchase of an RFID card which saved the physical printed tickets for every visit.

[81:14] Now that we have transition to a ticket. Free, convenient post pay system. The cash cost product doesn't make as much sense for us to offer while we believe we should continue to offer the 20 day pass is a great option for people who need flexibility staff recommend discontinuation of the cash pass product sales customers who already have purchased cash. Fast products will be able to use them until the funds run out. But new cash passes would no longer be available for purchase after December 30. First of this year. For a little add context, there were 223 cash passes, with remaining funds left on them. At the time of the transition we reached out multiple times to buy multiple methods to those pass holders, and ultimately only 39 of them set up their account with Metropolis to claim their funds. Of those 39 only 17 have actually used the passes in the garage since you live.

[82:08] but to reiterate those with existing cash pass balances would still be eligible to use them after the discontinuation of sales, until their funds are depleted. Are there any questions about hashpast product. our current offerings, or what? What we're suggesting. How long do the people have to that have not transferred have to do it before, like their money just goes away. We haven't set a date in particular yet, but our current thought processes we're not going. If they have funds available, we can either refund them if they haven't already put them in metropolis, say they purchase the old RFID cards. We can either refund them, or we can give them the credit in the metropolis platform. I don't think if they have current funds, we're not going to try and prevent them from using them. We just don't want to sell new ones. It's it kind of muddies the water a little bit when there's so many options. And since metropolis pretty much acts as a cash pass. It just doesn't necessarily make sense.

[83:16] A flight answers your question. I can just imagine carrying that for like another decade of like, 3 people still haven't done it at a certain point. You're just gonna have to expire at some point. But yeah, at a certain point we'll have to make that decision, but probably not in the next year. Yeah. doesn't sound like there's other questions about removing cash. Pass alright. Well, I do have some motion language here. This is what I've suggested, so I don't know if

[84:01] Dmc would like to discuss internally before moving to adopt the staff recommendation. or if there's any additional questions, I can also take them revisit, pass slides. I'm just gonna let the dogs out of the room know fast. I don't have any questions. What's going by me? Maybe my one question is just because the cash pass did give a discount. There's we have a 20 pass discount then, or 20 day discount. But there's nothing really in between is kind of what you're saying, which is probably fine. But you know way to get the discount. You gotta buy the 20 Punch pass. Yeah, there's we're offering a discount on the 20 Punch pass. But it's it's kind of like it's thinking about who would use these products. The 20 day pass makes a lot of sense for someone who's working in an office occasionally cause it covers a full day. But the cash pass is, it's kind of like. Well, we already have this really functional metropolis system that acts as that. So it's who would be the you know, who would be the customer for that product. But

[85:15] yeah. hmm. if you want to go to the next slide so someone can move that if there's no tissue, doesn't. Would anyone like to move this language? Would anyone like to move? Dmc. Moves to adopt this? Yes, I would. I moved to a job recommendation for Page, you to eliminate the cash pass garage for product. Second. I right

[86:02] and alright unanimous. Thank you, Sam. My sisters, I'll teach you about it. Thanks, Sam. Congrats on all that work you've done. So the next item on our list is the Dmc. Commissioner recruitment questions. I reviewed them myself. There's always different questions we could ask this is page 14 in the packet. and then the timeline is on page 15 and 16 did the Commission have any revisions? To these questions? Thought they were great? I make a motion to approve the question. Second, okay.

[87:00] Terry has to leave. Thank you, Terry. Can we, though we just second it? No, I know that unrelated, unrelated. Well, it's related, but not the questions. It seems like it is hindering our recruitment by not allowing applications to move forward. If there's only one applicant. I think that we should eliminate that same weekend. and let me change the whole new process. Is that a good clerk is that it's a city wide. So it's not just specific to us. It's a council. I think it's like it's preference, not in policy. So I don't. I think we have before in the past, when there's just been one applicant, because we've had such a hard time with these. I think it's more preference than requirements. But I might be wrong about that. But you're correct. Yeah, there's more flexibility now. Sometimes we

[88:05] have few applicants, so we have one person, and then we they council chose not to move forward with them. Is that what it was they're not saying no, just because there's one they're saying. No, because they might not felt like right. The last time we did get someone was because they weren't the right type of seat. But these questions, I think, are appropriate. Yep. yes. good things is very test them.

[89:03] Aye, aye. alright awesome. Thank you for your quick work on that. That concludes veterans from staff and so the next thing is a recap on. Well. it's matters from Commissioners. part one, just the downtown boulder partnership meeting recap that Terry talked about earlier. I was able to attend a chunk of it. I couldn't stay for the whole part of it. They had a multiple people speaking there. What was impressive is, they had a a councilmember. Benjamin was there. As we're as we're older commissioners, the people. The police talked to the safety issues much more than we really got into even with our group here. That's where that my question about needing more work done in the mornings. The jail is full right now. but also there's issues with the State Hospital, and that is a snowball effect, where the people like a We can't put people in jail who are repeat offenders and who have issues, and because the State Hospital is full for kind of the the people who need some help with mental issues and so on. There's not a a place for things to go to next. And so really they were pleading for help with getting State funding for additional help with the State Hospital.

[90:28] There was a woman robbed the Saint Julian garage trespass and disturbance. Things were the highest calls. Medical was the third highest, and the top 10 calls were more public service oriented than crime oriented. but the bottom line that people in the community cause havoc these doesn't have nowhere to put them so they're working with stronger alignment between city, county and State. to make this all work one of the things is you've seen those cameras that are on the big pole with kind of the kind of the base station part, and those are working really, really well. They are very happy with the outcomes of having those cameras. They there was one down by the bandshell when the fellow drove through people.

[91:19] and because of that camera the da was able to press a higher level of charge because of the evidence they were able to capture with that camera the new encampments are. Oh, and also there's one oustle, I think, downtown near the Court House area, too, and so those they really like having those. It makes them a have more accurate information and enforce the information that they're dealing with. When serious crimes are happening. police can actually see those cameras in their cop cars live. So even before they go there, they can see what's going on. And detectives use them after the fact to help first prosecute crimes as well, one of the thing they mentioned was that then the Denver suites for for homeless and criminal activities and stuff is impacting both their

[92:12] It's kind of the aspect where people aren't some place they gotta be somewhere else. And so in Denver does a sweep. We get impacted by that. And so that was the part of the meeting that I was able to attend. It was They had about 15 people around the table all meeting, and then they had a decent number of, you know, 12 people in the audience as well. So, Chris, is there any you've been to these meetings? Is there any 2 sent you wanted to add to all that? I think you did a fine job. So. Stephanie, for you know, when you're going I just talked to the the people who are leading their meeting, because really I wasn't there to speak. I was there as an attendee, but they just introduced that I was there, and I kind of did a quick wave. Because it was that type of meeting the meeting you're going to. I would just encourage you to talk to the people who are running the meeting and just make up at a minimum. Just make sure that they know you're there and what the downtown Management Commission is. Maybe you'll get a chance to talk for a minute or 2. But really, we're there to listen more than to

[93:20] participate. And then, can I ask, did you find that it was beneficial for you to be there like for your for the goals of integration? Or were you like? The reason I think we're going is because we think there's a gap or duplication. Do you feel like it? The goal of attending was achieved. because these are 3 different boards that handle different things. I have attended other downtown boulder partnership meetings where they have the police come and talk about safety, and I'm very. I feel much more empowered after knowing that me as a human and and you know, as my role on the Dmc.

[94:05] I think my goal for how we're going to incorporate more is this with like the 5 Year Vision plan of what we're going to do with Pearl Street and how we're gonna you know. invigorate the Allies and all the things in those that vision plan. That's where I'd maybe like to see us. Excuse me for what's up where I'd like to see us. work. Yeah. Have stronger cooperation between our groups in in that kind of regards. And so. as a listening position. I learned things and I can report it to you, and I was able to have some stronger questions to ask for the police when they arrived tonight. But I think there's maybe bigger goals that we will want to have in this happening. And so I don't know if yet, if this is the ultimate way to do it with Terry coming and getting us input on what they're doing. Just as I think about like that.

[95:02] You know what I'm really interested in with the low God, what's it called the low cost retail that's been working on that we talked about earlier, you know, kinda like, just how can what can the Dmc do to kind of, you know, really invigorate that and those types of things so that I think there's still more work to do, for like this is just the first foray. But I think there will be more opportunities for us to maybe meet in smaller groups, maybe one on one with, you know, sub groups or subcommittees that are working on specific things stuff like that. So but I think this is a we have to try. Okay, yeah. My thought, not that I don't like to attend meetings that are useful, but my thought is that I'll go and see what it's like, and if attending those forms is the best way for us to be integrated and have influence, maybe we could, after we do a couple of them just like Reassess, and see if it's having the attended cause. I was thinking that perhaps smaller, like even one on one meeting sometimes could be

[96:09] just as effective if we find that we care about something, we want to push it forward, and we need the path to do that. So maybe we just reassess after we've attended a couple and see if we want to continue to attend them. all of them, one of them, one of the free and that sort of thing. and it's too bad that Terry had to leave already, because she said that third one that they meet the which is the 501, I think when I did talk to her at 1 point, she said, that was like the least of the ones that we may want to participate in. I believe the one that you're going to. Stephanie might be the strongest one for us to associate with. Yup. Okay, is that what you think. Maybe. First, yeah. So you're going to the bid, which is a taxing district as well as almost the same. almost the same shape as cages. So that's really the funding mechanism for all the work the downtown older partnership does.

[97:07] and a couple of council members set on that that board as well. So another element of this is, when Patina starts she'll be my new best friend. And I can highlight the desire for more collaboration between the Downtown Management Commission and all the boards that she's going to be reporting to and I think she'll probably be very interested in in figuring out ways to to streamline. At least to simplify the we're same, sending the same message over and over again. Make sense to have a a a number of different meetings. The challenge, of course, is, is our reporting requirements as a council appointed board, with all the public open meetings, requirements, and everything that we need to go through to make sure that that you all are are meeting those open meetings requirements. That means that whenever we do decide to do something as a whole with these other boards. We'll need to make sure that that work is getting added on.

[98:06] which is not. It is certainly glad to do it, but it's an added level that that will need to be considered the one life. It's not on our list. But we did get the return letter from a transportation and mobility about the lime stooters. And so it's not technically on the agenda, but it is in our packet. it is starting on page 17 of the packet. And did the Dmc. Have any response? Or do we just tell transportation to mobility? Thank you very much for the the reply. It's not a response, but I think what I read into what Chris was saying was that

[99:02] University was really pushing to get this done by certain time, and they appear to me to be a very strong influence, and the decisions around this project and potential future decisions around continuing it so I think that was a kind of good to know, because if we. it's even the relative, the boulder public continues to complain or continue to be a challenge, and we are noticing that people aren't following the rules and being really fast, and other reasons like, I am curious to what extent the university has influence. perhaps above and beyond what you know, a lot of influence on whether or not it continues. And are they like responsible for the funding? And some of that stuff. So II was curious about that when I read it like it sounded like, there's more to this. Did you read into that at all, Don.

[100:08] I would have to read to begin to see if I picked that up or not. What I could see is like. Is there more education that can be done just because. boy, I see the scooters just laying everywhere. I am intrigued when I look at page 15 on the map that the street that has boulder high on it is not considered a mandatory parking zone on fifteenth. Right now there's a lot of construction with the that building that used to be right where all liquor mart is. And so I was intrigued just with how it doesn't include Gos grove. I can understand to a degree, not having mandatory parking zones because it's residential. but that it doesn't include the one last business district along Fifteenth. With a lot of businesses along that corridor, and all the high school students going up and down that street. So that's a personal view, just because that's where I am a lot of the time.

[101:10] so I just didn't know what additional education could be done, because I see people bombing down the hill either just down the middle of the the street, or you know whatever. So I guess my my question was like. is it worth my time to like. Take pictures of the abandoned scooters everywhere on all the residential streets, and I mean it's clearly like ugly, and it's in the right of way. And it's but it's time consuming for me to like, have to do this because it's annoying. And I'm like, Okay, this is my role to do this. So I think the bigger question is like. it doesn't feel to me that line, or whoever's responsible, actually like picks up the abandoned scooters like the event is gooders to me is the biggest

[102:04] issue, because it's like clearly in the middle of the sidewalk, or like on in the street, and not in its own. So II guess my question is more. II feel like getting college students to like obey roles is challenging in general, and II just feel like we need more responsibility on line, too. Do something with the like scooters just laying down in the right of way. And all these random places throughout the city. cause, I believe that's a violation, if it's like, down in the middle of the sidewalk, which is right, what right? But it's hard to tell if it fell over, someone else pushed it over. Did they just drop it? Don't they have a way of knowing if it's like dropped like laying down versus sitting up. Parked or no. Did they not cause that? That seems to be to be like the I know. Most annoying part of this. I guess, from the Dmc point of view, like, when you're talking about neighborhoods, there are a few neighborhoods in the Dmc. Area.

[103:08] but if it's just like random, bolder stuff. I don't know how much we as the Dmc. Have to say, so I might focus our conversation as to like what we can do in caged area. and I know if had a roll out and I was gonna give it some grace period to see how it goes. But so I guess as a commission do we do? Do we say anything more about it, or do we just let it go for a quarter and see how it plays out for next spring. You know these are different. We have different approaches that we can take on, you know. I well, maybe this is not a vote, but you know I am tempering my views. Stephanie, I hear, is still interested in less line Justin and Susan, do you have. Is this something that you want the Dmc. To continue to work on? Or is this not something the Dmc. Should do?

[104:09] Personally, I just don't know if we have enough information on the use of it. I don't know. I'm stuck in a basement most of the time, I'm you know, doing business, but so I don't see they don't. They don't make it into my butt. Talked about the shut off times, and it doesn't seem like people are doing this late night and dangerous ways like that. And I wonder how much some of the abandoned scooters are being affected by shut off times or things like that like. you know, why would they carry this scooter to one of those? What are the parking areas called line? Yeah, like, is it worth it for them to carry it there. And one of these shut off areas, or whatever. Or maybe it's a bunch of people

[105:14] just causing trouble and carrying them to where they're not supposed to be, you know. without renting them. That's a possibility, too. So I don't know how much of this is just like anecdotal mischief, or how much of it is like widespread use. And that's why II don't know that we need to focus so much on this until we know a little bit more, and they've been a part of our lives for longer. Yeah, why don't we see what happens if they bring it up at the the meeting on Thursday, too. I mean, if if a lot of people in the downtown districts are bringing this up as an issue. then I think we can collaborate with them.

[106:01] Well, maybe in the big picture, I don't know that we can do anything because they have a year contract, so I don't know that we could break contract, really. So maybe my question maybe, is pointed at Chris at this point is. when we originally were told about this. We were told that we were gonna have time to talk to council, and we were gonna have more discussion around it. Then it turned out that was incorrect that we were. It was just transportation. Mobility was able to just be able to do this. And Council had not. It wasn't gonna go to council. So that was kind of some misinformation we had received in our in the process. And so maybe I'm thinking about, what can we do for the next time is. how can we get ahead of this in the next iteration, when the contract's under discussion? For what we do next may cause in a way, I don't know how much we can really do now until we can just have input in the next and contract discussion. Well, yeah, it's it. Remind you that your role is largely advisory. So or really is advisory, especially when it comes to contracts that rule over the public right of way which are within cages.

[107:10] control or purview. But your input is certainly welcomed. And so that's that. I think that's the challenge. Here is is it seems that you're feeling that your input is not been reflected in the outcomes and and say that we can continue to document that some of these sticking points and challenges that you all have identified to make sure that they don't get lost in the work that transportation and mobility does, and the work that they do in the public right of way. we can continue to share these issues with them. You wouldn't be able to influence per se with a motion of contract for the future. But it doesn't hurt to continue. If there's a there's a continuous theme that you're hearing from the business community, and your, you know, per interpersonal interactions, that Fifteenth Street is a problem. And we keep on hearing that over and over again. Then that's much more likely to translate into action.

[108:18] As an update, hopefully a positive outcome. I do know that lime is aggressively advertising for part time positions for people to go and pick up these abandoned scooters. It it specifies, if you have a large vehicle, so you know, that, could that could be a positive thing autonomous scooters that will start moving themselves. So I see this is Stephanie's night job. Well, my! If I was lying and I was trying to renegotiate a contract. I would also not wait to last minute. So I'm assuming that they're gonna like. continue to yeah, the the.

[109:05] This will be an ongoing discussion. Probably long time up until a renewal. This sort. It seems to me that we should continue to ask Chris to provide input on the feedback that yeah line is giving, so I don't know if it's every meeting. but you know where the trouble spots that they've seen. What are they doing in response? Have they seen any improvement? Are they? Is the city, then, tweaking anything in response to these areas, there is problem areas. For me. One is Pine Street, because it's just outside the area. So people like let their scooter go, and they turn around and walk to bar. So it'd be nice. It'd be really nice to get some real data on where the problem areas are. I like this whole approach here with like, let's get the data and what we can do to advise. And when, Susan, when you say Chris, I assume you mean Chris Hagland of transportation and mobility. For getting this these Updates. So in in the same way that we get updates from the police and so on. I don't know that we need this every single meeting, but I think it makes sense for us to have routine. This is on our radar for sure, and we would like to be able to advise where we can.

[110:22] Yeah. Maybe if he doesn't come to the meeting, he can provide every one of the meetings. He can provide the data that they have. whatever they've gotten. and then have him come, maybe every other, or something like that. And I would note that the Paton has been passed to Allison more feral as the project lead, so would be Alison, but we can certainly reach out and let them know about the desire and see what they're able to

[111:00] great. I think that's a really positive way to move forward with this. Well, that is the end of our agenda. Was there anything else from the Commissioners. I just have like a question. I think this is an okay form. For, like the meeting, the personal emails that came from Tab about their could you think to me the personal, you know, from Tab saying, would you support this initiative to counsel? And I was responded like we normally discuss these as a commission. And then they responded, we're asking for your personal support, which was just odd to me. And then I was like, I don't have enough contacts. And then it sort of ended there, did you all receive the same thing? Yeah, okay, yeah. is this something official that's happening? Do you know what I'm talking about, Chris. I do believe I know that what you're talking about there is a letter regarding

[112:01] was it safe? Safe vision? 0? Yes, all the park more form. So here in lies the challenge with the Advisory Board that might have some more political an advocacy as opposed to advisory. Approach to the work. And so I'm aware of the letter. I don't know that. Yeah, that they're operating outside of the rules other than if they they could get a quorum of of commissioners to say, yes, I support this, then, then maybe. But you're not. You're not actually allowed to handle yeah. Commission business over email. So it might have been trying to to get around that sort of yeah. Okay? Cause II mean, I assume that if it's like parking reform stuff that it would come from the off our office in the city that brings up all of their parking ideas save money.

[113:08] So I've I was a little bit confused, which is why I brought it up, and I also didn't think it mattered to our commission like it wasn't an issue for us. It hasn't been brought up as an issue, so I ignored it. But I don't know. I can appreciate the idea, because, if, like, I was gonna rabble. Rouse about the line thing more directly. This that might be approach I take. So I think they have some agenda. and they're trying to get momentum whether it's right or wrong. But if I was trying to do that about something, I could see that approach being an approach I would take. I thought your response. Stephanie was strong. I'm pretty sure, I said. I defer to Don. We haven't talked about it. You only CC'd me. So there's only one other Commissioner on the email. And but I thought you just said the right thing officially. So

[114:07] on that note outside of of Tabs advocacy work. I do fully anticipate that parking reform will be in some fashion on the 2024 work plan for plan development services, transportation, mobility and community vitality. Parking is a very ubiquitous thing that does not live with one department as much as some folks think that Cv. Is a department of parking as much as I try to remind them that we are so that this that's probably part of it as well. But we'll certainly be involved in the conversation moving forward, and there. barring a a shift in council priority. I would imagine we'll be having these conversations in 2024.

[115:02] I just look forward to seeing what happens when this building across the street from my office has about 700,800 people living in it, and 101 parking spots. So I might be talking. In my 20 years of being downtown. Since 1997 we have never towed people until this year. And now I'm telling people almost every day. Well, with the construction across the street. So I have towed a lot of car. Yeah, I think that there's a just 1 point like Boulder A, a previous resident of San Francisco, where you could actually like by could do alternative modes of transportation all year round like it's just not feasible in boulder. It's dangerous, in fact, unless we basically make all of our 3 top like heated streets, which would be a fortune like I feel like that. It's I think people want folder to be something that it just can't be given the climate

[116:04] like totally a non car, and I think I hear that. But I also feel like we as one who does bike like you can't really do that like for half of the year especially now that it's dark or that's icy. So I think we just have a bit of a like. Our goals don't exactly meet our climate situation as as a mountain town. So I think we can be creative. But I think that people consistently like they need to be able to park if they have to go somewhere. So like Stephanie's platform, for when she runs for a council, so oh, yeah, I won't be running for counsel. Do we have a movement to adjourn. I'll move to Jared. Yeah.

[117:01] Seconded. Well, thank you. Everyone. Sorry again. I couldn't make it there. I do like being there in person with you all, but you don't want me coughing on you.