October 6, 2025 — Downtown Management Commission Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] But you may not. Awkward. Well, now that we're, like… It's like when you have dinner, and then… Welcome to the Downtown Management Commission meeting. It is to, excuse me, Monday, October 6th, 2025, and I will call hold. Erica Dahl? Present. Justin Calvin? Present. Andy Nathan is not here yet. Don Poe? Here. Stephanie Fries is not on the line yet. I will now hand the meeting over to Chair Though for procedural items. Great, first thing we have is approval of the 2025 meeting minutes. Does anyone have a motion for that? A motion to approve minutes. A second. Done. Do we have any public attendance? Great, so moving on to the consent agenda, not discussed in this group of questions, I have a couple minor things, but do you guys have any questions? In the commercial area blueprint.

[1:01] Staff released an RFP for the work, and we were selecting a consultant by the end of September. Can you just remind me what that's for? Interesting that you asked that question. So, we prepared the consent agenda, and, for the meeting that we were supposed to have earlier in the month. So this was work that was happening in conjunction with the Boulder Valley Comp Plan, and wanting to map out a long-term investment strategy for the general improvement districts. Partially related with the news that came out today, the work has been paused as we learn about where things are going with the Downtown Development Authority. which will require, a plan of development that gets, established specifically for the DTA and the boundaries. The commercial areas blueprint was serving, the other commercial districts as well, so the work is being paused.

[2:03] But, so more to come on that. Let's… some other folks, maybe some other things that we can do on to add anything? I think you nailed it, Chris. Thank you, just given some of the other overlapping efforts, and capacity resource challenges right now. It is… it's all paused, but we'll certainly revisit if it… maybe my one big picture question about the DDA? Is this looking at the timeline, something needed to be… We will have a presentation… And we'll hold on to that, because that was addressed here, but I think there's a bigger fish to fry. We're doing consent agenda. Do you have any questions? We're zooming right along. to… Bettina! Hello, everybody! Greetings on this sort of winter day,

[3:15] Success! Alright, so this says September, but it is, in fact, October. With that in mind, though, a big focus that we've had, over the summer is getting ready for the November election. So, we've been working quite a bit on our public policy development, and We… and by we, I mean I especially spent a lot of time listening to the County Commissioners talk about the new sales tax for behavioral health… behavioral health and substance abuse addiction services. So at first, they said that they were going to do a, 15-year tax, and then they scaled it back to 3, or to 5, and then they scaled it back to 3. So, the downtown Boulder Public Policy Committee did endorse that officially, and so we're, we're hopeful that that will help

[4:08] Deal with some of the issues that we see with especially some of our more chronically, people who are just in and out of the system a lot, they're in the public right away, and, you know, this will help get them some services. We also are in support of the two, ballot initiatives that the city is putting forward to extend the CCRS, and also, Make sure that the debt cap is, Such that that funds can be leveraged, especially with the announcement that's coming today, more focused on infrastructure repairs. We are hosting a City Council Candidate Forum on Thursday at E-Town. We've got 7 of the 11 candidates who will be in attendance, and it's going to be a quick hour. All of the questions are just about downtown, so, we are asking that people register in advance, and that they be a representative of either a business in the Business Improvement District, or a member of TPP.

[5:05] We just want to make sure that we're really staying laser-focused on topics that are pertinent to that job. So, hopefully I will see some of you there. Our marketing campaign has also been kicked into high gear. We're switching over a lot of our assets to, from summer into fall. We did a number of photo shoots, with, of course, our all local models, including Chris Jones, who was one of our models this year. We're also doing a partnership with some influencers, so… Our marketing agency went through a list of about 60 Colorado influencers. And we found the following, four folks were starting to do some content now, so we should follow that. It's a good mix of people who have that sort of outdoor brand, who are very Colorado enthusiasts, and Also might have, relationships of, like, dining and, and shopping. So that's an exciting new tactic that we're using. We also got some drone footage shoots, from…

[6:07] a couple weeks ago, and the photos are just absolutely beautiful. It's, like, the perfect moment where the flowers are blooming, and the trees are green. It was really quite beautiful. These are some of our campaigns. Again, all of these are, local people in our community, so this is the, fall campaign that we've… that we've now launched officially, and this is just a sort of an overview of some of the things that we're working on. We had Fall Fest this past weekend, hopefully that was a good turnout for all of the businesses. We had Firefly Handmade Market, and then we also had, a Battle of the Bands on Saturday that was really fun. We had some really good attendance. The winner of the Battle of the Bands will be playing at the Roots Music Project, Roots Music Festival in a couple weeks, and also get a spot on the, 2026 Bands on the Berks lineup, so… Do you know who's doing the EV spots and stuff?

[7:04] A $11 bill. Yep, and, as part of the Roots Music Fest, we also have World Singing Day, so that'll be on, Saturday. I'm sorry for that. I… this was true in September, but it is no longer true, because we do not have any more of this for advertising opportunities that is sold out. We also launched a new holiday playbook, and Erica, since it's on our marketing committee, we had a chance to go through this. We're launching some very cool new holiday promotions. This playbook is really a way to, help… help the local business community, kind of. play off with some of the things that we're doing, and also just elevate the brands during the holiday season. We're going to be launching a new promotion this year. It's called the Downtown Dash, and it's gonna be a shopping passport That'll be available at select businesses, and if you spend $15, you get a stamp, and then you're… once you fill up a card, you are entered in a chance to win some really fantastic prizes.

[8:07] So these programs have been really great, demonstrated a lot more local economic activity around the holiday season. So we'll be rolling that out at the beginning of, November, the assets will go live, and then the program will be live on our Switch on the Holidays event the week before Thanksgiving. We also did a great, a session with the Downtown Colorado Inc, and a group of business improvement districts in Denver specifically. So we had, sort of, three generations of downtown leadership, including me and Chris. Molly Winter, Sean Marr, and Chip was there, too. So, that was a great session. I'd be happy to share that link, or actually it's in your packet if you want to watch that to hear about all the history of our great collaborations between downtown Boulder and the city.

[9:01] This was a promotional activity, it already happened, so sorry if you missed it. I talked a little bit about World Singing Day, Munchkin Masquerade is gonna be on a Friday this year. It is also CU Homecoming, so Halloween weekend is gonna be Solana, with little goblins and ghouls, and also a lot of bubbles wandering, so… Hopefully it all goes smooth. I mentioned as such on the holidays event, we're really getting ready for that. And our Lights of December parade, we made a strategic decision to move that a week later this year. Historically, it's been the first week of December, and we decided that we're not going to go up against Denver. We're going to see if maybe people want to come. They can go to Denver, and they can also come here. So, we still have a few slots left on that, but we've got a really good lineup. Brilliant. Our block-by-block folks continue to do the very hard, sometimes invisible work of

[10:01] cleaning and making sure you don't have to see unsightly things. These are just some brief stats. We will also be publishing, a quarterly report, since we just wrapped the third quarter. That'll be coming out in the next few weeks, so I'll make sure that we get that. So… Our Tebow train, this is just some fun, little stats on our Tebow train. Our ridership was up, this year over last year. This is primarily a locals activity, so people really bring their kiddos out. It's not necessarily tourist-focused or visitor-focused. And yeah, it's just kind of interesting to see. People love that train. We just love it. Here's some more before and after photos. Again, the ambassadors doing their best work will be don't see the things that they do, because it just looks nice and tidy. So we had some graffiti issues. Of course, summertime has been lots and lots of weeding, and the rain is gonna make that an issue now with the leaves coming down, so we'll be paying special attention to that.

[11:02] And that is about all I've got. Sir? After all the older drawn feedback I read after the fact, did that impact any of the members that reached out to you? So, we actually just did, a survey to our business community to find out how they felt about the folder farm. We got about 28 responses, in all Full disclosure, I haven't read the results yet. It just came out, I think, this afternoon, while I was heading over here. We do understand that's a… that's a large event that has had there's just a lot going on, so there were some issues that came up, for sure. What were the issues? I… the feedback that I heard was that there were some issues with, where dumpsters were placed, some roads that maybe were not closed in the efficient manner. I do… I do believe, though, that the… the organizers are really committed to continuing to

[12:01] refine and, and learn. Yeah, like, they brought in an external event producer. We did a meeting, over at the Odd Fellows with the whole East End community, so that they could learn about what was coming. The communication is a little bit better. I did the, half marathon. I personally had a good experience, so… Good. But I'm curious, how many people do they typically bring from out of state, or out of… You know, I'm not the event producer, so I don't have that information, sorry. I don't know if you all know, a lot of people that sell it. They've been… it's increased a lot. Puma was a sponsor, you know, like, Puma presented it, I feel like… Good thing. Yes. It doesn't affect me, it was good, it was busy. People were… and people had to pick their stuff up, so people were here Friday and Saturday picking up their stuff. They had a good swag bag. Yeah, they did. I mean, it did seem like a great event. I was surprised that it was on a home…

[13:04] see you there. Like, you think it would be better to do it on a weekend than… bring more people, you know, people were gonna come here anyway, so I don't know. I will say we've… we've gotten some feedback that having, Boulderathon and Fall Fest, potentially, and then with this music festival coming up, there's just a lot. There's basically every weekend there's something happening, which is really fun and wonderful, but also can be very fatiguing. Yes. Especially for locals who maybe are like, I don't want to go down because it's too crowded, right? So we're thinking about that when we're doing our event planning for 2026, too. Like, do we want to align it at a different time? How can we make sure that we're not just, inundating. There's so much that you don't bother. Right. And the game schedule was, like, 3 home games in September. That's, like, brutal, so… yeah, and there is… there is a stampede on Friday night, so it's another half day.

[14:04] So there's one here and on campus, or… The campus is gonna be on Halloween. as downtown staff people would be the athletic. Hi, y'all. Sorry for my chartiness. How's everyone doing? Bettina, I wanted to say I was… my family and I, we went to Fall Fest, and it had been, like, a couple of years. And this sounds silly, but we really appreciate that the bouncy castles were free, because my kids are obsessed with bouncy castles. And I remember in the past that they weren't. So I don't know what changed, if anything, but… or we just haven't been. But that was fun. It was a fun vibe, and the bands were… that were there when we were there were really fun. Just to comment on timing, you know, we went to go… that, see the leaves in Netherland, there are a lot of people there.

[15:02] And because there's still good fall foliage that week, so I wonder if… That's a consideration. And there's also… it's the last week of, like, Oktoberfest parties that weekend as well, which we also went to, Beer Garden, which is really fun. So, I don't know if there's other considerations for pushing it a week later or not, but… That's something that I know there's still a lot of fall foliage around, and people are out doing that. Yeah, it's… I mean, planning events and timelines is always so tricky, right? Because we can't plan for when the leaves are gonna turn, and you can't plan for when there's gonna be a hot, you know, streak. So last year, the Fall Fest was in September, we actually strategically decided to move into October. then… It is what it is. It's always not cold during Fall Fest, because it's always… it's always warm, because we have a pretty warm fall, sadly, but… Well, yeah, I just wanted to thank you for the event, because it was really good.

[16:07] Thank you, I'll pass that on to the team, I really appreciate it. Well, I had a quick question. What exactly is outreach referrals with our ambassadors? Yeah, so our ambassadors are not trained social workers, but a lot of them do have relationships with some of our unhoused neighbors, because they see them on a daily basis. So that could be something as simple as, I'm gonna tell you where you can get a meal today, or I'm gonna actually try to connect you with a casebooker. Our… our… the… All Roads Shelter has an outreach team, and they've been coming down once a quarter to walk with our ambassadors, just to kind of get to know folks. But that's what that is. That's kind of what I thought, and I was just… kind of concerned that there is zero referrals, and I think there are definitely opportunities to refer some of the people that

[17:02] Oh. we see all the time downtown, or not all the time, but, that was just surprising. Two months in a row, zero referrals, so I was curious if there was anything we could add into the training or partner with any of the groups that are already Doing outreach, too. Yeah, I'll have to check with our teammate on that. I think part of it may be just the seasonality of things. When there are more visitors in town, people have a tendency to kind of Disperse a little bit more, so they might not be in our service area as much. We also have one of our people, who does a lot of outreach, who's out on medical leave, so I think that might be part of it, really. But… good question. Any notes? Moving on to the DDA.

[18:01] All right, thanks, Bettina. We have a lot of items to cover and matters from staff today. We have Regan Brown here at the start, with an update on where we're at with the downtown Development Authority. Thanks, Chris. I don't have slides, just a quick formal update. Someone who served on the manager for this work, so… As you know, we are in the early sleeps of exploring potential automation of the DEA and Downtown Development Authority. We're working with FUMA, Progressive Rubban Management Associates. You recall, they did the strip analysis work. To help facilitate this process, to help us better understand whether we may be a useful tool, to support downtown's long-term vibrancy. And so part of the project leadership structure for this work includes the formation of a planning group that can also be referred to as a steering committee. They're kind of interchangeable. They convene monthly to really help move this effort along and shape the direction. It includes a mix of stakeholders, such as property owners, business owners, representatives of key organizations like PDP,

[19:10] The bid, CU, etc. And so, we are asking for one DMC commissioner to serve on this planning group on this here at the committee, to represent the Commission's perspective. And the representative will really help bridge communication between the planning group and DFC. Just ensuring that other commissioners really stay informed and have the opportunity to shape the direction of this work. And the planning group would also help advocate for and lead the campaign for the DBA if and when it gets placed on the ballot. We're aiming for the, November 2026 election. Based on that one. And the next planning group meeting, talking through next steps, is next Thursday, October 16th, from 1 to 2.30.

[20:04] This one will be held virtually. Typically, they are in person. This one is all virtually because we're going to have some CEOs from peer DDA communities join in and kind of serve on a panel to speak to their DEAs, projects they're working on, answer any questions about the formation process. Whatever you're curious about. So, once you'll nominate a commissioner interested in serving on this group, I can bring that commissioner probably enough to speak, but I'll be able to answer any questions about where we're at. I think it can be an informal nomination. Well, we do need a majority commissioners to support nominated members so that they can represent for DMC, and then we'd likely ask for them to then, the Management Commission. from commissioners at future meetings, provide an update to where, where the work is at in the process. Do you know time commitment and for how long?

[21:03] I remember it'll probably be about a few hours per month, but that may increase, in 2026, once it gets placed on the ballot. Oh, has anyone else in the map, Barb? Session? Sir, what's the question? Okay. Stephanie, any questions? I just want to make sure you get a… We only have one planning group meeting so far, it was in September. It was really kind of a level-setting meeting, really informational, talking about the formation process, so I'm happy to share those slides with whoever. Does anyone have interest? I've got a lot of interest.

[22:04] Because you don't give me those stuff. I just appointed 2.30 today. Awesome. Welcome. Okay. So, Calvin, I nominate Calvin. Bye. I don't have bandwidth now, and I'm happy to hear that Calvin does. I have some interest, but with my term coming up. I want to be cognizant of the… I get halfway there, and I kind of turn load up here next year. So, Carol. Here? Excellent. So maybe we should have an informal vote, just so we can formally vote. I move that Cal be our representative for the DEA. Second.

[23:00] move to vote. Yeah, you said we'll do it, so aye. Ayes. Bye. Bye. Any days? I shouldn't have one. Alright? I'll send you some, background information and resources to get up to speed. But just so you know where we're at, we're kind of working on the study area boundaries. Soon, we're going to start educating students on what BPA is, how… But what's my page because it's actually a PTH. I'll be pursued. Okay, thanks, Regan. Next up, we have a few folks, here to talk about some significant capital improvement projects that we have planned and budgeted for so that this year and next, want to get, the Downtown Management Commission up to speed on everything that we have planned. So. We have, Christine Edwards here representing the work, but also Chelsea Sullivan, doing a lot of behind-the-scenes, coordination on bringing these projects along, and then we have some folks online, that are here to help answer questions if needed, but more listening in to, little discussion. So with that…

[24:19] Yeah. I'm just gonna turn it right over to Chelsea and Erica, because they are the masterminds behind all the work that's actually getting done, so… I'll tell you best. And I'm just joining the Zoom meeting, sorry, just really… But to give an introduction, so again, hi, I'm Michelle Sullivan, I'm a project analyst for Vitality. I have been… running behind the scenes, for our capital improvement project at 1100 Spruce Garage, as well as the Faith Julian Garage, and those are the two we're gonna go through with you today. Erica Ben is our owner's representative, she works

[25:04] well, actually, she can introduce herself. She is here, so I will hand it to Erica, and then we also have our architecture team online as well. Thanks, Chelsea. Like she said, my name is Erica Ben. I've been working with CV on the capital construction projects for almost 5 years now. So we've seen a lot of change and a lot of really great direction that we've been moving with these projects. We've got PEH as our design partner, so I'll let them introduce themselves. Afternoon, everybody. I'm Chris Murdo with PEH Architects. I'm a principal here at PEH. Hi, I'm Mary Blazer. I am one of the project managers here at DEH Architects. And we have a really hard time hearing you guys at DEH. Oh. We'll, we'll speak up. Thank you. You bet.

[26:02] We need to reintroduce? I think we got it, we're good. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. While Chelsea gets that set up, I'll just give you guys a little bit of background, or just sort of pressure. When I first joined the team, the team was doing a lot of ad hoc, dealing with emergency maintenance stuff, and what we decided to do is take a step back, and while we were still continuing with the emergency maintenance. And making sure that these garages stay accessible and supportive of the local economy. We also wanted to make sure that, we were looking at these buildings comprehensively, because they are… as it turns out, we did a pedestrian count, or DBP does a pedestrian count every year, and last year, if I remember correctly, it was 8.2 million people go up and down the Pearl… go up and down the Pearl Street Mall. It turns out we had 850

[27:24] individual visits to our parking garages. So, over 10% of all people who come downtown interact with our garages, and that's not taking into consideration the number of people who are actually in the vehicles, so most likely it's closer to 15-20% of the people who come downtown utilize these garages. So we want to make sure that these things stay standing to support the local economy for years to come. So… This is… these two projects are going to be our first run at the comprehensive capital investment, projects. And you'll get to have first glance at what we're baking.

[28:04] So, I want to quickly… I know you have a lot on your agenda, so I am going to quickly go over these, but as you have questions, please absolutely reach out to me and ask along the way. But the major project overview, again, is taking a holistic look at these assets instead of doing these emergency repairs, which is what you see previously with our concrete repairs. Traffic coding and the sentiment from The community members was that our branches were always under construction and always closed. a confusing process. So, our hopes are that this new style of project management is really looking at what's best for the asset itself, but also allowing our community members to understand what the investment is, and that our branches are not always under construction, and that we actually have a tackle asset management program. This, project was publicly bid in December of 2024 for design and architecture services, which our, PH Architects is… who was awarded the bid. And then, from our construction standpoint, it is PCL construction.

[29:09] I believe. this project. I sent… we sent out initial project communications via email and newsletter. on September 23rd, and we have a town hall in person in this space on October 15th. It is during the lunch hour, which I know is a struggle for lots of people to make it here, but if you're able, we would love to have you. It will be in person with our construction team, as well as PHFF, just to meet and greet and answer questions. That I'm sure you grab the tab. Schedules for this do remain in development, because we are in the permitting process, so our intent right now is that there will be a full closure, of this garage for a duration of time to allow the large amount of work to continue to flee. And it's an effort to compress the construction schedule.

[30:02] And I'm sorry to interrupt, Chelsea. I'm getting the feedback that we'd like to hear you a little louder or mine. Oh, sure. Yeah, thank you. Get in close. as they're on the phone, but I just wanted to make sure that we had their pictures up for… in case they weren't able to show up. But again, this is PEH architect, Chris and Mary. And then this is our PCL construction team, so we do have quite an extensive team on the PCL partnership side, and they will be at the Town Hall on October 15th. The scope of work, this is not all-inclusive, this is really just the main bullet points that we wanted to draw attention to, is enclosing the elevator hostways and stairwells to minimize water intrusion, storefront replacements on all tenant spaces that have exceeded their useful life. Structural repairs to maintain the integrity of the facility. Most exciting, in my opinion, is the upgraded lighting and fresh painting to improve visibility, safety, and overall appearance of the garage, and then concrete repairs and traffic coating throughout the garage.

[31:08] The timeline we have right now is that we are in… we're hoping to submit Bohr permit, end of September, and then our anticipated permit received is December 2021. December of this year, but chances are it may be early January, just with lead times of the permit review track. Construction, we have mobilization beginning in January, and smaller projects really through March. A lot of this work is temperature-dependent, so January through March is not great for those projects. And then fall of 2026 is our anticipated, substantial completion. I'm gonna jump really quickly to the St. Julian. It's a very similar feel to what we're doing at 1100 Spruce. This project was actually pulled ahead,

[32:00] we wanted to do these one at a time, but the St. Julian is actually doing an expansion project, and it benefits us to coincide our project with theirs, because in the past, it has been difficult to make loud noises and do the construction work with their business operations. The spa clientele does not like when we make loud noises for who knows what reason? So we are trying to make sure that we are good partners, and we're still maintaining these assets, and getting the work done that we need to get done. How early are we doing it, like, 10 years early, or 1 year early? It was really a pull ahead one year, so we attended 2027. Not bad. Yeah. Lisa, both of your… both lots will be under, like, closed at the same time? They won't be fully closed at the St. Julian. Okay. it'll be partial closures… closure, but the St. Julian provides a unique opportunity because it is subgrade, so there's chance… to make sure that overlapping schedules and that there are places for permit holders to park. Also, the St. Julian Garage is underutilized, so we're hoping that we can partner and make the best decision for the community, but we do recognize that there will be pushback.

[33:19] The, design portion of this work was awarded to Kimley Horne with support of 4240 Architects, who were the original architects for the construction of this garage. And we are in the process of partnering with Saunders Construction, who is completing the construction for the Civic Pad development, so that's who St. Julian is partnering with for their expansion project. Oh, I do want to touch on that this process is different than a public solicitation. We are seeking a request to proceed with Saunders, because they are the construction team that is handling the expansion, and we see the value in partnering with them.

[34:02] To make sure that we are able to work in the same spaces without causing too much confusion and also delay in schedule and conflict of interest. There's also a substantial risk if you get another contractor on board as you're working on the same staff. The St. Julian scope of work. We are looking at the full replacement of two stairwells. We are looking to have wayfinding elements within the garage, including additional signage. Upgrading lighting and fresh painting to improve visibility, safety, and overall appearance, concrete repairs throughout the garage, and replacement of mechanical equipment and fleet exhaust fans. We are about to enter the permitting track end of October, and again, the permit receiving… we're hoping we receive the permit January, February 2026. And construction mobilization begins in February 2026.

[35:00] this is our… our hopes, and it should also align and overlap with the St. Julian work as well. They're planning to start their mobilization at that time frame. I'm changing pace here a little bit. We were presented from 4240, a wayfinding element in design that we want to present in Get your feedback, and… that's what I'm looking to do now. So instead of construction, it's more of the… Interesting, fun concepts that we can get. So just reiterating what feedback we've provided to 4240, and what they heard from our community members, garage users, is that really, we want our garages to feel safe. We also would like to have placemaking as an element for when people are in our garages or come to our garages, they understand where they parked.

[36:00] As well as making sure once they're in the garage, they understand where they're coming out of the garage. If they're trying to get to the library or University Hill, there's direction to get them there. They're coming out towards the St. Julian Hotel and Pearl Street Mall. There's directions to say this is the West End side of Pearl Street. This is… 12th Street Mall, and then East End, so… This is briefly talking about the circulation of current traffic patterns within the garage. This is the proposed, wait, no. And it's current. It's current, thank you. Duh. This is what the proposal from 4240 was, is the suggestion of making it memorable and bright, wayfinding from the street. And, And these are just examples that they're pulling from and helping us plan out what we could do at the same.

[37:05] The question I had on music… and maybe this is because these are examples. Yeah. What… what words mean? And, like, all the things on the stairs, I was like. That doesn't tell me that it's banned. Yes. Yeah, these are just examples. Examples, yeah. the way to leverage the space as it exists, so that people can make their way through our garages, because right now, it is very uniform. I don't know how much time you spend in our parking garages, I highly recommend spending lots of time there. I don't, but, like, it's not easy, it's easy to get lost, so trying to make it an easy experience in each space. And so, essentially, their suggestion is to make it easier to identify where you can exit from the garage, as well as making it very clear how the traffic patterns within the garage work, so that they're not just aimlessly driving around and wandering.

[38:02] In its current state, it is a challenge to find where you want to go, and what stairwell will take you there, or what elevator. These are… so, I think you were alluding to the drawings on the stairs, in the previous one. On this one, there's one in the next one where it says, holder is where. That one. older plays. Yes. I was like, well, you're never gonna see it that way, because you're walking up, and that one, that one just weirded me out for, like, because you're never gonna… you're gonna see Pearl is where? Yes. It's like, yeah, I missed it. Question mark? Huh? Yeah. Yes, and I think that it was… Is it open soon? And this is one of three concepts, so that is good feedback, and we are looking for feedback on the concepts. Cool. Because I like the more abstract-y ones, because the words, I was like, what the hell is it about? Because it doesn't make any sense. Right.

[39:01] It's actually really great feedback. And, again, this is just another concept as well, And then, lastly, this is the… the grid system, the horizontal option. So, essentially, moving traffic patterns so that they… the color and icon, whatever that may be, at least gives them an idea of how to get in and out, so the traffic flow within the garages. Easier to understand. Maybe my feedback on that. Can you go back to the traffic pattern one? One more. Oh, no, no, that's the right one. Sorry. I get the idea of, like, helping you know, like, oh, I'm in the artwork lane, or the barrel lane, but you don't necessarily know bear gear, all the… what the horror is, because it's not numerical, or alphabetical, or anything like that. It's more like, oh, I recognize that, but, like.

[40:01] Which one am I in? Where does that… what's next? How do I know that, like… Right. What the next one is, like, oh, well, crap, I'm not on this one, because it's the art market, I need to go to Elephant, but where's Elephant? Where at Ardark? Yeah. So your advice is to have, like, a numbering and lettering system so that people know that they're on level 2? Public. Keep going. Number 20, or something. And that is… That is shown on there a little bit. It does kind of get lost with the icon, which, again, is just representing… be what? Correct. A1, and then to the far side would be A12. So it is kind of trying to carry forward that numbering logical sequence. The spot on this garage that gets a little bit quirky is section F. Just because it's… you've got a dividing ramp in there, so it does get a little bit tricky to navigate. But, you know, at least if you're continuing to go A through E,

[41:03] You're gonna get there eventually. It is. But as an animal and a… Yes. Yeah, it has the animal, and then there will be the alphanumeric components as well. And then the concept was going to a single color for each level, so level 1 would be one color with all the alphanumeric, and then Level 2 would be a separate color with all the same alphanumeric. So you've got the same grid system, try to repeat between levels 1 and 2, and then the differentiator between those two levels would be the color. So it's like a deer, a bear, a… Cheap? And a drought. There's also a drought. Yes. I've been a long-time proponent of the Woodland Animal Garage theme. I don't know, because I've been talking about it for, like, 5 years now, but I'm… I'm excited to see this, because I like how we can, you know, make the garages more than…

[42:11] Fit in with the natural environment, even if it's just, you know, connecting themes back, but… Also, we're visual creatures, and I love the animals, so… Like where that's going. What are the deity animals? So nothing's been officially selected at this time. This is just some concepts. I don't… I don't think that they're actually. Okay, does D&E work the same? Yeah. But it sounds like y'all are generally in a… in agreement with the direction that folks are going. Yep. Like, the theme idea, and then they… and then we can continue to work out an actual proposal for what would work in the garage. But is there anything else that we missed, or that you think would be really helpful for us to take into consideration as we continue down this path? Is this level going to be the same animals, just in different colors, so it'll be, like, green bear, red bear, yellow bear, or is it going to be, like, can one be, like.

[43:08] Mountains. One could be… and variations, or maybe mountains, not too bright, but one could be variations on trees, pine tree, elk tree, one's animals, one's… So, you know, because you might remember the animal that you… Probably remember the color, but, like, you could also have, like, different… And what are these photos? Yeah, those, so the photo art, it was actually kind of inspiration for the stairs, and how… They were anticipating doing wayfinding toward the So, there are three concepts that are presented. So, there's this… ecology of Boulder. There is the out and about from Golder, and the placemaking, or activities of Golder. So, we would really like some feedback from you all on, out of those three concepts or schemes.

[44:01] Because each of them have a different mural, you know, concept for the stairwells. and different ways to represent those things in animals or… or ecology and whatnot, and identifying parts of the garage. So, if there is a scheme like, for instance, Don, it sounds like out and about in Boulder, that's the one where it's… that's… Pearl is where Boulder plays, so it doesn't necessarily play really well when you're actually in the stairwell. So maybe that's not a concept that, we want to be moving forward with. We'll just put words on that one, because you're never going to see the whole sentence. I… I personally like the… Anything nature or animal-oriented, because the… it doesn't feel like an ad, and it, you know, I don't… I don't… love it to feel like an ad, I want it to feel like it's… about the uniqueness of Boulder without looking like it's pushing some sort of type of shopping or another,

[45:06] And I do think that, a lot of our recent art in Boulder has been more modern. I would call it more, like, modern contemporary, and less… fitting in with the natural environment, and I've been… this is kind of a bit of a tangent, except to say that, like, talking to Parks about that, like, makeshift… park that they built in Civic Center, the focus of the park was that it, like, fit in with the natural environment and used all these natural elements, and it was… a really unique design, and I… I like when that happens throughout, like, I think that that really works as a nice design element. It doesn't choose one of the types, except to say that I think I'm more into the… looking more like the outside world and the inside of the garage. Thanks for that feedback, Stephanie. I do want to just mention why we particularly asked the design team to put together the Out and About in Boulder for this St. Julian garage.

[46:09] And that's because this one's really unique in that it's our only garage that is connected to a hotel, so we know that there's a lot of visitors to this garage, particularly from out of state and out of towns that may not be familiar with the downtown Boulder area. So that was the… that was the feedback and kind of the why behind asking for that out and about concepts. So if… if there's… if there's a desire to do that, we can certainly ask them to kind of create a blended concept as well. Can we do a different one of these per floor, or is it like, we're gonna pick this, and it's gonna be the whole garage? Is this kind of style? We were looking at the floors. Going back to my kind of concept of, can we do, like, animals on one, out and about on one, activities on the other third floor kind of thing?

[47:03] You like, you like, making designers' brains explode, don't you? I manage a whole bunch of them. I… personally, I find that people, I feel like it's vulnerable to have that. I just, I feel like… I, like, see people wanting to graffiti them, I'm questioning, like, what race are they? What gender identity are they? It just seems like you're opening up a whole can of worms of, like, someone who could be offended by something, and the animals just feel super safe. Cute. I was gonna say that. Yeah, I just… the people, like… And people don't always see themselves in designs of people, and… Yeah. We'd see people all day. And we'd see a lot of mustaches all day. Yes, I just… I just… I don't… I wonder if there's a way to, like, do the… more of the ecology or animal design, but to have a… map, Built, like, mural somewhere?

[48:02] That also… yeah, I think that's kind of what John maybe was alluding to, of having, like, different floors, different things, but… I know that there is a, like, a map of all the kids' destinations in downtown Boulder that I'm, like, frequently referencing. I don't know, maybe if there's a wall that could serve as a… That could have a map-style element to it. Or something, cause… I think that's what we're saying, that we want people to know what's out there, but we don't want it to be the full design of the garage. I guess I'm not going to come up with an answer here, but I don't like the cow, for, signifying older, I'd go with, like, groundhogs. It'd be nice to have things indigenous to Boulder, Colorado. Yeah. I mean, not to say casually, hopefully Colorado, but… tour of Loose, or repair, or of Mark… Sorry about it. Oh my god.

[49:00] We have a lot of cows here. I'm looking at them right now, outside my window. But just feel very authentic to maybe something, like, if you're from out of state. You know, if you're the best. Yeah, you feel like you're in the vest. Fox, owl… we have an owl in our neighborhood. I do like the activity ones of the paragliding and all those, because that means a lot. Boulder, too. So maybe we'd go. get the bear pair of going. Yeah, maybe that is true. Chelsea, do you feel like we've gotten the feedback that you needed, because we can move forward. I think so, Erica. Do you agree? Yeah. The only other thing, like, every time I go to the airport, which I go a lot, I always take pictures of, like, you know, when I go back to, like. Where you parked your car? Where I parked? I don't know if there's something like that, where it's just, you have easy access to just, like, take a, you know, if you… take a picture. Or is that gonna be… I don't mind?

[50:14] people. Yeah, good job. Thank you. Great ideas. And… Any thoughts? We didn't really have the questions on the spruce work for St. Julius. So, the first part of the presentation… well, just the really heavily on design. We're not doing the same level of Wayfinding, we just don't have a lot of real estate, do any sort of, like, paint scheme, just given the design of the garage, but… This is coinciding with this, sculptural element. Yep. And that'll all be done in charge of this kind of structure. Correct. And I believe that our infrastructure is going in place

[51:05] Like, right now. Pretty soon. It's all being fabricated. Yes. I guess it does make sense for me to mention this. I talked to Chris about, this during matters of… from commissioners, but it does directly relate to the murals and things like that. I reached out to Chris, and I got put in touch with someone else in CD whose name I now forget, but about… I… the fact that Sundance is coming, and I thought, you know, people were wanting selfies, and we've got, like, the ones down on Brittle Street where it has, like, you know. love and all that. I thought about one that was kind of, like, filmmaker-related, and since we control the parking garages, I had the idea of, like, having, like. Does the Commission have any interest in having something that's And it probably wouldn't be here in the one we're talking about, the St. Julian, because that's all one thing, but I had that idea of, like, one mural that was kind of Sundance-related, so, like, you could stand in front of it, and maybe even part of it was green screens, like that color chroma green, so you could, like, kind of key your own thing in. So many people can kind of do that, but then we put bolder stuff with, like.

[52:10] I don't know, Godzilla climbing over the flat irons, or, you know, then it's Black, or, you know, whatever, something that, like, makes it like a… we have a filmmaking mural. If anyone has… Yeah, how do we… we'd have to find out where, we'd have to kind of lead it, or blah blah blah, but I have this kind of idea that… We'd have to maybe, like, walk our hands when we like, and help them get it done. Interesting. Just to make that wavefighter thing, as well, in and of itself. Does anyone hate the idea? I don't… I don't hate that. I mean, the only thing I wonder is, Like, you know, clearly, like, you know, some of those are the intellectual property of, you know, others that might not be.

[53:04] You know, so, I don't know, another thought. Some knock-off concept. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so… I don't know. The AI generation. But, you know, even, like, a homage to, like, Robert Redford, or it could be, yeah, Robert Redford, yeah, these film cameras, old-style kind of things. Yeah, like, 50 cinemas. Yeah. Okay, good enough. Thanks, Justin. Thanks, Christine. Switching gears quite a bit, we have Elliot Labonte here to share, the City Manager's 2026 recommended budget, as it, the board today, and it's still presented to City Council. We want to get this in front of you all, in hopes of getting, Affirmative… recommendation. for the work that we've been doing all year on building a 2026 budget, knowing that there is a lot of change coming, but this is all still being presented to Council as part of their budget.

[54:06] So, Elliot, over to you. Thanks, appreciate it. Ellie Labonte, Business Services Senior Manager with CV. To Chris's point, we'll be going over the City Manager's 2026 recommended budget today. We're going to cover just a few slides, that have some definitions in it. We'll look at the actual budget, the capital improvement plan, which is heavily down here downtown, as we just heard, a lot of our assets are being, taken advantage of, and the environment will get some big projects done. We'll look at a 3-year comparison, and then we'll look at, some pushy feedback. So, before we go too far into what we're trying to accomplish next year, I wanted to kind of look at what we've accomplished this year. So downtown, you can see a few projects that we've worked on and kind of highlighted and are proud. On the left there, you can see the before and afters of the tree wells, as well as the tree grates, and the lack of trees. This is kind of over by the Wells Fargo parking lot, if you will.

[55:09] So this came out really nice and really kind of helped clean that area up. And then, of course, our murals here on this garage. As you all are aware, you take our elevators or the stairs to the main north entrance. Even though we're doing a large project at Spruce next year, we've actually identified a few things that needed to happen relatively quickly, for safety concerns and to expedite those. One of those was the walkway that connects to the garage elevator on that southwest corner of the garage. And you can see some traffic coding that we've been doing, and then some landscaping as well. Where, I think… was there… there was a before and after on this. Last time, it was like the bush that blocked the… Yeah. Everything. It's hard when people are coming out, people are… Yep. So, kind of a more xeriscape, more conscious of the water resources necessary to maintain it, but also

[56:05] The views, that are within it. Some definitions. So, cost allocations, internal services, transfers, all the fun things was, reserves, fund balance, funds, it's all fun. So you'll see a few of these show up in the downtown, budget, KJits budget, Central Area General Improvement District. Mainly the cost allocations. There are some transfers coming in from previous years. You'll see that's actually changed in 2026, with the removal of the general fund transfer into KJID. The cost allocations, I did want to highlight, cover those internal services, so… services or programs that are paid for, by the General Fund that are provided to paged, they get compensated via a transfer or cost allocation back to the general fund.

[57:01] Some internal services that you'll see that show up here. These are baked into, things like the central software costs. So, again, it's kind of agent's share of maintaining access to, Microsoft Office and those types of things, so it allows us to use the resources that are available citywide, but KGIT's just paying their portion of it as well. There are some fleet and facilities charges. The fleet charges are for the vehicles that you see driving around that have access and parking on the side of them, for snow removal, for trash removal, maintenance of garages, etc. And then from the facility standpoint, we actually do have a contribution to, it's called FR&R, Facilities Repair and Renovation. It's basically a savings account that'll earmarked some dollars that we put aside. We're actually using some of those funds on these larger projects, because we've built a relatively sizable amount of savings in that fund, so we're pulling from it in addition to the fund balance of KJ that's

[58:08] Bolstered by the revenues, such as property taxes and products. Reserves, you'll see these reserves. Cajun is one of our only funds that has a sick vacation reserve. Every fund is required to have an operating reserve as part of city policy. It basically puts aside, 2 months' worth of expenses. Into a quote-unquote savings account in the event that there was an economic downfall or disaster. Kind of helps us ensure that there doesn't have a lapse in services or programs, in the event we're short of money for whatever reason it may be. It gives us that buffer. The sick vacation, that is for, any sort of expenses that come up from a staff member who may be partying, and there's a large vacation accrual that needs to be paid out, or FMLA charges. So that's, again, kind of a savings account to buffer, any

[59:04] out of the normal expenses. Most… I will say, most vacation accrual payouts are basically baked into the salary, unless a staff member leaves at the end of the year, and of course, then that money is higher in what the normal salary would have been for that year. Fund financials, that's just the term we use for the document that shows the sources and revenues, in addition to some of those other definitions I talked about, cost allocations, reserves, etc. And it just really helps us understand how we project into the future, kind of the health of the fund. So, looking at the City Manager's recommended budget, this is all of community vitality. Asterisk. Their sources are coming from multiple things, sales tax, property tax. and ownership tax, those types of things. So that's in every source across every fund, that we manage here in CV. Same thing with the investments and the products. So this is not CAGET-specific, this is across the entire department. In the future slides here, I will show you a little bit more about CAGET-specific and its fund health.

[60:12] And then on the right-hand side, the usage, you can see that's broken down by programs, as well as some of those dedicated costs, such as cost allocations and internal services. And then via two columns, personnel and non-personnel. Again, this is all of community vitality. This is not just agent, but kind of gives you a glimpse of what we try to accomplish in our department. So, the capital improvement plan, You can see here that Cajid is the biggest lift of all of our capital expenses, mainly because of the assets that are within Cajun and are owned by Cajun that require that level of maintenance. You can see Spruce next year, we're adding an additional 4.665 to its CMGC. We actually earmarked 5 million? Is that right? Yeah, $5 million, in 2025.

[61:02] Some of that was used for some other garages as well, so not the full $5 million. You're not looking at a $9.65 million, it's really close to about a 7.8, I think, is a total. Project expense, so this 4.65 kind of fills that gap from this year's funding that is left over, and then next year helps us bolster that appropriation. The St. Julian, we're looking at a $5 million, I'm missing a zero there. It's not a 50 million, 50,000, it's… it's $5 million, I apologize on that, dollar appropriation to do with CMGC, and of course, we still have the Pearl Street Refresh. Where, KJID is, investing $2 million in the Pearl Street Refresh, and then CCRS is investing, it looks like 3 point… or sorry, $1.1 million for a total of around $3.1 million for all Girl Street Refresh, and really trying to figure out what we want to program there for the 50th anniversary. Some of the future garages are programmed there in the out years. St. Julian, you're going to see kind of this ongoing concrete repairs. That's basically because of water intrusion. It is our…

[62:12] lowest structure in terms of the water table, and it shows. And one of the things we're going to be doing next year is really working on preventing a lot of that, but we want to make sure that in the event we continue to have the water intrusion. To the extent that we have, we have appropriations set there to be able to do the concrete repairs. So we can extend that garage life over the years. And then the last one there is tenant improvements, and that's really earmarked for as we're working with future tenants or existing tenants who are renewing leases, to be able to have some funds available to kind of do some matching. As they want to do improvements, it allows us to have some match dollars to help them Do those improvements, knowing that as they're signing leases or renewing leases, that they're showing a commitment to stay downtown, and we want to, in return, help them, provide that commitment.

[63:03] The other, two funds that are here on this are CCS and Boulder Junction. You can kind of see a little bit of the programs that we're doing there. The 1% for public art, that's really focused on kind of the CCRS capital projects, helps us find the 1% that is part of the CIP policy. But it's specific to CCRS. So now we'll look at Cages specifically. This is a little bit different than probably what you've seen, and actually different on the budget book. Typically, you'll see 2024 actuals in the budget book. You won't actually see it compared next to the budget, so this is a great insight into What did we say we were going to get next year in terms of revenues, and what did we actually get? And same thing with expenses. How much did we say we were going to spend, and how much did we actually spend? Good news is, on the use, or sorry, sources side, we got about $500,000, $600,000 more than, what we were anticipating. So, that's a good thing.

[64:04] You can see there's a relatively large other category in 2024. Other captures a lot of different things, and the bulk of that was actually a repayment from St. Julian as part of their cost share for Capital Improvement Ukraine. programs last year. So that's really why that other category came in so much higher, is because of that pay. So, we were trending pretty closely to what we anticipated, which is great. It's always nice to be relatively accurate when it comes to all things, both sources and uses. So we were pretty close there on the sources. Again, it's just that, large payment from the St. Julian Hotel for the re… expense reimbursement. On the uses side, we were off a lot, and that was mainly due to the delay of capital.

[65:00] We couldn't get things out to bid, or bid selected, or contracts signed fast enough last year. That will be a very different scenario for 2025. We have really taken this as an opportunity this year to get as many things done as possible that we could not get done last year. So last year was our staging, this year was our running the marathon. I'm sure Chelsea and Christine can attest to the marathon, which 2025 has been, and I… kudos to them. Is that why the capital for 2025 is, like, doubled? Correct. That was adopted? Because really, it's a push from one year to the next. You got it, that's right. So, you can see from the $5.5 million that was originally appropriated by Council at the beginning of the budget cycle, so this time last year. We added another $5 million, and that's in part because we had, unspent dollars in 24 that rolled over into 25. So, we're still doing the things we said we were going to do in 24, they just came a little bit later, but now we're really getting it done, in addition to everything else we're trying to get done in 2025, and we're already talking about 26, and I believe we're starting to contract for design for 27 projects, so…

[66:13] They are crushing it. Why are 30 transfers in 2026? Transfers in the sources. The last column, yeah, 2026 recommended is a dash. That is correct. So, those transfers, that is the general fund transfer. So, that is part of the city manager's recommended budget, is that the general fund no longer transfers into KG. So we get no more money from it? From the general purpose, correct. What we're not buying in the meantime. Say that again? Like, we don't have to buy them anything anymore, since they're not giving us money, or… Just… Well, so there's still the cost allocation, which is KG transferring back to the general fund.

[67:01] For those internal services, like city manager's office, city attorney's office, there's been no reduction in service associated with the lack of a general fund transfer. That is a perfect way of stating it. Correct. And then… Go ahead. Sorry, on non-personnel 2026, 3.456… But 24… that's going down. Anytime I think I see things go down after they were higher. Makes me, like, I know Citi's low on cash. Is that all just part of that, where it's just like, we just gotta cut corners a little bit? So, personnel budget… or sorry, that's non-personnel. You're talking about non-personnel. Yeah, non-personnel, and then the transfers of cost allocations is also lower. Yeah, so the… the transfers and cost allocations… cost allocations actually got reduced in 2026. So that's in part why the transfers and cost allocation line is lower, is because the reduction in cost allocation. So, Cajun share has gone down a little bit, in terms of the dollar amount, not in terms of the percentage, but dollar amount has gone down.

[68:07] In terms of the non-personnel, there are some budget reductions, that we had in 2026, but also just some, Operation cleanup that we found where we could get some additional savings to ensure that we had the money to do the capital work, so it was one of those kind of give-and-take, relationships where if you were to look at this, and actually, we could happily go into OpenGov, you'll see our maintenance budget, actually, for operations, increases substantially in 2026, but our district vitality budget decreases substantially in 2026. The bulk of that is what's called our EcoPass program. So the EcoPass contract has historically came in really low since 20… 2020. Trying to think… 2021. 2021. Yeah, so they, they, they did a new process. We used to pay for EcoPass… Eco Passes per pass. So, the number of passes equated to how much it cost us. EcoPass… individual Eco Passes are not cheap.

[69:13] They changed the model to now we pay by rides. So, anybody who uses an EcoPass down here that has an EcoPass, and if they take it to the airport or whatever… So, the good news is it's cheaper. The bad news is, is it gives you a very good indicator of how often the bus is actually being utilized. So the numbers did actually increase for our 2026 contract, which is based on 2024's ridership, it's always in the rears. So we did actually see ridership go up across all of our districts, so there is more rides, but it's just… the cost of it isn't anywhere it used to be. It used to be about $1.6 million, I think back in 2018, at its peak. And it's now coming in around $140,000, $150,000. So, that substantial savings allowed us to kind of say, okay, we don't need to budget this anymore. We didn't do that reduction right away, because it was a brand new process, and we had no idea what to expect.

[70:12] But now that we have a few years under our belt, we're much more confident about the cost of that program. So we were able to use some of that money to bolster maintenance operations, but also bolster capital. So you'll see that in the non-personnel side, that's the operation dollars for the EcoFest program. Does that make sense? It's a lot of goods work, but I do apologize. It's a lot of work. Yeah, and now, part-time employees also get free, and then it was hard to be, like, really sad that to have money for them to lose, but they love… they know how to lose money. Plus, it charges per trip, like, they get… Right, right, you're paying for what people are using, which feels really fair. Right. Everybody will sign up. But if they never use it… Yeah, then it's like, oh, no, we don't have the program anymore. Right, so what we did, we did expand to, part-time employees, as well as additional to full-time employees within the district. So that's, again, going back to the, like, wow, we're saving so much money on what we anticipated to be very expensive, let's expand the program. We have this capacity.

[71:15] That's great. So here's a little bit of the narrative. kind of, again, we've a little highlighted on this, this just gives you a little bit more of the percentages over the budget, kind of from year to year. So nothing really significant. There wasn't a huge… I know the expense assumptions were down significantly, but again, it was really that capital, improvement program that really, And I drove that home. Any additional questions? Is… is Stephanie still online? Going back to the transfers events.

[72:01] Some of that in anticipation of what might happen over there. Downtown development? Is it just… I would say that the transfers this year, the reason why it was slated for a reduction, so both UCAMC, the University Hill General Improvement District, as well as Central Area General Improvement District. both had general fund transfers, both were cut, and it was large part due to the general fund reductions overall. So there was a projected shortfall within the general fund itself. So they tried to find as many places as possible to, find savings so that we don't miss any programs that are funded by the general fund. The general fund transfer was eliminated from the Parks Fund, that's why you're seeing the fees increasing at rec centers, also eliminated from transportation mobility, and that's why we're seeing that park-to-park shuttle frequencies,

[73:00] for production as an example. So, it wasn't just CV-related funds that Jimmer Fund Transfer, was eliminated from all, dedicated funds. And… Yeah, they're just seeing that in production and sales tax corruption. Property tax collection, mostly. Yeah, property… yeah, exactly. With the news from the city manager today. Seems like there's a lot of hurdles between what the budget is versus where the organization's going to be rejiggered to. Do we need to deal with that as part of this motion that we need to deal with? Because, like, right now we're agreeing to this, but, like, that's not what it's going to be. So, the budget, that is a very valid point. The budget is being presented to Council this Thursday, as it's… as far as I know. So their first reading will have the exact budget that we just talked about, and that's what they will be asked to make a motion on for the first reading. Second reading is actually traditionally when all of the special tax districts

[74:11] go to Council, individually, so the resolutions are actually brought during the second reading. to my knowledge, I don't anticipate that changing, but that this Thursday would be the first reading, so… I… As far as I know, this is the exact budget that they will be receiving. Yes, this is the budget that Council's been considering already. The City Manager's Office will be suggesting that any adjustments to the city budget associated with the news that came out today will be managed through adjustment to Base. Future, meetings with City Council. So they are moving forward with this budget. formal approval, anticipating, like, the adjustments, through the higher end, yeah, later on. That would happen at the soonest in 2026, post-January, when

[75:09] Any other questions? So, director of the motion. I think we've got some suggested motion language, but yes, somebody needs to make a motion. So we have the suggestion of motion to recommend the City Council serving as the Board of the Directors for Cajid, we adopt the City Manager's 2026 recommended budget appropriating money to defray expenses and liabilities pertaining to the KJID fund. Does anyone move this? I'm going to approve the website. That sounds good. A motion from Commissioner Dahl. Do I have a second? I agree. Very good. Second from Commissioner Nathan. And then we moved to vote. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any… opposed?

[76:04] Sick name? Okay? Yeah, Teresible. I think she dropped. Yeah, she's dropped, and we have Quorum, so, okay. We will make sure that, that, vote. It gets included with that motion in the Council packet for their second. Okay, second. Thanks, Eli, for all the information. It's fascinating. Alright, you guys stuck in there. Back to Christine. We've also been doing some work, and heard a little bit from Sam Bromber on wayfinding two garages. There's a lot of signage around the downtown and beyond that, directs people toward, the city-owned, Cajun-owned parking garages. And Sam has been working on an update, but she's not here, this week. So, Christine is here to present.

[77:06] On our back. And I will try to stand up to Sam's. quality presentation for you all, but know that I will probably be on this early case article. But as you may remember, the last few times that we've met, we've talked about the garages, and we talked about how people use the garages, but we want to make it easier for them to find these cars, right? So, what we noticed is that there are all different types of parking signage throughout Downtown. And we'd like to take a moment and unify that. So this is the proposed signage based on the feedback that y'all provided last time. This was what Sam and the graphic designers came up with as a unified And of course, it would be reflective in all of the things that we talked about last time. I know there's concerns about people being able to see it at night.

[78:03] But wanted to get a general idea, or, like, feedback. How does this feel based on the feedback we provided last time? Feel okay? Do we hate it? Do we love it? Are you gonna lose sleep over this, moving forward with it? I wasn't here the last time. Oh, okay. That's good for me. Can you bring up the old picture, just to show? Before, like, each one was different, some were just peas, what the hell does P mean? You know, we liked the idea of, like, saying. Cool Street and kind of reinforcing Boulder. The logo at the top was just noisy, and so… the consistency's good. I do kind of miss The Downtown Boulder one, but… And I think that was Downtown Boulder's old logo, is that correct? Correct. Yeah. So now we have… bet. Is this one. And trying to move forward with the Boulder Park, logo, so that people recognize it once they finally come up upon the garage. At least this signage now looks the same as the signs in front of…

[79:09] In front of the garages. Is Boulder Park a thing? Boulder Park is the logo that we have for our parking garages, yeah. Ouch. Our brand recognition is… So, we only parked there on the free days. Is that all that was prepared? No, I wanted to first get insights on that, And make sure that we were all okay with it. I might interrupt them, because I wanted to make sure, because I like providing options for consideration, I was wondering, about folks. Pearl Street Mall is one feature of downtown Boulder, one part of the Cajet District. It's not the only thing in downtown.

[80:01] So wanted to check in and make sure that that feels right. It is certainly a well-known destination. Instead of seeing, like, downtown Boulder parking or something? Exactly, or even downtown Boulder garage parking, because these signs are not directing to just any parking, they're directing to garage parking. And so, is there any interest in value in, communicating Garage parking. As an example. So… Verse 30. just, like, doesn't say downtown Boulder, but I feel like Boulder is unique in that our… Attractions are downtown, but that's not true in every city. So, unless other people are… necessarily… I was, like, a cheerleader, I'm always, like, I was always, like, this… We really… Easiest fan.

[81:06] So, I don't know how many people were going to downtown Boulder, which is a little street thing, you know? So I like it, because I think that's… I mean, you could almost… marketing could almost tell us what are the search folder. Yes, sir. That shows up, I don't have to look. Later. equipment, Peter? I forgot what's… Do you feel me mad? Don't be mad about something. You can't get people to agree on. I know. The people that tell the residents, should I get free parking? I was like, no. You do go to… people from out of town go to Pearl Street, then they go to Pearl Street, not downtown. Right, I don't want them to think they're getting stuck, like…

[82:02] Now, if you happen to… Industry. Chris was talking about the word garage there, too, and I'm supposed to try to push people to the garage, but… We want them to pay on Saturday, at least. I used to tell people, oh, wait, stop, it's… and I was like, you mean, wait, you can pay. We need revenue. Also, I'm curious about the use of the P at the top, where the green, the white P with the green and the black surround is the brand that we have in front of all the garages. Should that be the thing? That was the only thing that's been breaking up, why we inversed it up there. I don't know that there's any real thought on that one, so… I think that we would have to make that happen. And would you even consider it consistent with all? You know, just like, if that's the university there. Because that is a big boat, you know?

[83:01] Maybe the whole sign screen, the whole screen. I think this is it, because… And do the double strong black and white. It's the same thing. I don't know, it's pretty… Just take that logo and plop it up there. Yeah, that makes sense. AI will do it for you. So, not a lot of discussion around garage on there. people, if it's affecting people who are looking for parking, I think it's accomplishing this. Yeah. Like, downtime dodges are… Like, they'll be like, oh, we don't want that. 25. This is… Or… can deliver.

[84:03] Because we have these, you know, the next page is, like, all the arrows that do direct you to the garage, yeah, so really, we are pushing into the garage, and you might find Austria anyway. Yeah, yeah. All right, next turn. Looks good. So, what I heard is that… So what I heard was just moving the logo up the top. We're okay with the rest of the sign, this, the verbiage. I'm… can you go back one, please? I just miss the old, like, curvy part of the top. I miss the arch. I miss… it's kind of more a cutesy hometown-y feeling, but it's so stupidly small for a sign, who cares? Yeah, we might get a yellow. That might be a standard, actually, side shape. So, if… so the… if the P could be… Yeah, the P could be really… that would be kind of cute.

[85:07] Okay. Because, like, the little… the icons of the buildings and stuff are so light that you're not really gonna see it. That's true, and I hope they're reflective. It's noise, it's not enough to do anything. But I not die-cut it to the flat irons. Yeah, that's not happened too much. So there is an efficient, affordable way to have an arch. That could be cute. Yeah, that is efficient, and that could make the part stand out on its own. Yeah, yeah. And it might provide larger text, or larger space for the text VDR. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Great. Whoever knew there'd be this much conversation about that? I love it. And I might add… Right. So, the City of Boulder may its Sunday be changing its logo, maybe in the not-too-distant future. Maybe.

[86:03] We'll see. If you go to our lollipop signs, we don't have the… the two circles, we just have Boulder Park. With, I think, a white background. How do you feel about sort of being redundant with the PP? Yeah, the… Yeah. I don't know if the second P is really… Just have maybe Boulder Park bigger at the bottom. With the P at the top. Yep. Sorry to lobby so much for… I think it'd be better. Yeah, because now it looks like two organizations. So we're gonna take one more shot… yeah, we're gonna take one more shot. Just throwing it out here. One thing that's nice that it says City of Boulder is that it's a public parking sign, and not you going to a private parking sign, so… he's not gonna get rid of City of Alder. He'd get rid of the second P. No, that's the only thing that says City Boulder, is the City Boulder. Are you thinking it could say, like, Pearl Street Mall Public Parking or something? I don't know, I just asked the question, because that is, I think, important.

[87:05] It's the city outside. We're the only ones allowed to put, signs out right away like this, but… Some people might know about that. That is… but yeah, you're right, Bettina, that is… that… The logo is the only thing that suggests that the signage is associated with city When do we get to vote on the new logo? What does that mean? That's funny. Not that we would put the DED logo on there, but does their… the downtown… older logo? For the… I don't think so. I mean, I don't have our logo all over everything, but this… the point of this is it's a city asset, it's probably paid for by taxpayers. Because we, you know, just to see it, it's like this little housey thing.

[88:05] Yeah, but they're not paying for this. Yeah, yeah, they're not… like, they don't… they're not involved. So, what we're… what we're talking about, and I know this is unofficial. Former graphics designer, as well. This… T on the arch, and arrow. Then down at the bottom, just Boulder Park with the City of Boulder logo next to it. I think Chris was stating my logo, because it might change, and we're gonna have to, like, replace all these signs, and some… Exactly, so that, minus the circle. See the circle, I'm sorry. Causes that likely could be changing. And if you look at our lollipop signs out front, they just say Boulder Park, they don't have those two little logos. Can you, like, curb this for a little bit till you guys… Well, we'll probably… We'll make those adjustments. We do need to get moving forward, and we only have a few months to make progress right now. Can we make some futures?

[89:08] where you could have a decal that's removable. All right, we've already spent too much time, I want to make sure that, Christine is able to share… There is also… Transportation is doing a poor arterial network study right now of the downtown area, so we wanted to get this in place prior to Sundance, so that people can find parking But there may be a future in which Stuff needs to be reworked based on the larger study of… the white people move around downtown. If you like that. I think the less information on it, the better, so if we can clean that up, then that's the best, and if we need to add a city folder medallion in the future, we can just add that. Give us two options, one with the logo, one without, when you're coming back to us with the next one, so we could… So it sounds like we do have a couple more minutes. Okay. The next little bold is gonna be a picture of Don. Yeah, alright. Welcome!

[90:10] Okay. So, these are the current traffic patterns as we know them to be before the arterial network, taking new indicated, which is in blue. And these are the signs as they currently exist, and where they currently exist. The ones in red are the ones that we're suggesting be removed. And then, if you pay attention, the green ones stay where they're at, and then the white ones are the ones that we're suggesting to be added. Does that make sense? Like, we would just take the old sign down where it's green and put up the new… the new one? And then the white one is… the white ones are where we're proposing we add new sides. And this was all included in your packet, so really just wanted to make sure we are checking in with you all before we started printing signs and, moving forward. So it sounds like we still have some work to do on the design.

[91:03] if you all had a chance to review, does this approach, placement all make sense to the Commission? Sure. This seemed micromanaging to me. Great. Maybe the one thing back to signs, though, is the old one had a white border around the whole thing. This one, it just goes green all the way to the bleed. Part of me likes to stroke on the outside of the white rumble and soft little boat there. Cool. Great. Well, as this will reflect, this will be a change out in the community, we want to make sure that we're daylighting, the changes with, the folks that we are accountable to before we just go and do it. Did anyone have comments on the… there's a… where the signs go? I kind of annexed it, but I was like… It's pretty busy. Okay. That's cool. And then garage pricing for the…

[92:01] So glad this is brought up, because I meant to bring this up during a budget conversation. Part of the City Manager's recommended budget includes a 50-cent increase per hour for both on-street parking… I'm sorry, modest increase, which is translating 50 cents per hour on-street, and a modest increase in garage parking as well. And so the team has been doing some work to translate to what we're recommending that to need in the garages to simplify our rates, and also reflect the City Manager's recommendation. So, here of the… Recommended changes that we would like, to get in front of you, and also get a recommendation on for the budget conversation. Yep, and so in the past, it was $1.75 for the first hour, and the 99 cent fee was absorbed into that Into that fee, and then it was a hun… it was… It was $1.25 per hour for the 2nd through 6th, and then 6 through 12th, there was a full $15.99. Still had the 3

[93:08] 3 for 3 for 3, and then weekends and holidays are free. So we're still suggesting 3 weekends and holidays and 3 for 3 for 3. We're suggesting that we just make it $1.75 per hour. For the first 6 hours, and then after that, it's the full $15, and then the 99 cent fee would be tacked on to all transactions. Streamline. Right. Yeah? The, base rate on-street will be… is proposed for $2 per hour, so, It'll still be… the garage will be the best deal for longer-term stays. With the on-street being targeted for the The short… shorter trips.

[94:01] I don't load the 99 cent fee, because technically we're… Charging them one rate, it's coming. Yeah. Slightly. I feel like we… it's a whole, like, read for 3 for 3 hours. 343 till 3, plus a fee. Some of the comments people have about restaurants where you, like, go down and you sit, and then there's, like, a, you know, your meal's $16, and the tip's 20%, and then there's another 12% fee, and it's like… Well, and we've been getting a lot of feedback, because right now, if you're parking after 3, it shows up as a $2.01 charge, and with plus a 99 cent fee, and we've been getting a lot of feedback about that. Oh, because it comes through… Because we don't… right now, we don't communicate. the 99 cent fee. We just say, here are our rates, and here's what to expect, and then folks get confused because the metropolis is very clear about the 99 cent fee. Because they break it out, and we can't give it one exact price. To build.

[95:01] So, this kind of makes it clearer, even though it's this makes them mad. The new way kind of makes them mad going in, the old way makes them mad coming out, and they get it a month later. Yeah, but they're still only paying $3. And we can't have Metropolis just charge one price on the credit card. You know, they… and it makes sense, since they're a third-party vendor, making sure that it's really clear of your parking, what you need to… Let folks know what presentation you've got. We would love, love, love, a, vote on this recommendation. So are you guys just eating the 99 cent? I guess I'm confused, yeah. Currently, we have been. I mean, for a portion of it, we've been subsidizing.

[96:01] This will translate into revenue increase for CGIT specifically, no doubt about that. Nope. Good book on the verbiage with the 99 cent fee and getting those calls. That's… you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. This will be effective January. This will be effective January 1. So Chris will be fine. Wonder wide asleep. Well, do I hear a motion to accept this, or is there any other options people would have to vote? just for, you know, for the record, the DMC does have say over recommending, the fees that we charge. We typically do that through the budget process, and wanted to make sure that this was really clear to you all. I like that it's a lot simpler. And I mean, I said because we heaty-jeebies, but we're dealing with a devil here, so…

[97:03] Any… Do I hear motion? Second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Thank you for that. I think we covered all of the third questions. Another discussion. Alright. Moving right along, the last thing on matters from staff, we had a draft agenda, included. We shared this with all the other commissions for the October 20th. Joint Commission Summit. Of course, a major topic of discussion will… Bart Wolf will be there to talk through, the news that you all got today, and implications of what things are going to be looking like moving forward. I don't see that necessarily as a…

[98:02] Or is that item 2? I… I don't know what page we're on, so I have to… which I… what is item 2? The next last page. Oh yeah, sorry, Adam, sorry, yeah, so… Economic Development Strategy Update. Yes, so that's the line item we've been using, because of the, news that was not out publicly. Yes, exactly. So, that agenda item will be focused upon the broader economic development strategy of the city. We are still anticipating all these other items, so we have been asked for more time for the Boulder Valley Comp Plan, and… It's been suggested that, especially given the changes, that the Arts and Special Events update isn't necessary. So, we're looking at longer, more time spent on the Polk Rally comp plan, than taking the arts and special events out of the joint, Commissioner's pay there.

[99:00] That's where we currently are in our draft agenda. Who is the chair of this meeting? That's a great question. We'd like to be. It was your idea. Yeah. I'd be happy, but I just didn't know, because it kept… Well, I'd say we let the chairs, fight amongst themselves, But, Whoever shows up first. Whoever shows up first. Yeah, there you go. It's 10 a.m. One other feedback test is, like, the term CMO in the announcement that came out today. For Matt Chesansky? It never defined what CMO was. It's the manager's office. But it didn't say that in the thing. Tuesday. And, so I was like, what's that mean? What did you think of that? Chief… to me, it's chief marketing audience. Huh.

[100:00] Because Matt Chesansky is now the CMO, is what it said. And I was like. I don't know what that means. That's good feedback for our communications folks. All right, any… Anything else on the agenda for the joint? Was this held in council changes, then? No, it's a large, meeting room on the ground bubble of that building. Okay. Let me park there. We were like, who were there at England. I wasn't there. Yeah, we can get you, we'll get you… Okay. Any chance I can… That's like a win. Hope I can find it. There will be signs shortly. You park in a garage. Oh, dear. That concludes Spanish. Okay.

[101:09] Any matters from commissioners. I mean, we all want to talk about it. That's a lot. Wow, doing good on time. Upcoming meetings, is the October 20th at 3pm for this 9, oh my god. And then our next meeting is… Every month? Yes, because of that service day in November, we get to move up our November meeting to get to October. So… and so this will be the last meeting of the year. I just… we just got notified by the City Clerk's office that, City Council is going to be asking for letters from commissions. And so we will… that might be some… that might be something we want to cover, in the Joint Commission's meeting, so that by,

[102:09] the… October 28th, we can have a draft and get approved by the Commission for submission to Council. Did we get a deadline from the clerk's office? December 19th. Yes, so we will need to… we'll be using that meeting to finalize a letter from DMC. Because that will be our last couple sort of day. Carol, the back of my head says that when Stephanie wrote the last one? Going south. Do you have interest in… believe in that again? First step, you won't I don't mean to pin it on you, I just wanted to give you first dibs. I also don't want to put it on her. If you do have interest, sure. Do you want to reach out to her and talk to her? Do you… you… this is new to you. Okay. Is it new to you?

[103:00] Well, Chris, do you want to define what it is? Sure. So, usually tied with new city council members, coming on. There is a request from all boards and commissions across the cities to submit… submit a letter of priorities. I don't know if we have the prompts Ready just now, but we'll make sure we get it at the summit. or directly. We might be able to just give it out. email out, as long as you don't respond to it, of what the prompts are from Council. This helps so that council members read all these letters in advance of their retreat, in the spring. So, they used the feedback from all commissions to help inform their priority setting for the council turn ahead. Does that make sense? And oftentimes it piggybacks on kind of what our priorities were that we wrote already. So it's kind of like…

[104:03] giving the why behind the… Yeah, it's really this Commission's opportunity to have a direct message to Council of what you think they should be prioritizing when it comes to the realm of work that you all are represent what's happening. Though the Sundance is new, since we came up with our priorities. So that… but… Andy, Erica, do you have interest in helping? What it's… we found is we don't want to group write it together in one of these meetings. What's nice is that we… One or two people kind of writes it. We can send it to Ellie, she can send it out to us so that we can all read it ahead of time and make our notes, maybe we send her note comments back. This is where it's all kind of silly, but, Then we could maybe do a second draft, and then at the last thing, we'd be like, you know, capitalize this one letter, and we're gonna throw it in. when's the… what's the timetable for this? So, we'd have our first… our… our… we would…

[105:04] hopefully approve it on the 28th, yeah. So, yeah, we'll spend some time workshopping with all the commissions on the 28th, or the 20th. then… be back here the 28th. Right. But between the 28th, so… Problem is, is we need to get the packet out. for the October 28th meeting, a few days before, and that packet needs to have… should have the draft letter that they're going to be discussing it in the meeting. So it is going to be a tight turnaround for this commission specifically, because of the Veterans Day holiday. So we'll… We will… Work to make sure that if you're… able to meet with Stephanie and get something coordinated, if you can get that to us. And maybe what would help… be helpful is if you get that list of, like, prompts. Because we got to feed DeCal and Stephanie. Right.

[106:03] you know, Erica, mine, and Andy's opinions to them, so they could hear what we think, too, so you have… you're not just on your own writing it, but you could even get them. what we care about. So we'll get that information out. Please don't respond at all. And then if you guys… if you and whoever, if you… if something wants to help, whatever you're able to get us… get to us in advance of the All Commission Summit, we can… have that soon next week. So who should we respond to it? The email that I send out tomorrow about this, but it will be due on next Wednesday for the meeting packet. So, 15. T. Yep. Right. And… Something that we could do. How about… Sorry to change up. To make your lives easier.

[107:01] instead of having you trying to write a letter, if you could, and we'll send out the prompts. And then, if you can all respond to those prompts based on your own individual perspective, we will then synthesize all of that into one draft letter. that will be included in the packet for the summit, and we'll do the same thing for all the other commissions. You're the only… because we delayed this meeting, you're the only folks that have had the opportunity to kind of contemplate it. The rest of the commissions haven't. So we'll send out some instructions on individual responses, then work to combine those responses all together for a draft letter. That will be included in the packet for the October 20th. We respond to our pizza outlet. Okay. Ellie, can you give us those directions, because we've done this a couple times. I will, absolutely. Yeah. I'll probably have to be virtual that night. That's okay. Whitefields.

[108:01] Stuff for that other city. All right. Steal all the ideas. They do have the DDA. I second. Sure. Yep. All right. Thanks, everybody. Thank you.